I contacted John Haught at Georgetown. He said this:
"I visited San Clemente in Rome and saw the rooms where the Mithraic
brotherhood met (it was a pretty macho cult, but very moving in terms of
expressing the need to bond around a heroic figure)."
Glenn wrote:
The
differences you describe pale in comparison with the differences between
Christianity and Buddhism etc. You have basically, in microcosm,
made my point about fideism. If belief is the only basis for
determining truth, rather than some observation, then clearly it is very
easy to fool oneself. In which case, refusing to risk that the
Bible might be false is quite reasonable because the answer is already
known.
Hey, if a religion comes along with better data and evidence than mine,
I'll jump ship. As Sgt. Friday used to say, "Just the
facts." I can sort them out for myself.
I've discovered, however, that the ability to sort out the facts and
reach logical, consistent conclusions varies from individual to
individual. Agendas and preconceptions are formidable
impediments. Add to that misconception, misunderstanding, and
misinformation and it can be a confusing milieu with which we try to sort
out how we can attain eternal life and escape hellfire and
damnation.
Your either/or, right or wrong, way of looking at things isn't how I look
at things. I weigh everything and sort them out into
likelihoods. Then choose what seems most likely, based upon the
accumulation of data, and follow that path. That might not work for
everybody.
I used to argue with a Catholic friend of mine. He bought into
every church dogma without equivocation. Transubstantiation (wine
of the Eucharist turns into the blood of Christ in your tummy), the
Immaculate Conception (Mary had no natural father), the appointing of
saints (Pope calls the shots) were irrefutable beliefs in his mind and
open to inquiry in my mind. I don't think Catholicism is
"wrong," it just has some baggage I can't buy into.
If eternal life and a right way to live are goals, then Christianity in
its many forms is good for that. For those not interested in those
goals, there are plenty of alternatives. Mithra might do just as
well as anything else.
Dick Fischer -
Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
www.genesisproclaimed.org
Received on Tue Apr 5 16:05:28 2005