I am reminded of ancient days when among the so-called learned the existence of higher powers was not in question. Even in pagan cultures, it was simply a wrestling with “which” god was the greatest, not “if” beings exist who transcend man’s existence. Clearly reverence alone for a higher power does not transform a culture.
In the Bible narrative from Genesis, Cain slew Able before the ink could dry on the finished creation =) The scene has powerful implications. I can only imagine if I lived in a family where I had no grandparents, aunts, nor uncles because my parents had been formed from the dust of the ground and were able to relate the experiences of walking with the Almighty in the cool of the morning and confirm whether or not an elephant really does have an outstanding memory. Yet Cain slew Able because he had jealousy in his heart in the shadow of the Almighty.
Never mind the myriad of events that have followed since.

Some agnostics might become Christians, but I doubt that most people, especially most Christians, would change their way of life.

This reminds me of some ongoing discussions I have had with friends about liberal vs conservative theology….a friend once asked me if it really mattered to me whether Jesus actually walked on water, or couldn’t it be a metaphor–would it make all the difference to my faith if it was ‘just’ a metaphor? I thought about it for a while, and realised that for me personally, what upsets me in some of the more ‘metaphorical’ readings of the Bible is that is seems to give people license to lose their astonishment at what God is capable of, and is doing in the world. I wouldn’t lose my faith at all if it were proven to be a metaphorical story, but I would wonder what exactly it is was that Jesus HAD still done, because it still must have been pretty amazing to have then been related in terms of walking on water. But I rarely hear that side of the ‘metaphorical’ debate. So to me, it’s not the ‘literal’ vs. ‘metaphorical’ debate that is the main culprit, so much as a seemingly correlated desire to make God manageable. Once we lose our astonishment, we have tamed God and that–to me–is the beginning of travesty. But it’s also a way to stay ‘comfortable’!
Hope this made sense–haven’t had my second cup of coffee yet!

Those are two great questions, but also different questions, I think. Wanting God is different than submitting to evidence, especially in light of Paul’s definition of faith from his letter to the Hebrews. To want God is different from wanting proof and in some ways the opposite.
Martin Luther once described the bible as a cradle holding the baby Jesus. It’s intriguing that arguments over physical evidence seem to center around burial shrouds and columbaria,

What would Christians do if the existence of God was proven, but he was Vishnu not Yahweh?

Isn’t it also that when people start to diminish the miracles of the Bible, and try to as some have said make it “manageable” it lets us have a “Pocket Jesus” that we pull out whenever we feel like, and one that we can die away when we think we can hide our dealings & deeds from him. when in fact we can’t. The things I’ve ran across are that most of the old testament stories like Jonah & the whale, and David & goliath have a tendency to be taken with a grain of salt since most are viewed with a hollywood lens of well.. in ancient times how is that possible.. we can’t do it now.. blah blah.. or I can’t believe that… It’s not if we believe the story, or in Jesus’ example that he walked on water, or healed the blind. it’s having faith in the Loving God that’s behind it all that did then, and continues to do everything any anything through his son and through our lives to get us back to him.

In my 20′s, I spent a lot of time wrestling with what was ‘true’ in Bible stories and what wasn’t. So, now I look at the question of ‘does it matter’ and my answer is – no, it doesn’t matter to me whether everything happened as the Bible says, or if the whole thing is metaphor and allegory.
Why? Because I finally realized that my faith isn’t based on anything written or reported by someone else. It’s based on my personal experience with God – God as Father, God as Son/Savior/Sacrifice, God as Spirit/Wisdom – yes, even Mother.
For me, when I stopped trying to prove to myself and others how ‘true’ the Bible was, I found a deeper, richer faith. The Bible actually became more important to me, since I wasn’t focused on some type of intellectual exercises of right and wrong. And let’s face it, the majority of time when we argue whether something is ‘true’ we are really arguing about if it is factual.
An example – the Birth of Christ. I stopped worrying about details like the time of year, or if the Magi really showed up, or if Mary was a virgin when I was able to hear (through the Grace of God opening my eyes) in a sermon the statement “Every year, every Christmas – God gives to us this child”. That statement caused an awakening in me. The details became unimportant. Today, this year – God gives to us this Child, the Christ!
I can’t make anyone believe or understand what happened – it was and is between me and God. And I have come to believe that faith is, at it’s deepest level – about that personal relationship with God. And because of my personal experience with God, I believe – I KNOW – we are all loved.
Whether you believe the stories in the Bible or not, I don’t think that’s what matters. I think, I believe what matters is that connection with God.
Just my 2 cents worth.

