Really, the garbage that continues to dribble out of Rick Santorum’s mouth never ceases to astonish. Here’s his latest gem:
Obama believes in a “phony ideology — not a theology based on the Bible,” Santorum said, according to Steve Peoples of the Associated Press.
That would seem to be in tension, to say the least, with one of the most important parts of the Constitution of the United States:
no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
“No religious test.” “Ever.” Pretty strong words – if there was one thing we can be pretty sure that the Founders agreed on, that would seem to be it.
Combine that with this one, spoken by Santorum in 2008 and just unearthed by Think Progress, and it adds up to what we always thought Rick Santorum was anyway: an intolerant radical who cloaks his extreme views in sweater vests.
of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.
My goodness. So apparently the millions and millions of mainline Protestants in this country aren’t actually Christians – at least, not Christians as defined in the Gospel According To Rick. That’ll come as a surprise to them.
Can I just say again how much I desperately hope this guy ends up being the Republican nominee for president? The blowout will rival Reagan’s.
Need I remind you that said blowout was in Reagan’s favor? Seems to me we might want to be careful what we wish for as Dems were hoping Reagan would be the nominee on the premise that of course he’d be too extreme to win a general election.
As for millions of mainline Protestants not being Christians, ironically on another thread I seem to be having trouble convincing a couple of our regulars that they are!
Shouldn’t we be talking about the assault on women, and the terrifying prospect of President Santorum and the extremist theocracy he desires (he led the charge in the Schiavo debacle)?
Millions and millions of mainline Protestants are too liberal for Rick Santorum. Millions and millions of extremist Protestants are too conservative for some of us including yours truly. Both statements are absolutely true. Meanwhile, the lie of the “assault on religion” goes unchallenged.
Can I please remind us of David’s observation:”‘No religious test.’ ‘Ever.’ Pretty strong words – if there was one thing we can be pretty sure that the Founders agreed on, that would seem to be it.”
Millions of Americans are non-believers. Millions of Americans don’t regularly attend any place of worship. Millions of Americans are disgusted with the absurd contortions that religion and religiosity is twisting our government and public policy into.
It is not “class warfare” for the 99% to finally say “STOP” to the plundering of the 1%. It is not an “attack on religion” for those of us for whom religion truly IS a private matter to say “STOP” to those who insist on inflicting their magical thinking — or its bizarre consequences for public policy — on us. Let’s not forget that the same crowd that bleats about abortion now agitates to block the ONLY effective way to reduce abortions.
While we go on and on about religion, the vandals of the rabid-right are plundering and destroying what’s left of America. Can we please pay attention to real issues here?
We are in rare agreement on a religious issue STom! I too wish the religion of the candidates was irrelevant and religious discussions didn’t permeate so deeply. It really cheapens the political process and in my view is detrimental to religious expression as well, we can look no further to Christ who clearly showed that God and Caesar are two separate and distinct masters with different purposes and ways to serve them. I am sick and tired of my fellow Christians trying to force their peculiar form of my faith on the rest of the population. I also strongly believe that atheists and agnostics, like any other American including Mormons and Muslims for the matter, have a place at the table and the right and obligation to run for office openly and contribute. There is no religious test for office and I’d be happy to vote for a candidate of any faith or no faith as long as they had integrity and agreed broadly with principles of economic and social justice for all Americans. Lets build a coalition around that.
Which threads are these? I hope my jokes at the mainlines expense haven’t been taken too seriously. Lord knows Catholics have their issues and problems as well. And for Santorum to say that really alienates him from most evangelicals who are Protestant
is also in tension with the First Amendment to the Constitution, which provides for the separation of church and state.
It’s true that Ronald Reagan was regarded as extreme when he ran for president. But I don’t recall him making statements that seem to take us back prior to the Eighteenth Century when most people believed that rulers of nations governed on the basis of divine authority.
Santorum doesn’t want to be President of the United States, he wants to be President of the American Taliban.
He’s waaay too religious to be eligible to be President, he actually talks about the Bible and lives by the teachings of his Church?? That’s medieval! He totally fails the “no religious president” test that there shall ever be.
Nothing could be more diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus than the policies of the 21st century Republican party. Jesus taught a message of love, not intolerance and hatred. Therefore I do not consider anyone who aligns with that party to be a genuine Christian. Otherwise “Christian” would simply be a meaningless label.
My mother used to call the likes of Rick Santorum (and Jerry Falwell) and Pat Robertson) “Counterfeit Christians” – as opposed to genuine Christians such as Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, Sister Teresa, James Carroll.
Apparently the GOP candidates haven’t been reading their Bibles either
1 Corinthians 13:13 states clearly that
And love can be properly translated as charity. The greatest of these is charity towards your fellow man.
The Obama’s have contributed 18% of their gross adjusted income to charity and the Santorums have contributed 1%. You tell me which candidate is governing from the Bible, last I checked the New Testament mentions homosexuality and abortion zero times but mentions helping the poor, the disabled, the sick, and promoting peace at every single turn. The nice thing is you don’t have to believe in Jesus to practice those principles either, and this is something we can all rally around.
The New Testament is such a complex jumble of stuff that it’s difficult to distill anything in particular as the definitive statement of “what Jesus taught.” For example, the Sermon on the Mount from the book of Matthew sits central in the liberal view of Christianity. Much of its content makes scant appearance in the fourth gospel. The event itself merits a faint mention in Luke and none in Mark. If the beatitudes were the point, why doesn’t the repetitious and emphatic St John emphasize them?
Truly Jesus can safely be claimed to teach whatever any subset of Christianity claims he taught.
Maybe OnePercenter mediæval Euromales *wished* (sort of, in that Sanbbath-school or Commencement-Day fingers-crossed Pickwickian way that still survives and flourishes) that they were Santorumesque, but in practice I betcha cheerfulness kept breaking in. [*]
Happy days.
__
[**] St. Jack is good on this:
…in challenging the “assault on religion” whining. Whenever I hear the complaint that a religion that claims the allegiance of 75-80% of our population (though many don’t attend church because they too haven’t found one with which they are ideologically and theologically comfortable), and at least that proportion of our leadership, is somehow being persecuted I want to scream. My personal views are consistent with no religious test and Jefferson’s quote that, “I care not whether my neighbor worships no god or twenty gods; it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” You are absolutely correct about the founding fathers; in fact from my reading this is one of only two things that they all seemed to agree on (the other being the importance of an educated citizenry) and I am one to cite the Treaty of Tripoli (“Whereas the United States was in no means founded upon the Christian religion…”) without hesitation. I agree wholeheartedly with your comment above, but I will push back on comments that appear to generalize about a religion that is very diverse.
