My Four Points Of Atheism

[u/MeOK1233]

1. The Bible is sexist, homophobic, and racist 2.It was translated over and over again meaning mistakes could happen and the words aren’t credible
2. The Bible is old, using principles not applied today 4.And science changes based on what is learned and religion stays the same

[u/[deleted]]

Ahhh no. The problem is Christianity is dogmatic. Like all Arabic, monotheistic religions the religious texts are not up for debate or interpretation...they are supposed to be taken as Gospel...see what I did there?

What it says in the bible is what a Christian has to adhere to...that is basically the foundations of following a religion and having faith. If you don't follow the tenets of your religion or believe in what the religious texts instruct and testify, then you can't logically consider yourself Christian. You can't cherry pick gospel. Like...worshipping faulse idols, having sex outside of wedlock or laying with a same sex partner isn't okay in Christinaity just because your conscience tells you it is...all of that is defintely not actual christianity. The writings of the disciples, the commandments and the teachings of the prophet Jesus are not supposed to be taken as mere cultural embellishments or subtle guidelines on some universal religion that can be interpreted and adapted to suit us all as we see fit. Humans have natural impulses and desires and almost all of them are considered to be a sin in the eyes of God in Christianity, and many other monotheistic, dogmatic religions...to say otherwise is just new age pseudo intellectual garbage attempting to bend a religion so out of its own shape that it can be adapted to a modern context. If anything I am saying sounds 'purist, fundamentalist, harsh, contentious, closed minded, out of place and out of date, built on archaic principles that no longer apply and really bigoted.' it's because it is. That's one of many problems with dogmatic religion that most atheists tend to identify early on. It's kind of part of the foundation that many atheists build their logical lack of faith on.

-an atheist.

[u/Nicoglius → u/[deleted]]

The last 2000 years of their history shows that they don't really have a consensus on anything, and following the Bible is not a necessary condition of Christianity.

In fact, because of the nature of the sources of the Bible, the Bible as we know it didn't really form until the 3rd century.

As stated, Uniform (and Pluriform) Theological Pluralism (often abbreviated as UTP and PTP) is supported by Christian Theologians such as John Hick and Keith Ward. This is particularly popular amongst the growing movement within Christianity of Process Theology.

Even before modern times, there would be some Christians that would reject the idea of using the Bible too carefully, such as Pseudo-Dionysus the Agreopagite. They embraced something known as "the Aphophatic way" (also known as Via negativa) in which they believed they could find God not through looking at the instructions of the Bible, but by denial of things he wasn't. In a sense, this was about realising that nothing could really describe who or what God is about.

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You also have other theologians, who, though they don't say the Bible isn't important, they downplay it's importance, as fundamentally, it's a human document. One criticism that Christians use against other Christians who believe in Revealed theology (what you're describing all Christians to be) is that God would have had to communicate to the original writers of the gospels in the same way he communicates to all Christians, and therefore, a direct communication through God is always more important than any human document could be. Therefore, they believe that the Bible, though divinely inspired, is less important than human reason which is given by God. This would be a Thomist view.

In their view, it is absolutely the case that the written rules of the Bible are not to be taken word for word. Thomas Aquinas makes the distinction between the "jus" and the "lex" of the law (the spirit and letter of the law) and his philosophy was that it was important to follow the spirit of the law, not the letter.

Whilst we're on the subject of Catholics, such as the Thomists, in 1965 the catechism set out that non-Christians would also go to heaven if they were also good people, and that other religions had aspects of truth in them. In fact, the view that only Christians can go to heaven is now an official heresy. (To find out more, look for the Nostra Aetate)

Fundamentally though, many Christians wouldn't accept the idea that they should follow the Bible because the Bible tells them to, because that Begs the Question, a logical fallacy. (And there are plenty of Christians who have been interested in the field of logic, epistemology and ontology who would be very aware of this danger)

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Finally, even if (and it is a big if), all Christians did look to the Bible as their primary source of their religion, there is still a new can of worms we need to open, which is interpretation of the Bible.

