Hi everyone,
I'd like to run my version of Christianity past you for discussion.

I grew up fascinated by science and believing that science is the only way to explain how the world works. I still do. However, there are things that are not about how the world works, but what to do with it. Are equality, liberty and justice good ideas, for example?

One of the things a religious faith gives some people is a set of values. Through stories and teaching, it encourages, depending on the religion, generosity, forgiveness, humility and so on. It can help people decide how to live, and help them find meaning in their experiences.

So, can we take values and a sense of purpose from religion, Christianity in my case as I was brought up in a Christian culture and family, without having to accept any of the truth claims - miracles, metaphysics and so on?

I think we can. I think it's possible to reject all supernatural elements of Christianity but keep the meaning. There are many Christians, of course, who don't believe in the Virgin Birth, hell, or transubstantiation, say. I think it's possible and desirable to completely let go of any such supernatural claims, but that we can still find good things in a grown up Christianity that has at last freed itself from false beliefs.

What's your reaction?

It sounds like you are describing Humanism rather than christianity. I await correction, but I think a core distinction of christianity is that jeebus is god incarnate who temporarily died for human sin. If you don't believe in a resurrected jeebus, then I don't think you can really call yourself a christian, or am I wrong?

chairman bill wrote:Are you suggesting that religion can offer a philosophy & set of precepts that might underpin moral & ethical behaviour, and that so long as we jettison the supernaturalist mumbo-jumbo, they can be a good thing?

If so, I'd suggest that what we need to do is cherry-pick, in order to arrive at a set that exclude all the offensive, immoral bollocks that also flows from religions. Love thy neighbour is fine, do not steal, don't go around killing folk, generally be nice to other people, and so on, are all fine. But what about equally religous strictures against eating shellfish, commandments & the like about killing witches, stoning adulterers, and so on? If we're going to agree on those bits that are nice & pro-social, maybe drawing on all the good things outlined in various religious & other philosophical writings down the ages, why call it christianity, or any other religion?

Particularly when these ideas predate christianty. It seems odd to invoke christianity at all when you are ignoring the whole christ thing.

The short answer is : look up non-overlapping magisteria (or NOMA).

For a somewhat longer one… “Religion gives people a set of values.” No it doesn’t. The so called Christian values weren’t invented by Christians. Did people blithely steal and murder their way through life in pre-Christian societies because there was nothing to tell them it was wrong ? No. Is that the way people behave in societies who have never been in contact with Christianity ? No. Clearly something more universal, both in time and place, is at work here.
At best, religions are – in my view outdated - vehicles for morals and values, but they are not the source of them.

The good things that can be found in Christianity without its false beliefs are just as easily found without it. Christianity is neither the source nor sole keeper of anything, nor is any other religion.

Yes, I agree that values and ethics are around independently of religions. What a religion offers is bit more complex. I think Christianity is more like a place where contemporary questions and issues can be brought into dialogue with the stories of the faith.

If one person prefers liberty to prosperity and another person sees it the other way round, it's very hard to know how to arbitrate between them. It may only be by reference to stories and traditions that you can get a handle on the deep roots of these convictions. I see Christianity, and the reinterpretation of its stories as a source of creative engagement between different people and their different ideas. Only, of course, if they find the Christian tradition congenial.

Yes, you can call it humanism if you like. A humanism informed by the Christian tradition, perhaps. If you remove metaphysical meaning from the claim that Jesus is divine, you end up with the flip side of it: that the divine is human.

Simon Bailey wrote:Yes, I agree that values and ethics are around independently of religions. What a religion offers is bit more complex. I think Christianity is more like a place where contemporary questions and issues can be brought into dialogue with the stories of the faith.

But what's the point? Why not deal with contemporary questions and issues without referring back to what bronze-age desert tribes thought about the world? Why does faith even need to be mentioned?

If one person prefers liberty to prosperity and another person sees it the other way round, it's very hard to know how to arbitrate between them. It may only be by reference to stories and traditions that you can get a handle on the deep roots of these convictions. I see Christianity, and the reinterpretation of its stories as a source of creative engagement between different people and their different ideas. Only, of course, if they find the Christian tradition congenial.

