Why Do Atheists Hate Born Again Christians

Form of Christianity

Christian atheism is a form of Christianity that rejects the theistic claims of Christianity, simply draws its beliefs and practices from Jesus' life and/or teachings as recorded in the New Testament Gospels and other sources.

Christian atheism takes many forms:

• Some include an ethics system.
• Some are types of cultural Christianity.
• Some Christian atheists take a theological position in which the theistic belief in the transcendent or interventionist God is rejected or absent-minded in favor of finding God totally in the world (Thomas J. J. Altizer).
• Others follow Jesus in a godless world (William Hamilton).
• Hamilton'due south Christian disbelief is like to Jesuism.

Beliefs [edit]

A homo promoting Christian atheism at Speakers' Corner, London, in 2005. I of his placards reads: "To follow Jesus, reject God".

Thomas Ogletree, Frederick Marquand Professor of Ethics and Religious Studies at Yale Divinity School, lists these four common behavior:^{[1] [two]}

1. The assertion of the unreality of God for our age, including the understandings of God which accept been a office of traditional Christian theology.
2. The insistence upon coming to grips with contemporary culture as a necessary feature of responsible theological work.
3. Varying degrees and forms of alienation from the church building as information technology is now constituted.
4. Recognition of the centrality of the person of Jesus in theological reflection.

God'south existence [edit]

According to Paul van Buren, a Death of God theologian, the word God itself is "either meaningless or misleading".^[two] Van Buren contends that information technology is impossible to recollect about God and says:

We cannot identify annihilation which volition count for or against the truth of our statements concerning 'God'.^[ii]

The inference from these claims to the "either meaningless or misleading" determination is implicitly premised on the verificationist theory of meaning. Most Christian atheists believe that God never existed, only there are a few who believe in the death of God literally.^[3] Thomas J. J. Altizer is a well-known Christian atheist who is known for his literal approach to the death of God. He often speaks of God's expiry every bit a redemptive event. In his book The Gospel of Christian Atheism, he says:

Every man today who is open to experience knows that God is absent, but but the Christian knows that God is dead, that the expiry of God is a final and irrevocable event and that God's death has actualized in our history a new and liberated humanity.^[4]

Dealing with civilization [edit]

Theologians including Altizer and Colin Lyas, a philosophy lecturer at Lancaster University, looked at the scientific, empirical civilization of today and tried to find religion's identify in it. In Altizer's words:

No longer can faith and the globe exist in mutual isolation ... the radical Christian condemns all forms of organized religion that are disengaged with the world.^[iv]

He goes on to say that our response to atheism should be 1 of "acceptance and affirmation".^[four]

Colin Lyas stated:

Christian atheists are united likewise in the conventionalities that whatsoever satisfactory respond to these problems must exist an reply that will brand life tolerable in this world, here and now and which will directly attention to the social and other problems of this life.^[3]

Separation from the church [edit]

Thomas Altizer has said:

[T]he radical Christian believes that the ecclesiastical tradition has ceased to exist Christian.^[four]

Altizer believed that orthodox Christianity no longer had any pregnant to people because it did not discuss Christianity within the context of contemporary theology. Christian atheists want to exist completely separated from most orthodox Christian beliefs and biblical traditions.^[5] Altizer states that a religion will not be completely pure if information technology not is open to modern civilization. This faith "can never identify itself with an ecclesiastical tradition or with a given doctrinal or ritual grade". He goes on to say that faith cannot "have whatever final assurance as to what it means to be a Christian".^[4] Altizer said: "Nosotros must not, he says, seek for the sacred by saying 'no' to the radical profanity of our age, merely past saying 'aye' to it".^[5] They meet religions which withdraw from the earth as moving away from truth. This is role of the reason why they see the being of God as counter-progressive. Altizer wrote of God as the enemy to man considering mankind could never achieve its fullest potential while God existed.^[4] He went on to state that "to cling to the Christian God in our time is to evade the human state of affairs of our century and to renounce the inevitable suffering which is its lot".^[4]

Centrality of Jesus [edit]

Although Jesus is still a cardinal characteristic of Christian disbelief, Hamilton said that to the Christian atheist, Jesus as a historical or supernatural figure is not the foundation of faith; instead, Jesus is a "place to exist, a standpoint".^[5] Christian atheists look to Jesus equally an example of what a Christian should exist, but they practise non run into him as God, nor as the Son of God; merely as an influential rabbi.

