Why We Should Attack Moderate Religiosity

[classicchinadoll]

Well, the themes can be the same, but there is a subtle difference between literal acceptance of Biblical events and stories, and seeing them in their explicit symbolism and ancient cultural meanings.

 

The first two centuries (AD) saw a lot of Christians who were Arianists as well as other descriptive groups whose theology was eventually overuled at the Council of Nicea. Primitive Christianity was more dependent upon anecdotal reference, mythical and legendary representations, and so on, than the modern Bible fundamentalist would concede. (Too bad we don't have statistical polling results from those eras; results would be very interesting)

 

In fact, there is reason to say that the first few generations of Christians would balk at the idea of Jesus now being a part of the "Godhead" and all this 'trinity' stuff.

 

I see Christianity as the evolution of a new religion anyway, sprung from the well of Judaism, with Paul likely as influential with this as Jesus himself. In fact, if Jesus is partially a construct, then that makes Paul of Tarsus the de facto founder of Christianity, like Joseph Smith to the Mormons.

 

 

To me the emphasis is not so much on whether someone is a literalist or not, take the catholic church, my understanding is that they are widely not literalist in this modern time anyway, they did concede that with evolutionary evidence etc that maybe the stories in the bible are not literal. (this happened after years of fighting scientific research and was more a defeatist position and not their original position) does this change their ideas on the rules of the bible NO, they are one of the biggest hurdles in defeating homophobia and in rational application of birth control and std protection, our problem is not with people taking the stories literally it is with people adhering to ancient rules. The catholic church is just evidence that attacking literalism as opposed to my definition of fundamentalism is pointless.

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

 

To me the emphasis is not so much on whether someone is a literalist or not, take the catholic church, my understanding is that they are widely not literalist in this modern time anyway, they did concede that with evolutionary evidence etc that maybe the stories in the bible are not literal. (this happened after years of fighting scientific research and was more a defeatist position and not their original position) does this change their ideas on the rules of the bible NO, they are one of the biggest hurdles in defeating homophobia and in rational application of birth control and std protection, our problem is not with people taking the stories literally it is with people adhering to ancient rules. The catholic church is just evidence that attacking literalism as opposed to my definition of fundamentalism is pointless.

I don't think it's so much that it's the defeatist position but moreso the RCC is selective to when they apply NOMA. Like St. Augustine believed the Genesis creation myth was an allegory because he thought it was absurd that God would create the sunlight before he created the sun and as far as I'm aware, St. Augustine was not persecuted for challenging a literal reading of Genesis. On the other hand, they did persecute Galileo for his science although Galileo himself was a Christian who believed in NOMA. It's just like with modern times where the RCC on the one hand has intellectual scientists like Ken Miller but they also have a chief exorcist. They still believe in NOMA but they're very selective about it when it fits their agenda. But the Greek word for faith in the NT is trust and in the ancient world faith was not about believing a set of correct beliefs but about your commitment to the church. It's like how in modern day Catholics, their faith is more about their commitment to the pope than about a literal belief in the bible and the authority of the church trumps the authority of scripture.

[dagnarus]

And no, I am not saying that fundamentalists take all the fire and brimstone passages while ignoring the "god is love" passages. fundamentalists also ignore a lot of harsh things which happen not to set well with them. The manner in which they ignore passages is by simply saying that passage "X" can only be properly understood by using passage "y" as a reference, even though passage "y" is often in a different book written by a different person, and even hundreds of years apart. Careful examination will show that usually passage "y" happens to be a proof text in that Christian's denomination.

 

Just a thought, if your a biblical literalist they weren't written by different people, they were all written by the same God.

[dagnarus]

To me the emphasis is not so much on whether someone is a literalist or not, take the catholic church, my understanding is that they are widely not literalist in this modern time anyway, they did concede that with evolutionary evidence etc that maybe the stories in the bible are not literal. (this happened after years of fighting scientific research and was more a defeatist position and not their original position) does this change their ideas on the rules of the bible NO, they are one of the biggest hurdles in defeating homophobia and in rational application of birth control and std protection, our problem is not with people taking the stories literally it is with people adhering to ancient rules. The catholic church is just evidence that attacking literalism as opposed to my definition of fundamentalism is pointless.

I don't think it's so much that it's the defeatist position but moreso the RCC is selective to when they apply NOMA. Like St. Augustine believed the Genesis creation myth was an allegory because he thought it was absurd that God would create the sunlight before he created the sun and as far as I'm aware, St. Augustine was not persecuted for challenging a literal reading of Genesis. On the other hand, they did persecute Galileo for his science although Galileo himself was a Christian who believed in NOMA. It's just like with modern times where the RCC on the one hand has intellectual scientists like Ken Miller but they also have a chief exorcist. They still believe in NOMA but they're very selective about it when it fits their agenda. But the Greek word for faith in the NT is trust and in the ancient world faith was not about believing a set of correct beliefs but about your commitment to the church. It's like how in modern day Catholics, their faith is more about their commitment to the pope than about a literal belief in the bible and the authority of the church trumps the authority of scripture.

 

In my view the problem is a moral system which puts more emphasis on loyalty to a set of religious doctrines or organization, as opposed to caring for the actual needs and happiness of actual people.

[dagnarus]

 

 

 

 

 

The bullseye to prove that fundamentalism is a totally modern development (other than the word) would be to show that Luther rejected one of the above 5 principles - without distorting their meaning (like changing inerrancy to literalism) or adding some characteristic of modern religious fundamentalism that was not characteristic of the movement in the Reformation or the 1950s.

But even Luther rejected the book of Revelation as being divinely inspired because he couldn't find Christ in Revelation. You asked what would be the difference between the early Protestants and modern day fundamentalists. If Luther lived today, he would be rejected by modern fundamentalists for not accepting Revelation as canon.

 

Didn't Luther accept Revelation when he realized he could use it to paint the Pope as the anti-christ?

[Neon Genesis]

 

In my view the problem is a moral system which puts more emphasis on loyalty to a set of religious doctrines or organization, as opposed to caring for the actual needs and happiness of actual people.

Hence why moderates like Bishop Spong and Armstrong are rejecting literalism and not enablers of fundamentalism but are actively engaged in combating it and speaking out on the need for reform.

[dagnarus]

Well, the themes can be the same, but there is a subtle difference between literal acceptance of Biblical events and stories, and seeing them in their explicit symbolism and ancient cultural meanings.

 

The first two centuries (AD) saw a lot of Christians who were Arianists as well as other descriptive groups whose theology was eventually overuled at the Council of Nicea. Primitive Christianity was more dependent upon anecdotal reference, mythical and legendary representations, and so on, than the modern Bible fundamentalist would concede. (Too bad we don't have statistical polling results from those eras; results would be very interesting)

 

In fact, there is reason to say that the first few generations of Christians would balk at the idea of Jesus now being a part of the "Godhead" and all this 'trinity' stuff.

 

I see Christianity as the evolution of a new religion anyway, sprung from the well of Judaism, with Paul likely as influential with this as Jesus himself. In fact, if Jesus is partially a construct, then that makes Paul of Tarsus the de facto founder of Christianity, like Joseph Smith to the Mormons.