What? Why not pick Harry Potter if you want to frame any arbitration around popular fiction?

Yes, you can call it humanism if you like. A humanism informed by the Christian tradition, perhaps. If you remove metaphysical meaning from the claim that Jesus is divine, you end up with the flip side of it: that the divine is human.

What good does it do to call humanity divine? Why should we follow the traditions of that particular group in the Middle East and not the Norse for example?
I'm sorry to say but your idea seems pointless and unhelpful. I, for example, think that religion is the closest thing to evil we have, why should I support even a watered-down version having anything to do with our society? I want it gone, I want us to deal with issues rationally, faith is anti-rational.

One reason to think about Christianity is that, where I come from, it's the local tradition. I live in a society that cannot be understood without understanding its Christian past. Yes, it was a Middle Easter Bronze Age tradition once, but it's also been a Victorian British tradition and a Medieval European one.

I remember reading a book about Zen by Alan Watts, I think, in which he said that Zen was a sort of cure for the insanely regulated and honour-bound society of Medieval Japan. I think that Christianity was originally a sort of cure for the Judaism of the day, and that a non-supernatural Christianity is a sort of cure for the version I was introduced to as a child. If you don't have that disease it probably won't appeal, though there are some nice rituals and a sense of community for those who like that sort of thing.

Belief, I agree is anti-rational. Faith, though, is non-rational; back to the NOMA idea.

Well if that works for you, well done. Religion isn't always batshit insane. Not sure if there is anything else to say though, unless your here to argue some kind of position.

Simon Bailey wrote:One reason to think about Christianity is that, where I come from, it's the local tradition. I live in a society that cannot be understood without understanding its Christian past. Yes, it was a Middle Easter Bronze Age tradition once, but it's also been a Victorian British tradition and a Medieval European one.

I remember reading a book about Zen by Alan Watts, I think, in which he said that Zen was a sort of cure for the insanely regulated and honour-bound society of Medieval Japan. I think that Christianity was originally a sort of cure for the Judaism of the day, and that a non-supernatural Christianity is a sort of cure for the version I was introduced to as a child. If you don't have that disease it probably won't appeal, though there are some nice rituals and a sense of community for those who like that sort of thing.

Belief, I agree is anti-rational. Faith, though, is non-rational; back to the NOMA idea.

Tradition should be viewed with generous heaps of scepticism, it's just conservatism. Our traditions have replaced the traditions of those that went before, which in turn replaced those that went before them. Tradition is a short-cut to save thinking, that is not to say all traditions are bad, just that they are not necessarily good.
The vast majority of society (including the christians) would find most of the traditions in the bible as disgusting and abhorent, if it local tradition you crave, why not paganism, or druidism or whatever, why pick christianity? It is repulsive, and if you simply remove the abhorent parts, then you must have some framework by which to judge. You don't need any sort of framework that the bible offers then.

Simon Bailey wrote:What's your reaction?

I had a friend who was a member of NA without ever having been a drug addict. Christianity is a doomsday cult which is 2000 years past its sell by date, of course, anybody can be a cult victim but personally, I wouldn't join NA regardless of any chemical history.

Interesting thread. I think there are a number of versions of this.

First, there are Christian atheists, see for example, the Sea of Faith group.

Then there are a variety of liberal Christians who have given up varying amounts of the miraculous material, but still retain the divinity of Christ. I suppose here the accusation of cherry-picking is often levelled, but then I think everybody cherry-picks, don't they? No-one actually takes on board the whole of Jewish law as a Christian, do they?

There is also the interesting idea of praxis not doxis, which, briefly, argues that religion is primarily a social practice, and can be followed as that. I sometimes think, when I go to the Eucharist in church, I don't go in order to have beliefs, but to take part in this practice. I also find it satisfying and somehow it completes me.

Of course, there are some beliefs involved in praxis, but one might also come from a don't know position.

I also meet people who just like it. This sounds rather primitive, well, I don't know. I saved that till last.

