Neon Genesis

One thing I've noticed though is that as society has become more modernized, the miracle claims of the faithful have become less sensationalized in the process. Like in the pre-scientific era of ancient times, you had all these fantasitical miracles that would completely revolutionize the way we think about reality if they were true, like Moses parting the Sea of Reeds or Jesus walking on water and bringing a dead man back to life after being in the tomb for several days. But now that society has become more advanced and modernized, we get less specatucular and frankly rather disappointing miracle claims like "God cured my artharitis that none of my other doctors could" or "I had a hallunication about Jesus and a shining light while I was on the operating table" or something. But you never hear anyone claim that they can raise someone from that was dead and in the grave for three days anymore and you never see anyone claim they can part the Atlantic ocean anymore.

All I'll say is if he was healed by a miracle from God, the miracle had nothing to do with any preachers. If miracles do exist, they come from God, not preachers.

I also think faith healing can be very dangerous to both a person's health and faith. It can damage your health by encouraging Chrisitans to hate science and doctors in favor of false promises when they might really need to see a doctor for their health. And it can damage a Christians' faith by placing a blame the victim mentality on the believer by teaching that if you're sick and not miraculous healed, then it's because you don't have enough faith and God must be punishing you for not really believing enough. Besides which, if God performs miracles, why do you need to turn to a preacher to be healed? Couldn't you just pray to God yourself for a miracle instead of being required to pay a so-called love "offering" to be healed? Aren't faith healers essentailly turning prayers into a commodity to sell, as if you can somehow buy God's love? What makes faith healers' prayers somehow more special than any other Christians' prayers? I thought Jesus was supposed to be the only priest that intercedes on Christians' behalf according to the bible?

Ask a faith healer to regrow an amputee's arm without the aid of any science at all and then I'll believe they're authentic.

Speaking as someone who has had experience in interacting with both atheists and Christians of all stripes on these issues, I have several tips and words of advice that I think would be very useful to keep in mind when you discuss your religion with the "New Atheists." 1. Don't start the discussion assuming atheists have no standard for their morality. This topic has been debated to death already and you can find tons of youtube videos on the subject if you really want to know and they'll just think you were a bigot for even thinking it. 2. Don't try to blame atheism as being responbsible for Stalin and Hitler. Again, this topic has been debated to death all ready and you'll come across a bigot for saying it and they'll probably just ridicule you for it. 3. Do a search on youtube for Bill Maher's video "atheism is not a religion." 4. Don't try to compare Dawkins to the Crusades just because you think Dawkins is mean. Again, you'll just make yourself look like an embarrassment to Christianity and you won't be taken seriously. 5. Don't assume all atheists think exactly alike on every issue and listen to what other people have to say before you start preaching. 6. If you think you have a surefire argument that really truly proves the existence of God, chances are, they've already heard it. 7. Don't ever use Pascal's Wager. 8. Try actually reading the books of the New Atheists all the way through first before you actually start ranting about them. Speaking as someone who does not always agree with the New Atheists on every subject, my biggest pet peeve when Christians try to "respond" to them is that the vast majority of them have clearly never read their books and are just repeating stuff they heard their preacher say about them or they're just responding to cherry picked quotes in news articles without actually reading the whole thing. If you can read the entire bible in spite of all the fire and brimstone and bloody genocidal passages and still find some good in it, surely actually reading The God Delusion before you discuss it isn't going to hurt you.

Actually the majority of Catholics support the use of birth control: http://www.freep.com/article/20120208/NEWS07/120208008/Survey-Majority-of-Catholics-support-including-birth-control-in-health-care-plans The only people opposed to the use of birth control are the sexless and sexist hierarchy who are out of touch with the times and their flock.

I've certainly found this to be true in my own life. When I first deconverted from fundamentalist Christianity, I was still very angry at the church and the bible for many years because of the way they treated me and I felt like I had been decieved and maliciously lied to. I wanted nothing to do with Jesus and I blamed all religion as being responsible for all my problems in my life. It wasn't until one of my friends who is a secular humanist himself linked me to a youtube video of one of Bishop Spong's lectures that I was able to let go of my anger at Christianity. Spong's honest introspection of the church inspired me to look at Christianity and the bible from a different way and I realized there were other ways of being Christian than the judgmental homophobic anti-sex Christianity I was raised in.

