# Have a hard time respecting the moderately religious **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2014, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053 "2014-07-14T05:29:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 21
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/403 "2014-07-31T17:23:28Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Sure. But it doesn’t make it any less of a coincidence. The Book of Genesis doesn’t mention anything about “The stooped became straight.” You might as well try to argue that Esau, the hairy man, was an Australopithecus, but Jacob, the man without obvious body hair, was Cro Magnon. Hush! Some preacher in Alabama will hear you! ---
**Author:** ![sisu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@sisu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sisu)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/404 "2014-08-01T01:09:18Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There are countless issues people can disagree on, but at SDMB posters rightfully get frustrated when posters discount basic facts. In religion, a “fact” is a clear as day passage, such as Jesus saying that divorce is a sin. There is no ambiguity, he says it, then further says that a man who divorces a woman makes her an adulterer. So when a person who is Christian tries to argue that divorce is not a sin, then they are denying what passes for a hard fact. Christians can of course disagree on whether the dietary laws apply to Christians, and they do. Jesus’ pronouncements about the Law are clear as mud. On divorce, not so much. We now are touching on something, we liberal christians \*and other liberal religists) don’t normally say something has to be black and white or right and wrong, we see and possibly it is a fault that the world of morals and laws are shades of grey. It say thou shall not kill and we all say “yeah that’s pretty cool” but if someone is going to harm my child I would be prepare to kill them, so lets not get all black and white but acknowledge we are non perfect humans who enjoy the greay. > [@adaher](#): > > That’s the way secular society thinks. So I’m wondering what the difference is between a moderate Christian and an agnostic aside from belief in God. How does belief in God make you behave differently from anyone else? It doesn’t really, there are people on both sides that behave beautifully and those that behave horribly. A belief or non belief does not make one a good person, that is a personal choice based on genetics, upbringing and society. ---
**Author:** ![Gerald\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Gerald\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gerald_II)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/405 "2014-08-01T01:18:37Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > OK, I admit up front I am an atheist and even more accurately an anti-theist… > > I have a hard time respecting the moderately religious. Like, you have enough common sense or intelligence to recognize that the world is not 10,000 years old or that stories of talking snakes and talking donkeys are myths, as well as Noah’s Ark and other stories, but you somehow still think there is only one god, the christian god, and you must believe in him or go to hell. Even harder to understand/respect is the liberal christian, “I believe in Jesus but I think there are many paths (besides Jesus) to heaven”. That is so completely against the bible. Why even bother to be religious if you are just going to make up your own version of the religion? Why not be “spiritual” instead? So you don’t respect moderate religious folks because they’re not fundamentalists. And who are you to say what is completely against the Bible? The Bible itself is inconsistent and full of contradictions most obvious example being the Old and New Testament. It’s up for interpretation which is why there is so many different branches of Christianity. ---
**Author:** ![DingoelGringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@DingoelGringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DingoelGringo)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/406 "2014-08-01T01:47:14Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > So then, your definition of “interpreting the bible” is ignoring the unpleasant parts? My position is it is true or it is not. That is what I was taught in Religious high school. ANd I carried that part with me to adulthood. Since we can easily know that it isn’t all truth one should feel a need to reject it totally. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/407 "2014-08-01T02:31:00Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > For some Christians only. Most main-line denominations don’t take that position. Most main-line denominations not only don’t take that position, they believe in evolution and other things that give Evangelicals and Creationists the screaming meemees. Hell, I was actually taught evolution by a Jesuit priest! Not just at a Jesuit school, but by an ordained Jesuit priest with a degree in biology. I suspect had you asked him about Biblical literalism in terms of creationism vs. evolution, he’d have told you that was just plain stupid, and to shut up and quit being a knucklehead. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/408 "2014-08-01T03:45:18Z")
> [@sisu](#): > > It say thou shall not kill and we all say “yeah that’s pretty cool” but if someone is going to harm my child I would be prepare to kill them, so lets not get all black and white but acknowledge we are non perfect humans who enjoy the greay. Actually, it says “do not murder.” I am not sure why the sixteenth century English translators and their early seventeenth century disciples seized on the word “kill,” but that is not the correct translation. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/409 "2014-08-01T04:17:15Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The thing about atheists who claim they don’t understand moderate religious people - I just know that if some twist of fate made them religious, they’d be utter ISIS-level fanatics. Only fanatics don’t understand moderates. thank you. I can probably be described as a religious moderate although religious belief is not politics and can’t be described in the language of politics accurately. I have identical reactions to fanatic atheists and fanatic Christians: run away fast! Robert163, you know what moderates do that you and fanatic Christians don’t do? They doubt they are perfectly right. They also doubt that _anyone_ is perfectly right. That is a large part of what makes them moderate. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/410 "2014-08-01T04:22:24Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > I guess in the case of Catholics the Pope has the final authority and he decides which passages are literal and which ones aren’t. No. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/411 "2014-08-01T05:02:25Z")
