"Turning away from god"

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At 06:44 PM 6/17/99 -0500, Jack Corbin wrote:

>> Ed

>> 

>> I think, however, that you and many of the list members are not typical of

>> skeptics or freethinkers.  As you know, I'm active in the Campus

>> Freethought Alliance and other organizations, and it is my experience that

>> the significant majority of nontheists were never Christians in the first

>> place. (I use nontheistic rather loosely here, as there are nontheistic

>> Christians as well, you know.) It seems that generally one has to be either

>> indoctrinated before one learns to think critically, or one has to become

>> indoctrinated at a time of personal crisis or trauma to embrace a theistic

>> thought system.

>

>ATTORNEY REVEREND FLUFFY

>I always read all of the messages that hit this listserv, then either save

>them (rare), or cast them into the Bit Bucket of Eternal Damnation.  The

>foregoing message, however, has been whirring around on my hard drive for a

>number of days now.

>

>I'll bite.  Other than being an unsolvable paradox, what in the name of

>Jehovah is a "nontheistic Christian"?


Ed

I don't think it's so unsolvable a paradox if and only if you're familiar
with development of Christian thought in the 20th Century.  Personally, I
don't buy it, so I apologize for the weak explanation that follows.

"Theism" is generally defined as a belief in a "personal" (read
"anthropomorphic") god.  Nontheistic Christians are those who think that
there is a source or "ground of being" to existence that can be signified
by the word "god" but do not fit the anthropomorphic description.  I'd
refer you to Paul Tillich for a better (albeit hard-to-read) discussion.

Nontheistic Christians range in belief systems from such people as Marcus
Borg to the "Christian Atheists."  I'm certainly not the best guy to talk
to for an explication of their beliefs, but they certainly exist.  Lots of
them too: Most of the Christians I know on a personal bases would fit into
this category.


>

>On the separate issue of Jesus using "Du sagst ..." while addressing Ponty

>P., I think I understand the subtlety you seem to suggest.  Are the German

>translators putting contempt into Jesus' attitude?  Or, are the German

>translators expressing their personal contempt for Pilate?  Either way, it

>does not bode well for the myth of "scholarly" translations of the bible.

>

>[For those of you who don't know what the hell is going on: A German would

>never address an adult stranger as "du," meaning "you."  The only appropriate

>word Jesus could possibly use in addressing Pontius Pilate is the formal

>"Sie," also meaning "you."  For Jesus to address Governor Ponty with "Du

>sagst ... " ("You said ...") would be a sign of fairly unbridled contempt.]

>

Ed

Well, the distinction is built in to the German language.  You see, Luther
in his translation could not express neutrality in Jesus' address to
Pilate.  He either had to show Jesus offerring deference or had to show
disrespect.  Luther had to use a nominative case 2d person pronoun and had
to choose between Du and Sie.  He had no other choices. 

But there is so such distinction in the Greek.  The second person singular
is just the second person singular.  Period.  So when translating the Greek
into German Luther and later translators were faced with an unresolvable
dilemma.  Either way they go they add something to the text that is not in
the original, and they have to way to avoid it because their language
doesn't have the capacity to express the neutral second person address of
the Greek.

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