Maximizing Moral Virtue

[h311inac311]

 You keep saying that Jesus is immoral but refuse to provide any examples of why you think this way.

Well, when was the last time you heard some Christian pluck his eye(s) because he looked at some woman and thought she was handsome? Or when was the last time you heard some Christian amputate his arm to prevent himself from masturbation? Or castrated himself for God? Or sold all his possessions and gave money to the poor?

The answer is almost never because those are all rantings of a vile lunatic and Christians ignore them as such, but they should be honest and admit that most of Jesus's teachings are insane and vile.

"If the salt has lost it's savor how can it become salty again?"

As for Nudger,

Seems to me like you are the kind of person who values fairness.

[Pat Mustard]

I'm trying my best here to understand your final line of reasoning. So I think what you are getting at is the idea that Christianity is fundamentally a flawed system? And by flawed that could mean divergent from what Christ himself would've wanted if he were alive today. Or that Christ himself was a flawed bedrock to build a church on to begin with.

For the first statement, yes I believe that Jesus would have many things to say about our endlessly sub-divided modern understanding of Christian doctrine which focuses more on reading the word and winning intellectual arguments about which theology is "correct" and dividing yourself from those condemned as "incorrect".
Jesus prayed for unity in the Garden before he was crucified but today we have defied that commandment wholesale. Beyond division we no longer drive demons out of a person's body and rarely do we heal the sick or perform miraculous feats by way of the holy spirit. These signs and wonders were meant to signify the move of God and distinguish it from a casual book study. Within the church we hear small stories here an there of prayers being answered but rarely do we see these things on display.

I really could go on and on about the protestant movement and how we are still in some senses still trying to re-connect with that original church recorded about in Acts. The disciples have long since passed away and the Roman Catholic Church took over for well over a millennia. So a lot of what we call "protestantism" is just a reaction to what we view as herasy within the RCC as revealed by the more recent translations of our Bible (The KJV, Geneva, and Tyndale versions). We've had about 500 years to protest the catholic church and create our own version of Christianity and it has led to many arguments and many divisions. My hope is that someday soon we will all begin to unite as followers of the way again, valuing unity over debate and not being prideful of our limited understanding of divine doctrine.

The second statement I think touches more on what an atheist would posit, that this Christ person was a fool and a liar whom no one should have ever placed any faith in to begin with so any attempt at re-connecting with the true Christ would be futile since all we will discover is some schizophrenic lunatic who thought himself to be God.
Personally I think that if the book of Acts were happening all around you, the blind being able to see because they attended a local Bible study. Violent schizophrenics who cut themselves and behave irrationally and violently having their demons removed and cast out. The deaf hearing, and prophets foretelling the future I think that the atheist would at least have to be a bit more curious as opposed to skeptical.

Are you a communist?

[Pat Mustard]

Are you really trying your best?  I want to make a point here so that you sit for..what, 60 seconds?  Not too much - and think about that.  

Divergent from what christ thought?  Certainly, absolutely, and inarguably.  The man in the book was a man of his time.  You might feel compelled to assert that jesus is the good leader in your good leaders>anarchy>bad leaders.....but....he (allegedly) held and espoused views that would get a bitch canceled today - if not thrown in prison or executed by SF.  The thing that's interesting, is that contemporary christians in the US, by demographic weight, do not.  Contemporary christians do not agree with jesus on this..and many other issues

Is this a benefit of a more hands off approach to morality?  The approach you advocate for.

As to the other thing.   The book of acts is fiction, even bible thumping bible scholars recognize that the book of acts is pure invention........but that doesn't really matter to me.  We can assert for the absolute lulz that the book of acts is true, and that changes nothing about my life.  Your religion is evil, that's why I'm not a christian.  That's more relevant to me than the fact that your god does not exist.  Welcome to Af.  I hope I'm never so unfortunate as to be so unwell that I cut chunks out of myself while babbling about an abrahamic god and his ghostly buddies, by any description.......?  Attend a local bible study?  I'm from the deep old south.  Would you wager you immortal soul on knowing more about what's in magic book than I do?  Are you wholly committed to this line of reasoning that must assume that any divergent view, catholic or atheist.... is a product of ignorance and infamiliarity?

Perhaps I'm extremely knowledgeable about christian views..past and present...and I'm asking you this question because of that.  Is what so many contemporary christians deride as the moral death or moral decay of society a product of a more hands off view...leveraging what a person might simply notice or discover, absent rigorous moral misinstruction by christians?  Is that a possibility, for you?  Maybe there was never any way..as a singular and pure and original thing..in the first place?  But even if there were would you expect a more hands off approach to round up or down to whatever that way is...and...if so...why has the majority of the world..and even the majority of the christian world, missed whatever that is?

My ultimate reasoning, as you try to feel it out......some christ being a flawed bedrock.  Well, yeah...vicarious redemption..... when's the last time you purchased a blood diamond for your loved one(s)..?  Never?  Yeah, me neither.

"Judge not that ye not be judged."