I think you and I have been maligned somewhat in the contraception debate for protecting what we found as religious liberty, I also don’t like the Mormon bashing that occasionally creeps up here either along with Catholic bashing. The thing is I don’t feel that atheists are under assault either, I know I’ll get dirty looks from my co-workers on Wednesday when their are ashes on my forehead and the vast majority of people my age do not believe. The future if not the present majority of this country will be quite secular. This does not bother me by the way, but I really hope that the values of tolerance and pluralism that the founders clearly wanted to instill in our nation are not perverted by the Santorums of the world or abandoned by our side which has to continue to fight for them. There are no religious tests for higher office. Mitt Romney is unqualified to be President because he lacks integrity and basic empathy for those hurting the most in this society, his Mormonism has no bearing on the debate whatsoever. Similarly Barack Obama is a Christian and I will fight those who claim otherwise, but even if he was an atheist or a Muslim I still would vote to re-elect him because he is a decent man who has done a decent job in trying times. Let us judge on character not race, religion, or creed as Dr. King said.
The candidate currently leading the GOP pack, Rick Santorum, denounced Barack Obama’s “phony theology” on Saturday. In his subsequent denial on “Meet The Press”, he illustrates the extraordinary dangers of introducing religion to our public debate about our secular government — he chooses global warming as his example of how Barack Obama
is not a Christian“elevates the Earth above man” (not humanity, but “man” — remember that in Mr. Santorum’s world, women don’t count). Some of you may recall that I mentioned the religious aspect of climate change denial — here we have it in full display.Here’s the clip of his first attack, in case you’ve heard his subsequent denials:
This morning, on “Meet The Press”, Mr. Santorum said (emphasis mine):
Welcome to the topsy-turvy dangerous world of the fervently-religious presidential candidate. I suppose he is attempting to accuse Barack Obama of being a heretic (the Pantheist heresy), but he of course fails at even that. It takes but a moment to observe that (a) the science is compelling (like evolution, he simply doesn’t like the answer) and (b) the concern about climate change is about the impact on humanity. Hardly “elevating the Earth above man (sic)”.
Ironically, it is the climate change deniers — who claim that humanity is “too puny” to change the climate, that the changes are “natural”, and who assure us that “this has happened before and will happen again” (and in so doing welcome changes that will destroy humanity) — who sound as though they worship the Earth.
This dangerous, superstitious magical thinking is WHY I so passionately reject the “religion” that is being inflicted on all of us.
… religious beliefs inform policy and political decisions, it matters. As such, the trick here isn’t to create a religious test (personal – a policy test would be unconstitutional) but to use information about specific religious dogma to inform the relevant policy questions that must be asked. Kennedy was fine as Catholic, but the question about the pope spoke directly to the intersection on Catholic dogma and the performance of the job. As such, the question was proper (and properly answered).
“The thing is I don’t feel that atheists are under assault either”
I beg to differ. Or here.
Try running for office as an atheist, even for dog catcher.
I have to sit through a prayer at Lowell City Council meetings I attend or watch. (It used to be the Lord’s Prayer but recently due to them trying to be more equitable it’s a generic Christian/God prayer now. Gee, I feel so accommodated in the halls where my politics is decided.)
No, it’s not hard to declare being an atheist in this country, especially in areas of the south or midwest. [/sarcasm] I can tell you, I had to make a conscience decision to start talking about being an atheist on my blog.
Perhaps my Cambride upbringing and Chicago location have had undue influence on that perception. After I posted his I learned that a coworker was regularly beaten as a kid for skipping church in southern Illinois so I can concede that point. I think moderation is key and the guiding principle of religious pluralism, immoderation is common to all sides as well and I think the religious can be far more respectful of atheists then they are, atheists and agnostics should respectfully engage with and not scoff at or mock the religious. Growing up I was mocked incessantly for being Catholic particularly when the abuse scandals broke out, I was mocked for wearing ashes all through college. Suffice to say mocking and bigotry and immoderation are the enemies of faith and reason both.
… of the simple facts that I see no good evidence for the devine and I don’t find belief beyond evidence (faith) to be rational, much less a virtue. It has nothing to do with identity. By contrast, people with religious beliefs tend to incorporate them into their identity. The result is that debate can be ‘offensive’ where the subject is religion.
In normal rational debate assertions without evidence can be, much less seem, ridiculous. In any other realm of inquiry, such ridiculous assertions might be debated with ridicule, and appropriately so (wishing for tax cuts during two wars for example). Ridiculous ideas are certainly not limited to the non-religious. Given the evidence, for example, young earth creationism is ridiculous (worthy of ridicule). Lets not forget about the Ralian origin story.
This phenomenon of where identity gets wrapped up in ideas causes criticism of these ideas to be recieved as ‘bigotry’ or ‘intolerance’ or ‘bullying’. Atheist who are content to actually discuss religion are often accuesed of being ‘shrill’ or ‘strident’ because of this phenomenon. Their disrespect for particular beliefs is read as disrespect for people. By their very nature, not all beliefs can (or should) be ‘respected’. I totally respect that people have the right to hold ridiculous beliefs – but that people are deserving of respect doesn’t mean that their ideas must also be.
There is something comforting about the concept of ‘the middle’. Something very common-sense about the idea that the position between extremes probably holds the truth. Moderation only makes sense if what you are looking for is accomodation. If ideas are to be really debated and examined, accomodation isn’t the goal – truth is. Accomodation seems like a worthy goal only insofar as people confuse their ideas with their identities. It makes sense to find accomodation with people. However, if you buy that the truth matters, accomodation degrades the debate that would get us there. Of course this invites the retort that it is ‘arrogant’ to think that one knows the truth better than the other. Of course it is the religious realm that asserts access to absolute knowledge. By contrast, basing belif on evidence means that every truth is tentative – tentative to the discover of new evidence. Keeping a whole realm of human ideas sheltered from actual debate because of some notion that confuses personal respect with the respect of ideas is no roadmap to truth.
I understand the context of your point (and I think the spirit in which it was meant), but strictly speaking:
Mocking isn’t an ‘enemy’ of reason.
It isn’t bigotry to criticize ideas (unless the reasons one brings into their criticism are themselves bigoted).
Moderation isn’t inherently a virtue.
By all means, let’s not go overboard with this rationality thing, lest we undermine people’s faith in their favorite superstition.
Are you saying that it was all, or even mostly atheists who did this mocking? Did they identify themselves as such? Without any evidence to support me in this, I’d bet that most of the mockers were fellow Christians, with that majority possibly reduced in college.
“atheists and agnostics should respectfully engage with and not scoff at or mock the religious. Growing up I was mocked incessantly for being Catholic particularly when the abuse scandals broke out, I was mocked for wearing ashes all through college.”
First, I totally respect your right to believe. For instance I would not be among those mocking your ashes. However, not mocking you, and not mocking the ideas you believe in, are two different things. Your ideas should have to compete just as hard the the marketplace of ideas as any other realm of ideas. Just because for you it’s a matter of faith, doesn’t mean it’s not a concept to be examined.
So when I say I find it as totally ridiculous to believe in an all-knowing invisible sky man as it would be to believe in a purple polka-dotted lemer god, that is an attack on an idea. Just because it’s an idea you happen to have faith in does not excuse that idea from being evaluated on its merits. Magical thinking is magical thinking and you already know that when put in those terms, your idea has trouble competing with rational ones, or else you would not be so defensive of them or unwilling to see them compete.
