Posted by Holly Ordway in Apologetics | 2 Comments
Mockery and Meaning
People love to make fun of the claims of Christianity. A virgin birth! God fathering a child! A dead guy brought back to life! A three-in-one deity! A horrible death supposedly in the name of love! All absurd, of course. So now we can all chuckle over those wacky ideas that “those people” have, and move on, right?
Hold on just a minute.
First off, keep in mind that mockery is always the easiest way to avoid actually thinking about an issue. By branding something as ridiculous, we make it not worth discussion, which in turn neatly enables us to avoid addressing its actual truth claims. Neat, huh? We see it all the time in popular politics and in everyday life… and it should raise a red flag. Why use mockery if there are other ways to defeat the argument? Why avoid when you can overcome? Perhaps because it’s not as simple as it looks?
Next, there’s a fundamental assumption here: “if it’s weird, it can’t be true.”
Now, think about it. Does that actually follow?
Think about all the “bizarre but true” stories that science gives us. With relativity, time actually changes based on how fast we’re moving. That’s a wee bit counterintuitive. Look at consciousness: isn’t it odd that there’s an “I” inside yourself? Just having a mind is something that ought to blow your mind. Knowing that light is both a wave and a particle at the same time, is it so hard to conceive of a God who is three in one? If you do any reading about quantum physics, the kind of bizarre stuff that’s going on in the subatomic level ought to shake loose any conceptions you have that reality is, you know, tidy and stuff.
If you say that none of this is quite as weird as Jesus being the Son of God, raised from the dead, I completely agree. Even the apostle Paul writes of the “scandal” of the cross (or “offense,” or “stumbling block,” depending on the translation). It’s impossible to dispute just how far-out the central claim of Christianity sounds. But the point I’m making here is that being “strange” does not by itself disqualify something as being the truth.
It’s not enough to say, “It’s weird.” If we’re honest, we also have to ask, “but is it true?”
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Have you read the book “Consciousness Explained” by Daniel Dennett? Dennett is an atheist and has said a bit about faith which I have not found terribly intriguing, but his book about consciousness and its take on how thinking about an “I” inside actually does not make much sense and is likely not “true” is pretty amazing brain food. Personally, I find nothing about his consciousness theories opposed to concepts of spirit or soul. They neither support or deny them- just offer an alternative way of thinking about how we are aware. Much of his exploration of how the mind creates the experience of consciousness makes so much more sense to me and has helped me rethink memory, perception, etc. Interestingly, his writing style could almost be described as self mockery some of the time. I agree with the spirit of your post and got a kick out of thinking about Dennett with your points in mind…
I haven’t read that book, but it sounds interesting – I’ll add it to my “to read” list. (Which is alarmingly long already, but what’s one more…?)