Hi, I'm a cultural Christian

[scroyle]

Charity work is extremely important. It shows very clearly what's important to the person. As I have always declared, the one thing atheists have is truth. We have to give it to them. They are truthful about reality more so than religion can possibly be. No doubt about that. But they haven't got the heart to go with the truth.

As I have said, I live in a country where Christians are a small minority. No more than 10% of the population. A large percentage (almost 50% in the last census) described themselves as "free-thinkers". I've spoken to the people and generally, most people are impressed with charitable organisations run by the church. Almost all good charity homes are run by the Church or Christian organisations.

It's true that we don't need religion to do good. It's also true that atheists are good people. But when left on our own, even good people tend to do nothing. That's a fact and atheists, as rational people, should be able to understand that. The church is different. It's got its liturgy, its teachings and its constant exhortation to do unto others the way we want to others to do unto us. Yes, the fables aren't factual but is that all we can talk about? I will ignore the RC church again because the RC church is really the bugbear in any discussion - it's so rotten inside out that it's always thrown into an argument to clutter things up and confuse the issues.

I was talking the other day to a taxi driver who's a Buddhist. He said one of his relations was in an old folks' home run by a church. I asked him if he had objection to that and why didn't he pick a Buddhist home? He said the Buddhist charity houses were penny-pinching and everyone knew that. He said they gave very good meals in Christian homes - better than what he ate himself. He went on to say that there had to be something about the Christian God that made its people so charitable.

Of course I know that's rubbish. The good works that the church does has nothing to do with a supernatural being who doesn't exist. How much of it is due to a BELIEF in the existence of a supernatural being is something we can't tell.  All we know is when it comes to charity, you have to give it to the church.

I've said good people when left on our own, won't do very much and that's a fact. There was a time in my life when I became an atheist to the utter dismay of my parents who are extremely devout Christians. I stopped going to church but I made it a point to continue to send donation every month to the social arm of the church. As time went on, the monthly donation became quarterly and the amount sometimes dipped a little until I stopped giving totally. It's easy to forget to send in a donation when there is nothing to prompt you to do so. And then I returned to Holy Church and it was really obvious to me. There are so many opportunities to be of service to others. I'm a lazy chap and I am one of those who will always have use of any spare cash (for my own selfish purposes) but the ample opportunities the church provides are all there and even a person like me could be led to give lessons to juvenile delinquents and to contribute to the destitute. I would never have dreamt that I would teach juvenile delinquents. I mean who can arrange for that sort of thing but a highly organised institution?

And I thought to myself no doubt it's true atheists are good people but good people need infrastructure to do good. You can't just do good at home.  A lot of atheists are spending their energy in the wrong direction. Instead of benefiting mankind, they are spending their time and money attacking religion. I can understand the need to want to tell people there are no fairies in the garden but why do that when the fairy believers together with their fairy beliefs are doing a lot of good to the world?  Why throw the spanner in the works?

We are all good people but it's better to have good people worshipping fairies and doing good than good people not worshipping anything and doing nothing. Or just about nothing.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

I've said good people when left on our own, won't do very much and that's a fact.

Good people tend to do nothing when poked and prodded, too. It's almost as if people in general tend to care about them and theirs first.

I bring this up because you seem to be under the impression that whether or not someone reaches out to help those less fortunate is related to how seriously they take the scrawlings of ancient desert nomads.


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[scroyle]

Good people tend to do nothing when poked and prodded, too. It's almost as if people in general tend to care about them and theirs first.

I bring this up because you seem to be under the impression that whether or not someone reaches out to help those less fortunate is related to how seriously they take the scrawlings of ancient desert nomads.


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You obviously haven't read what I've written.

[scroyle]

But not reading what I've written is nothing new. I once explained in a forum that I was a cultural Christian and how flawed religion was and the reason for their being flawed - antiquity, etc. Someone wrote that because I was a Christian, I must believe in a talking snake and so there - prove to him that a snake could talk. I just didn't know what to say in reply.

The scrawlings of ancient desert nomads must of course be wrong. They must be violent and unjust by our standards today. Doing good deeds has nothing to do with the scrawlings. It's the liturgy, the rituals where good deeds are written into them.  Or I should say an exhortation to the people of faith to do good deeds.  This is drummed into people's heads every week.  The Church is full of different ministries or social arms that can reach out very effectively to the world. When the Asian tsunami happened, churches could send out aids through other churches in Indonesia even before Red Cross got the green light from the Indonesian government. The Church can do what no other institution can. No Humanist Society or atheist group can do even a fraction of what the church can do. If what we have seen of atheist groups in the US is anything to go by, they don't do charity - their money is reserved to fight religion and to stop charities that are done in connection with religion. Read what I have posted earlier. It's all there. Don't be so jaundiced in your view of Christians that you must go on a warpath and assume we all believe in the talking snake or that the desert writings are inerrant. Don't confuse fundamentalists with cultural Christians.

