Kassiana

seebs:
My UU friend is an agnostic, and he goes to a UU church fairly far from his house, because the one near his house has too many people who are intolerant of theists.

Kass:
True. There are individual UU churches where it might not be safe to be a Christian, or a Pagan, or an atheist. The one my parents attended was very pro-secular, anti-theistic (and VERY anti-Christian...when someone asked me if I read the Bible and I said yes, she laughed at the idea of me reading it "religiously"), and unwilling to accept anything in the least bit conservative. There was a Pagan sub-chapter there, though, growing at the time I was present. I have to wonder how they managed to get along there.

My UU church is decently tolerant, though I confess I hear a few more Christian sermons than Pagan or secular. But our minister was once a Lutheran so I guess she's going with what she knows, and the members of the congregation are willing to allow others with religious views different from theirs to have them without attack, so it's all good.

seebs

This ties into one of the unanswerables. If I am motivated by my faith, or possibly by one of those "whims" that I tend to attribute to God's advice, and which atheist people would just call whims, and I save your life, were you saved because of God, or because of me? How would you tell?

That said, yes, it's horribly offensive to attribute everything to God in that way. Insofar as He is "saving" people in such cases, it's generally a question of making people such that we are inclined to save each other.

I don't approve of the way people try to make it look like *only* members of their group are decent or compassionate. Brave people of all beliefs (including both strong and weak atheists) have risked their lives for others; giving all of the credit to God is, I think, unjust. In a way, it strikes me as blasphemous.

The Other Michael

And it ignores God's will in letting all the others in the WTC perish.

cheers,
Michael

Perchance

Since I consider myself agnostic, this is hard for me to answer. But, in the particular way you phrased it, I would still say that it was you who saved me in either case. After all, if they are just "whims," then it was all your effort, and if it was the voice of God speaking to you, you had to choose to heed it. I can conceive of a case where someone who is theist believes that she hears "the voice of God," but ignores it because of personal danger or even distaste. (For example, I've known a few people who would not stop hating homosexuals even if God came out of the clouds and told them to stop).


At times I've heard a variation of the argument where people seem to have dimly grasped the idea that not all the "decent" people in the world belong to their groups, but haven't so much changed their minds as re-phrased it:

"Well, but I've known more decent (Christians/atheists/pagans/gays/straights/choose your group) than (atheists/Christians/cowans/straights/gays/choose your group)."

This seems to attribute the generalization to personal experience, while still allowing the person to get away with believing what he or she likes. It's annoying.

-Perchance.

seebs

Hmm. Yeah, good point. People bring their baggage with them to a new belief system, most of the time. I think moderate Christianity tends to improve peoples' outlooks... but fundamentalists are often *scary* people.

About as far as I'll go is that Christian assholes are generally spending a lot more effort rationalizing than atheist assholes.

I do take your point about the people who wouldn't stop hating gay people if God told them to; indeed, He *HAS*, in dozens of places in the New Testament. I fear these people; I don't like being near them, because you never know when God will decide that maybe a couple of lightning bolts would make His point better.

*sigh*.

There is very little more depressing than watching people take something you always thought was obvious, and just *IGNORING* it.

NOGO

I would be curious to know where.
Thanks.

Perchance

In the case of the few people I know who wouldn't stop hating gay people if God told them to, they actually TOLD me so, with great pride. There seems to be a little coterie of three of them among the TA's I study and work with, and the past semester they brought Bibles with them to work every day, hung crosses and loud hellfire messages in the office, and talked about God constantly. I brought up homosexuality in the context of a topic that several of my students had written about, and the reaction was immediate:

"God HATES gay people."

"Homosexuality is a sin."

"What's YOUR stance?"

Since my stance at the moment consisted of wanting to bite their heads off, I quietly excused myself.

Perhaps luckily, these students were complaining near the end of the year that the school was too "liberal" to suit them. Maybe they'll be gone next year.

Here's hoping.

-Perchance.

seebs

A casual read of the gospels shows that Christ spends most of his time seeking out and welcoming sinners. Thus, even if we continue to think that homosexuality is "sinful"... well, so is everything everyone else does.

seebs

Inconsistency exceeding tolerance levels. Brain shutting down.

OW!

NOGO

Thanks. I had the impression that you were alluding to specific verses, thus the question.

By the way (pet peeve of mine) Christ is a title. There were many "Christs" ie anointed ones of God.
David, for example, was anointed and can therefore be called "Christ". It is astonishing to discover that most Christians don't know this.

It is also surprizing that many scholars actually claim that Jesus never called himself "Christ" or the anointed one of God. When he asked his disciples "who do they say that I am?" the answer was "a prophet" then Jesus asked "who do you say that I am?" Peter asnwered "the Christ of God". Note the sequence of words. Jesus then simply tells them not to say that.

As I said it is a pet peeve of mine.