 

 

To me the emphasis is not so much on whether someone is a literalist or not, take the catholic church, my understanding is that they are widely not literalist in this modern time anyway, they did concede that with evolutionary evidence etc that maybe the stories in the bible are not literal. (this happened after years of fighting scientific research and was more a defeatist position and not their original position) does this change their ideas on the rules of the bible NO, they are one of the biggest hurdles in defeating homophobia and in rational application of birth control and std protection, our problem is not with people taking the stories literally it is with people adhering to ancient rules. The catholic church is just evidence that attacking literalism as opposed to my definition of fundamentalism is pointless.

 

I agree it is easy to explain why God might present certain concepts such as the creation as baby-talk. It's another thing entirely to explain why God might command that homo-sexuals and heathens be slaughtered, when actually he's completely okay with that sort of thing.

[Franko47]

Well, the themes can be the same, but there is a subtle difference between literal acceptance of Biblical events and stories, and seeing them in their explicit symbolism and ancient cultural meanings.

 

The first two centuries (AD) saw a lot of Christians who were Arianists as well as other descriptive groups whose theology was eventually overuled at the Council of Nicea. Primitive Christianity was more dependent upon anecdotal reference, mythical and legendary representations, and so on, than the modern Bible fundamentalist would concede. (Too bad we don't have statistical polling results from those eras; results would be very interesting)

 

In fact, there is reason to say that the first few generations of Christians would balk at the idea of Jesus now being a part of the "Godhead" and all this 'trinity' stuff.

 

I see Christianity as the evolution of a new religion anyway, sprung from the well of Judaism, with Paul likely as influential with this as Jesus himself. In fact, if Jesus is partially a construct, then that makes Paul of Tarsus the de facto founder of Christianity, like Joseph Smith to the Mormons.

 

 

To me the emphasis is not so much on whether someone is a literalist or not, take the catholic church, my understanding is that they are widely not literalist in this modern time anyway, they did concede that with evolutionary evidence etc that maybe the stories in the bible are not literal. (this happened after years of fighting scientific research and was more a defeatist position and not their original position) does this change their ideas on the rules of the bible NO, they are one of the biggest hurdles in defeating homophobia and in rational application of birth control and std protection, our problem is not with people taking the stories literally it is with people adhering to ancient rules. The catholic church is just evidence that attacking literalism as opposed to my definition of fundamentalism is pointless.

 

I agree it is easy to explain why God might present certain concepts such as the creation as baby-talk. It's another thing entirely to explain why God might command that homo-sexuals and heathens be slaughtered, when actually he's completely okay with that sort of thing.

 

 

 

yes, good points. It's not just the literalism, or the mini-games like arguing whether the great flood really happened and so on. There's a broader problem with Christianity in that it has maintained certain moral principles through the centuries that only now are being discarded by more liberal churches. Sex before marriage, gay marriage, even embracing and socializing with people who might be Wiccans and pagans is becoming acceptable within the progressive Christian domain. (Maybe not as much in fundy America, I dunno)

 

Plus, moderate and liberal religious people are usually easier to bargain with. I know a Mormon guy who is a lawyer, he's really smart, somewhat of an intellectual, and it's true, he has to concede some of my criticisms of the LDS theology when we get down to the simple logistics. But that old notion of "faith" creeps up again, and the sort of "well, salvation through Christ isn't really dependent upon whether most of the Bible (or Book of Mormon)is true or not" kind of talk; and before you know it, the moderate liberal is just as obstinate as the Bible-quoting fundy, just nicer about it.

 

IF modern Christianity would embrace humanistic philosophical logic, then I would be alright with it. But it can't. Just because morality can be logical, doesn't make it right with them. There is no logic or science that justifies the prohibition of birth control devices. There is no logic to not allowing women to become priests, or for male priests to marry in the Roman church. None of the fundamentalist or Catholic or even neo-Evangelical rules and concerns about many things have any kind of rational basis to them.

 

That is either our starting point for change, or the final goal. Help me out here, comrades....

[The-Captain]

IF modern Christianity would embrace humanistic philosophical logic, then I would be alright with it. But it can't. Just because morality can be logical, doesn't make it right with them. There is no logic or science that justifies the prohibition of birth control devices. There is no logic to not allowing women to become priests, or for male priests to marry in the Roman church. None of the fundamentalist or Catholic or even neo-Evangelical rules and concerns about many things have any kind of rational basis to them.

 

While I agree with much of what you said I'm not so sure about this last point. I don' think morality is entirely a rational faculty, it is largely an intuitive and emotional one. Logic can just as easily promote the selfish or amoral course of action.

 

As for the points of church rules you mentioned I would say that they have a rational basis, albeit one based on theological assumptions of proper natural order. Really though I could care less if women aren't allowed the pulpit, or if Catholics feel guilty about condoms, no one forces them to be in the church.

 

About what you were saying earlier, with regards to Levitical and Deuteronomic law, I think that is the one most questionable aspect of Christianity. While the accounts of genocide etc. can and will be explained as "special cases" or "just telling what happened" it is not so easy to dismiss what is purported to be God's early law. As I see it you either have to accept it as reflective simply reflective of God's will then and now, dismiss the inspired nature of those books (whole can of worms there), or try to explain why it was necessary then which makes God a rather utilitarian bastard.

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

IF modern Christianity would embrace humanistic philosophical logic, then I would be alright with it. But it can't. Just because morality can be logical, doesn't make it right with them. There is no logic or science that justifies the prohibition of birth control devices. There is no logic to not allowing women to become priests, or for male priests to marry in the Roman church. None of the fundamentalist or Catholic or even neo-Evangelical rules and concerns about many things have any kind of rational basis to them.

 

That is either our starting point for change, or the final goal. Help me out here, comrades....

But for every Christian who supports those things, there's about five more out there who supports it. For example, just recently the Episcopal church recently welcomed the first openly lesbian bishop. Even if we got rid of religion, I don't think that would get rid of these moral conflicts. There's atheists who are pro-choice and atheists who are pro-life. There's atheists who support the legalization of same-sex marriage and atheists who are against any legalized government-recognized marriage. There's atheists who support militant atheist states and atheists who are against it. The only issue I think might disappear if we got rid of religion is creationism vs evolution but even then there's atheists like Raealians who don't believe in evolution. If the reason to attack moderate Christians is because they enable these moral conflicts, how is getting rid of religion going to get rid of these moral conflicts? If the moral conflicts are the issue, we should be focused on the moral issues.

[Antlerman]

But even some of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation were not strict literalists like John Calvin believed science could be reconciled with scripture.

I should let a Christian describe the difference between biblical literalism and biblical inerrancy, but I think you know the difference. The 5 principles of Fundamentalism are:

 

The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the

inerrancy of Scripture

as a result of this.

The virgin birth of Christ.

The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin.

The bodily resurrection of Christ.

The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

 

<snip>

 

The bullseye to prove that fundamentalism is a totally modern development (other than the word) would be to show that Luther rejected one of the above 5 principles - without distorting their meaning (like changing inerrancy to literalism) or adding some characteristic of modern religious fundamentalism that was not characteristic of the movement in the Reformation or the 1950s.

Again, I do not feel that these 5 tenants describe fundamentalism as distinct from any other variety of Christianity, aside from the insertion of the word 'innerancy' which has a specific modern context not relevant to Luther's day.

 

What you have to look at for fundamentalism is really the social attitudes. These 5 above can be used to describe my mother's Lutheran church, but by no means are they considered fundamentalist! If so, then the term itself is meaningless.

