Can Christianity exist only as a religious philosophy
Posted on: November 11, 2011 - 5:06am
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Can Christianity exist only as a religious philosophy
Can Christianity exist only as a religious philosophy, like Theravada Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism do? No God, just the teachings of Jesus, and the things you can learn from reading the Bible?
My take on this is that most of the stuff Jesus said had already been said by Confucius, Thales, Plato, Khrisna (did he even exist?), the Tao Teh Ching, and Christianity seems to have nothing else to add.
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Christianity is a religious philosophy already. Just because there are present adherents does not make it less a philosophy than a religion. When the adherents die there will be less religiosity and then it will morph into philosophy just like Theravada Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism. I have hope that it will at least.
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I deny the existence of the Holy Spirit!
It will have to find ways to view much of scripture, including key 'events' such as the Crucifixion, the Garden of Eden story, and the Fall, as allegories, metaphors, not 'real' happenings, which is the biggest hurdle for current followers to overcome.
Especially wrt the Crucifixion.
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The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
On the Garden of Eden story. It's a thing within the mind not an actual physical place. Crucifixions were an actual physical event. If JC went through the Roman judicial system one can see a (possible) Crucifixion as it was the common means of Roman execution. The "Fall" is a changing of the mind or going in another direction of personal values, which in turn removes the Garden of Eden from the mind (individual)(to a different state of mind).
The only possible thing the world needs saving from are those running it.
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Knowledge trumps faith and I'm not a Theist
Lies are nothing more then falsehoods searching for the truth
I have to be the dissenting view here. Christianity is not a philosophy. It is the core claim that a god had a son named Jesus. Beyond that the claimants of such have widely varying views of worldviews and what constitutes morality. Christianity at it's core is a position, specifically the position that the god of the bible is the one true god.
Atheism is also not a philosophy. It's core position are that gods do not exist, or that the person holds no belief in a god or gods. Again, that too is merely a position and atheists can also widely vary on worldviews and what constitutes morality.
Now, one could argue that the bible is not a good book to attempt to create uniformity as to coming to a philosophy, but Christianity is a position, not a philosophy.
I do agree that the stories in the bible that people cherry pick and say "this is nice", are clearly found prior in other writings as motifs. And one can also find these "nice" stories in works of fiction such as Star Wars and Harry Potter.
Human behavior is not dependent on a label. Labels do not constitute philosophy, they are mere short cuts used as place cards for positions.
Christianity is the position that the god of the bible is the one true god. Just like Beyond Saving and I are both atheists with completely different philosophies on certain issues.
When you mistake a position for a philosophy you can falsely fall into the "true Scotsman" fallacy.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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— Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
Religion Kills !!!
Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.
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I love throwing that quote in Christians faces. Those idiots wrongfully claim that just because a person calls themselves an atheist that somehow we want to use government force to outlaw religion. Yet the person who is most responsible for their freedom, who was not only ok with skepticism, saw it as a duty, if Jefferson ran for president today, he couldn't get elected. He was not an atheist, but he damned sure wasn't scared of being questioned even on that issue.
I am so sick of the false stereotype that blasphemy is harmful, or that because of such that when we do, we are out to take away the civil rights of others. NO, the mere act of calling "bullshit" on a claim is not saying you cant claim it. Nor does it mean we hate all believers just because we might hate the claim.
The believer has the religious motif "Love the sinner not the sin"
The non religious secular version would be, "Love the claimant not the claim".
The believer doesn't understand what we are doing.
When we trash a claim it is to us, like throwing cold water on your face to get you to wake up. It may shock you, but it is because we want the believer to see that they DO NOT NEED belief in a fictional being to live life or be good.
What we are doing here is Jeffersonian, much like Galileo had every right and duty to call "bullshit" when people claimed the sun rotated around the earth.
Instead of crying and complaining about our blasphemy here, maybe the believer needs to look in the mirror and try to understand why they reject all other claims besides the one they hold.
If our species never questioned social norms our species never would have left the caves.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog