Bible-less Christians

[Minimalist]

I don't know, but it sure fits. I don't know if GC just needs to feed his persecution complex or what, but he shouldn't be surprised when people get angry with him for acting like a jerk.

I imagine its been happening his whole life. I'm sure he is used to being told off.

Still fun, though.

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I think there's two main points here. Firstly, I try to not confuse truth with factuality.

I have to give you one thing. You're honest.

Looney. But honest.


fact (fkt)
n.
1. Knowledge or information based on real occurrences: an account based on fact; a blur of fact and fancy.
--The Free Dictionary

If the story is not factual there is no "truth" in it. [/b]

[christcahinkilla]

i disagree, all fiction stories are based on elements of reality. it is a very black and white perspective. and if atheism was not a religion you wouldn't put that as the first justification on your banner.

[wandering soul]

2. people who use the Bible to send everyone to hell except themselves have their counterparts in every religion, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism (well there you get to keep trying for several lifetimes until you get it right). They are just finding the parts that suit their in-human tendencies. .. Fortunately they are in the minority.

3. there are far more people who use their sacred scriptures as a foundation to build kindness, tolerance, insight, and mutual respect.

2. & 3. I wish I were as confident as you about this.

thanks for response. mine are not the type of comments that usually get a response - not flashy enough?

you are right that I may be leaning toward the optimistic side today. But within the context of Christianity and the near-Christianity of the Unitarian Universalist (derived from a Christian culture but no Christian beliefs or doctrines - no doctrines at all as far as I can see - except the universalist part!) I count all of them, and all of the liberal, progressive portions of the major denominations such as Presbyterian, Methodist, and Catholic and some others. Among other religions there is also all the secular Jewish population, as well as the Reform branch and a lot of the Conservative branch (referring to the proper noun Conservative and not the characteristic "conservative").

As in all things it is the loudest and angriest that get the press, that disrupt the lives of those with whom they work and associate, that dominate these online forums of all sorts. But that's true of atheists as well. There are many different types of atheists as well and they have their strident evangelical factions also!

But in Christianity there is not only the aspect of personal human tendencies which come into play, but a particular new 20th cent. paradigm, ideological stance toward conversion that has affected American Christianity and made it both a haven for the tempermentally xenophobic and an new added substructure of exclusionist doctrines which feed a set of ideas that give a strong sense of cohesion, belonging, support, and emotional resources but have the side effect of taking them out of natural human sympathetic connections to humanity as a whole.

That part is a problem, but not a virulent one as I believe the evolution of ideas and religious ideas will, as with viruses and bacteria, tone it down to less virulent strains with time.

or at least that is what I hope for our future generations. Of course it will no doubt be replaced by other virulent angry exclusivist ideas!

[Polaris]

i disagree, all fiction stories are based on elements of reality. it is a very black and white perspective. and if atheism was not a religion you wouldn't put that as the first justification on your banner.

Arguing from a purely secular viewpoint, it looks like much of the Bible is the historical record for which they just sprinkled in religious explanations....they even stated where they got the historical info from over and over again.

[Undeceived]

But in Christianity there is not only the aspect of personal human tendencies which come into play, but a particular new 20th cent. paradigm, ideological stance toward conversion that has affected American Christianity and made it both a haven for the tempermentally xenophobic and an new added substructure of exclusionist doctrines which feed a set of ideas that give a strong sense of cohesion, belonging, support, and emotional resources but have the side effect of taking them out of natural human sympathetic connections to humanity as a whole.

That part is a problem, but not a virulent one as I believe the evolution of ideas and religious ideas will, as with viruses and bacteria, tone it down to less virulent strains with time.

Isn't the point of religion to go beyond physical needs and satisfy spiritual needs? In Christianity, all are accepted:

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And in Christianity, physical needs are not ignored:

Matthew 6
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

John 6
35 Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

Matthew 11
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Hebrews 4
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

So I don't understand what Christianity has to do with some "new 20th cent. paradigm." The Bible has not changed since 1st century AD, and if anything, the church is more attuned to modern needs, with translations in over 2,800 languages and scripture available through every type of social media.

Of course Christianity is different from many cultural ideologies, but isn't that what you'd expect from a true religion? If a religion coheres to any one culture, doesn't that indicate it is a product of that culture? Given the choice, would you rather have truth "toned down" to fit a culture, or preserved?

[Foxaèr]

i disagree, all fiction stories are based on elements of reality.

Elements being the operative word. As a writer, I can inform you that fiction only reciprocates reality so far as relating to the audience who reads it. Otherwise, what is contained within is very much fiction.

[Vicki Q]

But don't some Christians view all people as God's people? It would seem quaint if the God who 'created the entire cosmos' turned out to only be invested in the goings on of one little tribe of human beings along with those who believed without proof just this one set of religious claims.

I think this is a very good question that I find myself ill equipped to answer. I do think that something happens after we die and I think that for a lot of people that something is very, very good. Whether it's for everyone, and if not who it's for, is for God, not me, to say. My business is trying to follow Jesus as best I can, because that seems the most sensible thing to do.

There's certainly far more to this than believing a handful of religious claims. The C1 Jews believed that they were part of God's People by birthright, and that their response to that could be identified in their observance to boundary markers as defined by the Torah. One of the core story lines of the Gospels is Jesus' changing the definition of God's People as those who were prepared to follow him, and redefining the things God's people need to do. The NT is the story of how this change in definition occurred. Those without much who help others are now in, those with power who live selfishly are out, that sort of thing.

And I don't buy Hell for the 'out crowd' at all. The passages often gleefully wheeled out by that sort of Xian actually mean something quite different in their C1 Jewish context. Furthermore, the Bible talks a lot about destruction- a head on contradiction to eternal punishment!

[Bad Writer]

Isn't the point of religion to go beyond physical needs and satisfy spiritual needs?

First you need to prove that there is such a thing as a spiritual need. What you're suggesting is like telling me that I need an aspirin to ease the phantom pains of my amputated leg.

Of course Christianity is different from many cultural ideologies, but isn't that what you'd expect from a true religion? If a religion coheres to any one culture, doesn't that indicate it is a product of that culture? Given the choice, would you rather have truth "toned down" to fit a culture, or preserved?

You're presupposing that Christianity is a "true religion". You're also presupposing that what it preaches is truth. I'd rather just get rid of it all instead of doing any toning down or preservation. You can't demonstrably prove that the ideals are from a god, so you can't tell me that they are true.