Bio / Manifesto (tl;dr as all hell)

____ God was never a large part of my life growing up; and even less so, religion. We were, I guess, nominally Christian, in a way that a lot of America is – in that, we certainly weren't anything else. We never went to church, though I did Vacation Bible School maybe two or three times; and once in a while I'd spend a Saturday night at a churchgoing friend's house, meaning I had to go with them to service on Sunday. But I didn't enjoy it. There was to me something so unforgivably dull about church and the bible. I didn't hate it, it just was too much like regular school, but even less fun. I don't remember much if any talk of God or Jesus at home, and though occasionally my extended family would bring it up on visits, there was never much force behind it. I have one grandmother who went to church, alone, and only on Christmas and Easter; my other has become more religious in her later years but she certainly wasn't in the 90's when we lived with her.

____ I don't remember any particular negative experiences with religion or the religious when I was little, either; no big arguments, condemnations to hellfire, or abuse. Finally, I was hardly a rebellious kid – I had a genuine fear and respect of authority figures, and wanted their approval, was fairly shy and sensitive, had good grades, and was an avid reader by age eight or nine. Church was just this lame thing that I associated with old ladies, bad music, irrelevance, and boredom. God, the boredom! Like taking math classes at the dentist's office.

____ I do wonder sometimes how things would be different if my family had been more religious, or if I'd grown up around the “cool” Christianity of multimedia shows, rock bands, and spiky-haired, slang-using Youth Leaders. Obviously religion would have played a larger role in my life. I can't help but feel though, that I'd still have dropped faith eventually. Because even as a child, when anyone (but especially older people) made the attempt to get me to come to church, I always got this sort of creepy feeling like they were trying to manipulate me, or take advantage of me, like some snake-oil salesman. It felt like they were trying to get something out of me – for themselves, not for Jesus, and certainly not for me. Of course, that's exactly what I think was happening, now, and perhaps I'm projecting backwards to my younger self somewhat. But I do clearly remember the unpleasant feeling these conversations gave me, and my (rather skillful for a 7-10 year old, it seems to me) weaseling out of them and subject changing.

____ One particular episode stands out to me: I did actually get “saved” once. I was maybe 11, and a church flier advertising some youth event with free pizza and sodas. Heck yeah! I didn't realize how much church I was in for, and how little pizza. So mom drops off my brother (age 7) and I to this thing in some medium sized local church's gym. There were maybe 200 kids. We did get one piece of pizza each, and a small cup of Dr. Pepper. That's all I was there for, and ended up being there at least two hours. They had this fun little play that sort of portrayed the struggle between humanity and the Devil as a boxing match, which of course the Devil wins until Jesus, the Champ, steps into the ring. It had strobe lights and heavy metal, and so, in a way, was awesome. After that, the minister gave a sermon. I don't remember the details, but it was pretty heavy on the guilt, and the social pressure, because when he asked if anybody needed or wanted to be saved, I felt shamed into doing so, and raised my hand (I may have made my brother raise his, or he may have on his own). This wasn't an “altar call,” per se, so I think all that happened after that was those who raised there had were asked to follow some councilors back to some other rooms to talk and get some info.

____ Now, when I raised my hand, I meant it; I wanted Jesus in my life and to be forgiven. But pretty immediately after we started going to the back, I began to regret my action, and the creepy, manipulative feeling started to grow. So, if I was ever a “true” Christian, it lasted maybe five minutes, and I spent the next five or ten (seemed like an hour) basically avoiding a commitment to come to church. I hated lying, but I knew I was never going to step foot in the place again – and felt cheated out of pizza! – but also knew this guy's job was to get me to say I was going to come on Sunday. I did a lot of dodging: we're pretty busy, my mom works on Sundays... technically true, but not insurmountable. Anyway, I promised to try – that, at least, was a total lie – and eventually he walked us out to the exit. I think he talked to mom for awhile, but I'm not sure what was said. In the car she asked if we wanted to go to church there, but I could tell she wasn't impressed with the guy; and when I said no, she didn't pursue the issue.

