Lib,
Yes, could you please explain the allusion? I know it must have something to do with a Greek myth… Argonauts maybe? But I know it not.
I know what the Christian tradition is, and it doesn’t involve man evolving from other creatures. It involves man being created by God. It’s no false dichotomy to say that Man being created by God on the 6th day is nothing like God creating protozoa and giving them evolutionary motivation to make man a billion years later, and that it’s got to be one or the other. If you say “Created” means “evolved” and “in his image,” has some abstract non-personified meaning, and “day” means “billion years,” then you’ve actually chosen one end of the dichotomy and rejected the other one but are being cute about it.
Ostensibly said by the Thessalonian king to Achilles when Achilles defeated that king’s champion fighter with one thrust of his sword. Coming forward, after his champion fell dead, the king said, "Who are you, soldier? When Achilles answered, the king said, “Achilles. I will remember the name.”
I am proud to follow the One True Lepton.
Why do you insert an abstraction? A loving God who chooses to reveal Himself to any one capable of loving is hardly an abstraction in the manner of worshipping gravity.
The Christian tradition arose at a time and place in which humans would not have conceived of evolution or even other life-bearing planets or other sentient species. The tradition is shaped by those who gave it voice. It has developed, with new understandings, since that time and will, I suppose, continue to develop. I doubt that Christianity is or should be constrained by those who do not follow it.
From the original henotheistic roots of what became Judaism through today, the development of what became Christian thought has continued to expand from a belief that “our local god chose us to protect” to “God chooses all to save.” Specific mythologies written at particular times give us insight into the relationship God had with His/all people at the time they were written and the progression of beliefs indicated by those myths indicates a direction that future belief may take. It is no more valid to insist that Christianity must deny evolution than it is to insist that Christianity must embrace slavery or a hierarchical system of class between the sexes.
You can argue that you believe that Christianity has gone astray, but Christians will probably follow their own beliefs where the Spirit leads them, regardless of your beliefs.
God to the old-timey Christians was a being, with a voice and limbs and opinions. He didn’t choose to “reveal Himself to anyone capable of loving,” but was arbitrary and ethnocentric and coquettish and sometimes downright amoral. He was a real, honest-to-God, HE, not a feel-goody abstraction.
[qupte]The Christian tradition arose at a time and place in which humans would not have conceived of evolution or even other life-bearing planets or other sentient species.
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Which is exactly why it’s incompatible to cling to those beliefs now and pretend to have assimilated it with science, or pretend there’s no contradiction between the cosmology of people who thought that the earth was flat, that Hell was literally down there below the crust of the earth, and Heaven was literally up there above the clouds.
“Astray” suggests that there is a true path. I don’t believe in God, so it’s meaningless to me that Christianity be on one path or the other. I just think that people are kidding themelves when they say there’s no conflict between science and religion – with such dogma as if anyone suggests otherwise is “confused” or “making a common mistake.” Historically, Christianity was a cosmology, a myth of origins, a story of mankind. To subtract those things makes religion something quite different from what it was before. It raises the self (as discriminator of knowledge) and lowers God (from divine Creator to some metaphor of cosmic agency). It’s something you’re entitled to, but it’s nothing but an almost heroic lack of reflection that supposes this new-age Christian who knows he came from an ape and that the earth is billions of years old and that there’s no heaven or hell and that God is not a big guy in the sky is not significantally reinvented from the medieval Christian.
The myth of origins was incidental to the beliefs. Read Augustine of Hippo’s de Genesis. Heck, read the whole of Hebrew Scripture or the whole of Christian Scripture. Cosmology makes up only a tiny fraction of the words written to elaborate their beliefs. Behavior and the interaction between the huamns and divine makes up the bulk of those works–with a lot of emphasis on the failings of humans and the forgiveness of God.
The story of mankind remains–it just has some different turns from its original depiction.
The self is not raised above God. Rather, the community comes to a realization that their understanding needs to be opened to new views of the truth.
And you are concerned that it may be “led astray.” You are insisting that one historical view (in your perception) must remain in place for all time (otherwise the believers have strayed from your vision). That is your problem, not ours.
First, there is no pretension that science and religion have assimilated. (I don’t even know what you think you are claiming here.) And, as Augustine pointed out in the Fourth Century (as Philo had pointed out for Jews in the First Century), the cosmology is simply a way for people to attempt to understand where they are in relation to their God using imagery that is familiar to them.
Now, it is perfectly acceptable to dismiss all this as delusion or some form of silliness. However, you win no points for attempting to place belief in a box with your labels while failing to notice that the believers are all in a different place altogether. That demonstrtates that you do not actually understand what people were doing with their belief. (Now, you can find a few believers who share your limited view of the situation–and in the U.S., thanks to a particular religious movement, you can find rather more of them–but your box does not contain the faith of the majority of believers.)
quote]And you are concerned that it may be “led astray.”
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To say “astray” presumes there’s a true path. I don’t think there’s a true path.
I think the problem with our communication is that you believe in God and I don’t. You see God as real and perceptions and beliefs in God changing, but I just see whatever it is that people say they believe. To me, there’s only the rituals and literature and beliefs. When those change, the religion changes. I don’t know we can have a meaningful discussion when we have such different ideas of religion. I surely didn’t mean to offend you. I don’t think one brand of religion inferior to another – I just think they are radically different. That’s all.
