A case for Christianity

[Mithrae]

Sometimes I like to imagine the interesting conversations I might have if I ever decided to 'become a Christian' again: “No, I'm actually not even sure that 'God' exists. In fact I think that any rational assessment would conclude on balance that Jesus probably did not literally rise from the dead.� Christians often profess a desire for others to become members of their religion, yet obviously I couldn't pretend to believe things that I don't believe, or to not know the things which I do. So if they somehow got their wish, how would I explain or justify those seeming contradictions, even to myself? According to most Christians throughout history, including in the bible itself, many of those intellectual hurdles but particularly these two above are pretty much non-negotiable, central elements of the religion.

Of course, there are some Christians who would disagree with that. I haven't read or seen much of them in books or the like – I gather that John Shelby Spong would be one well-known example – but there've been a few such folk on the forum on occasion. Trying to put myself in their shoes, I believe that they would emphasise more of a 'mythopoetic' perspective on 'God' and the resurrection; perhaps not necessarily viewing them as definitely literally false, but treating them primarily as powerful, fundamental or even transformative archetypes or metanarrative placeholders whose value (at least in day to day life) do not depend on a literal understanding at all.

How would I explain that to some of my more traditionalist family members? The simple fact is that aside from vague notions of 'feeling God's presence,' the actual existence of a deity has basically zero relevance to our day to day life; overt miracles or the like are pretty rare, to say the least! In fact in all probability, if a god exists it would be simply impossible for human minds to have anything even remotely approaching a conception of what that entity is really like; to imagine otherwise is to commit the 'sin' of dragging the Ultimate Reality down to our meagre level and reconstructing 'God' in our own image. So from that perspective perhaps even more traditional Christians might be able to acknowledge that 'God' as we conceive it probably doesn't exist. Yet the concept of god, however far removed that may be from the reality, is one which provides us with a potential sense of place in the world, some imagination of what might be a purpose to existence, and perhaps even hope for the future. The concept of god is a mere placeholder for something which our minds probably can't even come close to comprehending, but that concept represents an overarching story or metanarrative about our world which arguably serves us much better than a bleak deterministic materialism.

It may well turn out that after we die we'll find ourselves in a new life, and with a greatly expanded capacity for understanding reality; a scenario in which the literal reality of God (or rather, something probably quite unlike our base conception) will have become much more relevant. But in day to day life, the relevance of this placeholder concept really only comes from its role in 'answering' or even simply outlining existential questions.

Similarly for the resurrection: Again, the supposedly magical transformation of the conversion experience aside (which arguably could more properly be considered the work of the Holy Spirit in any case), whether or not Jesus literally rose from the grave really doesn't affect anyone's day to day living. But the imagery or symbolisms of humility, of self-sacrificing love, of triumph over (or fearless towards) death, of transformation and of new life... these are profound and powerful themes which find many expressions in many different cultures, but perhaps most profoundly and certainly most widely and enduringly in the stories of the Jesus of Christianity. More than once as a young Christian, when faced with a difficult course of action or hostility from others, I thought of Jesus' courage in even going to his own death and his forgiveness of those who crucified him, and they sometimes gave me the inspiration and strength do what I considered right.

Of course the thematic and existential roles which these stories of Jesus and God occupy could potentially be filled by others instead. There are stories of courage and self-sacrifice in the face of wars or disaster which by any natural measure are unquestionably more compelling than Jesus' largely self-provoked execution. With so many thousands of examples in the centuries since, it could hardly be otherwise. Similarly some of the stories of people who've overcome crippling adversities or turned tragedies into triumphs are more inspirational than the contradictory gospel stories of the resurrection. But more than those discrete themes considered individually, Christianity offers the unity and diversity of over a thousand years of ancient Hebraic culture from the bible alone, and two thousand years of Christian evolution, mistakes and growth since then.