[scroyle]

The problem I see with atheists especially US atheists is the trauma that they seem to have from their earlier years. True, it doesn't help that Americans are insanely superstitious and from what I've read 50% of them believe in creationism. It doesn't help that American Christians are so incredibly arrogant, wrong, ignorant and belligerent.

Many atheists were once fundamentalist Christians. When they got out of fundamentalism which traumatised them, they became totally and blindly anti-Christianity. They can't even see a drop of good that the Church has done. They are blind to anything that doesn't fit in with their deep conviction that the Church and Christianity are evil.

Now, that is just as bad as fundamentalism. It's as irrational as a belief in the superstitious part of religion. The moment they see "Christian" attached to your name, they'll attack you. You can tell them that you are a different sort of Christian but they are convinced you believe in a Hebrew carpenter who could work miracles. I've tried many times to explain that I don't believe in miracles or in anything supernatural but to no avail. They insist that as long as I'm a Christian, I believe in the talking snake, the talking donkey and a bearded man who can raise the dead to life.   

[stromboli]

So religion is flawed? A perfect God with perfect understanding can't somehow cook up a system with an orderly and logical methodology- like, say, science, or math. And can't produce a history that actually proves the religion to be true, or an all knowing and prescient god can't make prophecies that come true?

You need to understand something. there are some scholarly people on here. Our scholarship has taught us that religions, all religions, are created by men. That might explain why there are so many of them. If one true god created one religion, why are there so many other religions and why are there so many sects of each religion?

Your own Bible is a case in point. It is historically inaccurate, full of fantastic fables and what any person who understands literature would know is allegory, yet accepted as fact. It is also full of contradictions and events that didn't or could not have happened. Exodus is a complete fabrication. Events surrounding the advent of Jesus never happened. Religion is a whole cloth, either it is or it isn't. Guess what? It isn't.

[stromboli]

The problem I see with atheists especially US atheists is the trauma that they seem to have from their earlier years. True, it doesn't help that Americans are insanely superstitious and from what I've read 50% of them believe in creationism. It doesn't help that American Christians are so incredibly arrogant, wrong, ignorant and belligerent.

Many atheists were once fundamentalist Christians. When they got out of fundamentalism which traumatised them, they became totally and blindly anti-Christianity. They can't even see a drop of good that the Church has done. They are blind to anything that doesn't fit in with their deep conviction that the Church and Christianity are evil.

Now, that is just as bad as fundamentalism. It's as irrational as a belief in the superstitious part of religion. The moment they see "Christian" attached to your name, they'll attack you. You can tell them that you are a different sort of Christian but they are convinced you believe in a Hebrew carpenter who could work miracles. I've tried many times to explain that I don't believe in miracles or in anything supernatural but to no avail. They insist that as long as I'm a Christian, I believe in the talking snake, the talking donkey and a bearded man who can raise the dead to life.   

A. You don't know how atheists think because we all think differently. an atheist is a person who doesn't believe in gods or supernatural forces, period. And you don't know about "trauma from their early years" because many were never religious.

B. Baby and the bath water. Either your religion is all one thing or it isn't. If you try to separate myth and superstition from religion you are pretty much left with fables or philosophy. Religion implies a supernatural creator/being with supernatural abilities. Religion by definition accepts supernatural origins and happenings. Call it superstition, myth, whatever, it is still implied in a religion that supernature is built in.

[scroyle]

A perfect God with perfect understanding can't somehow cook up a system...

You speak of God as a real entity with independent thought and capable of understanding anything but that's precisely what I keep saying is not the position.

[stromboli]

You speak of God as a real entity with independent thought and capable of understanding anything but that's precisely what I keep saying is not the position.

Then you believe your god is a fiction. you are not a Christian. "god" implies certain traits and abilities. If you don't believe your god has those abilities then you don't believe in a god. Christianity is a religion that believes in a specific god. If you don't believe in that specific god then you are not a Christian.

I really don't understand what you are saying. Belief in a non specific god is called deism. I think you have given yourself a label but really aren't what you claim.

[scroyle]

Religion implies a supernatural creator/being with supernatural abilities.

Of course. It's the same with any culture from any part of the world. It's ancient and ancient folks were superstitious. Are you saying that because religion has a superstitious origin, we must flee it today?

