My friend UnkleE and I have been having a wide-ranging discussion on several topics related to Christianity that ultimately come down to epistemology, or how Christians know God’s will. The discussion began in my last post, which critiqued a doctrine common to more moderate circles within Christianity. UnkleE had more to say on the subject than could reasonably fit within a comment, so he decided to do his own post in response, which is worth reading. We conversed a bit within that comment thread, where I said:
The President of the US and his spokespeople now regularly say things that are factually untrue. Yet plenty of his supporters are content to ignore reputable sources and only listen to the sources that they want to agree with. Where do you go from there?
It seems to me that the view you have of Christianity is similar. Why does the New Testament speak so much about false teachers, if it’s perfectly fine to get your beliefs from private revelation? If Paul and Hymenaeus have a disagreement, perhaps Paul is the one who’s wrong? Or maybe both of them are right, simultaneously? How can one use scripture to “teach, reprove, and correct” in such a system?
In the end, isn’t such a religion just anarchy? How can there be such a thing as “truth” when each person’s version is just as good as someone else’s? At least as an atheist, I can point to my understanding of reality and the physical world to try to reach a consensus with others. And if they can provide data that invalidates some position I hold, then I can change. But if I took my own random thoughts and feelings as revelation from the supreme creator of the universe, how could I ever be convinced of anything else?
Once again, this opened a big topic that was better suited to a full post, rather than a comment, so UnkleE offered his response here. And as my reply to that post grew and grew, I realized that I needed to offer it as a post as well. What follows will reference and borrow quotes from UnkleE’s latest post.
What Is the Gospel?
Under a section called “Another Gospel?” UnkleE gave this introduction:
Nate references Galations 1:6-9, which warns of accepting another gospel. But what does Paul mean by “gospel” (or “good news”)?
He then listed out 5 main points that he views as central to what the gospel is:
- Jesus, the “son of God”, lived and taught about the kingdom of God.
- He died to deal with human sin (how that happens is very much up for debate!).
- Jesus was resurrected and so conquered death.
- We need to change our thinking, turn away from behaviours that displease God, and seek forgiveness.
- Our new way of life should include loving God, loving neighbour, and even loving our enemies.
But it seems to me that the New Testament spends time referring to false doctrines that are ancillary to those 5 points. The entire book of Galatians has Paul accusing the Galatians of turning their backs on the gospel and trying to follow the Law of Moses, when it really just sounds like they were trying to follow both:
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.
— Gal 5:2-6
To me, that sounds like something that we’d view as a matter of personal preference, today, certainly not something that would qualify as a “different gospel.” And look at 2 Cor 13:5-10:
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! I hope you will find out that we have not failed the test. But we pray to God that you may not do wrong—not that we may appear to have met the test, but that you may do what is right, though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. For we are glad when we are weak and you are strong. Your restoration is what we pray for. For this reason I write these things while I am away from you, that when I come I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down.
We don’t know the specifics of what Paul is criticizing here, but if these individuals were still present in the congregation to see Paul’s letter, then it’s likely they still held to the basic principles that UnkleE outlined above. What else could they be lacking that would make them “fail the test”?
In 2 John 7, it was considered heresy to question whether or not Christ had actually come in the flesh (like docetism, I guess):
For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.
To me, this seems kind of minor in many ways, though it was a huge deal back then. If someone still believed that Christ was the son of God and brought salvation in some way, should it have mattered if they didn’t fully understand how that happened? But 2 John shows that some early Christians had a huge problem with the doctrine.
2 Tim 2:16-19 talks about another form of false teaching:
But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
To me, this also seems like a minor quibble that runs outside the principles UnkleE laid out as the core of Christianity. Again, exactly what people believe about how/when the resurrection works, or even exactly what the writer means by “resurrection” here seems minor if an individual still believes Christ is the avenue for salvation, etc. Incidentally, there’s an interesting discussion of this passage here.
