Malachi151

I agree completely with the sentement in The End of Faith.

The moderates ARE the problem. Pagels is a Post-Modernist Christian, plain and simple.

Do I think that Pagels is a "bad person"? No, of course not, I'd much rather spend time with her than Pat Robertson, duh, but its people like her that "breath new life" into Christianity.

On a personal level, yes, I prefer moderate Christians and liberal reformers, but on an objective long-term level, these are the very worst people, because they extend the life of religion and that expand the scope and audiance of religion.

If Christianity were only fundamentalism in America, there would be very few Christians. Yes, there are a lot of fundamentalists, but there are far more moderates.

The moderates, however, still side with the fundies when it comes down to it. The moderates will alwasy act as enablers for the fundies.

WishboneDawn

I assume you have a way to demonstrate that claim. Perhaps liberal churches are experiencing a growth that the conservative churches aren't and you have links to statistics? It's simply untrue on an objective, long-term and worldwide level but maybe you've got some figures for western nations?

Are you talking moderates or liberals? You must know that the two are not the same.

Johnny Skeptic

That is not true. The largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. is the Southern Baptist Convention, which numbers about 14 million. A presidential election can be decided by much less than
1 million votes. The Assemblies of God and the Church of God collectively have millions of members. In 2005, the Assemblies of God had 1.6 million members. Altogether, fundamentlist Christians would comprise the second or third largest state in the U.S., which is an awful lot of voting power.

It is well-known that a much higher percentage of fundamentalist Christians oppose homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and physician assisted suicide than liberal Christians do. I know liberal Christians who detest fundamentalist Christians, and I know fundamentalist Christians who detest liberal Christians. I even know some fundamentalist Christians who believe that homosexuals and liberal Christians will go to hell.

Virtually all of the nasty web sites against homosexuals are fundamentalist Christian web sites. A sizeable percentage of liberal Christians believe in "live and let live", but only a small percentage of fundamentalist Christians do. If I could choose which group of Christians to send to another country, I would choose to send fundamentalist Christians to another country. If that happened, this country would immediately be much better off. Wherever you go in the world, whatever the religion, fundamentalists are usually trouble.

Solo

Are we off topic again ???

JS

Malachi151

I disagree. First of all, you should know that all churches overstate their membership. Forgetting that however, the population of America is 300 million, granted that some are children. Furthermore, not all Southern Baptists are fundies. My grandma and my Dad are registered Southern Baptists. My Dad is actually an agnostic, but he goes to church on occassion for social and professional reasons.

14 million out of say, 200 million, does not make a majority.

How many Americans attend church? 50% of Christians?

I know that everywhere I have worked (and I live in the South, though now its in a relatively progressive area) most of the people call themselves Christians, yet virtually are either liberal or moderate. None are hardcore, and few actually go to church.

If I were to ask anyone at work, or any place I have worked in the past 10 years, if they believed that Jesus was the Son of God, I'm sure that 90% at least would have said yes.

If I asked them if they "believed in evolution" probably 60% would have said yes (I work in a professional field).

If I asked them if they thought that atheists were bad people, probably 70+% would have said yes. Even many liberal Christians say stupid things like "atheists are bad", or "people cannot survive without faith", or "everyone has to believe in God".

All that Pagels does is further bolster the nonsense, provide more crutches to people who are looking for something that can use to hang on to their God belief.

Hey, for the casual Christain, who doesn't go to church that much, who likes women's rights, who kinda believes in other superstitions and reads their horoscope each day, Pagels is right up their ally, providing yet another thread that keeps Christianity trucking.

Johnny Skeptic

Rather, how many fundamentalist Christians vote, how many of them voted for George Bush, and would George Bush be president if there were not any fundamentalist Christians in the U.S.?

Mat Wilder

Like someone posted earlier, I don't understand why Pagels would remain part of Christianity. She thoroughly documents the darker side of it in The Gnostic Gospels in my opinion. The historical fact of the persecution of "heretics" by the "orthodox" is one major influence in my deconversion; even the earliest believers in Christ didn't follow his teachings, which really turned me off to the beliefs they fought for. It really proves the idea that history is written by the victors. If the "orthodox" had their way all traces of the "heretics" would be wiped out from history's record, and we would all think that there was one, true, monolithic CHRISTIANITY which developed directly from Jesus, but that is simply not true. I was never able to get over that fact.

Malachi151

I'm saying that there are MORE Christians in America, INCLUDING fundies, BECAUSE OF people like Pagels.

The moderates provide cover and support for the fundies, both directly and indirectly, intentionally AND uninentionally.

The fact is, things that Pagels says are wrong, provably wrong. She twists the facts to support her own vision of a moderate Christainity. The "real facts" disprove Christianity altogether.

If she would look at the things she reports on objectively she would realize that they prove that her faith is nonsense.

Instead, she mispreresnts the facts, and mispresents Christianity, in order to create an more open, more tolerant version of something that is still, in the end, poison, and still wrong. All she does is BROADEN THE TENT.

Now, as an atheist, there are two issues: #1 She's just flat wrong in her assessments. #2 I don't want the Chrisitian tent broadened.

Again, back to lesbian priests. I WANT all Christians to reject homosexuals. Do I want gay people becoming Christians? No!

I hope that all Christians continue to denounce homosexuals and that homosexuals denounce Christianity. I want "all the gays on our side"

WishboneDawn

Again, can you substantiate that? Even indirectly?

Christianity is declining in the US. From Religious Tolerence...

Polling data from the 2001 ARIS study, described below, indicate that:
81% of American adults identify themselves with a specific religion:
76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year.

I happen to believe I may agree with you here in part if you'd care to go into more detail about how the moderates provide support and cover.

How does she misrepresent the facts and christianity?

How is a tolerent version poison and wrong? And something beyond the, 'It supports the fundies,' because in many cases it doesn't and further, drives the fundies crazy.

You're not, 'as an atheist,' beholden to either view. The atheist tent contains a wide range of opinions and points of view.

All christians won't continue to denounce homosexuality because all christians don't denounce it now.

But this all seems a bit bizarre. Christianity is bad. In all forms it suppports fundamentalism, even when it actively opposes it. It's also poison in some vague manner. The good christians are doing a very bad thing when they act good, worse then the fundies when they're acting bad. So, the good christians should start actively harming people and spouting YEC so that they're all fundies. All this because, somehow, having %75 of the population become fundy christians would result in the death of fundy christianity.

Okay.

Gamera

Well, you're simply assuming your conclusion. We have texts. They appear to purport to be historical. You can question their reliability on numerous grounds. But I don't think Pagel's argument adds anything to the debate about reliability, since she concludes about Christianity what is true about any historical event -- and that is, different interests viewed it differently.

The same can be said about the Peleponeses War, which I bet you agree actually took place.