____ If I were a betting man, I'd wager that a religious person, at least an evangelical Christian of the sort I grew up around, would see this early, emotional resistance to church as a manifestation of my “sin nature.” Humans' natural state, since the Fall, has been sinful, and so while we like to think of children as innocent, the doctrine of Original Sin makes it clear that without indoctrination most or all people will rebel against God. So, of course, the problem would be my lack of Christian upbringing; my mother's negligence allowed me to grow farther and farther from God, until I was totally closed off.

____ I can't prove that this isn't true. I also can't prove that I like comic books or ice cream. Certainly, if Christianity itself is true, then it almost has to be “sin” that fogs our brain or tempts us away from faith. If Christianity is true, then by definition there cannot be a good, that is sound and valid, reason for rejecting it. So a believer may be almost forced to assert that the reason I so resisted church and religion as a child was sin nature. But we have to be careful when evaluating others' understanding of themselves. We shouldn't avoid questioning it, certainly; people can be quite wrong about themselves, or, of course, lie. But until someone otherwise proves Christianity, sin nature and innate rebellion will remain a pitifully unconvincing explanation of why faith simply didn't “take” with me.


____ But I certainly wasn't an atheist. Early adolescence set me up against “the Christians” – by which I meant fundamentalists – almost as soon as I moved to a new school. Hilariously, my real rebellion against religion may have started when a fellow student began to harass me for playing Dungeons & Dragons. It's devil-worship, don'tcha know. He even claimed that his brother used to be into it, and when they finally burned all his books, the books “screamed.” He did take one of my books, but gave it back after I pestered him long enough. If you doubt that Evangelicals genuinely believe this, I invite you to check out the Chick Tract “Dark Dungeons.” Anyway, apparently kids were under pressure to get their friends to come to church, or convert, or to burn their Metallica CDs, and the conflicts escalated. Now, there was judgment.

____ Perhaps this was more about all of us growing up into our places in the culture wars than it was about religion. But in Knoxville, Tennessee, conservative pretty much equals Christian. The reverse isn't true, and many of my friends were religious; but they didn't try to “jam it down your throat,” and all of us made fun of it. We were big fans of controversial ideas, blasphemy, and just about anything that made the boring or authoritarian uncomfortable or angry.

____ This time was also the beginning of nice long class debates – not formal debate class, but arguments within other classes, like English and History, about religion and other social issues – abortion, euthanasia, animal rights. The divide was usually predictable. Most students, and almost all of the popular kids, were Evangelicals; I fell into one or more groups of nerds (my true allegiance!) and misfits (grunge kids and a couple of Catholics) depending on who was in the class. These debates were of variable value and interest, mostly fun, and I learned a few things. First, that I enjoy debate above almost all things. Second, I learned the length that religious people will go to to avoid thinking certain thoughts, sometimes with blind obstinacy, sometimes with bewildering mental contortion and doublethink.

____ Speaking of mental contortion!, as I tried to figure out my philosophical identity, I spent around seven years ('96-'03, age 16-23) in my weirdest belief systems. In rejecting mainstream Christianity, I wandered hither and yon through combinations of paganism, occultism, unorthodox monotheism, and plain old making-stuff-up. I had notions of an Earth-mother-goddess, or maybe God as feminine; we did lucid dreaming and used the Ouija board and thought we cast spells; God flipped from being all-powerful but evil (see Gnosticism) to all-good but limited in power and back again. If Christ ever entered my paradigm, it was incidental, as just one teacher of wisdom, but never messiah. The religion of various “other” cultures, especially the Coyote myths of the Native Americans, had a profound impact on me, and greatly informed my identity. For one, I saw colonialism and Christianity as the same force, just this engine of falsehood, racism, and genocide, and could never identify with that. These forces were also tied, in my mind, to all kinds of fascism. Apologists today love to tie atheism to the twentieth-century mass murderers, and may be surprised that in my head it had more to do with Jesus. But the only people who'd ever tried to control me, or those I knew and cared about, were Christians. For many religious people, life and morality are about choosing the right master; to me, masters are the problem. And together with my fledgling paganism came a somewhat surprising anti-science streak that lasted a long time.

