Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Sophistry

If there is anything I despise, it is religious sophistry.

Well.

OK, let’s start again.

Soph-ist-ry – noun, a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.

If there is anything I despise, it is religious sophistry.

“Who sinned,” they asked, “this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Turns out that neither the man nor his parents sinned. Instead, his blindness triggered an occasion for the glory of God to be seen and experienced.

A married woman was “caught” having sex with someone not her husband; caught by religious voyeurs, “peeping Toms,” who no doubt, enjoyed the show before they burst through the door to arrest her (and not him). “The Law says she should be stoned!” they told Jesus, “but what do you say?” Turns out the only one credentialed enough to stone her . . . didn’t!

The Samaritans refused to let Jesus and the disciples hang out with them. The disciples, infuriated, asked Jesus, “Let’s call down fire from heaven and burn them alive!” Not so subtle. Jesus looked at them as if they had crawled from under a rock. They were clueless. “You are witless of the hateful spirit inside you,” Jesus responded.

Someone did a survey. “What do you think of Jesus?” they asked. “Oh, he was a great guy.” “The Son of God.” “He taught us how to love.” “He forgave us of our sins.” “He was a great Teacher.”

Then they asked, “What do you think of Christians?” “Bigoted!” “Hypocrites!” “Judgmental.” “The last thing I want to be is a “born again” Christian.”

Survey says? Jesus is cool. His followers are not.

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