It's a possibly unfortunate tendency amongst Protestant Christians especially to ignore or dismiss much of church history, rather than 'owning' and learning from our culture's failures every bit as much as from those of Israel and Judah in the Tanakh. In all likelihood, if we'd grown up in the times and cultures of a few centuries ago many of us would have been there burning witches with the best of them. So rather than just self-righteously condemning such atrocities, part of the historical and cultural legacy of Christianity should be providing an opportunity – perhaps even a responsibility – to learn about what went so badly wrong with Jesus' message of love, and why, and how we can hope to make our own lives and institutions better because of that knowledge. But even more than just the lessons of history, there is a vast wealth of artistic, architectural, literary and musical legacy to relate to on the basis of even tentatively-shared religious reference points: Because I was a Christian, I can appreciate anything from Handel's Messiah to Ben Hur potentially more than I might have if I'd been raised in an entirely different culture.

Socially therefore, Christianity potentially offers a sense of context, culture and community which can often be sadly lacking in our atomised, consumeristic world.

Personally, it offers the moral and existential reference points of the bible stories; whether those stories are true or false, and even when we decide that they are stories which show how earlier generations and societies have used 'god' as an excuse for their xenophobic or even genocidal agendas.

And spiritually, it offers the hope and possibility that maybe, just possibly, there really will turn out to be a loving God and a better life after death, along with the inner peace and fulfilment – for those who seek it – of exploring and imagining those possibilities as if they were fact.

In short, the role of religion in this perspective bears some similarities to the kind of cultural fandom we often see in devotees of particular sports teams, musicians, games and the like, but going much, much deeper: Fandom fulfils some of the social role above, and even that quite meagrely or transiently. A slightly closer comparison would be patriotic nationalism, which offers a broader and more enduring answer to the social role, and provides an historical context for possible questioning and answers of moral and existential questions also. It's important to note that in these examples, identifying with this or that group needn't imply that one considers it to be monolithic or perfect in any way: Being proud to be an Australian doesn't mean that I share all of even most of my views in common with other Aussies, and nor does it mean I can't acknowledge and hopefully learn something from the historical (or recent) crimes or missteps of the country.

Finally of course there are many people who are “spiritual but not religious,� to greater or lesser degrees. I was interested to learn recently that even the noted atheist Christopher Hitchens once said “We have a need for what I would call 'the transcendent' or 'the numinous' or even 'the ecstatic,'� and that “Everybody has had the experience at some point when they feel that there’s more to life than just matter. But it’s very important to keep that under control and not to hand it over to be exploited by priests and shamans and rabbis and other riffraff.� And perhaps for some the smorgasbord approach is found to be preferable, seeking spiritual fulfilment from one place and social integration in another while tackling moral and existential questions from yet a third angle.

But the only format in which all these needs are met (or at least addressed) in a united format as far as I'm aware is in religious contexts, in which community and history share equal importance with abstract theology and philosophy. As such it could well be argued that, even if it's not for everyone, religion fills a role in human society which is ultimately even more important than mere sports or nationalism, even in spite of the harm that it too has sometimes caused (or at least served as a vehicle for).


Does religion fill an essential role in society?
.

[Danmark]

It is hard today, particularly today, to see the benefits of Christianity outweighing its negatives, at least the white evangelical aspect of it. Partly because of hatred for certain 'liberal' policies, partly because of apocalyptic prophecies, partly because of just plain selfishness that runs counter to the teachings of Jesus, the 'Christian' culture in the U.S. overwhelmingly voted for and continue to support a confessed sexual predator, liar, racist, bully, and ignoramus.

And the alternative was...? The rampant [strike]bribery[/strike] campaign donations and unshakeable duopoly make American politics uninspiring at the best of times, and 2016 offered arguably two of the worst choices in recent history. You might as well condemn Jews for voting for Clinton. In fact only about 56% of Christians voted for Trump anyway, which suggests the votes of that specific subset of 'white evangelicals' was more about the 'white' part than the 'evangelical' part.

Eighty-one percent [81%] of white evangelical voters backed Trump in the 2016 presidential election, NPR reported.
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/29/56009740 ... -in-crisis
Your own link said the same, 81% of white evangelicals, which is precisely the group I wrote about. You cherry picked a misleading statistic that was NOT about that group, but about 'church goers' in general. Evangelicals, at 25.4%, are the single largest religious group in America.
http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/
Clinton was a deeply flawed candidate, but not a sexual predator. She's hardly the most credible of people and a person I personally do not care for, but no candidate in memory is such an inveterate liar. *

You are also wrong in your claim

As if the rest of society had always been pushing for those things?

