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klk
Trad climber
cali
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I am aware of textual criticism, "higher criticism" and just about every other way people who don't like what they read in the Bible choose to re-write it to their liking,
lol
i am aware of fundamentalists who reject all post 18th-century linguistics and historical research in order to have a sacred text that is more to their liking.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Thanks, DMT. I hope it's clear that I'm not attacking yours or anyone else's -- although I must be right!
John
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aspendougy
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Mahatma Ghandi was a deeply religious, spiritual man, but was adamant that India, as a new democracy, have a secular Government rather than a Hindu based one. India is not perfect and has enormous problems, but for such a huge nation, the Hindu majority and the other religious minorities coexist reasonably well most of the time, even when Hindu nationalists are elected.
If you contrast that with how religious minorities are treated in many countries where the Government is based upon Muslim law, you see the wisdom of his position.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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there are three basic uses of "Christian Nation."
one simply means that Christians constitute a numerical majority of the population of the US. that wouldn't be an interesting claim, so that one isn't really at issue.
a second is a provocative theological claim: the US has a covenant with God. that is a fringe theological position (and heretical in some schools), but it is well-represented on the internet.
a third is a secular, historical claim: that the the republican form of government created in The Articles of Confederation and then The Constitution derived from The New Testament. this one has become a popular claim among Protestant fundamentalists. but it isn't true, at least not in the sense that it's usually intended.
the drafters and conventions explicitly rejected the well-known period examples of state constitutions that put Christianity explicitly at the center of claims for right to governance. Massachusetts, for example, had a Constitution that might have lent weight to a "Christian Nation" kind of claim-- but it was rejected. the vagaries of language were deliberate, which is not surprising considering the range of disagreement among unitarians, anglicans, and methodists at the time, and that's even before you throw in the handful of Deists like Jefferson. now that 18th centiury wasn't as secular as a lot of modern atheists would like to suggest, but the conscious decision to avoid the Puritan example matters, (although it doesn't really offer an easy slam-dunk argument against the kind of public displays at issue in the latest SC case).
what a lot of the well-intentioned folk on this forum seem not to understand, is just how offensive it is to claim that the US is a "Christian Nation." That's no longer a simple statement about your personal faith in Christ or whatever. That is a positive claim about the exclusiveness of the political organization of the nation-- Deist? gtfo Jew? gtfo. Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem? gtfo. Taoist, Native American, Agnostic? gtfo.
fwiw, the concept of "Christian Nation" was most thoroughly elaborated in the late 1950s and early 1960s by a former Berkeley undergrad named Rousas Rushdooney. Rushdooney was a smart guy-- he was also a white supremacist and he worked hard to try to make the concept anti-black as well as anti-semitic. that doesn't mean that everyone using the phrase now is just like Rushdooney or has inherited all of his extremist positions on on religion and policy.
Molly Worthen's book has a good and theologically informed history of the anti-modernist theological movements of the 20th century from Machen forward.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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yeah, two of the curiosities of general internet or campfire talk about religion is the way that, in the US, evangelical and mostly fundamentalist Protestantism comes to represent "Christianity" generally.
the 2nd, and closely related to the first, is how many Christians internalize a self-image as an oppressed minority, despite their overwhelming numerical majority, and then when real religious minorites or dissenters object to a particular bigoted formulation of Christian superiority, take it as evidence that Christianity as a whole is under siege.
i think that, in an indirect way, missionary work has tended to reinforce that sense-- missionaries abroad are often in places where they really are religious minorities and often really are facing hostility from local governments of various kinds. a chunk of religious media in the US is devoted to reports of ant-Christian atrocities in backwaterstan or wherever.
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Rudbud
Gym climber
Grover Beach, CA
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300!!! whooo hoooo!!!!
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Any "enlightened Christianity" (cf: enlightened Islam) would entail embracing the Abrahamic narrative (aka the bible stories) from start to finish - from Creation to The Fall (Original Sin) to Resurrection and Ascension - as mythology. To read Cragman to JE, let alone Blu to go-b, it's obvious that any "wising up" in this regard is still a long ways off. One or two generations at least.
Expression in the other Abrahamic system...
Thank goodness for our youth, however. Because of them and their adaptive capitalizing on science, science edu and the info age, Abrahamic religion won't survive the end of the 21st century. (At least no more than astrology survived the 20th century.) So long-term take heart.
.....
The motion: Death is not Final
http://intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/upcoming-debates/item/1020-death-is-not-final
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mueffi 49
Trad climber
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"Religion is the opium of the people" is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German economist Karl Marx. It was translated from the German original, "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes" and is often referred to as "the religion... is the opiate of the masses." The quotation originates from the introduction of his proposed work A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right; this work was never written, but the introduction (written in 1843) was published in 1844 in Marx's own journal Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, a collaboration with Arnold Ruge. The phrase "This opium you feed your people" appeared in 1797 in Marquis de Sade's text L'Histoire de Juliette and Novalis's "[R]eligion acts merely as an opiate" around the same time. The full quote from Karl Marx is: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people".
