MadArchitect wrote:George responded to my question with two questions of his own, and I figure that my first reply should be to those two questions so that he can join the fray with impunity.

Which Christianity?

In all honesty, there can be no historic answer to that. The reason is that, if we're talking about redeeming Christianity, then ultimately we're talking about constituting a new Christianity. That new Christianity would have to demonstrate some ties to traditional Christianity in order to deserve the name, but any talk of reviving an older version of that tradition would require more suspension of disbelief than I could muster. Just about any familiarity with the history of Christian reform ought to demonstrate that there is no possibility of true return ad fontes to a purer, better Christianity.

In that sense, asking "which Christianity" is a bit like turning the question back on me. But in this thread, I'm more interested in your answer than any answer that I would tender. So you tell me which Christianity, if any. I'm not asking what it would take to draw you back into the fold, but I do think it's in the Christian community's interest to have some non-members who smile on its institutions and mission.

And that, of course, becomes very problematic. Any discussion of a "Christian community" suggests these questions have already been answered and there is general unanimity in the answers. You and I both know that is not the case. Whatever Christian community exists is highly fragmented and often working at cross purposes.

Reinventing Christianities, and I say Christianities because I doubt anyone will ever put that genie back in one bottle, always seems to appeal to those who are unwilling or perhaps unable to let go. I have always thought the most attractive thing about Christian fellowships is their efforts to alleviate the pain, suffering and need of their fellow humans. Second to that is the sense of community and belonging they promote among themselves. But then I think all the good things done by religious fellowships could be accomplished without invoking gods at all. So the question I always have in this context is: Why try to reinvent something that has already probably outlived it's useful shelf live?

In short, I think we would do much better to devote our energies to finding better ways to live together as human beings than to continue to try to recast institutions that often have contributed to making that impossible. Though I can readily concede, in anticipation of your rebuttal, that religious sentiments often have promoted peace and harmony among various groups, I also insist those same sentiments ofen have been exploited to do the opposite. I, for one, would like to take the penny out of the fuse box, so to speak, and see if we can't get along better without it. And, for the record, I am not, I repeat not, talking about any sort of laws, pogroms or discrimination. I would not outlaw religions if I had it in my power to do so. I would simply let them devolve and fade away without constantly trying to prop them up or reinvent them.

For whom?

I'm soliciting your answer, so the answer has to be, "for you." That isn't to say that it has to be redeemed according to any particular agenda you might have, or that it ought to be the sort of club of which you'd be a member. But what would it take for Christianity to be the sort of community or institution that you didn't second-guess at every turn? What would it take for you to be okay with Christianity?

Lets make a differentiation here. I'm okay with most Christians. As long as they aren't trying to make their religion the law of the land or enshrine their religion (here in the U.S. at least) as the de facto, if not de jure, state religion, as long as they aren't bothering me with their religions, we can co-exist quite nicely.

When it comes to the institutions of Christianity though, I have to take a somewhat different approach. To the extent that a religion thinks it is "The One True Faith" or worships "The One True God," I want nothing to do with it. To the extent that it attempts to dictate terms to the society in which I live or to undermine the public education of children or to oppress various groups by treating them as second-class citizens, I will oppose such efforts. I will also note that I expect many Christians would join with me.

George

George Ricker wrote:And that, of course, becomes very problematic. Any discussion of a "Christian community" suggests these questions have already been answered and there is general unanimity in the answers.

I don't think it's so problematic. I'm not asking how we can reform the whole of Christianity. I take it as granted that, with any group, there will be enough difference of opinion to make it impossible to get everyone on the same boat. I'm not asking how we can make the whole of Christianity whistle the same tune. My question is limited to that of whether or not there can be one Christianity among many that fits some criteria that would allow you to call it redeemed.

So the question I always have in this context is: Why try to reinvent something that has already probably outlived it's useful shelf live?

Because Christianity doesn't appear to be on the ropes just yet. Assuming that people are going to continue, in the short term, at least, to continue basic Christian doctrine, how can we reform the institutions that form around that belief?

