Monday, February 7, 2011

Not very Nicean Creed

We believe in a single deity who, defying the laws of thermodynamics, has made everything in the Universe. The deity consists of a three member committee, one of whom is called ‘The Father’.
We believe in Jesus Christ, another member of the God Committee, who appeared on Earth by means of a virgin surrogate mother named Mary who gave birth to a baby that happens to be the deity in human form.
Jesus was sentenced to death by the Roman regional official Pontius Pilate and was crucified, killed and buried.
Two days later his dead body came back to life as was predicted in a very loose and ambiguous sense somewhere in the bible.
He then flew up into the air to a place called heaven where he now sits as the right hand member of the three member God committee, right next to The Father.
He will return to Earth some time in the future, whereupon he will pass judgement on the lives of people who will be living at that time and on the lives of those who have died.
He will establish a monarchy with his committee in the seat of power and this rule will continue for eternity.
We believe in the last member of the God committee who is called ‘The Holy Ghost’, who, together with The Father and Jesus is to be praised and complimented by all its subjects.
The Holy Ghost has used telepathic means to send messages through certain humans who were called ‘The Prophets’.
We think there should be only one single Christian religion.
We agree that a ceremony in which a little water is sprinkled on a persons head is necessary to exonerate past instances of transgressing the house rules of the religion.
We are pleasantly anticipating our bodies coming back to life some time after death and then living forever in the land ruled by the deity committee.
Amen

4 comments:

Quantum Skeptic said...

Yes, of course, that is what all right-thinking people believe. How could they not? Is it not written in that most authoritative of Books, The Holy Bible?

But, perhaps you would enjoy pausing to laugh at and heap scorn upon a poor fool who cannot see this obvious Truth. This deluded individual believes obvious Truth is but a fabrication, invented wholesale to serve a nefarious end. His insane rantings can be accessed for ridicule here:

doc/b67761f4-ecd2-423a-93a0-0ff2b9eb6149/Joseph-Atwill---Caesars-Messiah---The-Roman-Conspiracy-to-Invent-Jesus

yokohamamama said...

Grew up in the Episcopal Church... OMG This. Is. So. FUNNY:-)) How did I miss this??

Anonymous said...

Dear Sneer,

A mildly amusing piece. I assume the phrase "defying the laws of thermodynamics" is meant to indicate that what follows is nonsense, but if that's the case, then it fails in its objective. Firstly, I understand the said Deity wrote the laws, and is not subject to them, so "defying" them doesn't seem difficult. Secondly, I'd like some clarification from a physicist whether (assuming a purely naturalistic explanation) the said laws were broken during the Big Bang. If they weren't (and I recall that Vic Stenger argues they weren't) then nothing was defied. If they were, then that presents more of a challenge to Naturalism than Theism. Surely?

Thanks for the opportunity to comment,

Ken West

Sigmund said...

Hi Ken, thanks for commenting. I wrote this post a while back not as a joke (OK, the title is a joke) but as a kind of brief thought experiment. I grew up in a catholic family - mass every sunday, communion, confirmation etc. I would have said the creed at least 600 times, until my late teens when I was able to assert to my parents that I didn't want to attend church again. The post was simply a revisiting of the creed and replacing some of the magical terms with 'scientific' explanations or descriptions. It is not meant to make people laugh but to consider what professing christians are actually claiming to believe.