I knew a man who believed this. He called himself a “philosophical Christian.”
I dunno about a “person” or a “hypocrite”. I consider myself a hard atheist, but I follow the tenets of Hinduism. Hinduism is a religion that can be followed as an atheist; meaning, it can be followed as a way of life as well as a religious belief.
Why do I follow Hinduism? Because I grew up with it, it makes sense to me, and as I said the chief tenets can be followed without ever any reference to god.
I don’t feel any of the titles here so far really apply to me. Atheist Hindu is the one I usually go by.
I think “humanist” is probably the best word, if any word is needed at all. I think the OP’s question (probably unintentionally) implies that those who lack theistic beliefs would ordinarily lack normal compassion and ethical beliefs when that’s clearly not the case. Religion did not invent morality. Morality is inherent. It’s part of our biology. Religion has tried to claim a patent on it but we were moral before we believed in gods.
Definitely is a Hypocrite.
Hypocracy defined by American Heritage Dictionary:
hy·poc·ri·sy n., pl. hy·poc·ri·sies. 1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness. 2. An act or instance of such falseness.
That’s not true at all though.
I follow the Hindu concepts of duty - does that make me a hypocrite because I believe we do have a duty to ourselves, each other, and our children and parents, but not to any fictional god?
I think your definition is entirely too black and white. And I don’t see how black & white really ever applies to humans, with all the complexities of our minds. Maybe zebras.
Wrong. The hypothetical person in question is not professing to believe anything he does not really believe. There is nothing false or insincere about liking the teachings of Jesus without believing Jesus was God. It would only be hypocritical if they didn’t practice what they say they DO believe.
I think “conformist” is the best so far. How about “obeyant”? Has a little more of a religious conotation.
Why so much with the hypocrite? The OP is talking about the morals that are taught, and that has nothing to do with professing belief in the supernatural aspects of any religion. What didn’t happen was one day someone showed up with a bunch of rules and called it a religion. What did happen is that all of the rules already existed and were integrated into the religion. You don’t need to be religious to know not to spill your seed, lie with another man, or covet your neighbor’s wife. It was common sense in those days. Even bona fide religious people these days will jerk off, be gay, or otherwise try to seduce their friends’ wives, and then there are atheists who will see that any or all of these are wrong.
I have known several people who referred to themselves as “Secular Jews” or “Cultural Jews” who were what you describe–they participated in the ritual, kept kosher, and yet were atheistic/agnostic.
So I propose “Cultural X” where X is the religion whose tenets are being kept.
- Gandhi
Scared?
Peace,
mangeorge
Moral.
One of the things Jesus taught was the importance of worshipping God. You can’t “Follow Jesus’s morals” and not worship God; worshipping God was a rather central part of what Jesus taught.
Something that some of my Equality Ride friends came up with was “Jesusian,” but that came close.
On the subject of ethics codes being shaped by religion, I don’t think that it’s necessarily true (for everyone). I get my sense of morals through thinking about pain. For me, something is wrong if it hurts someone (self included.) So of course, some things like murder and stealing, Christianity and I have in common, but some things, like idol worship and premarital sex, I’m fine with.
(I won’t get into how I think that some Christian prohibitions/laws are culturally/temporally context-dependent, and don’t have a place in our current society.)
A term that got kicked around in the Orthodox Jewish blogosphere a couple of years ago for a Jewish person like that was Orthoprax. ‘Orthodox’ literally means ‘correct teaching,’ and I think Orthoprax by extension means ‘correct practice.’ I don’t see why it couldn’t apply to similarly-approached adherents to other religions.
Well, I’ve heard them referred to as “the Hellbound”.
That’s mainly because of the prevalent belief that in order to be saved, ya gotta belieeeeeeeeeeeve!
I’m surprised that nobody has yet brought up the case of modern Unitarian Universalism, which is based on the Judeo-Christian moral code as far as human relations are concerned but is pretty mum about the supernatural aspects. It’s pretty much spot-on what the OP described.
Culturally a Christian*, but not really a believer. Doesn’t have to have a cute, one-word title.
*or whatever religion applies.
Something like that was brought up in the first response, and the misses the mark anyway.
Morals and Atheists aren’t mutually exclusive…as is often assumed by the religious.