Richard Carrier on Liberal Christians

[lpetrich]

Adventures at the Society of Biblical Literature Conference, Part 1: The Westar Encounter • Richard Carrier

He attended "The Future of God Seminar" there, and he reported on it.

I usually only deal with conservative and centrist Christians because liberal Christians are so wishy washy and mushy void of substantive beliefs beyond the ethical and political sphere, and their ethics and politics usually mostly align with liberal secularists of various stripes and thus are less of an urgent threat to society. At least in respect to their religion, as their religion really doesn’t provide any basis for their views, whether friendly or toxic. As I’ve often said of liberal Christians, they have no text. They’re just making it all up as they go along. So arguing with them is never any different than arguing with a secular philosopher. They don’t resort to citing Scripture or the Holy Spirit or “historical facts of faith” for authority on anything they espouse. So really, they are just atheists in practice, who dress up as theists.

Consequently I often forget how many of them there are.

He also stated that in From Taoist to Infidel, his personal testimony. He started with his Sunday-School experiences at a very liberal sort of church. "My experiences with religion as a child were all good." He then got into how he questioned the Bible, how he became a Taoist for a while, and then how he became an atheist. After noting how many liberal Xians are very cowardly in the face of fundamentalist theocracy, he noted "Worse, the liberal Christians have no text. In any Bible debate, the liberal interpreter always loses, for he must admit he is putting human interpretation, indeed bold-faced speculation, before the Divine Word of God. And without the Bible to stand on a Christian can be condemned as an unbeliever in disguise."

Back to that seminar. Its participants talked about a book that they were working on, a book on "post theism" a book on alternatives to a "supernatural conscious agent" conception of God, alternatives like pantheism, panentheism, "weak theism", "process theology", "anatheism", "religious naturalism", "God is a metaphor", etc. RC concluded that they wanted to continue to use the word "God" by redefining that word to mean "the Universe" or "love" or a metaphor for sovereignty.

But also partly, I suspect, because they can’t let go of it all. They are too attached to the aesthetics and the feels. They can’t just admit it’s all bollocks and we should do away with the whole shebang. We should instead convert churches into secular community centers devoted to philosophy and philanthropy. But “I will get fired” was the typical refrain at that notion. You can’t run a church, and get away with pushing that transition. And what on earth will a professor of theology do when they admit there is no theo- to have an -ology of? “Hey, I study an absurdly narrow collection of fictional characters and thought experiments, please don’t eliminate my position,” doesn’t sound like a winning proposal.

What RC describes is pretty much what the Unitarian Universalist Association is.

 

[Politesse]

Not a very strong argument -- an appeal to the emotions you imagine your opponent has?

I mean, two can play that game. Shall we invent the "pathology" that drives Carrier, based on the tidbits of his personal story offered above, and pretend that it is a logical argument against the correctness of his claims?

As for this:

As I’ve often said of liberal Christians, they have no text.

We have as many texts as anyone else, we just understand that they are texts.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, condemning liberal Christians for making it up as they go along isn't a thing which actually distinguishes them from radical Christians. All types cherry pick whatever passages they can interpret as something they agree with and ignore ones they don't.

If a radical fundie preacher wants the death penalty for abortionists and thinks that women should remain the home in order to support the man which God has bound to her, you don't call him wishy washy because he's against slavery and doesn't really care whether or not he's wearing mixed fabrics. Similarly, if a liberal Christian focuses on the God is love passages and doesn't care about the homosexuality being an abomination part, that doesn't make him wishy washy, it makes him a guy with a different interpretation of his faith.

 

[southernhybrid]

I try to judge people by their character and don't care about the beliefs, other that whether they are positive or negative, helpful or hurtful. Liberal Christians tend to be decent people, especially the ones that are active in their church or fellowship communities. I feel a bond with them and many of them are my friends. I like parts of their mythology and I especially love the UUs. I've known many UU atheists and admire some of the charity and social justice work that many UU fellowships aim to do in their communities. If there was a UU fellowship near me, I'd give it a try.

I don't tend to argue very often about religion unless some extremist throws the first punch and I need to defend myself. Atheists who criticize liberal believers make me wonder what in the world are they trying to accomplish. I have no use for them and I stopped reading their books many years ago. If we want to make any progress in the world, we need to join with liberal believers, not criticize them.

 

[James Brown]

Well, condemning liberal Christians for making it up as they go along isn't a thing which actually distinguishes them from radical Christians. All types cherry pick whatever passages they can interpret as something they agree with and ignore ones they don't.

Is there a difference between cherry-picking passages from an authoritative text and redefining terminology?

Looking through my Bible, I can pull out texts that declare that God is a benevolent deity with mankind's best interests at heart. And I can pull out texts that declare that God is a vengeful deity bent on rooting out corruption.

But if I then declare that God is actually the life-force of the universe that animates all things, I might be more welcome among my non-Christian colleagues, but I don't think anyone would call me a fundamentalist.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

In a thread I posted a few days ago, Pew Research surveys demonstrate 33% of Americans do not believe in a God of the Bible but in "Some Higher Power / Spiritual Force. Some call this God, some do not. It seems then that as far as abandoning the fundamentalist, literalist idea of God, for many that is a done deal.

It is now a matter of how to create a comfortable way for people who no longer want or need fundamentalism in any form, to create a comfortable intellectual space for themselves.