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Is Jesus's "this generation will certainly not pass" valid grounds for scepticism?

Poem

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Poem
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Lay Anglican theologian and author C.S. Lewis wrote the following (from 'The world's last night and other essays' - 1960):

"Say what you like" we shall be told, "the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, 'this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.' And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else."

Lewis described this verse (Mathew 24:34, Luke 21:32 & Mark 13:30) as the 'most embarrassing verse in the Bible'.

Surely, this remains a serious obstacle to faith?
 
Poem said:
Lay Anglican theologian and author C.S. Lewis wrote the following (from 'The world's last night and other essays' - 1960):

"Say what you like" we shall be told, "the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proved to be false. It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, 'this generation shall not pass till all these things be done.' And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else."

Lewis described this verse (Mathew 24:34, Luke 21:32 & Mark 13:30) as the 'most embarrassing verse in the Bible'.

Surely, this remains a serious obstacle to faith?
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I was an atheist long before I came across this particular verse. So, as to your question, I can say no, it's not a serious obstacle, just a minor validation (among many, many others) for my rejection of religions and deities. The most important being the utter lack of any supporting evidence for any deities.

As for Lewis calling it the most embarrassing verse, I am not aware of a generally accepted scale of embarrassingness, nor of an objective method of putting bible verses on that scale. So this is Lewis's unsupported opinion, and he's not around anymore to clarify how he came to his assessment.
 
Dutchman said:
I was an atheist long before I came across this particular verse. So, as to your question, I can say no, it's not a serious obstacle, just a minor validation (among many, many others) for my rejection of religions and deities. The most important being the utter lack of any supporting evidence for any deities.
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Whilst I agree there are other obstacles, I would question your assertion that there is an 'utter lack of any supporting evidence'- though of course that would lead to a thread derail...

Is your position that Darwinism sufficiently explains life?
 
To clarify my statement about the utter lack of supporting evidence for any deities: Any attempt at such evidence invariably leads to the question: how does one make sure that a god did it, and not fairies, spirits or sufficiently advanced aliens? Once you accept the supernatural, all bets are off.
 
You have to be joking.

Christianity stumbles at the start and never stops falling, not even attempting to answer the only question that matters: "Why this and not something else?" The fact that this basic failure is followed by absolute nonsense makes the ridicule even more appropriate, but Christianity has been nothing but embarassing from the very start.

You might as well ask whether the evident lack of primal ruins in the Antarctic is an obstacle and embarassment to a belief in Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness.
 
Anyway, back to topic. You asked if this bible verse was a serious obstacle to faith. I answered that is was a minor validation of my rejection of faith. Anything about that?
 
Olmstead said:
You have to be joking.

Christianity stumbles at the start and never stops falling, not even attempting to answer the only question that matters: "Why this and not something else?" The fact that this basic failure is followed by absolute nonsense makes the ridicule even more appropriate, but Christianity has been nothing but embarassing from the very start.

You might as well ask whether the evident lack of primal ruins in the Antarctic is an obstacle and embarassment to a belief in Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness.
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I wasn't suggesting that if Christians could satisfactorily answer this issue (ie the OP) then the way would be clear for all to believe.
 
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Poem said:
Whilst I agree there are other obstacles, I would question your assertion that there is an 'utter lack of any supporting evidence'- though of course that would lead to a thread derail...
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Please start another thread along this line.
I'll bet you a pound to a tenner that you'll come up short.
 
Dutchman said:
Anyway, back to topic. You asked if this bible verse was a serious obstacle to faith. I answered that is was a minor validation of my rejection of faith. Anything about that?
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Well...either way we - both do not have faith in Jesus Christ.
 
Poem said:
I wasn't suggesting that if Christianity could satisfactorily answer this issue (ie the OP) then the way would be clear for all to belief.
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Well, what do you want to hear? Once you get past that initial hurdle of Christianity, you can make anything work. After all, an omnipotent God can make anything work and the Bible is just a book. Or isn't just a book. Or is just a book sometimes but sometimes it's the actual word of God. And sometimes God is real clever and is just being allegorical.

On the other hand, I can make the Mountains of Madness work. Ruins and mountains not there? No problem. Alien technology, innit?
 
Olmstead said:
Well, what do you want to hear? Once you get past that initial hurdle of Christianity, you can make anything work.
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I am not following you.

I believe there are Christians on these forums, so the thread is a challenge for such folk.
Olmstead said:
After all, an omnipotent God can make anything work and the Bible is just a book. Or isn't just a book. Or is just a book sometimes but sometimes it's the actual word of God. And sometimes God is real clever and is just being allegorical.

On the other hand, I can make the Mountains of Madness work. Ruins and mountains not there? No problem. Alien technology, innit?
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I'm not following this either.
 
Poem said:
I am not following you.

I believe there are Christians on these forums, so the thread is a challenge for such folk.

I'm not following this either.
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My point is, people don't believe in Christianity because it makes sense. They simply believe. And once you do that, you can just imagine inconsistencies and paradoxes away, and it makes as much sense as their initial belief.

So, when the apocalypse doesn't happen, you can just imagine an explanation that solves it: Jesus was misunderstood, some mortal made a mistake, this specific part of the Bible was forged, it was allegorical, Jesus was talking in some divine terms that we cannot understand, the apocalypse did happen, but God instantly remade the world because reasons, etc.

Why couldn't a believer just do that?
 
Re: OP: to a hard core literalist, it's a minor problem, maybe resolved by theorizing Jesus speaking metaphorically, as he so often did.
 
Poem said:
Surely, this remains a serious obstacle to faith?
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Given that there are over two billion Christians right now, I'd say it isn't a serious obstacle to anything.

As an aside, given where Lewis ended up on the whole question, I bet his very next paragraph rebuts the argument quoted here. The fact that he presents the argument in the voice of a naysayer, and even opens the argument with an adversarial idiom, is another big clue, even if you didn't know Lewis's own conclusions about Christianity.
 
Thermal said:
Re: OP: to a hard core literalist, it's a minor problem, maybe resolved by theorizing Jesus speaking metaphorically, as he so often did.
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Christ makes some pretty specific claims in his Olivet discourse where this verse is found. If Jesus was obviously speaking metaphorically then vast numbers of Christians have got him very wrong.

Since Jesus was warning his followers about the end times, then for him to get it wrong would be catastrophic ii terms of trust.

It is also noted that he did predict the destruction of the Temple and it was destroyed in 70AD....so clearly most believers would not take that as symbolic.
 
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