We can answer this question by subdividing sin into two broad categories: that which is evil and that which is wrong. These two concepts are interconnected, but sin is not always considered evil.

Evil is sometimes difficult to define in humanistic terms. It’s terribly contextual and often very personal. The moral philosophies of an individual or a society often dictate what’s evil and what’s not. Evil is often a denomination given to people who disagree strongly with one or many morals, or even merely ideas of another individual or group. It is therefore often thrown around quite trivially and in a generalising manner. The famous philosopher Socrates states that which we call evil is merely ignorance.

On the other hand, evil can also be defined as wilful harm to others, no matter what reason. The psychologist Philip Zimbardo (you might know him from the Stanford Prison Experiment) defines evil as:

… the exercise of power to intentionally harm, hurt, destroy or commit crimes against humanity.

I personally like this definition as it is, in any context, very hard to disagree with. It also classifies evil as an intrinsic behavioural infliction, which comes from our ability to emphasize with beings around us. To put it differently: from their own standpoint, humans can be cruel, (most) animals cannot.

Back to sin. This word is often used in religious circles. In this framework, sin is a violation of one or many of the moral rules or divine laws of a religious creed for which often punishment should be received. So sin does not have to be morally dire but it can still be wrong, although what is considered against the rules is often automatically considered morally bad in many religions. Sin is not always in violation of secular law but in religious context sin is almost always a consequence of evil forces.

In Christian philosophy sin can be forgiven (salvation). To Christians this salvation came in the form of Jesus of Nazareth and his suffering. Repentance is the recognition of your own sins and accepting the sacrifice of Jesus. This view on sin is central to Christianity and in this story Jesus is the subject of his fate and destiny.

Preaching about sin was elemental to the missions of John the Baptist and his teachings motivated Jesus to preach the same and with relation to John. So what did Jesus teach us? Terrot Glover wrote a chapter on this in his excellent book The Jesus of History. He mentions the preaching of repentance and subsequential acceptance into the “Kingdom of God” as being important to Jesus’ teachings. This is irrelevant to Christian atheists. More relevant are perhaps Jesus’ moral teachings love and kindness and his clear-cut views of right and wrong. Glover discusses Jesus’ perspective on the Last Judgement (Matt. 25:31-46), itself a possible metaphor of this dichotomy. Jesus perspective shows that not the most devoted and religious Jews, but the common men and woman who instinctively lived, benevolently, a life of generosity and kindness to others will find eternal bliss. The people on the left hand were not the non-religious and the Gentiles, but the people who embraced a mean-spirited character and an ignorance of compassion. This morality is that of deeds, but Jesus’ teachings also encompass the ethics of thought.

Jesus considered anger and unclean thought sin. He meant with this, people who had strong desires for sinful acts, even if they would not follow up on these deeds. If the mind becomes tainted with these thoughts, it will function sinfully. From a Christian atheist perspective I personally believe that it is not deeds but thoughts that separate moral people from moralistic people and I therefore often condemn religiously motivated benevolence as being moralistic and often not truly genuine. I believe Jesus condemned this too.

I will not further delve into this topic for now. In my family we include Jesus’ views on sin which we consider relevant to our situation and time. Many of his moral philosophies on sin were, from secular humanist standpoint, very intrinsic to man. Much as modern-day psychologist, Jesus emphasises the fallacy of all of us to easily tip from good to evil. His teachings might provide some guidance.

Because of a bereavement in the family we took a break from contributing to our blog. The realities of life can be harsh and can hit hard. It are these times which bring people together and put aside differences and views, just memories and emotions remain.

We shall soon continue contributing to Christianatheism.com and we hope you will continue enjoy reading our blog .

Megan & Bruce

Many have either read or at least heard of The Selfish Gene by the famously vocal atheist, Richard Dawkins (if you have not, you can find it here. I really recommend it!). This hugely popular book stipulated genes to be the central players in evolution and that any entity beyond the level of genes (such as insects or humans). Organisms are merely evolving tools to ensure the success of these genes in terms of global copy number. In other words: to maximise the inclusive fitness of genes globally.

This elegant theory has been studied and continued since The Selfish Gene was published more than thirty years ago. However, besides the biological side of gene-centred inclusive fitness, Dawkins made a very important anthropological contribution by applying this theory to so-called ‘cultural evolution’.

In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins uses the concept of a ‘meme’ (the cultural version of a gene) to explain that cultural ideas such as melodies, catch-phrases or beliefs can be transferred to or imitated by a larger population. More popular (more fit) ideas propagate successfully. The less culturally fit ideas lose the Darwinian race and cease to exist. ‘Memetics’ is now a widely studied theory and can be applied not only to human culture, but also to e.g. tool-making by great apes.

Religion can be memetic and genetic. It is a particular successful ‘gene’. This claim has been supported by anthropologists and psychologists. Pascal Boyer argues the persistence of religion from a psychological standpoint in his book Religion Explained (can be found here). He argues religion to be a natural product humans have gained during the evolutionary development of the cognitive mind. We, as humans, are perhaps evolutionarily primed to have faith.

