Yes, the Catholic Church is absurd,
And its story the daftest I’ve heard
A tale hard to swallow,
Not easy to follow—
Of course, I believe every word.

Now, it’s not that I’m simply naïve
But a worse church, I cannot conceive
The incompetence, sin,
And corruption within,
Are the reasons I choose to believe!

See, the story that’s clearly the worst,
In the world, is most widely dispersed
Which would surely be odd—
So it’s evidence, God
Must have chosen the Catholics first

My conclusion must not be debated
Though religions are somewhat related
Mine alone must be real,
While the others, I feel
Are just something that mankind created.

They are quite simply far too believable
And their aims, while mundane, are achievable
Mine alone are insane—
Why, they boggle the brain!—
It’s the Truth cos it’s all inconceivable!

So, yeah, on my aggregator a post pops up, from the Catholic channel at Patheos, which actually made me laugh. It begins with a bit of special pleading:

The other day I tweeted a wisecrack: “If a Protestant says religion is just a man made institution, agree with him. His religion is a man made institution. The tweet elicited a reply from an atheist saying, “All religions are man made. Otherwise, why are there so many of them?”
It raises a good question. To answer it we first have to distinguish between the phenomenon of religion as it exists across the span of human history–and particular religions and then individual denominations. Are they all man made?

Turns out, the author argues, that pretty much all religions appear man-made. We seem to have a natural tendency to believe–from animism to polytheism to monotheism… But then, Christianity adds (uniquely, the author claims) Special Revelation–not just natural revelation, the evidence of gods found in the natural world, but Special Revelation, where God Himself reveals Himself. (Biology, chemistry, and physics can render natural revelation obsolete; it takes psychology to call Special Revelation into question. How one distinguishes Special Revelation from hallucination and delusion is never quite specified.)

What shall we do then, about the different Christian denominations? The fact of the matter is that none of them claim to be part of God’s revelation. My quip about the Protestants is correct, and they would agree. The individual churches are man made institutions. There is only one church that claims otherwise: the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church–comprised of both Eastern Orthodoxy, the Eastern Rite Churches and all other groups in full communion with the successor of Peter.

Here is the astounding claim of the Catholic Church: that we really do believe not only that God has revealed himself within the history of the Jewish people, and that this revelation culminates in the person of Jesus Christ, but we also believe that Jesus Christ founded a church on the rock that is Peter, and that he handed to Peter his own authority to teach the truth, forgive sins and take authority over evil. Furthermore, that this authority lives in the church today and that Peter’s successor is called Francis and that he lives just a few hundred yards from the site of Peter’s death and burial two thousand years ago.

Did we make it up? I contend that the claim is too audacious to have been made up. If I were going to make up a religion I would devise one that was easier to swallow. Nevertheless, the audacious claim is supported by history and by the existence and strength today of the Catholic Church. When you really know the Catholic Church and the human incompetence, sin, corruption and weakness within her you must conclude with many observers that she must be inspired and upheld by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Nothing else can explain her continued existence.

Sorry for the lengthy quote, but you needed the full flavor of the argument. It’s a dusty old argument, sometimes phrased in Latin, certum est, quia impossibile (I turned it into a campfire song, here). It’s a wonderful defense mechanism–the more absurd it is, the more you know it is true. Pedophile priests are, absurdly, part of what convinces the author that Catholicism is the one true religion.

Why, to deny it would be absurd!

So absurd, it must be true.

Jerusalem has seen the light
And said that women have the right
To worship at the wall.
To Ultra-Orthodox, this slight
Can’t be condoned at all.

And so, when women came to pray
Together at the wall today,
It seemed the worst of shocks!
The men have morals to obey–
So, pelted them with rocks!

No matter what the young men tried
The women wouldn’t be denied;
The men, despairing, moaned:
“It’s quite the same as genocide,
And cannot be condoned!”

Via the LA Times, the first day of equal right to pray at the wall. Yay, more people get to pray! That’s good, isn’t it? No, no, no, cos women have cooties, thus sayeth the Lord.

Dressed in black hats and coats, mobs of young ultra-Orthodox men tossed eggs, water bottles and coffee cups at members of Women of the Wall as their leaders led a group of 100 men and women in prayer. Several women from the group wore white shawls and other religious ornaments, such as black tefillin boxes on their heads, traditionally used only by men at the site.

