Moderate Christians

[EdwardAbbey]

What is a true Christian?

 

Are liberal/moderate Christians true Christians?

 

What is it they actually believe or disbelieve about the bible?

 

Is it possible to be a true Christian but not believe in the majority of scripture?

 

But doesn't the bible say that you are either hot or cold toward God and if you are luke warm, He will spue you out of His mouth? I think Jesus said that.

 

It appears that a certain percentage of theists/believers who call themselves Christians have a different concept, idea or theory of the God they believe in that is characterized in the Bible.

 

They call themselves Christian-theists but not "fundamentalist" Christians.

 

They also claim they do not follow the bible literally and have a personal relationship with God.

They are considered the more open minded, liberal/moderate rational type of Christian who do not hold to the literal/fundamentalist interpretation of what is written in the bible.

 

My question is, if they do not believe in the literal interpretation of the bible, what do they use as a guide that makes them Born-Again Christians?

 

Are they in essence creating or building their own God and rejecting the impossibility that fundamentalist Christianity demands and promotes?

 

If so, how do they know they are Born-Again Christians or if they actually know they are Christians at all?

 

My own personal observation/opinion about these types of believers is that they might possibly be rejecting what the bible is actually saying and living as morally as they can and desperately clinging to the bible and their Christianity without having to identify themselves as non-believers or even atheists.

 

In short, underneath their profession of faith in the God of the bible they might just be considered "wannabe atheists". Or maybe they are closet atheists?

 

Just my personal observation and opinion on this matter, I could be wrong but what do you think?

 

What do some of the fundamentalists believers think since they claim or say they believe every single word in the bible, literally?

 

Do Christians who follow the Bible in the context of it's literal interpretation consider these moderate Christians their brothers and sisters of the faith?

 

Or are these moderate types just going through the motions of giving the appearance of being true Christians?

 

Comments?

[dogmatically_challenged]

Moderate Christians, Is it possible they are closet atheists?

 

YES! IT IS POSSIBLE!

[EdwardAbbey]

YES! IT IS POSSIBLE!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

True but when you confront the majority of them, they will swear up and down they are true Christians and will distance themselves as far away as possible from identifying themselves as non-believers. At least that's what I've noticed.

[dogmatically_challenged]

True but when you confront the majority of them, they will swear up and down they are true Christians and will distance themselves as far away as possible from identifying themselves as non-believers.  At least that's what I've noticed.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I see what you see here, ...but...not...always. Some people admit it with friends.

Coarse I was dumb enough to punnish them verbally for supporting such a disgusting mythology book. I have no tact.

 

Why do I get the feeling that heathens can sniff eacher out? We can kinda sense who is a brainwashed roob and who isn't. We sometimes look for eachother, even if we don't want to let go of the security of community.

[EdwardAbbey]

I see what you see here, ...but...not...always. Some people admit it with friends.

Coarse I was dumb enough to punnish them verbally for supporting such a disgusting mythology book. I have no tact.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I hear ya. Actually I know they want to be Christians but I use the "wannabe" atheist approach with them at times just as a jab in their ribs to get them to open up about what they think they really believe about the bible, god and Jesus. I think they really don't know or are sure about what they believe to be honest with you. There is this one dude on an xtain forum I've debated with and he thinks he can use his articulation skills to talk around his water downed beliefs. It's almost humoruous and sometimes downright phoney if you ask me.

[dogmatically_challenged]

I hear ya.  Actually I know they want to be Christians but I use the "wannabe" atheist approach with them at times just as a jab in their ribs to get them to open up about what they think they really believe about the bible, god and Jesus.  I think they really don't know or are sure about what they believe to be honest with you.  There is this one dude on an xtain forum I've debated with and he thinks he can use his articulation skills to talk around his water downed beliefs.  It's almost humoruous and sometimes downright phoney if you ask me.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Just the fact this feller knows your atheist and has dialog with you about these things speaks volumes to me. Thats just me. heh.

 

I even know an atheist who is a disgusting neocon and defends the bible as the most sublime religious invention. I think this guy keeps his friends and family as pet's and sees other people as things to be used. Pawns.

 

"Christianity motivates people"...sheesh what a politician this guy is.

