Ex-"New Atheist", Now Christian

[thesummerqueen]

How do you "know" this?

[Psykhronic]

I do not understand why you draw conclusions based upon the strange experiences that you cannot explain.

[Love]

Why is it that just because we don't have all the answers RIGHT NOW there must be divinity?

The most important questions have already been answered. Other than life saving medical applications (and other health, environment related sciences), contemporary search for "knowledge" is superfluous in my view.

[thesummerqueen]

Why is it that just because we don't have all the answers RIGHT NOW there must be divinity?

The most important questions have already been answered. Other than life saving medical applications, contemporary search for "knowledge" is superfluous.

Did you really just say that?

This is possibly the most jaw-dropping piece of idiocy I've heard come out of a theist.

[Whateverist]

I firmly believe that Jesus' consciousness was divine and that his life was vastly more important than his death; just consider how profound an impact his life has had on civilization as a whole. I also believe that The Bible is not particularly important.

Well you sound sane enough to me. Definitely my kind of theist. So rare to find one who can get any perspective on the bible. Well done. I assume you'd cop to agnosticism in terms of what can be shown interpersonally to be true. Good for you for not rejecting your private truth for that reason alone.

I'm agnostic but find the concept of god hard to make any sense of. Nonetheless I believe in things for which I have no interpersonal defense (as we all do of course), so I have no problem with your doing the same.

Welcome aboard.

[Lord Privy Seal]

Welcome, Love.

I hope you'll stick around and that I'll get a chance to dialogue with you. I read progressive Christian material fairly regularly (Fred Clark's blog "Slactivist" at Patheos, and I visit Prof. McGrath's blog on occasion). I have also read Bishop Spong's Why Christianity Must Change or Die and Thom Stark's The Human Faces of God. However, there are some things I still don't "get" about progressive Christianity, and I hope that I'll get to explore them in dialogue with you.

1) What is the foundation or basis for progressive Christianity? The sacerdotal churches (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Nestorian) appeal to Church tradition and apostolic succession. Fundies claim to base their beliefs on an infallible Bible (while ignoring pretty much everything Jesus is portrayed saying about money). Progressive Christians seem to be...kinda free-floating. Spong is (as far as I can tell from his writings) an atheist-of-the-cloth. He does not believe in any theistic deity, a resurrection of Jesus (except in the most metaphorical of terms), or any of the doctrines that have defined Christianity for most of its history (e.g. the Creeds, etc.). It just seems like there's no "there" there, in the sense of a "Christianity" that differs from "atheist humanism, using cultural Christian language."

2) Why continue to cart the Bible around and be weighted down with all of its baggage (genocides, barbaric patriarchal "morality," teachings of exclusivity, Hell, etc., claims of miracles and "history" that never happened, and so forth) in order to salvage a relative handful of moral teachings you agree with, when you could find much richer bodies of moral teaching in, for example, the writings of Marcus Aurelius or the Buddha?

3) On what basis can you pick out those "nice" parts and treat them as (at least somewhat) "divinely inspired" or otherwise valid and applicable, while tossing the rest overboard?

4) Are there any truth-claims that actually differentiate your kind of Christianity from atheism? E.g., "God exists and does/says [insert deeds/words here], so that his/her/its existence is not indistinguishable from a godless Universe."

It's OK if you don't want to respond to these questions here. This might not even be the proper place. If you'd prefer, I could start a new thread, but I'm also willing to talk about these things here. That is, if you're game for such a discussion.

[Tonus]

Welcome, Love.

Whoa, whoa, whooooa! I think you're getting just a bit too familiar there, Lord.

(aw, shit.)

[JesusHChrist]

Welcome! Be careful to not pet the animals. Some of them bite.

[downbeatplumb]

after reading extensively on philosophy and the philosophy of science

I think I see where you went wrong.

[Love]

The most important questions have already been answered. Other than life saving medical applications, contemporary search for "knowledge" is superfluous.

Did you really just say that?

This is possibly the most jaw-dropping piece of idiocy I've heard come out of a theist.

Perhaps I was overstating very slightly. As you clearly disagree, I would like you to explain, in detail, why you disagree? After which we might be able to engage in an interesting and meaningful discussion on the philosophical topic of epistemology.