Faith as "The Emperor's New Clothes" ?

Dear friends:

Here below is my email debate with a former college friend WJ who has become an accomplished philosopher.  ( My comments to WJ's email is in purple fonts.)

WJ: I just went through the Old Testament story quickly.

Me:That is very good indeed it is quite an accomplishment. 

CHRISTIAN Faith is a priceless spiritual asset even without embracing it as ultimate concern for a believer.Agree! However, Christian faith shouldn't be just a spiritual asset ( that is only a fringe benefit ), it is the relationship with our Creator God, Jesus our Savior who died for our sins and the indwelt Holy Spirit that is most valuable and desirable. Our earthly lives will pass away sooner or later yet Trinity God guarantees an eternal life for us in Jesus our Savior. We surely should stretch our perspectives beyond the horizon of our temporal earthly life. Don't you think?

It should be "above and not below" natural science. Agree totally!There is no need to rely upon science to build up the credentials of such faith. Christian faith is the only faith that can have scientific credentials to support and sustain it. And many scientists and engineers do demand scientific credentials for faith that claims it owns the ultimate truth of universe and creation. The bottom line is if Christian faith is true then it shouldn't be contradictory to science discoveries. Of course, science may not advance enough and may revise again since it is not the final version yet.

When we read the story of Joseph being sold and brought to Egypt and with the divine help and his ability being raised to power almost next to the Pharaoh. So was Moses. 

And the story of the Exodus across the Red Sea and later on the Dead Sea near Jordan to the Promised Land, Canaan, these are all historical events in narrations! 

The journey took 40 years ?, Yes, because of Israelites' rebellions against God, God let them detour around the deserts for 40 yrs. and Moses spent 40 days on Mount Sinai with God with so many "miracles" happening on the way often brought about by raising his rod. Could our almighty God do miracles? You bet! But you'd rather have a man made god who couldn't do miracles? If those miracles were not real miracles but fictional virtual stories out of human imagination, then God's almighty powers should be greatly discounted and even be dwindled to nothing, right? Remember the whole nation of Israelites eye witnessed God's awesome revelation of Himself at the foothill of Mt. Sinai. when 10 commandments were announced to them. It is forever etched and remembered again and again in their national memories.

The language used there is apparently not meant to be literal Why not? Those events are historical narrations, right? or scientific. Naturally, it is not scientific language of our modern days, because the ancient audience couldn't understand the terms of our modern science and it was addressed to the ancient audience. Nonetheless, it is the language of science of say, Moses' days. And its factual narrations still hold water even today.  The story does not need the support of science and historical criticism. You may think so, but if the ARK of Noah's dimensions couldn't even let it float on the water, then Noah's ARK only can be regarded as an item in a mythology. Of course mythology never needs scientific proofs or reality checks. And all miracles in Bible are not mythologies at all. If those miracles recorded in Bible were not real miracles but mythologies, then this God would become a paper god, powerless and worthless. I can't argue with you about language per se, but WJ, you do have a tendency only to buy the sayings of those Bible smearers or liberal Bible scholars, you've always neglected authentic traditional interpretations of Jesus' disciples, Gospel writers and earliest church fathers. You may have poured out the baby with bath water, do you realize that? Some scholars like NT Wright would for sure support the historicity of OT Bible narrations. Without honest reality checking, there is the danger of "faith" becoming "The Emperor's New Clothes".(國王的新衣) or the satirical and arbitrary so called Flying Spaghetti Monster of recent years. Anything or any name could go because they are only out of human imagination. For that matter, why don't we just believe in Santa or tooth fairy??( If reality checks are not important at all.)

Without reality checking, we are opening up a kind of Pandora's box of human imagination. 天馬行空，各說各話。 Though the characters of " Gone with the Wind" and other fictional characters may reveal true human psychology and acted just like real human beings, that is because human natures are all alike, therefore it is easy for the novelists to describe vividly and for us to project or resonance with those virtual characters, like Scarlet...etc. And the main purpose of that novel or film is to describe to us an American pre-Civil War South culture that has gone with the wind. So those fictional figures do serve the purpose to portray a past American Southern culture and history.

On the contrary, we humans were not God, we don't know God's mind, we have no way to identify with God at all, let alone pretend we know who God is or what God's attributes really are. Therefore if some people made God in human images then those man made arbitrary gods or goddesses out of human imagination are for sure acting like humans, they can't be true God at all. Remember those Olympian gods and goddesses, they acted just like humans, jealous and fooling around with their lusts...etc. So if our Creator God exists, He has to reveal Himself to us! And if the God who claims He creates heavens and earth and all the creatures, then science should back Him up and we should be able to detect His fingerprints everywhere in our universe. Agree? So this answers your following question.

Why do so many preachers feel the need of using modern science to support this remarkable and priceless spiritual legacy and their faith?  Though Christian faith by itself is remarkable and priceless spiritual legacy yet if the content of this faith is contradictory or conflict with reality check then we can just categorize it as mythology and we shouldn't have faith in it at all. ( though admittedly, there are some unfortunate misinterpretations of Bible which kept the concept of flat earth as true...etc.)

