I wouldn’t be a Christian

[Belacqua]

I'd probably be a maltheist if the abrahamic god was proven to be real, and the bible was an accurate representation of his character.

I think this is an important distinction.

The God we're discussing here seems to be the lowest common denominator God, the one the dumb literalists believe in. 

If I were a Christian who had read and understood, say, Dante's Paradiso, the whole thing would be different. That God is not a tyrant who demands worship. 

The fact that so many atheists wish to discuss the dumb version and not the God of Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, etc. (the God smart Christians believe in) makes me think we are being somewhat unfair.

[Belacqua]

For example, has anybody read Simone Weil?

She was a Jew who learned to read ancient Greek by age 12, and graduated first in her class in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure (Simone de Beauvoir came second that year). She turned to Christian mysticism via Plato.

If a person were to become convinced of the truth of Weil's God, and became a Christian because of it, it would be exactly the opposite of showing obeisance to a tyrannical sky-daddy.

Why do we always assume that when a person becomes a Christian he becomes a stupid one?

[robvalue]

I’m assuming I would believe that what the bible said is true. I think that’s a pretty reasonable estimation of being a Christian. Otherwise I may as well make up my own religion.

Even if it’s a metaphorical description of a character, it’s a disgusting one which I’d want nothing to do with. It’s a book I wouldn’t want to associate myself with in any shape or form.

I’m trying to decide which of these guys I want to be.

[Belacqua]

Even if it’s a metaphorical description of a character, it’s a disgusting one which I’d want nothing to do with. It’s a book I wouldn’t want to associate myself with in any shape or form.

William Blake's set of engravings shows the Book of Job to be a story against blind obedience and in favor of thoughtful and creative engagement. The title character begins as the obedient servant of an evil illusory God and, after realizing that this is an error, becomes a musician and artist whose worship is entirely to create beauty and increase his connectedness to other living things. 

Though his interpretation may be different from what you've heard before, it has a long history in the Christian tradition. 

If you find this to be a disgusting metaphorical description I think there is something wrong with you. 

http://www.blakearchive.org/copy/bb421.1...1.1.spb.01

[robvalue]

Well sure, you can go through and come up with tangential sanitised interpetrations that end up making every story in the bible entirely fictional; but at that point, it’s not even a religion anymore, is it? It’s just a book of supposed wisdom. You may as well treat every holy book in the same way and not be religious at all, and assume they have nothing factual to say about any hypothetical creator.

I find it strange that Yahweh would choose to make himself appear to be a monster all the way through the book, and then expects you to interpret it so that he’s actually a good guy. Why would you even begin with the assumption that he’s a good guy, when he’s telling you endlessly that he is not? Imagine his frustration.

This is all reinforcing the basic premise that religion is interested in learning lessons from stories, it’s not interested in facts. And it’s quite possible to learn those lessons without being religious.

[Belacqua]

Well sure, you can go through and come up with tangential sanitised interpetrations that end up making every story in the bible entirely fictional

The Book of Job is fictional. 

It is your interpretation that Blake's non-mainstream but traditional interpretation is "sanitized." You have great confidence in your own interpretation. I think it's better for us to learn the interpretations of the wise thinkers of the past. 


You seem to think that the interpretations you dislike are the "real" meanings, while the interpretations of great Christians like Blake are somehow false. 

I think you should be more humble.

[vulcanlogician]

@ OP:

Well, if God/Jesus turned out to be real, I'd have a whole lot of reassessing to do. I honestly don't know what I'd do. There would be tons of questions I'd have... Is bible inerrant? How is it to be interpreted, if it is to be followed at all? Which schism is the correct one (if any)?

I mean, same deal if I discovered leprechauns or magic spells were real... I'd need to do an entire reassessment of reality.

If you asked me what would change about my attitudes toward the cosmos if I found out leprechauns are real, I don't think I could give an honest answer. I just can't imagine that ever being the case. It would be a real WTF moment. Hard to tell what kind of attitudes I'd have or choices I'd make on the other side of that revelation.