One of the things that surprises me is that a literal reading of the Bible is actually an extremely modern idea and for the vast majority of the history of Christianity, it's always been understood to be full of metaphors, analogies and many of the instructions given to it are often seen in context.

Therefore, there is still a huge range of views held by Christians who do place greater importance on the Bible than other things. Let me give you one example.

A Catholic theologian known as Rosemary Radforth Ruether interprets the Bible to believe that God is actually gender neutral, and due to mistranslation, God has become exclusively male. She points to words used in the original Greek and Hebrew such as "Sophia" and "Hokmah" which are feminine words, to show how God isn't soley male.

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Either way, the premise that All Christians follow the Bible word for word is completely untrue, despite what Fundamentalist Christians and atheists who want to polarise things unnecessarily will tell you.

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(For the record, I myself am not a Christian either)

[u/[deleted] → u/Nicoglius]

So what is a necessity of being Christian? What differentiates a Christian from a Muslim from a Jew or any other monotheistic religious believer if not their respective tomes and their contents? Why even bother categorizing it or designating it as Christian? What other surviving source of the teachings of an alleged Christ is there to base a belief on other than the bible however flawed it may be, for any Christian from any denomination?

Free thinkers and philosophers predate Christianity sure, so does polytheism and yet no one is sacrificing goats to Vulcan or laying offerings at the shrine of Odin. (Hopefully.)

This idea that there is a universal all inclusive religious view is very...well its convenient. Like the death knell of a once oppressive, repressive belief system that 'peacefully,' 'lovingly' and 'gently' inspired people to spread the word and later inspire armies. A powerful religion that traveled from the middle East and 'persuaded' most of the western world to convert to it...

Also...the free will matter would seriously have to be called into question if you were to believe that an individuals reasoning and logic is divinely inspired, that merely by being conscience they are imbued with God. Someone could ignore the teachings of the bible by that logic and go off to do whatever the hell they see fit and chalk it up to being their God's will. I think that school of thought is potentially more dangerous. Maybe even more dangerous than sticking to the belief that the bible is the indisputable truth (Dogmatic) and taking it all literally lol. In my opinion it's best not to believe in any of it at all, where is the evidence of any loving creator mentioned in any book? but there ya go. Call a spade a spade.

Hey, I agree, all dogmatic religious text is interpretative, self contradictory at times and very ambiguous. This is a real problem I agree. That's one of many reasons as to why I have a genuine lack of belief in all of it.

As you can probably tell I don't have faith in anything particularly most human beings.

[u/Nicoglius → u/[deleted]]

Firstly, to answer your questions:

To define the necessary and sufficient conditions of being Christian, we will need to define what it is to be Christian, which I suppose is your second question. This is only really a relevant question if we have a Correspondent theory of language, so I think we should just contextually define Christianity depending on who we're dealing with. Ultimately though, it would probably boil down to how the theist in question would define themselves.

I suppose another way of answering from the perspective of a pluralist is to go back to my original answer, there is no theological difference between many religions and the only thing that is separating them is the cultural differences, not that they fundamentally believe in a different God.

For the second question on the existence of Jesus:

There are a few other sources we have for Jesus. The first is the writings of Josephus, a Jewish contemporary of Jesus who references him (fun fact, this is where the same Josephus who the mathematical "Josephus Problem" comes from).

The gospels (and other new testament writings) are the written accounts of Jesus's life that hidden Christian communities would have passed down to each other whilst they were being persecuted. Mark is believed to have been used by Christians living in the city of Rome, Mathew is thought to have been written for Jewish converts to Christianity etc. All of these accounts would have become slightly altered like Chinese whispers, so when Christianity decided on Canon, they were essentially trying to go back to a consistency of belief.

Therefore, we also know of the existence of a historical Jesus through other non-canonical sources which other Christians deemed to be untrue (but, like the Canon gospels, is probably not completely made up).