Could Truth be assessed only by science and even by gifted scientists such as Einstein? It is not an "only" approach. there certainly are many ways to access Truth, including philosophical pursuits. However, if modern science starts to catch up with Bible truth, for example, heavens are stretching, then it should strongly convince us those Bible writers were inspired by our Creator God who knows advanced science of today because He is the One who put all natural laws in our universe to start with. Why Bible writers could have written things that were so ahead of their time and generations, i.e.prophecies about future, knowledge of modern advanced science...etc., all tell us about an all knowing Almighty God--our Creator God, right?

Do Chinese Christians still need to celebrate the Passover like the Jews who are no longer believers? Your sister R has explained well about this. Christians now celebrate Passover in the new deeper meaning because Passover foreshadowed Jesus as the Passover Lamb killed for our sins. So we now celebrate Passover in connection with Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection every Easter. Christians should appreciate greatly how the Jews through ages meticulously recorded and reserved their national memory of historical Passover which foreshadowed and pointed to the coming salvation in Jesus Christ. And if Passover were not a historical event, then all the celebrations of Jews and Christians about it were meaningless, don't you think? WJ, I admire your great academic achievements in Philosophy and  Confucianism...etc, yet I hope you may still have reality checks with faith issues. That actually is what we are debating back and forth, right? 

If All Religions are True then God is Cruel

Dear friends:

Have you watched this film "Most" ( Bridge) before?

If not, then the link below is the part which touches my heart the most in that film.

Most - The Bridge - YouTube

"Most"( Bridge) is the story of a single father who takes his eight year-old son to work with him at the railroad drawbridge where he is the bridge tender. A day before, the boy meets a woman boarding a train, a drug abuser. At the bridge, the father goes into the engine room, and tells his son to stay at the edge of the nearby lake. A ship comes, and the bridge is lifted. Though it is supposed to arrive an hour later, the train happens to arrive. The son sees this, and tries to warn his father, who is currently not paying attention and is unaware of the oncoming train. Just as the oncoming train approaches, his son falls into the drawbridge gear works while attempting to lower the bridge, leaving the father with a horrific choice. The father then lowers the bridge, the gears crushing the boy. The people in the train are completely oblivious to the fact a boy died trying to save them, other than the drug addict woman, who happened to look out her train window. The movie ends, with the man wandering a new city, and meets the woman, no longer a drug addict, holding a small baby. Other relevant narratives run in parallel, namely one of the female drug-addict, and they all meet at the climax of this tumultuous film

After having watched the above You Tube then read the article in this link below.

I think this article is the best illustration to show not all religions will work despite our best humanistic  wishes.

I know I am very politically incorrect, but truth is truth. Please click the link below for the whole article.

If All Religions are True then God is Cruel

...Now picture the same scenario, but with a twist this time. Suppose the boy had fallen into the gear-works and the train was rushing towards the raised bridge, but this time, the father had two levers: one to lower the bridge and kill his son (like in the original scenario) and one to divert the train onto an alternate track that took it over a second, parallel bridge. It would be madness for the father to choose the first lever and kill his son with the second lever being right within reach! Why on earth would he kill his son when he knows fully well that the second lever is capable of saving both the lives of all the train passengers and the life of his son? Such a decision would be utterly appalling. Only a monster would choose the first lever.

And yet this is exactly what religious pluralists make God out to be.

“All religions are true.”

“All religions lead to God.”

“All roads lead to the same destination.”

While I can understand the sentiment of inclusivity, this idea creates an evil God. If all religions are true then God is cruel. And not just cruel–God is an incompetent, cosmic child-abuser. If religious pluralism is true, then God is the father in the second scenario. He saw the train coming and he decided to pull the first lever and kill his son, rather than pull the second lever. If Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and all the other world religions are true paths to God, then why did God kill his Son, Jesus, in order to make a way for men to come to Him? The very notion is absurd and insulting to God. It paints a portrait of a God who is really, really cruel. He sent Jesus into the world to live a miserable life of scorn, rejection, poverty, betrayal, humiliation, sorrow, and ultimately, torture and death, in order to create a path whereby men can come to know Him, all the while knowing that following the Five Pillars of Islam or the Noble Eight-fold Path could accomplish the very same thing! What a waste! Jesus’ life–God’s plan of salvation– is completely in vain for the same result could be achieved through persons simply adhering to the tenets of any world religion. God is not only cruel, but incompetent for putting into effect the worst salvation plan possible.

But God is not cruel. He is not incompetent. He would not kill his Son needlessly. He would not put into effect a ridiculous or cruel salvation plan for mankind. Hence, religious pluralism cannot be true. This does not show Christianity to be true, but it does show that not all religions can be true, for if they were, then God would not be a God of love–He would be a cosmic sadist or an incompetent guardian of the universe, or both.