I'm a christian who doesn't believe in god. (Is there an atheist christian category somewhere?)

[pinto]

Last edited Fri Mar 21, 2014, 11:34 PM - Edit history (1)

How's that for a dichotomy.

In the religious realm I was raised with the concept of a trinity - God, the Son of God and the Holy Ghost. Catholicism. I sort of got it, yet after a while whittled it down in my understanding to the examples of Jesus that have been passed down through first, second, third hand accounts. Those still resonate with me. God, not so much. The Holy Ghost is a mystery to me.

As one who is somewhat comfortable with the unknown, that's fine with me.

I've read the bible, not in it's entirety to tell the truth. It can be a long slog but a good read for what it's worth. Moby Dick, another long slog, took me 3 or 4 times to get through it, lol. Another good read for what it's worth. I'd love to see some scholarly type write a comparative opinion on the two.

So, I take the bible at face value for the most part. i.e. it's a compilation of pieces on a big theme.
Melville took on a similar big theme and did it better, in my point of view. And, of course, just my take.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. There is actually a long history of christian atheism.

Google it. I actually find it fascinating. If you are old enough to remember the Time Magazine "God is Dead" issue, that was reflecting the growth of Christian atheist philosophy within the Christian theological community.

[pinto]

3. I remember that issue, vaguely. Mainly for the cover line.

I'll look it up. (aside) Secular Christianity seems where I'm going to sit for a while. I figure God can take care of himself if there is a god.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. there is also de Botton, an atheist who loves the culture

of religion, the music, the art, the architecture, and thinks atheists could learn a lot from what organized religion did right.

Christian atheists are split into two camps, basically. The "God is Dead" folks, borrowing somewhat from Nietzsche, believe that god literally died at the crucifixion, and that since then we have lived in a world without god. The other side holds that gods are entirely an invention of humans, they are complete atheists, and that one can be a Christian, can strip all the woo out of the myths and teachings, and still be a believer without being a theist.

I've oversimplified everything. Read up, it really is interesting stuff.

[pinto]

6. Thanks.

[Brettongarcia]

21. Humanists often focus on Jesus as the human, understandable side of God.

Many in religion do this too (cf. "anthropology" of God, and humanistic theology). The theology sometimes suggests that God became a man ... so we can respect man more, in effect. Or even see our idea of "God" as a human creation. This interfaces with Existentialism.

Unfortunately, some Fundies do a perverted version of this too: they often claim that their belief is not "religion," but is "Jesus." Though of course ironically, their Jesus is very, very religious.

[Warpy]

2. My mother was typically Irish

and went to an Irish Catholic church every Sunday and tried to send me to nun school until I rebelled at the ripe old age of 10 and was scandalized when I wanted nothing to do with the church.

She was also an agnostic who believed firmly in the Irish flavor of reincarnation.

Well, until she sat down and read the bible cover to cover. She never set foot in a church after that.

[pinto]

5. As a fellow Irish Catholic, I hear you. Sorry you had that experience.

For me, much of it was cultural, social and in some way a grounding in many of our lives. I went to a Jesuit run school for a while. Thankfully they were not dogmatically rigid and supported the Jesuit tradition of questioning, questioning.

[Maedhros]

7. The Trinity is, in my very humble opinion, simply the Catholic interpretation of the Self

as discussed in the Upanishads: the Self is everything (God), and the individual, at the same time.

[pinto]

8. I'm unfamiliar with that. Is it that we are all one with it all, whatever it is?

[Maedhros]

9. The mukhya Upanishads are some of the oldest known philosophical writings of India

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanishads

I am admittedly only an amateur philosopher, but I consider that the Upanishads, Parmenides, Plato, and Aquinas were all using different language to talk about essentially the same thing.

[pinto]

16. I think we're all talking about the same thing.

[demwing]

45. There are nearly as many flavors of Hinduism

As there are Hindus, but one of the great philosophical divisions is whether the divine is an impersonal energy, or possesses an eternal personality. And, by extension, whether the individual soul is absorbed into the impersonal "void" -- or exists in an eternal relationship with a personal deity.

