Easter service

Yesterday, as a matter of course I attended a church service for the beginning of the Easter break. Due to no fault of those running the mass (except perhaps for the dramatisation of the denial of Peter, which was... interestingly executed) my experience was less than pleasant up until the point where the guest minister, who ordinarily takes mass at that church, made an 'Easter address'. From speaking to a good number of people afterwards, I found many people to have found it exceedinly unsatisfactory, as did I. Though my memory is not as sharp is it was a day ago, I will try to list and address some of the Reverend's points.

First of all, the Reverend went to quite a bit of trouble to make sure everyone present did not think he was delusional, repeating quite a number of times (an unnecessary number of times, to be honest) that from his own and presumably our experience, we do not generally see dead people amongst the living. While this is true enough, where he went from there somewhat upset me. He stated that likewise, the Apostles believed that Jesus, having been crucified, was dead and gone. And so, to suggest that Jesus was not resurrected would be to accuse them of being simpletons and imbeciles as they claimed to have witnessed him in the flesh and heard reports of his tomb left empty and bare, as if they were not capable of comprehending death. He then went on to say that we in the 21st century were not so much smarter than those in the 1st century (and if he is referring to capacity for intelligence rather than knowledge itself, then I agree wholeheartedly) and was quick to denounce anyone foolish enough to think we are so much smarter than they were. He may have even been alluding to the fact that knowledge is not learnt and forgotten, but constantly built upon; it would take just as long today to deduce Pythagoras' Theorem as it did for Pythagoras himself if we had the same degree of mathematical knowledge, after all.

The problem is that though this argument is at first compelling, it is seriously flawed, and while his secondary point is valid, he disgusts me the way he uses it. If everything in the Bible was true (an impossibility due at the very least due to discontinuity) then perhaps to suggest that Jesus didn't rise from the dead would be an insult to those first disciples; but the Bible cannot be entirely infallible, and even if it was a reasonably accurate account of what it is supposed to, even then by the very fact that it should be claimed as a historical source it must be taken with a grain of salt, because we cannot be sure now what happened 2000 years ago: this is a very basic tenet of historical study. No source can be trusted entirely.

Now, naturally, people don't think that disbelieving in Jesus is supposed to be insulting anybody, not by itself, and so one might expect their reaction, after the original knee-jerk of embarrassed shame, to be to question the premise of the claim, as I have. This is why he brought up the second point; before anyone has the time to question it, he throws in as evidence a fact. That the fact happens to be irrelevant given that the premise is false is inconsequential so long as the premise is not questioned; in the oppressive and stifling environment of a church packed to if not beyond its maximum capacity, few will bother to take the thought any further, and so will be taken in. It's dishonest and insulting to say the least, but keep in mind that the tactic he used, a distraction, is one used in so many persuasive features subconsciously that I shouldn't be surprised if he did it without thinking. And given his job requires proselytisation, he can almost be forgiven for giving it a go.

However, the fact remains that people do not like to be converted; conversion requires renunciation of previous beliefs, and so can only occur on the prior assumption that they are false, and people do not like to be told that what they believe is incorrect, which is something I try vehemently to avoid. An open minded person will be open to discussion and discourse, but nobody would openly seek conversion- that would defy logic. I think this is why many people were upset, as I was (but many even more so) by the sermon. But it did not end there.

While naturally there were other less important parts of the sermon in between, his next major, and by my memory, final point was that the explosion of Christianity throughout the Middle East and Europe in the first century could only be logically explained by the fact that the Resurrection must have been real; otherwise, how could so many people believe it? This point is ridiculous to say the least. First of all, was there an explosion of Christianity in these places in the first century? As I'm not an expert, I do not know, but from what I do know, though Christianity was somewhat popular at the time, especially in the Holy Land, its influence was not nearly so great as has been suggested here. And even if the extent of its spread was greater than I understand it to be, I can guarantee that its truthfulness is not the only, or even one explanation as to why. Aristarchus of Samos proposed that the planets went around the Sun around 270 BC, and it took 1,800 years for that fact to be widely accepted- why then should any other fact necessarily be spread quickly simply because it is true? Furthermore, one would expect that if it spread because it was true, then it should have been accepted at a roughly approximate rate. However, Christian beliefs spread throughout Jerusalem much quicker than in Italy, and much quicker in Italy than in Gaul, and so on. As I have said, I am not an expert, and my research revealed little as to why there should be or should have been any particularly large spead of Christian belief throughout Europe, so I cannot claim to say why it did spread if it did, but if you are interested to know, reader, find an expert and ask them.

Throughout other points in the sermon the Reverend claimed that the belief in death as being final and eternal and above all, unconquerable, was not a wise one as there is no way for it to be proved. If he was referring to an afterlife, then he is correct. However, in the end, the decision should be made according to Occam's razor: what evidence do we have that death is final as opposed to a part of some greater cycle or lifespan? None either way, for such things cannot be proven by evidence, much like God cannot be proven nor disproven. And so, taking this into account, according to the principle, which is the simpler (and therefore more likely to be correct) explanation- that there is nothing after death, or that there is an afterlife? Given that by definition nothing must be simpler than something, that would be the more likely explanation, all things being equal. How then, can logic support him when he says otherwise?

Of course, he could have been referring to literal resurrection, but this can be dismissed easily enough. According to scripture, if my knowledge is not too rusty, the only people to be resurrected in the New Testament were either those resurrected miraculously by Jesus, or Jesus himself, who happened to be the Son of God and so perhaps is a special case. And so, by Christian teaching, death is inconquerable unless you happen to come across the Son of God, or be him. If you do not believe that the Bible's account is accurate, then you simply remove that provision and find yourself to be in agreement regarding the other 100 billion or so humans to have ever lived, and so his claim that nonbelievers are excessively "dogmatic" in the belief in the finality of death would be entirely moot.

Naturally, had it been a private conversation instead of a church sermon, I might remember the specifics better, or even have recorded them, and would have come out of the session no doubt far more enlightened than irritated. However, this was not the case, and so if anybody who was present has an issue with my recollection or thinks that I have missed an important point, or would like to simply comment of the Reverend's comments, leave a comment below and I will address it as necessary.