Christianity is a goddamned religion; deal with it

The BBQ Pit
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johnny fishface, the Moderators around here are unpaid volunteers. Usually, they were active and enthusiastic posters before becoming Moderators–in fact, I think it’s more or less a requirement. As such, they routinely engage in debates (or flirt, or flame, or offer up their humble opinions, or answer your factual questions, depending on what forum you’re in). If they wish to assert their Moderatorial Authority, they will often use some rhetorical device like this:

In this case, Czarcasm is just being a poster, not a god-like Moderator with the power of life and death over the affairs of nations. A little attention to these nuances will make your stay here more rewarding.

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MEBuckner has a point. If I post as a Moderator, I’ll let y’all know in no uncertain terms. Besides, it could have been worse.

I could have flirted with you instead, ya big galoot. :slight_smile:

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Two problems with this argument:

  1. It is a universal argument, meaning that if it’s true, it’s true for the Christian god, the Roman gods, the Buddah, etc. Since it can’t be true for all of these, it is far too vague to be convincing for any one of them.

  2. It works only if one accepts that assumption B is possible, but since the conclusion is assumption B, the argument is circular.

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I’m going to keep the quoting to a minimum for space’s sake. Sorry. My responses are chronological from my previous marathon response.

Gaudere, good points as always (it’s almost sickening how you always have something insightful and germane to say.) I’m going with definition 1, religion dealing with gods and the supernatural and whatnot, not the cutesy-poo definition 2, which could apply to anything.

Protesilaus, you said “Next time you hear somebody say this, you should ask them, “Oh, you mean you’re in a cult then?” After all, if they’re fundamentalists, they’re not far off.” I like this idea!

Number Six, no, I don’t think that Christianity is a monolithic organization. But, with very few exceptions, there are some core tenants that just about everyone agrees with. Things like the divinity of Jesus, the existence of Heaven, the loving Father, etc. Oddly enough, the people I most often heard spouting the nonsense mentioned in the OP were die-hard church goers. However, their churches often made the point that you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. You’d think that’d be self-defeating…

Revedge, you’re different from those mentioned in the OP. Those in the OP definitely believe in Jesus, tend to take the Bible as more than metaphor, etc. I wouldn’t object too strongly to you calling yourself a non-religious Christian, but I would wonder why you don’t just call yourself a moral person and be done with it.

Grimpixie, well said, but I’m still confused about why there is such a strong dislike of the term “religious” by Personal Jesus Protestants. Its disdain has always struck me as very vehement, and I just don’t get it.

Munch, I currently live in the State of Ohio. I also live in the United States of America. Similarly, Joe Blow is a Southern Baptist. He is also a Christian. I still maintain that Christianity is ONE religion, with different “states,” if you follow the analogy. The differences between a Methodist and a Presbyterian are far less severe than the differences between a Methodist and a Theravadan Buddhist. As far as having the same Bible, I mean half of them had the EXACT same Bible, the Believer’s Study Bible or something like that. I’m not talking about NKJV vs. NRSV vs. NIV. I’m talking where it got to the point that page numbers would be given right alongside chapter and verse. That’s the result of… yup, organized religion.

Searching For Truth, I assume I’m the “#1” you mentioned. Sorry for the gender mixup (if it is any consolation, sometimes people think I’m female shrug). Ok, if “religion” makes you think of being “overly devout,” which is apparently a bad thing, then I could understand wanting to distance myself from the word “religion.”

Cheers,
Quix

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<assuming the post is to me…>

I didn’t say that faithful/religious people are selfish, or non-reasoning, and I didn’t make any comment about my holiness, or anyone else’s. I just said that Pascal’s Wager seems to me to be a selfish reason to believe in G-d.

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Well, I would say that Agnosticism (sp?) is more accurately the abscense of any religion. I understand that true agnosticism as defined by Huxley (Listen to all things, keep that which is good, never claim to know things that you can’t be sure of) can include involvement in religion, but the third one is the most important.

It is dogmatic to declare that you are 100% sure that there is no god or higher power. You think that, you may see the evidence as supporting that, but you don’t KNOW that.

I am a new ager/ agnostic myself, and I do attend some Christian gatherings, among others. I do not accept most of what any religion says as truth, but I try and keep the good things as part of my life. Christian ideas of community stay, Christian mysogyny goes.

Conclusion: Atheism is dogmatic, if not necessarily a religion. Maybe it’s the dogmatic exclusion of all religions.