[struggle4progress]

10. A couple of books:

The Gospel of Christian Atheism
Thomas Altizer, 1966

Atheism in Christianity: the Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom
Ernst Bloch, 1968

... As to whether Ernst Bloch believed or disbelieved, he seems to have covered three significant bases: he not only celebrated his bar mitzvah, but was also confirmed, and later admitted that during the latter ceremony made a private confirmation of his atheism. Some people may frown at this and suggest that the Almighty tends to prefer it if you plump for one thing or the other, but then such people might not think that two of the epigraphs to this book make any sense: "The best thing about religion is that it makes for heretics"; and "only an atheist can be a good Christian; only a Christian can be a good atheist" ... Atheism in Christianity is not at all a torture to read. Written, amazingly, in his 83rd year, if my calculations are correct, it is, instead, exhilarating to read, even if you're not entirely sure you like this kind of thing. Take, for example, the beginning of Chapter 19, "How Restless Men Are": "We in our turn have never emerged from ourselves, and we are where we are. But we are still dark in ourselves; and not only because of the nearness, the immediacy of the Here-and-now in which we, as all things, have our being. No - it is because we tear at each other, as no beasts do: secretly we are dangerous" ... Bloch's central obsession was with utopia, which here manifests itself not as a prescriptive idea but as an inquiry into what the very existence of religion implies regarding the oppressive nature of society, and existence ...
The world turned upside down
Nicholas Lezard
Friday 24 July 2009

[Jim__]

11. This is Slavoj Žižek's take on the Holy Spirit.

Žižek is an atheist, but he finds a lot of truth in Christianity. This is an excerpt from his book, The Monstrosity of Christ:

... The lesson of Christian Incarnation (God becomes man) is that to speak of divine Persons outside of Incarnation is meaningless, at best a remainder of pagan polytheism. Of course, the Bible says "God sent and sacrificed his only Son" - but the way to read this is: the Son was not present in God prior to Incarnation, sitting up there at his side. Incarnation is the birth of Christ, and after his death, there is neither Father nor Son but "only" the Holy Spirit, the spiritual substance of the religious community. Only in this sense is the Holy Spirit the synthesis of Father and Son, of Substance and Subject: Christ stands for the gap of negativity, for subjective singularity, and in the Holy Spirit the substance is "reborn" as the virtual community of singular subjects, persisting only in and through their activity.

[LostOne4Ever]

12. Alluded to something similar to this in a previous post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=118108

There is a debate raging over the meaning of the terms atheist, agnostic and even Christian. If one defines Christian as one who thinks of Yeshua as a great philosopher (but not necessarily divine) who is worthy of following, I see no reason one can not be both a Christian and an Atheist.

[pinto]

18. That sort of echoes my take.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. The Holy Ghost is always a bit of a mystery ...

[pinto]

15. LOL. That's pretty good.

[rug]

14. Moby Dick is an astounding book and Ishmael, an uncanny observer.

Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air.

[pinto]

17. Isn't it? When I finally waded through it, no pun intended, I went whoa. What a great tale.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. Jefferson re-tooled the new testament in a manner that you might find interesting.

He removed the divine/supernatural bits, offering a possibly different or useful perspective on the (possible) historical individual that may have ben Jesus of the bible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Bible

[Brettongarcia]

20. Some interesting similarities between Moby Dick and the God of the Bible

Last edited Sat Mar 22, 2014, 12:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Some might say they are both Big Fish stories. About the elusive Big One that everyone claims to have caught. But that keeps ... slipping out of our grasp.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americannovel/timeline/mobydick.html

[cbayer]

22. Grey areas - there are so many people in the grey areas.

You are what you are, my friend. You can believe, not believe, go to church, not go to church, read the bible or not. It's all entirely up to you and this is not a black and white issue, no matter what anyone says.

What do you see as common to the bible and Moby Dick? That would make for a fun discussion.

[pinto]

23. Ahab seems like a vengeful Old Testament god, or a king. Moby Dick is his arch nemesis, the devil?

Both appear tied in an epic struggle. The obsession ultimately destroys all on board save one, Ishmael, who is left to tell the larger than life tale. So the story is narrated second hand. Ishmael survives by using an empty coffin as a life raft.

The Melville story includes predictions (prophesies) of doom by both crew members, Elijah and Fedallah, prior to the hunt.

Ahab is mentioned in the Biblical Old Testament as a powerful king that went to the "dark side" so to speak. He supported in some way the followers of Baal. Elijah is mentioned as a prophet who foresaw his overthrow.

Ishmael, in the Old Testament, is the son of Abraham borne to a surrogate mother, not his father's wife. He is ultimately pushed out of the family, or leaves with his birth mother. Both spend some time living on bread and water in the dessert. Then return to the established Middle East world.

LOL - I'm obviously no biblical scholar but these similarities stand out.

[cbayer]

24. I've never thought about it that way and read the book a long, long time ago.

Perhaps I should take it on again. It seemed like such a chore at the time.

Speaking of epic struggles, have you seen Robert Redford's "All is Lost"? The hardcore sailors around here are all focused on what is technically incorrect about it, but I thought it was frightfully realistic and was totally glued to it. It's hilarious to listen to all these seasoned sailors talk about what they would have done differently.

