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Evangelicals are now rejecting 'liberal' teachings of Jesus
(www.newsweek.com)
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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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I remain atheist at my deepest heart, but I understand after many years of wasting my time being wrong that anything which doesn't exist, also doesn't deserve any time wasted thinking about its finer details. In its own way, this deep dive into biblical archivism is just the Atheist's version of The Courtier's Reply.
Any honest Atheist, when pressed hard, has to concede the final thousandths of an inch to uncertainty and give the highest and strongest ground to the Agnostics, and that's really the one that allows for the most freedom. I use chemicals, some from my doctor and some from the store, to boost my mood and my productivity. Some people use Jesus or Allah or Idontfuckingcarereally, as long as they don't try to take my weed or my Vyvanse.
edit: we all do what we do to get by. If you're not harming anyone with your drug of choice, I say you should have as much of it you can handle without burning out.
Agnosticism is not the halfway point between atheism and theism. It is a question of knowledge, not belief.
Did I say halfway point? I think I specifically said something more resembling the tiny domains of delta that come into play as you endlessly approach the speed of light but never reach it. One can endlessly approach Atheism, but until you can somehow use logic to prove a negative, in the end, you are the one who is trafficking in false knowledge. If you were so sure - if you were as sure as I am that no deities exist - you wouldn't be wasting your time in this way, and particularly not resorting to deliberate mischaracterizations of what I said.
Atheism is about belief not about knowledge. You can identify as an Agnostic Atheist. Someone who doesn't believe in a god but knows it can't be demonstrated one way or another. I for example do that. You are mixing up the assertion of knowledge with the assertion of belief.
I identify as James from Arnes (Not James Arness, I have no gun).
I have a number of other "identities" that are applied to me due to my particular set of circumstances, but I'm James.
How nice for you.
It is true, as a white man in North America, I have the luxury of pretending I exist independently of all the labels. It's a delusion of course; all politics are identity politics. That being said, to purposely put one on yourself as a conscious choice seems like putting the yoke on yourself.
Are you my new best friend?
Yes, and also: one need not be a 'believer' to perceive, comprehend, and accept the utility functions that religious behaviors have accommodated (albeit inefficiently and with a significant amount of superfluous baggage) throughout history and within the human psyche.
As a tribal species, we function better when we have some kind of overarching organizational structure to inform individuals of their own (psychological and social) position relative to the community to which they belong, so as to better focus individual efforts toward cooperative goals. It's the heart of skill specialization that enabled us to become more than generalist hunter-gatherers, after all! Some kinds of cult-shaped collective gestalt entities will always emerge whenever the constituent humans of a community begin to specialize their expertise.
One of the elements that separate us from our ancestors is that we have an opportunity to synthesize an organizing system that features fewer of the maladaptive, exploitative, abusive traits of naturally arising cult entities.
(and by 'cult' I don't just mean religious - I also mean political, commercial, and recreational memetic entities too! Even fandoms are an example of this phenomenon!)
Jesus never existed
Just like your capacity for reading comprehension.
Oh, yeah, you're right that the present paradigm has outlived its usefulness, for sure.
But like any technology, not everybody has access to the latest developments.
It's unfortunate, but nevertheless true, that there are many places on earth where people have no other means of social support than the meager and dubious amenities provided by religious orders.
I'm sure there are those who might successfully litigate the argument that having no hospital at all could be construed as somehow better than having a hospital founded via religious means, and the imperialistic, colonizing aspects of missionary work, which directly damage cultures and societies on a generational scale, may indeed have caused more harm than the acute disease and occurrences of injury which they can treat on an individual basis - but that's not an argument I would personally back.
The corrupting mimetic contagion of religiosity can be inoculated-against while a society continues to benefit from the medical or nutritional support... although only if the society in question either learns how on its own, or is taught. Like most things in life, not quite so simply cut-and-dried, alas.