Over at the Washington Post‘s “On Faith” section, Paula Kirby’s just written a nice piece, “How would Jesus vote?“, on the bizarrely non-Christian behavior of American Christians: their strange views on Obamacare, gun control, and income inequality. When she emailed me about the piece, Paula said this:
I have a new post up at WashPo’s On Faith page. It’s rather different from my previous posts there: this one says nice things about Christianity! The aim was to flag up the huge contrast between the political/social attitudes of the Religious Right and the teachings of the man they’re all supposed to be so devotedly following. At a time like this, it strikes me as far more urgent to try to keep Romney out of the White House than to attack liberal versions of Christianity.
It’s short and worth reading in its entirety: a sharp indictment of the hypocrisy of some right-wing Christians. I’ll publish just a snippet:
To Brits watching from across the Atlantic, U.S. society seems worryingly divided. Not just between the rich and the poor, the haves and the have-nots, but also between those who consider themselves respectable and those whom those same people do not consider respectable. I can think of no other industrially and commercially advanced country – much less an avowedly Christian one – in which it is apparently so acceptable to demonize those who do not share your beliefs, for example, or your sexual orientation. The sight of American Christians in full self-righteous fervor, working themselves up into a rage over other people’s beliefs and other people’s sexuality, is hard to reconcile with the Jesus of the Gospels, whose anger was almost exclusively reserved for those who dared to judge and look down on others; the Jesus who, himself, chose always to align himself with those so judged.
Remember that Paula is an atheist, and doesn’t believe that Jesus actually said or did what’s in the Bible. Her aim is to show the big divide between what some people (aka Republican Christians) profess to believe and what they really do.
Like Paula I’m British and an atheist, though I grew up in a religious family. And it has always baffled me that American Christianity is so different from what the British regard as Christianity — in the UK religious commentary is often a left-wing/socialist criticism of governments that are already well to the left of their American equivalents.
Surely the Christian message is a left-wing one. Indeed, the central message of Christianity about how to treat other people can surely be summed up by
the parable of the sheep and the goats, a passage that even I as a non-Christian find moving.
Yet again my hypothesis that you can’t find anything of Jesus that isn’t horribly tainted by the worst imagination has to offer is confirmed.
Specifically:
I’m sorry, but torture of any type, let alone infinite and everlasting torture without possibility of mercy and without giving your victim even the hypothetical chance at redemption, is just about the absolute most evil thing I can imagine. It is the ultimate antithesis of compassion.
To top it all off, this decision is based upon those who did or didn’t give to a beggar. No mention is made of social support infrastructure, such as food stamps, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and the rest — all of which is far more effective than alms to beggars. There’s not even any mention if the “goats” were in any position to help others or if they were themselves but a single meal away from hunger.
It’s one of those things that only sounds good if you’re both predisposed to think of the source as privileged and if you don’t spend even ten seconds examining it more closely.
Cheers,
b&
Ben, any biblical reference to the “good shepherd” parable and similes should be seen in the light of what shepherding was for, and what fate awaited sheep and goats:
They were to be milked, shorn, slaughtered; and if male, castrated.
I rest my case. Agnus Dei lamb chops. There are no innocent parables.
I know. I’m just hoping that maybe, perhaps, against all reasonable hope, Jerry will discover a single untainted passage and bring it to our attention.
I know I don’t have either the time or the stomach to to looking for myself….
b&
“…torture of any type…is just about the absolute most evil thing I can imagine…”
has it ever occurred to you to wonder whether you are a sanctimonious hypocrite? i’ll bet not. anyway, the next time you’re getting kicks watching your cat needlessly dismember a lizard, you might, for the sake of your cat, consider whether the pleasure you derive from that sight is worth the risk it poses to your cat. there are a number of feline parasites, among them liver flukes and lung worms, for which lizards serve as intermediate hosts.
You know, I could get a lot more upset about the points you raise if it weren’t for the fact that I’m about to feed Baihu some (thawed, ground) lamb and I’ve yet to decide on chicken soup, pork Italian sausage, or a bacon cheeseburger for dinner tonight for myself.
Cheers,
b&
and i’ll further bet that you think you have made some point with that irrelevancy.
anyway, luke 19:27 is, as explicitly stated in luke 19:11, a parable; a story told to make a point, an analogy. it’s not a prescription for behaviour. the distinction, however, is probably meaningless to someone more interested in making an argument than in thinking critically about it…not unlike christians, now that i think about it.
Ah, yes. Jesus tells a story about a king addressed as “lord” who goes to collect his inheritance in a distant kingdom, a king who returns to judge his vassals (who address him as “Lord”). And this king judges them using the same criteria and even the same language as Jesus himself routinely used (“Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.”). And Jesus tells this parable, with the anonymous king so clearly representing himself, as a means of instructing his own followers. And the “kill zem all” punchline is the whole point of the parable.
But Jesus so totally wasn’t telling his followers to kill all non-Christians because (wink wink nudge nudge) “it was only a parable.”
Jesus Christ, but you’ve got to be thick to buy that one. “Just saying,” as Ian Murphy would say.
b&
putting paraphrases and outright inventions into quotation marks does not give an air of authority to your argument! your interpretation, while not wholly without interest, is too plainly strained in the service of your overarching thesis to be credible. perhaps that is why it represents the view of a vanishingly small minority of theologians, of whom, despite your disparaging comments, you are one.
…so, Jesus is quoted as quoting a character he himself identified with as saying that all non-Christians should be killed at his altar without distancing himself from said character’s views, but Jesus really meant that all non-Christians shouldn’t be killed at his altar but instead served pake.
And those who point out such theological idiocies are theologians themselves…just as a family physician who tells you to get your flu shot is somehow an anti-vax nutjob, I presume?
Come back through the looking-glass, Alice. We have pake — and not that fake Jesus-pake, either, but the real thing!
b&
a theologian is someone who studies religion; you needn’t buy into it to study it. with respect to both the parable and the meaning of the word ‘theologian’,you, as is so often your wont, rely on eccentric and narrow definitions to make your point, which is then rendered nonsensical when the crabbed creakiness of your argument is put aside.
BZZZT!
Theologians “study” gods, not religion. Sociologists, anthropologists, and historians study religion.
And let’s play your “parable” game and see where it takes us, shall we?
I mean, of course, what, exactly, is the story being told a parable of?
Why, of course, it’s the story of Jesus’s own future return from his Father’s kingdom, namely Judgement Day when he will lead the battle of Armageddon in which — wait for it! — all non-Christians will be slaughtered at Jesus’s feet.
…and you think this helps your cause…how, exactly?
(And people wonder why we laugh at Christians and their theoidiocies!)
b&
not according to the half dozen dictionaries, online and hard copy, that i’ve just consulted. you’ve graciously provided an example of just that habit of yours that i described in my previous post. my ’cause’, is, if anything, critical thinking and intellectual honesty; if i see what seem to me logical errors, distortions, and falsehoods pertaining to subjects of interest to me, i think it worth discussing them.
So, first, no response to the observation that the “Parable! Parable” canard is bullshit.
And then you, not surprisingly, fail to actually quite even a single one of these multiple online dictionaries you lie about having consulted.
