Cultural Christianity Meets Richard Dawkins

[Suzy]

I'm on an Internet forum which subject is not religion or philosophy, but in the Off Topic section we sometimes share with each other what books we have read. Last time I read "God delusion" from Richard Dawkins. Knowing criticism of religion is a touchy subject for many people, I told them what I read and asked them in advance if they'd like me to give a summary and if they'd like to discuss it. I warned them what it's about and that religious people may find it offensive. They said go ahead, how they were so open-minded, they don't mind to learn about other aspects etc. I made a separate topic for it, so if somebody wanted to avoid the topic he could.

 

My country is not the fudamentalist United States, still most people said they didn't agree with Dawkins and atheism, but only few were accurate about why. (There were also some who said they agreed and they would read Dawkins's book.) Basically there was only one (Catholic) person who was trying to argue with Dawkins's points in an articulate and detailed manner.

 

But the interesting experience that came out of it to me was one other person whose reaction pretty much surprised me, because she never came accross to me as religious. And I bet she isn't! Yet, she was the one who got the most angry about it all! I was also surprised because before I opened my topic on the subject she was among those who told how they were interested and I should go ahead. What ticked her off is the part where Dawkins pointed out that the Ten Commandments originally wasn't a universal law, it was only valid within Israel. So when it says you shall not kill, it only meant you shall not kill other Isrealites. Of course, the Israelites had no qualms about killing other people around them.

 

Theologists say it changed in the New Testament and indeed the Parable of the Good Samaritan seems to suggest the attitued towards gentiles changed. However this story is only in the Gospel of Luke. In Matthew 15:21-28 it seems non-Israelites were kind of looked down by Jesus as well:

 

 

" 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

 

22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

 

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

 

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

 

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

 

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

 

27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

 

28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment."

 

So Dawkins maid the claim that Judaism, and even early Christianity was originally pretty exclusionary and nationalist and it was only Paul's idea later to include the gentiles. Although this opinion of Dawkins could be challenged based on Luke (for example the story of the Samaritan), however in Matthew Jesus is clearly quoted saying "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel" and he also says "It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs". The contradiction (which is, of course, not the only one in the Bible) probably stems from the fact that both Gospels were intended to a different public and were written by authors with different agendas.

 

Now, back to my "friend" on the internet forum. I was pretty surprised that this particular opinion of Dawkins ticked her off so much! And as I realized it's because she is a cultural Christian! I bet she doesn't pray and doesn't read the Bible! When I asked her what she believes in, she made some vague comment about believing in a higher force bla-bla-bla, but she is quite clearly not a Christian as she also said she doesn't care if Jesus was just a human being and not God. However she is a cultural Christian, she calls herself a Christian because (and I bet only because of this) a good patriot in my country is supposed to be a "Christian". I realized this is where she was coming from, because she was pretty offended by the term "nationalist" I used to describe the exclusionary nature of the Ten Commandments and some of Jesus's attitudes. I'm pretty sure she didn't understand what I was trying to say generally, she just cherry-picked on this word and started to say how Dawkins must be a liberal who is trying to undermine society's morals and patriotism and so on. She totally missed the point!

 

I found it interesting how she went on and on about how religion is needed to keep up morals in a society and (she totally ignored Dawkins's points on this subject that moral doesn't stem from religion) and keep nations together. And how evil liberals are trying to undermine this with their atheist propaganda. It was so sad that it was almost funny.

 

And this came from a person who I bet is not really religious herself (and hardly knows anything about the Bible)! But she is buying the religious propaganda that we have to keep our cultural Christianity to be good, moral citizens and patriots! And every attack against religion is an attack towards those values! It's crazy!

 

Dawkins was right that there's a strange taboo surrounding the criticism of religion. Even among non-religious people. I just experienced it myself.

[Vigile]

E Europe? You write like a native English speaker

 

I think the answer is pretty much summed up by the French researcher Jacques Ellul. I posted an article excerpt from his book a few weeks ago. The website that hosts it is down, but I think the excerpt here gives a good overview. It's related to politics, but it works with religion as well:

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/43268-propaganda/page__p__630107__hl__propaganda__fromsearch__1#entry630107

[oddbird1963]

Suzy,

 

You've done a great job of isolating the fallacious assumption this "cultural Christian" holds.

 

Maybe you need to ask her, if possible, how SHE as a person came to the conclusion that one needs a god in order to live a moral life? If she says, "that's what I was taught all my life," then you can point out to her that she is just parroting her culture not exercising her own mind.

 

There are many good arguments out there about how 1) The bible and Christianity are not the bastions of moral character and truth and 2) Morality is based in things other than the mere recitation of texts.