I appreciate the respect everyone gave back to me and I will try to keep it as civil as well. I take issue with three of your points and think they otherwise detract from I think are shared goals of ours for toleration and reasoned discussion on these topics:
1) I think you make some sensible points but I want to reiterate that by calling religious beliefs myth, superstitions, and asserting that only atheists have monopoly on the truth that you sound just as closed minded as the fundamentalists you oppose. This may come as a surprise to some, but I went through an agnostic phase, where I believed a lot of George Carlin’s basic truths about the ‘badness’ of religion and adopted most of my dads agnosticism. I remain an “agnostic” Catholic in many respects, particularly pertaining to the afterlife and the existence of hell, and reason convinced me of the need for a moral code and the moral code I follow to me is best reasoned through Catholicism and the ritual of the mass, of Lent, and the glory of Easter prayer is really a form of meditation for me. But my mind is open, and I concede there is always the possibility its all baloney, and I think its also healthy for non-believers to be open, if ever so small an opening, to the possibility that Pasquale is right. The idea of absolute certainty on this vexing question, to me, can smack of arrogance and makes it difficult to have dialogues that cross the boundaries of different belief systems, and its something believers and non believers alike are guilty of.
2) Mocking is rarely productive
Also to me the intent of mocking is to hurt someone and cause pain, and thus something no one should want to do morally, though I can definitely take the gentle ribbing here and there, just today an atheist co-worker asked incredulously “do priests have to give up child molesting for Lent”, our Catholic friend was offended but I took it in stride. But as an 6th grader who was taught how to lector by a very kind and liberal priest it was not as easy to understand, and yes it being Cambridge the kids doing it were quite atheist and openly so. Mocking is again counterproductive to dialogue and engaging ideas.
3) Dismissing all religion and religious thinkers as unintelligent
Not all religious people are like Santorum or Falwell. Just on Thursday I went to a lecture by Jean Luc Marion who is one of the foremost Western philosophers of our age and a great Catholic theologian to boot. It takes a lot of serious thinking to rationalize the irrational and plenty of great philosophers and theologians have done so throughout the years and are beautiful to read and quite engaging. To me its as easy to dismiss all religious thinkers as delusional as it is for the religious to dismiss atheists as immoral or licentious. Its generally bad to paint broadly and generally bad to denigrate a host of great thinkers. I think one can disagree while being respectful. And its just as annoying when atheists are zealous and seek to begin every conversation on the topic of your ‘conversion to reason’ as it would be for an evangelist of a given religion. Everyone ideally should keep their faith to themselves and when they do discuss it they should do it respectfully, that’s a good ground rule I’d say. “They shall know you by your acts”, while it may be Scripture is a generic rule of thumb that one should always conduct themselves respectfully so that others will point out that the group you belong to isn’t all that bad.
Who here made that assertion? You certainly do a fine job dismantling them, whoever they are.
“I think you make some sensible points but I want to reiterate that by calling religious beliefs myth, superstitions”
What else do you call them? So do you think that by virtue of believing it, the Scientologists have something going in their whole weird sci-fi-induced belief system – like their crusade against depression drugs and therapy because they believe psychology is the oppressive tool of ancient alien races? Would you be willing to label that a myth or superstition? What is the different between that, and believing someone’s wine turns into the blood of a 2000-year-old martyr? Or that someone rose from the dead? Or that there are 72 virgins waiting in heaven? Or that ghosts exist? Or that Mammon can give you superpowers? Or that Athena jumped out of the forehead of Zeus? Or that the entire human race came from the coupling of two humans in some perfect garden? Not one of these has a shred of proof. They all have something in common – that of extraordinary claims, which require extraordinary proof, when there’s not even crappy proof.
Just because you are willing to stop at your particular mythology and label it as “possible” or even “truth” among all the other myriad mythologies out there, doesn’t mean that that excludes your mythology from getting a hard examination by other people who are willing to take on the sacred cows and really think it through to the logical conclusion.
BTW Mocking is QUITE productive – ask Colbert and his SuperPAC shenanigans whether or not that is helping to define how we think about Citizens United. Satire is a long held tool of the skeptic and the comic in order to hold a mirror up to ourselves about our own culture and beliefs.
“Dismissing all religion and religious thinkers as unintelligent”
I’m not dismissing them as unintelligent, as I am sure they have great math and writing skills. I am calling them blind in one certain area of their thinking lives. Big difference.
… “asserting that only atheists have monopoly on the truth that you sound just as closed minded as the fundamentalists you oppose.” is a misapplication of the burden of proof.
“…reason convinced me of the need for a moral code and the moral code I follow to me is best reasoned through Catholicism and the ritual of the mass, of Lent, and the glory of Easter ”
You have moral and ethical instincts beyond anything Catholicism taught you.
As to the productivity of ‘mocking’ – some ideas are silly and ridiculous, meaning they are worthy of ridicule. Granted, ridicule isn’t usually productive in dealing with a particular person but it can be highly productive for purposes of getting the audience to think. Moreover, giving a ridiculous idea an undue amount of civility and decorum is very unproductive.
Tried to embed this but it didn’t take for some reason.
OK, comment preview showed the video, but it disappeared after posting.
Here’s a link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXrML7zeY1w
I very much hope he doesn’t.
Obama would beat any of these Republicans – the ones still running, and the ones who ran and dropped out. If the economy collapses again, any of them could beat him, but it’d have to be a significant collapse. If it doesn’t, I bet he gets re-elected. So in that sense, I don’t really care who gets nominated.
But given the delegate totals so far, the states coming up, the candidates’ organizations, and so on, it does seem right now like most probably Romney, but maybe Santorum.
If Santorum is the nominee, the campaign will be about him and his baggage, and his baggage is all culture war. We’ll have a big culture war campaign. Santorum will lose, but people will be hurt in the process, bigotry will gain a temporary bump, cultural tensions will heat up, culture warriors will be excited and emboldened, and some really bad laws will pass in certain states that would otherwise not pass them. We’ll be worse off than if that campaign had never happened, at least in the short term. But more to the point, people will get hurt because of it.
If Romney is the nominee, the campaign will be more about Obama than Romney, because there’s really not much substance to him. Obama will carry that well; he’s an amazing campaigner. But Romney’s candidacy will be the opportunity to continue the themes we already saw this winter, themes which are a continuation of the occupy movement of the summer and fall. The campaign will be about what kind of capitalism we practice, and about government for the 99% vs. the superwealthy who get their riches from the world of finance and corporations, about lobbying and tax policy and economic fairness.
That’s the campaign I want to see. We’ll be a better country afterward, at least a little bit.
Plus I don’t think I could stand to see that much of Santorum on TV…
The election is about the future of the Republican party.
Whichever “wing” of the party gets the nomination loses, unless Obama collapses.
A Santorum loss discredits the jihadists. A Romney loss just vindicates them.