____ Again, to tie it all together, think: Dominion. All of these things were, to me, manifestations of humans', especially white, male, rich humans', need to control any and every thing in the damn world. Other races, religions, species, nature herself; “What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.” Ian Malcolm was a prophet in my worldview. All science was used for was exploitation, war, and pollution; and at best, convenient and meaningless inventions like the Slap Chop. Chemicals in our food, water, and air; mass extinction at rates not seen since the dinosaurs went kaput; television programming whose aim is absurdity and stupor; and a media peddling dumber lies to an eager and fearful populace every day. This was Science to me, but in a bigger way it was Western Culture. And at the foundation of Western Culture is a document that says “and let them have dominion” over nature, dehumanizes women, and advocates the murder of people with different beliefs.

____ I may not technically have been bouncing from worldview to worldview, as there were some ideas that were more persistent, undercurrents that tied a lot together. I needed some cohesive whole that could support itself, wherein each facet supported the others. But I felt like a person trying to carry too many things; reach down for a new idea, several others fell out of my grasp. It wasn't just that these ideas failed to elicit belief anymore. They failed to elicit interest. A concept that the week or day before I thought was inspiring or powerful just became more and more boring, and I'd drop it. Identity was what I was looking for. I needed to know who I was and what I stood for, and all I had was: cobbled together metaphysics, the slow accumulation of failures to accomplish anything by means of the occult or spiritual; and a growing disillusionment with even the kind of person who advocated those things.

____ In my head, I had always felt that the mystics and pagans I encountered were flaky, at best – some were smart, some were funny, some were cool. But philosophically, I was consistently underwhelmed, uninspired, and bored by their self-help aisle supernaturalism. A middle aged hippie talking about faeries or Wicca always left me with the same utter mundane feeling that the Jesus-preachers did. Middle class whites blathering about the wisdom of the East, a few new-age-style Christians, pseudo-shamans butchering Native American mythology around suburban bonfires. For all of these people, the primary failing was that they were unconvincing – sure, I may agree about this or that, but I was unmoved. Somehow I never connected this to my own ad hoc, pluralistic beliefs – at least not consciously. Their similarity to my own philosophies made me uncomfortable, I think, as my judgments of them reflected onto myself, and that may be why I was growing weary of them. There was this idea floating around about “real” things – “real” magick (always with a k), “real” shamanism, “real” psychics, “real” ghosts... and in my head these “real”phenomena and people were always more hardcore and interesting than the psychics and Wiccans I was meeting.

____ (at some point, i'm sure religious readers will have to imagine that here i was, grasping at straws, and if only i'd have reached for the life preserver that is jesus i'd have been dandy. keep in mind, though, that throughout my life (starting with middle school) i'd been debating christians of all stripes, and not one of them made a convincing argument. I may have been thrashing in the water, but believers kept throwing the same old lead weights to me, and after trying one or two I decided to just keep trying to swim on my own, thank you.)

____ Some of these people were my friends, some had more influence than others, and some of that influence was more constructive and benign than the rest. There is a problem with a belief system that has core tenants like: ultimately subjective reality; the ability of the mind, will, or emotion to change that reality; and the idea that things like creativity, emotion, and a little madness actually supersede things like logic and evidence. Other people who were more emotional or willful than I had a weird sort of shortcut toward influencing my thoughts and behavior, and I found myself very frequently doing and thinking things I did not want to. Mostly benign, a question of what movie to see or where to eat, but not always. Often this had profound shape on my worldview itself. I spent years of my life in cognitive dissonance, basically living out the whims of other people, often hating it, and being angry at myself for hating it. The much larger factor here is my own co-dependent personality, something I've learned to understand and control... But a cursory study of cults will show how cult leaders use the supernatural beliefs of their followers to increase and maintain their temporal control over these followers. Even if this wasn't intentionally being done to me, the fact is that my notions about reality directly informed my interactions with my fellow human beings, and gave an already unhealthy co-dependence a spiritual mandate.