 

What defines fundamentalism is not the basic tenants of Christian faith, but really more a host of social attitudes. Let's go back to another Wiki article here on Fundamentalism:

 

The term fundamentalism was originally coined to describe a narrowly defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century, and that had its roots in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy of that time. Until 1950, there was no entry for fundamentalism in the Oxford English Dictionary;[5] the derivative fundamentalist was added only in its second 1989 edition.[6]

 

The term has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations.[6]

 

Fundamentalism is commonly used as a pejorative term, particularly when combined with other epithets (as in the phrase "Muslim fundamentalists" and "right-wing/left-wing fundamentalists").[7][8] Richard Dawkins has used the term to characterize religious advocates as clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence.[9] Others in turn, such as Christian theologian Alister McGrath, have used the term fundamentalism to characterize atheism as dogmatic.[10]

 

To banter the term about as a pejorative to dis any and all groups of Christians who actually "believe" these 5 tenants (regardless of context, literal, historical, or otherwise) makes it completely meaningless. I could call you a fundamentalist for your "stubbornness" on anything less that materialist philosophies, you could call me a fundamentalist on my strong views that there are very liberal ways to understanding things, and not one (an Open-minded fundamentalist, if you wish). It's meaningless without proper context.

 

Luther was not a fundamentalist in his day. Plain and simple. Someone who seeks to reform corruption, to get back to the original principles or beliefs of a movement, simply does not qualify to be called a fundamentalist for that fact alone. You are distorting this into a semantics debate, which opens the door to hurtle all sorts of modern social connotations with that term, smearing and blurring history to be a reflection of our values, rendering it useless outside political posturings. Those connotations, do not fit. What we recognize as fundamentalism in all its irrational, extremely social conservative agenda, anti-intellectualism, and so forth, against a backdrop of modern society, cannot be applied to Luther in his context! That's nonsense.

 

These men were reformists, used their minds, used reason, used logic, had sincere faith (unlike the insincere of today who are faced with vasts oceans of evidence that directly contradict their insistence on certain "facts") in a context where everything was viewed under the umbrella of the Christian myth. Luther, et al, were a part of their culture. And as part of that culture, that context (not ours), they were not extremists, they were not fundamentalist, despite their seeking to scrape off the cruft of what they saw as corruption and purify the belief system. That is not fundamentalism. Fundamentalism would have been those seeing change happen, such as what Luther was bringing, and seek to destroy it, stop it, turn back to the old ways. That is fundamentalism. Not what Luther was doing.

 

I find that to call them that, and mean it as any sort of comparison to the fundamentalists of today to be in fact intellectually dishonest, or at best sloppy reasoning. No offense, but context is everything.

 

Here's a brief blurb I just read yesterday I think applies (the term subholon is refering to a previous-level norm, more or less):

 

And, indeed, the majority of individuals in rational societies still settle in somewhere around the mythic-rational, using all the formidable powers of rationality to prop up a particular, divisive, imperialistic mythology and an aggressively fundamentalistic program of systematic intolerance. As such, they are constantly at war with magic, with other myths, and with reason, all of which they view simply as the devil's work.

 

The modern solution to this developmental nightmare is that the rationality structure of the democratic state

tolerates

magic, and mythic subholons, but it has, via the all-important separation of church and state, removed the worldviews of the subholons from the organizing regime of the society, which itself is defined by a rational tolerance of everything but intolerance. Because these subholons are robbed of their power to govern

exclusively

, they are robbed of pushing their mythic-imperialistic expansionism via national-military means, though this doesn’t prevent them from always agitating to tilt the state toward their own fundamenatistic values. (And, of course, for those nations where the mythic holons are the governing regime, military expansionsims is still the rule; and in these cases, as usual, it isn’t whether one can actually win and coerce other to the faith, but whether one can earn the right to die trying.)

 

Wiber, SES, pp160, 161

The point of this is to state clearly that being in a rational society, as opposed to one ruled under a mythical regime, is what gives the context to call something fundamentalist. That context didn’t exist in previous ages, and fundamentalism for that day, would have looked very different than Martin Luther. It would be more those who burned and persecuted those who sought to reform it, like Luther! Luther cannot fall under our, modern rational world context in order to be called fundamentalist, nor Jesus, nor King David, nor Moses, ET AL. They (mythical characters or otherwise), lived in such a time that this was not fundamental mentality. If so, you would have to take every human being who existed before you and how you think, as a fundamentalist.

 

Contextually speaking, Luther would have been a progressive, Jesus a hippie, Paul a mystic liberal, and so on. By today's standards there views seem “fundamentalist”, but in their day they were not. How can you say otherwise?

 

Luther did not have the "this-not-that" context of these modern fundamentist tenants. Unless he did, you cannot claim he believed as the modern fundamentalist does in our context. Again, context is everything.

[dagnarus]

But even some of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation were not strict literalists like John Calvin believed science could be reconciled with scripture.

I should let a Christian describe the difference between biblical literalism and biblical inerrancy, but I think you know the difference. The 5 principles of Fundamentalism are:

 

The inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit and the

inerrancy of Scripture

as a result of this.

The virgin birth of Christ.

The belief that Christ's death was the atonement for sin.

The bodily resurrection of Christ.

The historical reality of Christ's miracles.

 

<snip>

 

The bullseye to prove that fundamentalism is a totally modern development (other than the word) would be to show that Luther rejected one of the above 5 principles - without distorting their meaning (like changing inerrancy to literalism) or adding some characteristic of modern religious fundamentalism that was not characteristic of the movement in the Reformation or the 1950s.

Again, I do not feel that these 5 tenants describe fundamentalism as distinct from any other variety of Christianity, aside from the insertion of the word 'innerancy' which has a specific modern context not relevant to Luther's day.

 

What you have to look at for fundamentalism is really the social attitudes. These 5 above can be used to describe my mother's Lutheran church, but by no means are they considered fundamentalist! If so, then the term itself is meaningless.

 

What defines fundamentalism is not the basic tenants of Christian faith, but really more a host of social attitudes. Let's go back to another Wiki article here on Fundamentalism:

 

The term fundamentalism was originally coined to describe a narrowly defined set of beliefs that developed into a movement within the Protestant community of the United States in the early part of the 20th century, and that had its roots in the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy of that time. Until 1950, there was no entry for fundamentalism in the Oxford English Dictionary;[5] the derivative fundamentalist was added only in its second 1989 edition.[6]

 

The term has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations.[6]

 

Fundamentalism is commonly used as a pejorative term, particularly when combined with other epithets (as in the phrase "Muslim fundamentalists" and "right-wing/left-wing fundamentalists").[7][8] Richard Dawkins has used the term to characterize religious advocates as clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence.[9] Others in turn, such as Christian theologian Alister McGrath, have used the term fundamentalism to characterize atheism as dogmatic.[10]

 

To banter the term about as a pejorative to dis any and all groups of Christians who actually "believe" these 5 tenants (regardless of context, literal, historical, or otherwise) makes it completely meaningless. I could call you a fundamentalist for your "stubbornness" on anything less that materialist philosophies, you could call me a fundamentalist on my strong views that there are very liberal ways to understanding things, and not one (an Open-minded fundamentalist, if you wish). It's meaningless without proper context.

 

Luther was not a fundamentalist in his day. Plain and simple. Someone who seeks to reform corruption, to get back to the original principles or beliefs of a movement, simply does not qualify to be called a fundamentalist for that fact alone. You are distorting this into a semantics debate, which opens the door to hurtle all sorts of modern social connotations with that term, smearing and blurring history to be a reflection of our values, rendering it useless outside political posturings. Those connotations, do not fit. What we recognize as fundamentalism in all its irrational, extremely social conservative agenda, anti-intellectualism, and so forth, against a backdrop of modern society, cannot be applied to Luther in his context! That's nonsense.

