'Trade “universe” for “God” and bang, you’ve got Christianity.'

Yeah. Pull the other one, troll. :)

'Trade “universe” for “God” and bang, you’ve got Christianity.'

-Yeah. Pull the other one. Nice troll though. :)

I think I've gotten to the point where I can safely call bullshit on this discussion. I can't take someone seriously if they insist that 'true' Christianity (and its Judaic roots) has no supernatural content, and that defines 'God' as identical to 'reality' or 'nature' (if so, then why use a separate term for it, one which has always had very clear implications to the contrary?)

My shoes are pretty much soaked through with piss at this point. I've let you pretend it's rain long enough. :)

I don't have a dislike of religion so much as I have a dislike of how many religious people seem to want to impose their religion via statute. Personally, I don't have any use for religion, and if I have any resentment at all it's for people who insist it has some inherent value that I'm just 'missing' somehow because I haven't actually ever met a 'real' religion.

No, actually, I'm not. I'm saying that if Christians actually practiced the Christianity you say is the *real* one, then nobody would actually have an issue with it, other than perhaps dismissing its supernatural claims as being implausible. My point is that the number of Christians who actually *don't* believe in the supernatural must be so vanishingly small that I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who would define it as being "the real" Christianity--even (and especially) if you asked Christians. You might think it's absurd, but I tend to think that what actual Christians believe their own religion means actually has a bearing on this discussion.

If Christianity truly has no supernatural claims at all, I'd almost have to claim that any 'true Christian' by your definition must be an atheist. Here, I'll let Dan Dennett explain it. ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iVCxx-GkMg&feature=player_embedded

What good does it do us to argue over the definition of religion (or specifically Christianity) as you think it *should* have been, or as it might have been thousands of years ago, when it's in no way indicative of religion as currently practiced by any of its adherents? Or at least, not by the ones with whom anyone has an actual problem?

Also, apples and oranges. On the one hand you're talking about a method of observing reality and attempting to build a coherent framework to explain what's been observed--one which can be completely thrown out when new evidence contradicts it. On the other you're talking about a system in which you attempt to explain reality by filling in the blanks of what you *don't* understand with a supernatural explanation--and when observations tend to contradict the explanation, you throw out the observations. Which is more likely to eventually give you an accurate depiction of reality? While individual scientists can and do sometimes distort science for their own purposes, the system itself tends to be self-correcting over time. Not so much religion.

I should point out, however, that 'atheism' doesn't in any way imply support of the scientific method, only a disbelief in deities. Take Raelians for example. Please. ;)

Believe what you want. It's nice you think Christianity is a good philosophy. I really wish actual Christians only thought of it that way, and not as a literal and exclusive source of fundamental truth. Actual Christians *say* they believe in a literal god that cares about and intervenes in human lives. Why would I not take them at their word and think 'oh, they only mean that metaphorically.' While undoubtedly it's true for the more liberal Christians, it is absolutely not for many others.

And no, no scientist I know of anthropomorphizes nature to the extent that they'd actually think the universe cared whether any particular life or life form succeeds or fails. Not true of the garden-variety religions adherent.

Great. So we've come to the conclusion that Christianity is fantastic, but there aren't actually any 'real' Christians practicing it. I do not, incidentally, agree with the former (and I think you'd have to twist yourself into a pretzel to read both testaments and conclude that they offer advice that's in any way superior to what you could come to using reason, empathy, and a working knowledge of history).

Doesn't this kinda get away from the point of the article, though, which seems to be attempting to point to actual, physical evidence to bolster belief in what is, by your description, a metaphorical event?

If you need to strip religion down to the point where it's purely a philosophical concept, and ignore the fact that the vast majority of religious people *don't* actually interpret their own religion that way, then where does that leave us? Maybe in a theoretical world, if people actually *did* believe in their religion the way you claim it is, and did *not* literally believe in a god that is based on rewards and punishment, nobody would have an issue with religious people. But that's not actually the world we live in. Here, people *do* literally believe an external god is the source of all morality and will punish people who don't believe in their particular brand of religion. They literally believe that if they don't act in accordance with their interpretation of their religious texts, their god will punish them as well. They treat other people as if this were the case, and they attempt to legislate as if this were literally the case. And it has real-world consequences on those who do not believe similarly. It doesn't matter what *I* think about their religion, or whether you think I'm interpreting it incorrectly--they themselves, the adherents of the religion and their spokespeople, *do* act as if they believe it. And more troublingly, they insist that others need to follow its tenets as well.