Though I can readily concede, in anticipation of your rebuttal, that religious sentiments often have promoted peace and harmony among various groups, I also insist those same sentiments ofen have been exploited to do the opposite.

I'd appreciate it if you'd try to avoid anticipating my rebuttal. For one thing, my opinion differ a lot from the standard answers given by a lot of people who have discussed this topic, so it's a waste of your time to write out long answers to points I might not even make. And secondly, I waste a lot of time on this forum trying to explain to people that the belief they've attributed to me is something I've never argued in favor of, but their "anticipation" of what I'll argue often becomes so firmly entrenched in their mind that they're unwilling or unable to recognize that I, in fact, believe something else.

I, for one, would like to take the penny out of the fuse box, so to speak, and see if we can't get along better without it.

So then, for clarification's sake, would your answer to question B in my original post be that Christianity cannot be redeemed?

Ravi

Thanks for the link to www.jesusneverexisted.com it's a well researched site. You might also want to check out http://www.rationalrevolution.net/artic ... istory.htm it is an in-depth look at the history of the Jesus myth and how it seemed to develop from one (rather un-detailed) source, lacking both the virgin birth and the crucifixion which seemed to have been added well after the earlier writings and well after any possibility of an eye witness account.

The site also examines the cultural influences, the local historians of the time, and the vast number of similarities between the Jesus legend and the other Jewish and pagan myths that came before it. The site does an excellent job of explaining why a historic character is unlikely (at best) and why a historic Jesus was not needed for Christianity to develop.

The author's work is largely based off of Robert M Price's works which are well received in the intellectual community and to my knowledge the theories on the site are as well accepted as any in the "historic Jesus" camp, in my opinion they appear more credible relying less on speculation and more on the evidence at hand.

Mad, to answer your question... I agree with George, if Christians would simply keep their beliefs to themselves and avoid the urge to control everyone, I would have little problem with them.

But since that is not likely to happen... ever... I would say that Christianity currently offers nothing that can't be accomplished by other means and is not worth saving.

Later

Frank 013 wrote:

Mad, to answer your question... I agree with George, if Christians would simply keep their beliefs to themselves and avoid the urge to control everyone, I would have little problem with them.

But since that is not likely to happen... ever... I would say that Christianity currently offers nothing that can't be accomplished by other means and is not worth saving.

Frank, why wouldn't this happen?

It's happened in France since WW II, and probably in some other European countries. Religion is private business and I don't see people trying to influence each other here. All you need is a good basis of atheists to calm things down.
The studies I have seen show that 20 to 30 % of the French people polled say they have no religion, and even that doesn't mean the others all believe, I think actually the number of atheists is much higher. With those figures though (which I thought were low), we have the highest rate of atheism in Europe.

The only reason why I checked a while ago was when I read something by an Iranian who wrote about the western world and referred to its inhabitants as "Christians", which really surprised me at first.

Then I looked at figures which showed the U.S as being 93 % Christian (then of course I understood why the Iranian writer thought everybody was Christian.)

Do you think this figure (93 %) is correct?

Ophelia
Frank, why wouldn't this happen?

From my point of view, the fundamentalist's power in this country seems to be growing rather than receding, if things keep moving in their current direction this country could become a Christian theocracy in the next 100 years or so.

I could be wrong but things seem to be getting worse lately instead of better.

For instance; in most other educated countries the idea of creationism science is hardly taken seriously, here we have to fight legal battles to keep real science in our schools.

Ophelia
Then I looked at figures which showed the U.S as being 93 % Christian (then of course I understood why the Iranian writer thought everybody was Christian.)

Do you think this figure (93 %) is correct?

That seems to be a little higher then the numbers I have seen (not by much), but that is not really the problem, the problem lies in the large numbers of fundamentalists we have, they are aggressive, charismatic and well funded. They also claim to speak for all Christians and the Christian masses in this country hardly ever raise any objection to that claim.

So to the casual observer and probably most politicians the fundamentalists appear to speak for the majority of Christians, which gives them a lot of power.

