Defining the Christian Life

[Cypress]

That study proved nothing. So what if some scientists believe in god? What does that prove?

It was a response to incredulity and amazement that any scientist could possibly be religious.

My take: after 30 in a scientific career, I can tell you if you are looking for science to provide you an ultimate truth and pull back the curtains to reveal the deepest nature of objective reality, you are going to be disappointed.

Science and inductive reasoning are great things. Probably western civilization's most important contribution.

But all science can give you is provisional knowlege about how natural phenomena seem to behave.

After that, the meaning of life either comes down to cynicism, skepticism, hedonism, existentialism, religion, or some kind of belief in spiritual truth or moral philosophy.

 

[BidenPresident]

It was a response to incredulity and amazement that any scientist could possibly be religious.

My take: after 30 in a scientific career, I can tell you if you are looking for science to provide you an ultimate truth and to reveal the deepest natures of reality, you are going to be disappointed.

Science and inductive reasoning are great things. Probably western civilization's most important contribution.

But all science can give you is provisional knowlege about how natural phenomena seem to behave.

After that, the meaning of life either comes down to cynicism, skepticism, hedonism, existentialism, religion, or some kind of belief in spiritual truth

Science does not study religion or god. So the opinions of scientists is irrelevant.

 

[Cypress]

Right. Not accusing you of that.

You are right. Theocracy is an affront to a liberal democracy.

Legislating from the Hebrew Bible, aka Old Testament, is completely off the table.

On the other hand, I do not mind when politicians' conscience and morality is informed by the New Testament. Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter were clear that their faith informed their policy choices. Social justice, economic justice, and Christianity have a long history. I doubt there would have been a Civil Rights act without the Christian minister Martin Luther King Jr.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

You are right. Theocracy is an affront to a liberal democracy.

Legislating from the Hebrew Bible, aka Old Testament, is completely off the table.

On the other hand, I do not mind when politicians' conscience and morality is informed by the New Testament. Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter were clear that their faith informed their policy choices. Social justice, economic justice, and Christianity have a long history. I doubt there would have been a Civil Rights act without the Christian minister Martin Luther King Jr.

We are not all Christians.
When it comes to passing the laws of the land, we must arrive at moral direction through secular consensus.

We don't need the Christian equivalent of Sharia Law, and fundamentalist evangelicals continue to advocate for essentially that.
They're the American Taliban.

 

[Cypress]

We are not all Christians.
When it comes to passing the laws of the land, we must arrive at moral direction through secular consensus.

We don't need the Christian equivalent of Sharia Law, and fundamentalist evangelicals continue to advocate for essentially that.
They're the American Taliban.

Explicitly religious legislation which violate people's civil rights, the bill of rights, common human decency (i.e., stoning adulterers to death) obviously need to be dispatched with the utmost urgency and prejudice.

On the flipside, I think we are kidding ourselves if we do not believe that our personal moral philosophies do not inform our conscience and policy preferences.

In Joe Biden's case, his conscience is informed by the social gospel of the Christian New Testament

"How Joe Biden's Faith Shapes His Politics"

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/20/913667325/how-joe-bidens-faith-shapes-his-politics

Luckily, there is enough overlap between the main moral tenets of world religions and ethical traditions we generally do not have to worry about archaic Jewish law from Deuteronomy or archaic Islamic legal code from Sharia being enacted here.

 

[ThatOwlWoman]

Explicitly religious legislation which violate people's civil rights, the bill of rights, common human decency (i.e., stoning adulterers to death) obviously need to be dispatched with the utmost urgency and prejudice.

What of the more insidious type of religious beliefs that the fundies and even some mainstream Xtian religious want inserted into our lives? Examples: teaching creationism alongside biology in public school science classes; prayer in public gatherings like school or city hall, along with religious holiday displays; banning women's right to choose; allowing discrimination if it's based on religion; forbidding gay ppl marriage; disallowing those of certain other religions entry to the country.

 

[Cypress]

What of the more insidious type of religious beliefs that the fundies and even some mainstream Xtian religious want inserted into our lives? Examples: teaching creationism alongside biology in public school science classes; prayer in public gatherings like school or city hall, along with religious holiday displays; banning women's right to choose; allowing discrimination if it's based on religion; forbidding gay ppl marriage; disallowing those of certain other religions entry to the country.

The theocratic religious right is always going to be a concern. I think their assault on reproductive choice is the most dangerous to possibly succeed.

Creationism and intelligent design in public school were decisively defeated in the courts. Public school endorsement of school prayer was decisively defeated in the courts. Attempts to ban gay marriage or interracial marriage have been decisively defeated in the courts.

Muslim bans seem to me to be based on straightforward bigotry and nationalism - not Christianity or the bible. Islam did not even exist when Jesus lived and the bible says nothing about Islam, which would not exist until six centuries after the New Testament was written.

