Gregg

I don't care how non-legalistic a Christian church is, or how pretty and gentle a face it puts on its beliefs. It can't change the basic fact that the concept of someone being bloodily sacrificed as payment for our sins is primitive, barbaric, and offensive to the core. 2,000 years ago it may have been a big step up from theologies that had people sacrificing animals and even people to appease their bloodthirsty gods, but that was then.

Even when I was a believer and a Christian I could never accept such a theology. I chose a church (Unity) that recognized and acknowledged the fundamental ugliness of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement and interpreted the crucifixion from a different perspective. Although I've moved on from Unity, I don't feel any negativity toward it because it wasn't afraid to do its own theology instead of trying to peddle a "soft" version of the same old primitive, barbaric nonsense.

jbernier

This, of course, is entirely predicated upon the assumption that the theory of substitionary atonement is a necessary part of Christian theology. It is not; Christian theology can be (and has been) quite adequately articulated apart from substitutionary atonement. Either way how is the theory of substitutionary atonement a "contradiction in the Bible"?

Gregg

I didn't say it was .... my post was OT.

I agree that Christian theology has been articulated well without the substitutionary atonement. As I said, I belonged to a church that does not teach substitutionary atonement. But when someone says they believe Jesus died so we could be forgiven for our sins, how else can that be interpreted? If they mean something other than what it sounds like, then they should choose another way to say it.

Opera Nut

My point exactly.
The starting point of Christianity is the doctrine of original sin, and that causes the necessity for atonement. There is no Christianity without original sin and substitutionary atonement, so there is no way that Christianity is NOT loading people up with unearned guilt and shame. If you want to see a psychological analysis of the horrific consequences of people dealing with that baggage, read HEALING THE SHAME THAT BINDS YOU, by John Bradshaw, Ph.D., who is a psychologist and former Catholic priest.

As I have said before, it's a fake set up. If you don't believe in original sin, then you have no need for the alleged sacrifice of Jesus to atone for our sins.

Christianity is like a shampoo commercial that says "Oh you have dandruff. Everyone has dandruff, but they don't know it. But everybody definitely has it!! Here, you MUST use this shampoo".

In my analogy:

Dandruff(all humans have dandruff) = original sin. (applies to all humans)
Shampoo = Jesus' death for our sins (substitutionary atonement)
Lack of dandruff after using shampoo = salvation.

If you take original sin as an arbitrary construct(just like the doctrines of the rest of organized religion), then nobody needs Christianity, in spite of the urgent pleas of its adherents to the rest of us. It's merely a preference of belief, not something we must accept to "save our souls".

Smiles and happy faces cannot hide the savagery and brutality of blood sacrifice, torture, death by crucifixion iconography.

jbernier

Patently and demonstrably untrue. See, for instance, Pelagius in the ancient world or John Yoder in the contemporary. There have been plenty of ancient and contemporary articulations of Christianity without a theory of original sin and substitutionary atonement. In fact one could make the argument that substitutionary atonement, in its contemporary articulation, does not really take root prior to about the 11th century. Moreover original sin comes in a variety of doctrinal forms.

Correction: Then nobody needs a Christianity which is predicated upon said arbitrary construct. That is the most you can say based upon your argument as you have merely asserted (not demonstrated) that original sin and substitutionary parts of Christian thought (and I have given counter-examples to refute your assertion). Also, I am not at all sure what you mean by "arbitrary": Do you mean "historically conditioned", perhaps? If so I am not sure why that is a problem with the doctrine.

Opera Nut

"arbitrary" in its most basic sense means "made-up" without a logical reason, but as I said, nearly all religious doctrines could be considered made up. If you wanted to be really insulting you could say "Imaginary".

Sort of like the difference between a law, which applies to all citizens, and a "company policy" which does not have the force of law, but is grounds for dismissal for employees of that company.

jbernier

Nothing insulting about imaginary: It means simply "of the imagination." Imagination itself refers to the capacity to create images of things that are not immediately present to the senses. In fact, talking about Christianity as "imaginary" opens up an entire realm of discourse about what it means to "believe", to "be Christian." It opens to the aesthetic, to imagery, to visual metaphors. The important thing to note is that the fact that something is "imaged" or is a product of "imagination" does not necessarily mean that it does not have a real world referent, even if that referent is not immediately present to the sense. Nothing insulting there.

As for "arbitrary" as "made up without a logical reason" I think that one might have trouble with applying that definition to the history of thought. Remember that "logic" has a history and that large segments of the history of thought did not utilize "logic" as we know it. Moreover one is confronted with the empiricist strand in the history of thought: There are a large number of thinkers who say that that which is immediately available to the senses is more crucial for knowledge than logic. Moreover you introduce a circularity: If something is arbitrary if it is made up without a logical reason than there must be a logical reason for logic lest logic would be arbitrary; however if there is a logical reason for logic than logic is being used to prove the epistemological priority of logic. This is fundamentally circular.

Opera Nut

So if you there are Christian sects that don't subscribe to the doctrines of original sin and substitutionary atonement, wouldn't that negate the alleged "need" --i.e. to save humanity from hell, for Christianity completely?

I have never heard of ANY christian sect that does not believe those two doctrines.

Could not "arbitrary" be applied to many of the stories in the Bible that do not have independent corroboration outside of said book?

Take the doctrine: "God is watching you all the time". That doctrine may be arbitrary but it has a logical reason: Social control of the flock by the churches, to induce guilt by self control. The flock doesn't have to have preachers standing over them all the time; the flock internalizes the voice of guilt and shame, so they have a little cop in their head.

Social control is infringing, and not nice, and can be extremely bad, but it could be logical to perpetuate the organization doing the controlling, since it helps to perpetuate the organization.

I hope I have been reasonably clear. If not, my apologies.

Your thoughts?

Gregg

Ya need to get out more. New Thought Christianity, which emerged in the late 19th century and includes Divine Science, Science of Mind, Unity, and some other churches, has never subscribed to the doctrines of original sin and substitionary atonement. New Thought Christianity alleged that traditional Christianity had completely misunderstood Jesus' intentions, message, and the purpose of the crucifixion/resurrection. It's kinda hard to explain, and I'm not really interested in going into the details right now, but basically they teach that Jesus was trying to show us how to connect with/express our divine nature, the "spark" of God within us.

I think Pelagius may have taught something similar.

Opera Nut

I HAVE gone to a large Unity church. This was some years ago. They meet in a giant golden pyramid precisely aligned to the cardinal directions.
I Shitteth You Not. [First Clue!!]

My impressions:

1) They don't mention Christ much;

2) They are basically into positive thinking with a bit of Jesus thrown in, sort of like a nice elementary school teacher;

3) A lot of people there are into stuff like tarot cards, crystals, and other pagan/New Agey stuff that most if not all Xtians consider heretical.


4) Because of their tolerance for "space cadets" I do not consider them to be a recognized Christian denomination, at least not recognized by the other Protestant sects.


5) I have never seen them listed as aligning with ecumenical organizations like the National Council of Christians and Jews, for example, in protesting religious bigotry, etc.



The only church I will identify with is the Unitarian-Universalists, and everybody there seems to be atheist or agnostic or deist, and they are considered a mainstream denomination, although rather small. The former president of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Rev. William Schulz, is now President of Amnesty International.


IOW, I don't get the sense that Unity is considered a mainstream denomination, and would not be accepted as Xtian by the other Xtians. Of course, the Xtians point fingers at Mormons and JWs, so I am kind of thinking that they would think Unity is not Xtian b/c they don't accept original sin and substitutional atonement.

your thoughts?