Comments on: What is Christian Atheism? (Part 2)

By: Eve

Eve — Thu, 27 May 2010 04:56:19 +0000

Fascinating discussion. I am glad I am not alone with my thoughts. Raised in a strict catholic family, it took me quite some time to have the courage to admit that I had too many doubts, too many questions. Other than my husband, I have no one else I can discuss the subject with since all our friends are devout christians. It is a relief to finally find a site with these kind of mind provoking discussions. Thanks

By: Satan

Satan — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:42:27 +0000

Yee guys are the biggest hypocrites ever lol.

By: Drew Stedman

Drew Stedman — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:54:20 +0000

Wow, I just stumbled on this site through my random internet hunting. What a wonderful discussion. I have really been engaged with the content on this site (including some especially thought provoking comments) Keep up the great work, I’ll probably jump in on some of these discussions soon when I’m not supposed to be sleeping. I started a site called recoveringfundamentalists.com check it out if you get a chance. If its cool I would like to maybe feature links to your content. Anyway, thank you for what you are doing, please feel to email me.

By: ginger

ginger — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 19:36:32 +0000

2 Timothy 3:1-6 (New International Version)
Godlessness in the Last Days
1But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

By: Mike Magee

Mike Magee — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 20:33:35 +0000

A Christian atheist is a secular Christian. I note that Megan liked Altizer. The point of it is that traditional Christianity, Christianity with all the supernatural baggage and mumbo jumbo, has lost the point of Christ’s teaching which was ethical. As Randy K said Christ could only teach using the concepts available to him, and God was a big part of the Jewish culture of the time, and the reason they thought, said and did what they did. For them, it came from God, just as it always had. Morality is social. Solitary animals have no need of it. Christ’s morality therefore is social. Loving everyone is a social necessity, if society is not to collapse or become intolerably oppressive. Morality is intrinsic to us as social beings, and was one of the facts of life primitive humans found themselves with as they emerged from unconsciousness. Moral teaching became part of human culture, and eventually religion, when religion became distinct from tribal practice. The tribe was the original society, and it was personified as the tribal God, originally a totem or mythical ancestor or both. The tribe seemed eternal compared with a person’s life. The tribe seemed immensely powerful and kind to its members, and the members resented freeloaders, and took measures against them in the name of the tribe, and hence the tribal God. They were expelled and probably died without human support. Christ himself tried to cut through the whole legalistic and ritual paraphernalia that had risen by his time in the Jewish religion. Social morality was basically supremely simple. All we had to do was to love one another, to treat every last human being as if they were God. Secular Christians/ Christian atheists want to do it. Get rid of the supernatural claptrap, and the message of Christ might begin to stand out instead of being suppressed.

By: wolfhoundGrowl

wolfhoundGrowl — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:51:15 +0000

Ok, fair enough, however…if Jesus is a mere man (which I do of course as a fellow Atheist (agnostic,ignostic & naturalist also) accept) then why would we allow his teachings you have the directive for our own morals and life. I have seen the same thing done with Marxist Atheism, and there really isn’t any need. In the Marxist case the Atheist part deals with what is really a separate issue from the Marxist part which is a political issue, the Marxist Atheist does not really IMHO exist, but there are Atheists which are also Marxist.

In the Christian case I would be pleased to see practice of Christian ritual & ceremony, and also community: as culture. Which again would be a separate issue to the atheist part which deals with the actual beliefs, in this instance I would refer to myself as an Atheist (due to our impending agnosticism and ignosticism on the whole God thing) but a practitioner of Christian religion (for cultural reasons, I’m a former preacher and theology graduate etc. so this is something which may one day work for me.)

However, your Christian Atheism (and I’m not criticising, just discussing) effects Atheism as a part of your belief/ philosophical structure and the Jesus-philosophy as the same. In labelling your philosophical position as Christian Atheist you are (I feel) declaring that the Jesus-philosophy is a rule of thumb for you, which means that in the end if you find something you disagree with you will have to allow your own perspective to give way to the Jesus-perspective on whatever the issue is, or you won’t be a Christian Atheist, if you take your own perspective over the Jesus-perspective on any one particular issue you’ll be an Atheist with affinity to the Jesus-philosophy (which in my opinion is much more preferable.)

So, as I see it, either you are an Atheist and have affinity with the Jesus-philosophy on many issues, as I am, (and possibly a Christian religious practitioner, which may be an idea) or, you are a Christian Atheist who does not believe that Jesus is God, yet you allow your ultimate philosophical decisions to be made by this mere human whom you happen to feel an affinity with- which does not seem reasonable to me.

Maybe all I’m discussing here is semantics, but you have chosen this label for yourself and when I approach this symbol this is how it communicates with me.

By: Megan

Megan — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:18:15 +0000

@Randy K
That is a really intersting comment. I am currently writing a post which includes some of the theory behind the cognitive development of ‘faith’. Christianity has, in my view, has successfully tested time by promoting humanistic values Jesus pronounced.

By: Randy K

Randy K — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:52:12 +0000

Indeed, there is evidence that Jesus himself may have been an athiest.

We have to remember, that in that time, theism was baked into the cultural cake, and to speak of theism was like breathing.

The unique contribution of Jesus was to flip the burger and turn judgement upon the priests and religious hypocrites

Often, when Jesus would actually speak of “loving God” (whatever that is supposed to mean), he would tie it to “loving your neighbour”, and I believe, reading not so much between the lines, he was trying to replace the unproductive and primitive love of God, with a new revelation of “loving God, through loving our neighbour”.

This perspective is what emerges when the human mind fully integrates the primal, left and right hemispheres, and starts to view life from the perspective of the organically empathic right, and then Jesus’s stories take on a whole different meaning.

it gets even more interesting if you set aside theism, which comes out of our primal, R-complex, and start to look at the scientific evidence of the separability of the soul from the body, which comes out of an intuitive appeal from our right hemisphere, checked by the scepticism of our left hemisphere.

with this, it is not longer theism, but rather, faith, and then knowledge, that this life may be transitional experience.

ponder this…”use money to make yourself friends, so that they will welcome you into the tents of eternity”

By: Nemogbr

Nemogbr — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 14:30:53 +0000

Just been researching Christian Atheism, Buddhist Christianity and Humanism.

Fascinating all round. It is much preferable to some nihilistic beliefs just because they are supposed atheists.

By: Paul Chaos

Paul Chaos — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 00:53:35 +0000

@jesus: wtf?????????????