My hands off approach is more how I would handle things if I were a governor or a president who has been given a chance to reform education. The Bible would be one of the books that kids would be able to check out at the library and write book reports on but it wouldn't be forced on them. The hands off approach is so that kids can form their own identity and understand why they believe what they believe. Ultimately you can't be a follower of Christ if you never put the net down and choose to follow him. God doesn't just want your mind, he is far more concerned about your heart as well as your actions. This is why you can't force any religion on anyone and every attempt to force religion on kids is immoral IMO. You either get a mindless zombie who recites the songs and the prayers hoping that their parents will praise them for it or you get a rebellious and violent kid who hates religion for the way their parents pushed it on them. 

When you say that Christ taught things which modern Christians don't agree with (or would get cancelled for) I would be interested as to what you are referring to specifically. No I wouldn't wage my immortal soul on who knows more about this supernatural book. As for the Catholic church I know this is a massive issue but for the most part, as I understand it, the entire protestant movement was sparked by William Tyndale and King James as they made it their mission to translate the Bible into the common language of the day and distribute it to as many people as possible. The Catholic church was Rome's way of dealing with a spiritual rebellion which rejected their gods and had people no longer willing to make sacrifices unto them. Their first solution was just executing Christians but due to their resilience the gospel only spread further and wider as stories of these brave men and women who were willing to die for their God spread across Rome.

So The Roman government figured, "If you can't beat em join em," and that's when Constantine formed the Roman Catholic Church as a way to re-unite Rome and combine the Roman mythology with Christian practices. The goal was simple, create a Christo-Roman hybrid religion that has pagan gods wearing saint-like masks so that both the pagans and the Christians can attend church together. This was a much more successful way of slowing the move of god than just chopping Christian's heads off. The term "protestant" means that you are one who protests the Catholic church. I had a friend in college who liked to call himself a protestant atheist for this very reason given that he was raised Catholic.

I don't think that Catholics (especially in the modern day) are ignorant of the Bible, I don't think this of atheists or any other division of the body of Christ either. Knowledge of the word is one thing but action is a far more important act of worship than belief or argument. I do hope I never spoke with you, or any other person on this forum, as though they are ignorant of the most common book on earth. I know you guys have reasons for why you've chosen not to believe as I myself have gone down the atheist YouTube rabbit hole myself and wound up challenging my own beliefs as a result. But after I had heard just about every argument for atheism I just simply wasn't convinced. 

When it comes to moral decay I think that is a result of the church separating itself from the Holy Spirit which should be its primary sustainer. Most modern churches you walk into today don't just lack the Holy Spirit but also the fruit thereof. How many Christian leaders strike you as peaceful? or Joyful? or Patient? or Kind? at a glance the New Testament is full of loving and encouraging words written by the apostles to the church groups that they helped start. But how often do we see Christians building each other up with encouragement? As someone who was raised in a Church and am still in attendance I can tell you that Christian fellowship is a fairly rare thing in these United States, most of the time all you get is a judgmental reading of the book followed by people judging themselves, their country as well as each other, endlessly analyzing themselves and those around them for flaws. You probably wouldn't choose to be friends with someone who is like this, would you? And yet we are told, by our savior, not to judge unless we ourselves are pure enough to make a judgment. But more importantly we are called to be a light or a beacon to this perishing world, a city set on a hill. In my home church there are many intellectuals who have gone to seminary, who know a fair bit of Greek who can argue and reason their position to you for hours, but what we lack is compassion towards each other. My church was very charitable, but what they lacked was a sense of compassion for those who had been with them for a long time. 

After I had gotten my heart-broken at the ripe old age of 17 I went into the worst downward spiral of my whole life. I felt lost, I felt like no one knew how to empathize with me, I felt like I was abandoned by everyone in my family. Sure, they did take me to some pill salesmen and I did end up finding a good counselor, but as I spoke with this counselor I realized something, I like him because A. he listens to me and B. he acts like whatever I tell him must somehow be significant. My insurance was paying him $50/hr just so I could have a real friend. My parents only listen from a standpoint of pious superiority and so they will hardly ever acknowledge their own weaknesses in front of me. Most people in my Bible study group are similar, because I was struggling to find purpose, meaning and acceptance I was treated as an outcast. Because I needed the church that I went to daycare in they treated me like a vagabond. I felt like I didn't have a home or a family, and I've felt this way for quite some time now. They have brain knowledge of the word but, asaide from being good citizens who work hard and cross their T's and dot their I's they're too wealthy to care for the poor in spirit. 

For the most part I think being hands off is about allowing someone to come to their own conclusions as well as challenge your deeply held beliefs without you asserting that your mind is divine and that they are a sinner for questioning you. I'm confident that through prayer and action Christians can do a wonderful job actually demonstrating their religion without being overly preachy or judgmental as though they are above you looking down on you from their lofty seat at their self-appointed throne. The Pharisees were those who considered their interpretation of the law to be law. They saw Moses 1,600 laws and thought to themselves "that's not enough, we need more laws, more judgement, more condemnation for the congregation." and so they sought to outlaw anything which might lead to a law being broken, establishing a strict code that forbade everyone from entering the kingdom of God. This is my view of those who value Judgment over compassion. You have to show people the love of Christ before they will ever accept his judgment.