Simon Bailey wrote:Yes, I agree that values and ethics are around independently of religions. What a religion offers is bit more complex. I think Christianity is more like a place where contemporary questions and issues can be brought into dialogue with the stories of the faith.

If one person prefers liberty to prosperity and another person sees it the other way round, it's very hard to know how to arbitrate between them. It may only be by reference to stories and traditions that you can get a handle on the deep roots of these convictions. I see Christianity, and the reinterpretation of its stories as a source of creative engagement between different people and their different ideas. Only, of course, if they find the Christian tradition congenial.

Yes, you can call it humanism if you like. A humanism informed by the Christian tradition, perhaps. If you remove metaphysical meaning from the claim that Jesus is divine, you end up with the flip side of it: that the divine is human.

Ugh. What an appalling thought; the entire future of humankind forever doomed to be defined by stories about donkeys, gourds, desert survival tips and other paraphernalia of one little specific old region of the world.

I don't think of tradition as 'the way we used to do it' or 'how we used to think.' I think of tradition as a river that flows and is always becoming new, going new places. Being in a tradition means being connected to how things were, but making them contemporary in your situation.

Am I here to argue a position? Only to say that I think the crap side of religion isn't the really important bit. Christianity could shake off the pre-Enlightenment world view and help people engage with the questions from that other, non-overlapping side of life.

Simon Bailey wrote:I don't think of tradition as 'the way we used to do it' or 'how we used to think.' I think of tradition as a river that flows and is always becoming new, going new places. Being in a tradition means being connected to how things were, but making them contemporary in your situation.

That seems to be a weird definition of tradition. Tradition is just doing something the way it's always been done.

Am I here to argue a position? Only to say that I think the crap side of religion isn't the really important bit. Christianity could shake off the pre-Enlightenment world view and help people engage with the questions from that other, non-overlapping side of life.

Many here would agree, but point out that almost all of christianity is the crap side. Why use your religion to help people engage with questions? I don't see why it's necessary, or even desirable. What other, non-overlapping side of life do you mean? Can you try to be a little more specific about what you think adopting a stripped-down, bastardised form of christianity will achieve? What questions can it help with? I just can't see the point to it.

CookieJon wrote:
Ugh. What an appalling thought; the entire future of humankind forever doomed to be defined by stories about donkeys, gourds, desert survival tips and other paraphernalia of one little specific old region of the world.

I've nothing against donkeys and gourds, myself. Add in the sheep, mountains, trees, rivers, brothers, mothers, debts, immigrants, treasure, harvests, law-breaking, birth and death that you find and it's a heady mix. And it has kept up with the times it's been in. Think of Dante, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Bach, Blake, GM Hopkins, Matisse.

You can't have christianity without the bible. I'd rather do without the 'values' as offered in that book of horrors thank you.

generosity, forgiveness, humility and so on. It can help people decide how to live, and help them find meaning in their experiences.

So, can we take values and a sense of purpose from religion, Christianity in my case as I was brought up in a Christian culture and family, without having to accept any of the truth claims - miracles, metaphysics and so on?

Do even non-religious christians cherry pick the lovely fluffy bits?

trubble76 wrote:Why use your religion to help people engage with questions? I don't see why it's necessary, or even desirable. What other, non-overlapping side of life do you mean? Can you try to be a little more specific about what you think adopting a stripped-down, bastardised form of christianity will achieve? What questions can it help with? I just can't see the point to it.

I always find it hard to be specific!

Think about the atrocity in Norway. Behind it there are questions about what sort of society we want. Immigration is often presented as a bad thing in Western Europe. It is spoken of in the context of growing numbers and cultural disharmony. I have liberal reflexes so I tend to resist the arguments of those who want to limit immigration, and I'm strongly against the far right arguments of the BNP and the EDL.