 

These men were reformists, used their minds, used reason, used logic, had sincere faith (unlike the insincere of today who are faced with vasts oceans of evidence that directly contradict their insistence on certain "facts") in a context where everything was viewed under the umbrella of the Christian myth. Luther, et al, were a part of their culture. And as part of that culture, that context (not ours), they were not extremists, they were not fundamentalist, despite their seeking to scrape off the cruft of what they saw as corruption and purify the belief system. That is not fundamentalism. Fundamentalism would have been those seeing change happen, such as what Luther was bringing, and seek to destroy it, stop it, turn back to the old ways. That is fundamentalism. Not what Luther was doing.

 

I find that to call them that, and mean it as any sort of comparison to the fundamentalists of today to be in fact intellectually dishonest, or at best sloppy reasoning. No offense, but context is everything.

 

Here's a brief blurb I just read yesterday I think applies (the term subholon is refering to a previous-level norm, more or less):

 

And, indeed, the majority of individuals in rational societies still settle in somewhere around the mythic-rational, using all the formidable powers of rationality to prop up a particular, divisive, imperialistic mythology and an aggressively fundamentalistic program of systematic intolerance. As such, they are constantly at war with magic, with other myths, and with reason, all of which they view simply as the devil's work.

 

The modern solution to this developmental nightmare is that the rationality structure of the democratic state

tolerates

magic, and mythic subholons, but it has, via the all-important separation of church and state, removed the worldviews of the subholons from the organizing regime of the society, which itself is defined by a rational tolerance of everything but intolerance. Because these subholons are robbed of their power to govern

exclusively

, they are robbed of pushing their mythic-imperialistic expansionism via national-military means, though this doesn’t prevent them from always agitating to tilt the state toward their own fundamenatistic values. (And, of course, for those nations where the mythic holons are the governing regime, military expansionsims is still the rule; and in these cases, as usual, it isn’t whether one can actually win and coerce other to the faith, but whether one can earn the right to die trying.)

 

Wiber, SES, pp160, 161

The point of this is to state clearly that being in a rational society, as opposed to one ruled under a mythical regime, is what gives the context to call something fundamentalist. That context didn’t exist in previous ages, and fundamentalism for that day, would have looked very different than Martin Luther. It would be more those who burned and persecuted those who sought to reform it, like Luther! Luther cannot fall under our, modern rational world context in order to be called fundamentalist, nor Jesus, nor King David, nor Moses, ET AL. They (mythical characters or otherwise), lived in such a time that this was not fundamental mentality. If so, you would have to take every human being who existed before you and how you think, as a fundamentalist.

 

Contextually speaking, Luther would have been a progressive, Jesus a hippie, Paul a mystic liberal, and so on. By today's standards there views seem “fundamentalist”, but in their day they were not. How can you say otherwise?

 

Luther did not have the "this-not-that" context of these modern fundamentist tenants. Unless he did, you cannot claim he believed as the modern fundamentalist does in our context. Again, context is everything.

 

But the ana-baptists went further than Luther's reformation, going against the heresy of infant baptism, Luther had them drowned, isn't he a fundamentalist in that sense?

[dagnarus]

But for every Christian who supports those things, there's about five more out there who supports it. For example, just recently the Episcopal church recently welcomed the first openly lesbian bishop. Even if we got rid of religion, I don't think that would get rid of these moral conflicts. There's atheists who are pro-choice and atheists who are pro-life. There's atheists who support the legalization of same-sex marriage and atheists who are against any legalized government-recognized marriage. There's atheists who support militant atheist states and atheists who are against it. The only issue I think might disappear if we got rid of religion is creationism vs evolution but even then there's atheists like Raealians who don't believe in evolution. If the reason to attack moderate Christians is because they enable these moral conflicts, how is getting rid of religion going to get rid of these moral conflicts? If the moral conflicts are the issue, we should be focused on the moral issues.

 

For me the issue is somewhat to do with the believe in God. Moderate christians still put themselves in the position of somehow knowing some all-powerful God, and somehow knowing what he wants, i.e. Spong (not a moderate, a liberal) knows that this God is a hippy liberal and thus agrees with all his liberal thinking, the fact that I might agree with Spong's liberal agenda is irrelevant, he still has no basis for his believe that any God, the Christian one or otherwise agrees with him. Furthermore I've noticed that just like conservative Christianity, liberal Christians when making biblical arguments cherry pick the bible, and carefully pick out verses which support their agenda while ignoring verses which don't, like the liberal argument there is no hell in the bible, they argue that hell is actually Gehenna, a garbage dump, while failing to mention that Jesus mentions that Gehenna is to be feared more than death and what Revelation has to say about the issue. Liberal Christianity encourages the mode of thinking that God thinks like you just like conservative Christianity, it also encourages people to look at evidence which supports their position while ignoring evidence against. I look upon both these modes of thinking as being undesirable and something which should be argued against, as it is unlikely that they won't overflow outside the religious realm.

 

Second of all as the original op said. I agree with the sentiment that the more liberal Christians believe in the God which they want to exist, whereas the more conservative Christians try more to believe in the God which is shown in the bible. Because of this I have to think that as long as their are the more liberal variants of Christianity, there will also be the more conservative, because there will always be those who read the bible and think that the liberal churches have fallen away from the true worship of God. For example, I was raised by liberal Christians, and when I came to Christianity I was liberal in my views, that said, both then, and now it would be impossible for me to be a Christian and believe that it is okay for people to be Gay, why, because the bible clearly shows that God think that being homosexual is an abomination, thus it wouldn't matter what I think on the issue, I would have to defer to him, and I am quite certain their are others like me.

[Neon Genesis]

 

For me the issue is somewhat to do with the believe in God. Moderate christians still put themselves in the position of somehow knowing some all-powerful God, and somehow knowing what he wants, i.e. Spong (not a moderate, a liberal) knows that this God is a hippy liberal and thus agrees with all his liberal thinking, the fact that I might agree with Spong's liberal agenda is irrelevant, he still has no basis for his believe that any God, the Christian one or otherwise agrees with him.

Expect Spong does not believe in a supernatural god who knows your thoughts and that he speaks on authority for:

 

 

Furthermore I've noticed that just like conservative Christianity, liberal Christians when making biblical arguments cherry pick the bible, and carefully pick out verses which support their agenda while ignoring verses which don't, like the liberal argument there is no hell in the bible, they argue that hell is actually Gehenna, a garbage dump, while failing to mention that Jesus mentions that Gehenna is to be feared more than death and what Revelation has to say about the issue. Liberal Christianity encourages the mode of thinking that God thinks like you just like conservative Christianity, it also encourages people to look at evidence which supports their position while ignoring evidence against. I look upon both these modes of thinking as being undesirable and something which should be argued against, as it is unlikely that they won't overflow outside the religious realm.

But in all fairness, anti-theistic atheists do the same by "cherry picking" all the most extreme passages in holy texts to argue against religion and how negative they view Jesus more often than not seems to be a reflection of how negative they view religion. Of course God is often used by believers as an idol that represents their own beliefs but anti-theistic atheists do the same when they impose their own reverse literalistic view of the bible on the texts.