____ Does this happen to all, or most, people with new-age or mystical beliefs? Probably not; most people aren't co-dependent, and most people don't have a bipolar narcissist as a best friend. But the slow process of giving up these ideas certainly helped me break free of my social purgatory. It started when I read a book called Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius. I highly recommend it, though it's been a long time. The book was not written as a skeptical manifesto, and I wouldn't have read it if it was. But it was an interesting study into occult influences of various popular figures like Charles Manson, John Lennon and Timothy Leary, as well as the history of the growth of spiritualism and magical thinking before the sixties and beyond. Now, even if the majority of the book was factual error – and I'm sure it's pretty solid – it wouldn't change the fact that it was a clear and compelling dissection of the nature of occult beliefs, the social forces behind them, and the way they attract and influence people. And it's all... so.... petty.

____ There is nothing magical about magic, or miraculous about miracles. It's all false, mostly lies, and by far mostly really, really bad lies. These feelings and ideas don't come from a higher or deeper (whatever your metaphor) part of humanity. They come from the same part of humanity that spreads scandalous rumors about the girl that made fun of you, or exaggerates your abilities and accomplishments to impress coworkers. It's all about influence and control, it's about feeling special – even specially persecuted – and pretending you have some sort of power in a world that seems to toss you about like a cork in the waves. Magical thinking is exactly as sad, and is in fact the same thing, as a grownup pretending to be superman (with underwear outside the pants and a towel cape) or having imaginary friends. John Edward? Uri Gellar? These people don't have any special powers. They're charlatans, and bad charlatans – and no, it's not just them. They aren't misrepresenting “real” occultism either – these people aren't “on to” anything. It's pathetic, it's tired, and it's bullshit.

____ This whole scheme is psychologically identical to traditional religion, as well. Although traditional religion tends to have more, well, tradition to go along with it, including social rules and histories – so by percentage it's a little less crazy, whatever that counts for – the supernatural facet of religion is exactly the same as any crackpot idea that has ever had a preacher and followers. And since I had never been able to gel with mainstream religion anyway, as my belief and interest in the occult and new age began to fall away, so too did any place whatsoever for any kind of God in my life.

____ I became an atheist on January 1, 2003, at 1 or 2am, in my own personal un-Damascus moment. My friend and I were driving back from a poorly planned and too-late-getting-out-the-door trip to Atlanta, having failed to make it in time for the midnight countdown. We actually just drove right back (to Knoxville), rather than stay and attempt to party – lame, I know, but we really were enjoying the drive more than we would have random drinking. We were driving and talking, and a decent amount centered on science, religion, and atheism. I'd been kind of leaning atheistic, actually, for awhile, though I didn't use that word to describe myself. I certainly thought all religions were wrong, but I kinda thought the “certainty” of atheists was just as unfounded. The hollowness of that cop-out was beginning to be felt though, and it just seemed more and more that atheism was the only approach to religion that made sense. I leaned over the steering wheel and looked up at the clear, black sky full of stars and really felt, for the first time, that that was all there was.


____ Try it, sometime, before preaching to me about keeping my heart open to God. Look at the night sky, look at a forested hill, and just, in your head, allow it to be empty. Allow it to be free of some vague, foggy intelligence hovering over and gluing it all together, and see that these things hold themselves in reality. You may find it liberating.


____ For me it was. I'm sure I rambled at my poor friend for hours – I had had an Epiphany! But no, but look! It's just stars! Natural and clear, the universe works. It's not some clanking imperfect machine in constant need of winding up by an absent minded clockmaker! It's not some fever-dream passion play wherein our sins and virtues are the central purpose of even the most distant galaxies. Copernicus showed that the universe doesn't physically revolve around us; but it doesn't revolve around us in terms of some mysterious storyline either! We're aren't in a story, we're in the real world, and able, with help and determination, to make of it what we will.

