The Case for Christianity

[ideologyhunter]

I find it cringey when a commentator refers to the Abrahamic religions, to emphasize, I guess, shared roots, shared ethical teachings. Dude, have you read what these people did to each other, over the centuries? They've been a damn sight worse than the cartels in Mexico.

 

[bilby]

To compare apples with apples, I'd like one survey that studies two continents.

To quote Dr House, "Everybody lies". A survey is valueless in determining how religious a country is, it can only tell you how religious the people polled want you to think they are.

A better way to measure religious belief is to count attendance at churches, temples and mosques.

Excluding special events (Easter and Christmas, Eid, Passover, Hannukah, etc.), how many people go to services during a normal, non-special week?

Take a look at any English church in a typical Sunday, and you will find seating for a few hundred, occupied by a half-dozen octo- and non-genarians, being addressed by a priest from Kenya or Nigeria (because almost no English born people have wanted to enter the priesthood since the 1950s).

Sure, they can get a full house on Christmas Day or Easter Sunday. But even that is only possible because so many churches have closed, and so many parishes have been merged, since the mid 20th Century.

People go to those services, and to weddings, funerals, and baptisms, because they don't want to disappoint gran, or like to think of themselves as "culturally Christian", rather than because they are devout believers.

 

[steve_bank]

I actually heard a narrative in the 70s that the unknown years of Jesus in the NT were spent in India.

The New Age Jesus.

There is a Jesus for all occasions.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

I find it cringey when a commentator refers to the Abrahamic religions, to emphasize, I guess, shared roots, shared ethical teachings. Dude, have you read what these people did to each other, over the centuries? They've been a damn sight worse than the cartels in Mexico.

Plus, they don't even worship the same god. Christians believe in a Trinity, Muslims and Jews do not. It baffles me why anyone buys into that idea.

 

[Elixir]

It baffles me why anyone buys into that idea.

Maybe it’s just artificial consilience so they don’t perfunctorily nuke each other.

 

[southernhybrid]

It is weird that most conservative Christians of the Protestant variety believe that Catholics are going to hell. I was told when I was a child that my little Catholic friends were going hell and I should try to save them. My mom told her Catholic dad that he needed to be saved or he was going to hell. He would just laugh and say that he and the devil would have a good time together. He was a cultural Catholic, who seemed more infatuated with the so called Virgin Mary than with Jesus, but then he was known at what was once referred to as a "Ladies Man".

When my mom's close Catholic friend died, her asshole evangelical friend came to visit and asked her if she had told her friend about the Lord. I happened to be visiting NJ at the time and wanted to slap her for saying that to my mother who was already grieving the loss of her friend. By that time, I doubt my mother still believed that Catholics were headed for hell and I will never understand how my mother was brainwashed in her late 20s to become an evangelical. Strange....

 

[James Brown]

A better way to measure religious belief is to count attendance at churches, temples and mosques.

And I've read that there's right ways and wrong ways to do even that.

Ask someone, "Did you go to church last week?" and many people will say Yes, because they know that's what they are supposed to say, even though they didn't actually go.

By contrast, ask someone, 'What did you do Saturday morning? What did you do Saturday evening? Sunday morning? Sunday evening?" and so forth, then you'll get better results when at no time during the week people say, "I went to religious services."

 

[DBT]

I actually heard a narrative in the 70s that the unknown years of Jesus in the NT were spent in India.

The New Age Jesus.

There is a Jesus for all occasions.

I've been told it's all the same God, Brahman, Allah, Yahweh, etc, all one God, never mind the incompatible differences in theology.

 

[steve_bank]

I actually heard a narrative in the 70s that the unknown years of Jesus in the NT were spent in India.

The New Age Jesus.

There is a Jesus for all occasions.

I've been told it's all the same God, Brahman, Allah, Yahweh, etc, all one God, never mind the incompatible differences in theology.

Someone told me the Earth is flat and Trump is truthful.

The Dali Lama said when asked about converter to Buddhism 'Why not practice the religion you have?'

As an atheist which god you invent and believe in what mattress is how you believe it. The feel good brain chemicals. I look at it as a form of the placebo effect.

It has been demonstrated. Give a group of people with chronic pain a series of presentations about a new powerful pain killer. Then give them all a placebo, inert pills. Some will feel pain relief.

In one experiment when told it was a placebo a woman still got relief when she took the fake pill.

So, I believe that whether you believe in any one god or all gods are one you get the same religious experience Given we all have the same basic brains that is what makes sense to me.

