Are there concrete arguments against non-conservative Christianity?

[braces_for_impact]

With regards to the OP:

One of the arguments I've encountered time and again is how moderate Christians give "cover" so to speak, to their fundamentalist brethren. Again, superstition doesn't care if your particular Christianity (or religion of choice) is slightly more palatable to modern sensibilities. The problem is, moderate versions of religion really have no more intellectual credibility than their extremists. In fact, in some views, it's plainly the extremists who are keeping their doctrine closer to scripture.

Some reading:
The Josiah Effect: How Moderate Religion Fuels Fundamentalism

Richard Dawkins: Churchgoers enable fundamentalists by being 'nice'

There are many other claims like these that you can search using the Internet. You may agree with some, all or none of them. Personally, I think some are persuasive.

Related to some slightly off topic posts in this thread regarding Jesus. The descriptions of Jesus himself in the gospels makes disagreement between sects of Christianity all the easier. There is a Jesus for any persuasion of Christianity you care to name and an even more personal Jesus for every Christian. One I notice, that tends to always agree with his followers. Look closely in the gospels (especially note the differences between gospels) and you can find a Jesus to justify whatever type of Christianity you happen to like. This makes it so easy for the No True Scotsman fallacy to rear it's ugly and popular head time and again, especially in days like these where Christians seem to be doing the most awful of things. You end time sects prefer a retributive/ judgment type of Jesus. The GOP like the libertarian Jesus. New age Christianity like accepting hippie Jesus, the Catholics tend toward hierarchical mystical Jesus, and so on. Being "Christ-like" is entirely in the eye of the beholder.

 

[steve_bank]

Liberal Christansbdo the same as conservatives they pick abd choose parts of scripture to fit a personal narrative.

Let me make it clear, I am not anti gay. That being said if I go by the OT you can not be gay and Christian. If a gay person identifies as Christian that is neither here nor there for me it is a personal choice.

Poin being a Christian protestant pretty much defines what a Christian is for themselves.

 

[repoman]

Liberal Christansbdo the same as conservatives they pick abd choose parts of scripture to fit a personal narrative.

Let me make it clear, I am not anti gay. That being said if I go by the OT you can not be gay and Christian. If a gay person identifies as Christian that is neither here nor there for me it is a personal choice.

Poin being a Christian protestant pretty much defines what a Christian is for themselves.

Well a sexual active gay person can't be orthodox jewish by a strict reading.

Yeah, I agree that for the most part a group defining itself should be "respected", even if they define out some people from their group.

If there is a sect that says gays or "gays acts" are not allowed, let them do it. Who cares?

But there is an odd privilege that religions have as a legacy to them have a shitload of power. That is the ability to make very exclusionary rules that would not work for many other non religious groups.

Somehow I got reminded of this video and the contrast with the audio.

 

[Lion IRC]

This Op reminds me of Mark 9:38

"John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone using your name to cast out demons, but we told him to stop because he wasn’t in our group.”"

Jesus, as I recall, took something of a different view to the matter.

Yes He did.
Hence we have...
"In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas"
"In necessary things unity; in uncertain things liberty; in all things charity"

 

[Jobar]

Fundamentalist, Conservative, Moderate, Progressive, Liberal; how are we to tell the difference between and among the differing sorts of Christians?

Completely serious question. Is it only according to how individual believers identify their own positions? Are there any objective ways we doubters can tell who is which?

Poli, I've often said that there are many fine precepts and lessons in the Bible, and if you choose carefully you can build a basically good (if not necessarily accurate) ethics and worldview from them. I don't think any of us atheists condemn all Christian denominations equally; sohy mentioned the Unitarians, and I've known Quakers and members of the more liberal version of the Church of Christ I agreed with way more often than I disagreed. It's only to be expected that the more extremist and unreasonable the church, the more we unbelievers will argue against it. But as long as there is any degree of supernatural belief there- until you get to 'cultural Christians' who just like some of the tropes and memes of Christianity, without believing or spouting any of the woo- we'll still have some disagreement with them.

 

[Politesse]

Liberal Christansbdo the same as conservatives they pick abd choose parts of scripture to fit a personal narrative.

Let me make it clear, I am not anti gay. That being said if I go by the OT you can not be gay and Christian. If a gay person identifies as Christian that is neither here nor there for me it is a personal choice.

Poin being a Christian protestant pretty much defines what a Christian is for themselves.

Is that a bad thing? Why?

I am often told that blind, unthinking faith is a virtue. But I have never known it to be thus. You should be a critical thinker, a critical reader. You should carefully "pick and choose" what you consider true or untrue, moral or immoral. Indeed, I would argue that the maintenance of a civil society depends on the ability to do exactly this. This is exactly why I oppose radicalism, so it seems weird to have it echoed back to me as a criticism - by someone who would, like me, be immediately murdered if this supposed virtue were always followed.

 

[steve_bank]

Liberal Christansbdo the same as conservatives they pick abd choose parts of scripture to fit a personal narrative.

Let me make it clear, I am not anti gay. That being said if I go by the OT you can not be gay and Christian. If a gay person identifies as Christian that is neither here nor there for me it is a personal choice.

Poin being a Christian protestant pretty much defines what a Christian is for themselves.

Is that a bad thing? Why?

I am often told that blind, unthinking faith is a virtue. But I have never known it to be thus. You should be a critical thinker, a critical reader. You should carefully "pick and choose" what you consider true or untrue, moral or immoral. Indeed, I would argue that the maintenance of a civil society depends on the ability to do exactly this. This is exactly why I oppose radicalism, so it seems weird to have it echoed back to me as a criticism - by someone who would, like me, be immediately murdered if this supposed virtue were always followed.