So, here. Let me do your homework for you.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theology
1. the field of study and analysis that treats of God and of God’s attributes and relations to the universe; study of divine things or religious truth; divinity.
2.
a particular form, system, branch, or course of this study.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/theology
1. The study of God, or a god, or gods, and the truthfulness of religion in general.
2. An organized method of interpreting spiritual works and beliefs into practical form.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/theology
1. The study of the nature of God and religious truth; rational inquiry into religious questions.
2. A system or school of opinions concerning God and religious questions: Protestant theology; Jewish theology.
3. A course of specialized religious study usually at a college or seminary.
Need I continue?
Sure. Why not. The Mac’s built-in dictionary has this:
the study of the nature of God and religious belief.
• religious beliefs and theory when systematically developed: Augustine assimilated Roman ideals into Christian theology | a willingness to tolerate new theologies.
In other words, unanimous agreement of exactly what I wrote: theologians study gods.
Hell, even simple etymology would have told you as much…not that I expect you to be able to spell “etymology,” let alone look it up or understand the definition. And, no, this has nothing to do with insects.
Cheers,
b&
I’m half with Ben on this one, although I think the overall context of Luke’s Gospel would indicate the target of the parable is Jews rather than non-believers generally speaking. (Luke thinks of salvation as more of a collective than an individual affair.)
I think the overall message is pretty dismal, even in the context is a parable about investment of wealth. And it’s certainly !*interpreted*! by fundamentalists as well as Ben Goren as advocating death to unbelievers!!!!
Incidentally, Joseph Smith thought this parable was about God’s vengeance on monogamists, and a warning we should all by polygamists!!!!!!!!
C’mon Ben, knock off the gratuitous nastiness. Comments like this have one purpose only: to insult.
i didn’t bother going through all the dictionary citations because i thought it would be tedious; i still think so! but add the online merriam-webster, oxforddictionaries.com, webster-dictionary.org and webster’s collegiate to your list; they all, including the ones to which you refer, mention religion, religious truths, and religious beliefs as the study subjects of theologians. i don’t see how that makes me ‘wrong’, but perhaps you are wearing some peculiar blinders. here’s a relevant quote cited at the third one i mention:
“Many speak of theology as a science of religion [instead of “science of God”] because they disbelieve that there is any knowledge of God to be attained.” Prof. R. Flint
i didn’t respond regarding the parable because i would have been repeating myself: our interpretations are different; i think yours is untenable.
“…you lie…”
that accusation might have been warranted had i said something demonstrably untrue; had i, for example, claimed that ‘mein kampf’ contains “…extended in-context quotes from Jesus.”. but in fact, i looked at the same definitions you mention, with the exception of the one in the mac, as well as the the ones i cite. that is, however, irrelevant; you had no basis for accusing me of dishonesty. it’s an allegation you seem to throw around freely and unthinkingly; a groundless imputation of dishonesty does nothing to further discussion.
theology: mid-14c., from O.Fr. theologie “philosophical treatment of Christian doctrine” (14c.), from L. theologia, from Gk. theologia “an account of the gods,” from theologos “one discoursing on the gods,” from theos “god” (see Thea) + -logos “treating of.”
I love that post! As much as I tear old Jesus apart, that is a pretty glaring error I overlooked.
Surely the Christian message is a left-wing one. Indeed, the central message of Christianity about how to treat other people can surely be summed up by
the parable of the sheep and the goats, a passage that even I as a non-Christian find moving.
That parable prescribes eternal punishment for people who do not help other people. *Eternal* punishment! Elsewhere in the gospels, Jesus describes this punishment using imagery of fire and burning, and with words like “torment.” Do you really think that’s a left-wing message? It seems to me the only way you can get a left-wing message from the Bible, and Christian teaching and tradition more broadly, is to ignore large parts of it.
Most British Christians would “interpret” the eternal torture bit as at worst non-existence, and, yes, they would indeed take a fairly left-wing message from this parable.
Commentary on social welfare issues from senior Churchmen in the UK (such as Church of England reports) is nearly always from a left-of-centre position (and that’s left of the *UK* centre, which is already well left of the US centre).
That’s the Christianity that I’m used to, even though I stopped believing any of that stuff around the age of 12.
Most British Christians would “interpret” the eternal torture bit as at worst non-existence, and, yes, they would indeed take a fairly left-wing message from this parable.
I very much doubt that’s true. From what I’ve read, the doctrine that hell is destruction rather than eternal conscious suffering is held by only a small number of minor Christian sects. I don’t think the Church of England is one of them. In any case, I don’t know why you think the idea that God *destroys* sinners is consistent with a left-wing conception of justice, either. It’s the cosmic equivalent of the death penalty. Since when has support for the death penalty, especially for minor crimes, been a left-wing position?
Whatever the official CofE line is, it is still the case that nowadays the majority of people in Britain who consider the themselves Christian do not believe in hell or everlasting torture/punishment after death. Note that most of these self-labelled Christians do not go to CofE churches (or any churches for that matter).
My comments are not about what *I* think, they’re about how Christianity is interpreted by self-labelled British Christians. And that is a fairly left-wing stance about social justice here on earth (with speculation about what happens after death being something most of them wouldn’t claim to know enough about to say). In such regards British Christianity is a lot less theological than American Christianity.
Whatever the official CofE line is, it is still the case that nowadays the majority of people in Britain who consider the themselves Christian do not believe in hell or everlasting torture/punishment after death.
How do you know this? In any case, whatever “the majority of people in Britain who consider the themselves Christian” believe, the doctrine of Hell and everlasting punishment for sin is standard Christian theology, taught by all three branches of the religion (Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox).
My comments are not about what *I* think, they’re about how Christianity is interpreted by self-labelled British Christians. And that is a fairly left-wing stance about social justice here on earth
No, it isn’t. Support for the death penalty, especially for minor transgressions, is not remotely left-wing. But that is the penalty you’re claiming “the majority of people in Britain who consider the themselves Christian” believe God imposes on unrepentant sinners.
Polls. For example only a third of Scottish *clergy* still believe in hell. The fraction for Christians in general is likely lower.
Shrug, OK, but the point is that the majority of self-labelled Christians in Britain don’t believe it. In the same way, the vast majority of self-labelled Catholics in Britain think the official Catholic position on contraception is batty and they don’t abide by it.
You’re American, aren’t you? You seem that way because you’re repeatedly focusing on the after-death theology, about which most British Christians would not claim to really know what happens, and which they would not regard as the important part of the sheep/goat parable. And you’re entirely ignoring the how-to-treat-people-on-Earth part of the parable which most British Christians would regard as the important bit.
Polls. For example only a third of Scottish *clergy* still believe in hell. The fraction for Christians in general is likely lower.
I don’t see how that follows.
You’re American, aren’t you? You seem that way because you’re repeatedly focusing on the after-death theology, about which most British Christians would not claim to really know what happens, and which they would not regard as the important part of the sheep/goat parable. And you’re entirely ignoring the how-to-treat-people-on-Earth part of the parable which most British Christians would regard as the important bit.