Actually Cricetus, the problem is that you have a very specific belief of what others must believe if they believe in religion. You have defined religion very narrowly as a Christian fundamentalist literalism.
Moreover that you do believe in one true path, but your believed true path is an absolute faith in God’s nonexistance.
Beliefs change. We can agree to that I think whether we believe that these beliefs are merely different perceptions of one real incomprensible God differently voiced in different eras, or if we believe that they are artifical constructs used to support value systems and societal functioning. True enough some of early religion was folk science. Just like science today, many early rituals were attempts to understand and exert some control over future events in the material world. And true enough, a few today hold onto some of those folk science stories even while accepting the fruits that modern science hath wrought. But most today do not look to sacred texts to explain why people get sick and how to get the crops to grow or to predict the motions of the moon and planets and stars. Most today who look to sacred texts are looking for something different. If they find what they are looking for there, then who is anyone else to argue?
Lib,
Well, thank you then. 
No I haven’t. Quote me where I say what others must believe. Quote me where I define religion. I’ve just observed differences and tensions betweens different belief systems.
And I would thank you not to wag your finger at me and say “actually, the problem is that you…” The problem, if there is one, is that you and tom are reading some posts by someone else named Cricetus that I haven’t seen and have nothing to do with what I’ve actually said. You keep perceiving these attacks I never mounted, these accusations I’ve never made.
Sure does sound like you are saying what a religious Christian must believe, lest not they be only “spiritual”. And given that the op was about religious faith being threatened, not Christian fundamentalist faith only, your answer which is relevant to the beliefs of a relatively few Christians, not to many other Christians, or to non-Christians with faith, bespeaks a very narrow view of what religious faith is.
I think you’re misreading my posts. I said what religious tradition was. Not what Christians must believe.
So let’s build on that.
There was this tradition of folk science in Christianity. I’ll leave alone debating how important that aspect of the faith was for large segments of history, and just accept that for the sake of discussion. But what is thought of as important in Christian belief, let alone what is thought of as important in other religious belief systems, has changed with time. Today, here and now, only a vocal few hold Biblical literalism as the basis for the understanding of the material world. Most are looking to their faith for other things than understanding how to get things to work and few expect NASA to consult the Bible to decide upon a launch window or to plan where to send the Mars Orbiter. Most implicitly understand that science is where you turn to for understanding of how the material world functions and turn to religion for values and a sense of community.
But that doesn’t mean that they want their noses rubbed in it. Shoving at them the fact that sacred texts have done a poor job with folk science and implying that therefore nothing the texts say should be believed is not only rude (not that you are doing that mind you :)), it is against the interest of science and of secularism. People see great utility in their religious faith. You may not see it, but they do. Whether or not God exists (and yes I am a theist of sorts), believing in God is quite useful to many people, especially in uncertain times. If the choice is needlessly painted as either/or then their need for religious faith will likely win out.
What you believe to be “traditional” or medieval Christianity may be incompatable with modern science. But most modern religion is not.
Well… since it’s apparently central to this argument, and cricetus is basically getting told “Oh tut tut cricetus you’re talking about fundies. You just don’t understand how sophisticated my personal Christian beliefs are!”, what specifically does a Christian really *need * to believe and still be considered a good faith Christian?
Saying that being a Christian is mainly encompassed by “God is love” and beyond that you’re allowed to graze and cherry pick from the scriptures according to your philosophical preferences, discarding those that you (personally) deem not to be satisfactory or compelling, is a pretty weak and unsatisfactory basis for a coherent religion that embraces a true supernatural essence.
At a certain rarified level in this progression of an ever more sophisticated God concept, the notion of a personal God (and specifically a Christian God in this context) becomes somewhat meaningless, and we are in essence talking about a “cosmic agency” at that point, and not the supernatural Christian God that churches are dedicated to.
Actually Astro, I’m Jewish. So personally I have no personal Christian beliefs and have rarely been accused of sophistication of any sort in any case. Part of my objection is that the question of science’s compatability with religious faith gets automatically translated into science’s compatability with, not only just Christianity, but with the most fundamentalist sort. As if the Christian fundies are vested with the authority to define what religion is. That somehow that becomes the context.
I am not qualified to comment on what is essential dogma in Christianity (a few creeds do come to mind) but religion does not necessarily require acceptance of a text’s stories as literal truths for how the material world functions.
The temple I studied with first talked about cosmogenesis, by which it meant the idea that the myths establish the basic principles and ideas underlying a worldview. From this perspective, creation myths serve a fairly important function to indicate the initial philosophical underpinnings of the universe.
According to a Catholic theologian of my acquaintance:
- two-testament scripture (“old” and “new” in some form)
- trinitarian god
- Jesus, son of god, redeemer
More generally, anyone who can agree with the statements of the Nicene and/or Apostles’ Creed.
There are people who would disagree with that, but she says that this is the mainstream “official” definition of Christian.
Some believe the “true path” is the one on which you encounter the Lord. Unless, of course He took that path in order to encounter you. He’s God, so coincidence is, well, not coincidental.
Tris