What does that teach? The Bible calls unbelievers corrupt, vile, wicked, abominable, liars, godless vessels of darkness in the service of evil, the embodiment of darkness, not one of whom does any good, to be shunned, and all of whom are fit to be burned alive forever as enemies of a good god and the moral equivalent of murderers and whoremongers.
I can somewhat easily read all those verses in the context of what the Greeks understood as atheism, which was more about those who lived as if there were no gods, that there was no accountability to others or responsibility for their actions. "The godless" is equated with those who live lawlessly. Jesus himself called those who were considered outside of God's graces by the religious community of his day as having greater faith than he'd seen in all of Israel. (Matt 8:10)
Jesus' criteria, as well as my own and most people who try see through the eyes of love and grace and compassion of others said, "By their fruits you shall know them". Not by their beliefs, or "lack of beliefs". If an athiest does good, then he is more a child of God, those who follow
the law of love, than a thousand "true believers" who do not. It's those who claim to be believers but do the opposite who are actually the "unbelievers". They demonstrate their lack of faith by their actions. I commend atheism for rejecting religious hypocrites, and actually doing good in the world. To echo what Jesus said, they are entering the kingdom of heaven before the religious hypocrites are. (Matt. 21:31)
Bottom line, I think those verses are weaponized to attack atheism in modern times. I think it's kind of an apples to oranges comparison. "By their fruits you shall know them," not by their beliefs, or lack of specific theological beliefs. "By their fruits". That's the one and only criteria. That stops the wolves in sheeps clothing at the door.
Agree, but that is just the beginning. Replacing such ideologies with secular humanism was a giant step forward. Christianity updated the angry, jealous deity of the Old Testament with a kinder deity or demigod (the theology is quite varied there as to just what Jesus was), but as you can see from what followed, it didn't produce an ideology that generates better people or promotes unity.
Not quite right. It's complex. There were genuine advances from what came before, more inclusive of outsiders, accepting of the marginalized and outcasts, all of these things which modern secular humanism embraces as a goal, was in fact the goal of the early church itself, based on the teachings of Jesus, before it became institutionalized and fell back into the patterns of ethnocentrism. It's kind of hard not to see that leading edge of inclusiveness in reading the NT.
Take the parable of the Good Samaritan, for instance. Today, that would be like going into a fundamentalist church and teaching them how that Pat Robertson, James Dobson, and Donald Trump, all ignored the stranger who had been robbed and left for dead by the side of road, and simply walked by, despite claiming they were morally superior to others. But then a Muslim immigrant from Somalia who was on welfare, stopped to help the stranger instead. Those evangelicals would of course be outraged! "How dare you!!", they would gruff. Yet that is exactly what Jesus did. That's what that parable was saying. That's what a lot of his other parables were saying.
That's also what Paul was saying by saying "There is neither Greek nor Jew, but all are one in Christ", or to put it another way, it is "Love" that makes us good people. Not our beliefs and doctrines, or lack of beliefs as it were. Reference this passage for example:
For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous.
14(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.
15They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)
16This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.
I find this passage from Romans 2 quite remarkable. Try this interpretation, "Indeed the Atheists who do not believe in the existence of God, do by nature things required by the law, even though they don't have those belief systems as a daily practice, they show they have the love that is required by the law by their own natures as good human beings!". It easily can be read that way, and rightly so.
See my point here? The issue is really how modern "believers" choose to read scripture to condemn outsiders, misusing scripture,
weaponizing it. It's not "what the Bible says", as much as it is how it is weaponized by those who don't actually follow its principles of love.
Put another way, it's not the letter of the law that matters, but the spirit of the law. That spirit is love. If atheists show love, they fulfill "God's will" according to Paul, according to Jesus. I don't see how any Christian can legitimately dispute this. "Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, is my brother and sister and mother", says Jesus. Imagine that. Atheists as the brothers and sisters of Jesus!
God so loved us that he built a torture pit for those who don't love Him back, by which is meant to submit to biblical commandments and to praise God.
Well of course there are whole schools of thought in Christianity that reject a literal hell, but rather understand such verses as metaphors. But aside from that, it sounds to me that atheists who "love others as themselves" don't need to worry about God sending them there! It's the religious hypocrites that need to worry more about that.
