Where are the Christian skeptics?

[ronburgundy]

We both live in Copenhagen. She goes to church every Sunday. She prays. She takes her worship very seriously. But yes, you nailed her belief well. She's a scientifically minded engineer. She'd never claim to have faith in something with a vague definition. She knows the paradoxes of Christian theology well. She understands the difference between feeling something being true and something being objectively true. As far as she is concerned her degree of belief is as strong as is possible, given the available evidence. She thinks that anybody more sure of the existence of God than her is just deluding themselves. To her that is good enough. She's very intelligent. Much smarter than me.

She grew up in an athiestic family. Her parents make fun of her religion all the time. They're actually dicks about it. In Scandinavia making fun of religious people is a fairly safe hobby. We're not nice to the religious. Denmark is better than Sweden though

So, it would seem that to qualify as having "Christian" beliefs in any meaningful sense one would need to at least sincerely believe that it is more likely than not that the character and words of Jesus are more likely to be true than not. Which in turn entails believing that the God of Abraham as described in the Old Testament (who Jesus believed in endorsed all his "laws") are also true. Is that the case for your girlfriend? If so, that would mean she thinks that position can be rationally defended, which it cannot be, so that would imply that she does not make any honest effort to think rationally about her religious beliefs. And if she doesn't believe that but still calls herself a Christian, then it implies she not being rational about whether she is really a Christian and playing a kind of semantic con on herself.

In a spirit of helpfulness, I have bolded your unwarranted assumptions for you.

In a usual pattern, you provide no
rational argument. All those "assumptions"
have rational and logical support. The fact that you are not willing to engage in reasoning is likely why you pretend to be bothe "skeptical" and a "Christian".

 

[Politesse]

In a spirit of helpfulness, I have bolded your unwarranted assumptions for you.

In a usual pattern, you provide no
rational argument. All those "assumptions"
have rational and logical support. The fact that you are not willing to engage in reasoning is likely why you pretend to be bothe "skeptical" and a "Christian".

The only rationale you have offered for any of the above is that you believe it must be so. It obviously does not "seem" to everyone that there is some rubric of minimum beliefs that must be fulfilled for someone to be Christian, or we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place. So you are asserting that this must be so, but not explaining why. Then you have a number of statements of probability about the trueness of Jesus' words, which originate in you rather than the informant or any other source extant in the conversation. You then state an double entailment, both a belief in the God "described by the Old Testament" (as though that were a singular and uncontroversial figure, laughably untrue) and that Jesus believed said figure "endorsed" his "laws", and I can't even figure out what laws you are referring to in that one but you certainly haven't cited your sources. Then you state that she must believe these things can be rationally defended, which directly contradicts how her position was described in the first place, so that one is obviously untrue but you make this unevidenced claim anyway. Then you claim to know something about how honest she is, an insult no less, which is ironic given that we have no evidence whatsoever that she has ever told any lies, whereas you packed at least three and maybe eight into a single paragraph.

And now you are claming that rationality and logic themselves endorse you, despite having been unable to demonstrate any of your claims with them. Fascinating in a way I guess, but not very informative.

 

[DrZoidberg]

We both live in Copenhagen. She goes to church every Sunday. She prays. She takes her worship very seriously. But yes, you nailed her belief well. She's a scientifically minded engineer. She'd never claim to have faith in something with a vague definition. She knows the paradoxes of Christian theology well. She understands the difference between feeling something being true and something being objectively true. As far as she is concerned her degree of belief is as strong as is possible, given the available evidence. She thinks that anybody more sure of the existence of God than her is just deluding themselves. To her that is good enough. She's very intelligent. Much smarter than me.

She grew up in an athiestic family. Her parents make fun of her religion all the time. They're actually dicks about it. In Scandinavia making fun of religious people is a fairly safe hobby. We're not nice to the religious. Denmark is better than Sweden though

So, it would seem that to qualify as having "Christian" beliefs in any meaningful sense one would need to at least sincerely believe that it is more likely than not that the character and words of Jesus are more likely to be true than not. Which in turn entails believing that the God of Abraham as described in the Old Testament (who Jesus believed in endorsed all his "laws") are also true. Is that the case for your girlfriend? If so, that would mean she thinks that position can be rationally defended, which it cannot be, so that would imply that she does not make any honest effort to think rationally about her religious beliefs. And if she doesn't believe that but still calls herself a Christian, then it implies she not being rational about whether she is really a Christian and playing a kind of semantic con on herself.

She thinks they are true in the sense that they are meaningful. But she considers the question of whether Jesus really existed or not an uninteresting question irrelevant for her faith. To her Christianity is very much tradition. It's something you do rather than believe. It's mental excercises that make you a better person. It's a community that help eachother in times of need.

She's really into tradition. She's a big supporter of the Danish royal family for instance. That makes no sense to me. I think that all royals in all nations should be taken out the back and shot. For the good of mankind.

Each year she takes part in the celebration honouring the fallen Danish resistance fighters of WW2 who fought the Nazis.

It's a pattern here. Feeling that she's a part of something greater than herself is very important to her. It could be anything really. The Christian church does provide this. She loves every aspect of the Christian church. It's up her alley.

She doesn't follow the commands of the Bible blindly. She treats the Biblical passages more like discussion points. Things to think about. She's not a fundamentalist at all.