 

I love him despite that, but sometimes I wonder if I'm right about him.

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

If someone calls themselves a "christian", then I accept that's what they are. Who's to say what a TrueChristian™ is, anyway?

 

I don't like people telling me I'm not an atheist, or that atheists don't really exist, so I think it's only fair for me to accept whatever religious labels others want to put on themselves.

[dogmatically_challenged]

If someone calls themselves a christian, then I accept that's what they are.   Who's to say what a TrueChristian is, anyway.

 

I don't like people telling me I'm not an atheist, or that atheists don't really exist, so I think it's only fair for me to accept whatever religious labels others want to put on themselves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yea. Good point. I think even an atheist can be a christian, even though they think all superstition is bullshit. I am refering to a few other people I know. Just to avoid any misunderstanding here. These guys admited being atheist.

 

There are some atheists or nonbelievers anyways, who cling to the label Christian. Act like a Christian, and hide thier nonbelief. This is still very probable. There are people who only admit atheism or nonbelief to a select few.

 

At school I know an agnostic theist who goes to church despite having the belief that the bible is purely a human invention.

[EdwardAbbey]

If someone calls themselves a "christian", then I accept that's what they are.  Who's to say what a TrueChristian is, anyway?

 

I don't like people telling me I'm not an atheist, or that atheists don't really exist, so I think it's only fair for me to accept whatever religious labels others want to put on themselves.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I can certainly understand what you're saying but my point is what is it they truely believe about the bible and the God of that bible they think they believe in, know what I'm saying? It's almost as if they are in a sense inventing their own concept of god. I don't like it when theists/believers say that either about atheists, i.e., "there are no atheists in fox holes" or you're just pretending to not believe in God. I find that very condescending and insulting. I think I spelled out the purpose of the topic in my first post. I think a percentage of them are just clinging to their Christianity in desperation. It's just my personal observation and opinion anyway. I could be wrong. Thanks for your post.

[waynus]

The Christian religion has not always been as literal as it is now in America.

I am a Christian who believes the bible is NOT the infallible word of god. I think it is a human book that records human striving after the divine, not a revelation from above.

 

I don't need to be born again in some fundamentalist sense, it is a metaphor for a changed view of the world.

 

The church created the bible not the other way around, if it's being misused (many of us think it is) that misuse needs to be corrected.

 

Education is needed about the bible, it's an amazing book but it's NOT a supernatural guidebook. It is an error riddled record of humanity striving to see behond itself.

 

I resent when a group of Christians (conservatives) attempts to portray the more moderate believers as unbelievers. For us Christianity is a set of ideas and a community that guides us in becomming better human beings.

[Amethyst]

There are some atheists or nonbelievers anyways, who cling to the label Christian. Act like a Christian, and hide thier nonbelief. This is still very probable. There are people who only admit atheism or nonbelief to a select few.

 

Agreed. My parents are kind of like this. I used to be like this. I think they are really closet agnostics or at least deists, but refuse to admit it to themselves because they're afraid of what their friends and relatives will think.

[dogmatically_challenged]

An xer would be hard pressed to find a motive for an atheist pretending to be atheist...aside from the sorry old line..."You must be very angry at god"

 

I know god haters who are not atheists. There could very well be some god haters who only pretend to be atheist. So what?

 

Still Texas made a good point about allowing the xer the label of being a believing xian if thats what they say they are. What are we gonna do? Torture the truth of thier unbelief outa them?

 

However, talking about these things with them might change thier minds. It can AND has happened.

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

It's almost as if they are in a sense inventing their own concept of god.

I think every christian invents their own concept of god as well as their own concepts of christianity. No two christians agree on everything about their religion, and many christians disagree on almost everything with other christians. I've never met a christian who didn't mold christianity to fit what they wanted to believe based on their upbringing, social situation, etc.

 

Who's to say that moderate christians aren't more right than fundies? They are basing their beliefs on what they understand jesus to have stood for, rather than thinking that the bible is the inerrant word of god.

 

Maybe it's the fundies who aren't TrueChristians™.

[dogmatically_challenged]

TFT

I think every christian invents their own concept of god as well as their own concepts of christianity.

Good point.

 

Maybe it's the fundies who aren't TrueChristians™.