Robert163, what you fail to realize is that man was originally created with an additional cognitive faculty. In addition to knowing what we see is real and understanding that an object we feel actually exists, God endowed us all with the important ability to know and immediately recognize His true word so that we may better serve Him. This cognitive ability was destroyed as a result of original sin. Humans lost this ability and relationship with God as a punishment for original sin. However, by praying and accepting the Lord, the Holy Ghost is able to miraculously repair this ability in individuals who receive Him into their heart. The closer their relationship with God, the greater their ability to immediately recognize the written word of God and distinguish it from that of man. The truly saved who have had their cognitive faculties repaired by the Holy Ghost can read the bible from cover to cover and distinguish the parts that are straight from God, distorted by man, or made-up entirely. You can’t tell the word of God from that of man because you lack the full cognitive function of your mind. As a blind man cannot tell the difference between blue and green, you cannot tell the difference between a man’s word and God’s. Perhaps if you read the bible after some honest prayer, the Holy Ghost can help you see the truth and the light. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/412 "2014-08-01T06:58:32Z")
> [@Bear\_Nenno](#): > > . . . The truly saved who have had their cognitive faculties repaired by the Holy Ghost can read the bible from cover to cover and distinguish the parts that are straight from God, distorted by man, or made-up entirely. . . . Funny how this always ends up in exact agreement with the specific dogmas of the theologian doing the interpretation. Funny how this results in different interpretations of the same texts by different people, whose cognitive faculties are inspired to exactly the same degree by the Holy Ghost. Funny how often the means by which these differences were resolved involved torture, burnings at the stake, or open warfare. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/413 "2014-08-01T09:20:49Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Funny how this always ends up in exact agreement with the specific dogmas of the theologian doing the interpretation. Funny how this results in different interpretations of the same texts by different people, whose cognitive faculties are inspired to exactly the same degree by the Holy Ghost. Funny how often the means by which these differences were resolved involved torture, burnings at the stake, or open warfare. You mean that wasn’t a joke post? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/414 "2014-08-01T16:40:56Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > thank you. > > I can probably be described as a religious moderate although religious belief is not politics and can’t be described in the language of politics accurately. I have identical reactions to fanatic atheists and fanatic Christians: run away fast! > > Robert163, you know what moderates do that you and fanatic Christians don’t do? They doubt they are perfectly right. They also doubt that _anyone_ is perfectly right. That is a large part of what makes them moderate. You get to ask someone what the reasoning is behind their political opinions also. We’d roll our eyes at someone whose set of political opinions consisted of stuff that just sounded right, or were compiled by throwing darts at political platforms. To rephrase the OP, which I can do since I’ve asked the same question many times, understanding that moderates are not literalists, even in the slightest bit, how do they come to the set of beliefs that they do hold? How do they decide to reject some parts of the Bible and accept others? How do they handle logical dependencies in the Bible, especially when they reject an event and accept its consequent. Example: If a moderate Christian believes that the importance of Christ is to absolve believers of inherent sin, and that sin was due to a choice and not built-in by God, when was the choice made? A few hundred years ago the answer was easy - in the Garden. Since the moderate rejects the actual existence of Adam and Eve, where did original sin come from? However from this thread it appears that the act of asking for a description of your reasoning in this area is either an accusation of fundamentalism or an example of mean old fanatical atheists oppressing believers with unreasonable questions. We got one answer - it seems right, which is at least an answer. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/415 "2014-08-01T21:19:31Z")
