Why Attack Christianity?

[RevJP]

I was just wondering about reasons for what people do. I understand why Christians evangelize. Our faith tells us that we have an eternal soul and that the eternal dispensation of that soul is determined by what happens here on earth. Eternal life, living with the almighty God is based on our faith and acceptance of Him and failure to accept Him as Lord results in our eternal seperation from Him. The choice is clear, eternal glory, or eternal suffering.

So we are commanded to spread the Good news, to allow everyone to accept Christ, and we do so for the sake of their eternal soul, altruistic? Perhaps, but we do it out of love, His love working through us.

So what I am really wondering about is why non-believers need to attack our faith, or feel the need? narrowing it down a bit, why would a non-believer come to a Christianity discussion forum to denounce that faith, or try to persuade those there that their faith is wrong?

I'm really wondering at motivation. We understand the motivation of the Christian for spreading the Word of his/her faith, but what is the motivation for the non-beleiver to attack it? What do they gain or lose? What reward hinges upon them being successful or not at convincing someone to abandon their faith, or to turn away from considering adopting that faith?

If my faith is wrong, and there is no God, no heaven, no hell, what do I lose? In this life nothing, in eternity nothing? As a Christian I lose nothing. For the rabid non-beleiver however, the answer is quite different is it not? If their view is wrong and there is a God in heaven and a devil in hell, what do they lose?

So I'm wondering at why....

[Nyril]

I can't think of an atheist government that came to power in the last 60 years that was based on democratic values. For some reason, atheists tend to gravitate toward positions where state control is highly valued.

Interestingly enough, all of the religious governments I can think of as well that have come to power in the last 60 years are also based on totalitarian control.

[harvey1]

Interestingly enough, all of the religious governments I can think of as well that have come to power in the last 60 years are also based on totalitarian control.

Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot that Chairman Mao had converted to Christianity prior to more people dying in China than the Killing Fields and Holocaust combined.

[gonkm]

Atheism is a lack of belief in gods...it (atheism), in and of itself, is not a belief system. People who may have claimed to be atheists are certainly responsible for their fare share of atrocities. As to a 'larger number'...i have to dispute that. The man responsible for the largest mass murders in recent history was an avowed christian.

Hi. I just want to point out that the belief that "There is no God" is just as much a claim to know something as the belief "There is a God".

Also, I think that throwing back and forth comparisons as to "bad things done by christians" and "bad things done by non-christians" is rather pointless. If a person is concerned with what christianity is about they should look to what Jesus said and did. Not for the sake of "religion". But for the sake of what's real, who he was, and who he said he was.

What you have to understand here is what he offers. He offers his whole life up for whoever will have him. He wanted to show us what true love is like. I know I myself have begun for the first time to really think about loving others and God because of my belief in him.

Before Christ came Jews would recite "Teach us to love the Lord our God with all of our mind, heart, soul and strength"? It was Jesus who added something to this recitation. It was "To love our neighbor as ourselves". He came to teach us to love others.

This is the centrality of our faith.

There will be some who appear to be christians who will fall away. There will be some who will continue in unrighteousness and the Lord will say "I don't know where you are from".

Christianity is more than just religion. What I keep hearing in the arguments on this thread is a general dislike for religion. But its what we have to say about Christ that matters.

The term "Christianity" once meant "Christ followers". I assume that "the man responsible for the largest mass murders in recent history" is a reference to Hitler or Stalin or some such person. If you look at what Christ did and said, such a person was most definitely not a "Christ follower".

[bernee51]

Hi. I just want to point out that the belief that "There is no God" is just as much a claim to know something as the belief "There is a God".

Atheism is not a statement backed by a belief syetem which claims there is no god.
If theism is a belief in god, then atheism is merely a lack of belief in god. It is not necessarily a positive statement that there is no god - though some atheists will make this claim. Some atheists also will hold that the mythologial gods (such as the JCI god) do not exist but allow for the possibility that a god, yet to be defined, may exist.

If a person is concerned with what christianity is about they should look to what Jesus said and did. Not for the sake of "religion". But for the sake of what's real, who he was, and who he said he was.