Isn't it based on the story of Onan?

Two more PC books I have to add to this list: Beyond Belief: The Gospel of Thomas also by Elaine Pagels and Paul Among The People by Sarah Ruden.

I like that Tillich points out that the scriptures says the Pharisees were the righteous, not the sinners, and we shouldn't try to demonize the Pharisees as these evil people who only had bad intentions. I think sometimes we as liberals fall guilty of this demonization when we try to compare the Pharisees to the modern day religious fundamentalists. I had read before that the Pharisees were actually the religious liberals of their days and it was the Sadducees who had the more strident literalistic faith contrary to the caricature of the Pharisees presented in the gospels. I also think that sometimes we as librals can fall into the trap of holier than thou thinking too. I think of a recent controversy over at another Christian site I go to, Gay Christian.net, where they had invited Alan Chambers of Exodus to be a guest on their panel so they could have a dialog with him about the dangers of the ex-gay ministry. Even though GCN admitted they handled the conference poorly and they apoligized for how they handled it, the rest of the LGBT blogosphere still refused to forgive them for their bad mismanagement and the mere idea of trying to have a dialog with Alan Chambers about these difficult issues turned GCN into traitors in the eyes of many others. They were simply unwilling to forgive them no matter how times they apologized for it because they weren't being judgmental enough towards Chambers or something.

I also like what Paul has to say about baptism in 1 Corinthians 1:

I accidentally posted this in the wrong forum. Can someone please move this to the Progressive Christianity forum?

I was raised in the Church of Christ and I was always taught to beleive that to be saved, not only did you have to believe the entire bible is the inerrant word of God and that the Church of Christ was the one true way to heaven, you also had to be baptized to be saved. Not only did you have to be baptized to be saved, but how and why you were baptized mattered. Baptism by sprinkling or being baptized as an infant didn't count. You had to be baptized fully submerged to be saved. You also had to be baptized for the remission of your sins. It couldn't just be a ritual for being accepted as a member of your congregration or whatever. Of course they would always add the disclaimer that it wasn't the water itself that saved you from your sins but the power of God yet at the same time it was still a requirement for you to be baptized in water to be saved. The notion that you would be tortured for all eternity for any reason let alone simply for not correctly following a religious ritual is ridiculous and I don't see how they can still hold onto such strict exclusive doctriens in modern times. And while I don't always agree with Dawkins on everything, I think he does have a point about baptizing children into Christianity and forcing your religion on children when they aren't old enough to understand such complex theology. If we reject the doctrine of hell as immoral and outdated, what role does baptism play in progressive Christianity? Should we reject the doctrine of baptism as an outdated exclusive ritual of dogmatic tribalism or does the ritual of baptism still have any symbolic benefit to progressive Christianity?

Christine O'Donnell had said she thought it was wrong to lie to the Nazis to hide Jews from them and that she would not have lied to the Nazis.

If you define evangelism as merely being "agree with everything I say or else" then yes, that form of popular evangelism is meaningless. But if we define evangelism as fighting for social justice and focusing on good deeds instead of right beliefs as in the gospel message of the liberation gospel, then evangelism is still an important duty for Christians to do regardless of what happens to us when we die.

I'm not sure I agree that more diversity leads to greater intolerance and I don't think America would be the best example to use to prove the case. While America may have a high amount of religious diversity, that diversity is mostly of the fundamentalist Christian variety so it's not surprising that a greater amount of fundamentalist diversity leads to a greater increase in intolerance. But compare the U.S. to a nation like Canada where the majority of Canadian Christians accept evolution as a scientific fact and believe in universalism and Canada has far lower rates of crime than the U.S. and is far more progressive in regards to equal rights for minorities. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that an increase of diversity with fundamentalist religion leads to greater intolerance but not necessarily an increase in diversity of moderate religion.

You can say there are two types of relativism: anthropological relativism and philosophical relativism. Anthropological relativism merely describes the nature of reality as changing from culture to culture and says nothing about how we should react to such issues. Philosophical relativism takes it a step further and argues that because what is understood as truth changes from culture to culture, that there is no absolute truth and we should refrain from making absolutist truth claims to respect other people's beliefs. One can say that anthropological relativism describes the way things are whereas philosophical relativism deals with how things ought to be.