We're not solipsists, here. We actually do have standards of evidence that turn out to be fairly useful for determining what actually has an effect in the physical world, and what does not. The scientific method, for one, has been extremely useful in helping to winnow down what's far more likely to be true, from that which is not at all likely to be true. Even when the current state of knowledge is imperfect, the method itself helps us to eventually adjust our understanding of reality. Take that against religious belief, which only adjusts grudgingly and with the most extraordinary of evidence to the contrary. In the case of Christianity, we're talking about a religion that emphasizes faith even in the face of contrary evidence, sometimes.

...and if you really think anywhere near 'most' religious adherents don't actually believe in the supernatural, you're extremely optimistic at best, and delusional at worst. Why don't you ask the standard, run of the mill Southern Baptist whether they believe Jesus was literally the son of god, born of a virgin, and was physically tortured and died to expiate their sins--they're not going to give you some philosophical dodge about whether it being a metaphor.

Ryan, isn't it all pretty much all beside the point if you don't actually have any evidence that *any* religious beliefs are actually *true*? You can dance around that all you want, and put a pretty, metaphorical face on it, but that's the actual crux of the matter.

I don't think I've misinterpreted the fact that all religion is based on the assumption, absent of any evidence, that there are supernatural forces at work in the universe. Absent that evidence, it doesn't matter how much you like a particular religion, or what good you think it does for its adherents--there's just no reason to believe a god actually exists.

1) The point about Harris and Buddhism is off-point. Many religions contain kernels of good ideas, but that doesn't mean you either a)have to believe in any supernatural claims in the same religions as being true in order to agree with those good ideas, b) that you have to take the religion as true or good as wholecloth (in fact, Buddhism also has ideas that tend to contradict social justice, since they revolve around karma and accepting ones' current place in society based on past lives), and c) that even the good ideas in any given religion lend credence to the other, supernatural claims held by adherents.

2) Show me exactly where Hitchens, or any other 'new atheist' has promoted violence against believers, or marginalization, or anything beyond trying to convince them their beliefs are untrue. Religion can and does have very real consequences for adherents and non-adherents that it attempts to control--rights for women, physical autonomy over their own bodies, not to mention psychological abuse. Meanwhile, a 'new atheist' makes a suggestion that there isn't actually any evidence for supernatural beliefs, and suddenly the hurt feelings of the religious are suddenly seen as evidence of intolerance by the anti-religious.

3) Nobody would have any quibble against religion if it were in a vacuum, and simply a matter of opinion. The problem is that it so often gets interjected into society in a way that can and does adversely the rights or even physical well-being of both people who have other religious beliefs, or no religious beliefs.

4) The so-called Christianity you describe is highly theoretical, and I doubt if you asked the vast majority of Christians what they actually believe, that Aquinas's description would be what they espouse. And I'm not talking about the fringe groups--there are many more biblical literalists in the world than what you're claiming--and they aren't arguing for a 'nothing greater than this', vague, 'first cause' sort of God, but the sort who, as described in the old testament, regularly interceded in and encouraged violent human behavior, and had very definite and specific opinions on human lifestyles.

5) Seriously?An atheist has to believe Christians believe in a 'man in the sky' in order to reject the bible as being improbable? Ask a person of any religion what god they believe in, and why they believe it, and an atheist will come to the same conclusion--because there simply isn't any evidence for it--either the 'man in the sky' or a vague 'force of intelligence' in the universe.

Sorry for typos. Small screen, terrible keyboard.

As an analogy--football fans sometimes riot over the results of football games. Non-football fans also sometimes riot, for entirely different reasons. But the non-football fans are not rioting *because* of their lack of football fandom. See what I'm getting at here?

Yes, obviously both religious and non-religious people kill, and they have their own motives for doing so. But the point being made here is that, while religious people can be driven *by their religion* to kill, the reverse hasn't been the case. Communist atrocities were not driven by a lack of belief in a deity, but by the political and economic ideologies that replaced it. You can't argue that the fault of communism was an excess of rational thought, free inquiry, or skepticism.