by VorJack
I discovered a pamphlet under my windshield the other afternoon. It was a typical and rather unimaginative evangelical pamphlet. It took promised me salvation and eternal life, and paved the way to heaven with a string of bible quotes.
I started to think about what beliefs were required to make this argument work. How many layers of faith existed between myself and the person who wrote this pamphlet.
We could start at the bottom: what do we mean when we use the word “God?” Is it a force? an entity? a person? Can we speak meaningfully about such a thing? Given two statements about God, how do we determine which is accurate? Is there one God, or more than one, and how can we tell?
We could start at the top: who is this Paul person? What authority does he have? How far can we trust a man who acknowledges that he never met the living Jesus, and proclaims that he received his message directly from God without the instruction of those others who had known Jesus? If we’re to seek some knowledge of Jesus and what he meant, wouldn’t it be preferable to find someone who actually participates in Jesus’ ministry?
Or we could bore in on that word “salvation.” Is the pamphlet just inventing a disease and peddling a quack cure? I remember a Jewish theologian pointing out that God was always willing to accept a straying follower who was willing to repent. So at least for the Jews, Jesus’ sacrifice was unnecessary.
All of these are questions go unasked and unanswered in the sort of “convert or burn” discussions that the pamphlet entails. The only reason the pamphlet can exist is because it can skip over all of these issues.
The evangelist is leaving it to our culture to do all the heavy lifting. Each and every one of us knows what it means when someone asks us, “Have you been saved?” We absorb monotheism and salvation with our mother’s milk.
It’s sometimes called “public religion.” If you raised a child in this culture without giving him or her any religious education, what would they pick up from the society around them? For most of American history it would be a sort of Protestant Christianity. It’s been getting a little more complicated in the past few decades, but I think it’s still the case today that a broadly Protestant Christianity is our public religion.
One of the things that I think atheists can do is help to break down this public religion. First, just by being us. But second, we can promote a healthy separation between church and state, in order that the playing field between various religions should be more level. As American culture continues to get more religiously diverse, and as more of the religious minorities – including us – find their voices, we complicated things for the public religion. We don’t have to stop people from saying “Merry Christmas,” all we have to do is say “Merry Newtonmas” and keep pushing that diversity into the public sphere.
We may never reduce religion to the point of bing a knitting club, but at least we can make the evangelists work for it.
I think reducing religion to a knitting club is also a perfectly reasonable goal.
It’s a fishing club.
If it becomes a knitting club, I am so there. I love knitting!
I prefer “happy winter solstice”, which is the original Celtic and Roman celebration.
THIS. Just to confuse people, anymore.
I prefer to just point out the holiday in spring is named after Oester, Goddess of Fertility, who predates Yah-whoever by millenia…
I prefer “Happy Saturnalia”.
I like that one, fortunaly in sweden we say “god jul” a phrase that was founded ages before chiristianity came here and that stand for sth completely different.
The generic “Happy Holidays” is a minefield these days. I consider it an attempt to be polite, respectful, and inclusive. After all, there’s more that one religious holiday that occurs around this time of year. Several religious people I know (Catholics in particular) take great offense at the phrase, as an attempt to usurp or marginalize “their” holiday.
You can’t win. It’s getting really annoying.
Got buttonholed about that last Christmas. I just replied, “I’m an Atheist. Deal with it.”
I’ve got a friend who sends out cards around the winter holidays every year that say “Heathen’s Greetings!”. I love it.
I agree that constantly reminding people of the vast array of living religions helps break down confidence that there is only one true religion. I particularly like the art associated with Umbanda/Candomble, so I’ve been known to send greeting cards featuring the orishas, or post them on office cork boards. Keeps ‘em guessing.
The salvation issue is a big one. Its really the only reason to be a believer. As a former believer, I could never resolve something. What was the mechanism for salvation. In the real world, we have laws that clearly define terms of a contract and define what it means to be engaged in some decision. But what about the “accepting Jesus into your heart” part of salvation. At what point do you cross some threshold into being saved? What are the definitions of this contract? Where is that defined? The fact that something that is apparently so central to the whole game is so loosely defined was one of the first things that started to move me away.
@rrr: WRT the “salvation threshold”
Would you call yourself a sheep, or a goat? Ultimately that’s up to the Judge – which is half the point. The key is to realize that without HIM, and His grace, you’re nowhere. You can’t earn salvation, but you can accept it by faith, or reject it. That much is clear. He says clearly, His sheep “know His voice” and they follow Him. Do you love Him? Do you even like Him, or seek after Him, let alone honestly follow Him? You know the answer already. Salvation isn’t a contract, it’s a person. It can begin in an instant, when you repent, commit, and are “born of the spirit” (just ask, He’ll give), and it can grow over the course of a lifetime, as He leads you, through that Spirit.
Beyond that, I don’t think it’s so black and white. We are commanded to love our God and serve Him only, and to love our neighbor as ourselves (a scarce and strange sight these days). We are to “store up for ourselves treasures in Heaven.” Why does that matter? Because where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Further, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God” does not mean to seek the oligarchies dreamt up by fanatics these days, but to seek the “kingship” or rule of Christ in your heart, first and foremost. To repent of sin is not simply to acknowledge it, but to decidedly “turn away” from sin, rebel from it, if you will. “Be ye Holy, as I am Holy,” meaning kept pure, separate, dedicated for His purpose, at least by intention. This is the other half of what Salvation is for, He provides both the tools and the mentorship so that you might “overcome,” such that this life isn’t simply wasted in sin, decay, and the perishable things of this world.
Clearly, not everyone that calls themselves a Christian has availed themselves of these things, but that’s another topic.