Hamilton wrote that following Jesus ways existence "alongside the neighbor, being for him"^[5] and that to follow Jesus means to exist man, to help other humans, and to farther humankind.

Other Christian atheists such as Thomas Altizer preserve the divinity of Jesus, arguing that through him God negates God's transcendence of being.

By denomination [edit]

Out of all Americans who do not believe in God, 5% identified as Catholic while ix% identified as Protestant and other Christian according to the 2007 Pew Religious Landscape survey.^[6] Out of all Americans who identify as unaffiliated including atheists and agnostics, 41% were raised Protestant and 28% were raised Cosmic according to the 2014 Pew Religious Landscape survey.^{[7] [8]}

Protestantism [edit]

In the Netherlands, 42% of the members of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) are nontheists.^[ix] Non-belief among clergymen is not always perceived every bit a problem. Some follow the tradition of "Christian not-realism", most famously expounded in the Britain by Don Cupitt in the 1980s, which holds that God is a symbol or metaphor and that religious language is not matched by a transcendent reality. According to an investigation of 860 pastors in seven Dutch Protestant denominations, 1 in six clergy are either agnostic or atheist. In one of those denominations, the Remonstrant Brotherhood, the number of doubters was 42 percent.^{[10] [xi]} A government minister of the PKN, Klaas Hendrikse has described God as "a word for experience, or man experience" and said that Jesus may have never existed. Hendrikse gained attention with his book published in November 2007 in which he said that it was not necessary to believe in God's beingness in order to believe in God. The Dutch championship of the book translates equally Assertive in a God Who Does Not Exist: Manifesto of An Atheist Pastor. Hendrikse writes in the book that "God is for me non a being but a word for what can happen betwixt people. Someone says to you, for instance, 'I will not abandon you lot', and then makes those words come up true. It would be perfectly alright to call that [human relationship] God". A Full general Synod found Hendrikse'due south views were widely shared among both clergy and church members. The February 3, 2010 decision to let Hendrikse to continue working as a pastor followed the advice of a regional supervisory panel that the statements by Hendrikse "are non of sufficient weight to damage the foundations of the Church. The ideas of Hendrikse are theologically non new, and are in keeping with the liberal tradition that is an integral part of our church", the special panel concluded.^[x]

A Harris Interactive survey from 2003 constitute that 90% of self-identified Protestants in the United states of america believe in God and about 4% of American Protestants believe in that location is no God.^[12] In 2017, the WIN-Gallup International Clan (WIN/GIA) poll establish that Sweden, a majority Christian country, had second highest per centum (76%) of those who merits themselves atheist or irreligious, after China.^{[13] [14]}

A substantial portion of Quakers are nontheist Quakers. Among British Quakers, 14.five% identified every bit atheists and 43% felt "unable to profess conventionalities in God" in 2013.^[15]

Catholicism [edit]

Catholic atheism is a belief in which the civilisation, traditions, rituals and norms of Catholicism are accepted, but the beingness of God is rejected. It is illustrated in Miguel de Unamuno'south novel San Manuel Bueno, Mártir (1930). According to research in 2007, only 27% of Catholics in kingdom of the netherlands considered themselves theist while 55% were ietsist or doubter deist and 17% were doubter or atheist. Many Dutch people withal chapter with the term "Cosmic" and employ it within sure traditions as a footing of their cultural identity, rather than as a religious identity. The vast bulk of the Catholic population in the Netherlands is now largely irreligious in practice.^[ix]