And if God is unchanging, it’s hard to overlook some of the judgments he supposedly handed out in the Old Testament, like killing Nadab and Abihu for not getting their sacrificial fire in the right way. Killing Achan and his entire family when he didn’t follow the command about not looting Jericho. Honestly, there are tons of OT examples, and I won’t take up any more space with going through them. But they each show how particular God was in seemingly minor things. Now, I agree that most of the New Testament argues that such legalism is no longer necessary. But I think the passages I listed above show that it still isn’t just free rein, especially if God’s character is unchanging (Psalm 102:25-27; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17).
The New Testament gives parameters about divorce and remarriage that are pretty strict. In Matthew 19:9, Jesus is speaking, and he says:
And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.
That’s a rigorous standard that most Christians don’t really apply today, in that a large number of Christian marriages are actually adulterous, according to Jesus. Marriage and remarriage does not fall within the 5 precepts of the gospel that UnkleE laid out, but it still seems like it would be a big deal. After all, we’re told in 1 Cor 6:9-10 that adulterers can’t “inherit the kingdom of God.” What does that mean, exactly? I think it’s referring to salvation itself, and I think 1 Cor 5 bears that out. In that passage, Paul is telling the Corinthians to cast out the member among them who is sleeping with his father’s wife “so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
Apparently, this Christian was in danger of losing his salvation if he didn’t repent of his wrongdoing. And to go back to 1 Cor 6 for a minute, we see that far more than just adulterers would be in danger of the same fate:
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
That’s quite a laundry list. Those sins might fall within the 4th and 5th points from UnkleE’s list, so does this include married couples who didn’t divorce their previous spouses for infidelity? For consistency’s sake, I would think that they would have to be included, yet very few churches make an issue of it.
In the end, I think when Paul uses terms like “the gospel,” he’s not always strictly speaking about the 5 basic points that UnkleE outlined. I think he’s also talking about any specific instructions that he (or other apostles) laid out in their epistles. Yes, passages like Romans 14 and 1 Cor 8-10 talk about issues that individual Christians may have differences of opinion over, but that’s because those were issues that no specific instruction had been given about. But today, there are so many issues, like divorce and remarriage, homosexuality, and women’s roles in the church that are considered minor by moderates today. And this is where the idea of authority comes into play. How do they justify their positions on these things?
Principles Not Rules
UnkleE goes on to argue that the New Testament focuses more on principles of how to live versus hard and fast rules. I do agree that it focuses more on principles than the Old Testament did, but I think the passages we’ve already looked at show that hard and fast rules still played a part.
UnkleE offers the following supporting points:
We serve God not according to a written set of rules, but guided by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:6, Romans 7:6). Note that he uses as his example in the latter case nothing less than one of the Ten Commandments!
But I don’t think these 2 passages really illustrate UnkleE’s point. He makes it sound as though Paul is saying that written sets of rules no longer apply, but that’s not at all what he’s saying. He’s specifically talking about the Old Law (the Mosaic Law) in those passages, and UnkleE and I already agree that Paul argues the Old Law (including the 10 Commandments) has served its purpose and is no longer binding to Christians. That doesn’t mean there’s no longer any kind of written law — what about all the teachings in the New Testament, including the gospel?!
We can legitimately hold different views on moral issues. Paul gives several examples, some of them significant issues in his day – the eating of meat that had been offered to pagan idols (1 Corinthians 10:23-30), and the keeping of rules about Sabbath days and “unclean” foods (Romans 14:1-23). But he says quite definitely (Romans 14:13): “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.”
But as we saw above, these passages are dealing with issues about which there was no direction given in the New Testament. They were true matters of personal conscience. Paul does not give permission to make these same kinds of judgments on things like divorce and remarriage. And while Paul says that they shouldn’t judge one another about these kinds of things, 1 Cor 5 talks about how they’re supposed to judge the actions of fellow Christians.
UnkleE’s third supporting point is:
Therefore, Paul’s conclusion on even important matters of behaviour is that we are free to decide (1 Corinthians 10:23), we should leave the judgment to God (Romans 14:4) and it is not rules but faith that will decide, for whatever is not done in faith is wrong (Romans 14:23) and all should be done to God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31).
But again, all of the passages here come exclusively from 1 Cor 10 and Romans 14, which discuss issues that are merely matters of personal preference.