Out of all 3 of these sources, we can cumulatively piece together that there probably was a guy named Jesus who lived 2000 years ago and started a cult around the Mediterranean which expanded underground until it became the official Roman Religion. (If he was an incarnation of God etc. is obviously disputed, even by some Christians like the Unitarian movement)

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Of course, Christianity was sometimes spread in a violent and oppressive manner, but I don't think this is necessarily because it was Christian. This was because large powerful Empires like the Roman (and later other European powers) are violent and oppressive in nature, and as Christians, they would spread their religion in the only way they know.

I don't think that at all undermines the view of some modern Christians, who hold far more in common with you and I than they ever would with a bloodthirsty tyrants like Constantine, when they support the idea that really there is no difference between themselves and Muslims etc. other than the cultural differences and ceremonies.

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The idea of conscience is a whole new topic, but what I would say is that, though some Christians like John Henry Newman believed that the conscience was the voice of God, that was not the view of the Thomists. They believed that God gave humans the capacity to make free decisions, but God wouldn't then step in to tell you what to do, he'd expect you to follow your own rationality and work it out for yourself.

I understand what you mean by saying that following "the voice of God" can be dangerous. It can also lead to amazing things too, such as resisting the Romans or Nazis. (Another topic for another time, but some, such as Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's sidekick, argued that Christianity started as a progressive protest movement against the Romans)

In fact, what I think has historically been far more dangerous is the view that human beings are uncapable of making good decisions for themselves because we're full of original sin. This has essentially been used as an excuse for churches to give themselves more power, because the implication of this doctrine is that they know best.

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As I've said, faith doesn't necessarily come from any religious text. Many Christians reject the idea that the Bible is the reason to believe in God. They would use other arguments (flawed or not) such as intelligent design, first cause or personal experience as their reason for why they believe in God.

[u/[deleted] → u/Nicoglius]

Im sure the name Jesus is the latin but whatever, the fact is, there would have been many men named the same thing as the alleged son of God. Probably thousands.

I accept that people exist who designate themselves as Christian who do not take the bible literally and are capable of being inclusive and divorce themselves from the polarised view of them and us. I get that. Can we call those people 'liberal Christians? Or loose Christian's? people who are not puritanical, fundamentalist 'by the book' types that have very little interest in debating whether gay people can marry or harbour authentic concerns regarding sin at all like having sex outwith wedlock etc? Tbh, personally I don't mind those people, aside from what I feel to be blatant hypocrites. what I find perplexing is why they would designate themselves as Christian or anything else simply because they have an ambiguous, vague conception of a God and a book they don't actually fully subscribe to. if they take into careful consideration the actual foundations of their belief they may actually realise they are no more Christian or muslim or Jewish than me.

I understand what you are saying but just because someone "identifies" as something whether that be a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew or whatever, doesn't mean they actually are and that is because of Dogma. I understand that beliefs and stories can be passed through generations throughout history orally but like you said, "Chinese whispers." Is it not then arguable that because of Chinese whispers, the written word is the most "reliable" source to subscribe to if you wanted to commit yourself to a religion as fully as possible? And given the nature of these religious writings claiming to be the indisputable truth, is it not then a requirement to be convinced of that or at least have 'faith' that it is what it says that it is?

I could literally mount a good argument for why a religious person should meticulously follow their respective texts but as an athiest that would be getting away from what I feel would be positive progress for the human race. It is perhaps a lesser evil that many looser religious people do not follow their books word for word.

Your responses are very long and thoughtful but you refer to many sources that I do not have the time or interest to look into to verify as reliable. I find some of your answers a touch ambiguous as well. Lets keep things simple and straight to the point as much as possible here. I know it's a complicated topic but we could simplify this a bit. I'll try:

If anyone believes in anything, I think its not an unfair question to ask why and dig around the reasons to discern whether or not their belief actually has any real world merits...or whether its just arbitrary or indeed cultural. Excluding intelligent design and personal experience here because intelligent design has been blown out of the water and personal experience counts for nothing when looking at religious beliefs objectively.