Fact is, one never knows what you might do when confronted with a crisis. You just do the best you can.

[pinto]

25. I'll check out "All is Lost". Have heard about it and I'm a Redford fan.

That's funny about "insider" reviews and comments. I've been part of discussions about some gay themed films with the same sort of back and forth. And sitting with my uncle during a movie or play (he's an actor) there's the occasional comment - "Stepped on that line", "Missed his cue", etc. Kind of fun.

Agree, no one knows what they'll do in a crisis for the most part. And you do what you can do.

[Voice for Peace]

26. How do you feel about changing "food stamps" to "jesus stamps" and

unemployment or health care to "Jesuscare"

[MellowDem]

27. You can identify however you like...

But I wouldn't identify you as a Christian based on the common definition.

The core tenets of Christianity, from the Bible, are very immoral and contradict the values of what can generally be called the "left".

But nearly all people are indoctrinated into religion from a young age. They associate positive aspects of community and tradition with religion, and for many, if not most, in the US, they don't care about the actual beliefs or dogma, much less whether those beliefs are true. So they have no problem identifying with a belief system while not believing it. The dissonance doesn't phase them.

But it's still harmful IMHO. The belief system they identify with still does a lot of damage. Their passive support for it is wrong.

If most people were indoctrinated into the belief system of white supremacy, and it was a socially normative thing to be raised in a local KKK chapter, and many people identified as white supremacist while not believing in it, and mainly just cherished the community and tradition of it, well, that would still be seen as wrong, not to mention bizarre by non-supremacists.

The reason so many religious people or those who identify as such don't understand this perspective is because of their privilege. They keep the benefits they associate with their belief system while ignoring the beliefs themselves (selectively) and the terrible harm it does on others.

If you are an atheist but just find some of the ideas associated with Jesus as good, that just makes you an atheist who finds some of the ideas of Jesus as good IMHO. That would be nearly every atheist. Some of the good ideas associated with Jesus have been around since forever and are near universal understandings of morality whose source isn't the Bible.

People who want to redefine belief systems to mean nearly nothing so they can feel Ok identifying with them are being disingenuous. That may not be your intention, but it is of many people I met who identify with beliefs they don't believe.

[cbayer]

28. The basics of Christianity are very moral and entirely consistent with the politics of the left.

Privilege, childhood indoctrination, cognitive dissonance, intellectual dishonesty, disingenuous. You use these terms over and over and over again without any regard to all the information you are given from others that your concepts are entirely erroneous.

What do you call someone who holds onto dogmatic beliefs despite clear evidence to the contrary?

Define it any way you want for yourself, but you have no standing to define it for anyone else.

[MellowDem]

29. What do you call someone who identifies with a hateful belief system...

And doesn't believe it?

Your responses never say why any of my points are wrong or the terms I use are inappropriate.

Christianity requires you love a god that is, by turns, genocidal, tyrannical, misogynist, hypocritical, cruel, manipulative, capricious, homophobic, jealous, hateful, etc., by Christianity's own account. And if you don't? Well, you get punished, for eternity.

Who would consider that moral?

[cbayer]

30. You are the one who defines it as a hateful belief system.

But you are not any kind of authority on what other people identify as their belief system, let alone any kind of final authority.

No matter how many times you say it, it still won't be true. The god you describe is not the god described by other people.

Don't you get that? It's just yours.

I'm sorry, but I can't go around this pole with you anymore. You are so extreme and so on the fringe, that talking to you becomes completely impossible.

You are blinded, MellowDem. I hope that someday you will understand that.

But in the meantime, adios.

[MellowDem]

31. The god I describe is the one in the Bible...

You consider it extreme for me to simply point out what the Bible says?

People have been able to identify with hateful belief systems for a long time now because of the religious privilege of our society, and nothing makes someone who identifies with a belief system they don't believe in more uncomfortable than having the beliefs pointed out.

Which is why many lie to themselves and others. You tell me with a straight face that the god of the Bible is a moral character. Of course, you don't say why, much less rebut the parts of the Bible I point out that show he isn't.

You never address any point, you just get outraged. Maybe you should look at why you're outraged. It's because you're wrong and don't want to admit it. It's why you are running now, and will continue to in the future. You don't care whether religious beliefs are true or not, and in fact, you think it's rude when people question it at all. That's why it doesn't matter if someone lies about what they believe, because it's not like it matters anyways to you.

All that matters is that people can continue to delude themselves and stew in their own dissonance in a comfortable manner. Defending privilege and the status quo seems like your only goal.