Do we follow God now? Do we love God Now? Or do we “love” him the way we teach our kids to love us? “Play with your toys,2 hours each night, but don’t bother us. Don’t talk to us. Watch Tv, 3 hours, but don’t interrupt or talk to us. Finally, at bedtime, talk to Mom & Dad, l/2 minute each: “Do I have to have my lunch? Do I have to go to bed now? Oh, and do I have to say my prayers?
Isn’t that how we “love our kids, “love our parents,” and “Love God” most days?
Maybe on Sunday we go to God’s house because think we should, and listen a little(with our minds on a dozen other things). Then we go home to watch the football game.
Yes, we sure love God a lot don’t we?! Right behind everything else. I don’t think another shroud would matter. How much time we give God at home, every day of the week, DOEs.
What would you think if your kids treated you exactly this way, week in and week out. Does God feel any differenct about us when we do it? How much of a relationship would he feel he had with us? When we grew up, would he be confident we’d follow the good ways he taught us?
Maybe putting God first is a sensible idea after all.

More skeptics come out of seminary than ever went in.
It doesn’t do the ordinary pew-sitter’s faith much good to look into the sausage factory of scripture, and for that reason the ordained clergy, who usually know better, allow the laity to continue on in their traditional beliefs. You won’t find many pastors speculating, as a scholar I was recently reading did, that the Gospel of Mark originally ended at Mark 15:39 (And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that he thus breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!”).
As to David’s speculation about caves full of hot-off-the-scribal-clipboard gospels and other wonders (grail, spear, shroud, crown of thorns, robe, etc etc) — I for one would be thrilled and fascinated by a trove of evidence showing that the Jesus of 21st century Protestant imagination coincided perfectly with the historical Jewish Jesus of 1st century Palestine. The trend has of course all been in the other direction.
You’ve got to go where the evidence and reason lead you, and that’s about all one can say about the matter. I’m not even sure that knowing (if such a thing were knowable) what actually happened in the life of the historical Jesus is an important question. If large numbers of believers came to think that Jesus was just a man, it’s not clear to me that they would be happier, better off, or better neighbors.

The answer is simple. No.
The mistake the apologists always make is assuming that people choose a belief system because it is historically accurate or somehow fits their version of logic. Actually those things have little or no bearing at all. People choose it because there is something in the mythology that resonates with their lives, their experience. Even if it could be proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that every word about Jesus is true, it would not make a bit of difference in the long run.

David:
Sad to say, I share your cynicism (even though I know you don’t **want** to be cynical about it).
Your hypothetical news would deepen the faith of devoted Christians and perhaps make some wavering Christians more devoted (me, perhaps), but I think it would CONVERT very few people.
BTW, your scenario of gradually emerging relics is very much like Borges’ story “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” about the rise of a fully Hitchens/Harris-like atheistic society.

More skeptics come out of seminary than ever went in. SkipChurch
I doubt that. I went for four years and I’m just not buying your argument there, Bubba. What’s your empirical data for the claim? Until you present that, I’m reserving judgement on your ridiculous asssertion.

No.
Blame original sin, or blame human nature.
Another interesting one– what if it were unequivocally proven that the events relayed in the Koran are true? Or some other religion?
I think the first reaction of most people in the US would be to attack the messenger.

Atheists don’t want to prove God doesn’t exist. You cannot prove a negative and most of them know that.
That said, I can’t imagine “proof” of Jesus’s resurrection, either. Proof that he lived and was crucified, yes, but ascending into heaven (where we get into the supernatural)? Can’t see it.

Gosh, you guys are depressing. I teach adolescents and have 3 adult children. They are certainly seeking God in all that they do – Someone asked what might happen if the great saints were alive today. What would St. Teresa of Avila be doing? How about St. Francis or Thomas Aquinas (he would definitely be looking for God on computer). We have many saints among us. A priest friend once said that the mark of a saint is one who gets past the age of 50 without cynicism or despair taking over. If that is the criteria – I’ve known a few. It is the hope we keep within us that is our longing for God. We act it out in service to our neighbors -all of them – not just the ones we find easy to love.
Fred Rogers (the guy with the sweater) was perhaps the greatest saint of my life. At his funeral the eulogist said that Fred was a very disciplined human being. His discipline consisted in seeing only the good in everyone he encountered and then expecting them to live up to that goodness. That is seeking God. We are not going to save Africa or cure AIDS, but we have the ability to tap into the immense goodness of every human being we meet. It requires abandoning some of our cynicism and embracing the beatitude way of living. We’re not good at seeking God, but we keep on doing it anyway. We move in millimeters instead of big steps, but we move.