I agree that the religious right relentlessly attempts to institutionalize it's white, nationalist agenda. But attempting and succeeding are two different things. That is not to say we ever have to be on guard" or roll back where they have had minor successes.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

Explicitly religious legislation which violate people's civil rights, the bill of rights, common human decency (i.e., stoning adulterers to death) obviously need to be dispatched with the utmost urgency and prejudice.

On the flipside, I think we are kidding ourselves if we do not believe that our personal moral philosophies do not inform our conscience and policy preferences.

In Joe Biden's case, his conscience is informed by the social gospel of the Christian New Testament



Luckily, there is enough overlap between the main moral tenets of world religions and ethical traditions we generally do not have to worry about archaic Jewish law from Deuteronomy or archaic Islamic legal code from Sharia being enacted here.

Imagine being both omniscient and omnipotent, but as a creator, this is the best world with which you could bother to come up.

Believers actually worship a god that obviously must have mailed it in!

If it's indeed both omniscient and omnipotent, and this is the world that it created, then the most simple of logic tells us that it certainly, as a god, wasn't all-loving as well.

This very obvious observation proves beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that religious people are, for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise,
logic deficient. We don't need to be trusting them for leadership.

 

[Jack]

Imagine being both omniscient and omnipotent, but as a creator, this is the best world with which you could bother to come up.

Believers actually worship a god that obviously must have mailed it in!

If it's indeed both omniscient and omnipotent, and this is the world that it created, then the most simple of logic tells us that it certainly, as a god, wasn't all-loving as well.

This very obvious observation proves beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that religious people are, for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise,
logic deficient. We don't need to be trusting them for leadership.

... or promoting them.

 

[saltydancin]

Imagine being both omniscient and omnipotent, but as a creator, this is the best world with which you could bother to come up.

Believers actually worship a god that obviously must have mailed it in!

If it's indeed both omniscient and omnipotent, and this is the world that it created, then the most simple of logic tells us that it certainly, as a god, wasn't all-loving as well.

This very obvious observation proves beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that religious people are, for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise,
logic deficient. We don't need to be trusting them for leadership.

This Christian Nation pyramid scheme of injustice where exposing the fabricated misnomer immaculate Jesus the Christ conception results in lynching enforcement department of corrections to insure then ensure their “man is God” diatribe from killing as reason in use of force to avoid Christiananality pedophilia super ego acceptance of under God at all costs.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

This Christian Nation pyramid scheme of injustice where exposing the fabricated misnomer immaculate Jesus the Christ conception results in lynching enforcement department of corrections to insure then ensure their “man is God” diatribe from killing as reason in use of force to avoid Christiananality pedophilia super ego acceptance of under God at all costs.

Nobody has placed me in charge of grading sentence structure, but saltydancin, please give us a fucking break.

 

[BidenPresident]

Nobody has placed me in charge of grading sentence structure, but saltydancin, please give us a fucking break.

About to say the same thing.

 

[Cypress]

... or promoting them.

But why do you complain that I am a bible thumper self-consciously promoting and proselytizing Christianity....

But you never complain when I am posting about Hinduism...
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?159051-Upanishads&p=4168755#post4168755


Or when I post about about indigenous American Animism?
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?163693-John-Lame-Deer&p=4294416#post4294416
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...equivalence-and-animism&p=4217835#post4217835


Or when I post about Buddhism, Confucianism, and the atheism, and and skepticism of Nietzsche, David Hume, et al.?
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...ng-of-life-from-world-intellectual-traditions


Or when I post about Judaism, Sikhism, Islam?
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...ded-scriptural-readings&p=4193903#post4193903


Or when I make fun of bible thumpers?
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...Creation-Science-Museum&p=4131640#post4131640


Or when I post about the Baha'i faith?
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?152193-Bah%E1%ED-faith&p=3990618#post3990618

 

[Cypress]

Imagine being both omniscient and omnipotent, but as a creator, this is the best world with which you could bother to come up.

Believers actually worship a god that obviously must have mailed it in!

If it's indeed both omniscient and omnipotent, and this is the world that it created, then the most simple of logic tells us that it certainly, as a god, wasn't all-loving as well.

This very obvious observation proves beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that religious people are, for whatever reason, cultural or otherwise,
logic deficient. We don't need to be trusting them for leadership.

I know, Voltaire's entire Candide was an indictment that a Judeo-Christian God did not create a perfect world free of earthquakes, muder, and house fires. Most world religions have had to address the question of theodicy.

Augustine and others gave the Christian response to the problem of theodicy.

I think the Bagavad Gita gives the Hindu perspective.

The entire Buddhist religion is based on the observation and fact of unnecessary suffering.

I do not have any brilliant answers to the problem of theodicy, I am not smart enough.

But since all major world religions confess to the nature of suffering in the world, it does not strike me as wise to deny political leadership to the world's five billion people who belong to a major faith tradition.