FYI, I haven't argued with her about her faith or pressed her in any way. From the moment she said it I've been 100% accepting. So I don't know what she would say if I would press her on her faith. She's the one who started sending the atheist memes to me. I'd never argue with Christians I meet in my daily life like I argue with Christians on this forum. Christians who come here place themselves in the line of fire. Outside of the forum I can actually be a nice guy

 

[DrZoidberg]

I think Evengalical and fundamentalist Christianity is very hard to cling to in Northern Europe. I think it's a way of thinking. Let's call it "blind faith". Based on the evangelicals who visit this forum they often uphold a faith no matter the evidence. Americans on TV often uphold having religious faith as a virtue. We don't really have that here. Nobody here is going to see that as a virtue. Especially for a trained engineer. You are constantly going to around people who question it and think it's rediculous.

So I don't think my girlfriend is all that unique as a Danish Christian. I think she's a normal Scandinavian Christian.

The origin of the Danish church I think is relevant. The Danish Church is a protestant church. The original meaning of protestant fundamentalism (What Martin Luther called "ad fontes") is that it's up to each Christian to make up their own mind about the nature of God. That's the whole point of translating the Bible to the local languages. The crazy nutcase protestants, Evangelicals/Prespyterians, came later. They were the ones claiming that fundamentalism means that there is only one valid way to interpret the Bible and it was important to get it right. And that's the meaning fundamentalism has come to mean today.

But the Danish church is part of this first tradition. What we today label "Humanism" or "Christian Humanism". As, I think all national protestant churches of Northern Europe are. In the sermons the priest will give an interpretation, but then also often offer other ones and it's up to the individual Christian to figure out what the message means to them. I think it leads to the kind of faith my girlfriend has. And leads to the society Scandinavia has. We're seeped in this way of thinking. It permeates everything in how we think up here.

 

[Politesse]

I think Evengalical and fundamentalist Christianity is very hard to cling to in Northern Europe. I think it's a way of thinking. Let's call it "blind faith". Based on the evangelicals who visit this forum they often uphold a faith no matter the evidence. Americans on TV often uphold having religious faith as a virtue. We don't really have that here. Nobody here is going to see that as a virtue. Especially for a trained engineer. You are constantly going to around people who question it and think it's rediculous.

So I don't think my girlfriend is all that unique as a Danish Christian. I think she's a normal Scandinavian Christian.

The origin of the Danish church I think is relevant. The Danish Church is a protestant church. The original meaning of protestant fundamentalism (What Martin Luther called "ad fontes") is that it's up to each Christian to make up their own mind about the nature of God. That's the whole point of translating the Bible to the local languages. The crazy nutcase protestants, Evangelicals/Prespyterians, came later. They were the ones claiming that fundamentalism means that there is only one valid way to interpret the Bible and it was important to get it right. And that's the meaning fundamentalism has come to mean today.

But the Danish church is part of this first tradition. What we today label "Humanism" or "Christian Humanism". As, I think all national protestant churches of Northern Europe are. In the sermons the priest will give an interpretation, but then also often offer other ones and it's up to the individual Christian to figure out what the message means to them. I think it leads to the kind of faith my girlfriend has. And leads to the society Scandinavia has. We're seeped in this way of thinking. It permeates everything in how we think up here.

That's much how I was raised, most members of my childhood church were relatively "conservative" in the political sense (though that meant something very different then than it does now) and to some extent in their approach to the faith. But the Lutheran "orthodoxy" places a lot of emphasis on study, prayer, and discernment, and the pastor was not inclined to lay out specific dogmas for people to follow or tell them outright that any belief of theirs was wrong, or that he/she knew anything about the eternal fate of their soul, other than to advise them to trust in and look to God for any consolation they might need in that regard. I think I remember the subject of hell coming up in sermons maybe three or four times during my youth? Substitutionary atonement, maybe a few more times and always with a proviso. But I mean, church life was all old folks singing hymns, potluck dinners and soup suppers with lutefisk, lefse, and mysterious jello molds, quiet admonitions to seek god with fear and trust. Everyone dressed up nicely and behaved in a reserved fashion, the scriptures were read with adoration, communion was shared, there was a lot of singing. I was very surprised in young adulthood, to realize that my childhood church was considered "liberal" in the modern American lexicon, because it would never have occurred to me to describe it that way until I saw more of the world and learned what madness the term "conservative" had come to describe.

 

[Angry Floof]

"Metaphorical Christianity" doesn't really make sense, either. You can apply some relevant meaning to the concepts such as the crucifixion being a metaphor for dying to the self and resurrection being the old self dying and the new, enlightened self arising. But given that the universe is stuffed full of innumerable symbols, concepts, objects, living things, and stories, anything you want that can serve as a symbol of your enlightenment and all the various ideas you value, symbols that are not human sacrifice, torture, ecstasy/torment dichotomies, etc. If it's metaphorical and not literal, then there's nothing stopping you from choosing more dignified, less cruel, violent, and ghoulish symbolism.

Metaphorical Christianity is really just the same tribalism and group identity attachment only modified to make the believer feel like they're more intelligent and enlightened than their backward literalist brethren.

 

[Politesse]

If it's metaphorical and not literal, then there's nothing stopping you from choosing more dignified, less cruel, violent, and ghoulish symbolism.

If you want a sanitized, pleasant, friendly symbolic set, there are indeed many on offer. My other faith community, revival Neo-Paganism, relies on positive metaphors up to (and often past, in my opinion) a fault. But that's not necessarily where everyone is at. Jesus' life is a lesson in the all the outcomes of Love, the good and the terrifying. If you strip away the medieval theology, you're left with a man who gave up every part of himself but felt at the end that he had given up nothing one should truly fear to lose. Is that ghoulish? Maybe. But the world is full of ghouls, and the macabre is as real as the numinous. In such dark places, many find more comfort in wise company than they would in well-intentioned denialism.