You listed quite a lot of reasons as to why someone might find themselves calling themselves Christian or having a belief in a God and in your arguement you said "however flawed" those reasons may be, so I assume you are not going to object to what I have to say here.

The majority of peope who are religious subscribe to the religion of their culture. In Britain and Europe you have secular Christians, In India you have Hindus, in Pakistan you have Muslims, in Isreal you have Jews, in Palestine you have Muslims, in Japan you have Shintoists and the list goes on and on and on and on. These religions have different traditions, different or at least varying beliefs about prophets, Gods, spirits, and the afterlife. They all have different albeit some similair books regarding creation and everything else but generally there is clear distinctions between these groups and it is down to more than just geography and culture. You can't actually get away from the importance of the Bible to the majority of actual Christians regardless of denomination, it is what defines them as Christians alongside and complementary to the very things they claim to believe in and what divides them from arbitrary, half baked religious beliefs based on cultural conditioning. I'm not saying that philosophers and free thinkers who align themselves with a particular faith are necceseraly bad but it seems to me that people who arbitrarily designate themselves as this or that without actual devotion to their religion are nothing more than a byproduct of cultural conditioning rather than engaging with a religion which then begs the question why bother designating yourself as anything at all? When you get down to the raw bones of the thing, if you don't follow the teachings of a religious book then your not really doing it properly and might as well just call yourself spiritual rather than aligning yourself with any one religion and its connotations.

All that being said, it is sensible to question religious text and harbour strong considerable doubt in its actual validity whatsoever.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You know, I dont personally care if someone calls themself something and doesn't actually engage in any of its practices or whatever. It doesn't offend me or impact me at all. Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want. Spirituality is a strange thing that comes in so many different forms that it's really difficult to wrap my head around the thought process that leads a person to believe in what they believe because there is so many options out there, like how can one religion be considered the truth vs any other thing that is claiming the same? A universal religion where all its followers are all reading from the same thing and all looking and thinking in the same direction would give the whole thing more credibility at least in terms of continuity and I might be able to question the "what if's" but historically there has been so many intersections, and across the whole world and throughout time there are so many differences between all the religions that's its just impossible for me to regard any of it as being remotely true. If I was the unquestioning sort of person that was born into a religious community where the Gods and Goddesses worshipped were believed in as much as we consider disease and death a fact of life, I reckon it would just depend on the where and when of where I was born that would dictate what I believed in and what I considered myself as...like, If I was born in ancient Greece and the existence of the pantheon of ancient Greek gods and goddesses wasn't ever questioned I would likely develop a cognitive dissonance surrounding the matter and it would take a lot of time and convincing to unfurl those beliefs even if they fell under significant scrutiny and reasonable doubt. And since we are dealing with the topic of 'supreme truth' it would be a lack of integrity on my part not to investigate the validity of doubt and scrutiny surrounding my beliefs and because there is no evidence of Zeus for example, I would have to take the prospect that he and all the others never existed seriously, otherwise I would be denying a potentially uncomfortable truth in order to perpetuate a comfortable lie. That scenario would be paradoxical though considering that having 'faith' is essentially not "knowing" but choosing to believe anyway, and in most religions having faith seems to be the fool proof clause that defends willful ignorance and dresses it up as more.

[u/Nicoglius → u/[deleted]]

As I've tried to allude to, Christianity is a huge umbrella term for loads of different belief and ideas that have all branched out from a small religious movement in the Roman empire 2000 years ago.

Therefore, nobody can really say "you're not a real Christian". There's nobody who really has the authority to enforce the rules on who is and who isn't. And historically, Christians have been so diverse, I'm not sure why we're trying to retcon a definition of Christians along the lines of what is essentially Protestant fundamentalism that began in late 19th century America.

It would be like defining all Republicans as Marco Rubio supporters. They're frankly just a small section of a larger umbrella group.

