Ernie: To me the fundamental question is this: "Am I living the kind of life that is good for me?"
Sounds simple but the principle involved goes in several different directions. "Good for me"necessarily means "good for the people in my life" also. I totally reject the libertarian horse poop that we are islands or atoms or billiard balls. Who any of us are / is, always reflects the fact that people are interconnected in all kinds of ways. "Good" needs definition , too. I take this to mean "satisfying" although sacrifice may be necessary as part of the process. Sort of Maslow's concept of self-actualization but reinterpreted to refer to any of the stages of his system, that is, finding some way to make the most of things whether you are in survival mode or that is not a concern at all and you are 'climbing a ladder.' All of this assumes maximization given one's limitations. Lots of things I would like to do and could do them well enough with Bill Gates' level of resources. But I don't have that kind of wealth, so the question is maximization given the realities of my life as it is. The point of all this as far as religious faith goes is that faith is something I judge by its effects on the kind of life I actually live. I do not start with the ideals advanced by beliefs but with the life that is mine to live. Because, after all, beliefs may be faulty even though they have a life of their own due to tradition. Hence: "being a Christian kind of sucks (at least if you're doing it right)" makes no sense to me. After all, there are many ways of being a Christian, and who is to say that you (me, anyone) has made the right choice? We all need to face the fact that we each have our "Luther moments" in life. This refers to the fact that he started as a monk and for several years did everything conceivable to live up to monkish ideals for Christian faith. Finally he said to himself pretty much what you just said, viz, "this sucks." What do you (me, anyone) do when something clearly is unsatisfying, or worse? Best possible answer: Cease and desist. Change course. Find something different. The problem is that it may be very hard to find a new way of thinking about life that does the good things in your previous way of thinking, which you would not have chosen in the first place unless it did some good things for you. What is also a problem is that we all have limitations, blind spots, etc, and whatever new philosophy or theology or whatever, we end up choosing, will have its own limitations as well. That is, we had better face up to the fact that we are imperfect and that any quest for perfection will end up in failure. This applies across the board, to everyone, certainly including Atheists. Have they hit upon a perfect system of thought? O, sure they have, and circles are really square and time doesn't exist and is only an illusion. Uh-huh. :-/ So, what kind of outlook should you choose for yourself? Or me for myself? And are Atheists all that certain they have made the best possible choice? If they say they have, what, exactly, makes them feel so sure? Unless you count Nietzsche, which is questionable because his last years were a mess and his mind was collapsing, then I have not known or known about a single Atheist who wasn't hopelessly simple-minded. I just finished reading Harvey Cox's 1995 book Fire From Heaven, his multi-year "research project" that involved "study" of Pentecostals all over the world even if most of his attention centered on the USA. As he reported, it did not end up as an academic research project, the book is filled with stories about the people he met and became friends with. Still, it is a scholarly book and is crammed with useful information. All of which raises questions, unintended by Cox, about any religion anyone might choose for himself. That is, any theological stand one takes, which may not even be regarded as "theology," will have real world consequences. Like pre-mil beliefs, which condition people to be fatalists about life. Except that people are people, not algorithms, and pre-mils may do some things you would expect of a post-mil, and vice versa. Yet there is a predisposition on the part of pre-mils, like the early Pentecostals, toward disengagement from politics, ignoring the whole schmeer because, so it is believed, Christ will return any day now, so why bother counting noses or studying DC policy debates? This attitude, or set of values, may now exist independent of pre-mil beliefs even if that is where they first came from. It gets enshrined in doctrine and it no longer matters where it originated. For a post-mil concerned with doing something to help bring about the Kingdom, however small it may be, all that stuff matters because that stuff is exactly what has to be dealt with if you are going to get anything done in the real world. Which returns us to the beginning. My test for myself is: "Am I living the kind of life that is good for me?" This assumes the real world. NOT the next (hypothetical) world beyond the grave. So I let the next life take care of itself with no confidence at all that I know anything at all about what it may be, or even IF there is a next life. Reward? Punishment? I don't have time to worry about those