I do not think I was addressing you. I am Jeffersonian. We are all free to believe or not believe in anything limited by social constraints. I am not anti religion in a general sense. If anyoone gay or straight finds comfort in religion, good for them.

I personally do not think you can be gay and Christian by scripture. But you can not divorce or fornicate and be Christian either.

 

[OLDMAN]

There is a movement by some (very few) that would like to take the god out of Jesus, thus reducing his teachings to a more humanistic level. They feel it is the only way to save Christianity, as it's numbers fall. Others don't feel this is necessary, given the rules (that matter) that Jesus taught were already in use before and certainly after his death. Even in places where his teachings hadn't reached. To me this would be a truly liberal approach to the religion.

 

[Politesse]

There is a movement by some (very few) that would like to take the god out of Jesus, thus reducing his teachings to a more humanistic level. They feel it is the only way to save Christianity, as it's numbers fall. Others don't feel this is necessary, given the rules (that matter) that Jesus taught were already in use before and certainly after his death. Even in places where his teachings hadn't reached. To me this would be a truly liberal approach to the religion.

I wouldn't call it very few. In my country, only a bit more than half of the population believes that Jesus was God, despite being overwhelmingly Christian. When you look specifically at younger people, it is less than half. https://www.barna.com/research/what-do-americans-believe-about-jesus-5-popular-beliefs/

I do believe that Jesus was God, personally, but that is a natural implication of pantheism and as such also applies to us normies. So even some of those who agree that Jesus was God might, like me, not mean it in quite the sense of the post-Chalcedon administrative consensus.

 

[steve_bank]

Initially there were many versions. The question of divinity and supernaturnatural was an open question. It was settled into a common theology at Nicene.

The Nicene Creed was essentialy a loyalty oath.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

Jeferson created a revision of the NT minus miracles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

 

[Politesse]

Initially there were many versions. The question of divinity and supernaturnatural was an open question. It was settled into a common theology at Nicene.

The Nicene Creed was essentialy a loyalty oath.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

Jeferson created a revision of the NT minus miracles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

It is a MUCH longer and more complicated story than just the first council of Nicaea. It is not correct that there was a "common theology" from that point onward - Arianism continued for centuries afterward, and that was not the last disagreement over Christology either. Nor is the creed commonly called the Nicene Creed a product of that council, as your link rightly notes; we only possess a second draft of sorts, written nearly sixty years later in different political circumstances.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

To continue the case, here's some more:

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/8/2/9/8294/8294-h/8294-h.htm

16:16 The law and the prophets were until John. From that time the Good News of the Kingdom of God is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it. 16:17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tiny stroke of a pen in the law to fall.

5:17 "Don't think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill. 5:18 For most certainly, I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not even one smallest letter or one tiny pen stroke shall in any way pass away from the law, until all things are accomplished.

Here's what I said elsewhere:

While Jesus does not specify in those passages exactly how things will change, he clearly implies that Yahweh exists, and also implicitly endorses Yahweh’s actions from a moral perspective.

Moreover, when Jesus says that the law sufficed until the time of John, he is implying that following the law was at the very least morally acceptable for people living under such law, in ancient Israelite society.

Granted, different translations have different wordings, but in any case, it seems clear in context that he was in fact implying such acceptability. Jesus never suggested that any of the ancient Israelites should have disobeyed the law, or that the law was unjust. Yet, a decisive problem is that the only law available to those ancient Israelites after Moses, and which Jesus was talking about, was the full set of laws written in the Old Testament.

So, Jesus’s claims imply, in context, that if some of those ancient Israelites stoned a woman to death for having sex before marriage and marrying someone who didn’t know about it – regardless of whether her marriage was forced, but even leaving that aside, Jesus's implication is false -, or burned a woman to death because she was the daughter of a priest and was also a prostitute, or burned a man and two women to death because he married them both and they were mother and daughter, etc., then they didn’t do anything immoral – as long, at least, as they followed some procedure perhaps -, and that Old Testament Law – much of which was profoundly immoral – was ‘enough’.

This shows that Jesus believed that some – or rather many – very immoral behaviors were morally acceptable at least – or even morally obligatory -, or that lied by deliberately making false moral claims, or was unaware of much of what the Mosaic Law said. But based on the New Testament, we can conclude he was at least reasonably knowledgeable about the content of the Old Testament in general and Old Testament laws in particular, so it seems either Jesus had some false moral beliefs – many, but some is enough to make this point -, or was lying. Moreover, Jesus was promoting some false moral beliefs as well.
​

Note that regardless of when the OT was codified, the relevant parts (i.e., Mosaic Law) was well known by the time of Jesus, and while there might have been some differences of interpretation of some passages, in general it is still a pretty unjust set of laws overall. Jesus was again very mistaken about morality.

 

[steve_bank]

Initially there were many versions. The question of divinity and supernaturnatural was an open question. It was settled into a common theology at Nicene.

The Nicene Creed was essentialy a loyalty oath.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed

Jeferson created a revision of the NT minus miracles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

It is a MUCH longer and more complicated story than just the first council of Nicaea. It is not correct that there was a "common theology" from that point onward - Arianism continued for centuries afterward, and that was not the last disagreement over Christology either. Nor is the creed commonly called the Nicene Creed a product of that council, as your link rightly notes; we only possess a second draft of sorts, written nearly sixty years later in different political circumstances.

Novene weas the foubndation of what developed into the Roman Catholic Church, being fostered by Constantine as a tool of state and unification. There were open hostilities between sects, some violent. Post Nicene the supression of differing views began and the solidification of an oththodoxy. An orthodoxy that dominated until The Reformation.

What isn't complex. I wrote a post not a dissertation....