Evangelical vs. Fundamentalist (a response to Robin’s post)

I have intended to create a blog post on this topic for a while now because I think we atheists tend to use these terms interchangeably, and they are not quite interchangeable. Many fundamentalists would not want to be called an evangelical, and vice versa. But the reality is that the terms fundamentalist, evangelical and mainline Christianity rest on a continuum, with many people and churches on blurry lines between these terms. My parents were self-identified fundamentalists throughout my childhood, and then switched to a more evangelical church when I was a teenager. This post is only my first-person observations of these groups. I am not familiar with “every jot and tittle” of every point of every denomination’s doctrine. Feel free to post angry comments about how I am wrong about what some sect believes. <sarcasm>

The big issues in this debate are the inerrancy of the bible and cultural conservatism. If you were to set the broad spectrum of Christianity on a right-to-left scale, “fundamentalists” would be on the far right and “mainline” churches (United Methodists, Evangelical Lutherans, Presbyterian USA, etc.) would be on the far left. Evangelicals sit on the middle ground between these two extremes. Continue reading…

Bible week

This week (November 21-27) is National Bible week. Just to be clear, this is not an official government endorsed holiday, but rather a kind of “awareness week” sponsored by the National Bible association. Part of their work is funded by the Templeton Foundation. I picked up this story based on these posts, I saw on Reddit. I think that for the most part, they are right. However, I disagree slightly with them slightly. The below BBC Documentary below is an excellent introduction to two of the most important theories of how to understand the bible: the documentary hypothesis and redaction criticism.

So, why do I disagree with the two atheist authors I linked? (Despite the fact I generally agree with the idea that the bible has a lot of bad moral lessons, violent stories, and bad science). Because I refuse to believe that fundamentalist Christians and Jews “Own” the bible. The bible belongs to all of humanity. It gives us deep insights into how ancient people thought. Many of our cultural allusions from Shakespeare to Toni Morrison and everywhere in between are from the bible. It is a mistake for us, as atheists, to simply “quote mine” the bible for violent quotations. Rather, we should read the bible, understand who wrote it and why, and carry that knowledge with us when we discuss the bible with the fundamentalists.

Let me end with an analogy. What if a young man told us that he had a vision in which Hermes appeared to him and told him that Zeus was the one true god and Achilles was the one true prophet an that the Iliad was the “word of god” spoken through the divinely inspired Homer and the he now has a “personal relationship with Zeus.” Would we immediately go to the Iliad and look for stories of misogyny, violence and bad science? Of course not. We would say “that guy is crazy,” and continue studying the Iliad because it contains beautiful poetry and insight into how the ancient Greeks thought.

Many of my ideas about this topic have come from Dr. Robert Price who is a great guy, a wonderful bible resource, and a great Billy Graham impersonator. The analogy comes from his interesting article, Is the Bible Mein Kampf?

One Man to Tweet Entire Bible

Although not the first to attempt to do so, Mashable is reporting that a UK worship director has decided to tweet the Bible one very shortened chapter per tweet using the account @BibleSummary.

Speaking with the Telegraph, director Chris Juby says he hopes it will encourage others to read the contents of the Bible. Whether or not a thorough reading of the Bible would actually help or hurt that cause, it’s certainly a unique use of Twitter.

The key to heaven

Many Christians claim that the primary way to get into heaven is through good works. There is, however, substantial reason to not believe that this is true. I submit that it seems wicked to people to not be rewarded for doing good by getting into heaven. It also seems evil that their friends, neighbors and loved ones who do not accept Christ because they are a member of another religion or simply because they are non-believers cannot get into heaven even though they are good people. You often hear this question posed and many Christians pose it themselves: well if I live a good life, or my friend lives a good life, can I get into heaven without accepting Christ? Most Christians, I argue, would think that a fair and just God would still let in people that they love and who they view to have done good deeds. However, it is very hard to escape a literal or metaphorical reading of the Bible’s conclusion on the matter:

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

NIV John 14:6

Perhaps I am guilty of cherry picking as many religious people do. However, one of the most famous lines of the Bible, said by scholars, theologians, and laymen alike, summarizes the whole of the Bible:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

NIV John 3:16

Let’s beat a dead horse:

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

Acts 4:12

Well, are you SURE that it is only through believing in Jesus and not good works?