I think that is an excellent point. If the Santorum wing of the party puts up its champion, and he gets slaughtered in the general election, that will be a huge message that will be impossible to ignore. And that’s the only way it can be delivered.
It’s not like if Santorum gets destroyed in the general that social conservatives will admit that their views are out of the American mainstream and just pack their bags and go home. There always some sort of excuse. I’d put my money on: “Santorum was just a flawed messenger. Once we get a better messenger, we’ll be sure to win!!!!!”
You think those people will ever admit defeat!
Truimph brings arrogance from them, and they can play poor persecuted victim when they lose. There is no scenario where they figure out they’re too extreme for America and which delivers the message to the Christian taliban religious leaders that religion and politics should go back to not mixing.
Those guys have felt the power, and they are not going to let go. If the bring the whole Republican party with them so much the better…
You think the tea baggers came from no where? They are the logical next regathering of the Christian Coalition and other uber-conservative social movements within the Republican party…
I think you’re mistaken – what happens in either case is up to the Republicans of all wings and what they make of it. It could go in many directions. Santorum could lose the primary and be their Reagan… or he could win the nomination, lose the general, and be their Goldwater. If they’re motivated enough and can organize to succeed they can keep going either way.
crap all for organization, and given his literal hatred for Protestants (calling them fallen to Satan) I suspect on a practical level, a Santorum campaign is our best bet on any front.
…it’s a war by religion. Organized religion declared war on liberal democracy in the mid twentieth century, and is now whining because it’s losing the fight it picked.
This is so true and so well, and succinctly, said.
Thank you!
That is a broad and bold statement and frankly about as accurate as Santorum claiming that Obama is going to outlaw Christianity, or right wing assertions all Muslims are terrorists. Last time I checked organized religion and its adherents made up the bulk of the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war movement, and have provided plenty of members to the Occupy movement, not to mention nearly every mainline and Catholic church has supported universal healthcare and organized labor. Believe it or not there are also Atheists for Life, agnostics against gay marriage, and deist neoconservatives. Perhaps conservative fundamentalists would be a better term?
your use of “bulk.”
First, *some* of the civil rights leaders were religious yes, but others were not. Big same with the antiwar movement – hippies had more to do with that, and their ideological descendants in the last bout against the Iraq war (I was in that movement so I met a lot of them). Occupy is a fucking student movement! Where’s the vast bulk of religionists in it?? Yeesh.
There are a ton of Catholic priests, Episcopal priests, and lay Christian and Catholic activists out there right now-and believe it or not some students are religious! In fact all the seminarians I know are out there in the protests in force. Whats a “religionist” by the way, I’ve never met one, I’ve also never met a Judeo-Christian either so go figure. Its the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and I think the bulk of NAACP Presidents have been ministers. Have you heard of Martin Sheen, or the Berrigan brothers or Dorothy Day? Wikipedia them sometime, Catholics have been at the forefront of progressive change, and while it may have been cool for atheist hippies to protest the war n the late 60s when that was popular, Father Berrigan, Father Drinian a great progressive congressman right here in MA, and others were protesting the war and for nuclear disarmament before Gulf of Tonkin was even passed. Get the blinders off, religious people have been at the forefront of social change in this count. My girlfriends father is a pastor who has been arrested more times than he can count, a few times by the dictatorial Marcos regime in the Philippines when he barely got away with his life. Atheists certainly do not have a monopoly on protesting for social justice, and I would argue the entire peace and justice movement has been heavily influenced by the Social Gospel and the Christian left the entire past century. The progressive movement got its start from the Social Gospel, as did the field of social work, and ironically enough Planned Parenthood. Where’s a mainliner like Christopher to back me up here?
People who like to foist discussions of their religion on people, ie – it is a Christian thing, is it not, to proselytize? Aren’t you supposed to be helping to convince other people to see the light?
The bulk of the Occupy movement is students. Do you dispute this? How can you possibly give any religious leaders credit for starting or sustaining the Occupy movement? That’s just on its face absurd. Sure they might participate, but by no means can you call the Occupy movement a movement inspired by religion.
It is, in fact, inspired by high unemployment among young people who have crushing college debt.
Religionists are people to whom religion is so important, they feel they must thrust it into the public sphere. In particular, those who proselytize, which is a basic tenant of Christianity, is it not? Sure some denomination ignore or play down that aspect of their religion, but in reality, without perpetuating itself and its mythological beliefs, religion is nothing. This is why you have Christian and Mormon missionaries all over the world trying to convert people.
It makes sense. After all, if you believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that your brand of mythology is the true path to eternal live in heaven, then you would be inclined to want to spread that around so all your beloved friends and family would also share in this afterlife with you.
It’s like with abortion=murder folk. If you really believed an innocent life was at stake every time a woman got an abortion, wouldn’t YOU try to defend said innocent life by shooting the person responsible???
This is why religion, and magical thinking in general, is so dangerous.
It’s perhaps no surprise that Santorum missed Article VI of the Constitution, since it seems like he’s skipped over the whole dang thing.
That’s not much different than most conservatives nowadays. At best they forget that the Constitution, and not the Articles of Confederation, is the nation’s founding legal document. At worst they think the Bible is the Constitution.
The NH GOP recently floated the idea of requiring any new law to cite that document as its justification. You cannot make this stuff up!
I think it was that week when New Hampshire won my weekly prize for “Stupidest State in the Union.”
“Obama believes in a “phony ideology — not a theology based on the Bible,” Santorum said, according to Steve Peoples of the Associated Press.”
That’s right Rick, it’s not that Bible based theology where the priests molest our children but don’t wear condoms while they do it.
Most priests I know are activists for social change, if not community organizers in many respects, very few are pedophiles. Using your logic we should outlaw Penn State as well huh?
Here, almost straight from the horse’s anatomy, it is
Also worth the click are the reflections of the Party Neocomradess who quotes the above, “[W]here’s the conservative outrage? If Santorum’s comments aren’t nanny state-ism in its purest form, . . . !” An’ so on.
Happy days.
The constitution places limits on government and laws, not individuals.
If Mr Santorum was attempting to pass a law codifying that one’s philosophy needs to be rooted in the Bible as a qualification to serve – then I would agree that that action would be unconstitutional.
Mr Santorum is making an appeal to voters. He is attempting to make the case that having one’s philosophy rooted in the bible is a positive quality in someone elected to public service. He is entitled to that opinion (and to speak it under the 1st Amendment). Voters can and will accept or reject the argument.
you’re right. But I think Santorum’s real argument is much stronger than just the “positive quality” you claim. I think Santorum is saying that Obama should be disqualified from the presidency because his “theology” is not “based on the Bible.” And I think if Santorum could repeal the religious test part of Article VI, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
trying to disqualify the president on the basis on not having that positive quality. But as long as the mechanism is persuading voters, I still don’t see an issue. Conversely, Santorum can be attacked for having his political philosophy too intertwined with his religious views.
As long as we don’t bar either from participating, I think we are good.
Why do you think Mr Santorum wants to repeal the protection against religious tests?
