Why are you (still) a Christian?

[The Grand Nudger]

OFC, we often refer to superstitions to explain our religions but the superstitions are not actually the cause of our religions. Just as you make references above that are not at all important from a factual perspective - they serve only to tell the story you wanted to tell.

Perhaps, one day, both you and the christians will just be able to say your shit without the fantasy overlay - but I doubt that. I think our inability to accurately express this stuff is the main reason for the creation of those fantasy worlds in the first place. You're saying something you think is true, just like the christians are - but neither of you can sell that truth by reference to mere reality - and so we get distinctly motivated narrativization instead.

[FrustratedFool]

Good point.
Assent to a proposition and adherence to an ideal or community aren't the same thing.

But a Christian who has studied, one would expect both. Some who study lose one or both. But some retain them.

[Belacqua]

But a Christian who has studied, one would expect both.  Some who study lose one or both.  But some retain them.

It looks as though it could go either way. 

The Japanese Christians I know, and one American lady who does therapy for young children, just say that the metaphysics is for the experts to argue about. They see it purely as a call to service.

The economist I mentioned earlier is comfortable with the fact that all of the miracle stories are fiction, and that arguments like those of Thomas Aquinas won't persuade anybody. He also takes his religion as an ethical system.

William Blake, who was solidly in an old but minority Christian tradition, made it clear that it didn't matter to him whether Abraham, Moses, and Jesus were historical people or not. To him, they were states of the human condition which we may pass through -- with Jesus being the ideal, of course. 

Like everything else, this approach goes back to Plato. When Phaedrus asks Socrates if he believes the Greek myths are true, Socrates says he leaves that to the experts; he reads the myths for what they can tell him about himself.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and we read your stories for what they tell us about you. Your totally real and certainly not made up "christian" friend thinks the story is fiction, and yet you persist.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Which prompts the question: why is there a need for religious overlay in order to turn this will to action from so many?

[The Grand Nudger]

Consensus building. Think about any big problem. Not the shit that bothers us on tuesdays but the stuff we've been grappling with for centuries. None of us can single handedly deal with them. We need a coalition - but what do people respond better to...and I mean large numbers here.. the kind we'd need to address those types of issues - well reasoned arguments or emotionally investing stories?

[Belacqua]

It seems to me that in most times and in most places, religion is more about ritual and performance than about assent to propositions. It's something people DO.

So for example if a Japanese college kid is applying to a difficult grad school to study advanced physics, he'll probably go to the local shrine and write out a little plaque entreating the god for success on his application. Whether he believes in the god or the ritual's effectiveness barely matters. It's just something that's done.

[Fake Messiah]

It seems to me that in most times and in most places, religion is more about ritual and performance than about assent to propositions. It's something people DO.

So for example if a Japanese college kid is applying to a difficult grad school to study advanced physics, he'll probably go to the local shrine and write out a little plaque entreating the god for success on his application. Whether he believes in the god or the ritual's effectiveness barely matters. It's just something that's done.

Not in most times, but that's how it is done now. The victory of science has been so complete that our very idea of religion has changed.

If the child of a devout Hindu suffers from a severe case of measles, the father would say a prayer to Dhanvantari and offer flowers and sweets at the local temple -- but only after he has rushed the toddler to the nearest hospital and entrusted him to the care of the doctors there.

But in premodern times medicine fell within the religious domain. Almost every prophet, guru and shaman doubled as a healer. Whether you lived in ancient Egypt or in medieval Europe, if you were ill you were likely to go to the witch doctor rather than to the doctor, and to make a pilgrimage to a renowned temple rather than to a hospital. As was with farming. When an agricultural crisis loomed as a result of drought or a plague of locusts, farmers turned to the priests to intercede with the gods. But if Egypt is now struck by a plague of locusts, Egyptians may well ask Allah for help - why not? - but they will not forget to call upon chemists, entomologists and geneticists to develop stronger pesticides and insect-resisting wheat strains.

[FrustratedFool]

Very few but the most hardcore religionists eschew modern medicine. It's usually a 'thank God for doctors' thing.

[Belacqua]

Not in most times, but that's how it is done now.

I suspect that everywhere in every time, people sought out the most practical and utilitarian help that was available. 

They also, then as now, perform the ritual that is common in their culture.