…he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,…

NIV Titus 3:5

And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.

Romans 11:6

Yes, yes I’m sure the Bible conveys this. This issue, however, isn’t like the issues of slavery, homosexuality or anything else people bring up and that apologists defend with the notion that you ‘need to understand the historical and Biblical context.’ Many Christians seem to disregard this notion, however, and accept that they will get into heaven because they are good (which is not guaranteed by the Bible, even if you are a believer). Even the Christians who seem to disregard the notions I have submitted claim to adhere to the Bible. The thing is, people don’t adhere to the Bible. The Bible, instead, is just an excuse for them to create a way for them to believe that God wants what they want. Is homosexuality a sin? These people don’t look at the Bible, they ask themselves instead. This is, in many instances, a great relief. People do not subscribe to the great deal of terribleness in the Bible, but instead often think for themselves. When we look at such a core tenant of Christianity though, such as entrance to heaven and belief in Christ, it gives me some hope that maybe religious people aren’t that far off from disregarding the Bible entirely.
Well, as a final note, in the line of Pascal’s wager, what if I am wrong? Well if I somehow were, it doesn’t concern me much since the person asking somehow thinks I can redeem myself (not that I am looking to):

And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

NIV Matthew 12:31-32

It is nice that such a just God would regularly forgive graven trespasses such as murder, rape, pillaging, etc. (Paul/Saul, amongst others) but my trespasses, should such a God exist, are unforgivable.

Scripture: the Word of God?

The Abrahamic belief systems share more in common than the belief in God. One similarity is that they claim, as Christopher Hitchens likes to phrase in order to illustrate the hubris, ‘to know the mind of God.’ Beyond the basic assertion of almost any religious person that God exists, is that his/her holy scripture is the word of God. This is what sets up the disagreements with religions because most of the popular religions are mutually exclusive on their viewpoint of what God wants – ‘our holy book is the only holy book.’ This is at the core of all religious strife, believing that you know what God wants.

This argument is, or should be, paramount to religious believers. On this issue in particular one can often see reasoning completely break down. One of the most common arguments for the validity of the Old and New Testaments is that the Old Testament predicts things in the New Testament and that the New Testament validates things from the Old Testament. People often turn this into a circular argument or there is an assumption that one of them must be the work of God, instead of it being possible that neither of them are the word of God. Believers often treat scripture, without relation to the outside world, as though it were evidence for its validity itself. There are of course, many intelligent Christians who realize that the Bible itself, claiming that it is Holy Scripture, is not sufficient for it to be so.

Proponents of the Bible as Holy Scripture often cite historically proven events to validate their claims. If an event occurs before the Bible they cite this as evidence of the accuracy of the Bible. Lucian, the Ancient Greek, would write fantastic tales about past events and just because there was some historical basis for some of what he wrote, there is no reason to believe his other claims that we were once in battle with moon people. Another example of a problem of the Bible as history is the claim that Jews were slaves in Egypt but this does not have a single bit of corroborating evidence – there is actually some evidence to the contrary. There is not a single example of the Bible as prophecy that is substantial, or appears to be anything more than mere coincidence. The Bible, like all literature, deals with theme and the human condition. There is a reason literature like Gilgamesh is still around. The human condition has remained constant and there are recurring themes – that is part of what gives art its power, we can all gape in awe at the works of Michelangelo. That is the only predictive power of the Bible, to tap into the literary genre.

If the Bible is a work of fiction it does not make it a meaningless book, just like Gilgamesh is not a meaningless book. There are also two entirely different notions: to speculate if there is a God, or even to believe in him/her/it, and then to assume what this God wants of you. Unfortunately, with religion belief in God and adherence to holy texts are almost inseparable.

Further reading:

http://www.jweekly.com/article/full/41055/egypt-unveils-more-proof-that-jews-did-not-build-pyramids/

Episode #003 for January 21, 2010

Our third episode is now available, featuring:

* Religion & the disaster in Haiti

* Biblical references on rifle scopes manufactured for the military

* An interview with Sacramento writer, Ted Cox

Be sure to check the podcast on iTunes (search for ‘An American Atheist’) and be sure to leave comments here if you have any. We’d love to have you on the show should you feel up to it! Contact us!

 Episode: #003 [58:53] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (62)