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What Would You Recommend For The Curious Theist?

Loss Leader

I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Loss Leader
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
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I recently struck up a conversation on Facebook with an old high school friend. She spent 15 years on a mission in Thailand and works in personnel for the missionary group now in Colorado. She has four great kids (only 1 under 18), wonderful husband and is an all-around swell person.

Recently, she got to talking to me about Jesus. According to her, I can be saved if I accept Jesus into my heart and whatever. I have tried to politely explain the null hypothesis and the lack of proof that any god exists.

It came down to this, she chaleneged me to read the entire New Testament (Romans first, for some reason). In return, I got to pick a book for her to read.

I didn't want to hit her with anything overly confrontational like "Why People Believe Weird Things" or anything too philosophical and inaccessable like Kierkegard's "Fear and Trembling."

So, my choice for her was "Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut.

What would you have suggested?
 
The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell;

It serves as a nice middle ground since he believed there existed a 'Mythic Dimension'.

He explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, Which should illustrate her chosen faith isn't anything special.
 
Personally I'd suggest she reads the quran, or some other holy text and then explain why that one is not true.
 
Arcadia by Tom Stoppard.


Other (generally less serious) choices:

The entire Old Testament, perhaps? (Depends on her religious background.)

The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown. She should be able to see that no just god would create a world in which such a terrible novel could be a bestseller.

Your favorite book unrelated to religion that you consider an entertaining and informative read. Explain afterward that since you don't believe one has to pass any cryptic life test for eternal stakes, you got to choose based on what you thought she'd enjoy reading.
 
A number of Bart Ehrman's books would do, but I was particularly impressed with "Lost Christianities", which shows that early Christianity was not this (as commonly presented) unified idea but instead wildly diverse, with as many as 30 different early "Jesus cults" with very different ideas about Jesus, his nature and purpose, etc.
That it took over 300 years for any semblance of orthodoxy to arise.
 
Also by Ehrman: The New Testament - A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-512639-4
(also good for understanding the various methods of critically examining any textual material)

Also by Campbell: The Masks of God (4 vols.) Penguin Books, 1987, ISBN 0-14-00-4304-7 (survey throughout world-wide history and cultures of the mythic aspect of human inquiry and knowledge)

After the above and those suggested by others, anything by Thomas Merton - as close to a practicing Buddhist as a devout Roman Catholic can be.
 
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Nay_Sayer said:
He explores the theory that important myths from around the world which have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure, Which should illustrate her chosen faith isn't anything special.
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Lukraak_Sisser said:
Personally I'd suggest she reads the quran, or some other holy text and then explain why that one is not true.
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I didn't think any of these would work because she has expressed that people create false religions and serve false gods because they are afraid of giving themselves over to the true god in Jesus Christ. She understands that there are a multiplicity of religions but believes that this is evidence that the one she happens to believe in is the "real" one.

Usually, proselytizers leave me alone when I say I'm Jewish. There's this inherent belief that we're either closer to god just by blood, or that we understand christianity and have always rejected it.


Bikewer said:
A number of Bart Ehrman's books would do, but I was particularly impressed with "Lost Christianities", which shows that early Christianity was not this (as commonly presented) unified idea but instead wildly diverse, with as many as 30 different early "Jesus cults" with very different ideas about Jesus, his nature and purpose, etc.
That it took over 300 years for any semblance of orthodoxy to arise.
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She hasn't been very receptive to any scholarly work about early christianity or anything else. She has forced me to watch (in fast forward) "The Case For Christ" and other Lee Strobel nonsense. She believes the New Testament has been archaeologically and rationally proven to be true. I pointed her to an article that showed the evolution of the "abandoned baby" in myth from the gods to the invention of the backstory of Moses. It must have had 20 examples, some getting very close to Moses' story. She dismissed it by asking, "How do you know it's true?" and, "How do you know the extensive bibliography for the article is real?"

She is certain that, when the appostles say there were five hundred witnesses to Jesus' resurection, that there were actually 500 witnesses to Jesus' resurection. And since Paul was a doctor or something, he would never lie.

She sees no problem in accepting the inerrancy of the bible, while recognizing that all histories written before, say, 1800 specifically showcased their bias.

It's all very frustrating.
 
You don't say whether she is a creationist or not. That would make a big difference to how I might tackle such a situation.
 
Loss Leader said:
She hasn't been very receptive to any scholarly work about early christianity or anything else. She has forced me to watch (in fast forward) "The Case For Christ" and other Lee Strobel nonsense. She believes the New Testament has been archaeologically and rationally proven to be true. I pointed her to an article that showed the evolution of the "abandoned baby" in myth from the gods to the invention of the backstory of Moses. It must have had 20 examples, some getting very close to Moses' story. She dismissed it by asking, "How do you know it's true?" and, "How do you know the extensive bibliography for the article is real?"

She is certain that, when the appostles say there were five hundred witnesses to Jesus' resurection, that there were actually 500 witnesses to Jesus' resurection. And since Paul was a doctor or something, he would never lie.

She sees no problem in accepting the inerrancy of the bible, while recognizing that all histories written before, say, 1800 specifically showcased their bias.

It's all very frustrating.
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Have her read the Old Testament, particularly Kings and Judges (Be nice and let her skip all the begats. :D).
 
I wouldn’t have engaged in a “battle of books”. You only have books written by mere mortals. She has “the divine word” written by a perfect god. A library of your books won’t wrinkle a single page of her book.
 
MikeG said:
You don't say whether she is a creationist or not. That would make a big difference to how I might tackle such a situation.
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She is a creationist. She believes the bible is literally true. Oddly, she was educated in the same AP classes as I was, so she not only was exposed to physics, biology and chemistry but she excelled at them. She was also exposed to a really diverse population including lots and lots of Jews. Little of it seems to have stuck.

Crossbow said:
I would suggest that your friend read Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.
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I'll look it up.


ynot said:
I wouldn’t have engaged in a “battle of books”. You only have books written by mere mortals. She has “the divine word” written by a perfect god. A library of your books won’t wrinkle a single page of her book.
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You are almost certainly right. But there was no way I was reading the entire New Testament without extracting some level of revenge.
 
In that case, River Out of Eden by Dawkins, or "Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne.

You're up against it, though, trying to persuade that closed a mind of anything factual.
 
MikeG said:
In that case, River Out of Eden by Dawkins, or "Why Evolution is True" by Jerry Coyne.

You're up against it, though, trying to persuade that closed a mind of anything factual.
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I was going to comment about how LL's friend is likely insisting the he "keep an open mind" about Jesus. Odd how those same types never keep an open mind to the possibility that they are wrong.

ETA: Christopher Moore's "Lamb (the gospel according to Biff, Jesus' childhood friend)" is hysterical, and might get her to take things a bit less seriously?
 
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I think a flanking maneuver is called for.
Try, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - the audio version for listening in the car.
 
marplots said:
I think a flanking maneuver is called for.
Try, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" - the audio version for listening in the car.
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An all-time excellent read, but as for the audio version, nobody has that big a gas tank! :)
 
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