Quote of the Day: The Atheist Who Pushed Me to Serious Christianity

Now if I’d really seen [God], really there, really alive, it’d be in me like a fever. If I thought there was some god who really did care two hoots about people, who watched ’em like a father and cared for ’em like a mother … well, you wouldn’t catch me sayin’ things like ‘there are two sides to ever question’ and ‘we must respect other people’s beliefs.’ You wouldn’t find me just being gen’rally nice in the hope that it’d all turn out right in the end, not if that flame was burning in me like an unforgivin’ sword. And I did say burnin’, Mister Oats, ‘cos that’s what it’d be. You say that you people don’t burn folk and sacrifice people anymore, but that’s what true faith would mean, y’see? Sacrificin’ your own life, one day at a time, to the flame, declarin’ the truth of it, workin’ for it, breathin’ the soul of it. That’s religion. Anything else is just … is just bein’ nice. And a way of keepin’ in touch with the neighbors. — Terry Pratchett, Carpe Jugulum

When I first read this passage a decade ago, it struck me like the proverbial bolt out of the blue. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels are just funny stories set on a flat earth resting on the backs of four elephants standing on a giant turtle that swims through space, and yet here was a passage that so neatly encapsulated my frustrations with my church it could have been written for me. We were a church that seemed to exist for friends to spend time together while the world church leadership dragged us further and further into political correctness.

Sir Terry was a secular humanist, and throughout many of his books there are comments that suggest that he thought the whole notion of religion was silly and should be abandoned. And yet, his words had the opposite of the intended effect on me. Yes, I completely agreed with him that the watered-down, politically correct Christianity of modern times he was mocking is ridiculous, but my response was not to leave Christianity. Rather, I found a church that does believe in declaring the truth of the Resurrected Christ no matter how uncomfortable that makes the secular world.

So thank you, Sir Terry, for helping me become a better Christian, even though that wasn’t your goal.

Published in Religion & Philosophy

Tags: Christianity, Terry Pratchett

Skyler (View Comment):

James Of England (View Comment):
How broadly do you mean this? If, for instance, someone gives up their Saturday afternoon to volunteer at a retirement home, would you say that this decision did not reflect a value that you admire?

You ask many questions that I can answer only by saying that I’ve read lots of books about ancient religions and that is my recollection. I’m not talking about the facile stories of mythology, but the in depth understandings, that we can now only see hints of, in those ancient religions — from the mother of the mountain, to Ba’al and others that I can’t even remember the names of. I’m not a scholar, I don’t write scholarly papers on the topic and I won’t be held to such a standard (not that you were asking).

I don’t need you to be able to write a scholarly paper, but I can’t engage with something like, to paraphrase, “there are hints of the mother of the mountain in Christianity”. Without knowing what the claimed hints are, how can one engage with them? I can say with confidence, for instance, that Christian Just War theory is not based on MotM doctrine, but that’s probably not what you’re referring to.

So, in the end answering your last question will suffice to answer all the others. I only mean in the broadest terms. Yes, not working on a Saturday comes from Judaism, as does the seven day week, though others before them might have come up with that, I don’t recall.

I’m happy to agree, as I’m sure CBA and MJB would be, that Christianity takes a lot on from Judaism.

The concept of sacrificing animals and people to imaginary beings is steeped in western civilization, I don’t think all civilizations have that concept.

Do you have any sense of a place in the world where the concept does not exist? You’re aware, I take it, of Aztec sacrifices, and of those of Polynesian Islanders? I can link to accounts of African sacrifices, of sacrifice from every populated continent and every populated region of those continents, but if you believe that there’s some specific place that doesn’t sacrifice that wouldn’t be useful. If it would be useful, let me know.

I do not believe the idea is universal and there is nothing about it that would make it so (unless you believe in god, but that’s getting circular).

Would you accept that it’s close to universal among pre-modern peoples?

The idea of granting Mary a divine status

Just for clarity, Mary does not have a divine status. Almost no Christians believe otherwise.

and the frequent practice of the church of adapting pagan rituals to christian rituals cannot be so lightly dismissed as “eggs weren’t eaten during Lent.” I pretty sure eggs were eaten during Lent, as was fish, the Church being sure to make that rule so people wouldn’t be malnourished.

