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Chesterton on Christ's atheist moment

setpiece · Christian/biblical · retold in 5 talks

Chesterton's Orthodoxy: when Christ cries 'why hast thou forsaken me,' it is the only moment in any religion where God himself is an atheist, forsaken by God. Žižek uses this to argue for Christianity's unique internal split.

2005: 1 talk 2006: 1 talk 2012: 1 talk 2017: 1 talk
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026

As told 4

“only one religion in which god seemed for an instant to be an atheist.”
44:48 Versus Cornel West2005-11-10 · 2:18:10
“only one religion in which God seemed for an instant to become an atheist.”
“in all other religions you have a fall like men fall from God, only in Christianity God himself falls into the world, incarnation and so on.”

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

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Every retelling 4

44:48 Versus Cornel West2005-11-10 · 2:18:10
Chesterton's Orthodoxy: when Christ cries 'why hast thou forsaken me,' it is the only moment in any religion where God himself is an atheist, forsaken by God. Žižek uses this to argue for Christianity's unique internal split., illustrating Christianity's atheist moment,the problem turns its own solution,de-centered belief
Chesterton's claim that only in Christianity does God, at the cry from the cross, become for an instant an atheist, forsaken of God, so atheists find only one divinity that ever uttered their isolation., illustrating only through Christianity can you be a radical atheist,the crucifixion
Chesterton notes that in all other religions men fall from God, but only in Christianity does God himself fall into the world through incarnation, Žižek uses this to ground the ethics of the fall., illustrating ethics of the fall,Christianity vs. Buddhism,incarnation
Citing Chesterton, Žižek argues that Christianity is unique because God himself becomes an atheist at the Crucifixion ('Why have you forsaken me?'), undergoing an 'atheist phase' where he does not believe in himself., illustrating God as atheist,religion-theology