The Holy Spirit
This is really where my biggest concerns lie. UnkleE has this to say about it:
A key fact, which many christians as well as critics can forget, is that christians believe we have been “given” the Spirit of God. Again, I don’t pretend to fully understand how this works, but it is clearly taught in scripture. Each believer has the help of the Holy Spirit in following Jesus in our lives and – crucially for this discussion – in guiding us to truth.
The Spirit is God, which means he is above the Bible, not lesser!
This is exactly what I was trying to get at in my initial questions to UnkleE. If the guidance of the Holy Spirit can trump scripture, how can any position ever be tested? If a man is married, but strongly believes that God wants him to be with his next door neighbor, who’s to say he’s wrong? Sure, the Bible contradicts his feelings, but the Holy Spirit has authority over the Bible. Yes, common sense contradicts his desire, but “God’s ways are higher than man’s.”
UnkleE also says this:
This merits a longer discussion than I can give now (but will post on soon), but we are told that the Holy Spirit will guide us into truth (John 16:13), so we can even know God’s will for us (Romans 12:2). We see examples of the Spirit guiding the believers in Acts (e.g. Acts 11:1-18, 13:1-3, 16:6-10). But we do, I believe, need to ask (James 1:5, Matthew 7:7-8).
So far from being “random thoughts”, if we pray, and take the precautions that the Bible gives us, we can have faith that God guides us (not just me, but his whole church) through his Spirit into true understandings – not infallibly, but steadily over time.
But to me, such a system looks exactly like “random thoughts.” How could anyone tell the difference between his own thoughts and the Holy Spirit? How could Paul rail against false teachers and false gospels if guidance from the Holy Spirit carries more weight than scripture? If 1000 different Christians all believe God has given them personal revelations that happen to conflict, there’s no way to sort among them to separate the true revelation from all the false ones.
In effect, it seems to me that such a religion can end up saying everything, which basically means it says nothing.
One More Thing
I know this post is painfully long, but I wanted to add one more thing. In his closing, UnkleE makes this point:
I suggest we should always start with what the scriptures say and expert knowledge about what it means – what would this or that passage have said to the people of the day, what do the words actually mean and how do experts understand them? We must read more than one viewpoint.
Then we must pray, consider, wait if necessary, and see if we receive guidance, and see how the Spirit is working and leading the body of believers as a whole. Our own experience and thoughts (if we are allowing God to transform our thinking) will help us.
Isn’t this exactly what we, as atheists, do as well? I’m quite familiar with the Bible (more so than many believers that I know), and I try to pay attention to what Biblical scholars have to say. I consider more than one point of view. I don’t pray, but I used to. And I believe that I’m open to being wrong — I’m even open to guidance. And I would love for God to give me some kind of message, personally. Used to plead for it, in fact. What else is there for me to do?
Closing
Let me stress that I really appreciate UnkleE’s willingness to discuss these things with me. As he knows, I was raised within a very fundamentalist version of Christianity that believed in biblical inerrancy. UnkleE has a very different perspective, and it’s difficult for me to fully understand it. My arguments here are how I try to come to terms with his beliefs. If I’ve missed some obvious answer to some of my questions, it’s solely due to ignorance, not obstinacy.
Finding Truth 
Jon, I was very interested in your recent comments, because I agree with many of them, though sometimes I think you have used pejorative language that is unwarranted.
”I think understanding the division between Paul and the original apostles would be key to understanding a lot of Christianity. Unfortunately, all we really have is Paul’s side.”
It seems to me that there is indeed a difference between Jesus’ emphasis and Paul’s. I think some christians try to minimise or ignore this difference, just as I think some sceptics overstate it. My thoughts are:
1. We do have Jesus’ side, not just Paul’s. Most scholars see the gospels as portraying Jesus as an eschatological prophet, teacher and miracle worker, which preserves much of the tradition that you suggest is missing. The book of James, which I accept as being from Jesus’ brother, also preserves some of this.