Dude, I spent five years of my life studying theology in a quasi vegan fast for half the time, while the people around me mostly did not. Do you think that I might have had a few scholarly debates on the subject during this time? We’ve been on threads in Ricochet in which I’ve talked about the various fasting practices in different parts of the world today. If you have a source for your belief, by all means cite it. If your source is that your gut tells you something different to my years of travel in Orthodox countries (or minority Orthodox countries) and my years of studying this stuff, it seems a little insulting for you to be absolutely certain of your gut.

Easter is very much named after a pagan goddess, and hares and mistletoe were worshipped by pagans.

Aha! Now we have a verifiable claim. It’s possible that Easter was named after a pagan goddess in English, although the transfer is not direct. Eostre gave her name to April in Old English, and that appears to have survived to become our name, in English, for Easter today (in most of the world the name is derived from Pascha). That’s not the incorporation of a pagan idea, though, any more than Maundy Thursday incorporates worship of Thor; the use of a word that is derived from a pagan concept does not mean that everything to do with the pagan concept.

If our practice of Easter came from Anglo-Saxon England, the linguistic turns of fortune there would be important to our understanding of Easter. It really, truly, did not, however. The date was debated across faith until it was set in a suburb of Constantinople by a large number of people of whom it is unlikely that any significant number spoke any English language and fewer still cared. The doctrine of the resurrection was developed without input from Kent (at least until much, much, later).

I agree that many pagan traditions featured hares and some mistletoe. I’m not sure what the Christian teachings you’re implicating through this.

I’m not in any way dismissing the sincerity of anyone’s beliefs then or now, but it’s simply silly to say that christianity had no influences from pre-christian ideas or from post-christian pagan religions for that matter.

I don’t think that even MJ would say that there was no influence; pagans made a lot of developments in music, for instance, and post-Christian pagans made further developments. You can find churches that make great use of these. It’s Christian teachings that MJ was defending.

If you study the ancient religions of the Mediterranean area, you’ll find that where they were replaced by christianity there was a stronger tendency to grant more status to Mary. Those areas were dominated by religions that previously worshipped female deities. In other places (northern Europe for instance) Mary is recognized but not to quite the same extent.

You think that the Germans and English lacked for female deities? Did you not just mention a pagan goddess from England in the very same comment? Also, while it is true that post-Reformation Germans were less likely to revere Mary, that wasn’t true for the first 1500 years of the faith. Look at medieval German (or Scandinavian, Swiss, or British) Churches and artwork and you’ll find plenty of appreciation.

James Of England (View Comment):
I don’t think you’re quite following how the Crucifixion worked.

I will agree with you 100% on that. It has never made sense to me from the earliest days of my life and I doubt I will ever see the logic behind it, not for lack of listening to people trying to explain it.

If you don’t understand it, might I suggest some caution in mocking it? There’s a lot of stuff in the world that is true despite being counter-intuitive.

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James Of England
@JamesOfEngland

3:17 PM EDT ⋅ Jun 22, 2017

Skyler (View Comment):

James Of England (View Comment):
How broadly do you mean this? If, for instance, someone gives up their Saturday afternoon to volunteer at a retirement home, would you say that this decision did not reflect a value that you admire?

You ask many questions that I can answer only by saying that I’ve read lots of books about ancient religions and that is my recollection. I’m not talking about the facile stories of mythology, but the in depth understandings, that we can now only see hints of, in those ancient religions — from the mother of the mountain, to Ba’al and others that I can’t even remember the names of. I’m not a scholar, I don’t write scholarly papers on the topic and I won’t be held to such a standard (not that you were asking).

I don’t need you to be able to write a scholarly paper, but I can’t engage with something like, to paraphrase, “there are hints of the mother of the mountain in Christianity”. Without knowing what the claimed hints are, how can one engage with them? I can say with confidence, for instance, that Christian Just War theory is not based on MotM doctrine, but that’s probably not what you’re referring to.

