Was Jesus married? (Religion)

by David Turell , Friday, September 21, 2012, 20:05 (4228 days ago) @ dhw

Dhw: I have to say that from my position on the picket fence, the very idea of all these learned folk discussing, analysing, agonising over a scrap of ancient papyrus (genuine or not), and over the question of whether a man whose life story we cannot possibly trace with even the slightest degree of certainty did or did not have sex, makes me wonder if theology is not a form of collective madness.
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> DAVID: Theology can only know what is archeologically proven. Faith is not collective madness, unless the faithful recognize their beliefs are only that, beliefs.
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> Perhaps you meant "so long as the faithful recognize..." I would not dream of calling faith "collective madness". -Theology requires faith if one is a follower of a particular religion. Your correction is accepted as a better statement.-> The main materials studied by monotheistic theologians are texts by other fallible humans, often written centuries after the events they purport to describe, in a language that is wide open to different interpretations whose accuracy can never be objectively confirmed. ..... I am simply questioning theology's obsession with ancient, unreliable texts.-Those texts are all we have, and we are curious about the beginnings of religion.
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> One can, of course, argue that collective faith in the authority of fallible human beings does amount to collective madness. This takes us way beyond religion into virtually every sphere of human activity. We are vulnerable to the misguidance of self-proclaimed experts in all fields.-This is always my complaint. The writings are after the fact and come from repeated oral traditions. Religions make up just-so stories to fill in the gaps. Everyone needs to recognize the gaps in our historical knowledge. It is as if religions approach God from a position of ignorance. Which is why I go my own way.