I’ve worked with “troubled youth” for more than half of my adult life. From convicted felons to children on ten different medications to get them through the day without killing themselves or me. Sometimes, when I hear them talking with one another, I have had to leave the area they were at and cry like a baby. Their longing for God and a life worth something more, is awe inspiring. In young lives there is sometimes the most profound desires rooted in the longing to be loved in the most important way. By being wanted. People not only want God, there is an inherent longing and connection to God deep and shallow within us all, to hope that God wants us. When children speak of God, they mean it. Even atheists, are really sometimes the most hurting and hurtful people and yet, in some cases are the holiest and most sensitive. Most don’t believe in God because the pain they have for themselves and others drive the feeling away of knowing God exists into a place protected by the power of God-given will. It drives the love in them to expressions that seem to make little sense at first, but upon listening to them too, their opinions are usually always based on moral truth.
People want God the same today, in a world gone mad with business and strife, as they did when the world was a garden of beauty. What person doesn’t long to see the world through the arms of God wrapped so tightly around them that their breath is controlled by the hug.
God is as much a reality as the emotions that drive all people from moment to moment to desire even more moments.
Remember how it felt when your mother held you the moment you were born? The moments just after falling? It’s there in your mind, your spirit and your heart.
May God Bless you all.

Would such a story(ies) make a difference in most of our lives?
I think Jesus answered this question a long time ago when he told the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16) -
“He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’”
Still we are told by Jude to contend for the faith and by Peter to always be ready to give an account for the hope within us. In the end salvation is the work of the Holy Spirit. We are merely the broken vessels he uses to speak the message of the Gospel to the world.

David said:
Would people start leading fundamentally different lives? Would the world, would our country, would we be radically transformed?
I wonder.
No, probably not. You see what you would have is a justification for belief, and an excellent one at that. The problem as any mystic knows is that believe is an outer garment, a surface and not the thing itself. As a matter of fact belief can become an idol if a person is not willing to set it aside to experience God directly. Experiencing God directly is accomplished by surrender of any form that stands between you and God, (including finally the last vestiges of the “self”.)
What Never Was is Gone.
For this poem to work, it must have no form.
How can it stretch itself into nothing?
How can it collapse the world of forms?
How can it silence the clatter of the mind?
Oh Beloved, One of purest beauty and love,
Make of me a silent testament.
Make of me a mirror, and break me into pieces
So that becoming formless, I reflect perfectly.
Snap the pen and the mind that hides you.
Burn the paper upon which I am written.
Sear these words in the fire of perfect love.
Leave not so much as ash behind.
Oh Beloved, in whom I have become,
Erase me within thee.
Let no-thing remain to witness:
What never was is gone.

But Thinker …
You’re acting like people are automatically evil to be cynical. And in the ultimate sense, you may be right. But the intention (and yes, I know where the road of good intentions heads) is, of course, quite the contrary — often people are cynical (like me) to **protect** themselves from evil.
It’s easy to say that it only takes one person to confront the system and be willing to take its slings and arrows for a greater good — and that’s true — but those slings and arrows can do more than sting. They can kill.
From the ridiculous (Haley Joel Osment’s character in “Pay It Forward”) to the sublime (Gandhi … King … and of course, Jesus).

From Donny – People not only want God, there is an inherent longing and connection to God deep and shallow within us all, to hope that God wants us
And from Zero-Equals-Infinity – The problem as any mystic knows is that believe is an outer garment, a surface and not the thing itself. As a matter of fact belief can become an idol if a person is not willing to set it aside to experience God directly
Amen to both

Remember how it felt when your mother held you the moment you were born?
Actually, no, I don’t. I’m pretty sure just-born infants are incapable of forming long-term memories.

My three year-old nephew summed it up well last Thanksgiving.
As the family gathered around the overloaded table to gorge ourselves, Grandma served the children’s table first. Within seconds, little Jeffrey began forking the food into his mouth.
“Oh, Jeffrey,” Grandma said, “we haven’t prayed yet.”
Undeterred, Jeff took another mouthful, but managed to grunt, “I already prayed tuh myself.”
He and millions of others.

I don’t think that it matters much to those on the agnostic/doubter fence what archeological finds might be discovered. I frequently find myself there. The difference is in the belief of God. I see what I believe. I suppose the same can be said of atheists as well. God is either alive or isn’t. There isn’t a half way spot. Details about the virgin birth, resurrection and other miracles spoken of in the bible, we’ll never know. Why don’t we see and here of them all around us now? Or are they happening but it is God himself who mutes their voice? Perhaps the miracle is only for the eye of the beholder and then how will that person go about his or her life. Is it to browbeat, belittle and berate sinners and people not of the Christian faith or is a miracle proof to strengthen our resolve to be better and to know God better and thereby spread the faith through goodness and not superlatives?
That was a long sentence.

No, people are not evil if they are cynical, but a few among us – manage to get past all the damaging things in life without acquiring that kind of doubt. They are the saints among us. When you meet people like that – you understand at some level – that it is connected to the idea of God.
As far as Donny’s line about “how it felt when your mother held you the moment you were born” – I would say that such moments of gazing into loving eyes are what make it possible for us to be faithful.
I think James Fowler refers to it as ‘stage one’ faith.

