this is the key to Christian belief…
death is the biggie…and resurrection gives you hope
but at a price…you have to give up reason…
I am not ready for that…
You don’t think resurrection is a reasonable concept? All it would take is the resumption of something that already is… We know the thing we’re trying to resume (i.e., life) is possible, so why not its resumption?
Granted, we’re so far from resurrection technically speaking that it seems infeasible and irrational, but that doesn’t mean it is. Or that you have to give up reason to accept its possibility. And to have hope in that possibility one day being realized…
(I think you used the correct word: hope. For those in the time of Christ, who may have witnessed or been close to the event, the hope is replaceable with something stronger, closer to knowledge or belief. But now, so far removed from that event, if it ever happened at all, I think we need to return to hope as the proper attitude toward this most hopeful of occurrences. That one day it will not only be possible, but will be our fate, and the fate of those who we love.)
Give up reason? What’s unreasonable about an omnipotent, benevolent god who
- creates a flawed species
- can’t accept its flaws (There’s a slew of books before Matthew full of imprecations, curses and threats.) and
- finally gets so mad that no sacrifice humans have (never mind all those chickens, lambs, oxen, goats and bullocks he’s already eaten) could possibly placate him
- so, in order that he doesn’t have to destroy them all (except a chosen few) again (he’s already done it twice)
- he gives them a more worthy sacrifice
- who takes 32 years to mature, but when he’s ripe
- makes a nice, dramatic, slow exit,
- leaving everybody riddled with eternal guilt, even though he set them up in the first place and left them no choice
9 but then - ta-dah! - the kid shoves aside his rock, makes a last speech and rises up to heaven (soon followed by his mum, to whom he refused to speak the day before) - leaving Peter in charge
- who is a crappy leader and soon deposed by Paul
12 who wasn’t even there, but fell off a donkey once and therefore knows what Jesus wants, what God wants, and what women shouldn’t want
13 and he goes to Rome, where they toss him in jail for sedition (Well, he did incite the Christians to deface temples and knock down statues and spread rumours as to how the caesar was born in Africa and probably a socialist homosexual…)
14 but finally a caesar comes along who will pray to anything to win a battle
15 and accidentally wins one after invoking Jesus
16 so he forces everybody in his empire to be Christian
17 and for the next 2000 years, Europeans rampage all over the globe, smiting anybody who doesn’t appreciate Our Lord’s Supreme Sacrifice.
18 and Eternal Love
?
interesting way of putting that history…creative
There IS also hope outside of christianity. You don’t have to give up reason to get there. You just need to struggle and to see possibilities - to harmonize right reason and “hope” with “what ‘really’ can be”.
Who would want to base their hope on a belief which could never be proven anyway.
what do you have in mind arc
I don’t know turtle
It depends on the theology. According to Paul the resurrection is when the perishable is raised imperishable. What if the basis for this follows the same principle as energy conservation? That is to conceive the resurrection as a transformation.
The rest is fitted for popular consumption, to instill hope upon those denied life, denied a prosperity.
I guess what I mean is that death is not our necessary end but the idea of “Heaven” where you get in abundance what you lacked in life-- that defies reason.
omar it sure defies reason to me…I think Christianity would have failed without resurrection and heaven …and maybe hell
Well let me ask you; What if Christianity had not been apocalyptic? What if it was more in line with the Sadducees? Would a religion that eschewed any mention of the afterlife be reasonable, or at least allow you to follow it AND your reason?
excellent question omar…I am a Unitarian…I do not believe in an afterlife…I do believe in god but not the Christian god…
I follow jesus and many other good people…I would hope that one day we all could face up to the nature of the human condition and stop killing each other…
I’d say that there are billions of people who have hope of a resurrection in order to face the horrors of this present existence. Hope, as you put it. We’ll never be rid of man’s inhumanity to man; it’s human nature, the dark side. But there are those who have hope in an afterlife who do not contribute to the evil man is capable of. Why deprive them of their single comfort with your doubt?
But you likely do it around a range of issues already.
(I am not Christian, I just find it odd when people seem to think their beliefs are all based on reason)
how can I deprive them of their single comfort with doubt and difference of belief…am I not entitled to my belief
I think that we’re all entitled to our own beliefs but we have to take care that they don’t infringe on another’s peace or mental equanimity. More harm can come from good intentions. For instance, one’s child dies and the comfort given by a “believer” is that god took this child because [he] loved it - it was just this child’s time to go - god could have of course healed the child but [he] chose not to because [he] wanted the child in heaven with [him].
That makes for a pretty selfish God, doesn’t it?
arc can we get into any problems believing in heaven
I can really understand why people want to hope for an afterlife…the idea of death and unfairness is awful…
it is really good for those that can believe in the resurrection even if it defies reason and the doing away with natural life…
Well, there is always this thought. Waiting for and hoping for an afterlife when there may NOT be one, wastes/squanders the precious time we can have now.
It doesn’t have to be sheer happiness or joy - just a quiet kind of contentment even.
Going about our business doing what interests or fulfills us - nothing hedonistic about that. Just about being stoic and pragmatic about the life we have now.
All of that waiting and hoping and expecting an afterlife undermines the value and meaning which can be given to this Life. It may be a struggle to find that value and meaning but that is what adds to it.
WHAT IF it was only in living the life of the phoenix in the Here and Now that one actually came to experience another kind of life like heaven after death? All others would become or be dust forevermore.
That’s something to consider.
Only kidding of course. lol
But it is something to ruminate on. 
you could make a very good case for the resurrection…it may be needed just like opiate drugs are needed to dull the suffering and unfairness of most lives…
arc you can really go after that one
even the atheists need help…they have the rational but that leads nowhere either…we are trapped
But if we stopped shoving our own responsibility off on a god who isn’t very likely to do what we want and waiting for pie in the sky, maybe we could get busy alleviating that suffering and unfairness. Opiates make you forget the pain; they don’t cure the disease. And as long as you’re stoned to the gills, you’ll never find a cure.