 

 

For example, I was raised by liberal Christians, and when I came to Christianity I was liberal in my views, that said, both then, and now it would be impossible for me to be a Christian and believe that it is okay for people to be Gay, why, because the bible clearly shows that God think that being homosexual is an abomination, thus it wouldn't matter what I think on the issue, I would have to defer to him, and I am quite certain their are others like me.

But then there's also evangelical Christians who are starting to accept homosexuality as being compatible with their faith: http://www.ecwr.org/ This is more proof to me that there is no such thing as true Christianity but Christianity is constantly evolving and adapting with the times.

[Antlerman]

But the ana-baptists went further than Luther's reformation, going against the heresy of infant baptism, Luther had them drowned, isn't he a fundamentalist in that sense?

"Luther had them drowned"? I was unaware of this. Do you have any support for this statement? The only reference I found was that someone was drowned, not that Luther "had them drowned", in the sense that he personally directed that. http://www.ritchies.net/p4wk4.htm

 

And no, even if he did order that, he would not qualify as a "fundamentalist". That sort of persecution was, sadly so, the course of the day. It cannot be evaluated in the light of modern society with its modern value systems. John Calvin, for instance with one of his opponents had judged that he should be burned with green wood, which meant a slower, more agonizing death because the wood would take longer to burn.

 

Horrid, beyond imagination by today's standards, no doubt!! Yet, torture and the like was the norm of the day, such as boiling in pots of oil. Again, sickeningly horrible by today's standards, but painfully the norm of the day - and not at the hands of religions per se, put that was the secular norm. The religious institutions took those they deemed as threats to the order, which was all under the umbrella of the mythic system, and turned them over to the secular rule for punishment.

 

Again, this in not fundamentalism, in any sense of the word that would make any sense to us today. For their day, this was normal. Fundamentalists today should be judged in the context of today's culture, just a Luther and Calvin, or some other figure of antiquity should be judged on the level of their culture, in their context, in their day - not ours.

 

It is not a linear, universal norm that exists and can judge all mankind, to one standard. That itself, is it seems a byproduct of the mythical thought that God as portrayed in the Bible is accurate and all moral understandings begin and end with that particular portrait. People give way, way too much power to the fundis to define "God", for good or for bad. To me, they are in error, in every sense, and to say it's all wrong starting with their definitions, is itself an error. It is not good reasoning.

[dagnarus]

 

For me the issue is somewhat to do with the believe in God. Moderate christians still put themselves in the position of somehow knowing some all-powerful God, and somehow knowing what he wants, i.e. Spong (not a moderate, a liberal) knows that this God is a hippy liberal and thus agrees with all his liberal thinking, the fact that I might agree with Spong's liberal agenda is irrelevant, he still has no basis for his believe that any God, the Christian one or otherwise agrees with him.

Expect Spong does not believe in a supernatural god who knows your thoughts and that he speaks on authority for:

 

 

Nice sermon. What basis does he have for thinking that any God, Christian or otherwise, agrees with this and is worshiped in this way?

 

Furthermore I've noticed that just like conservative Christianity, liberal Christians when making biblical arguments cherry pick the bible, and carefully pick out verses which support their agenda while ignoring verses which don't, like the liberal argument there is no hell in the bible, they argue that hell is actually Gehenna, a garbage dump, while failing to mention that Jesus mentions that Gehenna is to be feared more than death and what Revelation has to say about the issue. Liberal Christianity encourages the mode of thinking that God thinks like you just like conservative Christianity, it also encourages people to look at evidence which supports their position while ignoring evidence against. I look upon both these modes of thinking as being undesirable and something which should be argued against, as it is unlikely that they won't overflow outside the religious realm.

But in all fairness, anti-theistic atheists do the same by "cherry picking" all the most extreme passages in holy texts to argue against religion and how negative they view Jesus more often than not seems to be a reflection of how negative they view religion. Of course God is often used by believers as an idol that represents their own beliefs but anti-theistic atheists do the same when they impose their own reverse literalistic view of the bible on the texts.

 

What are you talking about? I accept that Jesus said nice things like loving your neighbour, I just think that somebody who says both love your neighbour and be willing to hate your closest loved ones is, on balance, a two faced asshole. That isn't cherry picking because I'm looking at the whole person.

 

edit:

That said you are correct I have noticed that alot of the times non-christians including atheists do use similiar reasoning against Christianity. This should be argued against too. The point is that in my estimation, Christianity, conservative or not essentially train their congregants to think in this way. In fact I'm willing to say that this is probably the only way which a person can really get the bible to say anything, anything meaningful at least.

 

For example, I was raised by liberal Christians, and when I came to Christianity I was liberal in my views, that said, both then, and now it would be impossible for me to be a Christian and believe that it is okay for people to be Gay, why, because the bible clearly shows that God think that being homosexual is an abomination, thus it wouldn't matter what I think on the issue, I would have to defer to him, and I am quite certain their are others like me.

But then there's also evangelical Christians who are starting to accept homosexuality as being compatible with their faith: http://www.ecwr.org/ This is more proof to me that there is no such thing as true Christianity but Christianity is constantly evolving and adapting with the times.

 

I never said there was such a thing as true Christianity. Just that their will always be those who read the bible and see the various things written there and realize that their current church whether evangelical or moderate does not live up to it, or at least their view of it. Maybe some liberal evangelical christians somewhere are ok with gays, it doesn't change the fact that somewhere some moderate Christian is probably reading the bible, realizing that if he doesn't follow God faithfully he might very well be getting a magma bath and becoming more and more conservative in his thinking. of course I don't have any hard data on that so it is just my opinion.

[dagnarus]

But the ana-baptists went further than Luther's reformation, going against the heresy of infant baptism, Luther had them drowned, isn't he a fundamentalist in that sense?

"Luther had them drowned"? I was unaware of this. Do you have any support for this statement? The only reference I found was that someone was drowned, not that Luther "had them drowned", in the sense that he personally directed that. http://www.ritchies.net/p4wk4.htm

 

And no, even if he did order that, he would not qualify as a "fundamentalist". That sort of persecution was, sadly so, the course of the day. It cannot be evaluated in the light of modern society with its modern value systems. John Calvin, for instance with one of his opponents had judged that he should be burned with green wood, which meant a slower, more agonizing death because the wood would take longer to burn.

 

Horrid, beyond imagination by today's standards, no doubt!! Yet, torture and the like was the norm of the day, such as boiling in pots of oil. Again, sickeningly horrible by today's standards, but painfully the norm of the day - and not at the hands of religions per se, put that was the secular norm. The religious institutions took those they deemed as threats to the order, which was all under the umbrella of the mythic system, and turned them over to the secular rule for punishment.

 

Again, this in not fundamentalism, in any sense of the word that would make any sense to us today. For their day, this was normal. Fundamentalists today should be judged in the context of today's culture, just a Luther and Calvin, or some other figure of antiquity should be judged on the level of their culture, in their context, in their day - not ours.

 

It is not a linear, universal norm that exists and can judge all mankind, to one standard. That itself, is it seems a byproduct of the mythical thought that God as portrayed in the Bible is accurate and all moral understandings begin and end with that particular portrait. People give way, way too much power to the fundis to define "God", for good or for bad. To me, they are in error, in every sense, and to say it's all wrong starting with their definitions, is itself an error. It is not good reasoning.