Later

Mad, to answer your question... I agree with George, if Christians would simply keep their beliefs to themselves and avoid the urge to control everyone, I would have little problem with them.

Personally I'd rather Christians not keep their beliefs to themselves. I'd rather they put them on the table for thorough examination in a serious inquiry the aim of which was truth rather than defending already held beliefs. I doubt that's about to happen any time soon. I'm doing a lot of reading in epistemology (the Theory of Knowledge) at the moment and it seems to me that some epistemological theories are merely a front for justifying Christianity or other religious belief.

Then I looked at figures which showed the U.S as being 93 % Christian (then of course I understood why the Iranian writer thought everybody was Christian.)

Do you think this figure (93 %) is correct?

According to adherents.com the United States is 76.5% Christian.
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html#religionsl

And also 82%.
http://www.adherents.com/rel_USA.html

Apparently the USA does not have a question about religion on its census so the figures are obtained through surveys. Different surveys will achieve different results, so all figures will be approximations, unlike Australia that does include a census question and an exact figure is available.

As for the original questions...

A) Does Christianity need to be redeemed?
B) Can it be redeemed at all? and
C) What would have to change for you to consider Christianity redeemed?

In brief:
A) No more than any other human institution. One could ask the same question about Britain or science, for example.
B) I think it can, but it would be very difficult and very unlikely. Possibly harder for Christianity than some other institutions.
C) It would need a Natural Law theory of ethics rather than a divine Command theory. Ethical judgments must be completely separated from scripture and Church tradition. They must not be merely ways of justifying scripture passages or old Church documents.

bradams
I'd rather they put them on the table for thorough examination in a serious inquiry the aim of which was truth rather than defending already held beliefs.

Good point, but like you I doubt that that will happen anytime soon.

I'm doing a lot of reading in epistemology (the Theory of Knowledge) at the moment and it seems to me that some epistemological theories are merely a front for justifying Christianity or other religious belief.

What writers in particular? I'm sure that's true of a great many philosophers from, say, the 17th and 18th centuries (for example, Berkeley), but there's also a very large body of epistemological work that takes seriously the problem of knowledge without using the topic as a mask for apologetics. And the more you move into contemporary epistemology, the more you'll encounter in that vein.

C) It would need a Natural Law theory of ethics rather than a divine Command theory. Ethical judgments must be completely separated from scripture and Church tradition.

I'm of two minds on the subject. One is that a Natural Law theory of ethics presents so many difficulties that it isn't really tenable. I've done a lot of reading on the subject of morality, and the conclusion I've come to is that all moral systems are premised on assumptions that have no basis in rational discourse. There's an a-rational basis for all moral (that is, received) conduct, and I don't think philosophy is likely to find a purely rationalistic substitute. To that end, I'm not sure that it's practical to expect Christianity to adopt a Natural Law theory, and I'm not sure it would do it any good, anyway.

My other view of the subject is that, along the same lines as what you've written, the notion of Christian ethics is to closely allied to scriptural interpretation, the result being a view of scripture as a kind of masked instruction manual for life, thereby taken the burden of ethical responsibility off of the individual and narrowing that responsibility to a kind of epistemic imperative: Know how to read the Bible, and you'll de facto know how to behave morally. That tendency is certainly problematic, but I'm not sure a shift to Natural Law ethical theory really solves the dilemma. On the whole, I think Christianity has supposed too close a tie between its religious content and its ethical content, and a more circumspect reading of the two would probably go a long way towards reforming the movement from within.

MadArchitect wrote:

George Ricker wrote:And that, of course, becomes very problematic. Any discussion of a "Christian community" suggests these questions have already been answered and there is general unanimity in the answers.

I don't think it's so problematic. I'm not asking how we can reform the whole of Christianity. I take it as granted that, with any group, there will be enough difference of opinion to make it impossible to get everyone on the same boat. I'm not asking how we can make the whole of Christianity whistle the same tune. My question is limited to that of whether or not there can be one Christianity among many that fits some criteria that would allow you to call it redeemed.