> [@bldysabba](#): > > You mean that wasn’t a joke post? Poe’s Law strikes again? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/416 "2014-08-01T21:41:24Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Example: If a moderate Christian believes that the importance of Christ is to absolve believers of inherent sin, and that sin was due to a choice and not built-in by God, when was the choice made? A few hundred years ago the answer was easy - in the Garden. Since the moderate rejects the actual existence of Adam and Eve, where did original sin come from? Cavemen turned their backs on God. They were violent, backwards, and worshipped false nature spirits. Just don’t ask whether it was anatomically modern humans or australopithecus, that’s too tricky. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/417 "2014-08-01T21:58:00Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Example: If a moderate Christian believes that the importance of Christ is to absolve believers of inherent sin, and that sin was due to a choice and not built-in by God, when was the choice made? A few hundred years ago the answer was easy - in the Garden. Since the moderate rejects the actual existence of Adam and Eve, where did original sin come from? A: The Adam and Eve story is a parable for humanity’s emerging consciousness and ability to tell right from wrong, something animals lack the ability to do. (Though horse whisperers may qualify that last claim.) In Christian parlance, that’s known as the “Fall upwards” interpretation. Again, you’re getting tripped up in Biblical literalism. Freaking St Augustine maintained that a day in Genesis was like 1000 years for God. This word for word legalistic framework is a recent American fundamentalist one. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/418 "2014-08-01T22:24:15Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > To rephrase the OP, which I can do since I’ve asked the same question many times, understanding that moderates are not literalists, even in the slightest bit, how do they come to the set of beliefs that they do hold? How do they decide to reject some parts of the Bible and accept others? How do they handle logical dependencies in the Bible, especially when they reject an event and accept its consequent. Scripture follows faith, not the other way around. Somehow that has been turned around in the opinions of many people. A clear example is the origin of Christianity. The first letters that were later adopted into the New Testament canon were written in the 50s–at least fifteen years after the life of Jesus of Nazareth. The last text that was eventually part of the canon was completed as much as 90 years after the life of Jesus. The oldest compilation of texts into what we now call the canon was from around 170–nearly 140 years after the life of Jesus. Despite that decades-long lack of a New Testament canon, Christianity developed as a faith throughout that period. Scripture encapsulates the faith of a people. It is not a constitution written and set forth for a people to accept of reject. Rather, scripture is written, (or compiled), by people who already believe in order to provide a Story that acts as an anchor and a foundation to hold the faith in place. Later generations will use scripture as the encapsulated faith, but it proceeded from the faith, not the other way around. This was a salient break in the thoughts of the Catholic Church and Martin Luther when he formulated his _sola fide_ dictum. The existing church saw scripture as supporting the faith while Luther presumed that the faith was based on the scripture. American mythology includes the Story of a rag-tag bunch of farmers/volunteers fighting the most powerful military force in the world to a standstill, breaking the rules, relying on individual ingenuity and a desire for individual rights. That Myth has served to support or underscore all sorts of attitudes and movements in the nation’s history: rugged individualism, isolationism, libertarianism, gun ownership, a reluctance to embrace trade unions\*, and a host of other phenomena. It no longer matters that most of the Myth can be shown to have few actual historical precedents; the Myth has been established. It even generates subsidiary Myth that furthers the the Story. The American fascination with and constant appeal to the Story of the cowboy has been based on the older tales of knights errant, with the lone cowboy fighting for Truth and Justice against all odds. Never mind that the actual cowboys of the “Wild West” were the clearest example of feudal society that this country has produced. That is true of all Mythology–the telling of Story that binds together a people and describes the Truths to which they hold. Regardless of the historical accuracy of the Story, it has shaped and continues to shape the consciousness of the people. Looking for (or debunking) the historical event on which Myth is predicated is a pointless exercise. Since the people look to the Myth to bind them and to give them direction, mere historical events are pretty much irrelevant to the situation. - (Every major effort at unionization has occurred among immigrant groups who had not yet internalized the American Myth and has weakened as those groups have become assimilated.) ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/419 "2014-08-01T22:44:44Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Actually, it says “do not murder.” I am not sure why the sixteenth century English translators and their early seventeenth century disciples seized on the word “kill,” but that is not the correct translation. Jerome translated it _non occides_ too. Perhaps he had a good reason? ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/420 "2014-08-01T22:50:33Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Hell, I was actually taught evolution by a Jesuit priest! Not just at a Jesuit school, but by an ordained Jesuit priest with a degree in biology. I suspect had you asked him about Biblical literalism in terms of creationism vs. evolution, he’d have told you that was just plain stupid, and to shut up and quit being a knucklehead. And in so many words, being a Jesuit. [Pierre Teilhard de Chardin](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Chardin) was a Jesuit and a palaeontologist who studied Homo erectus pekinensis. It’s usually the Jesuits who are on the cutting edge of Science, not just Roman Catholic Science, though Fr Mendel, the heredity guy, was an Augustinian. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/421 "2014-08-01T23:01:53Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Jerome translated it _non occides_ too. Perhaps he had a good reason? Accuracy? ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2014, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053/422 "2014-08-02T03:30:54Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Poe’s Law strikes again? It’s certainly a good example. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053.md?page=20) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-a-hard-time-respecting-the-moderately-religious/693053.md?page=22)