kinds of questions. But if there is a God like that discussed in the Bible, then I have every confidence he (they?) will be fair -as long as I have been honest with myself, anyway. So: "Is it really that bad if I lie to myself?" Well, yeah. It can make all the difference in the world about your "quality of life" and maybe the only life you will ever have. Every so often the Christian Atheists of yore were right on target. But I'm really a Christian Agnostic, not something else. Billy PS: "While I've learned a lot from the Buddhist and stoic traditions, Christianity (for all its flaws) is the only system I've found that gives me the courage to face the fact that the evil I see outside of me also lives within me." Excellent point. ________________________________ From: Centroids <drer...@radicalcentrism.org> Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2019 10:11 AM To: Centroids Discussions; Billy Rojas Subject: Letter to an atheist Hi all, I just posted a version of this on Facebook in response to an ongoing discussion with several atheist friends. It is probably the best summary of the “job to be done” I have for Christianity. I look forward to your comments. :-) —- >From my friend: > you seem incapable of questioning the existence of God or the rational basis > for any faith within. Ah! Well, yes, but probably not the way you think. As a physicist, I honestly can't question the idea that Something created the observable universe. To me, that would involve questioning whether the universe exists, has a beginning, or can be explainable in mathematical terms. I know there are people who do question those things, but I just can't. However, that only gets us to a sort of scientific deism, "Einstein's God. " If you will. That Something may just be quantum foam, a mathematical algorithm, or even a computer simulation. I suspect you don't really have much of a problem with that (I've never met an adeist :-). But the Christian idea of God? I question **that** all the time. Is there anything in the universe I can trust more than myself? Is that Something really a Person like me? Does it love me? Do I have a moral obligation to obey it? Is it really that bad if I lie to myself? I have this horrible suspicion that you may have been interpreting all my questions about atheism as rhetorical and dismissive. On the contrary, I'm sincerely curious. In fact, I gotta be honest: I'm kinda envious of atheists. I'm sincerely hoping you've found a viable way to at least partially address the problems Christianity claims to solve. Let me let you in on a dirty little secret: being a Christian kind of sucks (at least if you're doing it right :-). If there is really a God who created me and loves me, then it is natural and healthy for me to love Him back. If I love Him, I want Him to be happy. That means I also have to treat all the other people He loves in a loving way, because when I hurt them I hurt Him. This is where it get messy. Every viable community I've seen requires some version of "love your neighbor (not just your friends) as yourself" to function. At some point somebody has to sacrifice their personal convenience for the good of the group. Which is why groups call those people heroes, and shun those who refuse to sacrifice their fair share. I love R’s idea of a community that requires nothing more of its members than "do no harm," but I've never seen any evidence that can work in the real world. I'd be delighted to find a counter-example! As far as I can tell, that only works for aristocratic lords dependent on slaves and serfs, not authentic individuals in interdependent community. The flip side of this is Fundamental Attribution Error: judging other people by their actions, but myself by my motives. It is easy to see the evil in the world around me, but hard to see it in myself. I quickly see when my neighbor doesn't love me, but am blind to when I fail to love my neighbor. While I've learned a lot from the Buddhist and stoic traditions, Christianity (for all its flaws) is the only system I've found that gives me the courage to face the fact that the evil I see outside of me also lives within me. So that if I yell at my children, it is more because of my lack of love rather than their lack of obedience. If I am resentful toward my wife (not just hurt by her actions), it is because of my unforgiveness rather than the way she has treated me. Of course external evil exists, and other people are also responsible for their actions. But my primary duty is to do the hard work of discovering where I am lying to myself, and trust that if I do my part God will take care of the rest. This is not fun. In fact, it often hurts like hell. I'd love to find a way to live authentically and responsibly in community that doesn't involve getting nailed to a cross. Which is why I'm genuinely curious how (and whether) atheists deal with these issues. Even if I don't buy your solution, I'm hoping it might provide some insights that could improve my own practice. Thanks! Sent from my iPhone -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <RadicalCentrism@googlegroups.com> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. 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