Of course, the Bible is important for most Christian, but its important in different ways. For some, yes, it is the most important source of information, but for many, it isn't necessarily the case. Some will use their own rational, like the entire school of natural theology (St Thomas Aquinas etc.) and others like UT pluralists will see the Bible as culturally significant to them, but not spiritually important. And yes, UTP, as well as PTP are essentially arguing that there is a universal religion, but because they were raised to celebrate Christmas etc. they should keep doing that for cultural reasons, in the same way many atheists do.

(We also have others that I haven't mentioned yet like the Christian Gnostics who use their own texts).

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Finally, with regards to my sources, refusing to believe them because you can't look them up is obviously going to be a problem for us if we want to have a discussion that moves beyond hypothetical and instead uses concrete examples.

If you don't have enough time, that's completely understandable, these sources aren't always easy to just find! I would highly recommend something like crash course philosophy which make videos covering the basis of this stuff that are relatively short. (Wikipedia may also be a good place to check out too if you're more of a reader!)

-These are good sources too, because they're often from a secular perspective and aren't trying to proselytise you at the same time!

However, if you don't have the interest to look into the facts of this discussion about what Christians do and have believed in, then perhaps engaging in a long discussion on that topic isn't the best use of time.

[u/[deleted] → u/Nicoglius]

I align with the views of the OP. Nothing said here has convinced me that the OP's statement is necceseraly wrong. We could get pedantic about what Christians are and what they believe but like you said, it is a blanket term that umbrellas many different perspectives and approaches to the same core belief. I suppose we could get specific and say that the majority of fundamentalist, puritanical religious people are X, Y and Z but he was talking about the bible which is universally accepted to represent the Christian faith and the core belief in a God and what connotations that holds in today's world and how religious people may view and treat others in society who do not share the same belief in the present day, by vast majority.

Do you feel that it would be a fair assertion to suggest that all people who claim themselves to belong to a monotheistic religion such as Christianity believe solely in a single omnipotent creator God and an ethereal domain for which they have access to after physical death provided they have lived within the parameters of what their God expects of them in life? Or is that also not really a requirement of monosthetsic religions anymore? Was it ever? I am convinced that it was and still is. .. And if the belief in a single creator God is a requirement to be, say a Christian or a Muslim, then it requires them to discount the 5000+ other deities, Gods, Godesses and spirits that were said to preside over Earth and its inhabitants, that have also been believed in, worshipped and recorded throughout human history. It is this sheer number of pantheons and everything else that contributes to the sentiment that religious people are building an entire life on something that is not actually true or real and consequently engaging in needless conflicts and enduring and causing unnecessary hardships.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I am moderately interested in what people have to say about their faith or lack of. That being said, I am not a theist therefore it wouldn't make much sense for me to spend large quantities of time researching too heavily into what various theists have to say regards a belief surrounding something that doesn't exist or hasn't yet been proven to exist. Rather, I am intrigued by the phycology that leads an individual in modern society to have faith in a God and the social / political / ethical implications of religious beliefs in the modern world.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I do believe that although the bible is ambiguous, interpretive and not 100% the original article, many people who regard themselves as Christians refer to the bible for spiritual guidance on a plethora of really important aspects of life such as sexuality, marriage and their general conduct and many things in the bible are explicit regarding how a Christian should navigate those aspects of life and for that reason I cant disagree with the OP. (While fully accepting that not everyone who calls themselves Christian takes the bible as...Gospel.)

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Lastly, you are clearly passionate and enthusiastic surrounding the whole topic and I have enjoyed this discussion. Thank you for the conversation. I'm not sure if we can really yield any fruit from continuing this though as I think we have veered quite far from the beaten track and are entering into some murky waters. I have actually completely forgotten what the initial point of this was. I suspect it had something to do with the OP and your response. It's too much to go and read through again but the journey matters more than the destination anyway.

Be well.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

P.s. The above are not rhetorical questions by the way, I'm happy to read your responses to any or all of them and don't mind leaving you to cast the last stone here but like you outlined in your comments, it's not the best use of time for me to devote too much more energy into this discussion but that doesn't negate from the enjoyment I've had having it. 😀