____ It seems strange to me now, but I didn't really “do” anything with my atheism, so to speak, for a few years. I continued to debate with believers, though with a slightly different strategy. I no longer accused them of “getting religion/God wrong.” There was nothing to get wrong. The flaw was in taking it seriously to begin with and not seeing the logical errors inherent in faith. But I didn't read any books about atheism or skepticism, or frequent websites and forums, until 2006. Partly, having my own place and more income finally allowed me to buy a lot of books. Having a job that involves a lot of downtime gave me time to read them. I already mostly read popular science books; a few debates with coworkers about evolution convinced me that I myself needed to know more about it, and from there I started reading Richard Dawkins... and Bob's your uncle, I'm totally an evangelical atheist.

____ I devoured books on atheism, humanism, skepticism, secularism, and science. These five things represent the most important ideas in human history to me -- when I say "atheism", you can assume I mean the confluence of all five. But my worldview grew in scope, depth, and utility exponentially from there. Anything I didn't know the answers to, I could now predict where to look, and even, in some cases, simply figure it out from my new, firmly founded understanding of humanity and the universe. That, too me, is the measure of a philosophy's worth. Many of them give you tools for understanding some situations, but poorly equip you for others. Some are outdated, some are terribly harmful to you in some ways even as you depend on them in others. The New Atheist worldview is like... to really belabor the tool-metaphor (zing!): if a simple idea is a hammer, and a complex religion like a Swiss Army knife... the New Atheist worldview is like a sphere of nanobots controlled by your mind that can deconstruct, analyze, and synthesize just about any situation you encounter. Sure, it's no guarantee of success, and you still must have knowledge or skill or perceptiveness or what have you to get by in life. But with atheism and humanism, skepticism and science, you have the tools you need to understand how your world works, so that with that knowledge or skill you can make correct choices and take correct action.

____ For example: The doctrine of Original Sin is a powerful idea, and can explain a lot about human behavior, our seeming inability to do the right thing sometimes, and the suffering in nature. Many religions have some story of “how evil/death entered into the world” and for the same reason. The fact that we are born to die is absurd and horrifying, and that our fellow man can be our enemy on that path... and that we can find ourselves saying and doing things that bring us shame and regret.... these things cry out for explanation. And Original Sin and other Fall stories capture this search beautifully and poetically.

____ Look closer though; there are flaws in the design. First of all, the idea that we are punished for the action of a distant ancestor doesn't jive with our innate sense of justice. I find the claim that babies are somehow inherently sinful stupid, and deserving of hell? Revolting. For hundreds of years the Catholic Church condemned unbaptized babies to “Limbo,” a place they totally made up in order to get around the Catch-22 of a) babies in hell! Or b) the unbaptized in heaven! And what sort of great and wise architect designs beings he knows are going to sin and fall and have a son that murders his brother and start worshiping false gods and have to be genocided by flood... etc. I've heard the answers, and remain unconvinced. The point, though, is that this story is powerful in some ways, useless in others, and misleading and harmful in the rest.

____ What about the scientific, atheistic view of humanity?

____ For one thing, you understand your fellow humans a lot more the moment you really start to synthesize our evolution. We're descended from apes, we still are apes, and if you read up on chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest evolutionary “cousins,” you'll pretty much see the gamut of human behavior on a primitive scale. Evolution can also teach you about diseases and hormones, population mechanics, resource scarcity, and social pressure. The natural world makes sense; and while, at first, a supernatural guiding agency may seem to add even more explanation, in the end it's superfluous and creates unnecessary confusion as people attempt to make sense of it in relation to the natural world around us, forever intruding with its facts.