I’m focusing on it because it contradicts your claim that “surely the Christian message is a left-wing one.” Our fate after mortal death would seem to be a pretty important part of Christian theology, especially if that fate involves some form of eternal continued existence. I don’t see how you can seriously claim that the standard Christian doctrine of eternal punishment for unrepentant sinners remotely qualifies as a “left-wing message.” It’s a horrific message, far worse by left-wing standards than the kinds of criminal penalties advocated by American political conservatives.
As for the views of British Christians, who comprise only a minuscule fraction of the total Christian population, if they believe either the standard Christian doctrine of Hell as eternal punishment, or the doctrine of Hell as destruction (“Annihilationism,” as it’s called), then they are certainly not embracing a “left-wing message,” either. And if they believe that Hell is some kind of temporary and much lesser punishment, then they are simply ignoring the plain meaning of numerous scriptures. As Richard Dawkins says, they’re simply ignoring the bits of scripture they don’t like, in order to try and impose a modern western liberal secular morality on an ancient book that is anything but liberal.
“Surely the Christian message is a left-wing one. Indeed, the central message of Christianity about how to treat other people can surely be summed up by
the parable of the sheep and the goats”
Ignoring the eternal damnation aspect, the parable is problematic from a left-of-centre perspective for other reasons. Firstly, this is social justice being enforced by a top-down, authoritarian system, rather than growing organically from a community of socially-aware individuals engaged in co-operation and reciprocation. There are no checks-and-balances, no democratic decision-making, no mechanisms for discussion of priorities, no accountability. This is the ethics of the totalitarian left, not that of the democratic, liberal left. Secondly, it’s all about individual charity – there’s nothing here about developing systematic programs for tackling poverty, homelessness and ill-health that might do more good in the long run. It’s a moral system that focuses on symptoms rather than causes.
But then this isn’t surprising, because the message of the Gospels is shaped by its origins in apocalyptic Judaism. For example, selling all you own and giving it to the poor is a ridiculously simplistic policy for achieving social and economic justice, but it makes perfect sense if the end times are a-coming and you need to make a dramatic gesture to get right with God. The moral focus of the New Testament can look left-of-centre, as long as you divorce it from its authoritarian eschatological context. But seen in that context, the teachings of Jesus are not unproblematic from a liberal left standpoint.
Left, right, down the middle – whatever the problem, the Catholic Church figures out how to blame it on women. For instance, their recent “report” on the largest women’s group in U.S. Catholicism, instigated by Catholic bishops and the like right here in the United States. The attacked nuns are meeting in St. Louis to decide how to respond, with one option being to secede from the Church. I think the defection of the largest order of nuns would be great! Here is my report on a pro-Nun rally I ran into today:
A report from today’s Pro-Nun rally in Oakland, CA
I was walking home from downtown this evening when I came upon an outside demonstration/meeting of Sisters for Peace & Justice. The rally was in solidarity with the nuns meeting in St. Louis where the nuns there are deciding what to do about the Vatican’s most recent attack on them – with one option being seceding from The Holy Mother Church. I figured something might be going on, because when I was walking to downtown earlier I ran into a guy with a sign that said “VATICAN: Clean up your own sewers – LEAVE THE NUNS ALONE!”, and stopped to talk with him for a minute [during which time he didn’t mention the rally, or why he happened to be walking around with a sign in support of the rebel nuns, but we did talk about the meeting in St. Louis, and the coverage on the MSN news site this morning: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/07/13162177-after-blistering-vatican-report-nuns-gather-to-weigh-response?lite%5D.
The Man from the Vatican was there – a guy at the top of the stairs, dressed in a suit, with a walkie-talkie at ready. He appeared to be the church’s security detail. He was engaged in a spirited discussion with some old guy about my age, although I couldn’t tell about what. It seemed heated, but not quite on the verge of violence, so I guessed it was about religion, politics, or the weather.
The rally was on the flight of stairs going up to The Cathedral of Light. Many people had chairs that appeared to be from inside the church, so someone in there seems to be supportive. I should’ve counted, but didn’t, so I’ll estimate the number in attendance at about 83 [including me]. They were mostly women, but the male AARP contingent was noticeable [about 1/5th, I’d guess, the men all about my age or older]. One nun was in full Bride of Christ regalia, weird hat and all, looking for all the world like a smiley faced penguin. Other nuns present had kicked the habit, at least as far as this one demo-rally was concerned. The women’s ages ranged from what looked to be late 30s to [dare I say it?] the early to late 90s.
When I sat down a woman who identified herself as a nun was telling the crowd an empirical tale,about how little things can become big things, and big things continue even after their big thing numbers dwindle [i.e., the good deeds are continued, possibly through a different venue, such as direct action]. Her examples were about different gatherings and groups in years gone by opposed to nuclear madness..
Another woman who said she is a nun spoke about Hanford Atomic Works in Washington state, and the ongoing [some say escalating] crisis of what to do with all that radioactive plutonium waste laying around up there. During a back-and-forth type of prayer people asked for God to intervene on behalf of the Palestinian people; the poor and downtrodden; and the people who “are right at this moment meeting with Chevron, in hopes of getting environmental justice.” And, of course, the rebel nuns meeting in St. Louis I was going to shout out that God should intervene on behalf of the Pussy Riot defendants in Moscow, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/31/god-is-judging-pussy-riot but I was too shy to yell that in public. I’ve gotta work on that fear of public speaking thing.
I got up and split, and everyone else started to mingle, after the concluding song, “We Have All Been Called to Work for Peace and Justice.” Nice words, but sort of a too church choirish tune.
Paula,
First, I appreciate your article. I think the universe is a better place for you having written it, and I can think of no other reasonably justification for basically anything we do.
That writ, I would note that the Jesus you write of is a myth of a myth.
A couple examples:
As an American atheist, I would suggest that the same Jesus who said, “Think not that I come to bring peace but a sword,” along with the one who, in Luke 19:27, commanded all non-Christians be sacrificed at his altar, would heartily approve of not only American gun ownership but our imperial tendencies to kill brown people.
That same Jesus was a virulent anti-semite, calling the Jews “brood of vipers” and striking down the fig tree that symbolizes the Torah and rabbinical study. And Jesus was positively obsessed with the sexuality of others; in the Sermon on the Mount, he condemned to infinite torture not only those who marry divorcees but even those men who have the temerity to glance at a pretty woman and fail to immediately thereafter gouge out their own eyes and chop off their own hands.
Indeed, the Jesus you don’t believe in is nothing like the Jesus in the Gospels, even though he is very much like the Jesus that many liberal Christians do believe in. But the Jesus that the fundamentalists believe in is, sadly, much more like the Jesus of the Gospels (once you get past the whole wealth / poverty bit) than the Jesus you don’t believe in.
Cheers,
b&
I’m very 50/50 on this. I sorta agree, sorta don’t agree.
On the Sermon on the Mount, I suspect Jesus’ main target (re sexuality) was sanctimonious moralistic hypocrites, but he left himself open to having his words used to terrorize 14-year-old adolescents into believing natural urges are serious thought-crimes.
He was certainly against the Jewish religious establishment of his day, but I’m not sure I would say that translates into anti-Semitism in the racial sense of the word. (Hitler fired Christian pastors with Jewish ancestry- no basis for that in the New Testament).