While I agree that Mr Santorum has stated the President is unfit for the job due to his philosophies – I think it may be a leap too far to suggest that he wants to alter the constitution to allow him to inject his personal views into law. I have not heard any statements from him or read anything about him that would substantiate that conclusion.
I would agree with you graydon save for the fact that he supports a personhood amendment and a federal marriage amendment. Both amendments, it ever passed, would codify Santorum’s particular Catholic religious principles regarding marriage and contraception into the Constitution. There is no way to defend the statements ‘marriage is between one man and one woman’ and ‘life begins at conception’ without resorting to religious principles and it would be putting religious beliefs in the Constitution. I am completely confident America would reject Santorum at the ballot box, but I would rather him leave Romney bloody than give legitimacy to this position.
However, Santorum is enunciating a theory of a rights and freedom that is inescapably religious.
His notion of freedom, for example, lies a considerable distance from the notion of freedom our Founders derived from the Enlightenment.
…my comment about another thread wasn’t directed at you, but rather Lynne and SomervilleTom.
Speaking of ST he made one last comment on that thread which lamentably is a very good point, but I want to acknowledge here since I’m not sure that other thread is still being read. He essentially asked where are all these liberal Christians and why do we never hear about their activism? The blame is shared, I think, between those Christians and the media. Liberal Christians tend by nature to be reserved about their faith, do not wear it on their sleeves, and are very uncomfortable mixing religion and politics. This is especially true of us Yankee Congregationalists. I used to hold this view as well, but have come around to the view that we have to be out there and make our voices heard and not cede the conversation to the Religious Right. Coming out strongly as I have on BMG about the UCC and other similar Christian traditions I see as my way of helping change the conversation to let people know that we exist and what we believe. That is the extent of my evangelism, which I do not do to convert people, but simply to raise awareness. I have also spoken to denominational leaders and at denominational meetings pleading with them to be more public, which I think they have tried to do more recently, but that leads to the other issue.
The media have not given our brand of Christianity its due, I think, and are complicit in presenting the Right as THE voice of Christianity. Even liberal MSNBC was recently presented a petition signed by thousands of religious leaders and other faithful objecting to the frequency that Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has been a guest on their various shows compared to precious little spots with progressive Christian leaders. Here in Massachusetts, it’s big news when the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston gets a new Archbishop, or when said Archbishop has something to say about a matter of public policy, but when the Massachusetts Conference of the UCC, the largest Protestant body in the state, gets a new Minister-President, or said Minister-President has something to say about a matter of public policy, not so much. The Minister-President has told me of frustrations he has getting responses to his press releases and other attempts to be a public voice. The two times in recent years I know the UCC was in the news was when we passed a marriage equality resolution in 2005, and when Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s sermons became an issue is 2008, so it does happen, though coverage of the latter had a negative tone to it.
… organized itself into a political force in the 70’s. The religious left hasn’t. I think it’s largely as simple as that.
Politics is a lagging, not leading, indicator. However sincere a politician is, he or she either speaks to something in the masses or is quickly left behind.
In my view, the appropriate role of religion is to change our culture, from the bottom up. When our culture realized that women must have voice in our government, our culture forced government to allow them to vote. When our culture belatedly acknowledged the evil of racism, our culture forced reluctant politicians to reflect that change in our laws. Religious leaders and movements played a pivotal role in bringing about both of those much-needed changes. Religious leaders and movements also opposed them.
Father Richard Drinan was a responsible, moral, moderate (by today’s standards) legislator who was a consistent voice of reason (and Christian love) across a multitude of issues from 1971 to 1981. He was, coincidentally, a Roman Catholic priest. Father Drinan was silenced by the Vatican, who demanded that all priests leave politics. In so doing, the Vatican made it clear it was not willing to accept the division between church and state that elected public office demands.
In my view, the appropriate place for “speaking with a prophetic voice” on religious issues is in public and in private — not in a secular campaign for public office. Evangelical activity is fine with me — but not when it is used as bludgeon to coerce behavior.
When we allow this wall of separation to be breached, we end up with candidates like Rick Santorum. I ask you to please imagine the nightmare that results if we end up talking about President Elect Santorum.
I was just shocked Lynne assume above that religious people were not involved in the Occupy movement or that no student movement could possibly be religious. Its assertions like this that are presumed to be facts that depress me about the progressive movement becoming atheist by default. Every seminarian I know Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic have had nothing but good things to say about OWS and are out in force. It seems that the good people on BMG forge that the Social Gospel directly led to the progressive movement, that the first socialists including Eugene Debs and the author of the pledge of allegiance were also devout Christians or that other forces for social change including abolitionism and women getting the vote were inescapably linked with religious leaders and forces for change. I would also argue its true on the Catholic left and middle as well, which in many ways is a lot closer to the mainline in terms of its values and commitments to peace and justice. I learned about peace and justice in Sunday school, as I suspect you did, and while I do think peace and justice and the Social Gospel can override the actual Gospel at times in some churches, I also think the Church has forgotten there are other encyclicals besides Humane Vitae as of late to its own detriment. But yes center-left Christians unite!
…good job condensing my two paragraphs into two sentences! Obviously we have some work to do.
… say something untrue? Did you need me to expound on an area in which you already seem informed?
Tom, you acknowledge religious involvement in both change and resistence to change. You cite favorably Hon. Fr. Robert Drinan as an example of prophetic voice in public office. As I recall he opposed the war in Vietnam and I assume that first he came by his opposition on moral grounds and second he talked about his opposition during his campaign. I shutter as much as you do at the thought of Rick Santorum becoming President, but voices across the spectrum are an integral part of a pluralistic society.
It was intended as a compliment, as when Edward Everett told Lincoln after the Gettysburg Address, “I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” The part about having work to do was self-referencial regarding the religious left.
For me it really looks like its that simple. The history of the religious right since 1970 is one of getting organized and political. At the same time the history of the religious left during the same time period is… well… not.
This isn’t just true of the religious right, conservatism got organized around the same time. Hence the proliferation of think tanks that the left has only recently been able to show some semblance of. The religious right has worked the same way with think tanks – I can’t think of anything on the left that could be called an analogous Focus on the Family, for example. Also, eerily similar, is the reliance on wealthy individuals to provide the bulk of the financing (a version of taxing the rich if you will). Look at NOM, where 90% of their funding comes from 5 individuals (grass roots my ass).
… that you were accusing me of missing the nuance (and perhaps the point) of your post.
…but at least for me, it is not the prorogative of faith to try to compete in the marketplace of ideas on an equal basis (refering to a few new replies to jconway above). They are not intended to compete or conflict. My belief in God in no way prevents me from being perfectly rational when it comes to science or issues that touch upon public policy. I’d like us all to adopt the Jeffersonian approach to each other’s faith, or lack thereof: “I care not whether my neighbor worships no god or twenty gods; it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Faith is much more than silly superstitions (magical thinking as some put it). It is a set of teachings, tradition, and values upon which those of us who adhere try to live our lives. In my mind there is a “wall of separation” to use a common term between faith and rationality and neither should intrude on the other’s turf. For example, don’t let faith inform you on matters of the origins of life for which there is perfectly good scientific evidence, but conversely don’t try to use science to prove or disprove the existence of God.