____ I've spent the last few years connecting with the atheist and skeptic communities. I've been a member of three atheist Meetup groups; the first, in Knoxville, was where I met my wife. The second, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, had some of the coolest, nicest people I've ever met. And the third, which is still very small, my wife and I founded here in Charleston, WV when we moved here. I also pay a lot of attention to atheist multimedia; I read a few of the more popular blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos posted by several users on YouTube. I think the recent growth in popularity of atheism has several causes, including high-profile religious ignorance, violence, and crime. But I honestly believe that the largest factor in the growth and cohesion of the vocal atheist, skeptic, and humanist community in the last decade is the internet, and the marketplace of ideas it presents us with. Of course, it's incredibly easy for bad ideas to spread as well, but only good ideas can maintain lasting power in an open forum. It is so easy to gain access to information and argument, that ideas with good logic and evidence can be repeatedly reinforced and expanded by anyone who honestly looks into them, anytime. Bad ideas may not vanish, but instead their followers dwindle and become less credible, until the bad idea is more of a teaching point for how not to think.

____ So I believe in logic. I believe in science and reason. I believe in compassion, creativity and humor. Family, friends, love, and human solidarity are ultimately what matter. They are the only things that can matter; by definition, to "matter" means to matter to someone. But this is humanism, not religion. To me the supernatural adds nothing to the beauty in the universe, adds no depth to our relationships, and poisons our understanding of ourselves. There can be great truth and beauty in religious thinking and text, but it is inevitably mixed in with and corrupted by ancient prejudice and ignorance. I've spent a lot of time considering religious arguments, by professional writers, debaters and apologists, as well as just friends and acquaintances. While some are more sophisticated than others, I remain unconvinced that Christianity is true, that there is any kind of God whatsoever, or that there is a supernatural component to existence at all. And the organizations and traditions that promote these ideas and worldviews have by far outlived whatever usefulness they had.

____ to be continued!
-jy

Interesting read. It sounds like you grew up around fundamentalist and seeker-sensitive types. I too grew up similarly to a certain degree, although I was around church a bit more. I also found it boring until I was 17. I have a few comments...

James - Atheist Admin wrote:Certainly, if Christianity itself is true, then it almost has to be “sin” that fogs our brain or tempts us away from faith. If Christianity is true, then by definition there cannot be a good, that is sound and valid, reason for rejecting it. So a believer may be almost forced to assert that the reason I so resisted church and religion as a child was sin nature. But we have to be careful when evaluating others' understanding of themselves. We shouldn't avoid questioning it, certainly; people can be quite wrong about themselves, or, of course, lie.

I'm glad you realize this about the sinful nature idea. And I agree too about questioning.

James - Atheist Admin wrote:If you doubt that Evangelicals genuinely believe this, I invite you to check out the Chick Tract “Dark Dungeons.” Anyway, apparently kids were under pressure to get their friends to come to church, or convert, or to burn their Metallica CDs, and the conflicts escalated. Now, there was judgment.

Since I identify as evangelical, and based on its historical meaning, I would say Christians who promote things such as Chick Tracts are Fundamentalists, not Evangelicals.

James - Atheist Admin wrote:Again, to tie it all together, think: Dominion. All of these things were, to me, manifestations of humans', especially white, male, rich humans', need to control any and every thing in the damn world... And at the foundation of Western Culture is a document that says “and let them have dominion” over nature, dehumanizes women, and advocates the murder of people with different beliefs.

Those who understand Yahweh's charge to humanity in Genesis as faithful stewardship are more in line with what the author was going for, not absolute control or exploitation. Furthermore, are you also saying Western countries dehumanize women and advocate the murder of people with different beliefs beside the foundational document?

James - Atheist Admin wrote:It's not some fever-dream passion play wherein our sins and virtues are the central purpose of even the most distant galaxies. Copernicus showed that the universe doesn't physically revolve around us; but it doesn't revolve around us in terms of some mysterious storyline either! We're aren't in a story, we're in the real world, and able, with help and determination, to make of it what we will.

