What's your opinion on Liberal Religion?

[emjay]

Right, I think I see what you're saying. Firstly that's the relevant issue for me as a potential Christian but I grant that like you say (or seem to be saying) many Christians would have other reasons for their belief... or have different priorities... but I would still think it would - or should - be a cause of cognitive dissonance; something that would need to be resolved not just suppressed. But I suppose you could just be saying in answer to my question, rather cynically, that it would be little different than other cases of Christianity where you'd think there would be massive amounts of cognitive dissonance, such as a creationist confronting evidence of evolution, but in practice they seem remarkably resistant to it. I have to say, I don't know if that's what you mean or not... 

Thank you very much for being non-snarky about this. It's a pleasant change.

As I understand its history, Christianity evolves and changes with the times. It adapts to the places it's in and the general episteme of its culture. 

So for example Creationists are mostly a modern phenomenon, insofar as they work hard to apply the methods of science to prove their beliefs. They look for evidence of Noah's flood in the Grand Canyon, or whatever, because they actually accept that science is the way we persuade people of truth. It's a backhanded compliment, but it's also a foregone defeat, because they're using the "enemy's" methods. 

But there are also lots of Christians who have no problem fitting into our modern ways of investigating the world. What we're calling "liberal" Christians, I suppose, have no problem with evolution, or archeological evidence that most of the OT is myth rather than history. I'm guessing that for the majority of these people, their Christianity is about community and uprightness, and if some scientist makes a breakthrough in the mind/body problem it wouldn't bother them much. I think that far more than literalists, these Christians are in the mainstream of the church's history. Augustine, after all, advised his readers not to stick to obvious falsehoods that investigation (it wasn't called "science" yet) had disproved. Since he interpreted the Bible largely as myth meant for moral education, if he was told that Noah's flood had been disproved he would have said fine, that's not what it's about. 

We also have to distinguish between Angry Sky-Daddy theology and the theology of educated people, which is in every way compatible with science -- in fact science has pretty much nothing to say about it, because metaphysics covers a different field from physics. It's very hard to get this across to some people here, but the God of theology isn't a big guy hiding somewhere whom we could measure with yardsticks. 

you said somewhere else that you're not religious, but you certainly seem to be... ie are you atheist, agnostic, or is 'not religious' just another way of saying 'non-denominational Christian', like Neo?

Yes, this is a difficulty for me. 

On this forum, we are required to use the definition that an atheist is someone who lacks belief in God. According to this definition I am an atheist, because I don't have belief. I don't know what's true. Perhaps "agnostic" fits me better, but as much as possible I avoid these labels. Metaphysics shouldn't be a team sport -- we should think about each claim. 

Put me down as someone who doesn't know what's true. 

I certainly believe that human beings know only a tiny tiny fraction of what the universe is about. I believe that our current episteme is contingent and sure to change drastically, even though people in its mainstream have absolute faith that they have all the main points licked. 

I also find myself in the position of explaining -- almost always in vain -- that the Christianity people argue against here is not all of Christianity. People have told me adamantly that because some majority of people in the US believe something stupid, that I shouldn't be talking about the non-stupid versions of Christianity. But to me that's like arguing that because the majority of Americans read commercial dreck like Dan Brown and Stephen King, that I'm not allowed to talk about Proust. We can't condemn literature just because most of it is bad.

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, I definitely understand where you're coming from a lot better now. And I do understand, thanks to the other threads, what you mean by the difference between popular and theological concepts of God... but that's a discussion for another day maybe (I haven't been to sleep yet and I should have done five hours ago ). But anyway, sorry for putting you on the spot back there about your status as it were... it's not like the labels we use around here are mandatory, but I was very curious.