Now, within the Christian tradition there are nationalist strands. In the Old Testament Joshua sets off ethnically cleansing the 'Holy Land' (which archaeologists tell us is pure invention - the conquest of Canaan never happened.) Ezra and Nehemiah tell the Jewish men to dump their foreign wives. There are also, though, some powerful integrationist strands. The story of the tower of Babel suggests the division of humanity into scattered language groups was a disaster. The prophet Isaiah and others talk about all the nations gathering to the one God, and emphasise the journeying of different nations together. In the genealogy of Jesus, the foreign bits of the birthline he shares with King David are emphasised (Ruth the Moabite). Paul leads Peter and the early church to understand that their new faith is not just for Jews, and is not tied to Jewish laws and identity, and the (weird) Book of Revelation has a vision of a new earth with a vast multi-cultural city in it.

I need, and perhaps others do, as well, to not just resist narrow nationalists because I'm a liberal and therefore against them, but I need to get and share a positive vision of a multi-cultural society. I need to see myself in pan-national terms. I need something to work on me at the level of self-image, dreams, aspirations and sense of belonging. Political argument doesn't cut it. Experience might, if I lived in the right place and had friends and family members from other ethnic groups. Films and novels do. Christian tradition does - and for me this is quite a powerful one. Prayer and worship put before me a set of stories that embrace all nations and cultures and talk about breaking down barriers, and that helps to change me, and give me the words to help others find a similar change.

There - a specific example. Could have talked about gay rights, euthanasia, economics or education.

Simon Bailey wrote:

trubble76 wrote:Why use your religion to help people engage with questions? I don't see why it's necessary, or even desirable. What other, non-overlapping side of life do you mean? Can you try to be a little more specific about what you think adopting a stripped-down, bastardised form of christianity will achieve? What questions can it help with? I just can't see the point to it.

I always find it hard to be specific!

Think about the atrocity in Norway. Behind it there are questions about what sort of society we want. Immigration is often presented as a bad thing in Western Europe. It is spoken of in the context of growing numbers and cultural disharmony. I have liberal reflexes so I tend to resist the arguments of those who want to limit immigration, and I'm strongly against the far right arguments of the BNP and the EDL.

Now, within the Christian tradition there are nationalist strands. In the Old Testament Joshua sets off ethnically cleansing the 'Holy Land' (which archaeologists tell us is pure invention - the conquest of Canaan never happened.) Ezra and Nehemiah tell the Jewish men to dump their foreign wives. There are also, though, some powerful integrationist strands. The story of the tower of Babel suggests the division of humanity into scattered language groups was a disaster. The prophet Isaiah and others talk about all the nations gathering to the one God, and emphasise the journeying of different nations together. In the genealogy of Jesus, the foreign bits of the birthline he shares with King David are emphasised (Ruth the Moabite). Paul leads Peter and the early church to understand that their new faith is not just for Jews, and is not tied to Jewish laws and identity, and the (weird) Book of Revelation has a vision of a new earth with a vast multi-cultural city in it.

I need, and perhaps others do, as well, to not just resist narrow nationalists because I'm a liberal and therefore against them, but I need to get and share a positive vision of a multi-cultural society. I need to see myself in pan-national terms. I need something to work on me at the level of self-image, dreams, aspirations and sense of belonging. Political argument doesn't cut it. Experience might, if I lived in the right place and had friends and family members from other ethnic groups. Films and novels do. Christian tradition does - and for me this is quite a powerful one. Prayer and worship put before me a set of stories that embrace all nations and cultures and talk about breaking down barriers, and that helps to change me, and give me the words to help others find a similar change.

There - a specific example. Could have talked about gay rights, euthanasia, economics or education.

Thank you for being more specific. Now I absolutely and unreservedly disagree with your stance. The bible is an abhorent piece of ancient (although not always as ancient as we're led to believe) rubbish. There is nothing in it that is both useful and absent from non-religious methods of problem solving. I have no more desire to refer to that religion's nonsense than I do of the Aztec's or the Zoroastrian's.
I will say the same to you as all the other theists, you may believe whatever crap you like, you may worship whatever fairy you like, you may read whichever collection of nonsense you like, but keep it out of public life. Rationality based on current knowledge is infinitely superior to the musings of ignorant middle-eastern wankers. We really don't need to go back 2,000 years, we should be looking forward 2,000 years if anything.