"I asked God to help me"

Can you be a Christian without really believing in a god?

I think it is the other way round. You can believe in God without being a Christian (eg. Jews). To be a Christian you also have to add Jesus to the equation and believe that he is related.

Can you be a Christian without really believing in a god?

There are secular Jews so why not secular christians?

Doesn’t preclude the existence of God, does it?

No, but it calls into question one of the reasons for believing in the first place (ie, ‘it says so in the bible’), does it not?

looking at human interpretations of scripture and religion.

Is there any other way of looking at it? Human interpretation is all we have.

There are secular Jews so why not secular christians?

Is a secular Christian not just the start person who classifies themselves as a Christian because they live in a nominally christian country but doesn’t necessarily attend church other that feast days (not that church attendance has anything to do with whether or not you actually believe)

I don’t know but I’d say a secular christian would need to be a bit more than what you say.

Someone observes christian principles, practices and festivals but who doesn’t believe in the god of the bible.

This probably describes quite a few bishops.

No, but it calls into question one of the reasons for believing in the first place (ie, ‘it says so in the bible’), does it not?

Interesting one. I’m not sure if people first believe there might be a god and then look for sources of info. of what he must be like (including the bible) or if people only believe there is a God because the bible says so. People believed there was a god before the bible was written down so I’m not sure that the bible is why people believe

I would liked to of read this thread, then it gets taking over by the usual suspects squabbling, why don’t the mods keep threads alive but delete & bar these individuals from threads that they turn into there own self loathing of others opinions.

Spin – that was what I was trying to say but failed unfortunately. I’m not sure there are bishops who don’t believe but there are certainly clergy.

why don’t the mods keep threads alive but delete & bar these individuals from threads that they turn into there own self loathing of others opinions.

Because censorship is a greater evil that putting up with a few muppets.

People believed there was a god before the bible was written down so I’m not sure that the bible is why people believe

Historically maybe not, but it’s oft cited as why people believe currently.

Before the bible, people believed in all sorts of things. I always wondered why a religious person would choose, say, a Christian god over the polytheic views of the Romans or the vikings say. If you told someone you believed in Thor and Odin, you’d get laughed at; conversely, it’s not likely to see Jehova cropping up as an Avenger any time soon.

whatever floats yer boat really isn’t it, so long as no one else is hurt, what does it matter what you believe! who cares? not me. But when your belief system impedes or is destructive to another persons freedoms, then it becomes a problem. Personally – the vehement “I AM right and you are wrong” sort of belief in anything religious is for egotists and the small minded. Same goes for right-on militant atheists, although this makes sense to me http://www.humanism.org.uk/home

Cougar – part of what you say was summed up well by that chap Dawkins to paraphrase – believers are atheistic about the vast majority of gods I just go one god further.

Whether you believe in any God or none the length of this thread suggests that religion isn’t going away any time soon 🙁

Historically maybe not, but it’s oft cited as why people believe currently.

Really?

Really?

No.

believe in yourselves guys.. it’s what Jesus would have wanted

Yes it is and haves been on this thread and on previous ones. this is one of the key points to this argument. to condense it

non believer ” why do you say we have to do this?”
Believer “‘cos it says so in the bible”
NB ” do we have to do everything it says in the bible” ( point about gays/ abomination)
B ” no we can pick and chose bits”
NB “how do yo know which bits to obey then?”

That doesn’t say anything about it being “why people believe”

You haven’t said anything about the Bible being the reason that people have faith in something that can’t be proven.

TEEJ, it’s a red herring, WGAS whats in the bible. Once you go down the road of beliving in god, all relgious behaviour after that is just a symptom of mental deficiency, so expecting rational behaviour from god botherers is pointless.

edit – as nealglover said..

I’m looking forward to badnewz returning and demonstrating just how deeply the “faith” meme can sink it’s hooks and prevent the understanding that a penguin is not a grapefruit, despite the best efforts of rationalists (such as the heroic Cougar) to help.

non believer ” why do you say we have to do this?”
Believer “‘cos it says so in the bible”
NB ” do we have to do everything it says in the bible” ( point about gays/ abomination)
B ” no we can pick and chose bits”
NB “how do yo know which bits to obey then?”

You choose the bits you like. Once you decide that the bible isn’t the inerrant word of God then it’s perfectly valid to interpret it as you see fit.

Biblical inerrancy is NOT a central tenet of Christianity. I get the impression TJ that you are not particularly knowledgeable in this area.

The sloughing off of the “bad” bits of the chosen “Holy Book” always follows the advances of secular morality.

This happens slowly though, as religion is highly resistant to change from outside it’s boundaries in the society or wider secular landscape in which it squats.

Molgrips – you miss the points.

some Christians claim the bible is the literal word of god

However if you accept

Once you decide that the bible isn’t the inerrant word of God then it’s perfectly valid to interpret it as you see fit.

the the bible no longer has any legitimacy as it is all down to interpretation by fallible humans. How do you decide which bits to follow. If you can ignore the duty to kill gays than can you ignore the ten commandments?

this is the crux of a major logical fallacy.

You cannot say – this bit can be ignore and this but must be obeyed with any intellectual rigour and honesty. its either eh word of god or it is not – if you can ignore some bits then what is to stop you ignoring other bits you find inconvenient – like a rich man getting into heaven for example – Cameron claims to be a Christian but he is a tax avoiding multimillionare. Incompatible with Christ teaching.

this is the crux of a major logical fallacy.

No it isn’t, its one tiny spin off, of millions, that hail down from the enormous logical fallacy of beliving in soemthing that no one prove exists, becasue no non can prove it doesnt exist. See the wood man not the trees.

No it isn’t, its one tiny spin off, of millions, that hail down from the enormous logical fallacy of beliving in soemthing that no one prove exists, becasue no non can prove it doesnt exist.