I am baffled as to what a "non-metaphorical" Christianity would look like, by the way. I assume you mean "with the Bible literally interpreted", but the book you are referencing is stuffed end to end with metaphorical meaning, and I have never encountered a Christian church that eschewed those metaphors. When we say "the Lamb of God" or "the lion of Judah" or "the dove of peace", we are not inviting a panoply of literal animals into the chapel with us, those are metaphors. There's nothing wrong with metaphor. Humans make sense of life with metaphors. Atheists, too, everyone. Metaphors are central to the structure of human understanding.

 

[Angry Floof]

If it's metaphorical and not literal, then there's nothing stopping you from choosing more dignified, less cruel, violent, and ghoulish symbolism.

If you want a sanitized, pleasant, friendly symbolic set,

No, just dignified, humane, not cruel, something better than the absolute worst and most violent human behavior, something that represents the uniquely human capacity for self awareness and striving for something more than animal brain violence.

Do you really believe that anything not as inhumane, psychologically harmful, fear based, violence based as Christian concepts are all "sanitized, pleasant, friendly"? And thanks for demonstrating yet again the same old tiresome responses from apologists when their truly insane religious concepts are described in terms they don't like. Seriously, I think you could do so much better if you weren't so reactive to these kinds of comments that you just blurt out whatever seems to shove atheists into the hateful and tired old "selfish, savage" demonizations typical of religious world views.

there are indeed many on offer. My other faith community, revival Neo-Paganism, relies on positive metaphors up to (and often past, in my opinion) a fault.

Well, when your way of thinking is steeped in backward, fear and violence based, humanity-hating theology, I guess seeing your own human experience, spirituality, and growth articulated in positive terms must be damn near offensive! Kudos on the restraint it must have taken to use the more understated "to a fault."

But that's not necessarily where everyone is at. Jesus' life is a lesson in the all the outcomes of Love, the good and the terrifying. If you strip away the medieval theology, you're left with a man who gave up every part of himself but felt at the end that he had given up nothing one should truly fear to lose. Is that ghoulish?

Well, when you leave out the three days of torture and human sacrifice, then maybe. But again, all those things you claim are important concepts to Christianity can also be symbolized by, as we both agree, just about anything our minds can imagine. They are just symbols, after all. If love is what you value, it's quite psychotic to insist that execution by the most cruel and bloody practice of crucifixion is the best representation. But believers and atheists alike all know damn well that it's the human sacrifice that is central to Christian theology. Talk of love in terms of what humans can actually experience are afterthoughts at best. That ghoulish scene represents God's supposedly magical supernatural love, not human love. Pretending your own first hand human experience of love is symbolized by that is a stretch at best. It's possible for a human to experience an all consuming, unconditional love for humanity and all life, but the magical Christian God love is not actually unconditional at all. I find human seeking, with all its failure and confusion amid the transformative, transcendent experiences (that require no religious teaching), much more rewarding, revealing, and inspiring and real than convoluted magical abusive daddy figures who supposedly love in a way that we can't.

Maybe. But the world is full of ghouls, and the macabre is as real as the numinous.

Then why pretend that ghoulishness is the highest form of love?? Darkness and death have their place in human experience and can't be ignored, Christianity does not respect the reality of darkness or death in human experience. Darkness represents evil and separation from that "loving" God in Christianity. These concepts are only useful in scaring people or leading them in their despair to fall for the social dominance cult under the guise of helping and forgiveness and light. No one needs any religion to experiencing altruism or forgiveness. These are powerful, often life changing human experiences. And it is one of the nastiest aspects of organized (meaning created by humans) religion that in their darkness and despair, people are preyed upon by religious conmen. We are all better off accepting the reality of suffering and striving to lift one another, and the reality of death and facing it as it comes when it can't be prevented or prevention isn't wanted. We are better off facing the darkness of ignorance and striving toward the light of knowledge and self awareness. (Talk to a mainstream Christian congregation in these terms and you'll be thrown right out! lol Ignorance equates to innocence in Xianity and history is full of burned and destroyed libraries and schools to show for it.)

In such dark places, many find more comfort in wise company than they would in well-intentioned denialism.

I agree. Humanism is better than inhumane religion.

I am baffled as to what a "non-metaphorical" Christianity would look like, by the way. I assume you mean "with the Bible literally interpreted",

Yes. Why is that baffling? Almost the entirety of mainstream Christianity in the US has gone way south in terms of literalism. The headlines are constantly flowing with evidence of this widespread mode of religious thinking.

but the book you are referencing is stuffed end to end with metaphorical meaning,

And it is anybody's guess as to what parts are metaphorical and what is historical and what is meant to be taken as literal, supernatural events. I'm actually baffled as to how Christian apologists can pretend this isn't so.

and I have never encountered a Christian church that eschewed those metaphors. When we say "the Lamb of God" or "the lion of Judah" or "the dove of peace", we are not inviting a panoply of literal animals into the chapel with us, those are metaphors.

Burning bushes, talking snakes, seven-day creation, virgin birth, resurrection, getting beamed up into heaven... These are important tenets of Christianity, are they not? Taking everything in the Bible as metaphorical and interpreted how you please is considered heretical. Try going to your church and preaching Gnostic Christianity!

There's nothing wrong with metaphor. Humans make sense of life with metaphors. Atheists, too, everyone. Metaphors are central to the structure of human understanding.

