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Many atheists still hold the erroneous conception that religions are basically a failed epistemology, or a failed pseudo-science. What they do not see: Religion it is a way to live, and life is more than reason and intellect.
(Many religions do not even focus on beliefs but on practices, and even scholars like sociologist Christian Smith treats beliefs as secondary.)

A consequence of this common misconception is the view that a religion is a set of tenets, because that view allows some atheists to ridicule religious people (true: religious tenets are unfounded and obsolete; scientific tenets are well-founded; pointing that out is like shooting fish in a barrel).

What many do not understand: If, say, Christianity was basically a set of tenets, ALL intelligent people with a modicum of scientific education would ditch religion immediately and switch to the naturalistic world-view of modern science.

The meaning of religious faith and life is fundamentally different from what many atheists think it is. And that is a problem because both sides are talking at cross purposes.

Matias 8 July 26
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In support of what you are saying, about half of all scientists report a belief in God. Apparently they see no conflict, and have no trouble separating the two modes. It is only if you insist on looking just at the shallowest kind of dogmatic religion that you see conflict.

In like manner, it is entirely possible to erroneously worship science as a God IMO. Religion and science are in different categories—they are not opposites.

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I have absolutely no issue with anyone believing anything that they consider will benefit their life in any way. I do have issue with anyone imposing their beliefs on anyone else for any reason. They are just beliefs and beliefs are just what you do not know (god of the gaps idea). If you know something, it is no longer a belief but a fact.

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It is not either / or. Religion is a set of beliefs about reality AND a set of practices (generally, related to those beliefs however). I don't think you can discount the beliefs, although it's useful to point out that religion is something more than that. But much more? So much more that the beliefs and the underlying theory of knowledge is largely irrelevant? I'm not convinced.

Take a typical Episcopalian for example. Technically this person subscribes to the Nicene Creed, although it may be just something they recited without a deep personal attachment to its specific demands or possibly even any real understanding of them. Technically they can't take communion unless they've previously received the sacrament of baptism -- the church generally will take a very "scout's honor" view of this and accept your claim that you took some form of baptism in some Christian church, perhaps even as an infant when it meant zilch to you. And so far as I know they won't demand proof. So I'm sure some percentage of people just claim to have been baptized whether they were or not. My wife for example had to ask her father to confirm that it wasn't just a family story, that it actually happened to her, as an infant.

So this person receives the Eucharist regularly, follows the liturgy, and probably engages with all that more as a comforting, meditative ritual than as a theological "reality". They socialize and participate in activities with other members, largely around doing charitable works in the community, and may not think much about god or heaven or reward or punishment in the process. They pay to keep the lights on and the pipe organ in working order and the roof in good repair and so on, much like people engage in personal hygiene from day to day without contemplating the meaning of life in the process.

If that is what you are suggesting is the animating, dominant way in which the 83% of Christians who are not evangelicals on a worldwide basis engage with their faith -- you may well be right. Or at least right enough to have a valid point.

That still leaves the other 17% and their outsize social and political influence, though. They find people not conforming to or at least giving complete deference to their beliefs AND practices to be intolerable and scandalous. And the 83% largely don't shame them for their impertinence and arrogance. I suppose that is my main malfunction.

That's not a religious problem though. It's a personal choice. Why would any of the 83% give a hoot what the 17% are doing. Christianity as cited in this example is a homogenous blob of lots of different beliefs and practices tentatively connected to one focus. The Evangelical in South Carolina will have no affinity with the Amish in Mass. Or the LDS in New York. Even less the Church of Englsnd flower arranger in Margate. You can't define Christianity as a catchall for all religions. There is enough difference in itself let alone the other faiths of the world.

@Geoffrey51 Yeah it's a gray area. Christians have a habit of citing their sheer numbers (a third of the world population, if you accept self-identified cultural Christians as the criteria) when it suits them and then treating most of those people as reprobates when THAT suits them. I'm sure most liberal Christians really don't see the evangelicals as "their" problem or part of "their" tribe but the reality in my view is that they have to own the crazy uncle in the basement and keep him from exposing himself to the neighborhood children, if they are going to ever cite some imagined "big tent" Christianity marching inexorably toward ushering in the kingdom of god on earth and the reconciliation of all things to Christ and so forth.

Of course they're not going to do that, what is actually going to happen is the liberals and the conservatives will continue to disavow each other and pretend that they are the natural heirs of the kingdom of god. At best, the other faction are "weaker brothers in Christ" and at worst, as you suggest, not really even the same religion. Actually if liberals want to stake the claim that evangelicals are heretics, I'd feel better about it than their mostly silent complicity in the way evangelicals undermine civil society.

@mordant certainly Mrd Jones who cleans the charge In Ckeethorpes and Mr Smith who runs errand Le for the vicar in Portsmouth wouldn't care about the militants in America or Jesuits in Patagonia. They probably wouldn't even know about them. Christianity is not likely to unite under one banner as there are too many banners!

@Matias I am probably influenced by the fact that I was very interested in those "tenets", to the point of being formally educated in them. While I recognize that even my one year of full time theological studies are way more than the vast majority of pew-warmers, I must say that my fellow laypeople were instructed in doctrine on a regular basis. It was an emphasis of my quasi-denomination (IFCA). While no layperson apart from my Bible Institute cohort to my knowledge owned their own complete set of Chafer's Systematic Theology, I did regularly encounter theologically literate people who could hold their own in theological debates. Most could for example list the names of the seven "dispensations of grace" that our sect taught and understood the differences between Calvinism and Arminianism and the way in which we modified Calvinism from the straight-up version. It was part of what defined us. It does appear, based on the low quality of discourse I've had with most fundamentalists, that this was unusual, though.

As to the self-transcendence / third dimension thing, that manifested for us in a sort of hokey enforced jollility, which we called "the victorious Christian life". It never really floated my boat, as it highlighted a lot of hypocrisy, and in practice, a lot of the church leadership was actually quite dour and defeatist and one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, "enduring to the end" anyway.

@Matias Well, less colloquially: "As for your self-transcendence remark, we had a sort of insincere "joyfullness" which we called "the victorious Christian life". I never subscribed to it or liked it, as people were hypocritical about it, and in fact, in practice, our leadership was actually quite dour and spoke of the need to "endure to the end".

Put another way, I suppose we had a sort of "reverse transcendence" where we trudged through life, suffering misunderstanding and persecution and mishap and constant tests of faith, with no hope of improvement until the afterlife. It was a sort of delayed, promised, eventual transcendence, displaced into the afterlife. I never had the patience for it myself, and didn't care to see myself as a noble martyr. I put up with it because it was expected, but had the temerity to think that god actually DID bless the righteous and confound the wicked, in THIS life.

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Nice one Matias. Probably fall on deaf ears though. The problem I see in America is that our people here see predominantly the Evsngelicsl Christian type which we know are just basically a theological (I use the term loosely) pyramid selling scheme. They don't get to see religion really playing out in its own context, therefore all religion equates to that sociological model. I do understand but sometimes it's like the petulant child you want to send to the naughty step for ten minutes! ?

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Matias, IMO you have said the truth dead on. Sehr gute!

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Boo. It is insane to believe things that are demonstrably untrue. We do not "respect" the paranoid shizophrenics view that secret government agencies are out to get him. Why on earth should we respect the view that there is a diety. The mentally ill man is no less convinced of the truth of his views. Reasonable people reject pure fantasy, no matter what fancy clothes you try to dress it up in.

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