"Those things" are a key reason white evangelicals voted for him.
As author Stephen Mansfield details in his new book, Choosing Donald Trump: God, Anger, Hope, and Why Christian Conservatives Supported Him, Trump was able to tap into resentment within the parts of the evangelical community that boiled over during former President Barack Obama's tenure. They feared that religious freedom was under assault as a result of actions like the administration's birth control mandate and protections for LGBT people.
....
And many prominent faith leaders — including Liberty University's Jerry Falwell Jr. and First Baptist Dallas' Robert Jeffress — didn't just endorse Trump, they gave him their most full-throated blessing and defense.

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/29/56009740 ... -in-crisis

White Christians have long been a force that suppressed women's rights and racial minorities.
http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gab_racism.htm

So, no, despite your argument, white evangelicals are a particular force for social repression and support the most dishonest president of record.*


__________________________________________
*"Donald Trump is in a different category. The sheer frequency, spontaneity and seeming irrelevance of his lies have no precedent. Nixon, Reagan and Clinton were protecting their reputations; Trump seems to lie for the pure joy of it. A whopping 70 percent of Trump’s statements that PolitiFact checked during the campaign were false, while only 4 percent were completely true...."
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... ain-214658

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 41 by Danmark]

Wow - I gave the figure for how many Christians voted for Trump and a link showing the complete breakdown by each religious group/subset and main candidates in different years, and you're accusing me of "cherry-picking a misleading statistic."

Why? Because you want to fixate on 'white evangelical' support for Trump while carefully avoiding any mention of the fact in your posts or in your links that it's pretty consistent with their support for other Republican candidates like Bush or Romney. I don't think I'm the one who's cherry picking here, but keep up with those personal attacks my friend, they really do you credit





Edit: Interestingly, that Politico article seems to indirectly support the issues I've been discussing with Divine Insight, confirming that it's nigh on impossible to correct false beliefs when doing so cuts to the core of someone's sense of identity. On the contrary, the perceived assault often/usually puts people on the defensive and even reinforces the incorrect viewpoints.

• "In politics, false information has a special power. If false information comports with preexisting beliefs—something that is often true in partisan arguments—attempts to refute it can actually backfire, planting it even more firmly in a person’s mind. Trump won over Republican voters, as well as alienated Democrats, by declaring himself opposed to “Washington,â€� “the establishmentâ€� and “political correctness,â€� and by stoking fears about the Islamic State, immigrants and crime. Leda Cosmides at the University of California, Santa Barbara, points to her work with her colleague John Tooby on the use of outrage to mobilize people: “The campaign was more about outrage than about policies,â€� she says. And when a politician can create a sense of moral outrage, truth ceases to matter. People will go along with the emotion, support the cause and retrench into their own core group identities. The actual substance stops being of any relevance.
  
  "Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth University who studies false beliefs, has found that when false information is specifically political in nature, part of our political identity, it becomes almost impossible to correct lies. When people read an article beginning with George W. Bush’s assertion that Iraq may pass weapons to terrorist networks, which later contained the fact that Iraq didn’t actually possess any WMDs at the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the initial misperception persisted among Republicans—and, indeed, was frequently strengthened. In the face of a seeming assault on their identity, they didn’t change their minds to conform with the truth: Instead, amazingly, they doubled down on the exact views that were explained to be wrong."

This seems to largely confirm what I said in my previous post, that
"branding people bigots or oppressors for being marginally slower to embrace social change is utterly counter-productive. Trump didn't win because he was so great or because Americans are so stupid: He won in part because Hilary was such an uninspiring representative of establishment politics, but also because a vocal minority on the left had become so self-righteous, so "intolerant of intolerance," so vicious towards 'white privilege' and the like that they actively alienated half the country against them."

But I think the same principle can be applied in the case of religion; telling traditionalist Christians that their religion is backwards, irrational, irredeemable and so on will usually be perceived as a direct assault on their core identity, will make them entirely defensive and often simply reinforce the views you're attacking. By contrast, acknowledging the value in their religion's core principles and teachings of Jesus and merely advocating a less bibliolatrous attitude is not only more likely to be a productive approach, but addresses the bad while running less risk of losing all the good that religion contributes to society.