First “…it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg”. It can set policy, and in doing so, pick your pocket.
Second, if faith isn’t to be debated, how does anyone arrive at what they consider to be the truth with any kind of consensus? Or is faith orthogonal to truth?
“…don’t try to use science to prove or disprove the existence of God.”
The burden of proof isn’t on science. To the extent that it can be said that science is ever employed to ‘disprove’ God, it only does so when religion makes disprovable truth claims (violating your non-overlapping magisteria). Now this does happen routinely because for the vast majority of people religion does in fact make truth claims. The existence of God itself is a truth claim (although un-disprovable). The virgin birth is a truth claim. Vicarious redemption is a truth claim. In the real world, if you make a truth claim you should expect it to be examined and debated.
This discussion isn’t about an attempt to “use science to prove or disprove the existence of God”. There is, however, a more subtle point to be made.
Some (not all) religions make statements about God that are in the realm of science. For example, a statement that intercessory prayer causes changes to occur in the material world is a hypothesis that most assuredly is amendable to scientific inquiry. Statements about the nature and origin of life are similarly statements about matters of science.
While the “wall of separation” between faith and rationality you offer is appealing, it has implications that few appreciate. If there is a wall of separation between faith and rationality, then how do we explain the mountain of rationality that is theology today? The very existence of theology (as opposed to faith) is about rationality: given a statement about the nature of God, what are its logical implications?
While I firmly subscribe to the separation of church and state, I fear you greatly misunderstand Jefferson when you attempt to construct your separation of faith and rationality. Thomas Jefferson was referring to public policy. The “faith” side of the dichotomy between faith and rationality you offer strikes me as the very definition of magical thinking — you would apparently divorce “teachings, traditions, and values” from rationality. Really?
Meanwhile, in practice, our experience is horrifying. I cited Father Drinan earlier because he exemplified the behavior we all seek; he was a deeply religious man who nevertheless refused to allow his religious beliefs to dominate his decisions as an elected public official. He understood and lived the separation between church and state that we seek.
In stark contrast is, for example, Senator James Inhofe, who offers gems like this on the Senate floor (emphasis mine):
I’m sorry, Christopher, but we live in a time when a sitting United States Senator says in official speech on the floor of the Senate “This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.”
This most assuredly is a political battle — it is a political battle over the intellectual foundation of our republic. I flatly refuse to surrender this nation (not to mention its arsenal of nuclear, chemical, and biological weaponry) to elected officials who would separate public policy — the public expression of our collective “teachings, traditions, and values” — from rationality.
Neither would Thomas Jefferson.
…and that’s just fine with me as in this context “truth” does not equal “fact”. I’m happy to join you in shooting down attempts to make truth claims out of religious doctrine. There was a time that one of the roles of religion was to make truth (ie factual) claims in the absence of good science, but last time I checked this was the 21st century so that role is no longer valid. For me even the existence of God is not a truth claim in the way I think you mean. I can only tell you that I BELIEVE it not that I KNOW it, and that the claim only applies personally to me. Each person must answer this question for him- or herself and each answer is equally valid because only you can decide whether God exists for you.
… that Christians have reached a consensus (certainly with outliers) about the nature of Christ? I’d say that you could take a survey within any particular faith group and find ample evidence of consensus.
Your last bit seems like some very unsound reasoning to me. What does it mean that god ‘exists’ ‘for you’? Can god simultaneously ‘exist for you’ but not ‘exist for me’? Is god like an emotion that is dependent on your own existence to exist itself? Is god’s existence really that dependent on real world phenomena? Does this mean that god didn’t exist before people? Does such a god even comport to common definitions for the concept of god?
…that I very much oppose notions like Sen. Inhofe advances that we should be basing our policies on the Bible (though I wouldn’t mind being more guided by the social justice aspects thereof). You make a good point about the rationality aspect of theology, which does hold some interest for me, but even that I hope would restrict itself to the academic world and not intrude on the political.
OK, this must be your reply to SomervilleTom above. Why not hit “reply” like everyone else does?
Apparently the “reply” function doesn’t work in whatever version of InternetExplorer Christopher must, of necessity, use. Annoying, yes, but the problem is more with the new BMG infrastructure than with anything Christopher is doing.
…I think you have come pretty close in your second paragraph. Every religion has stories about a divine creation of the universe and all that makes it up, but let’s face it, in reality man creates his god. Otherwise there would not be so many different religions or even different branches of Christianity because the truth would be objective and obvious. As to the nature of Christ, His divinity is widely, though not universally, accepted among Christians. The dissent is why history tells of heresy and current practice yields denominations. Personally I think that discussion is missing the point because it is the teachings rather than the theology which is more important in my mind. Also, this is a prime example of winners getting to write the history. When these things came up in the early life of the church and were successfully marginalized they were dismissed as heresy. When many of the same views came back in the middle ages and early modern period and had staying power, they were called the Protestant Reformation.
… you coming from? It seems to me that “man creates his god” can be taken to mean one of two thing: An assertion of atheism or an assertion of ‘unknowable’ agnosticism.
To borrow from Dillahunty, what do you believe and why?
As much as I love this topic, are we perhaps drifting far afield of this thread and perhaps even of BMG?
It seems as though we’re all in violent agreement that Rick Santorum is bad news for anyone who wants to preserve the constitutional protections (specifically the separation of church and state) that many Americans hold dear.
…but just to try to answer Mr. Lynne’s question agnosticism is also personal and means the person doesn’t know what to believe, and maybe doesn’t care. That’s also fine, but doesn’t apply to me; I know what I believe, but part of what I believe is that God and his ways are ultimately unknowable to us mere mortals. An athiest affirmatively asserts that there is no god; again fine and again not applicable to me. To me man creating his god(s) is just stating the obvious. The exact origin of our stories might be hazy, but the origins are ultimately human.
As for what I believe and why, the brutally honest answer is that I’m Christian largely because I was raised one, but growing up I have also studied the Bible and related sources and have embraced it (at least my interpretation of it) as my own. Other faiths certainly have their worthy teachings, and on the big stuff there is a lot of agreement anyway, but I saw no reason to abandon my background on this question.
I encourage you to spend some more time with the writings of the much-maligned Richard Dawkins, especially “The God Delusion”. He illuminates this question particularly well in Chapter 2.
Most every “atheist” I know (including yours truly) rejects your characterization (“affirmatively asserts that there is no god”). That posture exists primarily as a counter-point to the strongly theist position of “There is a god”. A great number of people assert the latter; almost nobody asserts the former.
A better statement is “I have no need for the God hypothesis”. Of course I can’t prove there is no god, and I make no effort to try. I take much the same attitude towards little fairies that cavort in the garden at night. I can’t prove they don’t exist, I can’t even say affirmatively that they don’t exist. I can say that I find their existence highly improbable.