 

I looked again at my source again, it's introduction to church history by Key H. Tee, which was written basically by my old church, so is doubtless biased and inaccurate, that said they were both pro Luther and pro ana-baptists. That said the most it says is that Luther allowed the persecution, so I must have misremembered. That said I found this webpage which states that Zwingli agreed to write a decree stating they should be drowned.

 

That said, why should the Catholic church be judged as being fundamentalist in that context then when they were basically doing what was accepted in their day, in their context, just because they were defending their old order. Whereas the reformer where doing those same things to people who were challenging their new, old order?

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

Nice sermon. What basis does he have for thinking that any God, Christian or otherwise, agrees with this and is worshiped in this way?

I think you're missing his point. Spong does not believe in a supernatural god who agrees with him. Spong is using God in the "God = the natural universe/feeling of awe" sense.

 

What are you talking about? I accept that Jesus said nice things like loving your neighbour, I just think that somebody who says both love your neighbour and be willing to hate your closest loved ones is, on balance, a two faced asshole. That isn't cherry picking because I'm looking at the whole person.

Spong also likewise acknowledges that Jesus is a human being who isn't perfect. It's also important to distinguish between which sayings are likely to date back to Jesus and which ones are likely to represent the beliefs of the gospel authors. Not everything put into Jesus' mouth by the gospel authors might not have actually been said by him. Virtually all scholars are in agreement that the anti-Semitic passages John's gospel puts into Jesus' mouth are not historical given the fact Jesus himself was a Jew. These passages where Jesus refers to the Jews as the children of the devil are more likely to represent the beliefs of John's community who at the time were being excommunicated from the synagogues because of their hearsay. "Jesus" in these passages is not so much calling the "Jews" children of the devil but these passages represent the demonizing conflicts that existed between the Christians in John's community and the Pharisees' communities.

 

 

 

 

I never said there was such a thing as true Christianity. Just that their will always be those who read the bible and see the various things written there and realize that their current church whether evangelical or moderate does not live up to it, or at least their view of it. Maybe some liberal evangelical christians somewhere are ok with gays, it doesn't change the fact that somewhere some moderate Christian is probably reading the bible, realizing that if he doesn't follow God faithfully he might very well be getting a magma bath and becoming more and more conservative in his thinking. of course I don't have any hard data on that so it is just my opinion.

But then the same is true for non-believers as well. Whether or not CS Lewis was really an atheist is up for debate, but he was at the least a non-believer who later converted to evangelical Christianity. That some moderates might feel threatened by hell and be scared into converting to fundamentalism is more reason to me why we should be focusing our attacks on religious extremists rather than moderates.

[dagnarus]

 

 

Nice sermon. What basis does he have for thinking that any God, Christian or otherwise, agrees with this and is worshiped in this way?

I think you're missing his point. Spong does not believe in a supernatural god who agrees with him. Spong is using God in the "God = the natural universe/feeling of awe" sense.

 

So the natural universe agrees with him? I don't really see the distinction. While yes I do agree that we should all love each other and what have you, I really don't see how we can make the argument that the natural universe wants to do so, if only because it seems to spend a lot of it's time trying to kill us, I mean sure it also sustains us but, yeah.

 

What are you talking about? I accept that Jesus said nice things like loving your neighbour, I just think that somebody who says both love your neighbour and be willing to hate your closest loved ones is, on balance, a two faced asshole. That isn't cherry picking because I'm looking at the whole person.

Spong also likewise acknowledges that Jesus is a human being who isn't perfect.

 

First the reason why I said this is because I sensed you were taking a dig at me because I had a negative view of Jesus, and accusing me of cherry picking, thus I sought to defend myself, if you weren't I apologize. I wasn't trying to attack Spong's view of him, although I might argue against it, I don't know.

 

It's also important to distinguish between which sayings are likely to date back to Jesus and which ones are likely to represent the beliefs of the gospel authors. Not everything put into Jesus' mouth by the gospel authors might not have actually been said by him.

 

This is why when I refer to Jesus I am always referring to what I like to call gospel Jesus, I.E. the Jesus who is presented in the gospels, why because if we start talking about some historical Jesus, well how the fuck am I supposed to know what he might have said, thought, felt, the best which you could really do based upon what is given is guess.

 

Virtually all scholars are in agreement that the anti-Semitic passages John's gospel puts into Jesus' mouth are not historical given the fact Jesus himself was a Jew. These passages where Jesus refers to the Jews as the children of the devil are more likely to represent the beliefs of John's community who at the time were being excommunicated from the synagogues because of their hearsay. "Jesus" in these passages is not so much calling the "Jews" children of the devil but these passages represent the demonizing conflicts that existed between the Christians in John's community and the Pharisees' communities.

 

So, is it fair to say then, that all the old testament prophets either weren't Israelites or every time they called the Israelites whores, said whore verses were later interpolations ? Fucking hell, even a lot of the Old Testament itself calls the Jews a evil and "stiff-necked" people. I think it is fair to say that the concept of speaking in negative terms about Jews who didn't follow God's will, i.e. his teaching, wouldn't have been foreign to him.

 

I never said there was such a thing as true Christianity. Just that their will always be those who read the bible and see the various things written there and realize that their current church whether evangelical or moderate does not live up to it, or at least their view of it. Maybe some liberal evangelical christians somewhere are ok with gays, it doesn't change the fact that somewhere some moderate Christian is probably reading the bible, realizing that if he doesn't follow God faithfully he might very well be getting a magma bath and becoming more and more conservative in his thinking. of course I don't have any hard data on that so it is just my opinion.

But then the same is true for non-believers as well. Whether or not CS Lewis was really an atheist is up for debate, but he was at the least a non-believer who later converted to evangelical Christianity. That some moderates might feel threatened by hell and be scared into converting to fundamentalism is more reason to me why we should be focusing our attacks on religious extremists rather than moderates.

 

One, forgive me if I'm wrong, I believe many moderates still believe in hell. Two, I was a non-believer until I became a Christian at the age of 19, I don't believe I had even met a fundamentalist Christian before that time. I feared hell, why, because I had met moderate Christianity, which led to the thought there might be a God, and based upon the bible, and church history, that also meant that their might be a hell. Moderates are probably more dangerous in this regard than people like Fred Phelps because with people like them the pot is already well and truly boiling, it's easy to see he's well and truly insane, with moderates it's a nice warm temperature, much easier to jump in, and gradually swim into hotter waters.

[classicchinadoll]

 

But in all fairness, anti-theistic atheists do the same by "cherry picking" all the most extreme passages in holy texts to argue against religion and how negative they view Jesus more often than not seems to be a reflection of how negative they view religion. Of course God is often used by believers as an idol that represents their own beliefs but anti-theistic atheists do the same when they impose their own reverse literalistic view of the bible on the texts.

 

 

 

 

You are missing a very important point, atheists don't cherry pick the bible to justify their disbelief in god, rather they think the whole thing is rubbish but in arguing against a bible believing theist ofcourse you are going to pick the worst bits. its a matter of trying to point out that if you are going to accept homosexuality is a sin and god said so then you also have to accept that god did this the other and that. It is a purely logical method of getting christians who justify one passage to evaluate their beliefs. Imagine saying to a christian "so you think homosexuality is a sin well did you also know jesus said love your neighbour as yourself man how can you justify that"

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

So the natural universe agrees with him? I don't really see the distinction. While yes I do agree that we should all love each other and what have you, I really don't see how we can make the argument that the natural universe wants to do so, if only because it seems to spend a lot of it's time trying to kill us, I mean sure it also sustains us but, yeah.