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 41 by Danmark]

Wow - I gave the figure for how many Christians voted for Trump and a link showing the complete breakdown by each religious group/subset and main candidates in different years, and you're accusing me of "cherry-picking a misleading statistic."

Why?

Because you claimed 56% when the figure is 81%. If someone says 56 when the answer is 81 and they know 81 is correct, that is dishonesty.

I was very careful in my posts to say that some forms of religion could be healthy, but that evangelicals, as opposed to Christians in general, elected Trump despite the fact he, more than any other candidate, exemplifies the opposite of Christian ideals of honesty, integrity, wisdom, chastity, love, scholarship, but most of all love.

So, for the exact group I mentioned, the statistic was 81% according to your own link, yet you claimed 56%. That is why I correctly accused you of "cherry-picking a misleading statistic."

[alexxcJRO]

[Replying to post 41 by Danmark]

Wow - I gave the figure for how many Christians voted for Trump and a link showing the complete breakdown by each religious group/subset and main candidates in different years, and you're accusing me of "cherry-picking a misleading statistic."

Dear sir you said: "In fact only about 56% of Christians voted for Trump anyway".

But i don't see anywhere in the link that says that 56% of Christians voted for Trump.

The 56% talks about Christians who attend church once a week. Therefore not about all Christians in America.

Q: How did you arrive at the 56% figure?

"Exit polls also follow another pattern from recent elections: Most weekly churchgoers backed Trump over Clinton, 56% to 40%. Those who said they attend religious services more sporadically (i.e., somewhere between a few times a month and a few times a year) were closely divided. "

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -analysis/

[Mithrae]

[Replying to post 41 by Danmark]

Wow - I gave the figure for how many Christians voted for Trump and a link showing the complete breakdown by each religious group/subset and main candidates in different years, and you're accusing me of "cherry-picking a misleading statistic."

Dear sir you said: "In fact only about 56% of Christians voted for Trump anyway".

But i don't see anywhere in the link that says that 56% of Christians voted for Trump.

The 56% talks about Christians who attend church once a week. Therefore not about all Christians in America.

Q: How did you arrive at the 56% figure?

Those exit polls divided Christians into either Catholic or Protestant/other Christians. Since 52% of Catholics voted for Trump and 58% of Protestants/other Christians as shown in the table at the top of the page, from some fairly basic maths that's about 56% of Christians overall. Admittedly that was only an estimate I made assuming that Protestants were twice as numerous as Catholics; a more exact figure using the data provided would actually be 56.16%... or even ~56.27% if we included the ~2.3% of Christians who are Mormons!

Of particular interest now that I look at it, at 61% Mormon support for Trump was considerably above the Christian average, and yet it represented a ~4% swing towards the Democrats and whopping 17-19% swing away from the Republicans compared with 2012 (78% for Romney) and 2004 (80% for Bush). From those religious groups Mormons had by far the biggest change in Republican votes (the next biggest swings were -6% Republican among Jews and +6% among 'other faiths'), suggesting unusually widespread disgust against Trump among Mormons... and yet their votes for him still remained significantly above the Christian average! Among other things, this helps illustrate the enormous staying power of partisan allegiances: As noted in my previous post, a good case can be made that it would be disingenuous for anyone to draw conclusions from statistics in a single year without noting the baseline established in previous elections.



Edit: So going back to Danmark's focus on white evangelicals, taking this through to its logical conclusion maybe we could dubiously argue that they 'should' have had a -6% swing against Republicans (like Jews did*) while instead they had a +3% swing towards Trump (half the swing of 'other faiths'). The rest of his support among that group is obviously better explained in terms of existing partisan loyalty, lesser-of-two-evils reasoning and so on. So inasmuch as it's possible to take those factors into account, we might argue that as many as 9% of 'white evangelicals' - constituting about 3% of all Christians - supported Trump even though they "should" have been sufficiently repulsed by him to vote otherwise.

That is, even if we grant the apparent premise that Trump is utterly terrible and the various American majorities who supported him are inherently worthy of condemnation to begin with!