2. Most scholars accept, as I do, that there was a gradual development in the early christians’ understanding of Jesus. An orthodox Jew would struggle to accept a human as divine, and we see this in the speeches in Acts, where Jesus is initially portrayed as someone elevated to high status by God after his death and resurrection, but later comes the more complete doctrine of divinity. Larry Hurtado, who has made this matter his area of expertise, says that the early christians first began worshiping Jesus alongside God, and gradually their doctrine came into line with their practice.
3. We can argue about which perspective is “right”, but there are good reasons (I believe) for christians to think that the modern church had tended to “forget” the teachings of Jesus about the kingdom, a fault that is now being remedied, but also, on the basis of the story of Peter (not Paul!) and Cornelius in Acts, to accept that the mission to the gentiles required some new perspectives from the mission to the Jews.
”To the extent that the original apostles accepted Paul, it was with the condition that he send them money.”
This is an overly cynical comment Jon. If we follow the text in Acts (and we have little else to go on for some of this), Paul was welcomed by the apostles long before he offered to raise money for them.
”Christians like to talk about some moral/civil/ceremonial distinction, but that distinction does not exist in the Bible.”
I agree completely. Either the whole Law is binding on christians, or none of it is. I think it is a new covenant and none of it does.
” The only four rules that were explicitly said to be relevant under the new covenant by a council of the earliest apostles and three of them were quickly discarded as mere local customs that were no longer applicable to Christians in later times.”
This is true, but read the command about meat offered to idols in the light of 1 Corinthians 10:18-33, where Paul begins by saying it is best not to do it, then explains that they are free to eat that meat without bad conscience provided it doesn’t cause a problem for others. Then go to Romans 14, written just a few years later, and he gives even greater liberty to eating meat (it is likely that the problem of meat was related to the likelihood that meat purchased in the market had previously been offered to a pagan idol).
So we see that there was a progression very early on, just as there was with the understanding of Jesus’ divinity. The stricter Jews like James fought for stricter rules, but Peter and Paul argued for greater freedom. James in Acts 15 couldn’t argue against them, but seemed to fight a rearguard action to keep a few rules, which Paul and company later negated in favour of greater freedom.
”Even the two rules Jesus identified — love God and your neighbor — are so vague as to be meaningless.”
I disagree here. These are the fundamental aims, the mission statement if you like, and quite radical really. Of course how we fulfil the aim will vary in different situations. Like I said to Nate, the stricter you make rules, the more you will find (i) situations where they can’t be applied sensibly, (ii) people finding ways around the letter of the law, and (iii) people who do not grow to be morally responsible. Christianity is supposed to be a process of moral and spiritual development towards responsibility, not a pedantic following of rules (like in many other religions). It is much better this way.
”People take a religion and they claim their behavior is a result of their religion. But I think they are really just taking a placebo and crediting that placebo for their own beliefs and behaviors.”
I’m sure this is often correct, and I suppose maybe sometimes true of me too. But I can tell you that my current moral values are deeply informed by Jesus’ teachings, and it took some pain to get there. For example, my views on treatment of asylum seekers and Australian aborigines could easily have been very pragmatic, but reflection over the past decade on Jesus’ teachings, and discussion with other christians, has led me to a much stronger position on treating tham according to Jesus’ teachings. I could give other examples relating to non-violence, forgiveness, wealth, discord, and more.
Being a christian and trying to take Jesus’ teachings seriously has made an enormous difference in my life, led my down new paths, cost me a lot of money and time, but also given me great satisfaction.
Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to interact. Like I said, I think a lot of your observations are apt, but I don’t always agree with your conclusions.
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Hi Diana,
How do you explain this apparent discrepancy in the OT:
“In Exodus, in one of Moses’ early encounters with the deity, God tells him “I am the LORD (Yahweh). I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty (Hebrew: El Shaddai), but by my name ‘The LORD’ (Yahweh) I did not make myself known to them” (Exod. 6:3). Here God is saying that the patriarchs of Genesis did not know the personal name of God, Yahweh; they only knew him as God Almighty, El Shaddai. But that will come as a very big surprise to a careful reader of Genesis. For it is quite clear in Genesis not only that God appeared to the patriarchs as The LORD (Yahweh), but that they called him by that name. Consider Gen. 4:26: “At that time people began to invoke the name of the LORD (Yahweh).” Or even more telling, Gen. 15:6-8:
And he [Abraham] believed the LORD (Yahweh), and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness. Then he said to him, “I am the LORD (Yahweh) who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess.” But he said, O Lord GOD (Adonai Yahweh), how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
According to Exodus, God never appeared to or revealed himself to Abraham as Yahweh; according to Genesis, he did. There are clearly different sources that have been incorporated into these stories. That is made all the more evident by the doublets (and the triplet) that we observed earlier in the Patriarchal narratives.”
