overcast

Welcome to the forum, farfromthetree. I agree that probably the historical Jesus would not have endorsed traditional Christian theology. Of course most everything about the historical Jesus is speculation. HOWEVER, traditional Christians BELIEVE that they are following the teachings of the historical Jesus with perhaps some minor errors. That is different from KNOWING indifference to the historical Jesus. There is also the possibility of disconnecting the historical Jesus from the living Christ. I suppose a PC might imagine that Jesus was just some ordinary guy trying to connect to a living Christ, become a living Christ, etc. That type of PC might say the historical Jesus and his teachings can be ignored, modified, etc., because he is just an early religious leader trying to figure it out - just like modern PCs. As an atheist, I don't have a horse in the race, but I'm confused about PC ideas.

I think maybe you have your answer right there: "I've long since been open to mysticism, and I've had a fair share of mystical experiences. But lately, I've reverted back to primarily an intellectual state. That started with my treatment for bipolar." Most people with bipolar that I've talked to on forums say that religion/spirituality/mysticism makes their problems worse. There seems to be a feedback loop so that bipolar feeds mysticism which feeds bipolar which feeds mysticism until they end-up hospitalized or whatever. Most of these people felt that atheism helped them stay healthy. My mental health problem doesn't match any of the classifications. I suspect my problem is a mild mixture of several things (mostly depression). Due to the depression, I have always had a feeling that life seems pointless. I've wanted to grab God by the throat and make him tell me what life is about (even though I was a weak atheist). Every 10 years or so from childhood to now, I would have experiences that made me think there might be something beyond physical reality. Then I had a breakdown about 5 years ago and interpreted the hallucinations as God talking to me - except the message was confusing and Christianity was confusing. As I started recovering psychologically, the hallucinations became less frequent, and I felt that God was disappointed with me for not listening or understanding. I had been fantasizing about becoming a Orthodox monk even though I was too old. I didn't now how to pursue that goal (fortunately), but I did give away most of my savings (unfortunately ). After a year or two I stopped attending church and started investigating non-Christian explanations for my experiences (multidimensional beings, etc.). Then I learned about psychosis. For several years, I called myself an atheist, but I would have anxiety attacks whenever anything reminded me of my paranoid delusions. Then about 6 months ago, I finally got better. I suspect that if I had been a totally non-spiritual atheist when I had my breakdown, then maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. On the other hand, maybe I would have imagined the CIA was trying to assassinate me or some other non-spiritual paranoid delusion. FWIW.

Maybe that's the essence of Progressive Christianity? Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism claim to be basically unchanged. Protestantism claims to be going back to the original through discarding tradition and relying only on the Bible. Liberal Protestantism says lets discard parts of the Bible that seem to be corruptions of the inspired parts. Does Progressive Christianity say it's o.k. to evolve Christainity into something that the historical Jesus may not have endorsed? Does Progressive Christianity assume that Jesus would have endorsed anything that works?

That's true, and sorry if I get carried away with my opinions.

Personality is another key attribute. Like what is personality? I would say it's predictability. I drink coca cola a lot. I imagine that I am an actor with free will who likes coca cola. This is a bit like a supernatural spirit in a cockpit piloting my physical body through life. Gravity is predictable, but it is TOO predictable - it doesn't seem to have free will. A personality needs to be SOMEWHAT predictable. The weather is more like a personality. Of course science would say the weather is chaotic instead of choosing. (Sorry, I enjoy trying to question what I mean by this or that. I know this is probably pedantic to people who have done more reading on these issues. )

That sounds a bit like something an Eastern Orthodox would say.

"love, joy, peace, ..." are subjective like "delicious, beautiful, ...". These words are a bit like morality, and I think atheists should not believe in objective morality.

Thanks, it is easier for me to understand your ideas. While I was hallucinating, it seemed that God was holding a spot light up to the areas of Christain theology that bothered me. (Of course what was really happening was that my subconscious mind was very uncomfortable with Christianity and creating hallucinations to highlight these problems.) So for a while, I felt that either God was telling me to be a heretic, or Satan and God had switched clothing to test me. So I can identify with being a heretic. That is interesting. I don't have children, but I can see that teaching values is important. It is hard to decouple the values from the religion - especially if the parent believes the religion. o.k.

I'll take is one more step - it comes down to the word "gods". The "gods" are hard to define, but "supernatural" might be the defining attribute of a "god". "Supernatural" is anything beyond metaphysical naturalism. The moment we start letting the possibility of "supernatural" effects influence our decision making at all, we are no longer atheist IMO. So atheism = methodological naturalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysical_naturalism Of course I know that my opinion isn't shared by most atheists.

No, I don't think PC's can just make up whatever they feel like and call it Christianity. The beliefs we call Christianity should be equivalent to the beliefs of the earliest Christians. Furthermore, these Christian beliefs should have survived intact to modern times due to their superiority over heresies. Any claimant to the Christian denominational throne must he able to show an uninterrupted line of succession back to Jesus IMO.

