Experts are worried that young people don’t know enough about religion:
Half of U.S. high-school seniors surveyed recently thought Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.
This is a pretty predictable consequence of the widespread failure to make my book required reading for all schoolchildren everywhere. Nonetheless, it’s quite worrisome.
The kids who think Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple (not to mention the countless others who guessed “former WWE Tag Team Champions” and “tabletop strategy game” and “once-popular folk duo”) are surely unequipped to compete in today’s high-tech modern world!
How will they be responsible citizens if they’re not familiar with the story of how god destroyed both cities on account of their residents’ rampant homoerotic behavior? Can we trust them to figure out for themselves that a righteous man offers up his virgin daughters when he needs to placate an angry mob? Will we fall economically farther behind Middle-Eastern countries where schools prepare kids with the knowledge that when god (or Boston) says “Don’t Look Back,” then if you don’t want to be turned into a pillar of salt you’d better listen?
But it’s not just me. Professors of “Divinity” are also concerned!
[Divinity Professor Moore] identified a wide range of problems caused by a lack of religious understanding, including anti-Semitism and the equation of Islam with violence and terrorism. She said it also leads to the portrayal of religion as “obsolete, irrational and oppressive.”
And if the story of Sodom and Gomorrah doesn’t make people think of religion as relevant, rational, and congenial, then I don’t know what can!
This article wins the Internet for the day, and not just because of the Boston reference! I’m happy people are worried about this; it really shows that this religious nonsense is waning. I am proud to be knowledgeable in Bible studies since it’s a great to know the only thing Christians think is evidence for their beliefs, but it’s certainly not required. I don’t feel bad for not knowing a whole lot about molecular biology or ancient Mesopotamia. Would I like to? Most definitely. But I don’t have time to study everything. Likewise, people are studying real subjects that have relevance to the modern day; they aren’t going to waste their time studying Bronze Age mythology when they could be studying for their next math exam.
Sounds like the kids are having fun at the expense of whoever did that survey.
LETTER OF MARA BAR-SERAPION, This letter was sent by a Syrian named Mara Bar-Serapion to his son Serapion. Mara Bar-Serapion was in prison at the time, but he wrote to encourage his son in the pursuit of wisdom, and pointed out that those who persecuted wise men were overtaken by misfortune. He instances the deaths of Socrates, Pythagoras and Christ.
What advantage did the Athenians gain from putting Socrates to death? Famine and plague came upon them as a judgment for their crime. What advantage did the men of Samos gain from burning Pythagoras? In a moment their land was covered with sand. What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King? It was just after that that their kingdom was abolished. God justly avenged these three wise men: the Athenians died of hunger; the Samians were overwhelmed by the sea; the Jews, ruined and driven from their land, live in complete dispersion. But Socrates did not die for good; he lived on in the teaching of Plato. PythagDras did not die for good; he lived on in the statue of Hera. Nor did the wise King die for good; He lived on in the teaching which He had given.Would you die for a lie?
At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus chose twelve disciples, who later served as His apostles. As history and tradition teaches us, likely all but one, John, died a violent death as a martyr for their faith. Theirs is the ultimate testimony. That is actually the origin of our word martyr; the Greek verb : aD?JtL?D?X?T? (“martureo”) means “to be a witness,” “to testify.”
Skeptics, however, will claim that people die daily for what they believe, either as innocent victims, as a result of persecutions or deliberately, like a fanatic Muslim homicide bomber. So dying for one’s faith does not prove anything about the truth of the resurrection.
Wait. Is that correct? What is the difference between an apostle of Christ who was martyred and a fanatic Muslim bomber of today? Yes, both died for their faith. One obvious difference is that Jesus’ apostle was killed by others whereas the suicide bomber took his own life. Also, the apostle acted out of love, while the suicide bomber was motivated by hate. There is one other difference, and this is of huge importance. Both died for what they believed, however, the suicide bomber based his convictions on what others told him to be true, but the apostle based his faith on what he himself had experienced, the resurrection of Jesus He did not only believe the resurrection was true, he knew it was true.
Remember what happened when Jesus was captured in the Garden of Gethsemane ? “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled” (Matthew 26:54). They were overcome by fear and afraid they would be captured next. Likely, all ran the other way, racing out of Jerusalem in the direction of Bethany . After this initial cowardly reaction, apparently only Peter and John could muster enough courage to go back to Jerusalem to find out what was happening. When confronted, three times Peter denied any knowledge of Jesus (as foretold by Jesus and recorded in all four gospels). Only John was present at the site of the crucifixion (John 19:25-27).
When Jesus was captured, tried, and crucified, his followers were discouraged and depressed. They no longer were confident that Jesus had been sent by God (how could God allow his Son to be crucified?). They certainly did not anticipate a resurrection. So they hid and dispersed. Just as the Jews had planned, the original Jesus movement had died on the cross.
1. After only a short time a complete reversal of attitude occurred. Something remarkable transformed these cowards into bold and brave men. We see them abandoning their professions, and re-grouping to commit themselves to spread a very specific message: Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah of God, who died on the cross, returned to life and was seen by them. They invested the remainder of their lives proclaiming this, with no payoff from a human point of view. They faced a life of hardship; often being without food, they slept exposed to the elements, were ridiculed and faced the constant threat of beatings and imprisonments. Finally, most of them died a hideous death as martyrs.
This change of behavior can only be explained by the fact that they were convinced – beyond any doubt –they had seen Jesus alive from the dead. There is no other adequate explanation
They were the ones who met the living Jesus in person. They were unique. These men knew the resurrection as fact – and not merely believed it by faith. They were not convinced by someone’s testimony, but they had shared time with the resurrected Jesus. Knowing the truth, they were willing to die for it. If they knew it was not true, it is extremely unlikely that all would stick to this deception and would be willing to die for a lie. Would you die for a lie?
Great web page, where did you get the template?
[...] Grus, author of Your Religion Is False, tackles the problem of biblical illiteracy in connection with a survey which found that 50% of US high school seniors thought Sodom and [...]