I wouldn’t be a Christian

[brewer]

Do these "smart christians" denounce parts/sections of the bible?

This sounds like cherry picking. Isn't that what only reading Paradiso would be?
Most of the christians I know are of this sort. They hold up the bible as the word of god, but when the lowest common denominator god show up it's ..............

Do you think there are no such thing as "smart Christians"? I don't know your background, but this may be a lack of research on your part. 

Sola scriptura literalism is pretty new. Most theologians of the past would have considered it simple-minded, driven by pride ("I can understand it just fine, thanks"), and even idolatrous, since it worships the book rather than God. Biblical hermeneutics is a fascinating field, and has prompted the literature of Christian Europe, even not explicitly religious literature like Proust, to be susceptible in honest ways to different kinds of interpretation. 

Some people will be guilty of cherry-picking, but that's an overly simple way of describing what goes on among -- I'll say it again -- smart Christians. 

As an example, Augustine saw the main message as that of the Gospels, and insisted that the rest be read in this spirit. He wrote:

“So anyone who thinks he has understood the divine scriptures or any part of them, but cannot by his understanding build up this double love of God and neighbour, has not yet succeeded in understanding them.”

A good interpretation will lead our love for our neighbor to increase, according to him. And I know there are parts of the OT which don't lend themselves to that, but he thought these parts were outdone by Jesus. 

He also didn't insist on bibliolatry: 

“Therefore a person strengthened by faith, hope, and love, and who steadfastly holds on to them, has no need of the scriptures except to instruct others. That is why many people, relying on these three things, actually live in solitude without any texts of the scriptures.”

The message and the way of life is what's important, not the text. Dante echoes this at the top of Purgatory, when Virgil tells him that, now he's pure, he should only do what he wants, because it will be right. (Sin is a misdirection of desire.) At that point, the Bible is unnecessary. William Blake, in one of his very last drawings, shows the Bible chained up in Heaven, where it is no longer useful. 

I would never suggest reading only the Paradiso. It's part of a balanced diet. However if I were on a desert island, it'd be in my top ten. 

As for "most of the Christians" you know -- I am fortunate in that I don't have to deal with them. Quality and truth are not decided by majority vote, and I feel no compunction to set them straight. Guarda e passa -- look and pass on. 

Until you do, and on a daily basis, I don't think you should be pointing fingers. I have to interact with them frequently and my distaste for christians/christianity is well earned. While they claim belief in the "god of love" their words and actions often betray them. Words and actions often directed at my lack of belief.


If you want to live in a philosophical safe zone that's fine. I'm not afforded that luxury.

[Belacqua]

If you want to live in a philosophical safe zone that's fine. I'm not afforded that luxury.

I'm sorry that you have to live with a lot of unpleasant people. 

But that doesn't persuade me that Simone Weil wasn't smart.

[vulcanlogician]

Until you do, and on a daily basis, I don't think you should be pointing fingers. I have to interact with them frequently and my distaste for christians/christianity is well earned. While they claim belief in the "god of love" their words and actions often betray them. Words and actions often directed at my lack of belief.


If you want to live in a philosophical safe zone that's fine. I'm not afforded that luxury.

I'm in the unique position where I sympathize with what both of you guys are saying.

To wyzas, I'd point out that folks like Augustine have an interpretive mode that most American Christians would consider some kind of heresy. The value that Belaqua sees in Christian thinking really ought not be associated (at all) with what most American Christians believe.

To Belaqua, I'd point out that folks like Augustine have an interpretive mode that most American Christians would consider some kind of heresy. Augustine's sort of thinking is not at all what we associate with Christianity. But you can't blame us for that. If you take issue with that, you need to point the finger at modern evangelicals... not us.

Edit: Also, Belaqua... you might be giving Augustine a bit too much credit.

[brewer]

The christian cognitive disconnect also needs to be addressed. jesus = god = infallible. And yet we read/hear of obvious incongruities. Christians don't get to have it both ways. But lordy lordy, they do try. 

The other issue not being addressed (not addressed in Varieties by James) is the tribal group think psychology that comes from belief in a god, a god of superiority. You can't just put forward the potential positive individual aspects of belief without looking at the effect(s) across the group and society as a whole.

[vulcanlogician]

The other issue not being addressed (not addressed in Varieties by James) is the tribal group think psychology that comes from belief in a god, a god of superiority. You can't just put forward the potential positive individual aspects of belief without looking at the effect(s) across the group and society as a whole.