Pluralism accepts that everybody has different opinions, beliefs, and cultures and we can all co-exist with each other in spite of our differences. Relativism argues there is no such thing as objective truth and all truth is subjective and constantly changing. Under pluralism, you can respect another person's right to believe a different truth even if you believe in objective truth yourself. Under relativism, relativists believe respecting another person's truth beliefs requires you to never have an objective truth belief yourself. To shorten this to make it easier to understand, pluralism focuses on the legal rights of those we disagree with whereas relativism is a personal belief about your attitude towards truth.

The Book of Mormon musical isn't exactly a PC musical since it's a blasphemous satire of Mormonism and religion in general with irreverent humor but I think this song from it, Tomorrow Is a Latter Day, actually has a message I think progressive Christians could appreciate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBeCWPmRCe0

My favorite PC books in no particular order: A History of God, The Bible-A Biography, and The Case for God-Karen Armstrong. Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, The First Paul, Reading The Bible Again For The First Time, The God We Never Knew-Marcus Borg Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography-John Dominic Crossan The First Week and The First Christmas-co-authored by Crossan and Borg The Gnostic Gospels and The Origin of Satan-Elaine Pagels The Future of Faith-Harvey Cox And I'm not sure if this is PC because I'm not sure what his religious beliefs are, but I think many progressive Christians could enjoy it but also Who Wrote The New Testament? by Burton Mack.

The Golden Compass is more anti-Christian than it is PC-themed, but I think the movie's anti-dogmatism and anti-fundamentalism themes can still be appreciated by many progressive Christians as long as you keep an open mind and aren't easily offended. Though the movie version waters down a lot of the more explicit anti-religious themes from the book, which may make it more accessible for open minded Christians but I highly recommend the book series too to finish the story since it seems they'll probably never finish making the rest of the movies. The movie Save Me is also an emotionally gripping look at the inside of the ex-gay movement from a gay Christian perspective. But unlike many movies that deal with the issue of homosexuality and religion, Save Me doesn't try to demonize the fundamentalists as being all evil hateful people but they try to take a more sympathetic but still highly critical approach and none of the characters in the film are portrayed as perfect or overly righteous.

Since we have the topic on favorite PC-themed songs, I thought it would also be interesting to post our favorite PC-themed movies. As with the PC-themed songs thread, it doesn't have to be a movie that's explicitly pro--PC but it can be any movie that you like that you think is also compatible with progressive Christian themes. Some of my favorites: Contact-Though Carl Sagan was an agnostic and not a Christian, I think this movie version of his sci-fi novel can still have a lot of meaning to progressive Christians. Sagan takes a more realistic approach to the question of what would happen if we really did discover alien life and rather than focusing on sci-fi action, he focuses on what sort of impact this would have on society. He addresses the concerns of how would the discovery of intelligent alien life effect the conflicts between religion and science. Unlike other anti-religious movies and books, I think Sagan does a reasonable job of presenting both sides of the theist versus atheist conflict in a fair and balanced manner by having the main character, Ellie, be an atheist scientist who falls in love with a Christian philosopher. The movie addresses complex issues like whether or not God exists, the limits of both logic and faith at attaining the truth, and the role that religion plays in a modern scientific society. Though the movie is not an action film, the climax still has some very impressive special effects and visuals and if you're looking for something more than standard action alien flicks, I think Contact is still a very heart warming and touching story that can inspire people of all faith and no faith. Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame- Yes, this is a kid's movie but it's surprisingly a pretty mature and smart movie and it's one of Disney's darker and under-appreciated movies. Rather than having magical beasts and witches as the villains, the villains in this movie are fundamentalist Christians. Judge Frollo is not an evil wizard but he's a hardcore Christian extremist who uses his religious authority to justify wiping out the Gypsies and torturing his enemies and the movie even opens up with Frollo murdering a gypsy and almost murdering Quasimodo as a baby because of his disease. Frollo is all too similar to real life fundamentalists in that he acts all holier than thou throughout the movie but in reality he has his own inner demons and sins of lust that he struggles with. The movie has a timeless message that you shouldn't judge by appearances. Everyone fears and loathes Quasimodo because of his disfigured appearance but reveres Frollo because of his devout piety but in reality it is Frollo who is the monster and Quasimodo who is the man. As opposed to many Christian kid's movies that just dumb the bible down to indoctrinate kids into fundamentalism with, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a powerful movie for all ages that reminds us that a truly living god would be big enough to love everyone regardless of their faith or social background. The Da Vinci Code- Though Dan Brown's movie has a number of historical errors in it that annoy me as someone who enjoys reading about religious history, I still liked this movie and how it tried to promote the importance of feminist spirituality in Christianity and promote tolerance and acceptance of "heretical" Christians. And again, while the movie suffers from some historical inaccuracies, I think it does help raise awareness that the history of the church is more complex than many Christians like to think and that there are different ways of worshiping Jesus than "traditional" Trinitarinism out there.