Matthew has far far more overt references to hellfire than any of the other three Gospels. Some scholars think he may have meant a temporary purgatory, but that doesn’t lessen the problem really. Like the Jewish Yahweh, Jesus has a lot of anger management issues to work on.
Your note in your other post about Jesus never addressing the social structures of society is one of many reasons Albert Schweitzer concluded that Jesus thought a cataclysmic apocalypse was just around the corner, a theory notorious for being just as embarrassing to liberal Christians as to conservative ones, and which remains the dominant thinking in secular New Testament scholarship. It damages all efforts to make Jesus relevant across the entire spectrum. As Bart Ehrman put it, “The problem with Jesus is not that he’s unhistorical, but much too historical.”
It’s much easier to see the unabashed anti-semitism, yes, even in the modern sense, in Christianity once you put it into its historical and cultural context.
For example, Orpheus was ostensibly a Thracian, yet his story is as virulently anti-Thracian as Mein Kampf or any of Martin Luther’s screeds is anti-semitic. Just as the Sanhedrin is depicted as a lawless bunch of savages with a thirst for Jesus’s blood, the Thracians and their notable-for-its-time legal system is ignored and the Thracians rip Orpheus’s still-singing head from his body.
In both cases, they’re following a set formula: the foreign infidels and their blasphemous religion is anathema and must be demonized in favor of the purity of the greater Hellenistic Truths. And it’s okay if the local yokels slap familiar names on their gods, so long as those gods preach in favor of Hellenism and against the old ways.
There is absolutely nothing even remotely Jewish about Jesus and Christianity aside from the names and the geography. Not only were the myths lifted wholesale from the Greeks (and see Justin Martyr for an exhaustive list compiled by a second century Christian for the details), their philosophy was entirely Greek as well. Again, see Martyr, but also Philo whose Hellenized re-working of Judaism the Christians adopted wholesale.
Cheers,
b&
I agree except the myth is reworked from Greeks, Zoroastrianism, and fragments of Judaism. The Jewish bits have been re-assembled in a rather unJewish way; nonetheless the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law is derivative of Elijah healing the widow- Jesus’ calming the storm is derived from the book of Jonah, etc. etc.
See Robert M. Price’s online essay “New Testament Narrative as Old Testament Midrash” for an atheist exposition or John Shelby Spong’s book “This Hebrew Lord” for a liberal Christian one.
It is more than just the names and geography that are Jewish. Jesus is claimed to be descended from King David and Solomon, is referred to by Matthew as king of the Jews, is reported to have circumcised and holds what probably was a Passover ceder during the so-called “Last Supper.” There are many other examples of Jewish imagery and references. He commands his 12 disciples in Matthew 10:5 to not bother ministering to Gentiles or Samaritans but to instead seek out Jews and spread the news of Jesus to them.
My understanding from historians is that the gospels were likely targeted to Hellenistic Jews or to gentiles who lived among urban Jewish communities. The New Testament (and the Gospel of Matthew in particular) can be viewed as sectarian literature — it denounces the dominant sect of Judaism at the time (the Pharisees) and paints them as cartoon villains. But calling that antisemitic is like calling Protestant denunciations of the Catholic Church “anti-Christian.”
I have been around a long time. I pay attention to peoples habits.I see many bible thumpers who have the same habits of secular people. They drink, smoke,curse, accuse and have sexual lieasions during marrige. Yet, they are christions. This so-called god they believe in must have a blind eye towards them. We seculars should be so lucky.
Ah, but. Confession. Repentance. Forgiveness.
Jesus is their “get out of hell free” card.
/@
I remember Fed Clark linking to an article by, of all people, an Australian evangelical Christian, addressed to American conservative Christians that pretty much stated ‘Why are you folks not supporting broadening government health care aka caring for the sick like we believe is a Good Thing? What is wrong with you?’.
(Clark has a sort of ongoing point that American conservative Christianity has pretty much become more of a tribal marker than the set of moral beliefs that it purports to have (and to be central to it, so much that they claim that you can’t trust non-members or allies to be moral). It’s more important for people in the tribe to have the correct views on abortion/GLBT civil rights/evolution/environmentalism/general politics than to behave in a manner consistent with the moral standards they claim to keep.)
It’s something I’d like to see hammered more and more. Maybe some people will stop to question the standards they set themselves, and if they have their priorities really straight when $5 for a chicken sandwich to spite the gays is a better idea than eating chicken at home and sending the money saved to the food bank.
I remember Fed Clark linking to an article by, of all people, an Australian evangelical Christian, addressed to American conservative Christians that pretty much stated ‘Why are you folks not supporting broadening government health care aka caring for the sick like we believe is a Good Thing? What is wrong with you?’.
And their answer would probably be something along the lines that they do not interpret Jesus’s statements about caring for the sick as support for a particular kind of government health care policy. One might also ask American liberal Christians why they don’t support harsher penalties for criminals, given how tough Jesus was on sinners, or why they don’t support a radically egalitarian global redistribution of wealth, given Jesus’s teachings about the importance of giving away one’s possessions to the poor. By picking and choosing from among Jesus’s teachings, and giving them the appropriate political spin, you can portray him as supporting pretty much any kind of policy you like. That’s why the whole exercise is so dishonest and self-serving, whether it’s done by the left or the right.
Paula Kirby writes:
The sight of American Christians in full self-righteous fervor, working themselves up into a rage over other people’s beliefs and other people’s sexuality, is hard to reconcile with the Jesus of the Gospels, whose anger was almost exclusively reserved for those who dared to judge and look down on others; the Jesus who, himself, chose always to align himself with those so judged.
I really think this is a gross misrepresentation of Jesus as he is described in the Bible. Kirby seems to have bought into the highly sanitized picture of Jesus that is promoted by liberal western Christians. This picture ignores the many scriptures in which Jesus himself judges and looks down on people simply for not accepting his teachings. As Bertrand Russell put it in Why I Am Not A Christian, “one does find repeatedly [in the gospel descriptions of Jesus] a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching.” Russell also notes that one of Jesus’s central teachings is the doctrine of Hell and everlasting punishment for sin, which hardly seems consistent with an attitude of nonjudgmentalism. And the greatest command of all, according to Jesus, is to love God. Which presumably means that the greatest sin is to fail to love God. So much for we atheists.
Well, Jesus is a grossly inconsistent character drawn in the New Testament who said many things that are, I think, are wicked, Hell being first among them. Nonetheless, these wicked sayings did not include being stingy to the poor and so on. If you are someone who believes it all, it is difficult to see how you can read Jesus dire warnings to take care of the poor, widows and orphans, to give to anyone who asks, to lend without expecting anything in return, to even give to thieves more than they want to take from you, how hard it is for a rich man to get into Heaven, and so on, and still come up with the kind of right-wing positions that are common in the U.S. I can see an atheist being a free market libertarian, they just have to convince themselves that it’s the best for everyone in the here and now, or even that they don’t care about the unfortunate. But the essence of Jesus teaching is not to store up treasures in the here and now and puts a heavy emphasis on not being selfish. The Jesus character was really flawed, as are all characters, but it is as bizarre to have right-wing Jesus followers.