As far as I know, there is nothing in Christianity that requires that "our sins and virtues are the central purpose of even the most distant galaxies." We can only say that God has not revealed their purpose to us. We are free to speculate about them based on what we do know. For instance, one possibility is that if human and angelic beings are the only two sentient creatures in this universe, then once the new heavens and earth begin (the eternal state), the universe will gradually be explored and colonized (the technology would, of course, be easier to develop with perfect minds than with our current flawed minds).

James - Atheist Admin wrote:Look closer though; there are flaws in the design. First of all, the idea that we are punished for the action of a distant ancestor doesn't jive with our innate sense of justice. I find the claim that babies are somehow inherently sinful stupid, and deserving of hell? Revolting. For hundreds of years the Catholic Church condemned unbaptized babies to “Limbo,” a place they totally made up in order to get around the Catch-22 of a) babies in hell! Or b) the unbaptized in heaven!

Christians that aren't Catholics or Calvinists don't believe in original sin this way, and most Christians believe babies go to heaven. For an explanation, here are two short videos,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxwMzMkngw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6k0lMqXWds

I would say Christians who promote things such as Chick Tracts are Fundamentalists, not Evangelicals.

Fair enough; I think the Venn diagram would show a lot of overlap, and I often use the words interchangeably. I get the distinction you are making, but it reminds me of scenester kids debating whether this or that bands fits into this or that genre. Worldview and cultural definitions like this are inherently foggy around the edges; I'm sure there are places you differ from "mainstream" evangelicals -- are you a real evangelical, then? Who decides?

Those who understand Yahweh's charge to humanity in Genesis as faithful stewardship are more in line with what the author was going for, not absolute control or exploitation.

I've heard this claim frequently from more left-leaning Christians; I'm actually not sure I buy the idea of ancient Hebrew myth teaching environmentalism. But even if that's true, boy, it sure was interpreted as "dominion" for a long, long time, and still is by a disturbingly large segment of the population. God needs better editors.

Furthermore, are you also saying Western countries dehumanize women and advocate the murder of people with different beliefs beside the foundational document?

They certainly used to, and still aren't perfect, but things have gotten much better since secular Enlightenment values started chipping away at old, patriarchal, xenophobic superstitions. But! Don't get sidetracked into arguing with past-James. I'm now very pro-Western civilization, though I still repudiate its grave inhumanities. The genocide of the Native Americans, for instance, is still a wretched crime and a stain on our history. But I personally no longer think the only moral way to live is to emulate them -- I like my science, my cities, and modern medicine.

Christians that aren't Catholics or Calvinists don't believe in original sin this way, and most Christians believe babies go to heaven.

While I agreed most Christians think babies go to heaven, it's not because they don't deserve hell, it's because of God's grace. If these videos (which were not what I was expecting! I thought the first was about to go all furry... achem! anyway...) represent your view of hell and original sin, okie dokie -- but you have to avoid the apologist trap of "if people had this nuanced interpretation I share, they wouldn't have this horrible or illogical belief." What matters is what people do believe, and why, and how it manifests in their actions and words; not a scholar's idea of what they "should" read into their texts. The "original sin" view Hokey Hare is arguing against is definitely mainstream (though again, babies get a free pass, but not because they aren't "fallen").

Anyway, thanks for the replies; I'll get to yours tomorrow night.
-jy

As far as I know, there is nothing in Christianity that requires that "our sins and virtues are the central purpose of even the most distant galaxies."

It was a reference to the theistic concept of the universe either being created for us, or at least that God's plan for us is central to the overall cosmic scheme.

James - Atheist Admin wrote::shrug: Fair enough; I think the Venn diagram would show a lot of overlap, and I often use the words interchangeably. I get the distinction you are making, but it reminds me of scenester kids debating whether this or that bands fits into this or that genre. Worldview and cultural definitions like this are inherently foggy around the edges; I'm sure there are places you differ from "mainstream" evangelicals -- are you a real evangelical, then? Who decides?