Here is an article in which Michael Shermer discusses what he believes scientism is and his embrace of the label: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-shamans-of-scientism

As Thomas Paine said in the Age of Reason, the problem with subjective personal religious experiences is that they're only convincing to the people who have them and to everyone else they're hearsay. If you find personal subjective experiences of the supernatural to be helpful to your religious walk, that's fine for you, but you can't expect anyone else to believe it or get upset when a scientist disagrees with you if you don't have any objective proof. If subjective personal experiences are proof of religious claims, then any claim of a subjective personal experience is just as valid as any other no matter how dangerous it might be to claim it. If you're skeptical of Benny Hinn and other faith healers' claims to miraculously be able to heal people's diseases, then you'll understand why Shermer and other skeptics apply the same logic more broadly. And this is a problem because? Has there been some other method that's successfully explained the origins of the universe? Do you actually know any materialists or what they actually think or are you just making stuff up about materialists at this point? Invoking God of the gaps arguments have done nothing towards solving scientific problems either. So disbelieving in personal subjective experiences is worse than religions that circumcise women, encourage terrorists to bomb buildings so they can get 72 virgins when they die, or religions encourage murdering abortion doctors and gay people? Yes, fear the dreaded materialists because we're far worse than religious terrorists because at least the terrorists believe in God. How inclusive and open minded of you. It seems to me that you don't consider anyone who's not religious to be an enemy, in which case are you any different than the fundamentalist Christians? Perhaps you should listen to Jesus' own words about plucking the shard out of your own eye before you go around calling everyone else who doesn't agree with you dogmatic. Now this is the last straw. As a materialist and someone who is also a spiritual atheist, I have tried to be nothing but kind and respectful to everyone on these forums and this is how you repay my kindness? I find your claim that materialists are somehow denying our sense of humanity to be bigoted, closed minded, and insensitive and hurtful and I for one demand an apology from you.

As a materialist myself, I don't see the problem with this view. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To proclaim there is scientific proof of a soul or a supernatural realm beyond death that we live on in after we die or that there exist a supernatural creator god which intervenes with the natural world is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. If there is a supernatural realm which exists beyond the natural and materialism is such a poor philosophy that doesn't stay true to the actual scientific method, then why is there no evidence yet of the supernatural? I think you're oversimplifying materialism here. Not all non-believers in the supernatural deny subjectivity and both atheists and theists are equally divided over this issue. For example, on the issue of morality, some atheists like Jeremy Bentham and Sam Harris have taken the position that morals are objective and can be determined through science while there are other atheist philosophers like J.L. Mackie who took the position that morality is subjective and something that humans created rather than discovered and Nietzsche took subjectivity to such extremes that he believed there was no point to morality and meaning. On the other hand, many postmodernists take relativity to the opposite extreme to the point where you can't say anything objective about reality at all. Likewise, religious believers are also divided on the issue of whether or not morals are relative or objective and I don't think invoking God is a solution to the problem either. I could list off several examples where society would be worse off with religious morality too. I've heard an interview with Shermer on the Point of Inquiry podcast and in fact Shermer is a defender of progressive Christianity and has argued that atheists should work together with Christians who support evolution to combat intelligent design. I think it's unfair to give Shermer the short end of the stick when he's in fact willing to work together with progressive Christians on these issues simply because you have different theological conclusions. Why shouldn't all ideas be open to criticism? And which materialists think that everyone should be reduced to objects?