Religion/society question from non-religious person

In My Humble Opinion
1

I call myself an atheist, I was not raised with religion. I have gone a couple times with the inlaws, but that’s it. That said, I am familiar with the Christian ideals and concepts, I’m not totally ignorant.

Many times I have seen horrible comments and actions from people, and I think to myself, “these folks can’t possibly consider themselves Christians, can’t possibly be frequent church goers”. But alas they are. What they spout off seems so anti-Christian, and so hateful, so I’m trying to square that circle.

So I figure it’s possibly three reasons. One, church isn’t preaching the message, they are more concerned with keeping their flock happy instead of challenging them to love everyone and be generally Christ-like. Two, church is preaching the message, but the flock really isn’t too interested, they use church as a social/community tool. Or three, the message is being usurped by secular noise.

I don’t know enough about church and church goers to answer that question, but darn it I’m interested and I’d love to hear if people think if the church is doing a good enough job messaging.

Thanks for helping me fight ignorance within myself.

2

It would be helpful to know what are the hateful spout offs you are hearing.

But in my experience, there is God and there is religion. The latter is only a poor simulation of what a living relationship with God is. Religion is usually bound by rules and dogma that will conflict with the relationship and cause odd behavior. The study of Jesus’ life shows how he was accused of violating Jewish rules, yet doing the right thing and serving God irrespective of the rules and laws. That last part gets many other people’s goats too, they don’t like the idea of people can be directed by God and do good things without following rules and laws and actually be above them.

So yes the short answer is they are in spiritual bondage to the rules of the religion that rule out not being hateful in certain circumstances.

3

Yeah, probably some of each. Plus various other factors, that would require advanced degrees in psychology, sociology, history, and theology to fully explain.

But it’s clear to me from reading the Bible (among other things) that there’s nothing at all new in people not living up to the ideals and teachings of the religion they profess or the Lord they claim to follow.

4

Humans are not rational beings - they’re only capable of reason. They hold self-contradictory sets of beliefs and their actions often go against the values they preach.

It’s mind-boggling really. You catch a thief red-handed, and instead of admitting his infraction he will try to demonstrate that his theft is in fact an act of justice. You interview a terrorist and he will maintain his victimhood and high moral standards.

We’re social beings and can’t avoid getting in contact with our fellow humans. All we can do is carefully choose the people with whom with deal, work, and fraternize. It’s probably better to focus on personal development, so that you acquire the knowledge or develop the skills that will make you respected and desired. This will enable you to really pick the people you want to get in contact with and ignore those you find hard to deal with at the moment.

5

All three are possible factors. But it is a common misconception that Christianity is a lovey-dovey religion. Bear in mind that Christianity is by its nature a very shocking religion. You have a God who flooded the Earth and killed everyone except for eight people. You have the teaching of Hell, where people will burn in torment forever. You have a God who commanded the Israelites to commit genocide.

So a Christian can be perfectly devout and genuine in their faith while espousing views that sound shocking or violent.

6

Thank you for saying that. It is, further, my position that the Bible, both New Testament and Old, is sufficiently varied in its composition as to be able to provide support for just about any position you’d care to hold, be it a message of love and tolerance or hate and exclusion. Either way, it’s in there somewhere.

7

Yes, exactly. This applies everywhere, not only to religion.

When someone remarked to Dr Samuel Johnson that a person who didn’t practice what they preached was a hypocrite, he replied,

“Sir, are you so grossly ignorant of human nature, as not to know that a man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice?”

8

You can’t expect everyone who goes to church to be a saint, any more than you can expect everyone who goes to a hospital to be perfectly healthy.

9

But you and your doctor should be in agreement as to what “healthy” actually means.

10

A combination of these two is extraordinadily common in all societies through history: your putative religion being in fact just one of the ensigns of your sociocultural/sociopolitical identity. “Christian” societies and individuals have been conquering, oppressing and exploiting others without much hesitation since there have been any officially “Christian” societies. which means like 1600 years. You are “christian” but it’s only part of being Eastern Roman, or Frankish, or Castillian, or British; or of being patrician, or loyal to the Rightful Heir, or native-born, or White Anglo; etc. , and you’ll act like that.

11

The dichotomy I see is that there is religion and there are the people who practice that religion. And the influence can run both ways. A religion can end up absorbing the pre-existing values of its members just as much as the members can absorb the values proclaimed by the religion. The Christianity that’s practiced by 21st century mainstream Americans is different than the Christianity that was practiced by the downtrodden minorities in 3rd century Rome. These two very different social groups have a very different view on what their shared religious message was telling them.

12

Another common area of confusion is that “True” Christianity can also be a scary belief while a good practice. For instance, a Christian may donate regularly to charities, do lots of volunteer work in the community, work at the local dog rescue shelter, be a great law-abiding citizen, etc…also while replying (if asked) that homosexuality is an abominable sin. How could a “true” Christian hold such “hateful views?” Well, the belief that homosexuality is a sin actually has substantial backing in Scripture. (I won’t get into a long debate here with someone who thinks it doesn’t; that would sidetrack the OP’s thread.) But it is perfectly consistent for a Christian to do all the good things described above while also holding the view that homosexuality is evil. All those are consistent with a Biblical worldview.

Being a “true” Christian does not mean necessarily holding views that modern society would find “nice”; not at all.

13

“A church is not a museum for saints. It is a hospital for sinners.”

“Humans are not rational beings. We are rationalizing beings.”

14

You want to use it as an argument, but yet at the same time you want to declare that to argue against your point would be a distraction?

15

I was thinking the same thing. You don’t want to go into it, and yet…?

16

I wouldn’t mind debating it elsewhere. But this isn’t my thread. I’m just citing it as an example of a belief that is consistent and Biblical, but abhorrent in modern society.

17

Citing, then locking off such citing from examination/critique, doesn’t seem very above board debate-wise.

18

As ASL pointed out, the Bible is a large, ambiguous, and contradictory book. And people screw up even when you give them clear, simple instructions. To quit smoking, take the cigarette out of your mouth. To run every day, go outside, and put one foot in front of the other, quickly.

“How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
Baruch Spinoza

19

Problem is, the patients are in charge of the treatment.

20

Unfortunately, the very sickest people in this hospital claim they are well, and claim that the healthy people visiting are the ones who are really sick.