I never said otherwise. I agree. I find using metaphors, symbolism, and even ritual to be essential to spiritual practice. But I just think that practice, if it's honest, comes from within the individual, not from any religion, although some can offer inspiration. And not just in spiritual practice, but in art and literature and everyday life and communication and human thought and experience.

I've said this before and I'll keep on saying it. If your religion disparages humanness and places itself as superior to human beings, it will always, always serve to bring suffering and conflict to the world.

There is one strain of Christianity that I do respect and admire, and that is The Friends, aka, Quakers. There may be plenty there for atheists to criticize, but when it comes down to the kind of spiritual growth that produces better humans than when they started, the Quaker faith sits in stark opposition to mainstream Protestants and Catholicism. One of the most sacred (and humane, and honest, and realistic, imo) tenets of The Friends ideology is respect for autonomy. No one can tell anyone else how to interpret the divine in their own human experience, even adults cannot tell children what to believe about God (or not). That and two other core Quaker tenets - the lack of authority figures and pacifism - serve well to mitigate the authoritarianism, violence, and predatory evangelical nature of mainstream Christian denominations and sects that we see almost everywhere there is a Christian presence in society. (Same with Islam, for much the same reasons. Xianity and Islam are the same dog barking at itself in a mirror.)

But I digress... I tend to do that on topics that I love and have spent years thinking and talking and reading about.

 

[Politesse]

Do you really believe that anything not as inhumane, psychologically harmful, fear based, violence based as Christian concepts are all "sanitized, pleasant, friendly"?

You seem to clearly have a very particular idea of what "christian concepts" are or might be, and are making the assumption that a "metaphorical reading" of Christianity would just be a non-literal version of those concepts, rather than a different persepctive outright. This is not a good way to approach the wide and diverse world of non-Fundamentalist Christianity.

And thanks for demonstrating yet again the same old tiresome responses from apologists when their truly insane religious concepts are described in terms they don't like. Seriously, I think you could do so much better if you weren't so reactive to these kinds of comments that you just blurt out whatever seems to shove atheists into the hateful and tired old "selfish, savage" demonizations typical of religious world views.

You're complaining about being seen as savage, literally one sentence after describing your imagined ideological opponents as "the worst and most violent" humanity has to offer. I wonder, do you fiind you give that impression a lot? If so, I think the problem is not so much that you are an atheist, as that you are being kind of mean to other people for no reason. If so, this is easily fixed, without needing to change any of your philosophical views.

Well, when your way of thinking is steeped in backward, fear and violence based, humanity-hating theology, I guess seeing your own human experience, spirituality, and growth articulated in positive terms must be damn near offensive! Kudos on the restraint it must have taken to use the more understated "to a fault."

You seem to be reading everything I write through some sort of ideological sieve. If I found magickal folk offensive, I wouldn't be work with them in the first place. I don't find Pagan thealogy offensive, just a bit naive at times.

Well, when you leave out the three days of torture and human sacrifice, then maybe.

I doubt very much that DrZoidberg's girlfriend ascribes to that particular twisted interpretation of the Scriptures, and even if she does, it's obviously not what draws her to the faith.

If love is what you value, it's quite psychotic to insist that execution by the most cruel and bloody practice of crucifixion is the best representation.

Crucifixion, to be clear, is not a symbol of love. Being willing to sacrifice oneself for the people you love, is another matter. Yes, I know that American conservatives think God was both victim and executioner in this scenario, but we're not discussing American conservatives.

Talk of love in terms of what humans can actually experience are afterthoughts at best.

Afterthoughts to whom? Skeptics? We're supposedly talking about skeptics, why would that be an afterthought?

That ghoulish scene represents God's supposedly magical supernatural love, not human love.

Again, you're bringing your own train to the party, and pretending it is what all of your "enemies" believe, rather than listening to what they actually do believe.

Then why pretend that ghoulishness is the highest form of love??

Again, it is not. Perserverance through darkness, on the other hand, often shows the very best of humanity.

These concepts are only useful in scaring people or leading them in their despair to fall for the social dominance cult under the guise of helping and forgiveness and light.

I do not agree.

Humanism is better than inhumane religion.

Well yeah. It's also not a religiously partisan philosophy, no matter how much atheist activists want to believe that it is.

Yes. Why is that baffling? Almost the entirety of mainstream Christianity in the US has gone way south in terms of literalism. The headlines are constantly flowing with evidence of this widespread mode of religious thinking.

Even if that were true, anyone who describes or thinks of themselves as a skeptic probably does not choose their beliefs on the basis of majority rule.

And it is anybody's guess as to what parts are metaphorical and what is historical and what is meant to be taken as literal, supernatural events. I'm actually baffled as to how Christian apologists can pretend this isn't so.

Which is not a foreign thought to any skeptic.

Burning bushes, talking snakes, seven-day creation, virgin birth, resurrection, getting beamed up into heaven... These are important tenets of Christianity, are they not?

Depends who you're talking to. The thread is about Christians who are much less likely to believe in any of the above as literal realities, almost by definition.

Taking everything in the Bible as metaphorical and interpreted how you please is considered heretical. Try going to your church and preaching Gnostic Christianity!

I don't go every week, but I am on friendly terms with a Gnostic church in my area. They're good people, actually. I'd rather hang with them than with someone who insists I am the "worst of humanity" because we disagree on some point of doctrine, I assure you! The Gnostic Mass is beautiful, the bishop's homilies generally insightful, and the congregation unfailingly kind.

If your religion disparages humanness and places itself as superior to human beings, it will always, always serve to bring suffering and conflict to the world.

I agree. So? Why are you taking the side of those who do that in spades, calling them "obvious" and "everyone" and "the mainstream", while disparaging and slandering the many Christians those who don't?