That thought really appeals to me. Hehe! Too bad all denominations are right and wrong in thier perception of the bible.

[Checkmate]

<<<<<bwahahahaha!>>>>>>> Lover-ly post. I just can't WAIT until a certain "Christian" member of THIS forum chimes in on THIS topic. Ought to be VERY interstinck. (Spoken with my most cheesy fake German accent.)

 

But until then, my two cents...I agree with TexasFreeThinker in that we allow them to call themselves whatever they desire. Why should we care? Besides, is it even UP to us to decide who they are? They want to call themselves Cretins? Let 'em!

 

However, as someone who has more than once questioned the dubiousness of being a "Christian"™ without adhering to the bible and/or popular church doctrine, I can totally understand where EdwardAbbey is coming from. I tend to think they are playing games with both themselves and their hearers.

 

But does it REALLY matter? THEY say that they are Cretins, (I'm lobbying to officially call them Cretins as it does mean Christian) I say we honor their wishes and call them Cretins.

[dogmatically_challenged]

<<<<<bwahahahaha!>>>>>>>  Lover-ly post.  I just can't WAIT until a certain "Christian" member of THIS forum chimes in on THIS topic.  Ought to be VERY interstinck.  (Spoken with my most cheesy fake German accent.)

 

But until then, my two cents...I agree with TexasFreeThinker in that we allow them to call themselves whatever they desire.  Why should we care?  Besides, is it even UP to us to decide who they are?  They want to call themselves Cretins?  Let 'em!

 

However, as someone who has more than once questioned the dubiousness of being a "Christian" without adhering to the bible and/or popular church doctrine, I can totally understand where EdwardAbbey is coming from.  I tend to think they are playing  games with both themselves and their hearers.

 

But does it REALLY matter?  THEY say that they are Cretins, (I'm lobbying to officially call them Cretins as it does mean Christian) I say we honor their wishes and call them Cretins. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well the dictionary does say that....... However...now, I just can't get myself to use that label with every xer even if the shoe fits at least as far as believing or pretending to believe the claims of the bible. Meh.

 

But really what can I say if folks use that label for xers? Nothing.

[EdwardAbbey]

Hi Waynus, thanks for your post.

 

The Christian religion has not always been as literal as it is now in America.

I am a Christian who believes the bible is NOT the infallible word of god. I think it is a human book that records human striving after the divine, not a revelation from above.

 

So then you just believe the bible is the inspired words of humans who invented a God in their own image? If your concept is that they were "striving after the divine", is that implying all they had was a concept of what a God might be? Especially the god of the OT who is characterized as a god who thirsts for bloodshed and death and resembles the groups of people who invented him.

I don't need to be born again in some fundamentalist sense, it is a metaphor for a changed view of the world.

 

If being born-again is merely a metaphor, then isn't God and Jesus also a metaphor or maybe even a figure of speech? Do you believe that Jesus literally spoke those words when he said you must be "born-again?" do you believe the Jesus of the bible was a literal/historical figure who actually lived at one time or was he just another mythological pagan godman? Or was just another segment of the metaphor that men were seeking for a changed view of the world?

The church created the bible not the other way around, if it's being misused (many of us think it is) that misuse needs to be corrected.

 

Education is needed about the bible, it's an amazing book but it's NOT a supernatural guidebook. It is an error riddled record of humanity striving to see behond itself.

 

Isn't there anything about the bible you believe is supernatural? you call yourself a Christian but doesn't that mean you believe that Jesus was born from a virgin girl who became impregnated by a ghost? isn't that one of the requirements for being a Christian? Do you believe in the literal resurrection of Christ or do you believe it was just a metaphor/figure of speech? Is it possible to be a Christian and not believe in the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus? How about the Trinity. Isn't that considered supernatural and that Jesus is God Almighty or is that just another figure of speech/metaphor too?

 

I was a fundamentalist Christian for nearly 20 years and when I came to the conclusion the entire bible was nothing more than past pagan legends and myths, I could no longer consider myself a Christian, fundamentalist or liberal/moderate. So what I'm wondering is, why would you want to consider yourself a true Christian if you think the bible is nothing more than man's invention of a long list of metaphors and parables/figures of speech?