We worship a man who once described himself as gentle and lowly, does this description match your local pastor? Do the values of humility and kindness seem evident in the way that your local church congregation acts towards one another? Or do they seem austere and Judgy?

A. Christian martyrology is vastly exaggerated. Apart from a short few years in the 190s christians were only locally persecuted which often lead to punishment for the persecutors. If you want to see Roman religious persecution on a mass scale, look to the christian emperors. B. When Constantine adopted christianity (solely for political reasons) at most 10% of the empire was christian. By the time it became official no more than 20% were. And even deep into the Eastern Empire there were many pagans still living.

PS your knowledge of you denomination's history is really bad, you've left out Luther and his backflips, his successors, Calvin, the Dutch and countless others. For example have you ever heard of Jan Hus?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yeah, it’s fair to say I value fairness. In a sense, it’s contained within the idea of moral virtue itself. Which is to say that if we correctly understand the idea of moral virtue we will have inevitably described a bare bones system of what is, and is not, fair.

[h311inac311]

Are you a communist?

No, at least not at the federal or state level. However I do believe that Paul and Jesus both advocated for a radical form of generosity and minimalism that the vast majority of middle-class Christians no longer practice. They have their excuses for why they don't share, but ultimately Paul believed that it would be a shame for a wealthy church to have knowledge of a poor church and not share their resources with them so that they would have all things in common.

In Romans 13, by far the most political chapter of the New Testament, we see Paul outline 5 basic commandments, thou shalt not steal, covet, commit adultery, bear false witness or murder. Given the context I interpret this to mean that this is what Paul viewed as the correct laws for a legal system to enforce which would make him somewhat of a libertarian. Imagine if these were the only 5 laws men were held responsible for not breaking?

Without coveting, there would be no communism.

[Aegon]

So for this topic we will be accepting the premise that God isn't real, okay now what?

My main question is what should we do to ensure that our children inherit good moral values? Also, how should we run society and education so that we can ensure that our communities don't fall apart?

It's interesting to me that this is a problem in your mind. Do you really think Christianity was/is doing a good job of doing that?

Empathy is easily teachable without adhering to a specific religious belief. The realization that other humans are just like you is a simple concept. "Do unto others as you would like done to you" is a simple rule easily divorced from Jesus.

[h311inac311]

Right now the modern church is only doing so much in the way of teaching as Jesus taught. We're still too materialistic and, from my own personal experience, way too reluctant to actually help people in need. Most churches will either kick out or ostracize those who have emotional needs, or who are going through suffering. They will pray with you maybe once, but after that they want you to shut up so the preacher can keep on talking.

Atheists talk about how good they are without religion but in all honesty I don't see all that much fruit. In my opinion (and observation) atheism just leads to materialism, nihilism and eventually, depression. You have no soul, no purpose (beyond the purpose that you create for yourself) and your life ultimately has no meaning as you are just a random cosmic accident. A mere product of natural selection and sexual bias.

[Pat Mustard]

Are you a communist?

No, at least not at the federal or state level. However I do believe that Paul and Jesus both advocated for a radical form of generosity and minimalism that the vast majority of middle-class Christians no longer practice. They have their excuses for why they don't share, but ultimately Paul believed that it would be a shame for a wealthy church to have knowledge of a poor church and not share their resources with them so that they would have all things in common.

In Romans 13, by far the most political chapter of the New Testament, we see Paul outline 5 basic commandments, thou shalt not steal, covet, commit adultery, bear false witness or murder. Given the context I interpret this to mean that this is what Paul viewed as the correct laws for a legal system to enforce which would make him somewhat of a libertarian. Imagine if these were the only 5 laws men were held responsible for not breaking?

Without coveting, there would be no communism.

So you're not a christan, then. Why argue so vehemently for it?

[h311inac311]

No, at least not at the federal or state level. However I do believe that Paul and Jesus both advocated for a radical form of generosity and minimalism that the vast majority of middle-class Christians no longer practice. They have their excuses for why they don't share, but ultimately Paul believed that it would be a shame for a wealthy church to have knowledge of a poor church and not share their resources with them so that they would have all things in common.

In Romans 13, by far the most political chapter of the New Testament, we see Paul outline 5 basic commandments, thou shalt not steal, covet, commit adultery, bear false witness or murder. Given the context I interpret this to mean that this is what Paul viewed as the correct laws for a legal system to enforce which would make him somewhat of a libertarian. Imagine if these were the only 5 laws men were held responsible for not breaking?

Without coveting, there would be no communism.

So you're not a christan, then.  Why argue so vehemently for it?

By what logic have you determined that every Christian must advocate for communism? 

Is it possible for a Christian to believe in the separation of church and state?

[The Grand Nudger]

Depends. A cultural or nominal christian? Absolutely, and most of them do. A person who actually believes in and swears to a christ? No, not genuinely. Ultimately, a person religiously convinced of their faith in christ is not going to be able to vote their conscience -and- satisfy the single demand of secular organization. It's too much to ask, always has been, and that's why religion has always intruded on government. For better or for worse.