I can't imagine what it would look like. Frankly, it sounds like what you are talking about is not so much redemption as reinvention. There might be some reinvented Christianities that I would find less objectionable than others, but it's unlikely I'm going to find much to recommend in any of them.

So the question I always have in this context is: Why try to reinvent something that has already probably outlived it's useful shelf live?

Because Christianity doesn't appear to be on the ropes just yet. Assuming that people are going to continue, in the short term, at least, to continue basic Christian doctrine, how can we reform the institutions that form around that belief?

I'm not sure we can, and I really see no valid reason why we should try.

I, for one, would like to take the penny out of the fuse box, so to speak, and see if we can't get along better without it.

So then, for clarification's sake, would your answer to question B in my original post be that Christianity cannot be redeemed?

Yes. At least, not in any form that was recognizable as such. And even if it could, I still see no reason why it should.

George

What writers in particular? I'm sure that's true of a great many philosophers from, say, the 17th and 18th centuries (for example, Berkeley), but there's also a very large body of epistemological work that takes seriously the problem of knowledge without using the topic as a mask for apologetics. And the more you move into contemporary epistemology, the more you'll encounter in that vein.

I'd say those in the reformed epistemology tradition, especially Alvin Plantinga and especially the idea of basic beliefs. Not that I think the ideas in this tradition are totally without merit. On the contrary, I admire many aspects of this epistemological theory but it looks suspiciously like a front for apologetics to me. I think Anthony Kenny's writings in religious epistemology take this tradition into account while still remaining neutral as to religious beliefs.

I've done a lot of reading on the subject of morality, and the conclusion I've come to is that all moral systems are premised on assumptions that have no basis in rational discourse. There's an a-rational basis for all moral (that is, received) conduct, and I don't think philosophy is likely to find a purely rationalistic substitute. To that end, I'm not sure that it's practical to expect Christianity to adopt a Natural Law theory, and I'm not sure it would do it any good, anyway.

There is a line of thought that I think could properly fit within the natural law tradition (particularly if you look at the "New Natural Law" of writers such as Grisez, Finnis, Boyle and George) which sees morality as the science of human action and would proceed in a way similar to linguistics. The idea is that there is an underlying set of principles underlying all the varied morality systems seen throughout human societies. Suggestions towards this fact, but no real development, have been made (with slight variations) by John Rawls, Vernon J. Bourke, Germain Grisez, Noam Chomsky, Umberto Econ and I think Marc Hauser recently wrote a book Moral Minds exploring an idea such as this.

Another vein which I will be mining in the future is the area of Darwinian political philosophy. Roger Masters and Larry Arnhart are two of the major names in this area that I know of. I borrowed Arnhart's book Darwinian Natural Right from a local university library only to discover that half of the pages were blank (ie where there was supposed to be a page of writing there was nothing printed) and the book was unreadable. I'm waiting for them to get a replacement copy. In the meantime I've read a few of Arnhart's articles. I can send you pdf copies of a couple if you're interested.

Also, the predominantly Kantian moral philosopher Alan Donagan has written an article explaining how he thinks a secular version of the scholastic natural law theory could help lessen moral disagreement in the modern world.

In conclusion, I think there is still a lot of interesting work going on in natural law (and its close cousin virtue ethics) and I think it's at least too soon to write it off yet.

My other view of the subject is that, along the same lines as what you've written, the notion of Christian ethics is to closely allied to scriptural interpretation, the result being a view of scripture as a kind of masked instruction manual for life, thereby taken the burden of ethical responsibility off of the individual and narrowing that responsibility to a kind of epistemic imperative: Know how to read the Bible, and you'll de facto know how to behave morally. That tendency is certainly problematic, but I'm not sure a shift to Natural Law ethical theory really solves the dilemma. On the whole, I think Christianity has supposed too close a tie between its religious content and its ethical content, and a more circumspect reading of the two would probably go a long way towards reforming the movement from within.

I think my point is that you cannot use scriptures as a way of neglecting the importance of personal responsibility and individual judgment because the fact that the scriptures need interpretation then again puts the onus back on human judgment and requires extra-scriptural moral reasoning to support certain interpretations.