If you want a better grasp of this belief, read Dawkins' chapter on Einstenian religion in The God Delusion if you haven't yet already.

 

First the reason why I said this is because I sensed you were taking a dig at me because I had a negative view of Jesus, and accusing me of cherry picking, thus I sought to defend myself, if you weren't I apologize. I wasn't trying to attack Spong's view of him, although I might argue against it, I don't know.

My statement was directed to how some anti-theists in general will impose their anti-religious views on the bible like how Christopher Hitchens argued CS Lewis was right when he made his "liar, Lord or lunatic" argument expect Jesus was a lunatic. That's obviously Hitchens imposing his view of all religious people as lunatics on Jesus.

 

 

So, is it fair to say then, that all the old testament prophets either weren't Israelites or every time they called the Israelites whores, said whore verses were later interpolations ? Fucking hell, even a lot of the Old Testament itself calls the Jews a evil and "stiff-necked" people. I think it is fair to say that the concept of speaking in negative terms about Jews who didn't follow God's will, i.e. his teaching, wouldn't have been foreign to him.

But in the gospels there's a clear progression of how anti-Semitic the scriptures become. With each gospel, Pilate becomes progressively nicer and the Jews become progressively more evil. This is obviously not history but it's a literary device and the gospel writers are obviously writing a theological anti-Semitic tract, not a historical document.

 

 

 

One, forgive me if I'm wrong, I believe many moderates still believe in hell. Two, I was a non-believer until I became a Christian at the age of 19, I don't believe I had even met a fundamentalist Christian before that time. I feared hell, why, because I had met moderate Christianity, which led to the thought there might be a God, and based upon the bible, and church history, that also meant that their might be a hell. Moderates are probably more dangerous in this regard than people like Fred Phelps because with people like them the pot is already well and truly boiling, it's easy to see he's well and truly insane, with moderates it's a nice warm temperature, much easier to jump in, and gradually swim into hotter waters.

Some moderates believe in a temporary hell or they believe in hell as a spiritual separation from God. On the other hand, I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and was taught to see reality in black vs white terms. Liberals were traitors who worshiped Satan and you shouldn't listen to anything they say. When I first deconverted from Christianity, I was very angry at all religion for awhile. I thought I was betrayed by the church and I hated everything Jesus stood for. When I first deconverted, I read the books of the New Atheists and for awhile they spoke to me and helped me to cope with my deconversion. Eventually I started studying biblical scholarship and I started reading books by progressive Christians. Seeing Jesus in a different way than what I was raised with helped me to make peace with my former religion. I still think fundamentalist Christianity can be dangerous and we should counter it with logic and reason, but I no longer hold any ill will to Christians who are just minding their own business and living their lives the best way they can. My sister is also a liberal Christian and is the only one I've come out to an atheist as and she accepted me for who I am, so maybe that's another reason I can't hold ill will to moderates being more dangerous than fundamentalists.

 

You are missing a very important point, atheists don't cherry pick the bible to justify their disbelief in god, rather they think the whole thing is rubbish but in arguing against a bible believing theist ofcourse you are going to pick the worst bits. its a matter of trying to point out that if you are going to accept homosexuality is a sin and god said so then you also have to accept that god did this the other and that. It is a purely logical method of getting christians who justify one passage to evaluate their beliefs. Imagine saying to a christian "so you think homosexuality is a sin well did you also know jesus said love your neighbour as yourself man how can you justify that"

They may not justify their disbelief through cherry picking but there are many anti-theists who justify their hatred of religion through cherry picking the most extremist passages in the bible. For example, when virtually all of Christendom disowned Pat Robertson because of his comments about Haiti, Dawkins didn't congratulate them for standing up to Robertson but instead he bashed the moderates and Dawkins cherry picked the most extremist passages in the bible to try to "prove" that Robertson is the only true Christian and all those moderates who don't agree with him are phoneys. When was the last time you saw Sam Harris cherry pick a positive teaching from the Koran?

[Shyone]

But in all fairness, anti-theistic atheists do the same by "cherry picking" all the most extreme passages in holy texts to argue against religion and how negative they view Jesus more often than not seems to be a reflection of how negative they view religion. Of course God is often used by believers as an idol that represents their own beliefs but anti-theistic atheists do the same when they impose their own reverse literalistic view of the bible on the texts.

 

That's not quite accurate.

 

First, while we don't emphasize the passages of love and mercy, we acknowledge them. We simply refuse to let others ignore the passages of blood, gore, rape and infanticide. It would waste time and bandwidth and defeat the purpose of showing the inconsistency of the bible except to counter those who only quote the "good stuff."

 

Second, we don't believe in God. Our intent is not to make God out to be evil, but rather to show that the god depicted in the bible has evil qualities. So we are not just being "literalistic."

 

Third, for those who are literalists, they still overlook the passages or soft-pedal them into something merciful - as though summary execution were a merciful act. Only by concentrating on those controversial passages can the literalistic believer be confronted with the god they refuse to acknowledge.

 

Finally, and though this may be redundant, we don't need to bring up the nice verses. We can trust the Christians to do that for us.

[dagnarus]

 

So, is it fair to say then, that all the old testament prophets either weren't Israelites or every time they called the Israelites whores, said whore verses were later interpolations ? Fucking hell, even a lot of the Old Testament itself calls the Jews a evil and "stiff-necked" people. I think it is fair to say that the concept of speaking in negative terms about Jews who didn't follow God's will, i.e. his teaching, wouldn't have been foreign to him.

But in the gospels there's a clear progression of how anti-Semitic the scriptures become. With each gospel, Pilate becomes progressively nicer and the Jews become progressively more evil. This is obviously not history but it's a literary device and the gospel writers are obviously writing a theological anti-Semitic tract, not a historical document.

 

Yes but that doesn't mean that Jesus didn't have a negative few of those Jews who didn't follow him, much like the Pharisees had a negative view of the Sadducees and vice-versa. It's quite possible that the source of the NT's antisemitism stems from the historical Jesus's contempt for those who wouldn't follow him, and to argue that this couldn't have been the case because Jesus was a Jew, is quite frankly, ridiculous, remember the NT's antisemitism is based upon belief, not ethnicity.

 

Some moderates believe in a temporary hell or they believe in hell as a spiritual separation from God. On the other hand, I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and was taught to see reality in black vs white terms. Liberals were traitors who worshiped Satan and you shouldn't listen to anything they say. When I first deconverted from Christianity, I was very angry at all religion for awhile. I thought I was betrayed by the church and I hated everything Jesus stood for. When I first deconverted, I read the books of the New Atheists and for awhile they spoke to me and helped me to cope with my deconversion. Eventually I started studying biblical scholarship and I started reading books by progressive Christians. Seeing Jesus in a different way than what I was raised with helped me to make peace with my former religion. I still think fundamentalist Christianity can be dangerous and we should counter it with logic and reason, but I no longer hold any ill will to Christians who are just minding their own business and living their lives the best way they can. My sister is also a liberal Christian and is the only one I've come out to an atheist as and she accepted me for who I am, so maybe that's another reason I can't hold ill will to moderates being more dangerous than fundamentalists.