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When you read the responses of Diana and Unklee you realise …. if you have the stamina to wade through all the rose fertilizer – just how enslaved they are to the sickness of their religion.
Diana is simply mentally ill, a product of severe indoctrination akin to the type history shows many German people and especially the Nazis were subjected to during the war.
Unklee I consider is either willfully ignorant or disingenuous as it appears he will hand-wave away everything if necessary except the resurrection of the make-believe character Jesus of Nazareth. In the face of all commonsense this strikes somewhat like the stories one hears of pastors and priests who continue to preach when they already know that what they are preaching is based upon a lie and they are simply unable to extricate themselves from the merry go round.
I don’t buy the crap of sincerity any longer.
The only other explanation is that he to is suffering from a form of mental unbalance.
Maybe it is wrong to mock either of them, but this is a former Christian’s blog – his space – so there comes a point when one can no longer justify reasoning in the face of such stubbornness (wanton stupidity?).
If someone such as Nate, who in his own words was so indoctrinated that he truly believed Yahweh had buried dinosaur bones, and that every one who was not a Christian ( or even the right sort of Christian) was going to Hell. If he was able to come to the realization the damage being done to himself and his wife and kids, to be able to read the biblical text and recognize the utter nonsense for what it truly is, then, if someone such as unklee wishes to voice his opinion on a blog such as this – and he sure as hell is not here to figure out where he is might … just might be going wrong or, after all this time to try to learn a damn thing or genuinely understand why Nate walked away and became atheist – then I consider he is a schlenter of the worst order. and make absolutely no apologies for calling him out.
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Oh, and as Unklee mentions Acts in one of his responses I thought that maybe some of you would enjoy reading Neil Godfrey’s excellent post on the findings of the Acts Seminar?
If Unklee is going to reference Acts as an historical source to help make his case then it’s worth noting how Acts is viewed outside of traditional circles.
http://vridar.org/2013/11/22/top-ten-findings-of-the-acts-seminar/
A snippet or two …
and ….
and ….
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To me, the implications of divine revelation over biblical meaning are pretty drastic. If it’s possible to receive new revelations of Yahweh’s will, why aren’t there new books being added to the bible? How can one reject Islam or LDS churches as being incorrect? Sure, it’s a riff on being without a compass, but there is more at stake than just an internal view of the bible.
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Unklee
Eh, I think the synoptic gospels probably preserve at least some of the authentic teachings of Jesus, in some very general sense. That certainly helps to build out a broad sense of the biography and message, but it doesn’t really help much with the issues I brought up.
I think it’s quite plausible that the earliest Christians quickly believed that Jesus was, in some sense, divine, and I agree that the belief evolved as they came to terms with what it means. So the progression might have looked like…
Teacher > Messiah > Dead > Risen/Returned > Anointed (Christ) > Adopted Son of God > God
Unfortunately, we have very little window into the diversity of views of early Christians, so it’s difficult to say how this happened and what divisions each of these developments caused.
Cynical? The “polite bribe” or the “Jerusalem Collection”, as it’s been called, was mentioned in Acts and Paul discusses it in his own letters a number of times. The traveling disciples/apostles were told to send back to the “saints” and the poor in Jerusalem. This is an odd thing, isn’t it? Why would people in Antioch and Galatia and Corinth and many other places need to take up a collection for the poor in Jerusalem? Surely poverty, widows and need were present everywhere.
The only time Paul met with Apostles (Peter and James) prior to the Jerusalem Collection was that first time when he said he met with them, but he doesn’t really give any details about it. Mostly, he goes to great lengths to assure everybody that he got nothing from them, owes nothing to them, and various other cynical comments about them (“super-apostles”).