So, in the end answering your last question will suffice to answer all the others. I only mean in the broadest terms. Yes, not working on a Saturday comes from Judaism, as does the seven day week, though others before them might have come up with that, I don’t recall.

I’m happy to agree, as I’m sure CBA and MJB would be, that Christianity takes a lot on from Judaism.

The concept of sacrificing animals and people to imaginary beings is steeped in western civilization, I don’t think all civilizations have that concept.

Do you have any sense of a place in the world where the concept does not exist? You’re aware, I take it, of Aztec sacrifices, and of those of Polynesian Islanders? I can link to accounts of African sacrifices, of sacrifice from every populated continent and every populated region of those continents, but if you believe that there’s some specific place that doesn’t sacrifice that wouldn’t be useful. If it would be useful, let me know.

I do not believe the idea is universal and there is nothing about it that would make it so (unless you believe in god, but that’s getting circular).

Would you accept that it’s close to universal among pre-modern peoples?

The idea of granting Mary a divine status

Just for clarity, Mary does not have a divine status. Almost no Christians believe otherwise.

and the frequent practice of the church of adapting pagan rituals to christian rituals cannot be so lightly dismissed as “eggs weren’t eaten during Lent.” I pretty sure eggs were eaten during Lent, as was fish, the Church being sure to make that rule so people wouldn’t be malnourished.

Dude, I spent five years of my life studying theology in a quasi vegan fast for half the time, while the people around me mostly did not. Do you think that I might have had a few scholarly debates on the subject during this time? We’ve been on threads in Ricochet in which I’ve talked about the various fasting practices in different parts of the world today. If you have a source for your belief, by all means cite it. If your source is that your gut tells you something different to my years of travel in Orthodox countries (or minority Orthodox countries) and my years of studying this stuff, it seems a little insulting for you to be absolutely certain of your gut.

Easter is very much named after a pagan goddess, and hares and mistletoe were worshipped by pagans.

Aha! Now we have a verifiable claim. It’s possible that Easter was named after a pagan goddess in English, although the transfer is not direct. Eostre gave her name to April in Old English, and that appears to have survived to become our name, in English, for Easter today (in most of the world the name is derived from Pascha). That’s not the incorporation of a pagan idea, though, any more than Maundy Thursday incorporates worship of Thor; the use of a word that is derived from a pagan concept does not mean that everything to do with the pagan concept.

If our practice of Easter came from Anglo-Saxon England, the linguistic turns of fortune there would be important to our understanding of Easter. It really, truly, did not, however. The date was debated across faith until it was set in a suburb of Constantinople by a large number of people of whom it is unlikely that any significant number spoke any English language and fewer still cared. The doctrine of the resurrection was developed without input from Kent (at least until much, much, later).

I agree that many pagan traditions featured hares and some mistletoe. I’m not sure what the Christian teachings you’re implicating through this.

I’m not in any way dismissing the sincerity of anyone’s beliefs then or now, but it’s simply silly to say that christianity had no influences from pre-christian ideas or from post-christian pagan religions for that matter.

I don’t think that even MJ would say that there was no influence; pagans made a lot of developments in music, for instance, and post-Christian pagans made further developments. You can find churches that make great use of these. It’s Christian teachings that MJ was defending.

If you study the ancient religions of the Mediterranean area, you’ll find that where they were replaced by christianity there was a stronger tendency to grant more status to Mary. Those areas were dominated by religions that previously worshipped female deities. In other places (northern Europe for instance) Mary is recognized but not to quite the same extent.

You think that the Germans and English lacked for female deities? Did you not just mention a pagan goddess from England in the very same comment? Also, while it is true that post-Reformation Germans were less likely to revere Mary, that wasn’t true for the first 1500 years of the faith. Look at medieval German (or Scandinavian, Swiss, or British) Churches and artwork and you’ll find plenty of appreciation.

James Of England (View Comment):
I don’t think you’re quite following how the Crucifixion worked.

I will agree with you 100% on that. It has never made sense to me from the earliest days of my life and I doubt I will ever see the logic behind it, not for lack of listening to people trying to explain it.

If you don’t understand it, might I suggest some caution in mocking it? There’s a lot of stuff in the world that is true despite being counter-intuitive.
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