I don’t understand this sentence.

@Toys19

Your posts are simply nasty and unbecoming. There are plenty of representatives of both sides of the ‘God debate’ on this forum – and this thread in particular – but on the few occasions I have dropped in to see what’s going on, your words have been nothing but ad hominem attacks on believers.

Grow up.

Or maybe you’d like to travel to the forests of South America and explain to the native tribes that believe in some metaphysical reality beyond what they see how they are either ‘mentally deficient, disingenuous, or deluded’.

You are acting like a fundamentalist, imperialist prick not dissimilar to the way in which you cast ‘god-botherers’.

I never thought I would say this, but Mr Woppit, whose views on religion have been made plenty clear in past debates is a model of charity compared to you.

Down with this sort of thing.

sorry written in haste, I’ll attempt a rewrite:

No it isn’t, its one tiny spin off, of millions, that hail down from the enormous logical fallacy of beliving that god exists purely because there is no way of proving that he doesnt exist. (that despite the fact that science (which is essentially the whole basis of human logic and technology and understanding of the universe around us) relies on proof of existence not proof of non existence, and there is no evidence to prove god exists)

People believed there was a god before the bible was written down so I’m not sure that the bible is why people believe

TJ. The issue was wether the Bible is the thing that makes people believe in god.

Your comments about picking bits of the bible are irrelevant to that.

The issue was wether the Bible is the thing that makes people believe in god.

I’ve heard, usually Christians in the US to be fair, respond to “why do you think this” with “because it says so in the Bible.”

If I were a betting man though, I’d hazard that this isn’t strictly true. They probably believe in god because it’s been hammered into them throughout their childhood.

Anecdotally, the circular reasoning of using god and the bible as mutual proof of each other does seem to be a largely stateside approach IME.

@ saxon rider, thanks I hadn’t intended on being becoming to you in any way, my experience and that of millions of others is that religion is nasty, or results in nastiness. And your south american peoples? Well this is exactly what they are

deluded

, or

very poorly informed/brainwashed

and one of the options I gave in my heavily revised definition from here.

Well, luckily, earlier I defined anyone who believes in a god/gods as either stupid, emotionally retarded, mentally ill, very poorly informed/brainwashed or just disingenuous.

There have been plenty of ad hominen attacks on both sides. Ad hominem as you know is a logical fallacy, but frankly it is neccesary because unfortunatly logic is failing here as people are either ignoring logic or are

stupid, emotionally retarded, mentally ill, very poorly informed/brainwashed or just disingenuous.

the the bible no longer has any legitimacy as it is all down to interpretation by fallible humans.

This has been discussed for thousands of years, seriously. Perhaps do some reading around? You make valid points, but again the same ones that have been made a million times before. One of the features of Christianity seems to be a certain amount of flexibility.

Logically speaking, if you consider the bible to be the work of man but inspired by God, then you may read the bible and look for God’s message in it. It’s not unreasonable to expect words of some value to be in there.

As I understand it the Jewish tradition is one of intellectual discourse and writing, and the bible is made up of these writings. That’s why it’s made up of books that have people’s names. People are trying to figure out what God is all about. Even after Jesus there are lots of accounts of Jesus’ life and interpretations of what he did (more than just the four that made it into the modern Bible) so there is tons of scope for interpretation based on the human accounts.

One version of events goes like this:

God does stuff
God talks to people
People write stuff down
People argue over it
People decide which books are important and which are not
People publish, distribute and translate the important bits
People later come to like certain people’s writings and not others

So, given how many people are involved here after God takes a step back, it’s not unreasonable to consider personal interpretation as a valid course.

:pops in to thread sees the haterz squabbling amongst themselves, chuckles and mooches off:

😆

beliving that god exists purely because there is no way of proving that he doesnt exist

That’s not why people believe in God. They believe either because they are told to or because they like the idea, afaik.

Logic and science are very important to some people, but less so others. I think this is what some of you struggle with.

So, given how many people are involved here after God takes a step back, it’s not unreasonable to consider personal interpretation as a valid course.

Of course. But then, as TJ and his sledgehammer are trying to say, if you accept that then the Bible loses its potency. It’s no longer a holy book, it’s a book of best guesses made by men, based on stories they’d heard hundreds of years ago, passed down by word of mouth between generations before anything got written down. Embellished with each telling.

Which, IMHO, is a pretty unreliable foundation to be building a supposedly unshakable belief system on. No wonder they refer to it as ‘faith’, you’d have to take a lot of it on faith in order to get anywhere.

Logic and science are very important to some people, but less so others.

it doesn’t matter wether others don’t see it as important if we let lack of logic rule then we end up with life prior to the enlightenment where religous leaders can abuse power in the name of god and do whatever they jolly well like.

molgrips – Member
Logic and science are very important to some people, but less so others. I think this is what some of you struggle with.

Exactly 🙂
logic is a construct of the human intellect, not a “real thing”

I’m sure (well hope I guess) that many of the haterz have room in their lives for things that aren’t in accord with a rigidly deterministic logical system – art, poetry, human emotion, where’s the logic in those……

toys19 – Member

Logic and science are very important to some people, but less so others.

it doesn’t matter wether others don’t see it as important if we let lack of logic rule then we end up with life prior to the enlightenment where religous leaders can abuse power in the name of god and do whatever they jolly well like.

And so passes another product of the British schools’ history curriculum.

I bet you know a lot about the Nazis, though.

toys19 – Member

if we let lack of logic rule then we end up with life prior to the enlightenment where religous leaders can abuse power in the name of god and do whatever they jolly well like.

As opposed to a life where political leaders can abuse power in the name of progress, economics and security needs and do whatever they jolly well like.