Originally Posted by Xanous
Christian atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I view Christ as I view Buddha; both great teachers beyond their time spreading teachings of love. The rest is BS. I could tell a looooong sad story of why I no longer believe but it's personal. I'm a preacher's kid. That's enough explanation. Also I have a spark of sympathy for Satanist like lucien Greaves but that's perhaps for another thread.
First of all warmest of welcomes, Xanous!
This is a really interesting phenomenon, Christian atheism! Congratulation on getting there despite a preacher as a father!
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
Christian atheism is a theological position in which the belief in the God of Christianity is rejected or absent but the moral teachings of Jesus are followed.
Christian atheism is related to Jesuism, the Christian theological-philosophical movement named for its understanding of Jesus as a simple teacher of morals, in direct contrast to traditional Christianity, which claims that Jesus is divine.
Many people only "believe in belief", as Daniel Dennett explains it so nicely - even while claiming to believe in god. Primarily because they believe, that without Christian morals as an overreaching boundary for a society, it might well collapse into chaos. Is that somewhat where you are coming from as well?
I would ask you, though - does that go for all of his teachings, which don't have a magical backdrop - like salvation from a literal hell, miracles etc.? There are so many problems with this in my eyes, but I can understand it and I cherish it, too, when somebody from so deep inside goes out at least part of the way, the main part in your case - but I wonder, if you might not hang on to an empty phantom.
Do you consider stuff like giving away almost all that belongs to you and "not ploughing your field", but doing it like the birds and the flowers, trusting in god to provide for you directly, as a useful guideline for modern responsible living?
In my eyes, these things only make any sense in a mindset of expecting the rapture and second coming in one's lifetime.
What about the rich man and heaven? Without heaven - you still have "don't accumulate wealth" - and if people of Jesus' time would know, how you live today - you certainly would count as a very rich man. So should society have gone about it's progress, including technology, or should we rather have turned our back on constructive action and instead invested all our time and energies in spreading "the good news"?
Would you tell us, what exactly in Christian morality you find so precious, that you hold on to it under an explicitly Christian label, even while knowing that the source is purely human, like with any other moral codes ever brought forth by us? I guess, it includes turning the other cheek - so what if somebody comes into your house and kills people you care about and then goes for you with a bloody knife, would you let her have her way, or would you defend yourself?
I think, you should have intervened even before she's on you - but latest then you probably will anyway, because we have a strong survival instinct, all of us. So that's one down in my eyes. Well - you might be somewhat hindered by psychological programming, which tells you, that violence against women and children is taboo and you might feel compelled to be more of a second cheek turner with her than with a guy, for good old evolutionary and also practical reasons - but this one is obviously dangerous, because I say so. I don't really know why I chose a she - complicates the example...
The golden rule - don't do unto others as you wouldn't want to have others do unto you. That's nice - Confucius penned it down as well - and I would go as far as saying it's a human universal. I guess, many everyday people, not aware of it being a teaching, could come up with formulating it upon deliberation. It's unconsciously installed anyway, on the neurological grounds of our mirror neurons.
But then - the same constraints apply as before - what if you witness your neighbour vandalizing in the neighbourhood seemingly wantonly - wouldn't you call the police? Would you want somebody to call the police on you, if you somehow got out of psychological equilibrium and on a rampage, or would you want somebody to personally intervene and calm you down and help you deal with the fallout? But maybe she doesn't dare to intervene and mess with dangerous you - she'd rather have it dealt with by people, who's job it is? Much too complicated example - but if you exclude comparable circumstances, it's easy to see how it doesn't apply, if another person gives you reason to "do her harm" - like when she's clearly planning to kill you - but also in much more trivial situations.
So if it's all relative anyway - why not make up your own mind on the spot - maybe with some guidance from books, sure - but the bible?!
I'll have to search for a nice Humanist/moral philosophy manifesto, but I know there are way more specific deliberations to be found, looking into more complicated matters with a modern and enlightened mindset - producing more useful insights than I ever saw derived from the bible.
Concerning the ten commandments - I've written my bit on that in some detail on the last page.
The core ones are something good old human empathy and social nature would already provide us with, and does and did since the dawn of our species, without a need of anybody spelling it out as divine/genial inspiration, something special! These "laws" are cultural universals, too.
If you watch suffering, esp. if you in some way identify with the victim - you will feel a bit of their pain and have an impulse to help, is it not so? You shy away from murdering, stealing, lying and cheating on your spouse also purely from nature - if we wouldn't have these inner moral compass - we would have long died out as a species completely dependant on cooperation.
These are the central four that make sense - honouring your parents also makes the same sort of sense - not let them die, once they have fulfilled their "job" on you, taking care of them when they get frail. But even those are obviously relative and depend on the situation. Coveting might make you unhappy and do stupid things - but a sin? The rest is - in my unhumble opinion - just crappy divine vanity and providing means to control people down to their thinking.
So there - what's left to be gained from somebody like Jesus and his "moral teachings", who demonstrably was quite clueless otherwise?
And who threatened everybody not following him as the son of god with eternal torture - that's not loving, nope!
What do you think about my "assessment" - did I leave some important aspects out maybe?
After re-reading the above - I realize that it might come across as "chiding" or attacking you - like maybe kadie felt it when I "crapped all over the commandments" - it's absolutely not meant like that - just wanting to know what is so special and precious for you, while just not liking Christian morality myself, there where it transcends common sense and our natural predispositions. smile.gif
How did it happen I wrote so much? Sorry - sort of! biggrin.gif
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