Are Agnosticism and Atheism Compatible with Christianity? (Jesus, ritual, moral)

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by rojse

Thanks to both "lilithu" and "spiritually inclined" correcting me on my definitions on aetheism, and agnosticism, and my feeble knowledge of all things biblical.

Sorry, didn't mean to come off as correcting you. The definitions that you gave were not wrong. It's just that there are others.

Originally Posted by rojse

My question is, if the idea and actions of God were not meant to be taken as a literal truth, then where do we gather any impression of God? If the actions of God, the central being in which all stories of the bible were based upon, were not completely real, then the Bible must just be a set of fairy tales with a tenuous basis in the real world.

I seriously do not dismiss the bible so lightly, that does everyone here a complete disservice. So, what have I missed in my interpretation of your answer?

In my view, the bible is a compilation of stories told by humans about God. As such, it is not inerrant, not perfect. The humans who experienced God would have interpreted the experience through their own social lenses. And those experiences would have been further changed through interpretation by others.

BUT, this doesn't mean that the bible isn't valuable. Firstly, it still reflects the initial experiences of God by some of its authors, which while not perfect do contain elements that are in common with each other. Second, it is just as important, as religious people, to pay attention to how other religious people responded, how they struggled.

The bible is beautiful. I love the stories of Adam and Eve, Jacob, Job, Jonah... as well as the teachings of Jesus. And in reflecting on what these stories might have meant to them, and what they mean to me now, I feel that in doing so I treat the bible with a lot more respect than if I were to just say "It's all true" and not really wrestle with the texts.

Obviously others would disagree.

I think, and this would have to be done elsewhere, not in this thread, but I think the best way to understand this is to see it done. For example, take a story and see how a liberal Christian would treat it (there would obviously be lots of different ways) and how a biblical literalist would treat it.

[Holly]

Atheism is not compatible with Christianity but Agnosticism is. You can be an Agnostic Christian. In a sense, I am sort of an Agnostic Christian because I do not know for certain that God exists. I do believe He exists though.