While nominally, it’s obvious that this right-wing thing we have IS Christianity in the U.S., from my perspective as a former believer, I feel a deep revulsion for how people claiming to be Christians spit in the face of the teachings that I studied as a child. It is fair, I think, to call them hypocrites.
Well, Jesus is a grossly inconsistent character drawn in the New Testament who said many things that are, I think, are wicked, Hell being first among them. Nonetheless, these wicked sayings did not include being stingy to the poor and so on.
The point is that cherry-picking the teachings about helping the poor and ignoring the wicked stuff is a gross misrepresentation of Jesus as he is presented in the Bible. This is a complaint Dawkins and Harris have made about liberal western Christianity over and over again. And it’s not just the Bible itself that liberal Christians are distorting, but Christian teaching and tradition more broadly. It’s important to remember, for example, that for the first 1,800 years or so of its 2,000-year history, Christianity was pretty comfortable with the institution of slavery.
I think Paula’s point is that today’s Christians do in fact hold this sanitized view of Jesus (whether it is the correct Biblical view or not), and yet many of these same Christians still hold all these other political beliefs that contradict their own views about Jesus. She is only arguing that these Christians are hypocrites, not that they are particularly good Bible scholars.
She might have expressed that less ambiguously, then. 😉
/@
Agreed!
But Kirby’s criticism is directed almost entirely at the supposed hypocrisy of *conservative* Christians who, she says, ignore Jesus’s teachings about helping the poor, etc. She essentially ignores the hypocrisy of liberal Christians who ignore all the fire-and-brimstone stuff in Jesus’s teachings, and the intolerance Jesus displays towards people who do not accept his teachings.
I wouldn’t call it hypocrisy so much as cognitive dissonance.
I think you got it better than most.
🙂
Ghost.
I thought I was replying to Gary.
So much for technology.
I point you (again, I think) to the words of my friend Simon Cozens on the subject. He’s a Christian missionary in Japan, and is utterly baffled at how Americans get the version of Christianity they do. Christianity versus American Christianity; American Christianity redux; Hauerwas on American Christianity. He goes so far as to say “this stuff just isn’t actually Christianity”, though I (an atheist) would regard the label as sufficiently fuzzy to encompass American evangelism and even the Mormons over to one side; YMMV.
YHVH, surely? 😀
/@
“He goes so far as to say “this stuff just isn’t actually Christianity”, though I (an atheist) would regard the label as sufficiently fuzzy to encompass American evangelism and even the Mormons over to one side.”
I’m always suspicious of the “No True Christian” manouevre, whether it comes from fundamentalists or liberal believers, and not just because it’s usually little more than a piece of defensive distancing rhetoric. It’s also problematic because it seems to imply an essentialist view of the taxonomy of religions which isn’t really sustainable when you look at their history. Christianity has schismed so many times over the past 2,000 years that it makes more sense to speak of Christianity as a family of similar religions related by common descent – a monophyletic clade, if you like (complicated admittedly by episodes of horizontal meme transfer). Religions aren’t monolithic collections of fixed dogmas (even if many believers would like to pretend that they are) – they are historical entities that change, split and diverge over time, and any useful system for classifying them has to acknowledge that.
So your pal Simon seems to me to be half right – his more benign, progressive form of Christianity and what he dubs “American Christianity” are not the same species of Christianity – they’ve diverged far enough that one suspects that any attempt at cross-breeding would not result in viable doctrinal offspring. But they’re still both Christian, as they share a common ancestor within the Christian clade.
Christianity has schismed so many times over the past 2,000 years that it makes more sense to speak of Christianity as a family of similar religions related by common descent – a monophyletic clade, if you like (complicated admittedly by episodes of horizontal meme transfer).
I think there actually is a lot of validity to the idea of “American Christianity” being sui generis and not explicable in terms of the cultural phenomenon normally referred to as “Christianity”.
Unlike, say, Lutheranism, it has no clear historical continuity with “normal” Chistianity. It emerged in what had theretofore been a largely secular and irreligious culture during the “Great Awakenings” of the mid-19th century, which seem to have been precipitated in response to the climate of deepening insecurity and fear that prevailed in America over the decades preceeding the American Civil War.
Arguably it’s a new religion claming the provenance of an older one, the way Wicca is basically liberal European humanism with the superficial trappings of long-dead Celtic folk religion. The situtation is more muddled thanks to the continued existence of “normal” Christian sects; I recall back in the 90s the food court of a local shopping mall had, on one side of its central aisle, a bevvy of newly opened Chinese fast food outlets catering to recent immigrants, while the other side retained the mall’s assortment of venerable North American fast food outlets, one of which served “Chinese” food–it was more than a little surreal.
“Unlike, say, Lutheranism, it has no clear historical continuity with “normal” Chistianity.”
Hmm. I’m not so sure. “American Christianity” is a multi-denominational affair, but tracing the roots of the various elements from English Puritanism and other nonconformist sects such as the Adventists isn’t that difficult. Even Mormonism, with its roots in the charismatic and restoration movements, has enough historical continuity to count as a derived form of Christianity. Also, the Great Awakenings (of which there seem to have been three during the 18th-19th centuries) were noteworthy for the heavy involvement of “normal” Christian sects – Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians etc. So even if “American Christianity” is traceable to the Great Awakenings, that still (on the face of it) tends to place it within the Christian clade, rather than outside it.
And I’m not sure that the analogy with Wicca holds up, since Wicca is a recently invented religion modelled on a largely mythic Celtic past, with a substantial historical gap between the old religion and the modern invention. There’s no such gap between “normal” and “American” Christianity.
(I may have already put this on another thread)
The other day on Facebook was a story about a Muslim woman who had had acid thrown in her face by a jilted man. It was a mess and she was blinded in one eye. A court had given her the right to have acid put in the eye of the man. People were discussing whether she should, and I was appalled at the number who said yes, some quoting “An eye for an eye.” I said I hoped none of those were Christian, quoting Matt 5:38, and I was roundly told to butt out because this was nothing to do with religion.
(She relented.)
I’m happy she relented. I just wonder if HE learned anything about charity.
I think there is a risk in over confidence from pointing out the hypocrisy between the religion and their politics among self-styled “conservative” Christians.
Most of us not already in that category agree, so in that sense it’s preaching to the choir. I doubt those in that category are going to put much credence to non-believers telling them where their actions conflict with their religion.
Those who have already demonstrated a willingness to rely on irrational belief systems are not likely to be swayed by outsiders’ rational arguments, especially if they come in the form of a lecture.
A better tactic, I think, is to take the Socratic approach: enter into discussion with them, ask (not in an accusatory, rhetorical way) how their political and social positions square with the teachings of Jesus. You might cause someone, through introspection, to re-examine some of their views; and (probably more likely than the former) you might gain some insight into their personal justifications and thought processes.
Of course, if you’re not interested in any of that, then that raises the question why the subject of a group’s apparent widespread hypocrisy is of interest at all.
“I can think of no other industrially and commercially advanced country – much less an avowedly Christian one – in which it is apparently so acceptable to demonize those who do not share your beliefs, for example, or your sexual orientation.”