Look at the bitter and grotesque conflict between Israel and Iran. It is cultural, racial, and ethnic but most of all it is Islam versus Judaism.

The great religious wars between Islam and European Christianity.

The proxy war in Yemen between Iran-Persian Islam versus Saudi Islam. Yemen has been described as a giant cemetery.

The current conflict between Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan.

 

[bilby]

A better way to measure religious belief is to count attendance at churches, temples and mosques.

And I've read that there's right ways and wrong ways to do even that.

Ask someone, "Did you go to church last week?" and many people will say Yes, because they know that's what they are supposed to say, even though they didn't actually go.

By contrast, ask someone, 'What did you do Saturday morning? What did you do Saturday evening? Sunday morning? Sunday evening?" and so forth, then you'll get better results when at no time during the week people say, "I went to religious services."

Why ask? Just go to the church and count heads.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

A better way to measure religious belief is to count attendance at churches, temples and mosques.

And I've read that there's right ways and wrong ways to do even that.

Ask someone, "Did you go to church last week?" and many people will say Yes, because they know that's what they are supposed to say, even though they didn't actually go.

By contrast, ask someone, 'What did you do Saturday morning? What did you do Saturday evening? Sunday morning? Sunday evening?" and so forth, then you'll get better results when at no time during the week people say, "I went to religious services."

Why ask? Just go to the church and count heads.

Jebus! Churches sound hardcore in Australia!

 

[Wiploc]

Atheism isn't an ideology, it's just a single idea - that there are no Gods.

You're describing strong atheism, but weak atheists are atheists too.

Theists: Those who believe that gods do exist.
Strong atheists: Those who believe that gods do not exist.
Weak atheists: Everybody else.

 

[bilby]

Atheism isn't an ideology, it's just a single idea - that there are no Gods.

You're describing strong atheism, but weak atheists are atheists too.

Theists: Those who believe that gods do exist.
Strong atheists: Those who believe that gods do not exist.
Weak atheists: Everybody else.

Sure, but that doesn't in any way contradict what I said.

It's a single idea. Are there any gods? If your answer is not yes, you are an atheist; And that you are an atheist tells us exactly nothing about any other ideas you might (or might not) have.

As you correctly point out, it doesn't even tell us anything about how much (if at all) you care about that one idea.

 

[pood]

Let’s not forget apatheists, who don’t give a shit whether god exists or not. Or fideists, who believe god exists but admit there is no evidence for god but don’t care. They just believe anyway. Which I think is fine. It’s better than those who make all sorts of ridiculous evidentiary claims for god that are easily refuted.

 

[WAB]

Quote of the day:

"Senator, I'd be careful what you read in books, and believing it...except for the Bible."

- Pete Hegseth to Senator Elissa Slotkin.


!

 

[pood]

Lucretius had his own interesting take. He believed gods existed and lived in blissful immortality but never interacted with humans and couldn’t care less about them. I could get behind those gods. I don’t care about them either.

ETA: I mean I don’t care about those gods, not humans. But on further introspection, I have to admit I don’t care much about other people either, though I wish them well.

 

[Elixir]

Atheism isn't an ideology, it's just a single idea - that there are no Gods.

You're describing strong atheism, but weak atheists are atheists too.

Theists: Those who believe that gods do exist.
Strong atheists: Those who believe that gods do not exist.
Weak atheists: Everybody else.

So .. are weak atheists a subset of agnostics, or is it the other way around?

 

[pood]

Atheism isn't an ideology, it's just a single idea - that there are no Gods.

You're describing strong atheism, but weak atheists are atheists too.

Theists: Those who believe that gods do exist.
Strong atheists: Those who believe that gods do not exist.
Weak atheists: Everybody else.

So .. are weak atheists a subset of agnostics, or is it the other way around?

That standard idea is that strong atheists positively believe that gods do not exist. The weak atheist simply lacks a belief in god. The agnostic is one who differentiates belief claims from knowledge claims. So an agnostic may say that while he lacks a belief in god, or even believes that god does not exist, he does not know: a-gnosis = not knowing. You also can have people believing that god exists but admitting they do not know that. So you can have atheist agnostics and theist agnostics.

 

[pood]

I identify in my profile as an agnostic but really that should probably be philosophical skeptic, one who doubts all knowledge claims.

 

[Elixir]

I identify in my profile as an agnostic but really that should probably be philosophical skeptic, one who doubts all knowledge claims.

Pan-agnostic?
Let me know when you settle on a label so I can steal it.