Contents [hide]
1 Marx
2 Sade
3 Novalis
4 Charles Kingsley
5 Lenin
6 See also
7 References
8 Further reading
Marx[edit]
Main article: Marxism and religion
The quotation, in context, reads as follows (emphasis added):
The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
RECAP; RELIGION + MONEY = SUPERDRUG FOR THE RIGHTEOUS BELIEVERS
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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I have the idea you live over that way. Enlighten us.
If you see things differently about China's treatment of Christians, I'd be glad to learn about it.
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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The greatest service that could be rendered the Christian peoples would be to convert them to Christianity
Joseph Campbell
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujo de la Playa
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^What a hero. Maybe a thousdand times over.
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lostinshanghai
Social climber
someplace
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Ah! What would we be if it was not for these: Funny I am sure some of us remember when they use to use subliminal messages in movie theaters for buying popcorn and candy? For a number of years the religious theocracy has been using it included with the open messages for pushing their agendas.
Who's face is more evil?
Koch brothers propaganda
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Sorry to be so sketchy and yet so long-winded simultaneously. If I had more time, I would explain myself more succinctly. Again, I'm not saying those who disagree are stupid, evil or anything else. I'm just giving a glimpse of why I don't think Christianity requires that you forfeit your mind.
Thank You John, that was a wonderful post!
Prolly the best ive seen.
BB
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BLUEBLOCR
Social climber
joshua tree
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Rosoide said,
. So whether one is performing service to others as a secular humanist or else in the interest of doing so in order to appease and curry favor with Jesus, it is the final results which count.
The final result is which will count. But prolly not in the way ur Think'in? Why does a secular humanist perform any service for another? Wait, before I ask that. Your writing denotes that your assumption is that Christians do things to curry favor, or look to good in Gods eyes. For instance. If I drop a $20. spot into a beggars cup, or hold the door open for a weak old lady, or slow down traffic at ampm because a heavy lady is harboring the walk from the pump to the cashier. I do these acts without a preconceived reason to forward my relationship with Christ.
Works are a sign of faith. Meaning, if faith in Gods plan is established, works will just appear.
I think good deeds are a fruit. Not a seed. Know what I mean?
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clinker
Trad climber
Santa Cruz, California
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“She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
One of my favorites.
Be wary of some of that "fruit", it can kill you.
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Wade Icey
Trad climber
www.alohashirtrescue.com
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C.S. Lewis knew Lois?
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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So, when I teach kids how to climb, it's because I have faith but don't know it?
It's the Childhood Catholicism as toe fungus theory. You got it for life. Even if you never thought you had it, there are no atheists - just Christians who don't know it yet.
Aside from how fantastically patronizing and moronic that idea is, that's also not a waiver Christianity affords unbelievers.
If you don't stuff Jesus into your heart explicitly, it's laps in the Fiery Lake for ye.
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Tvash
climber
Seattle
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Christianity spread the way many memes do: it was politically expedient and good for business.
Sure, it allays fears of dying - but it also created a system of trading connections across a racially disparate empire. It unified a populace under one, official religion. It provided justification for lucrative conquest. And it granted a monopoly on human knowledge and a central, unquestioned authority.
In short, it concentrated wealth and power for those who controlled to a degree and duration that few other movements in history have matched.
History's interesting, but what matters is the present. No one can seriously argue that Christianity - of the fundy, Mormon, and Chatholica persuasions, isn't the number one enemy of civil liberties in America today.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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No one can seriously argue that Christianity - of the fundy, Mormon, and Chatholica persuasions, isn't the number one enemy of civil liberties in America today.
I think it (religion, not just Christianity) is not so much a problem as a symptom. And insofar as it is a problem, and an enemy of civil liberties (in the world, not just America), it is tied with patriotism for the number one spot.
It's a strange world we live in, and killing people for religious or patriotic reasons isn't very far removed from cheering the home team and booing the visiting team.
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TWP
Trad climber
Mancos, CO
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Yes, Mr. Donini, I am with you on this. America is not a Christian nation though the battle will never be won.
I offer an example of "progress."
Once upon a time (prior to American Independence), as condition of sitting in the Pennsylvania Legislature, the elected member had to sign an elaborate declaration affirming their belief in Christianity. I've read the minutes of the legislature containing this declaration with the signatures of every legislator affixed thereto. One proof of the evolution of our collective conscientiousness. At one time, no one would have given a second thought to this legal requirement. Now, this practice would not have a rat's chance in hell of "holding up in court" here.
By contrast, today in Pakistan, I suspect a requirement of belief in Islam would be common place for service in government, nay to even get a job? Islamic nations are a good 200-400 years behind the West in the evolution of their institutions to secular neutrality. We will never know in our life times if Islamic nations make the transition, or keep fighting to an internecine death.
On the other hand, I can offer a proof we are still dominated by this Christianness. I had a discussion not long ago with a high school friend. By all rights, this man should have had a career in politics and would have made an outstanding civic leader. He confessed to me that he decided to never run for office precisely because he believed that would require that he gave a least lip service to being a Christian, churchgoer. He just couldn't - and wouldn't - stoop to that hypocrisy. So he never ran for office. Our country suffers from this de facto bar to elected office. Non-believers just can't be elected to high office. So they don't even try.
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