Yet those are actual values of secular humanism embodied in the thoughts and deeds of secular humanists daily. You see them on these threads, and if one can get past the faith-based confirmation bias that these are the horrible people their Bibles and clergy tell them they are, you can see that they actually do promote love and tolerance.
I would not call their prejudices against atheism or secularism "faith-based". Not at all. It's
fear-based. That is accurate. Faith-based, would be love-based, and would not see others as the enemy. It would see others with grace and compassion.
Yes, and that's a nice illustration of the differences between Christianity and secular humanism. It's not what's on paper or what an ism claims for itself. It's value (or lack thereof) is in its output. Ask yourself who it is in America that is the champion of the atheist, the LGBTQ, women, immigrants, and people of color? Yes, some Christians join the humanists there and champion the same values, but it seems most don't.
This raises a complex consideration here. What the difference is is really about conservatism and traditionalism, versus progressivism and modernity and postmodernity. Such rhetoric that these biases are 'faith-based' is wrong. It's fear-based conservatism that is responsible for 'otherism'. Very much so.
Take away religion in this, and you can easily see the same sorts of inhumanity at play against others in society in general, regardless of religious beliefs. I've been watching a colorized WW2 documentary series on NetFlix called the Road to Victory. I saw the horrible treatment of the women of France who had fraternized with the Nazis during the French occupation, doing what they could to survive during the occupation, just accepting this was to be the way things were now. After the Nazis were routed, the French people themselves cut the hair off of these women publically, stripped them, painted Nazi symbols on their breasts, and whatnot. It was horrible.
My point is, this is what people at that level of consciousness do, regardless of religion or not. In this case, that cruelty had nothing to do with religion. Yet you hear people blaming religion, when people act the same way using the name religion to hide behind. That's not reasonable. This is a people issue. Not a religion issue. It is a lower stage of consciousness issue, the tribalistic, ethnocentric, otherism issue.
It is my belief that Christianity, originally, was very progressive, trying to teach people about compassion, and denounce otherism. But as it became adopted by society at large, that lower stage of consciousness came right along into religion, dragging it down to that level, and justifying that 'otherism' in the name of God instead.
Bear in mind please, that this anti-otherism, is exactly what Stalin exploited in his anti-theism crusades, murdering religious leaders. Anti-otherism, is a fear-based, lower stage of consciousness, and you see it in religious theistic fundamentalism, and secular, anti-theistic fundamentalism.
That is the real issue. Not God beliefs, or lack of God beliefs. It's premodern, pre-pluralistic ethnocentrism. And that exists in society first and moves into all of its institutions, including religion. It begins with the level of consciousness of the people, and infects everything outward from there.
That and more. Humanism is also an attempt to replace faith-based thought with reason. Faith-based thought is doing a lot of damage in the States now. It's why people choose to go unvaccinated, believing by faith that the virus is more dangerous than the vaccine. It's why people poo-pooed climate change for so long, some still doing so. It's why people stormed the Capitol holding the by faith the false belief that an election had been stolen. It's why people want to take abortion rights away from women. It's why a former president said that he doesn't consider atheists patriots. Faith, faith, faith, faith - that error of thought that causes people to forsake reason when we need them to be reasonable more than ever.
Again, you have a personal definition of faith which I do not recognize as valid. You won't find it listed in serious discussions on the topic of faith. What you really mean is 'fear-based' irrationality. I agree. All of that is fear-based, irrational ignorance. It is NOT faith-based beliefs. Not at all.
This is a valid discussion of the topic of faith found here. I would recommend focusing your use of the world faith far less narrowly, as you can see is not warranted in this:
Faith (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The sooner the religions that teach people that faith is a virtue and who its god considers abominable, the better the world will be.
I would say that sooner we can evolve people's consciousness, so that their ideas of God are better, the better the world will be. After all, how we think about God, is a reflection of ourselves. If that God we project is evil, because we are evil, it will amplify our evil. If that God we project is good, because we are good, it will amplify our good.
Getting rid of God and religion is not going to make the people who make God evil, better people. That's just simple scapegoating. And we know that doesn't work.
