/atheism/ - Atheism

Well that actually makes sense, kinda. The Ancient Jews didn't believe in a Devil, they didn't even believe in a heaven or a hell. This came about during the Hellenic era when the philosophies of Greek religion starting blending with Christianity.

>i don't believe in this shit but I'm still going to derive my way of life from this work of fiction

In this sense actual Christians are more logical. Actual Christians actually believe in this mystical nonsense so it's understandable why they base their life around it. Meanwhile these guys seem to know better but yet desperately cling to this fiction when there is non-fiction available. Once you realize the religion is bullshit there's no reason in keeping the tradition. Sure there may be a few things the religion did right but you can get those things on their own without the strings attached. The problem is these people are stuck in this delusion that they should continue to look to the Bible for answers when for the most part the book is utter bullshit. At best these people end up wasting their time with mental gymnastics to make it work out. As we know events in the Bible are presented as fact, that includes the supernatural ones.

Secular christianity isn't a product of individual literacy and knowledge. It's a product of protestantism, specially anglo protestantism. This is what specialists say so (look for all the voluntarism vs intelectualism, realism vs idealism, nominalism vs universalism debates), this is why former protestant countries are also the most secularized. It's not because they were more educated, but because their theology has the same foundation as secular/enlightenment philosophy.

I could write more of this if you want to, dunno how much the average /atheist/ knows about this kind of stuff.

The anglican church itself is a church that basically holds christianity as a moral code for how one should act but without any supernatural implications. "God doesn't exist, but I believe in Him", it's how they think, specially the low clergy.

It's nothing new.

>>8520

>The anglican church itself is a church that basically holds christianity as a moral code for how one should act but without any supernatural implications

Well that's a shame because it's not even very good for that.

I've encountered plenty of people who can't intellectually allow themselves to believe that god is real but still cling to the christian culture. That's fine I guess, but I'd argue we're better off without it anyway.

>>8512

I have heard a something on the radio. Some religious philosopher guy said:

>there a million ways to god

>all religions are legit

>religion is good and important

>he is a protestant

>a literally god <of couse> doesn't exist

I don't get the mind acrobatics of him. If you don't define words then they mean nothing and you can't claim they are important.

>>8524

Sounds basically like Christian Universalism. It's becoming more popular among protestants. /christian/ and other traditionalists of course hate it, understandably because it goes against scripture which they hold to be utterly infallible.

My own theory is that it's growing because most christians are decent people by and large and come to the conclusion that damning people to hell for having the audacity to question religion or being born in a non-christian society is utterly immoral and insane.

They aren't ready to abandon the faith entirely though so everybody goes to heaven. I'd prefer every christian be a universalist personally, less problems that way.

People like them are actually the people I have least respect for because at least fundamentalists choose to abandon reason for faith and believe all of the religion, but people like them, who just pick and choose which parts they'd like to follow, the cherry-pickers, abandon both faith and reason in equal measure. And while I'm glad to hear that their innate humanity and morality allowed them to identify and ignore the barbarism in their religion, just know that I think that their theological position is ridiculous.

>>8526

From my personal experience with these people, it's not cherrypicking, it's how they were raised. They either come from an already watered down protestant segment (there's a very famous physicist that's like this, I forgot his name now, certainly someone here knows who I'm talking about) or they were never very educated in their faith, so they have a shallow/distorted opinion on it.

>>8524

I think he was just throwing whatever he could to the wall and see what sticks.