Oh, come on, Jews have been through much worse than this…

Police, whom the youths called “Nazis,” arrested five men for disrupting the peace, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. As the women departed, some were pelted with rocks.

Well, yeah, I guess protecting women while they pray is pretty much exactly the same as committing genocide. Those Nazi cops.

Women of the Wall leader Anat Hoffman, who on Friday was being protected by the same police who once arrested her performing a similar prayer service, predicted that it was only a matter of time before women won expanded rights at the holy site.

“This train is gone,’’ said Hoffman, who has been pushing for religious equality at the Western Wall for 26 years. “Women are reading the Torah and praying out loud. This is going to happen. You are either leading it or you will be dragged by your hair.”

Nice turn of phrase there.

My question is, why on earth do these women want to be part of a religion that treats them like this? (Yes, that question terribly oversimplifies–we are not looking at one religion at all, but many that share a common ancestor.) And (conversely), if you have one group throwing stones at people who want to be part of a religion, and another group braving these stones to be part… which group loves that religion more?

You tell me you’re a Christian
And I’ll take you at your word
Though you’re quick to note, the bible
Has some bits that are absurd.

In your eyes, it’s not a science book;
No reason to believe
That there ever was an Eden
With an Adam and an Eve

And the flood is just mythology
Not literally true,
(the majority of Christians,
As you know, agree with you!)

And there isn’t any evidence
For Heaven or for Hell
Or an afterlife of any sort,
But hey, it’s just as well.

You don’t really think that Jesus
Turned some water into wine;
And you couldn’t care the slightest
If He really was divine.

If the miracles are hogwash
And the resurrection hype—
If your Christ is just a mortal man—
The magic all is tripe…

Is “Christian” just a label, then?
Is “Christian” just your tribe?
To which beliefs—if any—
Do you Christian folk subscribe?

If your faith makes you a Christian
But you tend to disagree
With the others of your label—
It’s confusing, don’t you see?

You tell me you’re a Christian
And I’ll take you at your word…
But the label you have chosen
Is, I’m telling you… absurd.

Yeah, so anyway… I know full well that most Christians aren’t young-earth creationists. I don’t actually know any young-earth creationists personally. I know a lot of liberal Christians; some of them are related to me (I do know one or two old-earth creationists who are also related to me). My parents, for instance, are Christians, but know full well the history of the writing of the bible, and are (as former science teachers) perfectly accepting of the evidence for evolution. They don’t even argue for the divinity of Christ; I honestly don’t know whether they believe in that or not (and yes, it comes up in conversation, as all of their siblings are very religious).

The truth is, not only are “theists” as varied in their beliefs as atheists, but frankly, any segment of believers–any small portion of the theistic spectrum–are themselves a spectrum (or, more probably, many spectra across many orthogonal factors). People are people, and they vary. It makes perfect sense that no two atheist need share the same beliefs–after all, atheism is negatively defined–but it should not surprise us that any two believers, even of the same sect, need not share the same beliefs. As important as religion is, it is not 100% of anyone’s belief system. Not to mention… the members of any one specific (no matter how specific) belief system do (and must!) differ from one another in the particulars of their belief.

So it should not surprise me at all, but of course there are Christians (I could say “self-described Christians”, but frankly that’s an insult) who don’t believe in Eden, in Adam and Eve. Who don’t believe in original sin (except as a metaphor). Who believe Jesus’s sacrifice was meaningless, if it happened at all. Who don’t believe in the divinity of Christ, in Heaven, in Hell, in sin or redemption. Who laugh at the notion of transubstantiation (this includes some Catholics). And yet, who are Christians, every bit as much as any other group can claim the name (I’m looking at you, Westboro Baptist Church).

Which, frankly, doesn’t surprise or bother me (like I said, I see it in my own family). But… Why on earth would they want to keep the name? Strange bedfellows, Christianity begets–people who disagree more than agree lay claim to the same name. People who make war with one another over these very beliefs lay claim to the same name. My goodness… I’ve known people who legally changed their names to cut ties to parents they disagreed with. Why would good people like my sister, like my parents…like hundreds of thousands or millions more like them… want to share a label with people who believe things they find ludicrous?

Yeah, I guess they’d rather the other folks change their label. And sometimes they’ll pretend that already happened–that those other people “aren’t real christians”. But the thing is, the whole spectrum claims that label. I’d rather not be caught in a “no true Christian” fallacy, so…

I’ll take them at their word.

Related Posts:
Historical Jesus

On Original Sin