Jesus Doesn't Need Your Sympathy
I read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code yesterday, by and large a pretty frustrating experience. I'm no historian, so there are better people for you to talk to as far as those details go, but I know enough to recognize the stew of baloney Brown has cooked up (ever so lightly seasoned with fact). Still, the thing that really aggravates me (and I'm sorry if after my previous posts I'm starting to sound like a band that only knows one tune) is that after Brown's Robert Langdon has proposed that there exist, in secrecy, "thousands of ancient documents as scientific evidence that the New Testament is false testimony", he then goes on to rally to my poor deluded religion's defense:
(By the way, that last analogy is interesting, but figuring out how good of an analogy it really is requires us to answer the same questions about reality and justified beliefs that we started with, not only for religion, but also for mathematics (and you certainly shouldn't put much weight on whether a mathematician calls something "imaginary", "irrational", or "transcendental"). So, while interesting, the analogy isn't especially helpful.)
Here's a parallel to Langdon's vindication of Christian belief, from one of my favorite authors:
The trouble with Peter's well-meaning defense, of course, is that Lucy is not trying to communicate a made-up story for fun, but rather something that really happened to her in Narnia. So if Peter were to successfully carry off his "defense", then he would actually defeat Lucy's whole purpose in telling them about the wardrobe.
And I'd say the same to Langdon or Brown or whoever offers this kind of "defense" of Christianity: thank you for your sympathy, but some of my religion's stories are not metaphorical, and if that is the only way you can see to make sense of them, then please, kindly throw them away along with the phlogiston theory. "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain."
"The Bible represents a fundamental guidepost for millions of people on the planet...Those who truly understand their faiths understand the stories are metaphorical."
Sophie looked skeptical. "My friends who are devout Christians definitely believe that Christ literally walked on water, literally turned water into wine, and was born of a literal virgin birth."
"My point exactly," Langdon said. "Religious allegory has become part of the fabric of reality. And living in that reality helps millions of people cope and be better people."
"But it appears their reality is false."
Langdon chuckled. "No more false than that of a mathematical cryptographer who believes in the imaginary number i because it helps her break codes."
(By the way, that last analogy is interesting, but figuring out how good of an analogy it really is requires us to answer the same questions about reality and justified beliefs that we started with, not only for religion, but also for mathematics (and you certainly shouldn't put much weight on whether a mathematician calls something "imaginary", "irrational", or "transcendental"). So, while interesting, the analogy isn't especially helpful.)
Here's a parallel to Langdon's vindication of Christian belief, from one of my favorite authors:
"What do you mean, Lu?" asked Peter.
"What I said," answered Lucy. "It was just after breakfast when I went into the wardrobe, and I've been away for hours and hours, and had tea, and all sorts of things have happened."
"Don't be silly, Lucy," said Susan. "We've only just come out of that room a moment ago, and you were there then."
"She's not being silly at all," said Peter, "she's just making up a story for fun, aren't you, Lu? And why shouldn't she?"
The trouble with Peter's well-meaning defense, of course, is that Lucy is not trying to communicate a made-up story for fun, but rather something that really happened to her in Narnia. So if Peter were to successfully carry off his "defense", then he would actually defeat Lucy's whole purpose in telling them about the wardrobe.
And I'd say the same to Langdon or Brown or whoever offers this kind of "defense" of Christianity: thank you for your sympathy, but some of my religion's stories are not metaphorical, and if that is the only way you can see to make sense of them, then please, kindly throw them away along with the phlogiston theory. "If Christ be not raised, your faith is vain."
Posted by Jeff on Thursday, September 15, 2005
1 Comments:
I think the fundamental misconception there is that the reason we believe is in order to get a "fundamental guidepost," which apparently has something to do with "coping" and "being a better person." That seems very childish to me. I'm pretty sure that fundamental guideposts are a dime a dozen. We're not looking for a fundamental guidepost, or even a fundamental guidepost that suits us (I can think of several fundamental guideposts that suit my temperament better than Christianity). We're looking for something true, and moreover true in a particular way (which is one of the other ways the analogy between i and the resurrection breaks down, I think).
Moreover, you cannot long read serious Christian writers - or listen to serious Christian speakers - before you come to the realization that coping and being a better person are very low on our lists of priorities, even if they are a handy side effect. I recall reading an interview with Dan Brown where he said that The Da Vinci Code was among other things an attempt to grapple with some of his own questions. I wonder if Brown has not personally realized how far from the center of Christianity coping and better person being actually are.
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