The rise of the religious left in America

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

But TP was talking as if sharia (which I always saw as the conservative, ancient position) was the perversion. It just seems like the sort of thing the liberal Christians he's talking about would say, the previous unpalatable actions and beliefs are the perversions and my progressive beliefs are the authentic thing!

I see. Yeah, I'm not really a fan of claims by progressive or conservative Christians on what constitutes "authentic Christianity," as both sides tend to ignore the socio-historical complexity and diversity of Christian religious expression. It's little surprise that whether it's "progressive Christianity" or "conservative Christianity," the end product is a brand of Christianity that still looks incredibly American (and typically "middle-class white").

[TerraPrime]

I mean, okay, there's no reason why you couldn't have a guy in French maid costume but if you claim you were going for that impression when you wrote that post, I'm not going to believe you.

I think that's why Christianity is so successful - it is infinitely malleable and like a good prostitute, it can pretend to be whatever you pay it to be, whether it's a French maid in costume or a female proctologist, and it will always cum hard for you. Just remember to tip her/him on the way out.

Yes?

When it's malleable, it's because we as Christians make it so, and when you make a statement as broad as the one in your first post, you are pretty directly accusing every Christian of doing tawdry things, and I find it disingenuous when you later stand by the comment while trying to back away from the offence it caused. Do one thing or t'other. I don't think anyone's going to die, or hate you forever, because you said a mean thing.

Umm... already conceded? I explained that it was not the intention, but accepted that the effect was nevertheless an insult to some Christians. Is there more you'd like me to address?

[sologdin]

not really see what the objection is. christian doctrine condemns persons to eternal toment for things as picayune as the interactions of their genitals or their incidental opinion on the filiation of a prophet. this type of judgment is coarse and irrational, but the most thoroughly loathsome aspect is the boastful insistence that the deity killed almost everyone on th planet once and plans to do it again.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

I think the malleability of Christianity is being overstated. There are clear areas of reasonable disagreement among adherents, and areas open to reasonable interpretation, but they are not unlimited. Sure, someone can always claim that Christianity mandates the raping of male giraffe, but most folks would agree there isn't any reasonable textual basis for that.

It's really not fair to impute to Christians or Christianity every act done in the name of Christianity, because some of those acts have no reasonable claim to being Christian at all.

[Stubby]

I think the idea that a 'religion' can be offended by words is a dangerous concept. I am happy for people to be religious. I accept that not all religious people are backwards thinking zealots. I accept that we have, here on this board, religious people who have no wish for their religion to be an imposition on others. On the other hand, I will continue to be disrespectful of ideas that are based on what I see as stories developed in a preliterate time dominated by tribal violence and inherent mistreatment of women and other fellow humans.

As long as a 9 year old rape victim can be publicly shamed and hated by a religious nation because she is pregnant from that rape, then I will disrespect religion.

As long as a woman is forced to die in a Western country because her pregnancy cannot be terminated due to laws imposed by the religious majority in her country, then I will disrespect religion.

As long as girls as young as 8 can be considered 'married' to a man aged 50, then I will disrespect religion.

As long as religion prevents two consenting adults from legally being wed - when such a ceremony has no impact at all on the religious objectors - then I will disrespect religion.

As long as there are people who allow their children to die when basic medical treatment would have saved them because the parents prefer to pray for recovery, then I will disrespect religion.

As long as there are preachers in Africa that insist on enforcing health practices that are outdated - just because they do not conform with religious belief - then I will disrespect religion.

As long as men continue to circumcise babies with their teeth - their fucking teeth for fuck's sake - in the name of their religion then I will disrespect religion.

As long as there are people who think it is OK to blatantly lie about established facts for the sake of their religion, then I will disrespect that religion.

I could go on, but the examples serve. I ask any of the believers here to state that we should respect any of the above practices as validly based on one person's religious beliefs over another's.

Inevitably, a comment of this nature will draw out the no-true scotsman people. If believers who do not share the beliefs I have listed - or indeed any other of myriad religiously justified infractions against humanity - feel uncomfortable about being associated with such practices then I would welcome that discomfort. I am forced to examine whether my disbelief is reasonable every time a religious person raises arguments that atheists are evil by association with regimes like Stalin's or Pol Pot's or Mao's. There is, among the secular community at the moment, a crisis based in sexual abuse of women at conventions (something that people here should be thinking about as well). This does not make me happy, as it is a case of those on the same spectrum of disbelief as I am that are not treating their fellow humans decently. But tough shit for me. I have to accept that it is happening and face it and do something about it. The same goes for the religious. If someone points out something bad with your religion and does so in strong language, face it.

If the conservatives on this board are challenged by the criticisms of the typically conservative viewpoints then being exposed to different ideas is a good thing. Same thing goes for when the left-leaning people are criticised. Ideas should never be sacrosanct and immune from disrespect.