There is one strain of Christianity that I do respect and admire, and that is The Friends, aka, Quakers.

So... basically you've only ever heard of one liberal Christian congregation and are assuming they are abnormal? Obviously, anyone who considers themselves skeptical likely agrees with the Friends on questions of intellectual autonomy. You're attacking people who are more like the Friends than not like them. Viciously attacking, in fact. Perhaps you would do well to actually listen to the central ideas of Quakerism, rather than just admiring them from afar. I've certainly never been savaged by a Friend the way you seem to be trying to do. On the contrary, I have always been made to feel very welcome in their communities, for which I am grateful.

 

[Angry Floof]

1. Everyone knows what Christian concepts are, regardless of level of literalism.

2. I didn't say anyone was savage, but that the concepts Christians value reflect some of the most depraved and savage and backward aspects of human thought and behavior. Beliefs are not people.

3. If it feels like putting your religious concepts in terms you don't like is "being mean," that is your issue, not mine.

4. I don't know what the relevance of "magicKal folk" is to this discussion. My talking about finding more humane and positive symbols prompted you to dismiss the idea as "sanitized, pleasant, friendly," as if there is only silly positivity or the Christian disdain of humanness, and no in between. I criticized the negative nature of Christian concepts and you responded that suggesting a more positive and less ghoulish representation is simply seeking palatability.

5. I don't believe Dr Zoidberg is any kind of religious and not sure why you bring him up, and my point is pretty clear. Do you want to read my comment and what I'm responding to of yours again? Because your response is a non sequitur. You pointed out some of the more obvious metaphors of Christianity and I responded with some of the more central and basic Christian concepts that are widely taken as literal and non-literal interpretations are considered heretical. This is not some fringe sects. It's any mainstream Catholic or Protestant denomination you care to name. The heretical metaphorical interpretations of the virgin birth, the crucifixion and resurrection are the outliers of Christendom. So I'm not sure what you think you're defending.

6. We absolutely are discussing American conservatives as well as conservative Christians everywhere, and even some liberal Christians. There are pitiful few actual skeptics among them, which is what the thread is about. See the OP if needed. And, yes, the Christian god is described in many ways in many Bible passages as executioner, punisher, judge, sentencer, allowing his supposed son to be murdered in the most brutal and painful way possible as part of his divine plan. Come on, you are not fooling anyone.

7. Again, please reread my comment instead of twisting it into a straw man. Ordinary human love is not the love that Christianity values. Oh, sure, lots of Christians talk about loving our families and friends and being more loving in our interactions, etc., of course, but all that is secondary and inferior to the agape or unconditional love of the God they believe in. "God first, then family and friends, then self" is the order of priority commonly expressed by Christians of myriad stripes. If your human love causes you to forget or turn away from your religious belief, you are failing in your faith. Please stop trying to excuse the shit we all know about with hypothetical individual cases where someone you know preaches that all love is the same or some shit. You know damn well what we're talking about.

8. You are not my enemy. That's a right wing authoritarian concept well steeped in Christianity. I can disagree with someone and, frankly, even hate some individuals, without seeing them in an us vs. them framework. MY tribe is humanity, whatever its flaws and shortcomings and assholes. But if yours isn't, it's not surprising that you would apply that framework to my comments. What else could you do? If you experienced not thinking in those terms, you'd probably not think in those terms and wouldn't automatically accuse me of the only framework you understand. Christianity is fundamentally us vs. them, divisive, exclusive, and demonizing of outgroups. That some Christians are nicer and less dogmatic about this than others doesn't change that fact. Put them in the right conditions with the right pressures, and they'll either have an epiphanous revelation that their religion is inhumane garbage or they will become just as violent and stupid as their more vehement fundamentalist brethren. There is nothing in Christianity to mitigate an us vs. them world view and quite a lot to reinforce it. You're free to revisit that accusation.

9. If perseverance is what is valued, why not value perseverance? But Christianity worships human sacrifice. "Perseverance" is another afterthought, part of the window dressing of kindness and love in a, again, fucking ghoulish worship of human sacrifice, a story taken as literal by the vast majority of Catholic and Protestant denominations (this is readily available information), within an overall psychologically damaging, at best stunting, religious system.

10. What is not a religiously partisan philosophy? Humanism or Christianity? If the former, yes, agreed. No one said otherwise. Stop with the straw man shit. If you mean Christianity, yes, it damn well is religiously partisan!

11. Yes, the thread is about Christians less likely to take their bullshit literally, but that wasn't the point I was making there, as you damn well know.

12. I don't slander the Christians who don't, but I do criticize them and hold them accountable for their contribution to the social power of a backward, inhumane identity group. (But then, Christians also worship the tribal name. The label of "Christian" is more important to believers than truth or honesty or humanity as a whole. Don't believe me? Ask one to drop the label and see how they react. They equate the label to actual belief, or even the actual supposed personal relationship to God, which, when you think about it, isn't the kind of thing that would depend on what you call yourself, is it?) That social identity power that spans the world serves more as dead weight on humanity and an impediment to the peace and well being of a tribe of seven billion, and I don't care how liberal a Christian is, they contribute to that whether or not they recognize it or acknowledge it. The self image or the feeling of moral superiority is too great to admit that you might be contributing to something much bigger than yourself and it's a something that is inhumane and depraved in its effects on human beings and societies. That one's individual hands have never committed atrocity makes it easy to turn a blind eye and pretend it's all goodness.