Religion has also proven itself to be a particular successful meme. Dawkins has himself supported this claim. Susan Blackmore studies this concept in greater detail in her excellent book, The Meme Machine (get it here). In the chapter ‘Religion as memeplexes’ she discusses religions to have mechanisms to prevent people from using reason, thus they convert to faith-based explanations. However, many religions have guidelines and doctrines that benefit individuals and societies. These can range from altruism (‘love thy neighbour’) to personal care (circumcision) and are generally based on the religious texts.

Aside from strong historical, auspicious and liberating reasons for the success of Christianity, I would like to argue for the triumph of the Christian belief from an anthropogenic and sociological perspective. Christianity has many guidelines benefitting people, even in modern times. The non-violent nature of Jesus’ teachings was appealing in a time when the world was a very violent place. Benevolent moral philosophies such as equality and love have promoted this belief and its clear, acceptable values taught by a single philosopher ameliorated its adoption. Original Christian teachings abolished hierarchy and gave spiritual wealth to those who followed.

Christian humanism has led to the establishment of welfare institutions which has benefitted many, who in turn dedicated their lives to helping others. The needs of the community were provided by the community by Jesus’ humanitarian principles. This put Christianity on a higher moral plain than, perhaps, other religions of the time. It also gave people a sense of belonging and with this, support during hard times.

In modern times we can adopt the altruistic and social nature of Christianity and outgrow the supernatural and religious side of it. This, together with an intrinsic humanism, can lead to a continuation of Jesus’ teachings as they were originally intended. This is what Christian atheism is about.

We all know Thomas Jefferson to be one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, co-author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the US. He was a man with many talents and many views. Jefferson was a scholar theology, biblical studies and Christian belief. He probably was a Deist and his religious views differed much from his contemporaries.

Thomas Jefferson thought the moral philosophies of Jesus were the best in the world and he decided to write his vision of the “Christian System”. From this came the Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, also known as the “Jefferson Bible”. This book can be found here or, if you prefer to read it online, here.

In his book Jefferson merges together the four canonical gospels in chronological order to describe the life of Jesus Christ. Jefferson’s biggest edit, however, is the removal of any reference to the supernatural found in the gospels and he focuses on the teachings of Jesus. Jefferson wanted the New Testament to be free of the “the corruptions of reason among the ancients”, by which he implied the deliberate additions of supernatural events to Jesus’ life by Evangelists. The story removes the doctrine and becomes a very interesting read for free-thinkers.

The Jefferson Bible is an intimate look into Jefferson’s belief and spirituality. Although he still believed God to be the Ultimate Creator he sees Jesus as the greatest moral philosopher. By removing the “groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications” one can concentrate more on the sayings of Jesus, rather than his divinity. This was for my family one of the most important influences for pursuing Christian atheism, (others pursued Jeffersonian Christianity).

The Jefferson Bible ends with Jesus’ burial in his tomb after his crucifixion. I find this a more monumental event than the Resurrection, which has been left out by Jefferson. It affirms the humanistic spirit of the book. The mortality of Jesus sends us a message from a person who is not the Decider on your Day of Judgment, but from a human being.

Find the book here.

In the sixties, this somewhat unconventional theologian pioneered a new view on the ‘death of God’ concept first proposed by the famous philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Whereas Nietzsche tried to exemplify a figurative “God” of being “killed” as a metaphor for religion gradually losing to naturalism, Altizer takes the concept to a more literal dogma.

According to Altizer, the God of Christianity committed an act of self-destruction by incarnating himself as Jesus Christ, who we subsequently crucified. This idea is at odds with my own views, but he does proclaim the importance of Jesus as a central figure or a Messiah to humanity.

Although Altizer has a different view on Christian philosophy, his Christrocentricity might portray his emphasis on the importance of the moral philosophies of Jesus Christ. So, although Altizer’s “annihilation of God” theory might sound a bit crazy to some, in the Gospel of Christian Atheism he does give a very interesting view on the centrality of Jesus to atheists of his kind.

I would recommend this book to folks interested in a more philosophical debate about the importance of Christ in people’s lives. As mentioned before, it can be found here. Enjoy.

I was born and bred in San Jose and have lived all my life on the West Coast. Although my father is Jewish, I grew up in a Catholic family and had a very moderate Catholic education. We did not go to church much and prayer was not an everyday thing. We did, however, have a traditional ‘moment of silence’ before dinner as always insisted by my mother, although this was mostly spent on inspecting our food. Nonetheless, we did enjoy a stable and loving upbringing and the Christian belief did help me when the times were tough.

In my college years I lost what little religious belief I had and focused on atheism. I was a regular contributor to atheist forums and blogs and munched through many atheists books. I enjoyed the discussions on moral philosophies of atheism and secularism I had with my sorority.

It was only after I met Bruce when we started talking about the values of Christian Atheism. When our first child was born, we, as uncertain parents, had trouble deciding what values we should teach her. We decided to bring Sandra up on the same, solid moral values we were taught ourselves, with the absence of an omnipotent entity. Our family are happy and we would like to share this with others.

I would be excited to talk with you about our experiences and I hope you will contribute no matter what denomination or life philosophy.