BTW Thanks for all those replies, everybody. I'll probably have some thoughts this evening on them.

It all comes down to the definition of "spiritual". "Spirit" is embedded in the world "spiritual", so IMO "spiritual" implies belief in "spirits". IMO an atheist who justifies disbelief in deities because there is no scientific evidence should not believe in other things that have no scientific evidence. I don't have a problem with atheists who feel inspired by (for example) realizing that the iron in their bodies came from an explosion of a now extinct star long before our own sun formed. Understanding that the boundaries of our bodies, identity, birth, death, etc. are convenient abstractions is not being "spiritual". Unfortunately it is human nature to go further and start imagining the "Great Spirit" flowing through all matter and influencing material events. That's going too far for a person who labels as an atheist IMO. It's just my pet peeve EDIT: Partly my feelings arise from my personal struggle with superstitious thinking. For example, I was reading an article about cancellation of the A-10 Warthog, and one of the quotes was from "General Hostage". Sometimes I think that something is sending me coded messages in the things that I read. If I allow myself to speculate about the "Great Spirit", then I start worrying when a sock disappears from my laundry.

O.k. thanks. I'm not sure what I think about PC. From a practical perspective, maybe PC provides a bridge to help people become atheists. My impression is that many fundamentalists travel through non-fundamentalist denominations before finally leaving the faith. If PC can provide a safe Christian environment for fundamentalists to learn about Biblical criticism, early Christianity, etc. then that is good. From a purist perspective, I don't think PC makes any sense at all. Where are these Christian teachings that are supposed to be the path to enlightenment? The sayings of Jesus in the gospels are mostly apocalyptic, hyperbolic, etc. The epistles are mostly Paul ranting. The traditions of the church are things like monks with extreme ascetic practices. And let's not forget the teachings about sex. Even married couples were encouraged to be celibate. IMO, these teachings are foolish and potentially dangerous for mentally unstable people. Furthermore, it seems a little disingenuous for people to label as Christian with the stated goal of transforming Christianity to prevent its extinction. A person attempting to transform something must not view that thing as sacred IMO. Therefore a Christian cannot knowingly redesign a religion like Christianity that is supposed to originate with divine revelations. EDIT: IMO, PCs should simply study Christianity, discover that it doesn't work, then convert to Buddhism, Wicca, atheism, etc. Why try to change Christianity into Buddhism, Wicca, or atheism? Broadening the definition of Christianity only allows the traditional Christians to hide behind the smoke screen. Christianity needs to be isolated and ridiculed until we can finally say "will the last Christian leaving the faith please turn out the lights?" Of course the people who are PC's seem nice. I'm not attacking you guys.

That is true. There was an article on Patheos about an atheist who was a priestess in a pagan group. This priestess believed paganism was entirely imaginary and emotional, but she enjoyed the activities. She compared it to going to a rock concert.

I agree that a popular definition of atheist is "somebody who does not currently believe in any deities". IMO this definition is particularly popular because it allows the atheist to simply sit back and poke holes in theist arguments in a debate. If I was "label faery", I would define atheist as "somebody whose aspires to use the scientific method to decide what to believe". This definition would prohibit atheists from claiming to believe in panentheism, astrology, faeries, ET visitation, etc. An atheist might be fascinated by the possibility that some of these things might be true, but an atheist should be a skeptic. Of course an atheist should feel free to assign probabilities to different theories. For example an atheist might say he is 95% sure that ET visitation has not happened. In other words, an atheist can be on the fence, if the evidence looks that way. I'm not sure what my point is. I think I will go to sleep.

Joseph, the link in your post is broken, but I googled and found a video where Fred Plumer explains Progressive Christainity. I have a better understanding of PC now after watching the video you suggested. Plumer seems to see the historic Jesus as a Buddha-like figure with teachings and practices that will lead to self-improvement and an experience of the divine. That's fine and dandy except that the teachings and practices of Jesus have come down to us in the Bible and the traditions of earliest churches. There are so many fundamental disagreements between the early churches that we cannot accept them collectively, and we cannot identify the true teachings among all the heresies. So what is a Progressive Christian supposed to do? (1) A PC might test all the known forms of early Christianity by practicing and studying each one in turn for several years. If something "works" then the PC might assume he/she has found the "true" teachings of Jesus in that ancient Christian sect. (2) A PC might test spiritual practices with non-Christian roots. If somethign "works" then the PC might assume this is the "true" teachings of Jesus discovered independently by Buddha, Muhammad, or whoever. Why not simply ignore Christianity and Jesus entirely? Buddhism has sects, but my impression is that they are far more consistent than the early sects of Christianity. Where is the historical evidence that Christianity has EVER been good for anything? It's a wld goose chase IMO.