 

 

I resent when a group of Christians (conservatives) attempts to portray the more moderate believers as unbelievers. For us Christianity is a set of ideas and a community that guides us in becomming better human beings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well I'm not accusing you of being an unbeliever or a non-theist, I'm just trying to understand how moderate believers are attempting to make sense about what they believe about the bible they somewhat believe is the true picture of God and the Jesus of that book but at the same time do not believe it literally and pass it off as not the inspired words of a literal god. It almost gives the impression that moderate Christianity is just as much a contradiction as the fundamentalist view where they view the bible as inerrent when it is riddled with errors and contradictions. That said, the bible is not an amazing book.

[dogmatically_challenged]

The Christian religion has not always been as literal as it is now in America.

I am a Christian who believes the bible is NOT the infallible word of god. I think it is a human book that records human striving after the divine, not a revelation from above.

 

I don't need to be born again in some fundamentalist sense, it is a metaphor for a changed view of the world.

 

The church created the bible not the other way around, if it's being misused (many of us think it is) that misuse needs to be corrected.

 

Education is needed about the bible, it's an amazing book but it's NOT a supernatural guidebook. It is an error riddled record of humanity striving to see behond itself.

 

I resent when a group of Christians (conservatives) attempts to portray the more moderate believers as unbelievers. For us Christianity is a set of ideas and a community that guides us in becomming better human beings.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Dang. I can' believe I skipped over your post. If all this is true, then yall really should educate folks. Me for starters, cause I have the wrong idea about the bible. If you are right in what you are saying that is. Please be patient with anyone who laughs at you as a lot of us were raised fundy and understand the bible as we were taught. Not to mention that not many people have heard what you are saying here. It sounds incredible.

 

I think you should spill everything you know about these things.

 

Also, communtiy can be good for everyone encouraging eachother to be better people I sure can't deny that. It can happen in some groups of people.

[Fweethawt]

I think this article will go rather nicely right here.

 

 

The Virus of Religious Moderation

by Sam Harris

 

PERHAPS it should come as no surprise that a mere wall of water, sweeping innocent multitudes from the beaches of 12 countries on Boxing Day, failed to raise global doubts about God’s existence. Still, one wonders just how vast and gratuitous a catastrophe would have to be to shake the world’s faith. The Holocaust did not do it.

 

God’s ways are, indeed, inscrutable. It seems that any fact, no matter how infelicitous, can be rendered compatible with religious faith. In matters of faith, we have kicked ourselves loose of the earth. Given the degree to which religion still inspires human conflict, this is not the good news that many of us imagine it to be.

 

One of the greatest challenges facing civilisation in the 21st century is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest concerns — about ethics, spiritual experience, and human suffering — in ways that are not flagrantly irrational. Incompatible religious doctrines have Balkanised our world and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed.

 

Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it was at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews v Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians v Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians v Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants v Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims v Hindus), Sudan (Muslims v Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims v Christians)and Iran and Iraq (Shia v Sunni) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of millions of deaths in the past decade.

 

It is in the face of such pointless horrors that many people of goodwill now counsel “moderation” in religion. The problem with religious moderation is that it offers us no bulwark against the spread of religious extremism and religious violence. Moderates do not want to kill anyone in the name of God, but they want us to keep using the word “God” as though we knew what we were talking about. And they don’t want anything too critical to be said about people who really believe in the God of their forefathers because tolerance, above all else, is sacred. To speak plainly and truthfully about the state of our world — to say, for instance, that the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish — is antithetical to tolerance as moderates conceive it.

 

In so far as religious moderates attempt to hold on to what is still serviceable in orthodox religion, they close the door to more sophisticated approaches to human happiness. Rather than bring the full force of 21st-century creativity and rationality to bear, moderates ask that we merely relax our standards of adherence to ancient superstitions and taboos.

 

But by failing to live by the letter of the texts — while tolerating the irrationality of those who do — religious moderates betray faith and reason equally. As moderates, we cannot say that religious fundamentalists are dangerous idiots, because they are merely practising their freedom of belief. We can’t even say that they are mistaken in religious terms, because their knowledge of scripture is generally unrivalled. All we can say, as religious moderates, is that we don’t like the personal and social costs that a full embrace of scripture imposes on us. It is time we recognised that religious moderation is the product of secular knowledge and scriptural ignorance.

