nathan1977
Rock n' Roll Doggie
Irvine511 said:
i understand that you're operating from a different starting point than i am
That's pretty significant to our discussion.
but in these words seem to be an assumption that, yes, there is a God,
Which is sort of the defining element of Christianity.
yes, i am worshipping the right one,
Which is the first of the Ten Commandments.
and that, yes, there are people who aren't yet aware of what i know but that's part of my mission is to spread His (and even using the capital "H" is quite assertive) word.
In Jesus' first sermon He quotes Isaiah, talking about setting captives free, giving sight to the blind, proclaiming freedom. He seems to have set the precedent for exactly what you're describing... (Even if many of us bollocks it up.)
i think what many people do react to is the way in which many christians speak about god as if he's a person
Which is another foundational element of Christianity. If God created us for relationship with Him, then it would follow that He is an actual person. (Though I'm not talking about an old white man with a beard sitting on a cloud.)
It sounds from your post like there's some frustration with the defining elements of the faith itself, not just the practice. But it's kind of hard to ignore those elements, since they inform everything else. I can apologize for the methods that people use, but it's hard to apologize for the message.
it's not that people who are atheist are missing something in their lives or are unaware of God or angrily choosing to ignore God for whatever reasons. some people simply look around and through simply clarity and logic don't think that God exists, that there's no "there" there, that religion is a human fabrication meant to explain the unexplainable and shield us from the paralyzing paradox of the human conditon as we await our impending deaths.
I'm not going to presume why someone doesn't believe in the existence of God. I know some atheists who are angry. I know some atheists who are missing something. I know some atheists who refuse to believe in God because of tragedy in their lives. I know others who have rationally come to the conclusion that there isn't a God. These are radically different conclusions than I have come to. But is one conclusion any less legitimate than another?
One of the things we probably have to deal with sooner or later is the gross reductionism of religious discourse in America -- which isn't surprising, given how we've reduced political discourse, sociological discourse, and scientific discourse to bumper stickers and sound bites. The problem in reductionism is that an awful lot gets lost -- including the thing you've tapped into, Irvine, which is that at the fundamental level, religions aren't the same. Christianity is rooted in some pretty profound assumptions -- different than those which root Islam, Buddhism, Daoism, etc. (When asked what made Christianity different from other world religions, CS Lewis came back with, "Oh, that's easy. Grace." It calls to mind Bono's line: "Grace...a thought that changed the world.") We've talked about the tactics certain Christians use, tactics which we both seem to agree are shameful and which are opposed to the very grace that ought to define the faith. But that's different than pointing to the fundamentals of Christianity itself as the problem, which is what we seem to be talking about. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
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