Donny:
I don’t want to be strangled by G-d, or even given the Heimlich maneuver by Him. Who on earth would?
Thinker:
You seem to take a very Protestant view of theology – that only one’s personal connection to Jesus as Lord and Savior counts, not good works.
Sorry, but it’s a bit too blasé to me to say, “Oh, well” about AIDS and Darfur, but hey, it’s a beautiful day in OUR neighborhood.
(I adored “Mr. Rogers” as a kid, and by all accounts he was a great humanitarian as well as a historically influential children’s entertainer and teacher. But still, a bad comparison in context.)
PS – If you think I’m depressing, I have a darn good excuse if you read the link I provided you under David’s other post …

Remember how it felt when your mother held you the moment you were born?
Actually, no, I don’t. I’m pretty sure just-born infants are incapable of forming long-term memories.
Posted by: jaybird | December 4, 2007 9:59 AM
///
Donny:
I don’t want to be strangled by G-d, or even given the Heimlich maneuver by Him. Who on earth would?
PS – If you think I’m depressing, I have a darn good excuse if you read the link I provided you under David’s other post …
Posted by: Larry Parker | December 5, 2007 12:40 AM
///
Jaybird and Larry,
How sad.
D.
(I’m going back to sleep.)

Donny:
I notice you didn’t bother to look up what my battle for over a decade has been (bipolar disorder, if you care — which I gather, in your Religious Right way, you don’t).

Canucklehead, hello.
I just noticed your unhappy reaction to my mild assertion that more skeptics come out of seminary than ever went in.
That’s obviously a somewhat anecdotal observation on my part,in that I haven’t done a special study on the matter. I will observe that many, perhaps even most, enter graduate work in Biblical studies as committed believers and some (though obviously not all) wind up less convinced when the finish than when they started. A good case in point is Bart Ehrman, who studied at Princeton Theological under Bruce Metzger and in the course of his studies came to question much of what he formerly believed. Prof. Ehrman is now chair of the Dept of Religious Studies Department at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. He has written very frankly about his transition to agnosticism as a result of his academic research.
Another person that comes to mind is Elaine Pagels, who took her Ph.D. under Helmut Koester, and has documented her changing views from evangelicalism to something more (let’s say) nuanced in her book “Beyond Belief.” It’s true she was not actually a seminarian, though, if that is important to you.
Gerd Lüdemann, author of “The Resurrection of Jesus”, “The Great Deception”, and “The Unholy in Holy Scripture” also comes to mind. He is Professor of New Testament at the University of Göttingen, Germany, Director of the Institute of Early Christian Studies, and Founder and Director of the Archive “Religionsgeschichtliche Schule” at the University of Göttingen. He has also served as Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt Divinity School in Nashville, Tennessee, and as co-chair of the Society of Biblical Literature Seminar on Jewish Christianity. Gerd hold the D. Theol. degree from University of Göttingen, and in my view is certainly a skeptic. I do not take skeptic to be a synonym for atheist, though. I use the word in its ordinary connotation, as someone who questions the tenets of a received system of belief.
Burton Mack is now retired as Professor of New Testament at the Claremont School of Theology in California, and is about as secular a scholar as you’ll find. Yet there he is at Claremont. I frankly have no idea where Prof. Mack started out, in terms of faith or lack thereof.
These are just the well-known folks that come immediately to mind. I do know students at PTS, and I would say that they do become much more critical in their thinking during their time there, and yes, more skeptical. In my view, that is a good and healthy thing.
I hope I have answered your question about the basis for my opinion that seminaries produce more skeptics than they ever admit.

Mr. Kuo,
I already have God. If the shroud stuff was “proved,” it wouldn’t change my beliefs, so it wouldn’t change my actions or my life.
I already know that Jesus Christ was crucified and died for my sins, and rose from the dead. I already know He is my High Priest, Prophet, King, Advocate and One Mediator. The Holy Spirit, that is, God, already dwells within me, and God has already adopted me as one of His sons. He spoken to me his good news, of Christ’s death for my sins, his burial and his resurrection, and He given me the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. He has given me the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He has imputed the righteousness of Jesus Christ to my account, and declared me to be righteous (justified, and not condemned). I have an Advocate, Jesus Christ the righteous, and I have peace with God through my Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, I already have God, but I look foward to my Lord returning to His earth, bringing in the final judgment of the wicked, the resurrection of all the dead, and the new heavens and new earth, where there will be no sin and no death. For all this, I am thankful for God’s grace in saving a sinner like myself. Friend, hear that good news, Jesus Christ, our sinless God, was crucified but He rose from the dead, never to die again, He’s alive today! Whoever believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.