 

Religious moderates imagine that theirs is the path to peace. But this very ideal of tolerance now drives us toward the abyss. Religious violence still plagues our world because our religions are intrinsically hostile to one another. Where they appear otherwise, it is because secular knowledge and secular interests have restrained the most lethal improprieties of faith. If religious war is ever to become unthinkable for us, in the way that slavery and cannibalism seem poised to, it will be a matter of our having dispensed with the dogma of faith.

 

Moderation in religion has made it taboo even to acknowledge the differences among our religious traditions: to notice, for instance, that Islam is especially hostile to the principles of civil society. There are still places in the Muslim world where people are put to death for imaginary crimes — such as blasphemy — and where the totality of a child’s education consists of his learning to recite from an ancient book of religious fiction. Throughout the Muslim world, women are denied almost every human liberty, except the liberty to breed.

 

And yet, these same societies are acquiring arsenals of advanced weaponry. In the face of these perils, religious moderates — Christians, Muslims and Jews — remain entranced by their own moderation. They are least able to fathom that when jihadists stare into a video camera and claim to “love death more than the infidels love life”, they are being candid about their state of mind.

 

But technology has a way of creating fresh moral imperatives. We can no longer ignore the fact that billions of our neighbors believe in the metaphysics of martyrdom, or in the literal truth of the book of Revelation — because our neighbors are now armed with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. There is no doubt that these developments mark the terminal phase of our credulity. Words like “God” and “Allah” must go the way of “Apollo” and “Baal” or they will unmake our world.

 

Sam Harris is author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason

 

FROM HERE

[dogmatically_challenged]

Oh my! I sense this is all true but never had the words for it. I keep saying that the bible is the same regardless of the dogmas that are spawned from it. That xer extremism will be a never ending cycle until that book is finally put in the fiction section of our bookshelves. Thanks Fwee!

[Fweethawt]

That xer extremism will be a never ending cycle until that book is finally put in the fiction section of our bookshelves.

Sadly, this is the solution that can never be had.

 

It's funny how I can imagine myself flying through space like Superman to any planet that I please. But I just can't imagine your statement coming true.

[dogmatically_challenged]

Sadly, this is the solution that can never be had.

 

It's funny how I can imagine myself flying through space like Superman to any planet that I please. But I just can't imagine your statement coming true. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Well, there are a lot of things that have seemed impossible yet have happened. The western world has no excuse for having soooo many xian believers in it.

 

Imagine if the whole western world had a large non xer minority? I think that would make a big difference in the world. Xianity and Islam are the real trouble makers in the world.

[Fweethawt]

Religion will go away when humanity goes away.

[dogmatically_challenged]

Religion will go away when humanity goes away.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Then I guess we'll have to evolve into something else then. hehe.

 

I know your right about religion. I just think that xianity and islam are really the trouble makers. Who knows how religion may evolve? Perhaps we humans can learn from our mistakes when we invent the next batch of religions. Who knows.

[Christopher Carrion]

Moderate Christianity is no less self-serving or psychologically perverse than the fundamentalist variety. Those who describe themselves as "religious moderates" still willfully adhere to a set of bronze-age folk-tales whose subject has quite consummately been proved historically false, philosophically flawed and physically impossible. Yet they continue to adhere to them and promote them as measures of "truth" (be it physical or ideological in nature) because psychologically speaking they cannot do without the safety blanket that "faith" provides. It is pretty much evident from a cursory reading of the bible, the koran and every other religious scripture that has ever crawled its way from some psychopath's diseased pen that the ideologies they record and promote are intrinsically hostile to one another. They all promote themselves as the absolute measures of truth, and actively condemn those who do not adhere to the perceptual and behavioural tenets they impose on their adherents. Any "liberation" or "tolerance" the Christian or Muslim might evidence is as a direct result of the influence of secular rationality, and demonstrates an irrefutable ambiguity with regards to some of the less morally palatable declamations of their self-advertised "faith".

 

However, if people still want to go around describing themselves as "Christian" without adhering to the full word of Christianity as established in the religion's scriptural core, then so be it. So long as their self-delusion doesn't affetc me or the rest of the world, I really couldn't care less.