Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 155
Christianity Today 155 as being unsupported by the scriptures of the religions, which entertain them. Once one is led into this maze of possible and alternative interpretations, it ends up only as a question of prefer- ences and choices. It then becomes anybody’s game to interpret scriptures or reported religious history as literal or metaphorical. To step into this quagmire of conflicting explanations would serve no purpose. Yet there is one exit from this onerous exercise that we can show readers and invite them to follow or reject as they please. For argument’s sake let us accept all such claims of religious leaders having ascended to heaven and take them at their face value. If the case of Jesus Christ’s as reported ascent is to be treated in a superficial sense and his second coming to be interpreted as literal and real, then there is no reason why we should refuse to accept other similar cases in the world. Why make an exception of Elijah; King of Salem; the Twelfth Imam of the Shiite faction in Islam; the ascension of Hindu gods; or other similar holy men and the so-called personifications of God? It is safer, therefore, to avoid entering into such unproductive, futile debates with those who entertain such beliefs. One may enquire, from all such credulous believers in fantasy if they can point out a single revisit, in person, of those who are reported to have disappeared by ascending into remote heavenly recesses. Can all of human history present a single example of the bodily return of any person to this world who is reported to have bodily ascended? Show us if there is one. Looking at the total absence of literal fulfilment of such claims, one is left with two choices: either to reject such claims as fraudu-