Christian Atheism

A few weeks back a friend of mine told me she is a Christian Atheist. I thought "say what?"

But she explained and apparently she isn't alone.

I suppose it does make sense. Jesus as a great man to follow but not a demigod. Jesus the philosopher instead of messiah.

Have any of you encountered this? Would any of you describe yourselves as "Christian Atheists" or "Atheist Christians"?

I am atheist but very much admire the sermon on the mount story of Jesus.

 

From some of the stats I know of, I think that the majority of those who show an affiliation to a religion do not really practice any of it.

As the God religions continue to shrink, --- the trend and tipping point are already years old, --- atheist churches are popping up and I hope that the old Mystery School notions return.

They were where the old intelligentsia used to hang out in.

I hope we return to the ancient and better ways.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental efforts that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Further.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.



The only ideology that I find better than atheism is Gnostic Christianity.

Regards
DL

 

Jesus the man was good.

Jesus the savior seems evil when you consider Armageddon.

That kind of thing is why supernatural thinking ruined a decent religion.

Regards
DL

 

That's what I have always thought. As a man, Jesus seems really cool, but then the they built this religion around him. I wonder if there was a historical Jesus who was actually secular and would be horrified in what was built around his name.

 

I don't think it would be a good idea to follow Jesus' teachings, even as an atheist, for several reasons.

1.At a first glance, looking at Christians themselves, even though we understand that Jesus' teachings are beautiful and following their spirit would lead to a pink-ish fuzzy world, reality tells us that believers throughout history have been unable, or unwilling, to create that kind of world. Why would atheists who follow Jesus' teachings succeed by applying the same method everyone else tried unsuccessfully?

2. The definitely better world we now live in - the civilized, enlightened, democratic part of it - mistakenly thought of as the progeny of Judeo-Christianity, is in fact a hybrid between Judeo-Christianity and antique Greek and Roman pagan philosophies. This syncretism, born during Renaissance, is the reason western civilization exists.

3. Human beings are far from perfect. Our own nature stands in the way of achieving such high levels of morality and brotherly love as one would expect from a follower of Jesus. The standards set by Jesus are too high, unrealistic. Failure to achieve as expected when expectations are too high leads to frustrations, self-flagellation, self-deprecation, greatly influencing behavior and level of happiness.

4. What happens with the part of humanity that refuses to follow Jesus? Will they be canceled as an immoral group opposed to universal love, human rights, and the betterment of humanity? Jesus himself despised Samaritans, so there's a perfect example of identity politics. Where will that lead?

In my opinion, we need to know and understand ourselves, our human nature, both as a group and as individuals. We need to know and understand the emergent properties of different kinds of societies, and choose the best so group and individual interests coincide as much as possible. Ideals attributed to a perfect hero who might have lived, or not, millennia ago, don't seem to me the proper way to move ourselves forward in the now and here.

 

Lets set the standards to the bottom of the gene pool instead!
That way no matter how bad we are we know we have nothing to be concerned with since we know we cant get worse!

Stalin Mao and a few other wonderful atheists had no problem giving us the exact opposite.

 

Lets worship the attributes of a God but not the God it came from. Brilliant!
Then instead of giving it the christian-'philosophy' label, they call it atheo-christain. Brilliant!

Yesterday atheists tried to hijack agnostic, today they advanced to hijacking God. Brilliance.

 

Bit of a contradiction doncha thank?

JC AFAIK was born in the image of the God you love so much!

Ar·ma·ged·don
noun: Armageddon; plural noun: Armageddons
(in the New Testament) the last battle between good and evil before the Day of Judgment.

• a biblical hill of Megiddo, an archaeological site on the plain of Esdraelon, south of present-day Haifa in Israel.
• the place where the last battle between good and evil will be fought.

Whats the down side of fighting evil?

gnostic brilliance?

 

He would disown Christianity for tying his non-genocidal character to the genocidal prick, Yahweh.

What is it with the love of a genocidal god?

Are believers just insane or plain old stupid.

They do not seem to realize that they are fascists.

Regards
DL

 

The up side is that Christianity and other immoral god religions are shrinking as a result of honest criticism.

Their homophobia and misogyny are being rejected by moral people.

If you think there is a down side to that, let's hear it.

Regards
DL

 

Were you a personal friend? Where are you getting that malarkey, that Jesus despised Samaritans? (He despised hypocrites).

You do not understand Jesus's message. He did not hold anyone to the standard of perfection. His message was simply to try to be better.

Again, Jesus's teachings are primarily about one's introspective understanding, and disposition toward the world, not about making the world conform to one's idealized view of it. Perhaps part of your confusion comes from identifying the religion of Christianity, with the teachings of Christ; then, further, with connecting the religion to the actions of its devotees.

To get a fair basis of Jesus's philosophy, you only need
consider the parables of the workers in the Vineyard, the Talents (& the 3 servants), & the Good Samaritan; his teachings about the birds of the sky & flowers of the field, and the mustard seed; and the recounts of Peter, on the Sea of Galilee, the rich man who wanted to follow Jesus (harder than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle), being asked about paying tax to the Emporer, & the story of the woman accused of adultery (let the one among you without sin, cast the first stone); it is nothing at all as you are depicting it. It is exactly about what you, yourself, recommend:

 

Can't answer. I'm stuck. Need help with 30%. Please advise.