There are certainly Fundamentalists in Britain and Australia holding similar beliefs, although they may not make up the same proportion of the population because of competition from the dominant Anglican church. Ironically the US Constitution, by insisting that all religions are treated equally, has probably done more to promote Fundamentalism than any other regulatory or political initiative. (Not a criticism — just an observation). I suspect the US voting system, with Senators in particular coming from small-population states, also helps these people to get public recognition and media exposure.
But there are certainly nutjob fundamentalists in Australia too — Google ‘Adelaide Street Church’, for instance.
corio37 wrote:
I’ve seen this claim before but I don’t follow the logic of it. Do you mean that without the clause that the government shall make no law prohibiting free exercise of religion, there would be laws against fundamental Christian religions? Or that other types would be favored over the fundamentalists? It seems to me that as long as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly were still in the Constitution, there would be no difference. I just don’t see how adding the religion clause has promoted fundamentalism.
I share tomh’s bewilderment. This claim has been around for as long as I can remember, and I don’t recall ever seeing it accompanied by reasons that justify it. I hope someone will reply with an explanation.
The basis for this claim (on the rare occasions when there is any elaboration) usually is that the Free Exercise clause and the Establishment Clause (no state-supported churches, no government crackdowns on any particular sects) work in combination to allow the founding of many, many splinter sects. The heretics or apostates within Denomination A can go off and found their own new Denomination B, and there is little (other than temporary and local shortages of gullibility) that can stop them.
In the U.S.A., there are large numbers of Christian denominations / cults / small churches that originally split off from larger groups. Just last month, Ron Weinland, the “end-times prophet” in charge of one splinter group (an offshoot from what used to be Herbert Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God) was convicted in Kentucky of criminal tax evasion; he did not even have a church building or meeting place at one fixed location . . . akin to the floating crap game.
Any one of these tiny churches can easily claim 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status without filing any formal application with the IRS and without filing annual Form 990 returns, and it would have to be engaging in really egregious abuses in order to lose that tax-exempt status.
Jeff, thanks for the information. It made me rethink my question. I know that there is doctrinal fundamentalism in Islam, Hinduism, and Judaism as well as Christianity. (it may well be present in other religions, too, but I don’t have knowledge that allows me to speak to that) The nations that have fundamentalist religious populations include Israel, Turkey, and India, all of which have secular constitutions, and theocratic Islamist states.
So while your answer explains how easy it is for a fundamentalist in America to get recognition (and tax benefits) to establish a church, I am not satisfied yet as to how the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution is linked to the origin or psychology of fundamentalist religion.
I am more inclined to suspect that the fundamentalist beliefs and practices, that were very prevalent among religious sects of early Christian colonists, were overcome by Enlightenment values that prevailed among just enough Founders during that rare window of opportunity for secularism in the latter portion of the 18th century when the Constitution was written.
Of course, though, that fundamentalist commitment never disappeared. A portion of the population always clings to fundamentalist thinking, whether it is religious or political or economic. During times of extremity their message gains (usually temporary) adherents, who swiftly drift away when the stress source of the extremity is relieved. This is the U.S. historical pattern, at any rate.
All of this makes me inclined to think that there is no relationship between the 1st Amendment and fundamentalist religious ideology.
I guess I agree that our First Amendment itself does not promote the development and and the survival of “fundamentalist” sects that emphasize the primacy and inerrancy of scripture, as distinguished from other sorts of religious sects. I don’t know whether there are more fundamentalist sects or denominations now compared to 75, 125, or 175 years ago, or if it just seems that way in this electronic, digitized, mass-media age. Maybe the periodic renewals and the staying power of fundamentalist, evangelical, or millenarian religious movements is due to something else –a powerful undercurrent of anti-intellectualism, a suspicion of book-larnin’? — in American culture.
I would never discourage anyone from publishing anything about which they feel strongly and sincerely, especially if they have done the hard work and know thei material. I agree with PZ on this particular point though: it’s a fool’s errand to go around pointing out to godbotherers that they don’t follow what their messiah really said, or are misinterpreting their book. Who cares! There are many, many believers who find a progressive if not downright socialist calling in scripture. That might make them better company for me, but I have no business saying who’s a better Xtian. My preference would be for us all to come to compassion and caring without the fairy tales and nonsense in the first place!
At a certain level, this is akin to pointing out that biblical End Times prophesies specifically say no human can calculate the date. That’s not the reason the world wasn’t to end a year ago May, any more than the contradictions in Mayan calendars change the estimation of the end. It’s all fiction and cannot be relied on in the least. Those who put their trust in these fictions start out wrong, so what difference does it make if they are misinterpreting this line or that?
On the one hand, I absolutely agree with you. You’ll notice that my responses in this thread have pretty much entirely been about how the Jesus of the Gospels is nothing whatsoever like the Jesus that Paula describes in her op-ed piece.
On the other hand…though I would never pen anything even close to what Paul just did, I can appreciate that there is a good deal of rhetorical and tactical advantage to be had from her piece.
And, so, while I will have my say in an effort to convince Paula and those like her that the Bible does not tell you that Jesus loves you, no matter what you “know,” I will also thank Paula for writing things like this and in no way suggest she should stop.
(Of course, if she comes ’round to my way of thinking, then continuing would be to promote something contrary to her own beliefs, which I would hope she’d never do regardless.)
That is, she may be mumbling the lyrics, but she’s fitting perfectly in the harmony, and who am I to ask her to stop singing with me?
Cheers,
b&
Damn, my thoughts exactly for many months now. Thank you Paula.
Paula’s piece is a nice addition to the corpus of works in the “Why Evangelicals Hate Jesus” subgenre. In fact, there is an essay with that title by Phil Zuckerman at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/why-evangelicals-hate-jes_b_830237.html
A book-length work is “Grand Theft Jesus” by Robert McElvaine. Both Zuckerman and McElvaine make an argument similar to that of Paula, that evangelicals don’t do what Jesus would have done, and present the nigh-unto-standard liberal western picture of Jesus. Furthermore, McElvaine’s work, though a marvelous demolition of fundamentalism, is vitiated by the fact that it is an extended No True Scotsman fallacy.
However, for annoying fundamentalists, these works have their value.
Zuckerman’s piece is also a No True Scotsman fallacy. His claim that support for militarism, guns and the death penalty, and opposition to welfare and food stamps, is not “Christian” is laughable. Historically, Christianity has been perfectly comfortable with militarism, guns and the death penalty. It has been perfectly comfortable with much higher levels of socioeconomic inequality than exist in modern wealthy democracies. It has been perfectly comfortable with slavery and the subjugation of women, religious minorities and sexual minorities. These are not liberal positions. Even today, most Christians live in the developing world, and adhere to a much more conservative, traditionalist form of the religion than the one Zuckerman is promoting as authentic or true.
As the fundies put it:
Who would Jesus rape, torture, mutilate, and kill?
The gods are just sockpuppets made in their creator’s image. The ugly fundie Jesus is a sockpuppet for ugly fundies.
Well in that case, and although Gentle Jesus is, not so much a myth as a quote-mined subset of the total biblical Jesus, isn’t it a good idea to appeal to the fundies’ better nature?