The rest of your post is just more of you twisting and pretending to not understand my points. Suffice it to say that the religion you jump to defend with the same tired old "arguments" and attitudes is backward and stunted and inhumane and is a cultish social club, and you have to do some serious mental tap dancing to defend it, as you demonstrate every time someone describes Biblical religions in terms that are less than flattering.

 

[Politesse]

The rest of your post is just more of you twisting and pretending to not understand my points. Suffice it to say that the religion you jump to defend with the same tired old "arguments" and attitudes is backward and stunted and inhumane and is a cultish social club, and you have to do some serious mental tap dancing to defend it, as you demonstrate every time someone describes Biblical religions in terms that are less than flattering.

Or any other religion. It is unequivocally and unsecretly my position that all cultures of the world contain something worth celebrating and considering, and I am not in any way fond of blanket bigotry against anyone.

Yes, the thread is about Christians less likely to take their bullshit literally, but that wasn't the point I was making there, as you damn well know.

If you realize that what you're talking about is not what the thread's about, why are you wasting your time with it?

I don't really know how to respond to the rest of your points without repeating myself. You have a very skewed view of what Christianity is or could be, and you are asserting your perspective to be the only one worth considering, but that isn't so, and it wouldn't matter to a skeptic even if it were. It's odd to me that you seem to be educated enough to know that there are other versions of Christianity than the one you're describing - the Friends, Gnosticism - but for some reason seem to think they aren't important to the question, rather than being, as they actually are, good examples on non-crazy Christian groups that do in fact exist.

 

[DrZoidberg]

"Metaphorical Christianity" doesn't really make sense, either. You can apply some relevant meaning to the concepts such as the crucifixion being a metaphor for dying to the self and resurrection being the old self dying and the new, enlightened self arising. But given that the universe is stuffed full of innumerable symbols, concepts, objects, living things, and stories, anything you want that can serve as a symbol of your enlightenment and all the various ideas you value, symbols that are not human sacrifice, torture, ecstasy/torment dichotomies, etc. If it's metaphorical and not literal, then there's nothing stopping you from choosing more dignified, less cruel, violent, and ghoulish symbolism.

Metaphorical Christianity is really just the same tribalism and group identity attachment only modified to make the believer feel like they're more intelligent and enlightened than their backward literalist brethren.

Every work of fiction is metaphors for things in the real world. That's why we like fiction, why it's relevant and why we give a shit.

I don't think you've thougt this through.

 

[Angry Floof]

"Metaphorical Christianity" doesn't really make sense, either. You can apply some relevant meaning to the concepts such as the crucifixion being a metaphor for dying to the self and resurrection being the old self dying and the new, enlightened self arising. But given that the universe is stuffed full of innumerable symbols, concepts, objects, living things, and stories, anything you want that can serve as a symbol of your enlightenment and all the various ideas you value, symbols that are not human sacrifice, torture, ecstasy/torment dichotomies, etc. If it's metaphorical and not literal, then there's nothing stopping you from choosing more dignified, less cruel, violent, and ghoulish symbolism.

Metaphorical Christianity is really just the same tribalism and group identity attachment only modified to make the believer feel like they're more intelligent and enlightened than their backward literalist brethren.

Every work of fiction is metaphors for things in the real world. That's why we like fiction, why it's relevant and why we give a shit.

I don't think you've thougt this through.

I don't think you understood my post.

 

[DrZoidberg]

"Metaphorical Christianity" doesn't really make sense, either. You can apply some relevant meaning to the concepts such as the crucifixion being a metaphor for dying to the self and resurrection being the old self dying and the new, enlightened self arising. But given that the universe is stuffed full of innumerable symbols, concepts, objects, living things, and stories, anything you want that can serve as a symbol of your enlightenment and all the various ideas you value, symbols that are not human sacrifice, torture, ecstasy/torment dichotomies, etc. If it's metaphorical and not literal, then there's nothing stopping you from choosing more dignified, less cruel, violent, and ghoulish symbolism.

Metaphorical Christianity is really just the same tribalism and group identity attachment only modified to make the believer feel like they're more intelligent and enlightened than their backward literalist brethren.

Every work of fiction is metaphors for things in the real world. That's why we like fiction, why it's relevant and why we give a shit.

I don't think you've thougt this through.

I don't think you understood my post.

But my girlfriend is also into tradition. She likes that Christianity is old, has a well established organisation, it works, is proven to work. So she has no problem with it. She's also fiercely feminist and argues against the misogynistic passages of the Bible. She doesn't seem to see herself as somebody that needs to be taught so much as that the church is a collective effort by a community to build something together. She doesn't seem to see the hierarchy in church. Which is a very Scandinavian way of organising society or just anything.

So the goulish parts of the Bible isn't a problem for her type of faith. She can ignore the icky parts.

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't want to get into an argument or write a long post. I just want to mention that I used to know two atheist Christians. I met them at two different atheist groups that I was involved in at the time. I met the first one in 2006 and the second one around 2010 or so. They both attended church, probably for the community, the opportunity to be involved in charity and I guess out of love or like of some of the Christian mythology.

So, while I'm not interested in anything involving Christianity for myself, probably at least partially due to the fact that I was indoctrinated as a child into a rather extreme version of evangelicalism, I can at least respect people who do find a need or have a love of a liberal version of most any religious mythology. I'm more interested in character than the religious traditions that one holds dear. This view has enabled me to be close friends with a few Christian women who share most of the values that I do. I love diversity of many kinds, even the diversity of mythology. What would atheist have to talk about if it weren't for religion?