It's based on the historical meaning of the terms. So it has to do with what beliefs and practices it affirmed. Also, Evangelicalism was a response in the 1950's to Fundamentalism when it went awry and became anti-intellectual. Evangelicals very much dislike the "just believe" plea of Fundamentalists, and think they've done much damage to Christianity. The term is also used for people that read the Bible a certain way, whether they be Christian or Atheist. So yes, both camps believe in much of the same core doctrines, but it seems Fundamentalists forget the greatest commandment includes loving God with all one's mind too.

James - Atheist Admin wrote:I've heard this claim frequently from more left-leaning Christians; I'm actually not sure I buy the idea of ancient Hebrew myth teaching environmentalism. But even if that's true, boy, it sure was interpreted as "dominion" for a long, long time, and still is by a disturbingly large segment of the population. God needs better editors.

We wouldn't say Moses had modern-day environmentalism in mind when he was thinking of the concept, but rather, the concept naturally leads to some aspects of modern-day environmentalism.

James - Atheist Admin wrote:but you have to avoid the apologist trap of "if people had this nuanced interpretation I share, they wouldn't have this horrible or illogical belief." What matters is what people do believe, and why, and how it manifests in their actions and words; not a scholar's idea of what they "should" read into their texts. The "original sin" view Hokey Hare is arguing against is definitely mainstream (though again, babies get a free pass, but not because they aren't "fallen").

Well, the original sin idea has historical precedent too. Furthermore, even if many do interpret it that way, it is of no effect to Christianity, because it simply is what the text teaches. It's not surprising either because it already affirms that people are imperfect and sinful. Although, I don't see how either view has much effect on what Christians tell people about their sins. One group will say God will hold you accountable for the millions of sins you commit in this life and in hell, while the other will say the same thing, plus that one original sin.

Clint - Christian Theist wrote:Furthermore, even if many do interpret it that way, it is of no effect to Christianity, because it simply is what the text teaches.

This is precisely what I was talking about. A common tactic of apologists (of any creed) is to claim that people may misinterpret the text or tenets; but "real" Christianity, for example, doesn't teach this-or-that. Alas, it isn't that simple. There is no "real" Christianity -- setting aside for a sec that I don't believe in it at all to begin with. A better way to put this might be, there is no "authentic" Christianity. "What the text teaches" is not so cut and dry.

I'm not saying scholastic research and textual analysis is worthless, or that all interpretations are equally valid. We can certainly get closer to the original documents, and that matters -- for instance, it's doubtful that the Virgin Birth was in the earliest versions, and that matters to a lot of people. It's just that the text is vast, cryptic, and contradictory; ergo, as many have said before, people can use it to justify whatever they want. And given the view many people have of God, and the way he interacts with humans and how he inspired the bible, it's no wonder they interpret a lot of it literally and viscerally. And given that, you can't tell them they are "theologically" mistaken; for example, why couldn't God have allowed the story of the Virgin Birth to be added in later?

James - Atheist Admin wrote:I'm not saying scholastic research and textual analysis is worthless, or that all interpretations are equally valid. We can certainly get closer to the original documents, and that matters -- for instance, it's doubtful that the Virgin Birth was in the earliest versions, and that matters to a lot of people. It's just that the text is vast, cryptic, and contradictory; ergo, as many have said before, people can use it to justify whatever they want. And given the view many people have of God, and the way he interacts with humans and how he inspired the bible, it's no wonder they interpret a lot of it literally and viscerally. And given that, you can't tell them they are "theologically" mistaken;

Authorial intent interpretation does still matter when it comes to learning what Christianity is. People have to understand that the Bible wasn't written to moderns, but to people of older cultures, and to them hardly anything would have been "vast, cryptic, and contradictory." It doesn't have to be to us either, and people being lazy with discerning the authorial intent is no stain on the credibility of Christ because people can and do justify whatever they want out of other things too, even from more modern documents and ideologies. So, I see no roadblock to telling someone they are theologically mistaken.

James - Atheist Admin wrote:for example, why couldn't God have allowed the story of the Virgin Birth to be added in later?

Are you talking about Hebrew and Greek versions of Isaiah or the Gospels?