 

How is liberal Christianity anymore logical than conservative Christianity? Not getting into all the issues on science, how is it more logical to come to the conclusion that God is OK with gays and non-believers than to think that he isn't, right off the bat we have no basis for stating that God is pro/anti anything, given that we have never met him or receive any concrete communication from him, the only thing which comes close to fulfilling this purpose are holy books such as the bible, which purport to be inspired by God, it is fairly easy to see why someone who read the bible as being God's word would come to the conclusion that God was anti non-believer's and gays. Personally, I think that if you are willing to accept the reasoning which comes to the God of liberal christianity, you should equally be willing to accept the reasoning which comes to God of conservative Christianity. Neither one can prove that any omnipotent being, the natural universe or otherwise, agrees with them.

 

My statement was directed to how some anti-theists in general will impose their anti-religious views on the bible like how Christopher Hitchens argued CS Lewis was right when he made his "liar, Lord or lunatic" argument expect Jesus was a lunatic. That's obviously Hitchens imposing his view of all religious people as lunatics on Jesus.

 

They may not justify their disbelief through cherry picking but there are many anti-theists who justify their hatred of religion through cherry picking the most extremist passages in the bible. For example, when virtually all of Christendom disowned Pat Robertson because of his comments about Haiti, Dawkins didn't congratulate them for standing up to Robertson but instead he bashed the moderates and Dawkins cherry picked the most extremist passages in the bible to try to "prove" that Robertson is the only true Christian and all those moderates who don't agree with him are phoneys. When was the last time you saw Sam Harris cherry pick a positive teaching from the Koran?

 

I'm guessing that you don't mean that it is wrong to judge things based upon extremist parts, because obviously things which promote things of extreme hatred should be judged. Rather you think the Bible should not be judged based upon things which aren't indicative of it's general message (I forget the word for this), like how you wouldn't judge a normally peaceful village based upon the one brutal murder which happened there a hundred years ago? In this regard I would argue that it is quite acceptable to judge the bible based upon extreme themes, such as being willing to hate others for God, and demonizing those who don't believe in the biblical God. Also do the positive teaching a believe system might have justify the horrendously bad ones it also has?

[Neon Genesis]

 

 

First, while we don't emphasize the passages of love and mercy, we acknowledge them. We simply refuse to let others ignore the passages of blood, gore, rape and infanticide. It would waste time and bandwidth and defeat the purpose of showing the inconsistency of the bible except to counter those who only quote the "good stuff."

But many anti-theistic atheists are doing more than that. They are not simply refusing to let others "ignore" the excessive violent passages (never mind that moderate Christians acknowledge and criticisize those verses too). Many anti-theistic atheists are over-emphasizing the extremist passages over the loving passages and trying to pigeonhole all true believers as fitting into this one tiny narrow definition that only adheres to the violent passages. For example, Sam Harris only considers fundamentalist Christians to be true Christians and tries to cherry pick the most extremist passages in the bible and impose them on all believers by insisting that to be a real Christian you have to follow the violent passages literally and anyone else is a heretical enabler. This is the exact same thing fundamentalists do but in reverse. It's the same rhetoric I grew up with in church expect Sam Harris is arguing against it rather than for it. The New Atheists are of course nowhere near as dangerous as fundamentalists but it's still the same black and white us vs them thinking. Which also brings up a point, if moderates aren't real Christians anyway, how are they enabling something they don't really belong with in the first place?

 

Second, we don't believe in God. Our intent is not to make God out to be evil, but rather to show that the god depicted in the bible has evil qualities. So we are not just being "literalistic."

Which god in the bible? Yahweh, El, Asherah?

 

Yes but that doesn't mean that Jesus didn't have a negative few of those Jews who didn't follow him, much like the Pharisees had a negative view of the Sadducees and vice-versa. It's quite possible that the source of the NT's antisemitism stems from the historical Jesus's contempt for those who wouldn't follow him, and to argue that this couldn't have been the case because Jesus was a Jew, is quite frankly, ridiculous, remember the NT's antisemitism is based upon belief, not ethnicity.

But again, it's clearly a literary invention. If the historical Jesus was bigoted towards other Jews, wouldn't you expect the same level of extreme Antisemitism in the earliest gospel Mark that you find in the last canon gospel, John? Instead what you find is a progression where Mark starts off with the least amount but it slowly progresses and becomes more extreme which clearly to me points to the Antisemitism being a later post-Easter development.

 

Personally, I think that if you are willing to accept the reasoning which comes to the God of liberal christianity, you should equally be willing to accept the reasoning which comes to God of conservative Christianity. Neither one can prove that any omnipotent being, the natural universe or otherwise, agrees with them.

I don't see why one should reach that conclusion anymore than an atheist should become a nihilist simply because they stopped believing in God. The difference between progressive Christianity and fundamentalist Christianity is that progressive Christianity is incorporating the discoveries of science like evolution and the date of the Earth and the discoveries of biblical scholarship into their beliefs while fundamentalist Christianity is denying it. Fundamentalist Christianity is a denial of reality. Progressive Christianity is reality + unproven god concept.

 

Also do the positive teaching a believe system might have justify the horrendously bad ones it also has?

No, they do not and progressive Christians are just as actively criticizing biblical literalism as atheists are. But I must ask you the reverse question, do the horrendously bad passages negate the positive teachings of a belief system that rejects them?

[Antlerman]

Third, for those who are literalists, they still overlook the passages or soft-pedal them into something merciful - as though summary execution were a merciful act. Only by concentrating on those controversial passages can the literalistic believer be confronted with the god they refuse to acknowledge.

The one thing I don't hear in this, is for them to consider a 3rd alternative. That the entire thing is a non-literal reflection of their culture in symbolic language. What I hear is saying back to them on their level, "It's false because of this", or "God is a monster in the Bible", "It's inconsistent" - period, with no thought to bring any understanding to it; no attempt to bring higher understanding, other than, "It is wrong". There is no balance from either extreme, and that is why the observation that this is accepted on their terms as a literal book, either from God to become the Authority for beliefs, or not from God to be rejected as any authority.

 

It's my belief that given these only two options, it's either right, or wrong, trustworthy or untrustworthy, accept it or reject it, that it creates a false choice that will only result in polarization and stunted growth on both sides. Why? Because it is not such a simple, black and white choice. That is as much of an oversimplification as those who say, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it for me"; or "God didn't say it, I don't believe it, that settles it for me." Both is not any approach to understanding, simply belief choices.

 

The literalist mentality does not manifest itself only in conservative churches, private-school enclaves, television programs of the evangelical right, and a considerable amount of Christian bookstore material; one often finds a literalist understanding of Bible and faith being assumed by those who have no religious inclinations, or who are avowedly antireligious in sentiment. Even in educated circles the possibility of more sophisticated theologies of creation is easily obscured by burning straw effigies of biblical literalism.

 

But the problem is even more deep-rooted. A literalist imagination -- or lack of imagination -- pervades contemporary culture. One of the more dubious successes of modern science -- and of its attendant spirits technology, historiography and mathematics -- is the suffusion of intellectual life with a prosaic and pedantic mind-set. One may observe this feature in almost any college classroom, not only in religious studies, but within the humanities in general. Students have difficulty in thinking, feeling and expressing themselves symbolically.

 

From here. A good read to perhaps open up some perspective to other ways of looking at all of this.

 

BTW, I have to say I've heard several examples (not from you) of people taking their personal experiences with "moderates" that in some manner was connected with them falling into more radical thinking (which I always attribute to self as the cause, rather than others), and then extending that reaction with themselves to say all moderates do this to everyone. I don't find that a very 'scientific' evaluation. Just saying...