 

Cultural Christians, as well as fundamentalists and conservative Christians need to learn that by relying on the Bible as the source for their morality, they are ceasing to do what people need in order to behave and think morally. They do not wrestle with important moral issues and come to the compassionate and most collectively beneficial positions.

[JadedAtheist]

It's the cultural ones you need to be aware of. When I became an atheist I was instantly defriended on FB by a cultural Christian and they avoided all contact with me and warned others not to interact with me. If we are to measure ourselves in the Christian moral sense, I come out far better than she does. She goes out clubbing, she smokes, drinks and does other things that I won't go into details about. I may go to a pub every now and again and I drink rarely and I do swear but I look like the pope in comparison to her. Even if we were on the same level it seems hypocritical to me that simply because she believes in God somehow makes her better than me and my lack of belief supposedly makes me a bad person. I would confront her but I was told this information through a "mutual" friend and thus I cannot disclose what I know without letting the cat out of the bag.

[Wizened Sage]

"But she is buying the religious propaganda that we have to keep our cultural Christianity to be good, moral citizens and patriots!"

 

Such people simply refuse to think about things. They merely parrot what they've been told. Buddhists, Japanese, and Asiatic Indians are all known to be, in general, very moral people, though most know nothing about Christianity. How could this be?

 

If we say that Christian morality is the morality of the bible, then how do we explain the following moral "wisdom" of the Bible? The bible commands believers to:

Kill disobedient sons (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

Kill those who work on the Sabbath (Exodus 35:2)

Kill blasphemers (Leviticus)

Kill non-virginal brides (Deuteronomy 22:20,21)

Kill homosexuals (Leviticus 20:13)

Kill adulterers (Leviticus 20:10)

Kill witches (Exodus 22)

 

Even Christians don't consider these things to be moral anymore. Christians have only a very hazy idea of where their moral directives come from. They like to point to the bible and their religion, but, in fact, like all the rest of us, they get their moral directives from their parents and other caregivers, their peers, and their societies. They DO NOT get them from the bible.

 

It sounds to me that she is getting her "education" from the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all those other righteous right-wingers. All of whom have been thoroughly brainwashed themselves.

[Suzy]

@ Vigile

 

Thanks for that link, I check.

 

@ oddbird1963

 

"Maybe you need to ask her, if possible, how SHE as a person came to the conclusion that one needs a god in order to live a moral life? If she says, "that's what I was taught all my life," then you can point out to her that she is just parroting her culture not exercising her own mind."

 

I know already she is not exercising her own mind. Where she is coming from is rather politics IMO. She is a right-winger (that became pretty obvious to me from her rethorics) and to her "liberal" means devil and whoever attacks religion is a liberal. That's her logic basically.

 

@ JadedAtheist

 

"If we are to measure ourselves in the Christian moral sense, I come out far better than she does. She goes out clubbing, she smokes, drinks and does other things that I won't go into details about."

 

I can relate to this.

 

@ Wizened Sage

 

Yes, I was already telling them that moral doesn't come from the Bible. The thread was about Dawkins's book and he made this point there, so I actually wrote about it in my original post in that thread about the book. She just ignored it, I guess.

 

"Such people simply refuse to think about things. They merely parrot what they've been told. Buddhists, Japanese, and Asiatic Indians are all known to be, in general, very moral people, though most know nothing about Christianity. How could this be?"

 

The funny thing is they wouldn't have a problem with me if I said I was a Buddhist. For some strange reason they think an attack against religion is an attack against moral.

 

"It sounds to me that she is getting her "education" from the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and all those other righteous right-wingers. All of whom have been thoroughly brainwashed themselves."

 

Since I'm talking about Hungary those are not the guys she gets her education from, but we have out own right-wingers....

Like I said she stands more on political grounds than on religious grounds. In other words: I think deep inside she couldn't care less about Jesus. But she was led to believe by right-wing rethorics that any attack against Christianity is an attack against moral and patriotism. She said Hungary was an acient Christian nation. Which is funny, because Hungary is only Christian for about 1000 years. The acient religion was paganism. BTW, it was quite a "nice" story how Christianity became our official religion. Our first King converted to Christianity and carried out a bloody genocide and killed everybody who wasn't willing to convert. That's how we became a "Christian nation". Nice, isn't it? This King was declared a "Saint" by the Catholic Church later and he is one of our most respected Kings today. Historians say to convert the nation to Christianity was a political need, otherwise we would have been destroyed by "Christian" Europe. Which is probably true, so his moves are understandable on a political ground. Only I see nothing saintly in a forced conversion of a nation. Though the Catholic Church surely has a different perspective....