From: strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom)
Subject: Re: Humanism (personal experience)
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 92 00:11:01 GMT
Organization: IBM Research

In article <62896@mimsy.umd.edu>, harwood@umiacs.umd.edu (David Harwood) writes:
|> In article <1go5l7INNrr4@hpsdl102.sdd.hp.com> pauld@sdd.hp.com (Paul Dillinger) writes:
|> >In article  <1992Dec07.231528.32107@watson.ibm.com>,
|> >             strom@Watson.Ibm.Com (Rob Strom) writes:
|> >>
|> >> Of course there is no such passage.  Even if you believed
|> >> there were such a passage, it wouldn't yield the Messianic
|> >> position, which is, as far as I can tell, 100% identical
|> >> to the Christian position --- namely that,
|> >> (1) t'shuvah is not required
|> >> (2) belief in the God-hood of the human being who died is required
|> >>
|> >> Do you agree that (1) and (2) are the Messianic position?
|> >> And that they are also the Christian position?
|> \\\\\\\\\
|> 
|> (1) The very first teaching of John the Baptist, forerunner of Jesus
|> (in an interesting medieval metaphor, called the morning star which
|> precedes the dawn of Christ, called the rising sun of righteousness
|> in the Gospel) - John preached "repentance"  - that was his message.
|> And - if you are wont to read the Gospels - that was the first message
|> preached by Jesus - "repentance" (metanoia means "to turn around" from
|> life of sin to life with God) and, moreover, that with his coming,
|> "the kingdom of God (heaven)" was become among them.
|> 
|> So you are very mistaken about (1) - since you haven't bothered to read
|> the Gospels, even cursorily (except what little you learned about it
|> at Harvard and on TV or family disputes ;-)
|> 

I am assuming that David Harwood's ad hominem is directed at me,
and not at Paul Dillinger.

Don't assume what I have or haven't read.  Don't underestimate
the *vast* exposure to Christianity that every individual
in the US, and especially every educated individual in the US
is inevitably exposed to.

I am the first to admit I'm not a Bible scholar.  But you can't get
through a Harvard religion course without touching on Christianity,
and you can't pass the course without reading the New Testament.
In the case of the course I took, you couldn't pass the course
without reading "Kerygma and Myth" :-( :-(  

You can't survive as an educated individual in the West without learning
*lots* about Christianity.  Every school requires you to study
Western Civilization, and a lot of Western Civilization centers
around Christianity, and indeed the NT was required reading
in that course too.  

If you join the chorus, you will sing Handel's Messiah
and Bach's B minor mass and Rossini's Stabat Mater,
and Verdi's Requiem, and if you have any curiosity about
what all those funny words mean, you are exposed to
Christianity.

If you study the great paintings and you have any curiosity
about what those funny circles around people's heads are
and what those flying babies mean, you are exposed to Christianity.

If you want to understand the imagery in Milton's and
Dante's, and Shakespeare's poetry, or even "modern"
popular fiction like Dracula, you have to understand
something about Christianity.

If you grow up, as I did, in a Jewish community
as a math-science nerd associating with other
math-science nerds, and then go to Harvard and
learn about literature, poetry, music, and art,
you will find an intense confusion until you 
decide to learn a heck of a lot about Christianity.
Without such knowledge, much of Western culture
looks either exotic or silly.

In addition, Harvard was originally founded as a divinity
school for Christians.
The 60's, when I went, was the first decade when Jews
weren't officially discriminated against.  There are
*lots* of Christians there.  There's a Harvard Christian
Fellowship.  Billy Graham, a popular evangelist of
the 60's and 70's, visited there.  My roommates were
Christians.  People come knocking at your door asking
you if you have been "born again".

It's possible to graduate from Harvard knowing nothing
about Taoism, Buddhism, or even Judaism.  It's impossible
to graduate from Harvard knowing nothing about Christianity,
or never having read the NT, or never learning what
evangelical Christians claim to believe.  You'd have
to live in a bubble.



|> (2) I don't think Christians are *required* to believe that Jesus is
|> God, or divine - in the sense that their salvation or judgment depends
|> on the belief. The last judgment is not about gnosis - but about whether
|> we faithfully live as Jesus did, caring for those who suffer because
|> of the neglect of the world. I'm sure you must have read about
|> "the last Judgment" of the Gospel.
|> 

Perhaps your sect of Christianity doesn't think Christians
are required to believe Jesus is God.  And Laura has also
posted, that everyone has his/her own free will to believe
or not to believe.  (But why is she so eager to get me
to believe, then???  Perhaps I'm already saved!)

But many evangelical Christians preach exactly the message
"Believe and be saved".  Kenneth Hendrickson on this newsgroup
has posted that someone's misunderstanding of the trinity
is putting his soul in jeopardy.

Lutherans preach that our works are worthless (and repentance
is included in works), and only the grace of God, and our
willingness to believe in and accept this gift saves us.

Though you quote John the Baptist preaching repentance,
it is not mentioned as a prerequisite of salvation.  But
others on this very newsgroup have quoted John the Disciple
who wrote this:

"For God so loved the world that He gave his only son, that
whoever believes in him would not perish but have
eternal life"  (This is from John 3:16.)

The above quote is very often repeated by evangelists,
This is interpreted by many as implying that belief is
a sufficient condition for salvation.  Other passages
about the fate of unbelievers are quoted to imply that
belief is also a necessary condition for salvation.

If you're telling me that the Greek word for "believe"
has a different meaning, then the Bible translators
should have written "that whoever follows in his ways
would not perish".  The Bible translators and the
Billy Grahams and the folks actually going around
preaching the message aren't preaching your Greek
translation but my paraphrase.  You may be right
about what the actual words mean in Greek, but you
are wrong about what the actual people teach.

Whereas Jews encourage/require their children to learn
Hebrew, Christians don't have a mandate to teach
their children ancient Greek.  So the English
translations are a more appropriate standard
of what Christian traditions in English-speaking
countries are than the original.



-- 
Rob Strom, strom@watson.ibm.com, (914) 784-7641
IBM Research, 30 Saw Mill River Road, P.O. Box 704, Yorktown Heights, NY  10598