Lucky Charms

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Except, all atheism says is “No divine being or beings exist.” I guess you could take that statement as “dogma”, but only so much as any statement of belief is dogma…on the same token “Ice cream tastes good.” could be seen as dogmatic, if you want to take that loose a definition.

It’s certainly possible to be an atheist and accept a lot of what a religion says. An atheist, for example, could, as you do in the example above, accept Christian ideas of community (or Christian ideas of mysogyny, for that matter) You could, hypothetically, agree with everything a particular religion believes, except that G-d exists, and you’d still be an atheist.

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Or even, “There’s no evidence that a divine being or beings exist, so there’s no reason for people to have a belief in them.”

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capacitor, what did you mean by your statement? Was it directed to me, or the Captain?

I don’t understand what you’re saying. Please clarify? All I know is that I’m no better than you are if I’m saved and you’re not. We’re both human, which in itself is a blessing intermingled with a curse.

Quix, thanks. This thread has made me think-sometimes the boards lack that.

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Pascals wager always seemed rather unimportant to me. Now you would think that most people after they die would believe in god. Supposing that it doesen’t matter wether or not you believe in god in life or death so long as you believe then it would only matter if you resolutely deny believe in god after you are dead.

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I was talking about your and Captain Amazing’s take on Pascal’s wager, that the fear of eternal damnation as a motivation to believe in God is a selfish one. I responded as such because I believe that you implied that atheists, who has no ‘selfish motivation’ to believe in any god, or any motivation whatsoever, are therfore better than those who have a ‘selfish’ mtiation to believe in God, based on Pascal’s wager. Eternal damnation is not only just punishment from up high; it can also come from a soul wracked with guilt because the body committed great sins that have not been forgiven.

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We say it. Christianity is a religion in that it’s a faith - it’s one of the world’s beliefs, etc…

But it’s possible to be a non-religious Christian if you associate the word “religion” with LEGALISM. The idea is that if you are religious, you’re following the LETTER of the Law, rather than its SPIRIT. It’s a nuance which has been drawn in largely Christian circles, but that’s the line that’s being drawn, and it’s now a new meaning of “religion”.

I didn’t read the whole thread. Sorry. I’m really sorry. But this stuff makes me sad.

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I think the other part of this that we seem to be missing is that by accepting the Christian faith, we believe in God and Jesus, and we believe that we are right in that.

We do not believe that religions other than Christianity are correct.

Saying that religion does not save, that Jesus does, is an acknowledgment of the idea that Christianity is the one right faith. It is not saying necessarily that “religion” is a bad thing, it is simply saying that the Christian faith, faith in God and Jesus, is the only way to be saved.

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soapbox does not speak for all Christians, despite the awfully broad “we” that is included in his post.

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soapbox does not speak for all Christians, despite the awfully broad “we” that is included in his post.

I have to say, though, this is quite an assertive way to make a debut.

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Actually, none of these religions believe that the word of God is contained in the Talmud. And Christians and Muslims don’t use it at all.

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Tell me you’re joking? I mean, I’ve heard of selective editing before, but come ON… here, I’ll put the original sentence in LIST form, to help you out.
[list=1]
[li]BELIEVING THAT JESUS SAVES IS A RELIGION!!![/li][li]Believing that you must submit to Allah is a religion.[/li][li]Believing that God’s word is contained in the Torah and the Talmud is a religion.[/li][/list=1]
We call these religions, respectively,
[list=1]
[li]Christianity,[/li][li]Islam,[/li][li]and Judaism.[/li][/list=1]
Capisce?

Others, I’ll respond later. I can’t think cogently, which is hopefully the reasons for Kyla’s post.

Quix

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quixotic78, that was offensively ignorant, and I am of the suspicion that you don’t even know what the Talmud is. Here’s a clue: the Talmud is a collection of rabbinical debates over how Jewish law should be practiced in real life. It’s seperated into two sections, the Mishnah and the Gemarah. It’s written in Aramaic, and was redacted Rashi. It is relevant only to Jews or those interested in Jewish law, and moreover, is not considered to be the word of God. It’s the word of humans discussing God’s law. Christians and Muslims do not defer to the Talmud, and most of them probably aren’t even aware of its existence. I was nitpicking a minor point in the OP (I think perhaps he meant the Tanakh, what Christians call the Old Testament), and can’t believe you so rudely attacked me when you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about.

Capisce?

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quixotic, I see now that you are the OP, so apologies for the strange third-person reference in my post.

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Well, the Talmud is part of the Oral Torah, though, that G-d gave to Moses on Sinai.