A Brief History of Christianity From a Pagan

I ran across this posting on the internet. It is a fascinating op-ed piece on the history of Christianity (and I would say a "critique" of Christianity) by a person who described himself as a "dirty heathen."

This was a very interesting read. And actually, even though this guy is not a Christian and is trying to ridicule Christians (especially Pres. Bush) through this op-ed piece, he actually makes some valid points. There IS a difference between those who have a real living faith in God and those who merely claim a faith in God. The German theologian and martyr Dietrich Bonhoffer made similar points in his discussions on cheap grace.

I have copied and pasted his op-ed piece below, but if you want to access the article on the internet, click on the link here. Enjoy.

A brief(ish) history of Christianity (with poll)by ignatz1138
Tue Sep 21st, 2004 at 19:17:57 GMT
I've noticed a lot of consternation, both here and in among people I know, over Christianity and it's adherents on the far right. How can a president who lists Jesus as his favorite philosopher engage in a preemptive war? How can people who claim to know God personally spew such petty hate?

There ain't no easy answers folk, but I offer the possibility of a little insight. Read the extended entry and you might learn something about how we got here. At the very least, you might get some ammunition to really tick off the next winger who says they feel sorry for you because you're going to hell.

I'm going to start off with a few disclaimers. I've studied religion for most of my life, particularly Christianity. I've found that I personally don't share the core assumptions about humanity and it's place in the cosmos that are necessary for a belief in the Christian God (short version: I'm a dirty heathen). It's true, however, that this makes me sad. The Abrahamic traditions (the big three: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are the subtlest and beautiful spiritual and intellectual traditions I have ever seen. So, though I'm going to be fairly flip and cold blooded here, I mean no disrespect. If you're a person of faith, I envy you, and you should take little offense from me, knowing that I'm on a one-way track to hell. It might be Dante's Hades for the virtuous pagans, but it's still not the eternal bliss you folks get to look foreword too.

So.
In the beginning, there was a rain god. Yes, even the big G himself started out as a little g storm god. It's not surprising. Rain was incredibly important in the ancient world, and all cultures that I know of had a rain/storm god as their primary chief. The Yaweh/Jehova of the primitive Jews was just such a guy. There are still echoes of his stormy nature; one of his most famous early acts was to get in a snit and flood the entire planet. This was the sort of god you didn't want to mess with, the sort who's name was banned because to say it was to invoke him, and you didn't want to do that lightly. Today the god we know who most closely resembles this early Yahweh is Zeus, or Oden/Woden, if you're more Teutonicly inclined. This is a limited god. He's "all powerful" but he still acts like a human, getting mad, intervening in world affairs on a case-by-case basis, etc.

This early storm god often has a son. It's no different with Yahweh. Jesus, and here we get into the serious blasphemy, started out as a thinly veiled god of vegetation. Think about it. Every spring, we dip him in water, bury him in the ground, and wait for him to rise up. All primitive cultures have an analogue, a god you kill, sprinkle with water, and then plant, who grows up to be the new year of crops.

So, in the beginning, there was a storm god and his son, Corn. Then something cool happened. Christians like to pretend that they did it, but the Jewish mystics came up with it independently a little earlier. People started to say, "Wait a minute..." They realized they'd made three assumptions:

Jehovah is all-powerful.
Jehovah is all knowing.
Jehovah created the universe.

They realized that an all knowing, all-powerful god isn't a little g god like Zeus, he's a big G God. He doesn't interact with humans like a very very powerful magician king; he's the complete and total source of all being. To use a modern example, a little g god intervenes in a presidential election; a big G God knew from the instant of creation that GWB would be elected president. God knew everything that would ever happen, and designed the entire universe to work just that way. This is a tricky point, and when you get it, it's sort of an "Ah-ha!" Big G God doesn't just perform miracles; the entire universe is a continuous miracle unfolding in every detail in perfect concert with God's will. This God you don't call by name either, but it's not because you're afraid to piss Him off, it's because you realize He's just too big to contain with a name. Jesus becomes so rich and complicated that you could happily spend your entire life thinking about His relationship to you and God, and many people do.

The next big thing came when the Protestants started thinking about the implications of God's complete omnipotence. If God is responsibly for everything, he's responsible for evil, as well as good. He created people he knew he would eventually damn. The point of Lutheranism and Calvinism is to have so much faith in God, that you love him, knowing full well he could damn you, and he'd be right to do so. Personally, I think that's beautiful, but it freaks most people out, which is why almost everyone in the Christian world rejects this idea of God as too weird and complicated and scary, and worships Zeus instead.

Ok, so there are two basic ideas of Jehovah. We've got G-d (as the Jews sensibly call Him) and we've got Zeus. Most everybody feels more comfortable with Zeus, since he's more like us. Protestants founded this country in the Lutheran/Calvinist vein though, and they kept up the total faith in G-d's righteousness and power, even while they rejected the idea that He could or would damn believers. The result is faith in their own election and certainty that whatever they do is G-d's will.

Sound like anyone we know?

Belief in Zeus as opposed to G-d also causes problems with science. G-d doesn't have a problem with science. He's bigger than science. It stands to reason that a universe created by some sort of vast intelligence would be comprehensible. In the middle ages, scholars who believed in G-d devoted their lives to exploring the natural world as a means to understand G-d, until they eventually ran afoul of authorities that worshipped Zeus. Zeus does a have a problem with science. Whereas G-d encompasses the natural world, controlling every aspect of it at the moment of creation, Zeus is a guy who intervenes in the natural world when it suits him. When we go about defining laws that rule nature, we put Zeus in a box. This is why people say science denies miracles. If the Earth revolves around the sun, Zeus couldn't make the sun reverse its course in the sky, like it says he did in the Bible. People who worship Zeus tend to be afraid of science because science limits Zeus's power.

Sound like anyone we know?

Good and evil are also much easier to understand when you worship Zeus. If you believe in G-d, you have to accept that G-d is the source of evil as well as good. Satan isn't G-d's equal. In fact, he's acted exactly as G-d wanted him to. There's a whole branch of theology, "theodicy," devoted to understanding how G-d, who is by definition good, can be responsible for evil. When you're all powerful, you get to encompass contradictions like that, no sweat. Zeus, on the other hand, brings us a cosmic struggle. Zeus could be caught by surprise by a rebellious angel. Satan can cause problems for Zeus, tempting people, thwarting his plans, and making people like Hitler and Osama do bad things. People who worship Zeus tend to worry a lot about Satan and his evil plans, and they tend to think of themselves as God's warriors, fighting the good fight, lest evil overwhelm the world and cause Zeus to let loose with another big 40 day rainstorm. And remember, since they're righteous followers of God, they can't do any wrong, and since you're not, you can't do any right.

Sound like anyone we know?

This diary is super long, but hopefully it can offer some insight. And if it doesn't do that, the next time someone tells you you're going to hell because you don't worship the same way he does (or gasp at all!), you can tell him he worships Zeus and his Corn God son.