If they can be persuaded that’s What Jesus Would Do they might behave better towards the rest of the world.
(In that respect – and from a British cultural perspective – I have to wonder if Richard Dawkins’ emphasis in his books on the savagery of God is altogether a good thing – if Christians think God wants them to be nice, should we disillusion them? I have no idea whether that’s remotely relevant to American fundies though).
There are four different gospels written by four different people with four different Jesuses in them. Mark’s Jesus was quite Jewish, Mathew and Luke’s Jesus was antisemitic and John’s Jesus was completely mad. Each writer had a his own agenda, which is why he felt the need to write a gospel in the first place. It’s really necessary when discussing Jesus to specify which one. There is no single Jesus with anything consistent to say on any subject and then when you add the multiple authors of the Torah to the mix you’ve no hope of getting any sense about anything. As Matt Dillahunty says, “The bible is the big book of multiple choice”. It says whatever you want it to say.
which is why the 21st century u.s. army’s jesus is a flag waving, stone cold, kick ass cage fighter…bigger than allah!
Read this blog to see how the Gospels really describe that jerk: http://buy-bull.posterous.com
This question is not as complicated as it seems to be. For the answer I start from East Europe.
I was always puzzled by the fact that East European and especially Balkan Christians are often radical nationalist, even chauvinistic (on Church level, not only some persons). How can they attune this with the apparent cosmopolitan view of the New Testament or the Church founder St. Paul? I think I found the answer and the root is exactly the same as the the root of the strange American Christian Ideology.
When Christianity was born, de original target of the founders where the Jews (not surprisingly, the founders where mostly Judaic Jews, included Jesus), so in the effort to win them over, they kept the whole Old Testament, even more, they reinforced it by made up cross-references. Now the Old Testament is an integrated part of the Christian Bible, just as much the word of God as the New Testament.
However in the Old Testament we have a combination of a merciless (and nationalist) war god and an establishment supporting god king. That was needed by the time those stories were made. (If you want to sack Jericho and kill them all, it is very convenient to have a god who commands exactly that…)
Now, the Balkan Nationalist Christians are actually Judaic, with the small change that they exchanged Jews with their own nation and made God their own war-god. The New Testament has no more weight for them than is weight in the number of pages in the Bible.
As well the American Christians are also Judaic, the Old Testament is more important for them than the new one, though there are some serious difference between them of course.
This pretty much means what the title of this post suggest, they are not “Christian”, they went back to an older tradition.
The problem with liberals or conservatives trying to impute their political views to the New Testament is that Christianity is quite explicitly an apolitical religion.
When Jesus is asked his views on taxation, Jesus says to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. St. Paul’s letter to the Romans in chapter 13 contains a blunt statement that Christians are to treat the state’s officers as agents of God. This all makes sense in historical context: early Christianity was a small messianic Jewish cult that would have invited even more persecution on itself if it started presuming to tell the Roman authorities how they should govern.
All this is to say that Christianity has little to do with public policy one way or the other. In fact, there is a good argument that the early Christians all thought the world was going to end soon so all those statements about turning the other cheek, giving all your wealth to the poor, rendering unto Caesar, etc. make even more sense in that context. If the world is going to end soon, why bother with earthly justice, economics and politics?
I think we should really render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s ….
In the time of Christ, that was less than 10%.
Not the 55+% of today’s irrational waste and abuse.
Think about it, the Romans built roads, navies, armies, and they had
welfare and free food ….
Maybe we could waste less, and we would all be better off?
😉
So you advocate reintroducing slavery then?
Because that to me seems one main reason the Roman’s could keep their expenses low.
That, and plundering foreign countries. And having no health care system whatsoever.
Yeah sure sounds like civilisation as we’d like it.
Wow,
You made a HUGE leap.
Actually, they had a health care system.
AND IT KILLED FEWER PEOPLE THAN OUR OVER PRICED ONE.
Iatrogenesis is the leading cause of death ….
And like they say, dead is dead.
See my comment above; St. Paul does not say that Emperor Nero is ordained of God only as long as he keeps the top marginal tax rate below 35%. Of course, he also doesn’t say taxes should be raised to benefit the poor — he is apolitical and that is exactly the point.
If American tax rates are more tyrannical to you than the rule of Emperor Nero, I suppose you can fight this tyranny by, oh, I don’t know, voting to change things.
Mark,
It sounds like you are advocating terrorism.
Interesting.
You really do miss the theme and purpose of the GNT.
Ghost.
Wow, reading through the comments section of Paula’s article, the mental acrobatics by some commenters… just, wow.
“Jesus said, give to the poor, but voluntarily, not because of some socialist government telling you to”
“Render to Caesar that which is Caesar’s but not if you object on personal grounds”
“Turn the other cheek but not when the government comes with guns to they take your taxes”
Creepy stuff to the point of being actually scary.
I don’t think “give to the poor” means the same thing as “support government social welfare programs.” If you’re going to take the position that it does, why should this be confined to the national level? Why aren’t liberal Christians advocating a massive and permanent global redistribution wealth from rich nations to poor ones? I’m not talking about a simple increase in foreign aid, but radical restructuring of the global economy to wipe out poverty and make incomes and wealth much more equal across the world. Only the very far left supports anything like this. It is certainly not the position of mainstream American liberal Christians.
I commented on Paula’s article as a reply to “Fire Obama” that the christian god was the number one abortion provider of all time and that the christian god must have a particular fondness for the procedure. Apparently my comment was removed.
My intention with this comment is simply to provide a data point and of course to voice my objection to the removal of the comment.
I’ve submitted the following to The Washington Post’s “contact us” Help Center:
Last night, I replied to a comment under the article “How would Jesus vote?” authored by Paula Kirby. My comment was in reply to commenter “Fire Obama” and was submitted under my handle, Notagod.
This is the comment I replied to:
“Wow, what a pathetic attempt this article was to portray Obama as the more Christian aligned candidate in this race. Way to cover all the topics Paula Kirby! Do you think Jesus would approve of Obama’s pro-abortion agenda? You know, abortion, the act of ripping the limbs from the defenseless unborn children that Jesus created? What about Barack’s advocacy of gay marriage? Take a look at the human anatomy. It’s pretty obvious what God intended when he created man and woman. I’m pretty sure Jesus would side with his Father. Get a grip.”
I am an atheist and find the comment objectionable in several ways, however, my reply was directed only to “Fire Obama’s” assertion regarding abortion with reference to what some christians might think that their god’s position on abortion would be if It could respond to an inquiry. My comment stated that the christian god was the all time number one abortion provider and that It must have a fondness for the procedure. If there were a christian god and if it were able to exert influence on biological processes then the comment I submitted is not out of line with observable facts.
I have read The Washington Post’s comment policy under “Discussion and Submission Guidelines” and find the removal of my comment while retaining “Fire Obama’s” comment to be discriminatory, against my position as an atheist and against the verifiable known facts of biology.
Would you mind reconsidering the removal of my comment? If not, why not?
The bible is one giant Rorschah ink blot. You can find anything in it you want.