 

[NiftyNiblick]

But since all major world religions confess to the nature of suffering in the world, it does not strike me as wise to deny political leadership to the world's five billion people who belong to a major faith tradition.

I try to do just that in the Democratic Primary.
In the generals, I'm stuck with the party's nominee, such as it is.
Do you think that I got a chubby voting for Biden?

 

[Jack]

But why do you complain that I am a bible thumper self-consciously promoting and proselytizing Christianity....

--->"History's Great Christian Lives:

Paul
The early martyrs
Augustine
St. Patrick Bernard of Clairvaux
Francis of Assisi
Clare of Assisi
Catherine of Siena
Thomas More
Martin Luther
John Wesley
The Monks of Mount Athos
Teresa of Calcutta
Martin Luther King

It is ultimately futile to create the definition of a great Christian - we will nevertheless suggest some qualities that just about all of the people on our list share:

1. All are rooted in scripture.
2. All the people we examined were willing to sacrifice their lives for Christ, in imitation of Christ himself.
3.All perceived the need to practice Christian love and live as part of the visible body of Christ on Earth.
4. The virtue of humility is a universal attribute of great Christians.
5. All were conscious of finding a relationship between the active and contemplative dimensions of Christianity."

The Trumptopians are Religious Quacks, similar to ISIS or Al Qaeda. You are feeding them ... stroking them ... giving them some kind of legitimacy. YOU are the OPPOSITE of Modern People, attempting to keep alive a Democracy, Individual Liberty, Freedom of Speech, support of Science and Inquiry. Your above HEROS, would easily put to death Modern People by Torture, screaming in unison 'INFIDEL!'.

 

[Cypress]

--->"History's Great Christian Lives:

Paul
The early martyrs
Augustine
St. Patrick Bernard of Clairvaux
Francis of Assisi
Clare of Assisi
Catherine of Siena
Thomas More
Martin Luther
John Wesley
The Monks of Mount Athos
Teresa of Calcutta
Martin Luther King

It is ultimately futile to create the definition of a great Christian - we will nevertheless suggest some qualities that just about all of the people on our list share:

1. All are rooted in scripture.
2. All the people we examined were willing to sacrifice their lives for Christ, in imitation of Christ himself.
3.All perceived the need to practice Christian love and live as part of the visible body of Christ on Earth.
4. The virtue of humility is a universal attribute of great Christians.
5. All were conscious of finding a relationship between the active and contemplative dimensions of Christianity."

The Trumptopians are Religious Quacks, similar to ISIS or Al Qaeda. You are feeding them ... stroking them ... giving them some kind of legitimacy. YOU are the OPPOSITE of Modern People, attempting to keep alive a Democracy, Individual Liberty, Freedom of Speech, support of Science and Inquiry. Your above HEROS, would easily put to death Modern People by Torture, screaming in unison 'INFIDEL!'.

So you only get angry when I post about Christianity, but you completely accept when I post about Hinduism-Animism-Buddhism-Judaism-Daoism-Sikhism-Baha'i-Confucianism.

That would mean you are not a consistent, principled, dispassionate Atheist.

It would mean you are an anti-Christian zealot.

Being an anti-Christian zealot is an intellectual posture not bases on reason, it is based on emotion.

The world is not composed of only two groups: Bible thumping jihadists -- and hostile anti-Christian Zealots.

There are people between those two extremes.

 

[Jack]

So you only get angry when I post about Christianity, but you completely accept when I post about Hinduism-Animism-Buddhism-Judaism-Daoism-Sikhism-Baha'i-Confucianism.

That would mean you are not a consistent, principled, dispassionate Atheist.

It would mean you are an anti-Christian zealot.

Being an anti-Christian zealot is an intellectual posture not bases on reason, it is based on emotion.

The world is not composed of only two groups: Bible thumping jihadists -- and hostile anti-Christian Zealots.

There are people between those two extremes.

You asked why I complain about you promoting 'Christianity'. I gave you my reasoning. Do I need to repeat it.
You are PROMOTING 'Closed-Mindedness', 'Thought Control', 'Conformity'. NOTHING that America, the West, or Modern People support.

I've asked you what qualities do you see in these people and Christianity. So far, you haven't been able to articulate ONE thing. Leaving the impression that you simply Google some names of famous Religious People, post them, and hope others will associate YOU with THEM ... secretly hoping others will assume you are Intellectual Giant.

(I've told you I'm an Agnostic (not Atheist), so I don't spend a lot of time discussing Demons, Spirits, Magic, AfterLife, Dreams, or Gods)

 

[Jack]

So you only get angry when I post about Christianity ...

Hmmm ... I noticed 'ThatOwlWoman' has thanked you. Since YOU seem incapable of describing why you support Christianity, maybe she can answer for you?

 

[Jack]

Liked the concept of a 'Man-God'?