What is 'real' IS the issue. Who he was (if he was) is not important. What he alledgedly said is of great importance - a pity though that so much has been misinterpreted.

I know I myself have begun for the first time to really think about loving others and God because of my belief in him.

So why could you not do it (love) for yourself, or for others - without the mythology?

It was Jesus who added something to this recitation. It was "To love our neighbor as ourselves". He came to teach us to love others.

He may have said that - but he was not the first. The so-called 'golden rule' pre-dates the alledged Jesus by a couple of millennia. It is found in some form in hinduism, buddhism, jainism, judaism, christianity, islam and many more.

This is the centrality of our faith.

As shown, it is part of the human experience - it has nothing to do with faith. It is my belief that it was this 'ethic of reciprocity' which was the main motivator for the evolution of our species.

Christianity is more than just religion.

You are right - christianity - in its translative form - is a way of translating the confusion that is the world into a simple belief system which leaves a warm fuzzy feeling. Chrisianity can be transformative ( are you familiar with Maester Eckhart, Theresa of Avila, Thomas Keating?)

The term "Christianity" once meant "Christ followers".

And what does it mean now?

[ST88]

However, the issue about atheism's track record as parties in control of state governments is much more disconcerting.

Trying to present ATHEISM as a monolithic philosophy with a genealogy as strictly controlled as a religion will result in failure. People in Communist, anti-religious regimes weren't killed in the name of atheism, they were killed because they represented a possible threat to the power of the regime. Religion provides a power structure that is separate from -- and some would say greater than -- the government. In such regimes, you can't have two masters (unless they agree with one another), so religion is out.

I can't think of an atheist government that came to power in the last 60 years that was based on democratic values. For some reason, atheists tend to gravitate toward positions where state control is highly valued.

There has only been one Atheist government in the history of the world: Hoxha's Albania. The others you may be thinking of -- Russia, China, etc. were/are merely anti-religious. And the ways they were anti-religious were actually kind of religious. The cult of deity worship was replaced not by the atheist sense of individualism & self-controlled manifest destiny, but by the worship of something else. All they did was replace the deity with either the state, the leader, or both. Many of those leaders became quasi-religious figures.

Of course, it's wrong to foist your beliefs on someone else, and no one's denying those states are horrible places to live, but your implication that atheism leads to totalitarianism is simply ludicrous. A tyrant will use whatever he can to gain and maintain power.

Of course, atheists accuse Christians of intolerance, but Christianity has been heavily involved in most of the liberty we've seen in history!

Please state such liberations.

[harvey1]

Trying to present ATHEISM as a monolithic philosophy with a genealogy as strictly controlled as a religion will result in failure. People in Communist, anti-religious regimes weren't killed in the name of atheism, they were killed because they represented a possible threat to the power of the regime.

I disagree. Here's a letter from Gorky to Stalin:

It is furthermore imperative to put the propaganda of atheism on solid ground. You won't achieve much with the weapons of Marx and materialism, as we have seen. Materialism and religion are two different planes and they don't coincide.

There has only been one Atheist government in the history of the world: Hoxha's Albania. The others you may be thinking of -- Russia, China, etc. were/are merely anti-religious. And the ways they were anti-religious were actually kind of religious. The cult of deity worship was replaced not by the atheist sense of individualism & self-controlled manifest destiny, but by the worship of something else. All they did was replace the deity with either the state, the leader, or both. Many of those leaders became quasi-religious figures.

The leaders of Russia in particular weren't stupid. They felt that religion was not easy to replace, and so they promoted religious-like beliefs in order to promote atheism. But, Marx and Engel's dielectical materialism which centered on atheism was the central belief system that fueled their entire philosophy.

Of course, atheists accuse Christians of intolerance, but Christianity has been heavily involved in most of the liberty we've seen in history!

Please state such liberations.

Well, Christianity and the West evolved together. Once Christians settled in Europe, and after the invasions of Europe (which were not over until the Muslims were finally defeated in the 9th century), the Christian world only needed about 3 centuries to bring about the Magna Carta. From that document, emerged a number of revolutionary documents, including the Constitution of the United States. Three centuries might seem like a long time, but Europe was devasted by 4 centuries of war.

[bernee51]

Well, Christianity and the West evolved together. Once Christians settled in Europe, and after the invasions of Europe (which were not over until the Muslims were finally defeated in the 9th century), the Christian world only needed about 3 centuries to bring about the Magna Carta. From that document, emerged a number of revolutionary documents, including the Constitution of the United States. Three centuries might seem like a long time, but Europe was devasted by 4 centuries of war.

It's hard to know whether this (fallacy) is a post hoc ergo propter hoc or a complex cause or a combination of both. Other than the magna carta, which incidentally was annulled by the Pope, the 'liberty' you refer to came after the Enlightenment - i.e. the power of the church was seen for what it really was - power. A clique with no real interest in the benefit and growth of society. It was not the christian church which brought about liberty but a reaction to it.

Christianity at the time of the magna carta was hardly promoting love of fellow man. From the site you cited "Jews were seen by the Church as a threat to their authority, and the welfare of Christians, because of their special relationship to Kings as moneylenders. "Jews are the sponges of kings", wrote the theologian William de Montibus, "they are bloodsuckers of Christian purses, by whose robbery kings dispoil and deprive poor men of their goods".

The anti-semitic attitudes came about in part because of Christian nobles who permited the otherwise illegal activity to occur, a symptom of the ongoing power struggle between Church and State."

[gonkm]

Atheism is not a statement backed by a belief syetem which claims there is no god.
If theism is a belief in god, then atheism is merely a lack of belief in god. It is not necessarily a positive statement that there is no god - though some atheists will make this claim. Some atheists also will hold that the mythologial gods (such as the JCI god) do not exist but allow for the possibility that a god, yet to be defined, may exist.

Webster Dictionary definition of atheisam: (a.) a disbelief in the existence of deity (b).the doctrine that there is no deity

Webster definition disbelief: mental rejection of something as untrue

Thus the atheist rejects the belief of the existance of God. He believes there is no God. There is no way around this, muddling the definition does not make claims that there is no God more true. They remain as foolish as ever.

What is 'real' IS the issue. Who he was (if he was) is not important. What he alledgedly said is of great importance - a pity though that so much has been misinterpreted.

So why could you not do it (love) for yourself, or for others - without the mythology?

I advise you to keep searching for what is real. Calling what I believe mythology does not make it less real. There are many good reasons for believing Jesus, try searching there. Or else go the opposite direction and try to prove that your claims that there is no God are real. Do this with all your heart. The truth is there to be found if you want to find it.

He may have said that - but he was not the first. The so-called 'golden rule' pre-dates the alledged Jesus by a couple of millennia. It is found in some form in hinduism, buddhism, jainism, judaism, christianity, islam and many more.

First of all, the golden rule usually refers to "Do to others what you would have done to yourself". This goes further to "Love your neighbor as yourself". Secondly I was not saying this was a new idea, but that it was important enough to God to be stated as the most important commandment aside from loving God. And that Jesus actually dared to add something to that which was stonefast tradition and righteousness in the minds of the religious leaders around him, and that this is what he chose.

The term "Christianity" once meant "Christ followers".

And what does it mean now?

The word Christianity has been degraded. Sometimes people call themselves a Christian just because they try to "do good", but deny its claims. Sometimes they call themselves a Christian for the sake of appearances (to appear good), while in their hearts they deny any truth to the claims of Christianity. Others claim to believe but do not worship in spirit (although such a person may be a christian who is still young in Christ and thus the results in their life may not yet be apparent). The true christian is a follower and believer of Jesus Christ. He worships both in truth and in spirit.

[ST88]

Trying to present ATHEISM as a monolithic philosophy with a genealogy as strictly controlled as a religion will result in failure. People in Communist, anti-religious regimes weren't killed in the name of atheism, they were killed because they represented a possible threat to the power of the regime.

I disagree. Here's a letter from Gorky to Stalin:

It is furthermore imperative to put the propaganda of atheism on solid ground. You won't achieve much with the weapons of Marx and materialism, as we have seen. Materialism and religion are two different planes and they don't coincide.

It's interesting that you use a letter from Gorky to bolster your hypothesis. By comparison to the rest of the revolutionaries, Gorky was a pacifist. He was against the violence of the Revoltion and was disappointed in Lenin:

Lenin's power arrests and imprisons everyone who does not share his ideas, as the Romanovs' power used to do.

To suggest that either Lenin or Stalin took Gorky's philosophy at its word is disingenuous. Stalin built up a personality cult using the methods of terror and intimidation and sought out alternative power centers to eliminate them.

The leaders of Russia in particular weren't stupid. They felt that religion was not easy to replace, and so they promoted religious-like beliefs in order to promote atheism. But, Marx and Engel's dielectical materialism which centered on atheism was the central belief system that fueled their entire philosophy.

Sort of, but not really. By the time of the October Revolution, this part of the Marx_Engels argument was insignificant. And the type of communism that arose in Russia did not depend on atheism so much as it depended on the absence of religious interference. The purging of the Trotskyites effectively put an end to even the glimmer of a theory of an atheist "state church". Trotsky himself detested the excesses and corruption of the Orthodox Church and was probably the most militant atheist because of this, but his departure was just one signal that atheism did not matter that much.

In the early years of the new Soviet nation, the discouragement of the Orthodox Church was gleefully supported by the Vatican, because it meant that the high-wealth properties in Russia and other Orthodox countries could be subsumed by Roman Catholic influence. In fact, churches that were not Orthodox were not molested by the Soviet government for five years after the Revolution.

in the summer of 1918 Catholics were allowed to hold, for the first time in Russian history, their sacred Corpus Christi procession, a priest openly carrying what they call the Blessed Sacrament, in the streets of Petrograd and at least one other city. The Bolsheviks actually favored the Roman against the Greek Catholics, and there was, this ideal witness assures us, no interference whatever with their religion until the summer of 1919, nearly two years after Lenin got power, and no "persecution" until three years after that. In 1920... Rome was still so intent upon friendship with the Soviet authorities that bodies of friars waited on the frontiers for the signal to march in and win the Russian people for the Vatican.

...[in 1929] the British government asked its ambassador in Moscow, Sir Esmond Ovey, for a report, and it contained this sentence which was read to the House of Commons by the Foreign Secretary, the pious Henderson -- the government was then under that arch-trimmer Ramsay Macdonald, ...a complete Agnostic -- on April 23 and reported in the press next day:

"There is no religious persecution in Russia, in the strict sense of the word persecution, and no case has been discovered of a priest or anyone else being punished for practicing religion."
-- Atheist Russia Shakes The World

But because the Vatican was rebuffed by the Soviets to replace the Orthodox Church as the dominant church of the Soviet Union, it became militant in its opposition to those Atheist Russians and started a propaganda campaign.

Well, Christianity and the West evolved together. Once Christians settled in Europe, and after the invasions of Europe (which were not over until the Muslims were finally defeated in the 9th century), the Christian world only needed about 3 centuries to bring about the Magna Carta. From that document, emerged a number of revolutionary documents, including the Constitution of the United States. Three centuries might seem like a long time, but Europe was devasted by 4 centuries of war.

You wish to hold up the Magna Carta as evidence that Christianity is a liberator? Pardon me, but that argument doesn't hold water. The Magna Carta was an agreement between English noblemen and King John to limit -- limit -- the power of the monarch in the face of an erstwhile rebellion. It was the culmination of many complicated intrigues much too elaborate to spell out here. Those who are interested can find a full, fairly objective account:
http://www.infokey.com/hon/magna.htm

[harvey1]

It's interesting that you use a letter from Gorky to bolster your hypothesis. By comparison to the rest of the revolutionaries, Gorky was a pacifist. He was against the violence of the Revoltion and was disappointed in Lenin: (...)To suggest that either Lenin or Stalin took Gorky's philosophy at its word is disingenuous. Stalin built up a personality cult using the methods of terror and intimidation and sought out alternative power centers to eliminate them.

I'm not suggesting that he took them at his word. I only suggest that it reflects the attitudes of what was important to Stalin (which Gorky was in position to know). My take on it is that Gorky was trying to create a more positive perspective of atheism which Stalin may or may not have been open to.

The leaders of Russia in particular weren't stupid. They felt that religion was not easy to replace, and so they promoted religious-like beliefs in order to promote atheism. But, Marx and Engel's dielectical materialism which centered on atheism was the central belief system that fueled their entire philosophy.

Sort of, but not really. By the time of the October Revolution, this part of the Marx_Engels argument was insignificant. And the type of communism that arose in Russia did not depend on atheism so much as it depended on the absence of religious interference. The purging of the Trotskyites effectively put an end to even the glimmer of a theory of an atheist "state church". Trotsky himself detested the excesses and corruption of the Orthodox Church and was probably the most militant atheist because of this, but his departure was just one signal that atheism did not matter that much.

ST88, Marxists even to this day consider dielectical materialism the core of their belief system. I've debated Marxists at length, and atheist-materialism is much more important than communism to them. Here's one such document which I think is pretty accurate.

The theories of Marxism are based on a scientific method of thought called dialectal materialism; to be clear there is no one answer to a question -- theory is based on a particular set of conditions that are always finite, and thus, any theory is necessarily limited. To test the validity of theory, Marxists rely on empirical evidence as the criteria of truth.

Here's an article by Lenin titled "MATERIALISM and EMPIRIO-CRITICISM". These are not the words of a mere politician. They are words of a philosophically trained individual. I don't think you can ignore how philosophically aware these leaders were, and how much they valued their atheist ideals for the nation. Can you imagine what they must have thought of the naive thoughts of U.S. presidents who might have thought that Mach was a race car driver?

But because the Vatican was rebuffed by the Soviets to replace the Orthodox Church as the dominant church of the Soviet Union, it became militant in its opposition to those Atheist Russians and started a propaganda campaign.

I don't dispute this. I'm not saying they were always brutal to religion, just that atheists shouldn't be so quick to brush off their attempts of a government as having nothing to do with their atheist ideals. I think their atheist ideals were very close to their heart in establishing a scientifically aware society. I used to debate a ex-Soviet Union physicist who talked a great deal of how our undergrad science education system is all taught in junior high and high school in the old Soviet republics. This was no joke. The Soviets believed that atheism-materialism would replace "superstitions" of the West, and that as a result, our society would eventually be found lacking compared to the progress of their philosophy in producing better minds.

You wish to hold up the Magna Carta as evidence that Christianity is a liberator? Pardon me, but that argument doesn't hold water. The Magna Carta was an agreement between English noblemen and King John to limit -- limit -- the power of the monarch in the face of an erstwhile rebellion. It was the culmination of many complicated intrigues much too elaborate to spell out here. Those who are interested can find a full, fairly objective account:

Causal relationships in history are very difficult to establish (of course!). I ask that you consider not just England, but rather consider what was happening all over Europe around the same time, which ultimately culminated into the Protestant Revolution as well as the establishment of later democracies. Here is, I think, a good description of what was happening around that time (this guy did a good job, so I'll use his website).

In places where the trend toward freedom was blocked, attempts were made to establish it through violence. In 1070 the people of Le Mans formed a commune and rose against their lord -- a rebellion that failed. In 1077 people of the town of Cambrai rebelled against an Episcopal overlord. And in 1112 a bishop in England who tried to suppress a commune was hacked to pieces.

This undercurrent drive for liberty, I think, is a characteristic of Christianity. The emphasis of liberty in the Christian scriptures is very powerful (I used the old King James version to get closer to the thinking of the times...):

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.

Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised

As for the Magna Carta, you can read the MC at this link and see the number of references to Christianity:

"by the grace of God"
"having regard to God and for the salvation of our soul"
"unto the honor of God and the advancement of his holy Church"
"we have granted to God"
"the English Church shall be free"
"chosen by the honest men" (a Pauline scriptural reference)
"for God and the amendment of our kingdom"

It's not my intent to debate this at length. I did want to set the record straight, though.