US xians, especially the leaders, frequently just make stuff up, say it is in the bible, and hope no one checks. Rarely does anyone check, the vast majority of xians have no idea what their magic book really says and could care less.
The three major sacraments of US fundie xians are hate, lies, and hypocrisy.
It doesn’t matter what the bible says, they will lie about it and ignore anything they feel like ignoring.
A lot of US religion today is simply a cover for right wing extremist politics.
On a personal basis, a lot of religion is simply a cover for mental illness.
“US xians, especially the leaders, frequently just make stuff up, say it is in the bible, and hope no one checks.”
believers don’t have a monopoly on that practice.
Believers think believing in jebus makes them morally superior. The practice of governance in the United States supports that belief, however, the evidence doesn’t support that contention. The evidence even suggests that in practice christians are morally inferior to those that don’t make believe they have gods.
One of the problems is that society in the United States is using resources to support an illegitimate project when giving preference to christian mythology. No one is suggesting that christians have a monopoly on immoral behavior, the point is, that christians are put on a pedestal without justification.
An example of a fundie xian leader lying. Genesis says nothing remotely like this.
According to major prophet Ezekial, the Sin of Sodom was the rich living an upper class lifestyle and letting the poor suffer.
This is a proof that the xian god doesn’t exist. If he did, Aaron Fruh and the Tea Partiers would have long ago been hit by lightening bolts and vaporized. The Sin of Sodom is their official policy.
Paula says, “….is hard to reconcile with the Jesus of the Gospels, whose anger was almost exclusively reserved for those who dared to judge and look down on others; the Jesus who, himself, chose always to align himself with those so judged.”
Paula is wrong here. Jesus quite often demonstrated not only anger, but contempt for those who didn’t want to hear his messages or those of his disciples. He condemned whole towns of people to the fate of Sodom and Gemorrah or to the fires of everlasting torture for rejecting him. This character (he IS a mythology) believed in and espoused the concept of hell, which to me puts the whole basis of Christianity in the immoral zone… unless you do like the liberal Christians do, and cherry pick his sayings. That is just as hypocritical as the fundamentalists’ political views.
Paula wasted her time. Liberal Christians have been making the same arguments about the hypocrisy of the religious right and they could give a fig (tree). (Joke).
All xians are cafeteria xians. Given the atrocities, obsolete morality, evil, and contradictions, they have to be.
To take one example, almost all creationists reject the biblical Flat Earth, most reject Geocentrism, and they all accept…creationism.
I don’t think you can put moderate xians in the same boat with fundies. Sure, they cherry picked the benign parts of the bible. It is still better than the fundies who cherry picked all the malevolent and evil parts.
Of course I certainly prefer the company of liberal Christians, but that doesn’t change the fact that they point fingers at the right for having the wrong theological interpretations of the bible while they themselves are ignoring the bad parts.
Reblogged this on thewordpressghost and commented:
Everyone,
I find this fascinating. I used to think University was about teaching how to learn. You know, that ‘critical thinking’ stuff. Then I went to University. I had to learn propaganda to pass several classes ….
And then I read this blog post about an out of context argument by atheists who do not believe in Jesus, using Jesus to try to coerce others into voting their way.
This is truly fascinating! Modern man has devolved to the point, we struggle interpreting basic and historic texts.
How is it that misinterpreting what someone believes considered ‘intelligent,’ or ‘academic?’
I would have thought our academia had moved past the propaganda I was forced to learn when I was in University.
I was definitely proven wrong.
I truly marveled at the comments about how to interpret a text that the writers did NOT believe in. A text they would have called invalid.
Except during the election cycle, they know their ‘rock star’ is losing.
How much greed is enough?
And why would anyone want to die from ‘medicine?’
Ghost.
You are confusing “believing” with “reading with comprehension”.
They are totally separate issues.
We can read and understand fiction and we do so all the time. Shakespeare, Harry Potter, and millions of other books.
Understanding stories is trivial and we all do it every day. This fact is the basis of much of television, comics, movies, and religions.
You rate yourself highly. I like that.
Comprehension?
You say that you understand stories.
Then tell me how humor works in a joke? Without a google search, that is.
Ghost.
This has nothing to do with:
1. What you said.
2. What I pointed out.
Playing wack-a-mole here, changing the subject when people call it as nonsense.
Back to the main point. You don’t have to “believe” anything to “understand” something. I understood Star Trek, Star Wars, and a Canticle for Liebowitz quite easily and that they are all…ficition.
Huh??? What!!! Not really. Most literate adults can read for comprehension. It’s just about necessary to function in our civilization. You better understand what your mortgage documents and car insurance policies say and understand how to fill out your tax returns.
Wow.
You cannot understand something as important as humor. Yet, you claim you understand mortgage documents?
Did you intend to ironically contradict literacy?
You must be getting very upset to have forgetted your holey ghost.
Holey
And one more point… Jesus said he came only for the Jews. That’s why he reacted to the gentile woman who asked him for help with her daughter’s illness. He finally relented when she humbly likened herself to a dog at the master’s table. He was not a fan of the Gentiles (pagans etc.) and his nice sayings and teachings were not meant for them. He wasn’t into the love everybody on earth mode. But then, you have to really READ these gospels to see that.
I’ve always liked the part in the Babble where the rich man asks Jesus how he can get into Heaven and Jesus replies, “Sell all that you have, give to the poor, and follow me.” Of course, if you brought this up to a wealthy person today, they would waffle and say, “I’m really not that wealthy; that guy, over there, now HE’S wealthy”, not accepting the fact that most of whom we consider “poor” in our society have wealth far beyond any imagined by the poor of Jesus’ time.
Another good one, guaranteed to make any Christian squirm, it the “Turn the other cheek” passage: the early church fathers were quick to come up with convoluted explanations as to why it was, indeed, sometimes acceptable to slaughter one’s enemies in the name of God. 9/11 put the final nail in the coffin of this “outdated” proscription.
Here is another sorry tale of how “Christians” are whatever is most opportune at the moment. The church in Russia was “supportive” of opposition to the government when that was in it’s best interest, but once the government became supportive of the church they cozied up real tight and fast, becoming the largest landowner in Russia. My friend Pat, an ex-nun, once told me Catholics worship Real Estate. I guess whatever the differences between Roman Catholics and Russian Orthodox Catholics, Real Estate remains the most important god.
This story shows how the Church openly advocates the abolition of a secular government, and tries to dictate terms to the existing one. When punk band Pussy Riot went into the main cathedral in Moscow a few months back to pray to the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin, all Hell broke loose – and the Church is out for blood, demanding harsh sentences from the court for the three women who were arrested, while at the same time claiming God is judging Pussy Riot. He is apparently bored with Chris Tebo or anything else going on on Earth right now, so he is keeping an eye on this trial, and, whatever the court says, He will be the actual judge. This according to one of his worldly spokesmen, and not God His Own Self, of course, rendering the “god will be the judge” pronouncement hearsay.
[Putin, meanwhile, advocates against “too harsh a sentence”]. The Pussy Riot trial is in it’s second day in Moscow, with the prosecution asking for three to five years in jail for the three young women on the charge of “hooliganism.”
Really, you couldn’t make this up! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/31/god-is-judging-pussy-riot