I was flicking through the tv channels yesterday, and a news program came up on bris 31. There was a priest on what looked like a normal news panel, i soon found out it was a heavily christian focused news program. The priest was asked about his opinion on a statistic that there is growing Atheism in academic groups and societies. I'm thinking at this point, thank god (excuse the pun) I’m not the only one. His first response was to agree that there is a growing trend, that highly educated people are not believing in all this god and holy power stuff. He then explained that this is a statistic used by certain groups to label and stereotype believers as the dumber portion of the population. He went on the explain that Jesus himself said that the highly educated can often miss the simple truths that the average man sees.
Can anyone else see the huge irony here?! The reason highly educated people don't go along with all the sensational stories of Jesus is because they know that they're just that, sensationalised. This is a book written thousands of years ago, originally in a language no one uses anymore. Even if it wasn't full of crazy stories of miracles and stuff, there's still a good chance the translation would have gone a little off down the line there somewhere. So there's this book of fantastic stories about a guy called Jesus, which this priest would have you believe, and he say's the reason you don't believe is cause Jesus said u probably wouldn't anyway! Your missing the point!
Don't get me wrong, christianity is a great religion as far as they go, and i don’t have anything against christians. The problem is the patronising fundamentalists who want us to believe that a man 2000 years ago walked on water and cured disease. Are you kidding me, we can't do that stuff now! I'm sure there's a great chance Jesus was a real guy, who had some great ideas about how people should live their lives, but that’s it, no one wants all the other crap that goes along with it. The moral and ethical issues that are raised in the bible are interesting, and do have relevance today, but people now see you don’t have to be religious to live with moral and ethical integrity.
I've never had an appreciation for organised religion, and i don't think i want to be a part of something that has so much to answer for in the worlds history. I don't think anyone can fairly say theirs is better than anyone else’s. Of course highly educated people are going to have a hard time commiting to a religion when all you hear about are magic and miracles. This priest is a perfect example of the reason for the trend, when his only explanation is "because Jesus said". Thats when you make the decision; do you go along with this religion thing and ignore the obvious dramatisations, or decide that maybe this whole religion thing isn't for me if they just want to try sell me these fantastic stories.