Thanks, fatherman That is interesting, because most Progressive Christians seem to be so far from Christian orthodoxy that identifying as Christian at all seems strange to me. Your apparent beliefs and behavior seem more "Christian" to me, so labeling as Progressive Christian seems sensible in your case IMO. I don't know why I care about labels, but it annoys me when they are misleading. Like "spiritual" should mean you believe in a spiritual world. An atheist should not label as "spiritual". "Progressive Christian" should mean you have some commonalities with other types of Christians. Somebody who thinks the historical Jesus was just an ordinary Jew with delusions of grandeur (like I believe) should not label as a "Progressive Christian" IMO. Of course everybody can label as they want. It's just a pet peeve.

Thanks, romansh, I wasn't aware of that theory. I've heard some similar ideas to explain the human tendency to believe in spirits, religions, etc.

During my religious phase, I read several accounts of monks and saints. Now I can look back and see that many of those monks were mentally ill. For example, there was a story about a monk who ate dirt, then I saw a youtube video about a girl with bipolar who described feeling compelled to lay down in a culvert and eat rocks. There was another story about a bishop who supposedly had a demon whispering doubts in his ears almost constantly for years, and that is similar to accounts of hearing voices. There is another case of a medieval Moslem who was executed because he believed he was God - a very common delusion. In the bible there are prophets who cut themselves just like so many modern people cut themselves compulsively. Somewhere I believe the Bible mentions that you can tell a prophet by his scars. I have heard that the Pentecostal churches attract mentally ill people who are not aware that they need psychological help. There are youtube videos of mass kundalini awakenings much like the craziness of Pentecostal and Charismatic churches; these criticisms of spirituality apply to all religions. So what's my point? All the good plants growing in the religious/spiritual gardens can be transplanted into atheist gardens where there are no snakes to bite us.

I think the solution would be to abandon the word "spirituality". Let "spirituality" be reserved for the beliefs and practices that assume the existence of a non-physical, spiritual world. I've had some uplifting experiences like you describe, and those are nice. The problem comes when people describe these experiences using the "spiritual" lingo. When a person with psychological problems says "the Holy Spirit told me to move to Arizona", nobody considers the possibility that this person might be hearing voices, because normal people use the same words for more normal circumstances.

I'm an atheist. I grew up Episcopalian and lost faith as an adult. o.k. I skimmed the abstract, but I didn't read the article. I am aware that the psychiatric groups have been trying to be more friendly to spirituality. Part of the problem is that spirituality has broadened to include less harmful concepts. Nowadays a person could describe fishing as a form of spirituality and nobody would blink an eye. I'm sorry you have bipolar, because it is apparently very dangerous and difficult. A few years ago I had a psychotic episode for the first and only time (hopefully). I lived through that experience without any treatment at all, because my family are Christians and believed it was "spiritual". It's taken 5 years to fully recover, but now I am normal. So that's where I'm coming from.

Taking meditation as an example: A spiritual person might think that meditation is a way of reaching a higher form of consciousness, talking to spirits, clairvoyance, etc. A non-spiritual person will be free to refine the practice of meditation by measuring physical results from physical mechanisms.

Of course, religions sometimes stumble onto some good ideas. Meditation helps a lot of people. However, just as alchemy became chemistry and astrology became astronomy, we need to discard the spirituality to move forward IMO.

Here are a few more reasons that spirituality should not be respected or tolerated: (3) When sane people mimic the delusions and practices of insane people, it is more difficult to identify the truly insane people who need medical or psychological help. If I say that "I think God is talking to me", that should immediately raise red flags and the authorities should treat my illness (against my will if I necessary, because insane people are often unaware that they are insane). Unfortunately, for every truly "spiritual" (i.e. insane) person, there are 99 sane people who for whatever reason think "spirituality" is stylish, wise, or whatever. If I say "I think God is talking to me", nobody notices, because there are 99 sane people saying the same nonsense. The sane people need to understand that "spirituality" is insanity, and claiming to be "spiritual" is just like pulling the fire alarm as a prank; eventually everybody begins to ignore the fire alarm. (4) There is a range between sane and insane. There are many "spiritual" people who are mildly insane, and their "spiritual" practices and beliefs may eventually push them over the edge. In fact, the more "spiritual" (i.e. insane) these people become, the more enthusiastic they become about "spirituality".

Probably if you go to an atheist forum, and ask your question, you will get a better answer, but here are a few ways: (1) There seem to be a range of psychological and neurological problems that make people think they are in contact with God, spirits, faeries, aliens, etc. Here is a link to a particularly sad example ( http://neuroresearchproject.com/2013/06/21/preying-in-the-name-of-god/ ). These types of tragedies are not unique to Christianity. Any religion that believes that a person can interact with a non-physical world can probably have these issues. (2) The fact that there is no scientific evidence for a non-physical world means that people who hope to improve their physical circumstances through spiritual practices are certain to receive no measurable reward. If a person invests little and expects little (like buying a lottery ticket) then little harm is done. If a person has serious problems and tries to solve those problems through spiritual practices, then greater harm is done. Sorry, ran out of ideas.