In a similar way, my own posture — and I suspect that of a great many atheists — is “I find the existence of “god” (in the theistic sense you mean, as opposed to the quite reasonable “god” of Einstein) highly improbable.
In semantic/ontological terms, it is the difference between the “open” and “closed” hypothesis — asserting that “a” is not true is not the same as asserting that “a” is false in an open logical system.
… you directly come out and say “God and his ways are ultimately unknowable”, but saying “I’m Christian” with qualifications about a particular interpretation doesn’t actually answer the question “What do you believe.” I can’t tell if you’re saying that your just a ‘cultural’ Christian (which still wouldn’t answer what you believe). When you say that you have embraced an interpretation of the bible (so have I – that it’s a bronze age book of myths) I can’t tell if you hold it in any credence and derive any particular belief from it.
But assuming you believe there is a god and that he actually exists (which I think you state below), am I to understand that you have specific beliefs about it, but simultaneously assert that the truth behind those beliefs is “ultimately unknowable”? Do you see the contradiction there? How do you get from ‘I know that I can’t know’ to ‘I assert x which I’ve already pointed out I can’t know’? That is why my last question is key – “Why do you believe it?”. Presumably you have reasons.
As ST says, read Dawkins, but for a cliffs notes version of how he addresses “affirmatively assert[ing] that there is no god” see this:
http://christophersisk.com/dawkins-belief-scale-images/
If I recall correctly, Dawkins puts himself at a 6 or 6.5 which is about where I am. What you were describing is 7, which is actually pretty rare. The only people I’ve ever heard of who are 7 are people who come to atheism without having reasoned through it themselves.
The point here is that the burden of proof is on the one making the assertion, in this case that there is a god. The default position is to not hold a belief that has no evidence, which you’ll find is the correct default position for every other proposition in our lives outside of religion.
Other viewing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEP4OIj2NA0
Stupid IE
.
I have actually read The God Delusion (and I think another book by Dawkins the name of which escapes me at the moment). Since I’ve complained about others defining Christians I guess I should refrain from doing the same for athiests, though some I know do say what I mentioned. Though “need” is an interesting variable; I am a believer and therefore use a god hypothesis, though I’m not sure I “need” one, so I don’t know where that leaves me, but agnostic still isn’t a good fit for reasons previously mentioned.
The quote “I have no need of that hypothesis” is attributed to Pierre-Simon Laplace, allegedly in response a question from Napoleon about why Laplace had not mentioned God in his book on astronomy.
My own experience has been that the “faith” I learned from the church served to block, rather than enhance, my insight into and appreciation for the truly miraculous way our universe works. The workings of biology and life are, in my experience, far better revealed in the mathematics of auto-catalytic sets and self-organizing materials (such as the lipid compounds that self-organize to form cell membranes) than in the dogma of theologians. The religious opposition to funding for embryonic stem cell research was, for me, yet another significant example (in a long string) of what I see as superstitious ignorance blocking much-needed research promising profoundly beneficial results.
The stories of the Hebrew Scriptures are marvelous literature. Turning to them for insight into public policy strikes me as approximately as misguided as turning to the “science” of Plato for insight into scientific research priorities. Science has long since moved on. Religion has not.
Ah, sorry I’d seen mention of that bug before, but forgot.
I wonder if there is a way to put in something to indicate what you are replying to in the comment, like so
&comment_parent=286929
MR. LYNNE: I’m more than a cultural Christian; I’m actually very active in my church, a church which deliberately does not adhere to tests of faith. I believe the motto recently adopted by the UCC that “God is Still Speaking”, which is church-speak for saying we have consciences and rational minds that we’re not required to leave at the church door. I believe that love is the overriding theme because Jesus Himself says so on multiple occasions. I believe that Bible is a record of fallible humans trying to discern the nature of God and His relationship to the people. It is an anthology of literature which includes genres such as mythology, poetry, and even some history (not by modern scholarly standards, but more like Herodotus for Greece or Livy for Rome). I don’t accept that I have to prove anything. If I were trying to make you believe it or base policy on it (which some do, but I’m most emphatically not), then I’d have to prove it, but otherwise I’m justified by the fact of my faith itself. I’m also more than happy to discard specific provisions of the Bible if science or modern mores have a better answer, though the latter can usually be construed out of more general provisions.
SOMERVILLE TOM: We’re in complete agreement about the science as that is a much more rational source of evidence than religion for the natural world. Even when there seems to be no scientific explanation I assume that we just haven’t found it yet rather than such explanation doesn’t exist. Then again, some suggest that science is in fact the study of how God really works.
… amount of material there, but in a way there is also a lot it doesn’t clarify.
You belong to a church that doesn’t ‘adhere to tests of faith’. Does that mean your church doesn’t have any central tenants? If it doesn’t and the church does have central tenants – do you adhere/believe them? If you do, then that begs the followup question again – why?
“I believe that love is the overriding theme” Theme of what? Of your beliefs? Theme is a little vague as tenants go.
“because Jesus Himself says so on multiple occasions.” Is this a sideways way of saying that you believe in the divinity of Jesus? If so why? Is it because of the bible? If so, why do you lend credence to this particular part of a “record of fallible humans”. If you adhere to a fallible bible principal, but nevertheless take teaching from it, what teachings do you take as true (what do you believe again) and why?
“I don’t accept that I have to prove anything.”
I’m trying to figure out what you believe is true and why you believe it. I suspect that somewhere in your beliefs are some tenets that you hold as true. That is, tenets that you understand to be objectively true in the real world. This is important because what is true matters.
Thank you for your contributions to this thread.
You continue to assume that I believe some great objectively-knowable truth(s) while I’m trying to make you understand that that is not what faith is, at least for me. The definition of Christianity is following Christ, doing one’s best to live by His teachings and example. Therefore, anything recorded as His direct quotes would rank higher than other things found in the Bible, especially if contradictory. No divinity required to make that claim. Love is the overriding theme of His teachings, indeed of the entire Bible, which comes straight from the horse’s (ie Jesus’s) mouth as it were. The Bible is at best based on a true story and I understand that the Gospels were written not as biography, but with an agenda (or four somewhat different agendae to be precise). I apply modern scholarship with regard to documentation, archaelogy, and science to determine what really happened. The supernatural and miraculous I do not take literally. What I believe about the real world is only what can be proven in the real world.
Oh, and Lynne, some do take proselytizing more seriously than others. You’ve seen the extent to which I’m willing to do it – not to convert but to inform. I prefer to focus on how I live my own life and hope others will appreciate that. As for Occupy, it wasn’t started by the religiously motivated, but economic justice certainly makes several appearances in the Bible as a value and UCC leaders among others have stood with them.
I invite you to watch this sermon, which demonstrates how many of us see Christianity. It’s about 16 minutes long and discusses three people who may be difficult to include, though I suspect people here will especially appreciate the third example:)
that mythologies that require “belief” are fundamentally flawed, is a short leap. Come, take it with us. I guarantee your morals will not fall apart, and neither will your life or your rate of happiness. 🙂
Maybe my toaster will take that leap with you, but everything I know requires belief and I don’t think I want to stop believing in things to join you and other appliances and inanimate objects.