 

A fact ignored by genocidal God loving believers.

Gnostic Christians are about the only sect that meditates and or fasts the way Jesus taught.

Jesus' major teachings on justice was as follows, and is the exact opposite of what Christians do.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.

The declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children is contrary to every principle of moral justice. [Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason]

Jesus is telling those believers on his back to get the hell off.

Christians are not listening to Jesus.

Regards
DL

 

Only the really dimwitted short sighted will think they can out do the perfection of Nature.

My new O.P has a question you might like on this being the best of all possible worlds, thanks to War.

Duality wise, Is War more evil or more good? | PoliticalForum.com - Forum for US and Intl Politics

Regards
DL

 

I think faith should be a personal thing and let your actions speak for themselves. Holding others to a person's religious standards doesn't make sense to me. However, the WWJD philosophy from a few years back really resonated.

 

Why would accepting some biblical ideas require a special label or status such as "Christian Atheist"? Why does that need a label? Is this a religion or a philosophy?

 

I agree to a point. Religious standards, no.

Moral standards, absolutely.

Christian's have faith is in an immoral God who favors inquisitions, homophobia and misogyny.

That is a faith of immoral people. Right?

Such evil faith should be fought by all moral people. Right?

Regards
DL

 

Especially given that the bible is a consolidation of many religions and their wisdom literature.

Accentuate the Chrestianity parts that Christianity changed and you get the near perfect religion Christianity was before stupid supernatural thinking, Satanic thinking, ruined it.

Gnostic Christians were and are the only true old time perfected Christians.

That truth is why the inquisitors had to be used. The Christian bastard, then and now, could not best our ideology and we would have won the God Wars otherwise.

Only in these better times are free thinkers taking control again from the right wing lunatic fringe in both religions and politics.

High time.

Regards
DL

 

The forms of Christianity that are popular have "won" the "God Wars" because they're the most effective mental viruses. I expect that Gnosticism doesn't have the same mass appeal, probably because shysters can't preach it in a megachurch and rake in millions.

 

I remember a story from one of the gospels about a Samaritan who asked Jesus to cure him (or her) but Jesus refused. Something like that.

Well, I don't actually think that Jesus despised anyone, because I don't think he really existed. The people who wrote the gospels had some axes to grind, perhaps.

Regardless, someone who tells people "be with me or don't be at all' is heavily engaged in identity politics.

No. His message was "follow me or die".

Yep. Everybody's supposed to become a better person with all the introspection and disposition. Not happening.

Human beings are neither good, nor bad. Neither angels, nor demons. Expecting them to always act as if they're good is unreasonable. Expecting them to always act as if they're bad is unreasonable. Expecting them to always act moral - respectively immoral, or amoral - is unreasonable.

Teaching values is, of course, the right thing to do. Expecting people to always act as if those values are their true nature is illogical. The best we can hope for is some kind of balance between instincts, desires, morality, laws, and interests.

 

I hear you.

Supernatural belief is more entertaining to the masses.

When push comes to shove, supernatural and other stupid beliefs are the first to be dropped.

Modernization is forcing this, naturally, as our children get brighter, and secular state pressures are helping.

I am hoping that atheist churches will breed all types of Mystery Schools.

That will return us to looking to our wise, --- instead of our con men, --- in the right wings of both the political and religious spheres.

Regards
DL

 

Surf for Cathars.

Mass appeal is what had the inquisitions and politic all fearing our growth.

We had the brains and moral ideology/theology, while all Rome had was the power to end freedom of thought with murder and fire.

Regards
DL

 

Does it promise paradise in return for being an ******* to people who disagree with you and give you an excuse to tell others how what they can and can't do?

 

In our dualistic reality, we must have both the ability to do good and evil, --- and statistically, --- we seem to choose well as to which to give to others.

In fact, we are too good to each other.

If we all stopped doing evil via the competitions we do to find the fittest in all areas of expertise, we would go extinct.

Recognize the good in evil and the evil in good.

All human to human evil is caused by our competing. Stop it and you stop human evolution.

The good news is that we are mitigating the evil better over time with great social safety nets.

Regards
DL

 

Again, worrying about "everybody," else, was the opposite of Jesus' message. That was part of the first parable I mentioned: of the workers in the field, who all got the same pay, though some worked all day, and others only the last bit of the day. Mind yourself. Don't compare your own situation to others'.

Again, this is really a non sequitur reply to my post, which you apparently did not read very well. So I will repeat that I think you are connecting elements of the later religion, and Church, with the succinct teachings of Jesus.

BTW, it is these teachings, attributed to Jesus, which I am referring to, so it is irrelevant to our discussion, whether or not Jesus lived, was a divinity or a man, or possibly a compilation of multiple personages.

For the record, I was raised Catholic, but left the Church at 20, which was 36 years ago. I have long considered myself a pantheist, though I have felt less spiritual, in recent years, and have drifted towards a more amorphous, agnostic-like view, though still believe that there is a deeper, underpinning reality to our universe. But of my relation to this spiritual substrate, though I have always realized it was an unknowable, I currently feel less sure.