* In fact the average swing amongst non-Protestant groups was +1% in Trump's favour excluding Mormons (and diluting the large Catholic numbers with the average of smaller groups), or -2.6% when the massive swing of the small outlying Mormon group is included**. So perhaps we should only be directing condemnation towards 2-6% of 'white evangelicals' for their Trump support.

** Of additional interest, in those same groupings the average Democrat swings were -4.25% (excluding Mormons) and -2.6% respectively, even further supporting my earlier suggestion that the win was more a reaction against Clinton and the left than support for Trump.

[alexxcJRO]

Those exit polls divided Christians into either Catholic or Protestant/other Christians. Since 52% of Catholics voted for Trump and 58% of Protestants/other Christians as shown in the table at the top of the page, from some fairly basic maths that's about 56% of Christians overall.

Q: What fairly basic math dear sir?

On the page you supplied in your link that was behind the words: "only about 56% of Christians" you only have this :
58 % of Protestant/other Christian voted for Trump.
52 % of Catholics voted for Trump.
81 % of Evangelical Christian voted from Trump.
You don't have enough information to make the calculations to deduce that 56 % voted for Trump.
You need the percetanges of the Protestant/other Christian, Catholics and Evangelical Christian in respect to the entire US population and then make the calculation based on thes percentages. Then make again other set of calculation based on the percentages from above.

[alexxcJRO]

Those exit polls divided Christians into either Catholic or Protestant/other Christians. Since 52% of Catholics voted for Trump and 58% of Protestants/other Christians as shown in the table at the top of the page, from some fairly basic maths that's about 56% of Christians overall.

Q: Are the Evangelical Christian included in the 58% Protestant/ other Christian or are they separate?(Yes/No question)

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 45 by Mithrae]

The bottom line is that a majority of Christians voted for a sexual predator, mocker of the disabled and the most prolific liar of all time. 81% of white evangelicals voted for him. What this proves is that these people are guided less by their religious principles than by their politics and personal issues that likely include racism. Even if you only look at the 56% statistic, this totally debunks the absurd claim that Christianity as practiced today benefits society. The preaching of Christ has done no good at all by the time it trickled down to this generation.

Who wants to make the case that Jesus would have approved of Trump? At the very least, a majority of U.S. Christians put their politics ahead of their religious convictions (assuming they have any).

[marco]

Who wants to make the case that Jesus would have approved of Trump? At the very least, a majority of U.S. Christians put their politics ahead of their religious convictions (assuming they have any).

He may well have been one of Christ's chosen apostles. Did Jesus not choose the man who betrayed him with a kiss?

Christianity can make a case for God working through imperfect vessels. But then Christianity can proclaim that allowing your son to be tortured and killed is a sign of great love. John 3: 16 "For God so loved the world...."

[Mithrae]

Those exit polls divided Christians into either Catholic or Protestant/other Christians. Since 52% of Catholics voted for Trump and 58% of Protestants/other Christians as shown in the table at the top of the page, from some fairly basic maths that's about 56% of Christians overall.

Q: Are the Evangelical Christian included in the 58% Protestant/ other Christian or are they separate?(Yes/No question)

You love your yes/no questions whose answers are patently obvious, don't you? Look at that third table and tell me what percentage of US voters would be Christian if evangelicals weren't included with other Protestants and Catholics?



In any case, Danmark's tangent really doesn't address the topic of the thread unless his highly partisan views are granted as a starting point. So while it might be interesting to discuss elsewhere whether or not the wild card 'sexual predator, mocker of the disabled and the most prolific liar' could have been viewed as a lesser evil than a 'corrupt power-crazed amoral establishment dynasty,' I think for now we'll have to rate his argument as dubious and unsubstantiated at best.

Meanwhile, the key point which I think has been gleaned from this branch is the psychological fact from one of Danmark's links that attacking and insulting people's core beliefs in the manner which these days seems to be favoured by as many if not more liberals as by conservatives, and critics as by Christians is utterly counterproductive and if anything likely to reinforce their views: A major factor in Trump's victory, and probably a significant factor in some American Christians' closed-off, defensive attitude.