Um…okay.
So in order to think of the sky as blue, that requires belief? Well, then, there’s not much I can do for you, if you have no ability to see empirical evidence as a baseline for humanity’s shared experience.
There’s subjectivity, certainly, but everything needs belief? That’s crazy. You might as well, then, say there is no such thing as knowledge.
Everything I know, I believe. Sometimes the word “belief” is used about things that are unknown, and for predicting things in the future, like “I believe the red sox will do good this year” but that is saying “I know that the sox have a good chance of doing good.” All knowledge requires belief. You can’t know something that you don’t believe. Sometimes we say “I can’t believe he dropped that pass” but again that reflects our lack of ability to predict everything, it doesn’t mean we don’t actually believe he dropped the pass.
… on point. I think when Lynne mentioned that “mythologies that require “belief” are fundamentally flawed” she meant ‘belief without evidence, or faith’.
Many biblical scholars suggest that there are no “direct quotes” of the man who the Gospels describe. One wag suggests that if we construct a “red-letter Gospel” with verifiable words of the historical Jesus colored in red, the best we can get is some passages shaded in pink.
The Gospels were written decades after events in question took place (the letters from Paul are older). Not only were they not written as biography, they were not even written as “history” in any modern sense of the world. The various episodes of the synoptics were constructed to be parallel to earlier gospels and in most cases as a midrash on similar episodes that appear throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The New Testament character of Jesus speaks in Psalms and mirrors “prophetic” passages of Isaiah because the authors of the Gospels wrote him that way. I don’t say that to be inflammatory; it is simply true. They believed that The Messiah had come, and wrote the Gospels to convey that belief.
It’s therefore hard to understand anything except divinity as an explanation why those red-letter passages are any more or less important than anything else. Many scholars have made credible arguments that the religion should have been called “Paulianity” because Paul did more than any other single historical individual to make it not only what it is today, but to make it more than just another forgotten ancient Jewish sect.
The early Church that Paul so dominated had already developed its theology and much of its practices by the time the texts we call “The Gospels” were written. The canon wasn’t set until centuries later.
It seems to me that the Bible is “true” in the sense that it captures and represents truths about people and about the god(s) they worshiped. It perhaps captures spiritual insight into the nature of the spiritual (as opposed to material) universe. It joins similar sacred texts from other cultures in that sense. I think it’s a mistake to conflate that kind of “true” with the very different assertion that the Bible is factual. I think the latter is almost surely not the case. Yes, there are some facts presented that have been verified through external sources.
I personally find that Buddhism and aspects of Zen Buddhism ring “true” for me today, much more so than any of the Abrahamic traditions.
“You continue to assume that I believe some great objectively-knowable truth(s) while I’m trying to make you understand that that is not what faith is, at least for me.”
I’m not asking what faith is. I’m asking what you believe. And when I’m asking what you believe, I’m not asking what you believe subjectively for yourself. I’m asking about what you believe is actually true in reality. Presumably you have actual beliefs about reality. Presumably your religious beliefs have something to say about reality. If you want to say that your religious beliefs don’t have anything to say about reality, why call them beliefs?
What is getting confusing here is that you seem to want to have your cake and eat it too. When you say that “What I believe about the real world is only what can be proven in the real world.”, I have to conclude that you have no religious beliefs at all or that religion has nothing to say about the real world (which would be another way of saying that religion is nothing).
“indeed of the entire Bible”
That I’d dispute strongly. The body count is large. anecdotally I was listening to a podcast yesterday that was talking about the ark museum and describing the intent to have all these animatronic things going on inside. The question came up, jokingly because we all knew the answer, if there would be animatronic twitching bodies of people, babies and animals littered around the boat. The ark story is often a favorite for religious children ‘s books, but at its hear it is a truly horrible story who’s horribleness is often lost on believers.
I’ll check out the sermon later. Did you check out the Dillahunty talk I linked to earlier (admittedly it is longer)?
…and really, you don’t want to get me started on Paul. I understand the Gospels likely have few if any direct recorded quotes, for the reasons you state, but as a book of faith it is those things that are presented as quotes that we who call ourselves Christians should take most seriously (not to be confused with literally; Jesus certainly used His share of metaphors, hyperbole, etc.).
Mr. Lynne, the Bible is certainly riddled with examples of less than loving actions, not all of which approved by God even if recorded. God is not static and I would submit that the Old Testament God is much more judgemental and muscular while the New Testament God is more loving and forgiving. (The Bible is, after all, a history of how people understood God which evolved over time and continues to evolve.) Even in the Old Testament, though, the prophets give the leadership quite the tongue-lashing about not treating people fairly and the six of the ten commandments that deal with human interaction speak to treating others respectfully. I tried to explain previously that my faith (and that of many other mainliners) does not try to make claims about reality. The closest the two come to connecting is that we try to live out our values informed by faith in the real world. Values of justice, mercy, and charity which I’d like to think progressives and people of all faiths or no faith would appreciate.
… “God is not static” is not a claim about a real god? Is it about an unreal one? You have no opinion on the reality of god?
…(which I think anyone, believer or not, who reads the Bible cover-to-cover can readily discern) about a God who is real to me, real to millions of our contemporaries, and certainly to millions who came before us such as those in societies about and in which the various parts of the Bible were written. My own opinion is that God is real and that opinion per se makes Him real for me, but like I’ve said that is not provable nor objective and when I die I could well find out that I and co-religionists have been way off base all along.
… straightforward thing to say: “God is real”
This is a very strange thing to say: “that opinion per se makes Him real for me”, unless what you’re saying is that you believe he’s real, but not provable. Where do you get this assertion then: “which I think anyone, believer or not, who reads the Bible cover-to-cover can readily discern”. If he’s not provable, how is the bible useful for discerning him? What is it exactly that ” anyone, believer or not, who reads the Bible cover-to-cover can readily discern”? If it’s something to do with God, how is it that it can both be a conclusive thing and yet the thing it concludes is not provable? Are you saying it supports God’s existence, but inadequately?
…you can still read the Bible to tell what OTHERS who lived in another time and place believed (leaving aside translation and context issues, which is a whole other issue). If you read the Bible you should be able to notice the differences, but nothing in it will make you personally believe if you’re not already inclined to believe. Real but not provable is exactly what I’ve been trying to say. I’m hesitant to say “God is real,” without qualification because you come back with questions like “How do you know?” or “Why do you believe?” which are inherently unanswerable. Faith is very personal and cannot easily be teased out in the same way as most academic subjects with objective answers can be.
It occurs to me we’ve let this get into higher plane theology less and less relevant to this thread, and I share blame for that. All I’m asking for is respect for the fact that Christianity is not monolithic and that progressives can count at least as many of us as allies rather than enemies, and that for many of us Christianity is the basis for progressive values. All the mainline denominations have websites that can be Googled for those interested in learning more about various doctrines and practices.