We all know religions evolve all the time. A religion that doesn't evolve at all is probably a highly dangerous religion where you'll find all kinds of killing for the most insignificant transgression against the religious law. Christianity is not such a religion and it's got 2000 years of evolving from one thing to another.

[Hijiri Byakuren]

You obviously haven't read what I've written.

Typical response to being called out on one's bullshit. Why am I not surprised?

[stromboli]

Of course. It's the same with any culture from any part of the world. It's ancient and ancient folks were superstitious. Are you saying that because religion has a superstitious origin, we must flee it today?

We all know religions evolve all the time. A religion that doesn't evolve at all is probably a highly dangerous religion where you'll find all kinds of killing for the most insignificant transgression against the religious law. Christianity is not such a religion and it's got 2000 years of evolving from one thing to another.

So basically you just call yourself a Christian so you can hang out with Christians. Oh, OK. I'm done.

[Hydra009]

Of course. It's the same with any culture from any part of the world. It's ancient and ancient folks were superstitious. Are you saying that because religion has a superstitious origin, we must flee it today?

Well, it is a belief system centered around a supernatural being that you apparently don't believe in.  Seems like a pretty bad framework for well, just about anything.

We all know religions evolve all the time. A religion that doesn't evolve at all is probably a highly dangerous religion where you'll find all kinds of killing for the most insignificant transgression against the religious law. Christianity is not such a religion and it's got 2000 years of evolving from one thing to another.

Christians in Africa still kill suspected witches.  Christians in the US ..*shudders*  Christianity hasn't moved forward as much as you (or anyone) would like.

But I do like the evolution analogy.  It's actually very accurate.  Unfortunately, evolution can only do so much with what it has to work with and some really crappy traits tend to get locked in.  Nowadays, we can do better than that.  We can build from the ground up.  Better, stronger, faster...

[Poison Tree]

I will ignore the RC church again because the RC church is really the bugbear in any discussion - it's so rotten inside out that it's always thrown into an argument to clutter things up and confuse the issues.

Must be convenient to simply throw out a plurality (if not out right majority) of Christians when they don't fit your argument. But you can't stop there. Got to throw out the money gifting faith healers, the creationist, bible thumpers of all ilks. Which brings me back to the question, why not throw out christianity itself? You already dismissed the bible as wrong thinking by primitive folks. You already have no god--but somehow cling to Jesus as part of a trinity

If charity is so important to you, why not donate your time and money to one of the many secular charities who you've been ignoring. You know, organizations which--unlike churches--exist only to do charity work. I don't know about whatever county your from, but here in America religious organizations don't even manage a half assed job of charity. The United Methodist Church--which seems to be the best of the lot in this regard--don't even manage to give 30% of revenue to charities. Any secular charity trying that wouldn't survive the first news segment. Mormons don't even get to one percent--to busy spending cash on missionaries.

If it is not too much trouble, I'd actually be interested in the links to the Dawkins stuff you mentioned.

[Hydra009]

Many atheists were once fundamentalist Christians. When they got out of fundamentalism which traumatised them, they became totally and blindly anti-Christianity. They can't even see a drop of good that the Church has done. They are blind to anything that doesn't fit in with their deep conviction that the Church and Christianity are evil.

Are you sure about that?  Because atheists tend to come from all walks of life.  Though seeing as how Christianity is the predominant Western religion, Christian deconverts are heavily represented here.  But Christian deconverts weren't necessarily former fundies.  Some were mainline Protestant.  Some were Catholics.  Some were even liberal Christians.  So the "trauma" angle doesn't really hold up and is about as insulting as saying that homosexuals are homosexuals because of some sort of hetero romantic trauma.

And yes, even strongly anti-religious people like me see the good that the Church ordinary Christians do in the world.  My criticism is that it's some good amidst a sea of pious lunacy, childish superstition, and horrendously harmful behavior that is - unfathomably to me - encouraged/rewarded.  Sure, there's some good (which could and does easily exist independently of religion), but there's a whole lot of evil (which could not otherwise exist, like witch-burning).  The good does not wash out the bad, nor the bad the good.  Each should have its own reward.

Now, that is just as bad as fundamentalism. It's as irrational as a belief in the superstitious part of religion. The moment they see "Christian" attached to your name, they'll attack you. You can tell them that you are a different sort of Christian but they are convinced you believe in a Hebrew carpenter who could work miracles. I've tried many times to explain that I don't believe in miracles or in anything supernatural but to no avail. They insist that as long as I'm a Christian, I believe in the talking snake, the talking donkey and a bearded man who can raise the dead to life.

Of course they assume that.  The sorts of beliefs that you have listed are pretty common Christian beliefs.  So when you say that you're a Christian, people naturally assume that you believe what Christians typically believe.  Duh!