[robvalue]

I don’t deny that it’s possible to learn things from stories in holy books. So if I woke up tomorrow with that opinion, I wouldn’t be any different to how I am now. I don't think it would be meaningful to call myself a Christian. I’d have to believe there was some sort of actual truth to it, somewhere. Otherwise I’m a Jordan Peterson Christian, which he would call me already (since I’m not a murderer).

---

@ OP:

Well, if God/Jesus turned out to be real, I'd have a whole lot of reassessing to do. I honestly don't know what I'd do. There are tons of questions I'd have... Is bible inerrant? How is it to be interpreted if at all? Which schism is the correct one (if any)?

I mean, same deal if I discovered leprechauns or magic spells were real... I'd need to do an entire reassessment of reality.

If you asked me what would change about my attitudes toward the cosmos if I found out leprechauns are real, I don't think I could give an honest answer. I just can't imagine that ever being the case. It would be a real WTF moment. Hard to tell what kind of attitudes I'd have or choices I'd make on the other side of that revelation.

Well, we'd still have all the evidence we have today about the cosmos, so the bible can only be true insofar as it is consistent with that. We already don’t know what happened before a certain point. It appears to have no relevance at all after that point. So to be religious, I’d have to stop assessing evidence properly or start making lots of unfounded metaphysical assertions.

That’s why it’s hard for me to assess what it would be like for me, because my character and thinking set would have entirely changed just to allow any of it in. If I was still in any way me, I’d morally reject the whole thing and let the creator judge me as he sees fit for that. Maybe the truth is he’d be impressed with me focusing on the people and animals around me rather than giving him worship he has no need of.

[Belacqua]

I've noticed an odd thing, having lived 30 years in Japan now.

A lot of Americans dislike the religion they were raised with, but are happy to accept certain of its practices or tenets if the come back in a more exoticized form. For example, when I was in art school in America we were all into Alan Watts and John Cage and that US-style Buddhism. When I got to Japan, though, I spent a while at a Zen retreat outside Fukuyama. Meditation half the day, and work in the vegetable patches the rest. It was a wonderful healthy lifestyle, but in the end I realized I couldn't accept the metaphysics behind it, so I left.

One thing I learned there is that Japanese Zen people find US Zen pretty much unrecognizable. US Zen is an American system of thinking. It is mostly cobbled together from concepts which already existed in the Western tradition. If you read William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, for example, you find he has described a well-established current in American spirituality which matches almost exactly what, decades later, came to be called Zen.

The practice of mindfulness, for example, is attributed to Zen by Alan Watts and Kabat-Zinn, among others. But Japanese Zen people don't recognize it. Recently it has entered Japan as a psychological therapy, and they call it mainfurunesu. That's "mindfulness" in katakana. They need to give it a Western name because it is unfamiliar.

What Americans think of as Zen wisdom is mostly deracinated concepts from the Christian tradition. Mindfulness as spiritual practice (not just therapy) is a watered-down version of what William Blake (a Christian) and Simone Weil wrote about. They called it opening the doors of perception, and attention, respectively.

I get it that people might have bad impressions of Christianity from their childhoods and maybe want to find different ways to take from it what they want. But we should be accurate in our historical knowledge.

[vulcanlogician]

One thing I learned there is that Japanese Zen people find US Zen pretty much unrecognizable. US Zen is an American system of thinking. It is mostly cobbled together from concepts which already existed in the Western tradition. If you read William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, for example, you find he has described a well-established current in American spirituality which matches almost exactly what, decades later, came to be called Zen.

I read Varieties some time last year. Very interesting read. I can see the whole Zen thing reflected in his ideas at certain points. But I'd argue he makes room for religious experiences that aren't very Zen-like at all (ie. intense Christian mysticism). One thing that springs immediately to mind is his comparison of a passage of measured Stoic thinking with a more zealous and emotional Christian-inspired passage that was saying more or less the same thing as the Stoic's excerpt. If I remember correctly, James's point was that (as articulate and measured as the Stoic passage was) it was lacking in a certain dimension--namely that of motivating the reader to embrace the truth which both passages were trying to convey.

As far as theistic philosophers go, I've toyed with sharing some of his notions here. He makes some pretty good arguments. And one of his greatest strengths is that he completely sympathizes with the skeptic's mindset. Sometimes, that makes all the difference, y'know?