Criticisms [edit]

In his book Mere Christianity, the apologist C. Southward. Lewis objected to Hamilton's version of Christian atheism and the claim that Jesus was merely a moral guide:

I am trying hither to prevent anyone proverb the really foolish thing that people oft say nearly Him: 'I'm ready to have Jesus as a neat moral teacher, just I don't take his merits to be God.' That is the ane thing we must not say. A human who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would non be a cracking moral instructor. He would either exist a lunatic—on the level with the human who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. Y'all must make your pick. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You tin can shut him upwardly for a fool, you can spit at him and impale him as a demon or you lot can fall at his feet and phone call him Lord and God, but let us non come with any patronising nonsense about his existence a slap-up human instructor. He has not left that open up to us. He did non intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however foreign or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.

Lewis'south statement, now known as Lewis's trilemma, has been criticized for, among other things, constituting a false trilemma, since it does non deal with other options (such every bit Jesus beingness mistaken, or simply mythical). Philosopher John Beversluis argues that Lewis "deprives his readers of numerous alternating interpretations of Jesus that carry with them no such odious implications".^[16] Bart Ehrman stated that is a mere legend that the historical Jesus has chosen himself God; that was unknown to Lewis since he never was a professional person Bible scholar.^{[17] [xviii]}

Theologians and philosophers [edit]

• William Montgomery Brown (1855–1937): American Episcopal bishop, communist author and atheist activist. He described himself as a "Christian Atheist".^[nineteen]
• John Dominic Crossan (b. 1934): Crossan identifies as a cultural Christian while he has too affirmed he does not believe in a literal God.^{[20] [21]}
• Thorkild Grosbøll (1948–2020): Danish Lutheran priest, publicly announced in 2003 that he did not believe in a higher power, in particular a creating or upholding God. Would continue to function as a priest until 2008 when he retired early.^[22]
• George Santayana (1863–1952): Spanish-American philosopher, author, and novelist. Although a life-long atheist he held Castilian Catholic culture in deep regard.^[23] He would describe himself as an "aesthetic Cosmic".^[24]
• Frank Schaeffer, son of theologian Francis Schaeffer describes himself as "an atheist who believes in God".^[25]

Other notable people [edit]

• Alexander Lukashenko (b. 1954): President of Belarus. Describes himself as an Orthodox atheist.^[26]
• Luboš Motl (b. 1973): Czech theoretical physicist
• Douglas Murray (b. 1979): British author, journalist and political commentator. He is a former Anglican who believes Christianity to be an important influence on British and European civilization.^{[27] [28] [29] [30]}
• Anton Rubinstein (1829–1894): Russian pianist, composer and conductor. Although he was raised equally a Christian, Rubinstein later became a Christian atheist.^[31]
• Dan Roughshod (b. 1964): American writer, media pundit, journalist and activist for the LGBT customs. While he has stated that he is now an atheist,^[32] he has said that he still identifies equally "culturally Cosmic".^[33]
• Richard B. Spencer (b. 1978): American Alt-right and white nationalist personality, says that he is an atheist,^[34] but described himself as a "cultural Christian".^[35]
• Andrew Tompkins, lead singer and bassist of the Australian Christian-themed doom metallic band Paramaecium. Tompkins responded to questions of his faith by stating "...Equally to whether I'yard a practicing Christian, I usually tell people I'one thousand a practicing Christian merely not a believing Christian."^[36]
• Gretta Vosper (b. 1958): United Church building of Canada government minister who is an atheist.^[37]
• Bogusław Wolniewicz (1927–2017): Polish right-fly philosopher, called himself equally a "Roman Cosmic nonbeliever".^[38]
• Slavoj Žižek (b. 1949): Slovenian philosopher who cocky-identifies as a Christian atheist in the opening line of his book, "Pandemic: COVID-19 Shakes the World."^[39]
• Richard Dawkins (b. 1941): A prominent New Atheist who said, ""I would describe myself as a secular Christian in the same sense as secular Jews accept a feeling for nostalgia and ceremonies."^[40]

See too [edit]

• Asimov'south Guide to the Bible by Isaac Asimov
• Atheism in Christianity by Ernst Bloch
• Christian faithlessness
• Christian anarchism
• Christian communism
• Christian pacifism
• Christ myth theory
• Demythologization
• Lloyd Geering
• God-Edifice
• God Is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens
• Thorkild Grosbøll
• Jefferson Bible
• Jewish atheism
• Luboš Motl
• Nontheist Friends
• Nontheistic religion
• Postchristianity
• Robert Jensen
• Robert Thou. Price
• Bounding main of Faith
• Spiritual but not religious
• Spiritualism
• The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

References [edit]

1. ^ Ogletree, Thomas. "professor at Yale University". Retrieved vi Apr 2017.
2. ^ ^{a b c} Ogletree, Thomas W. The Decease of God Controversy. New York: Abingdon Press, 1966.
3. ^ ^{a b} Lyas, Colin. "On the Coherence of Christian Disbelief." The Journal of the Imperial Institute of Philosophy 45(171): 1970.
4. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Altizer, Thomas J. J. The Gospel of Christian Atheism. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1966.
5. ^ ^{a b c d} Altizer, Thomas J. J. and William Hamilton. Radical Theology and The Death of God. New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.,1966.
6. ^ https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2012/07/atheists.gif^{[ bare URL epitome file ]}
7. ^ https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2015/05/PR_15.05.12_RLS_chapter2-05.png^{[ bare URL image file ]}
8. ^ https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2015/05/12/chapter-2-religious-switching-and-intermarriage/
9. ^ ^{a b} God in Nederland' (1996–2006), past Ronald Meester, G. Dekker, ISBN 9789025957407
10. ^ ^{a b} Pigott, Robert (5 August 2011). "Dutch rethink Christianity for a doubtful world". BBC News . Retrieved 2 Oct 2011.
11. ^ "Does Your Pastor Believe in God?". albertmohler.com.
12. ^ Taylor, Humphrey (October 15, 2003). "While Almost Americans Believe in God, Just 36% Attend a Religious Service Once a Month or More than Often" (PDF). The Harris Poll #59. Archived from the original (PDF) on Dec half dozen, 2010.
13. ^ "Map: These are the world's least religious countries - The Washington Mail". The Washington Mail.
14. ^ https://static.attn.com/sites/default/files/Screenshot%202016-01-06%20at%201.36.34%20PM.png?auto=format&ingather=faces&fit=crop&q=60&w=736&ixlib=js-1.1.0^{[ bare URL prototype file ]}
15. ^ Jenkins, Simon (2018-05-04). "The Quakers are correct. We don't need God". the Guardian. Archived from the original on 2018-05-04. Retrieved 2021-12-02 .
16. ^ John Beversluis, C.S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion (Thousand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), p. 56.
17. ^ "The Problem with Liar, Lunatic, or Lord". The Bart Ehrman Blog. 17 January 2013. Retrieved 23 Nov 2020.
18. ^ "If Jesus Never Called Himself God, How Did He Become 1?". NPR.org. 7 Apr 2014. Retrieved 23 November 2020.
19. ^ "U.Southward. Heresy Trial. A 'Christian Atheist.'". The Times. No. 43667. 2 June 1924. p. xiii. col C.
20. ^ Craig, William Lane; Copan, Paul (ed.) (1998). Will the Real Jesus Please Stand up?: A Fence betwixt William Lane Craig and John Dominic Crossan. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books. ISBN 978-0801021756. OCLC 39633978.
21. ^ Blake, John (27 February 2011). "John Dominic Crossan'southward 'blasphemous' portrait of Jesus". CNN . Retrieved 1 July 2019.
22. ^ "Tidligere sognepræst og ateist Thorkild Grosbøll er død - 72 år". Idiot box ii (in Danish). Ritzau. eleven May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
23. ^ Lovely, Edward W. (2012). George Santayana'south Philosophy of Organized religion: His Roman Catholic Influences and Phenomenology. Lexington Books. pp. one, 204–206.
24. ^ "Santayana playfully called himself 'a Catholic atheist,' simply in spite of the fact that he deliberately immersed himself in the stream of Catholic religious life, he never took the sacraments. He neither literally regarded himself as a Catholic nor did Catholics regard him as a Catholic." Empiricism, Theoretical Constructs, and God, past Kai Nielsen, The Journal of Religion, Vol. 54, No. three (Jul., 1974), pp. 199–217 (p. 205), published past The University of Chicago Printing.
25. ^ Winston, Kimberly (June 13, 2014). "Frank Schaeffer, Former Evangelical Leader, Is A Self-Declared Atheist Who Believes In God". Huffington Post
26. ^ "Belarus president visits Vatican". BBC News. 27 April 2009. Retrieved 26 June 2010.
27. ^ "Studying Islam has made me an atheist". December 29, 2008.
28. ^ "This Firm Believes Faith Has No Place In The 21st Century". The Cambridge Wedlock Society. 31 January 2013. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12.
29. ^ "On the Maintenance of Culture". November 22, 2015.
30. ^ Holloway, Richard (7 May 2017). "Sunday Morning With..." BBC Radio Scotland. Archived from the original on vii May 2017. Alt URL
31. ^ Taylor, 280.
32. ^ "If Osama bin Laden were in charge, he would slit my throat; my God, I'1000 an atheist, a hedonist, and a faggot." Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America Dan Savage, Feather, 2002, p. 258.
33. ^ Anderson-Minshall, Diane (September thirteen, 2005). "Interview with Dan Savage". AfterElton.com.
34. ^ Spencer, Richard. "The Alt Correct and Secular Humanism". AltRight.com. Archived from the original on May 27, 2017. Retrieved January 28, 2017. McAfee: Are yous religious? Practice yous back up the Separation of Church and Country? Spencer: I'grand an atheist.
35. ^ Spencer, Richard. "'Nosotros're Not Going Anywhere:' Sentry Roland Martin Challenge White Nationalist Richard Spencer". YouTube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-12. Retrieved May v, 2017. Martin: Are you a Christian? Spencer: I'thousand an cultural Christian.
36. ^ "Paramaecium". Vibrations of Doom. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
37. ^ Andrew-Gee, Eric (16 March 2015). "Atheist government minister praises the glory of practiced at Scarborough church building". Toronto Star. Vosper herself is a bit heterodox on the question of Christ. Asked if she believes that Jesus was the son of God, she said, 'I don't think Jesus was.' That is, she doesn't retrieve He existed at all.
38. ^ S.A., Wirtualna Polska Media (2009-02-27). "Radio Maryja znów skrytykowane za antysemityzm". wiadomosci.wp.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2018-06-03 .
39. ^ "PANDEMIC! COVID-19 SHAKES THE WORLD".
40. ^ "Richard-Dawkins-I-am-a-secular-Christian".

Farther reading [edit]

• Soury, M. Joles (1910). Un athée catholique. E. Vitte. ASIN B001BQPY7G.
• Altizer, Thomas J. J. (2002). The New Gospel of Christian Atheism. The Davies Group. ISBNi-888570-65-ii.
• Hamilton, William, A Quest for the Post-Historical Jesus, (London, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1994). ISBN 978-0-8264-0641-5.
• Dennett, Daniel; LaScola, Linda (2010). "Preachers Who Are Not Believers" (PDF). Evolutionary Psychology. one (viii): 122–150. Retrieved fourteen February 2015.

External links [edit]

• Atheists for Jesus

harrispaide1957.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_atheism

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