James is careful to say that an examination of the religious experience is the primary focus of his project. He almost begins with the assumption that materialistic atheism is the most rational position to take and then tries to argue "from scratch" the value of religious experience. On numerous occasions along the way he reminds his reader that he is speaking of the religious experience as it pertains to the individual, almost admitting (at times) what kind of a trivial farce mainstream religious beliefs and practices are. I guess another way of putting it is: he's is trying to urge us not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He sees something psychologically valuable in belief, a means through which an individual may turn negative mental states into positive ones... something that a purely materialistic worldview often fails to do.

We shall see how infinitely passionate a thing religion at its highest flights can be. Like love, like wrath, like hope, ambition, jealousy, like every other instinctive eagerness and impulse, it adds to life an enchantment which is not rationally or logically deducible from anything else. This enchantment, coming as a gift when it does come—a gift of our organism, the physiologists will tell us, a gift of God’s grace, the theologians say —is either there or not there for us, and there are persons who can no more become possessed by it than they can fall in love with a given woman by mere word of command. Religious feeling is thus an absolute addition to the Subject’s range of life. It gives him a new sphere of power. When the outward battle is lost, and the outer world disowns him, it redeems and vivifies an interior world which otherwise would be an empty waste.

He has these three points to make about mystical states of consciousness. Pay special attention to the second item. This is a theme he sounds again and again throughout the book, that the value (or authority) of a religious experience should exist only for the one who experiences them, and ought not, in any way shape or form, be imposed upon "those who stand outside them."

(1) Mystical states, when well developed, usually are, and have the right
to be, absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come.
(2) No authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for
those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically.
(3) They break down the authority of the non-mystical or rationalistic
consciousness, based upon the understanding and the senses alone. They
show it to be only one kind of consciousness.

https://csrs.nd.edu/assets/59930/williams_1902.pdf

Meh, if I find the energy, I might create a thread on it. I think James makes several excellent points on the matter. But (in so many ways) Varieties is such a piece of lofty 19th century intellectualism, maybe discussion of it ought to be confined to the "High-Level Philosophy" thread.

[brewer]

Read it, not that impressed.

[no one]

If the almighty revealed itself to me, it would worship it just as soon as it picked the corn out of my shit

[Belacqua]

[quote pid='1841704' dateline='1541244484']

I have to interact with them frequently and my distaste for christians/christianity is well earned. 

Well, on web sites like this one, I have often had distasteful interactions with atheists, too. 
I've had atheists lie to me, and lie about me, and try to dox me, and slander my published work (without having read it of course). One guy posted a dozen vile messages because I pointed out to him that "transient" and "transcendent" mean different things. One moderator at another forum -- now defunct -- sent me a series of PMs one night with an increasingly bizarre series of insults. I could make a very long list. 
This is not vulgar people who happen to atheist, but people whose dislike of religion causes them to type irrational and stupid things. 

But the increasing number of such people doesn't cause me to lose respect for the good work done by other atheists.

[brewer]

[quote pid='1841711' dateline='1541245826']
Well, on web sites like this one, I have often had distasteful interactions with atheists, too. 
I've had atheists lie to me, and lie about me, and try to dox me, and slander my published work (without having read it of course). One guy posted a dozen vile messages because I pointed out to him that "transient" and "transcendent" mean different things. One moderator at another forum -- now defunct -- sent me a series of PMs one night with an increasingly bizarre series of insults. I could make a very long list. 
This is not vulgar people who happen to atheist, but people whose dislike of religion causes them to type irrational and stupid things. 

But the increasing number of such people doesn't cause me to lose respect for the good work done by other atheists.

Web interactions and real life interactions are two different animals. I've received insults/been called out in a room full of people (christians) and no one batted an eye.

[Belacqua]

[quote pid='1841711' dateline='1541245826']
Well, on web sites like this one, I have often had distasteful interactions with atheists, too. 
I've had atheists lie to me, and lie about me, and try to dox me, and slander my published work (without having read it of course). One guy posted a dozen vile messages because I pointed out to him that "transient" and "transcendent" mean different things. One moderator at another forum -- now defunct -- sent me a series of PMs one night with an increasingly bizarre series of insults. I could make a very long list. 
This is not vulgar people who happen to atheist, but people whose dislike of religion causes them to type irrational and stupid things. 

But the increasing number of such people doesn't cause me to lose respect for the good work done by other atheists.

Web interactions and real life interactions are two different animals. I've received insults/been called out in a room full of people (christians) and no one batted an eye.

It looks to me as if the argument is going this way:

~ The Christians near you are foolish and unkind.
~ Those Christians' thinking is not at all related to that of the Christians that I've named (Weil, Augustine, etc.). 
~ Therefore, you reject the thought of Weil, Augustine, etc. 

I certainly believe the first two. I don't see yet how the conclusion follows.