Before the tragic confusion over this drove you away, you probably would have appreciated what is widely regarded as one of the greatest sermons ever, by Paris Reidhead… Here’s a snippet, complete with bonus cinematic overture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKnr9D4JoDU
He does put it so much more eloquently than I do… Listen to the full version if you will, at the very least it should set the matter straight for you.
I’m not here to debate anyone, either.. or to count the “layers” of systematic theology.. just addressing the one discrepancy as I see it.
I guess I would call myself a human. Fair enough re: your first paragraph. Its not a contract per se. But don’t there have to be some bounds? I know all the lingo you put forth. Like I said, I was raised in a Christian home, went to a Christian school, all that. I know the doctrine. I am in touch with the “layers”. As I grew older, it just didn’t appear true to me. The world I see through my eyes does not square with the one presented in the bible.
To me, those two accounts should align, else, God has created a world that deliberately attempts to trick us. Why would the bible give an account that would indicate the world is a few thousand years old when the universe we can see today appears to be billions of years old. Why would he create a universe that would appear to have other intelligent life (just due to the shear magnitude) when the bible tells us sin caused all of creation to be in a fallen state. Did Jesus have to go to the other worlds and die too?
I know, these are supposed to be beyond understanding and we’ll find out when we get to heaven and all that. But again, God created us with logical minds, and the universe we are in, when analyzed with those minds would seem to preclude the God of the bible.
All religions have flaws in theology, but Christianity has truly cornered the market on this one. It would help to quote their silly book to them and then witness them trying to crawl out of the muck. As much as I am loathe to suggest it, find a bible and turn to the First Book of John, chapter three. Read it! It is an indictment against everything they believe in and it is in the “infallible”"Word” of “God”! Basically it says that if the spirit of God is within you(not one Christian would deny this!), you can NOT sin(not one Christian would deny that they DON”T sin)! Furthermore it goes on to say that if you do sin, then you are a child of the devil. Let’s see them explain their way out of this conundrum. To add a little salt to their wounds, mention Matthew, chapter 7:1 – 2…..”Do not judge”. If they aren’t supposed to judge(Jesus said so), how then can they impale us with sin? Pour yourself a glass of wine or beer, sit back and watch them as they try to squirm out of that theological causality loop. GREAT FUN!
Reminded me how the churches told their congregations pastors are human too at the end of last century.
Speaking of Paul, if someone today fell on his or her head, started hearing voices and proclaiming him/herself a prophet, how would we react?
The “God” of the state rides in your back pocket every day
• consider the presence of MSG in the Western cultural diet
Not the stuff that gives you headaches from Chinese restaurant take-out. No, I mean the Minimum Standard God. Philosophers can indulge themselves forever, and evolutionary biologists can await life’s arising from some self-organizing system. But, the U.S. Federal Courts have had to bring some reasonable specificity to the meaning of the word, ‘God.’
And, the winner (surprise!) is one deistic divinity — what I call the Minimum Standard God within the Western Tradition, “MSG” for short.
Courts have consistently held that this “God” as in the notorious “In God We Trust” refers to a one-size-fits-all unique deistic divinity — creator, sustainer of the universe consistent with Western tradition. “He” (really “it”) is the MSG.
• “God” is just a front man xian totalitarianism
The real religious issues in the US are not about religion. They are about political domination and overthrow of government.
Issues leading to social control by organized christo-fascists have nothing to do with religion per se, but fundie interpretations of xian religion are used as a front for state totalitarian ideology. (As must be obvious, a strictly analogous problem arises within Islam and Judaism.)
Undermining the Constitution, trashing biological science, and perverting education to suit ideologies of cultural domination by right-wing politico-xians will lead us to the dystopia envisioned by Margaret Atwood in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
What’s “God” got to do with all that. Nothing.
the anti-supernaturalist
I happen to agree, largely. In fact, most of these are the same types that Jesus told off and whipped out of the synagogue. So totalitarians tout God as their cause, what else is new. To conclude that God amounts to nothing more is a logical fallacy. You have one point of data, not a graph, certainly not an exhaustive examination. Good try though :)
Perhaps I speak too loosely..
“the same types that Jesus told off and whipped out of the synagogue” – That is to say he told off the Teachers of the Law and hypocrites of the day (“You strain out a gnat, but swallow a camel!”), and chased out the traders (tossing tables and all) who had taken roost in the synagogue, which was meant to be a House of Prayer.
Both of these groups pretty much encapsulate the small but successful, underhandedly Hermetic crowd that is calling itself many things including “evangelical,” and is vastly over-represented both in Washington and on TV. Most informed Christians should know who I mean.
“To conclude that God amounts to nothing more is a logical fallacy.”
To conclude that god amounts to anything at all except a human construct is a logical fallacy. Since god is only what humans claim he is, then he is exactly nothing more than what someone tells us he is.
“Most informed Christians should know who I mean.”
I think you’re on the wrong website.
We could start at the bottom: what do we mean when we use the word “God?” Is it a force? an entity? a person? Can we speak meaningfully about such a thing?
Our ideas about “God” are so vague that we need to dress “Him” up with human ideas that we can grapple with. So we say things like “God” is Omnipotent. Well, we know the properties of the adjective “omnipotence”, so we ascribe those properties to “God”.
Or we say “He” created the universe. Well, we know the meaning of the verb “create”, and so we ascribe that action to God, meaning “He” is capable of creating the Universe.
And so on, and so on. We keep dressing this “God” concept up with layers of human values. Until, one day, we wise up and peer below these layers, and then we find that the clothings have no emperor.