No argument here. Christianity has excelled at syncretism and adaptation.
I realize this might not pose a difficulty for you, if you do not accept inerrancy, but bear in mind that Acts doesn’t just have the Apostles coming up with those four rules. Acts ascribes those four rules to the Holy Spirit. So why are three of them gone quickly? And if a Christian believes the proscription against fornication is also no longer applicable, who is to say otherwise?
At any rate, it just reinforces the point that Christian values and beliefs evolved with the culture. To Nate’s point, it is almost impossible to identify very many clear, unambiguous teachings in the Bible.
I don’t see anything in your response that actually explained the disagreement. In fact, you seem to agree that these two rules are vague. And so, my point: If people can interpret “love your neighbor” in 10 different ways, and cannot agree on which of those ways constitutes expressions of love vs expressions of hate, then it isn’t much of a law.
Likewise. I enjoy the discussion.
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Diana, literally no advocate of evolution believes this.
There is nothing at all wrong with not understanding the theory of evolution, nor with not understanding the distinction between evolution and abiogenesis. We are all ignorant about most things. However, when you put forward claims about what other people say that are indisputably false, then you are bearing false witness.
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Hi Jon, a couple more comments ….
”No argument here. Christianity has excelled at syncretism and adaptation.”
It is interesting how we can say the same thing in either positive or negative words. I infer from your use of “syncretism” that this is a negative comment, but I recall a historian (I think) saying that the genius of christianity was its ability to adapt to different cultures and situations. Certainly if we were talking about many other aspects of life, we would regard adaptability as an asset. But it seems with you and Nate that religion must have certainty and immutability. Do you think that is true for you? If so, why is that?
”Acts ascribes those four rules to the Holy Spirit. So why are three of them gone quickly?”
Acts describes what people thought, but in this case doesn’t say they were right, although we might draw that inference. The gospels describe Judas’ actions and the religious leaders’ statement, but that doesn’t imply they were right. I have always (like literally for several decades) thought that James took a while to come to the more flexible view, and the Acts 15 decision was him halfway along the process. And we can see other parts of the process in Paul’s writings, as I have outlined.
”At any rate, it just reinforces the point that Christian values and beliefs evolved with the culture. To Nate’s point, it is almost impossible to identify very many clear, unambiguous teachings in the Bible.”
Exactly!! We have the principle (love God, love neighbour), we have some clear guidance on the outworking of that principle (forgive, love enemies, care for the poor, etc) and other guidance that shows how the principles were worked out in that time and place, but may require different understandings in other times and places. Apart from anything else, principles can come into conflict and we may have to choose a less than ideal course. I honestly can’t see how that is difficult to understand or appreciate.
I’ll say it again. It all depends on what you think is God’s objective. If it is people following certain rules by rote, then God could make robots. But if it is to make “little gods” (i.e. people who are like God in having freedom and ethics and rationality and autonomy) than that isn’t the way to do it, as any good parent or teacher knows. A good parent or teacher helps the child grow in o maturity by giving them opportunities to learn for themselves, flexibility, opportunities to make mistakes, new experiences, dilemmas to solve, etc, and doesn’t pretend that general rules can be applied uniformly in every situation.
I really think you and Nate must understand this in normal life, but you are holding christianity to unreal and unjustified criteria.
I have long felt that this particular area is the one that most explains why Nate and I can agree on many things and discuss amicably, but have fundamental misunderstandings about some things. I think it may be the same with you. I am not being critical – as long as you and Nate believe God doesn’t exist and I believe he does, we will have a fundamental disagreement, but I would really like to try to reach a mutual understanding on what christianity actually is (at least in my view). Thanks for your time.
