Bible Study for Atheists
- January 28th, 2012
- Posted in For Discussion
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I’d like to start a bible study for atheists. And I think it should be serious and thoughtful and not some smug attempt to find every silly reason the bible doesn’t make sense.
A good topic to start with is the evolution of the concept of sin. How encumbered is our culture with the biblical concept of sin? I don’t know. I’m curious about it.
one way to look at sin is to see it as related to notions of debt. like, with original sin, or whatever, we all fall short of the glory of god and have to _work_ out our salvation (with fear and trembling?). if we are always already indebted, then we always need to work. what then becomes sinful in our nature is our lazy desires, our idleness.
ive been reading amabgen (sp?) and one of his main points in his homo sacer series, it seems to me, is that there are no neat divides between the secular and religious worlds in say rome or greece. both are grounded (?) on similiar calls of authority and a corresponding submission to that authority. so while god is now dead, the state still reigns. and so laziness and idleness are still sinful cuz we aren’t working off our debt to the state.
or something.
The debt analogy is excellent and consistent particularly with the language of the Old Testament. Thanks for reminding me of that.
The rise of the state as a substitute for God is interesting. You see this fully formed, perhaps, in modern China.
If you form an email distribution, I’d participate.
Hard questions to answer. In this context, how does one define our concepts of culture and sin in such a way that the former can be meaningfully said to be encumbered by the latter? The concepts of culture and sin and the abstract relationship between them changes depending on your descriptive definition of either node.
I could define culture as a collective of common beliefs and belief systems. I could define sin as physical action without needing any consideration of cultural context like the bible does. This seems like an encumbering mismatch and easy source of confusion only if we consider it as anything more than a rule of thumb. It is generally wrong to be slothful, greedy, lustful, murderous, thieving and so on. Sometimes it might be appropriate. We might be encumbered by an overly literal interpretation of rules of thumb rather than the rules themselves.
I could also define sin as physical action absent cultural intent or awareness, which is what the Koran says. This seems to say that without intent and rational thought, any action is inappropriate. Feel, think, then act. Absent the first two, one is acting mindlessly and without emotion. They are either a sociopath or slave, both states of existence are wicked.