And religion is just an idea like any other. Sure, for some people, it means more than that. But the moment ideas are immune from legitimate criticism is a bad moment IMO.

As for the rise of the religious left in America, if people base their desire to be good to their fellow humans on religion - awesome.

[TerraPrime]

It's really not fair to impute to Christians or Christianity every act done in the name of Christianity, because some of those acts have no reasonable claim to being Christian at all.

Can you give a couple examples of beliefs that some claim to be Christian but which you'd consider to have no business of being claimed to be Christian at all? What, in your mind, stretches the definition of Christianity so much that it breaks the meaning?

[naz]

Stubby, there's a huge difference between saying it the way you said it and the way Terra said it. Clearly tone has to count for something? Or is that not the case in civil discourse? Or are we beyond civil discourse? If the last is true, then I'll regretfully accept it, but will humbly bow out of such conversation.

[Galactus]

RE: Terra.

The point is that if you're not going to judge who the "true christians" are, then the term instantly becomes so broad that any judgement whatsoever becomes impossible to make. At that point "christianity" just becomes synonymous with "A large number of people." Christianity becomes a meaningless term except for self-identification, there's just nothing you can say about christianity unless you start shaving people off.

My position tends to be that christianity is just too large and diverse a thing to make any coherent judgement on. It is too intimately tied into our society, the way we view the world, and our history. It's like criticizing the existence of mountains, or rivers.

That's on moral grounds, obviously, I still think it is just plain wrong, epistemologically.

I ask any of the believers here to state that we should respect any of the above practices as validly based on one person's religious beliefs over another's.

Wrong question.

[sologdin]

And religion is just an idea like any other. Sure, for some people, it means more than that. But the moment ideas are immune from legitimate criticism is a bad moment IMO.

more than any other idea, at least in the US, where adherents attempt to transform legal immunity granted to religious opinion into ideological immunity. we see that attempt in this thread, where it is alleged that religion should not be subject to legitimate annihilative criticism because the subjection is offensive to the gustatory or to the affect. on the contrary, to protect religious doctrine from annihilative criticism by means of ideological, affective, or gustatory immunity is to fail to take religion seriously. what is to be done with a doctrine that purports to settle the affairs of all persons, forever, on trifling bases? we are to accept trivial dispositions because it hurts someone's feelings to disagree? this is how one shops for bathroom furnishings, not how one sifts philosophical propositions of fundamental significance.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

this is how one shops for bathroom furnishings, not how one sifts philosophical propositions of fundamental significance.

Nah, you can do that at Ikea now too.

[Ormond]

It is absurd, however, to suggest that the character of Jesus as presented in the narrative was not interested in politics. Talking about a coming kingdom of God on earth in which there is a reversal of fortunes in an imperial setting of Roman Judea is inherently a political statement. A substantial portion of Jesus's dialogues have political ramifications or undertones. It's not exactly a subtle political message when Jesus exorcises demons who use the collective name of "Legion" out of a man and into a herd of pigs. One of my close colleagues specializes in post-colonial readings of Luke (and the New Testament more broadly), particularly with the Lukan parables. The parables are not just moral tales, but also deal implicitly with sociopolitical matters.

I was going to point an argument like the above but MFC has done it better than I ever could. Must be the seminary training. :)

I find it really hard to believe that the Romans would have crucified Jesus if they didn't think his work had political implications. Certainly his "cleansing of the Temple" seems to be an extremely political act to me.

I also think it's not quite right to ever claim "Jesus never said anything about X" because we have such a small part of what He actually said in the Gospels. I suspect that if we could really have a transcript of everything he said that could be seen as having spiritual or ethical significance, modern people of all political leanings would be surprised.

[Sci-2]

Yes, for those who cannot separate their identity of their selves from their Christian identity, then they would indeed feel personally insulted by that comparison. However, my intent was not to insult individual Christians, although I fully accept the responsibility that my comparison will have that effect on some Christians.

But also, the whole idea that Christianity being whatever people want it to be makes it sex worker...well, seems like you can apply such a standard to liberalism, feminism, Hinduism as well.

I mean, under your criteria Hinduism is as much a prostitute as Christianity right?

If you want we can make separate thread to figure out which faiths are the "bigger whores".

[polishgenius]

Yes?

Umm... already conceded? I explained that it was not the intention, but accepted that the effect was nevertheless an insult to some Christians. Is there more you'd like me to address?

Fair enough. I was getting a bit overly argumentative and not attentive enough at three in the morning. *tips hat*

[Seli]

Just a quick Google (as well as Serious Callers Only link) tells me that the Qur'an was compiled during and soon after the end of Mohammed's life by the first Caliph. Then, sometime between ten and twenty years after Mohammed's death copies of said Qur'an were distributed to prevent fracturing. This seems to have been done by people who both helped compile it and those who were alive in the Prophet's time. I don't know if you can ask for much more than that really.