Reading some of the works of Joseph Campbell helped me appreciate how mythology is important in the lives of many people. It's just that when you've been a little bit emotionally damaged by an extreme version of Christian mythology, it's sometimes hard to look beyond that. And, living in he Bible Belt does kind of turn you off to the Christian mythology. So, I can understand why some atheists have a deep distrust and dislike of anything Christian. It's complicated.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't want to get into an argument or write a long post. I just want to mention that I used to know two atheist Christians. I met them at two different atheist groups that I was involved in at the time. I met the first one in 2006 and the second one around 2010 or so. They both attended church, probably for the community, the opportunity to be involved in charity and I guess out of love or like of some of the Christian mythology.

So, while I'm not interested in anything involving Christianity for myself, probably at least partially due to the fact that I was indoctrinated as a child into a rather extreme version of evangelicalism, I can at least respect people who do find a need or have a love of a liberal version of most any religious mythology. I'm more interested in character than the religious traditions that one holds dear. This view has enabled me to be close friends with a few Christian women who share most of the values that I do. I love diversity of many kinds, even the diversity of mythology. What would atheist have to talk about if it weren't for religion?

Reading some of the works of Joseph Campbell helped me appreciate how mythology is important in the lives of many people. It's just that when you've been a little bit emotionally damaged by an extreme version of Christian mythology, it's sometimes hard to look beyond that. And, living in he Bible Belt does kind of turn you off to the Christian mythology. So, I can understand why some atheists have a deep distrust and dislike of anything Christian. It's complicated.

I think I understand where you are coming from. To me it sounds like your problem is with fascistic or totalitarian ways of thinking. That is an anti-freethought vision of the world. We have a similar situation within feminism in Sweden. If you are not strongly in support of feminism it's hard to function in Sweden. Anybody who has a problem with it learns to keep their mouths shut. Brainwashing goes on in every level. I'm personally very pro feminism. So on one level I'm happy about the situation. But I'm not happy in the way feminism is rammed down everybody's throat in Sweden and the way people who don't support the cause are ostricised. It puts me off it and makes me unwilling to associate myself with it.

I like tolerance. I want a society where people feel free to express themselves any way they want, and it's encouraged. It's got to be ok to agree to disagree.

is that what you mean?

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't want to get into an argument or write a long post. I just want to mention that I used to know two atheist Christians. I met them at two different atheist groups that I was involved in at the time. I met the first one in 2006 and the second one around 2010 or so. They both attended church, probably for the community, the opportunity to be involved in charity and I guess out of love or like of some of the Christian mythology.

So, while I'm not interested in anything involving Christianity for myself, probably at least partially due to the fact that I was indoctrinated as a child into a rather extreme version of evangelicalism, I can at least respect people who do find a need or have a love of a liberal version of most any religious mythology. I'm more interested in character than the religious traditions that one holds dear. This view has enabled me to be close friends with a few Christian women who share most of the values that I do. I love diversity of many kinds, even the diversity of mythology. What would atheist have to talk about if it weren't for religion?

Reading some of the works of Joseph Campbell helped me appreciate how mythology is important in the lives of many people. It's just that when you've been a little bit emotionally damaged by an extreme version of Christian mythology, it's sometimes hard to look beyond that. And, living in he Bible Belt does kind of turn you off to the Christian mythology. So, I can understand why some atheists have a deep distrust and dislike of anything Christian. It's complicated.

I think I understand where you are coming from. To me it sounds like your problem is with fascistic or totalitarian ways of thinking. That is an anti-freethought vision of the world. We have a similar situation within feminism in Sweden. If you are not strongly in support of feminism it's hard to function in Sweden. Anybody who has a problem with it learns to keep their mouths shut. Brainwashing goes on in every level. I'm personally very pro feminism. So on one level I'm happy about the situation. But I'm not happy in the way feminism is rammed down everybody's throat in Sweden and the way people who don't support the cause are ostricised. It puts me off it and makes me unwilling to associate myself with it.

I like tolerance. I want a society where people feel free to express themselves any way they want, and it's encouraged. It's got to be ok to agree to disagree.

is that what you mean?

I guess so. I strongly believe in tolerance, but if someone has hateful views that have the potential to hurt other people, I don't think we need to tolerate that point of view. Perhaps, I'm reading too much into your comment about tolerance. It's certainly okay to agree to disagree, but there are views that we don't need to tolerate. I don't think we need to tolerate racism, hatred, sexism or bigotry of any kind.

Where I live, the word feminism isn't very popular any longer. To me, feminism simply means that women are entitled to social, economic and political equality. Nothing more and nothing less. But, we are getting off of the topic.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't want to get into an argument or write a long post. I just want to mention that I used to know two atheist Christians. I met them at two different atheist groups that I was involved in at the time. I met the first one in 2006 and the second one around 2010 or so. They both attended church, probably for the community, the opportunity to be involved in charity and I guess out of love or like of some of the Christian mythology.

So, while I'm not interested in anything involving Christianity for myself, probably at least partially due to the fact that I was indoctrinated as a child into a rather extreme version of evangelicalism, I can at least respect people who do find a need or have a love of a liberal version of most any religious mythology. I'm more interested in character than the religious traditions that one holds dear. This view has enabled me to be close friends with a few Christian women who share most of the values that I do. I love diversity of many kinds, even the diversity of mythology. What would atheist have to talk about if it weren't for religion?

Reading some of the works of Joseph Campbell helped me appreciate how mythology is important in the lives of many people. It's just that when you've been a little bit emotionally damaged by an extreme version of Christian mythology, it's sometimes hard to look beyond that. And, living in he Bible Belt does kind of turn you off to the Christian mythology. So, I can understand why some atheists have a deep distrust and dislike of anything Christian. It's complicated.

I think I understand where you are coming from. To me it sounds like your problem is with fascistic or totalitarian ways of thinking. That is an anti-freethought vision of the world. We have a similar situation within feminism in Sweden. If you are not strongly in support of feminism it's hard to function in Sweden. Anybody who has a problem with it learns to keep their mouths shut. Brainwashing goes on in every level. I'm personally very pro feminism. So on one level I'm happy about the situation. But I'm not happy in the way feminism is rammed down everybody's throat in Sweden and the way people who don't support the cause are ostricised. It puts me off it and makes me unwilling to associate myself with it.

I like tolerance. I want a society where people feel free to express themselves any way they want, and it's encouraged. It's got to be ok to agree to disagree.

is that what you mean?

I guess so. I strongly believe in tolerance, but if someone has hateful views that have the potential to hurt other people, I don't think we need to tolerate that point of view. Perhaps, I'm reading too much into your comment about tolerance. It's certainly okay to agree to disagree, but there are views that we don't need to tolerate. I don't think we need to tolerate racism, hatred, sexism or bigotry of any kind.

Where I live, the word feminism isn't very popular any longer. To me, feminism simply means that women are entitled to social, economic and political equality. Nothing more and nothing less. But, we are getting off of the topic.

We think alike. Tolerance is sacred to me. To me feminism just means that we shouldn't use social norms to dictate to women how they shold run their lives. They should be free to live their lives in whatever way they see fit, and the rest of society should STFU. I don't like either gender being tied by an ideological straight jacket. And the laws and social norms should be adapted to make that possible.

In Sweden feminism is out of control. It's dogmatic, intolerant and at this point bizarre. Because there's no internal function within the movement to sort out the crazies. Any feminists, no matter how crazy is defended, and anybody complaining is part of the patriachy and is an enemy.

I can compare it to Denmark, where I live now. Danish feminism is only positive. There's a healthy debate. Idiot feminists get called out. Not in Sweden. #MeToo in Denmark was only positive. It gave rise to a much needed debate with interesting discussions on both sides. In Sweden it became a witch hunt where every accused man was assumed guilty, which of course led to an avalanche of false accusations, which in hindsight was not a pretty sight and did not look feminists look good. It's become very unhealthy. It's a collective struggle to root out the evil controlling tendrils of the patriarchy. Which at this point has increasingly become a conspiracy theory. Reminds me a lot of how Maoists and Nazis had ever ongoing processes to hunt down the elusive counter revolutionaries/Jews.

 

[Lion IRC]

So, it would seem that to qualify as having "Christian" beliefs in any meaningful sense one would need to at least sincerely believe that it is more likely than not that the character and words of Jesus are more likely to be true than not. Which in turn entails believing that the God of Abraham as described in the Old Testament (who Jesus believed in endorsed all his "laws") are also true. Is that the case for your girlfriend? If so, that would mean she thinks that position can be rationally defended, which it cannot be, so that would imply that she does not make any honest effort to think rationally about her religious beliefs. And if she doesn't believe that but still calls herself a Christian, then it implies she not being rational about whether she is really a Christian and playing a kind of semantic con on herself.

This is a pretty good summary of the problem.

There's not a lot a lot of Facebook groups dedicated to the cause of double-think.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

My girlfriend is Christian. We get a lot of laughs from sending skeptic memes to eachother. She's part of a bunch of atheist and skeptic groups on Facebook. She's an engineer. She's very scientifically minded. A skeptic. She's very smart. She has a belief in belief. She'd never claim to have faith in that God exists. Because she knows the limits of human knowledge. She also thinks the Bible was written by humans. She thinks it was devinely inspired in the same way humans get inspired by anything. All she knows is that when she prays and goes to church it makes her happier, and helps her cope with life's difficulties. Belief in God works for her. And that's why she's a Christian.

Which I think is a very sensible way of being Christian. But she can't be unique.

Where are the skeptic groups on Facebook for people like her? Where are the skeptic groups of scientifically minded sensible Christians? I find nothing out there. Just looking at the numbers of Christians in USA, shouldn't Christian Skeptic groups be more common than Atheist skeptic groups? There's more of them.

I refuse to believe that all Christians are stupid. Any theories that can explain where the Skepic Christians are hiding?

If she remains in that kind of environment, she'll eventually recognize and admit her atheism. Christianity is a group effort. No one, not one single person, has ever been a Christian without other human beings around them reinforcing the idea.

She started out atheist. Without devulging too many personal details. She had a serious accident that gave her a long term crippling condition. She spiralled into depression and eventually became suicidal. Her family and boyfriend (at the time) was not suportive to the degree they needed to be. Out of sheer desperation she turned to the church. And they were awesome. She got the help and support she needed and they helped her through it. She has given me the impression that at no point did her beliefs change throughout all this. To quote her on why she goes to church "it just works for me".

At each service if she doesn't understand a Biblical message she will come up to the priest and ask him. She takes this shit very seriously. She just doesn't seem to worry so much about whether God exists or not.

For example, she doesn't believe in Heaven, or the afterlife. She thinks it's just something we tell children to make them less upset about granny being dead. She thinks that sensible Christians must surely understand, on some level, that that part is all bullshit.

The official stance on the Bible in the church of Denmark is that it's full of flaws and a product of it's time. It's not a fundamentalist denomination. She shares this belief. Which gives believers a lot of lattitude on faith.

Sounds to me like she enjoys the rituals and the community, understandable given what she went through. It could be called the church of XYZ and she'd be an XYZian.