Atheist brings reality to Liberal Protestant
Jan 27th, 2010 by Peter
I liked this one. H/t Northern Plains Anglicans.
Marilyn Sewell (Liberal “Christian”): The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?
Christopher Hitchens (Atheist): I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.
Beautiful, an atheist knows Christian integrity better than a “liberal christian.” This is why the mainstream church is declining, the “world out there” understands what a Christian is better than the liberals.
Beautiful. The Athiest speaks the gospel without belief. The “liberal protestant” spouts forth without the gospel and without belief.
Awfully judgmental there, Sam, don’t ya think?
This type of encounter reminds me of the seven sons of Sceva who were not believers and were put in their place by someone else who was also definitely not a believer. (Acts 19:13-17)
#3 I don’t think so, not particularly.
Wouldn’t a better title be “An Atheist and an Agnostic Talk”? I guess it isn’t very catchy from a news perspective, though.
This is another one of those “why the blazes is this even on the blog” type things to me. God tells us in His Holy Word that we are not to be unequally yoked and this little story just says to me….Do we have nothing better to discuss!
2 Corinthians 6:14-16
14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? 15 And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 16 And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said:
I will dwell in them, And walk among them.
I will be their God, And they shall be My people.
OK….so we give this “junk” some print, likely it will be to the betterment of our Christian Community and will just tend to show the atheist does have a better grasp on things than the liberal “Christian” who has a grasp on nothing.
At least the atheist knows what he/she thinks and believes it to be true.
The difference between the atheist and the solid Christian is so simple.
Being a Christian, IF my stand is wrong, I have lost nothing, but…. IF my stand is correct I have gained everything (eternal life).
IF the atheist is right, he has gained nothing…. BUT, IF he is wrong HE has lost everything.
Pascal’s Wagger
It was good for a bit of a chuckle
Can some editor please change the headline - it’s a-the-ist (no-god-believer) not the superlative of Athy (as of 18:24 EST, I see “Athiest brings reality”. Thanks.
Incidentally, a quick Google for Marilyn Sewell shows she self-identifies as UU - Unitarian Universalist at http://www.marilynsewell.com/.
Henry,
Thanks for pointing that out - fixed.
Thanks David - it was in the original posting, I left them a comment, too.
Hey Henry, I’m reminded of the time you roasted a snowball in the oven to determine a snowball’s chance in hell!
Actually it was on top of the maple taffy stove at the Log Farm. Sizzled nicely but briefly.
***
I should point out that Pascal’s Wager is not a simple two-way proposition - if the Norse legends were true, after all, all of us Christians could wind up in a pretty unpleasant afterlife. Of course, if I recall correct, so would everyone else, anyway. A depressing mythos - go to Hel now, or tarry in Valhalla then fight and lose in Ragnarok later. How much boiled pork could you stand? Almost as bad as Sartre’s Hell in Huis Clos!
In a very real sense, Pascal’s Wager embodies (no pun intended) a serious error that might even be a heresy, that “eternal life” is the same as “afterlife”. Christ told us that we already have eternal life (zoe). See John 1:12, 3:16, and 5:24; also I John 5:13.
An interesting sidelight some of you may enjoy is the American Freethought review of Spong’s book Eternal Life - the reviewer dubs Spong an “honorary atheist”. And in the comments a couple of people thank Spong for leading them from faith to atheism!?!
Oh my!
I don’t see how that follows, Henry. How does Pascal’s wager confuse eternal life with afterlife?
That fact that someone would thank Spong for leading him to atheism, together with the fact that Spong was never disciplined for his views and allowed to retain his clerical collar, is in a nutshell an excellent reason for the existence of ACNA.
Because I know that I have eternal life now - it’s not about “pie in the sky when you die”.
I suppose, but I have always seen it as more of a logic statement. It’s not a creed, after all, just an argument for belief.
I just came across this amazing observation “without God there would be no atheists.” grabs ya don’t it!
#17: I am a disbeliever in the existence of mermaids. Without mermaids, is there no me? (I realize I’m sort of missing your point; non-mermaid-believers are not a specific group of thinkers with a handy one-word tag to describe them, but if mermaids were known to exist then this group may well be more prominent, and have a name. Nonetheless, this axiom or whatever it is about God and atheists doesn’t “grab” me. Sorry.)
#7: one thing I’ve never understood about this notorious wager: surely God doesn’t cherish the belief of those who offer it merely on account of such a cold and selfish calculation!
rockfalter,
On your first point - as I’m sure you realise - stuck takes God’s existence as a given. Therefore: no God; no Creator: no creation; no atheists.
On your second point. I’m not inclined to disagree; Pascal’s wager does have the flaw that to believe something to be true as an insurance policy is not really to believe it to be true.