I'm just wondering what the basis of this "perversion' statement is, given that it sounds like the exact sort of thing that the people that TP was talking about would say:"It was fine once, it was just perverted by those non-Muslim Muslims."

Yes, it seems I misremembered. Although in defence of my hurt pride they did apparently not add on and agree on the diacritics until a lot later.

The big issue with any written text is in the interpretation though, which is of course highly dependent on culture. We only have to look at the more probably familiar interpretation issues of the US constitution to see how much it matters.

I think the malleability of Christianity is being overstated. There are clear areas of reasonable disagreement among adherents, and areas open to reasonable interpretation, but they are not unlimited. Sure, someone can always claim that Christianity mandates the raping of male giraffe, but most folks would agree there isn't any reasonable textual basis for that.

...

It is worth pointing out that Christianity is flexible enough that needing a textual basis is officially a minority position. And probably technically a heresy according to the official beliefs of the majority of adherents.

[Penguin king]

I think the malleability of Christianity is being overstated. There are clear areas of reasonable disagreement among adherents, and areas open to reasonable interpretation, but they are not unlimited. Sure, someone can always claim that Christianity mandates the raping of male giraffe, but most folks would agree there isn't any reasonable textual basis for that.

It's really not fair to impute to Christians or Christianity every act done in the name of Christianity, because some of those acts have no reasonable claim to being Christian at all.

I disagee immensely. There are hundreds if not thousands of christians sects, and the differences between them range from tiny points of dogma, through major theological schisms all the way to entirely different canons.

Members of my family belong to 'The Chuch of Jesus christ of Latter Day saints', aka the Mormons. Their scriptures contain 3 addional books, 'The Book of Mormon', 'The pearl of great Price' and 'Doctrine and Covenants'. They believe amongst other things, that Jesus visited the Americas, that there are 3 heavens, and that the most righteous couples can ascend to Godhood after judgement day. There is evidence for none of that in the Bible.

On the other hand, they still believe that Jeusus was born to a virgin, was the son of God, cured the sick and raised the dead. That he died on the cross for our salvation and that he rose again on the third day. These central beliefs entitle them to the lable 'Christian' just as much as any other sect.

What constitutes 'Christian behaviour' depends entirely on what people are willing to believe in the name of Christ.

[Serious Callers Only]

As i said, it's all bullshit.

[Toshio.Keepiru]

Well, if you have a daughter you might think differently about a sexually liberal lifestyle and all its associated risks, compared to when you were a teenager or in your twenties yourself. Kind of like "Yeah, I was like that too, before I learned better. If only I can pass on some of that wisdom to my daugther without her having to go through my mistakes herself."

I think that's quite a natural part of growing older. And wiser.

It seems like you equate growing older and wiser with growing older and more conservative.... Not all people who grow older grow more conservative and I don't consider them less wise for it.

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

And religion is just an idea like any other. Sure, for some people, it means more than that. But the moment ideas are immune from legitimate criticism is a bad moment IMO.

Agreed, but I think it's important to be aware of the critical debates that also happen within the various religious traditions regarding such legitimate issues.

As i said, it's all bullshit.

It's a collection of memetic ideologies with an evolving intellectual history coupled with political institutions and diverse socio-historical contexts that draws on literary interpretation, just like anything else that involves reading. Sure you can call it "bullshit," but that's about like reducing the totality of the human experience to "it's all sex." Your reductionist assessment that "it's all bullshit" would certainly apply to just about everything else human beings do to one extent or another. But declaring that "it's all bullshit" hardly serves as a critically meaningful contribution to the thread discussion.

[Serious Callers Only]

It's a collection of memetic ideologies with an evolving intellectual history coupled with political institutions and diverse socio-historical contexts that draws on literary interpretation, just like anything else that involves reading. Sure you can call it "bullshit," but that's about like reducing the totality of the human experience to "it's all sex." Your reductionist assessment that "it's all bullshit" would certainly apply to just about everything else human beings do to one extent or another. But declaring that "it's all bullshit" hardly serves as a critically meaningful contribution to the thread discussion.

I'm just of the opinion that building on a flawed foundation aka a fucking collection of lies and parables, is dumb. If you believe in fairy tales YMMV.

edit: much less the monstrous political power inherent on those derived institutions being based on bullshit.

[The Marquis de Leech]

I'm just of the opinion that building on a flawed foundation aka a fucking collection of lies and parables, is dumb. If you believe in fairy tales YMMV.

edit: much less the monstrous political power inherent on those derived institutions being based on bullshit.

Religion is complicated. It has certainly inspired great suffering and started many wars. It has also inspired people to perform great acts of charity and seek to change society for the better. It has both preserved knowledge and destroyed knowledge. And so on.

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in the supernatural foundations of faith. What interests me far more is what people actually do with that faith (if they have it).