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“but I would really like to try to reach a mutual understanding on what christianity actually is (at least in my view)”
But that is the problem. There are 2,000,000,000 Christians in the world. Although we can put some groups of Christians in definable categories of beliefs, moderate Christians such as UnkleE are impossible to define. If they each have an individual “view” of what Christianity actually is, how in the world can we skeptics have a conversation with these Christians on this subject? It is impossible. That is why we skeptics must speak in generalities:
1. Catholic Christians
2. Eastern Orthodox Christians
3. Liberal Protestant Christians
4. Moderate Protestant Christians-a completely undefinable category
5. Fundamentalist Protestant Christians
Asking us to have a mutual understanding of each individual moderate Protestant’s views is impossible.
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Actually, Gary, I think the different individual views are a feature and not a flaw of the entire system. It isn’t limited to moderate Christians, either. Christians of all parts of the faith will have different views based on local culture and seemingly random chance. Some Christians still try to kill witches in South America; some Christians think demon possession is fake. Instead, you have enough common terminology for people to find some common ground, and you have a lack of desire to make sure everyone is forced to agree on the rest.
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Sirius,
I see your point, but the breadth of the variation in what is and what is not “truth” is much greater among moderate Protestants than among the other groups, at least in my experience.
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As an example, one moderate may believe that the Exodus story is historical fact while believing that Noah’s Flood is fiction. Another moderate Christian may believe just the opposite. All fundamentalists will believe both stories to be historical. Fundamentalists have a guiding principle: the Bible is never wrong. It is unclear to me what if any guiding principle the moderate Christian follows.
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Sorry SB you are way off the mark here. Of course it’s a flaw and a bloody major flaw! We are talking about claimed divine revelation, not a Pick ‘n Mix at the sweet counter.
There is nothing one can see in a positive light about what Ken Ham indoctrinates into kids for example.
Or ID for that matter.
And Moderates are better because they still spread the garbage that the biblical character, Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead.
And while you may hand wave Moderate Religion and its proponents and think the diversity is oh so colourful you leave the door ajar for the extremists. And they already have both bloody feet in it.
You cannot whine about teaching a literal Hell to kids or Islamic fundamentalists using kids as suicide bombers and then give the likes of Unklee a sort of ”Free Pass”, because on the surface his brand of superstitious god- bothering seems harmless enough: all cucumber sandwiches and tea on the lawn with the vicar and the occasional soup kitchen. it is on the backs on the Moderates that the extremists will ride. And they do,don’t they, SB?
The more you argue details with someone like Diana or unklee or Tom they are going to beat you hands down.
Not because they can back anything they say, but simply because they do not give a shit about truth or evidence.
If they cannot demonstrate the veracity of the core, foundational tenets of their belief then they have no right whatsoever to teach any of what they beleive as truth.
So, I tell, you what, get Unklee to demonstrate to you exactly how we can know that the biblical character, Jesus of Nazareth came back to life and why we should trust his explanation.
Remember: everything else is just window dressing and he and many others care nothing if you could prove unequivocally that the entire Old Testament is a work of fiction. That is NOT what an apologist is here for.
Call his bluff once and for all and if he can convince you , I’ll be in church for the evening service …. and you have my word on that.
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*Typo*
And Moderates are NO better.
Please correct Nate.
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Hey Ark,
By “feature and not a flaw,” I meant that it’s a deliberate part of Christianity and not that one version is somehow better than the other. I just didn’t get into that, because evaluating it would have made my comment really super long. To be clear, I think a weakness of UnkleE’s position is that he’s created a special revelation exception. Such a thing is dangerous, because it makes a person only one thought away from taking the plunge into an abyss that has no bottom. And I don’t even have to argue a slippery slope here; I’ve seen too many people take that plunge.
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@SB
Apologies if I misunderstood, but reading it again your comment stills comes across as ambiguous and although I realise that, considering your personal circumstances regarding your former beliefs this is probably not quite the case, it still reads as if you are making some form of allowance, mostly because you included the words … not a flaw .
It is because there is so much leeway for personal interpretation of Christian doctrine that Unklee (and others) gets away with his ”special case” Christianity.
While I acknowledge the desire to argue Christianity from a case by case perspective, ( and you probably know how I feel about the Exodus) especially for former believers who have been grilled with this fallacious garbage for years, I would have thought that they, above anyone, should realise that, even though they may prove the point the unklees will wave it away smugly as when all said and done only the Resurrection counts. As I am sure you would probably believed during your own religious halcyon days.
So, if you can show him just how bloody stupid and disingenuous he is over the Resurrection – not the empty tomb I might add – then we may well have an argument that can dismantle even moderate Christianity.
Are you up for it?
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Let me explain why I believe that moderate Christianity is so dangerous.
First, let’s start with liberal Christianity. Liberals believe that the Christian God is a God of love. He would never harm anyone. There is no Hell. No one is going to be punished for “sin” or for rejecting Jesus. Everyone will be saved in the end.
This belief system, to me, is a harmless fairy tale.
Fundamentalist Christianity is, of course, evil to the core. Any belief system that condemns people to eternal suffering simply for what they believe is evil incarnate. It is an attempt at mind control through blackmail. However, it is so blatantly silly and defies so much of modern scientific knowledge that if this were the only form of Christianity available, I believe it would be extinct (at least in the educated West) within not so many decades.
Moderate Christians have taken the loving God of liberalism (as an appealing exterior facade) and combined it with fundamentalism’s goal of mind control. The Moderate Christian God is presented as a God of love as a means to entice you into the “fold”, but once in, you are warned that this loving God is still going to punish you, in some fashion, if you ever refuse to continue submitting your mind to his control. It is still a system of mind control. However, it has replaced the most embarrassing fundamentalist beliefs with very educated-sounding, sophisticated-sounding theological psycho-babble (riddles) which are nearly impossible to disprove.
Moderate Christianity is a smoke screen to maintain orthodox Christianity’s mind control of the less educated (the masses) through the use of complex, sophisticated-sounding philosophical and theological constructs in an attempt to intimidate the masses from questioning the veracity of their two thousand year old ghost story.
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Well said Gary, I consider the idea of Hell to be utterly repugnant. I so tire of inane defenses like:
– God does not send anyone there they send themselves;
– God does not to send people there, but there is nowhere else to send them;
– Surely we want a just universe so bad deeds need to be punished;
Even as a Christian I concluded that the concept of Hell was what would be termed ‘cruel and unusual punishment’. I could never reconcile it with the idea of a God of love, mercy or justice. Indeed those who argue that Hell is just have a very warped view of justice. Justice would be to cause people to reflect on their lives for a limited period after death and then to cause them to cease to exist.
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Just to point out, I do not believe that moderate Christians such as UnkleE (and my former pastor) are intentionally playing head games with us. These very intelligent moderate Christians sincerely believe the “spin” they are creating. They are very smart people who are feverishly attempting to maintain a respectable façade for what is otherwise a silly ancient tale. Their very intelligent brains just cannot accept that their cherished belief system is nothing more than a ghost tale.
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If one is obliged to accept this, then one must also accept that they are suffering some mental aberration that allows them to wring any interpretation that suits out of the biblical text which enables them to reject overt Fundamentalism while steadfastly maintaining a belief in the ridiculous notion of the veracity of the Resurrection.
In effect, the bible then becomes only useful as toilet paper.
People like Nate and Peter walked away, and based on dialogue I consider them as intelligent and well-versed on the bible if not more so than someone like Unklee.
So let’s be brutally honest, and look at what options are left?
They can either be indoctrinated to the point of exhibiting some form of religiously induced mental illness ( a temporary state that can be corrected) or they are simply being disingenuous for personal gain?
Ark.
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I believe they are addicted to the intense emotions and sense of security that their belief system gives them. That is why they go to such extremes to reinterpret an ancient text full of obviously silly, scientifically ignorant nonsense. Although the book may be full of “allegories”, in their new interpretation, the message behind the book MUST be true or their entire life falls apart. That is why debating them on evidence is a waste of time. Only when something causes them to begin to doubt that a ghost lives inside their bodies, is there any hope of getting through to them.
No amount of evidence will ever change UnkleE’s mind. His feelings and emotions are the bedrock of his belief, not evidence.
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Seems a comment of mine didn’t post.
Basically I was asking Ark if he thinks that at one time during their believing days that Nate and Peter were “suffering some mental aberration?”
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@ Zoe.
Without a shred of doubt.
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@ Gary