[kwassa]

32. I always have wondered why the word "mellow" is in your username.

As I have noticed your posts over time, on any subject, I don't recall any as being of the mellow variety. But, that's just me.

I don't think it is extreme for you to point out what the Bible says. Or some of the things the Bible says.

I think you choose to select an extreme group of passages. This creates the selected impression of God that you wish to create.

It is not, however, the selection of passages that many others would make. You accept no other selection but your own. That's fine, but don't expect anyone else to buy it.

[MellowDem]

33. It doesn't matter which selection of passages I choose...

The Bible contradicts itself all the time. It makes no sense. I don't believe it's the word of god, so I don't try to reconcile why it makes no sense, I already know why.

Anyone who reads the a Bible as if it were the word of god would have to come to the same view of god, nothing in the Bible, as contradictory as it is, portrays god as a good guy, if we were to judge him by modern standards. Given that god is supposed to be perfect and timeless, the morals promoted by god back then are supposed to be the end all be all.

I can acknowledge the good parts of the Bible, but none of them make up for the bad or even contradict it, in some ways they reinforce it, as good acts are ultimately done on the command of a tyrannical dictator that will punish you.

I know that people cherry pick the Bible to make it feel comfortable with themselves, but that's dishonest, and people are doing themselves a disservice by doing so. Most Christians don't even read the Bible, which is probably the easiest way to remain comfortable in your beliefs, and which also proves to me, at least, that most don't care about the beliefs, much less whether they are true.

[kwassa]

34. You are cherry-picking the Bible yourself. Nothing in the Bible portrays God as a good guy?

What a warped interpretation. What denial.

[MellowDem]

37. The guy genocided the planet...

And that's just one part. What could god do from there that would make him a good guy? According to the Bible, god created the devil and hell, god created us knowing beforehand who would make it to heaven and who wouldn't, what kind of morality is it for an all powerful being to punish his creation that he made to disobey him?

If you can tell me what makes the god of the Bible good after all that, have at it. God commands humans to do some good things later on, but notice how they never apply to him? He punishes people for eternity based on finite crimes, crimes that he set them up for as the all-powerful creator.

[Warren Stupidity]

39. genocide is too restricted.

Wiping out all living creatures goes way past genocide.

[MellowDem]

41. True...

More a reference to god's "chosen people", which is based on bloodline. How creepy is that?

[Leontius]

36. You don't judge God.

[Warren Stupidity]

38. why not?

[MellowDem]

40. And North Koreans don't judge Kim...

I think you've proved my point perfectly. The only difference being that one is real.

If god cannot be judged and has no morality, and therefore can do whatever he wants, who would want to worship that out of love and not fear?

[pinto]

35. Yeah, I can identify however I like. And you can choose to label me however you like. Your choice.

I'm fine with that. I'll say this though, since your comments seem a bit personal. I'm not indoctrinated, immoral, uncaring, unaware, passive, privileged, disingenuous, or racist. Some of those implications hurt me a bit, MellowDem. Likely not intended to be taken personally but it's hard to tell in context. So I'll close with this.

I am exactly who I am. You can label me however you choose. It's your choice. Yet, believe me, you have no clue. Take care.

[MellowDem]

42. If you choose to identify as a Christian...

while not believing Christianity, you are definitely privileged when it comes to religion. It takes a lot of privilege to identify with a hateful belief system that still causes lots of harm to this day while not having to own up to or defend any of the beliefs. That's the privilege of religion. You get the benefits of identification with none of the real baggage that comes with it.

It takes even more privilege to be offended by having that fact pointed out. It's a matter of perspective, and privilege blinds a lot of people to it.

So I would say I know you're privileged just from what you have told me, that is enough of a clue. As for the rest? I don't know. I wasn't trying to be personal, more like pointing out the hypocrisy and harm caused by many people who identify with religions they don't believe. Your OP brought up that general topic.

If you're going to willfully identify with such a hateful belief system, don't be surprised if you're criticized for doing so. It may be socially normative now to say Christianity is this ethereal idea that can mean whatever you want it to, because it's convenient for the majority, but it won't always be that way, many people see Christianity and other religions for what they are, explicitly in their own texts, and don't ignore the various lies and dishonesty religion has put forth to survive in the modern world.

[pinto]

43. Hi.

[MellowDem]

44. Hello.

One day, people will look at this...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2014/03/23/kkk-leader-we-dont-hate-people-because-of-their-race-were-a-christian-organization/

And rightly associate Christianity (and others) as just another hateful philosophy.

I'm giving it a century or two more before books like the Bible are reviled as systems of thinking by the majority in the US, it takes awhile for socially normative things to fall away. It's already happening quickly in Europe though, so that's nice.