Posted on 05/02/2015 7:59:49 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
When I tell my socially progressive, atheist friends that I’m “culturally Christian,” they’re momentarily concerned that I have a latent preoccupation with guns and the Pledge of Allegiance. Using the term with devout believers gets me instructions that I just need to read more sophisticated theology to come around.
I’ve tried hard to accept my fully secular identity, and at other times I’ve tried to read myself into theistic belief, going all the way through divinity school as part of the effort. Still, I remain unable to will myself into any belief in God or gods — but also unable to abandon my relationship to the Episcopalian faith into which I was born and to the ancient stories from which it came.
And though I am without a god, I am not alone.
The group of nonbelievers dubbed “Nones” in the media — because they don’t mark religious affiliation on demographic surveys — grew from 15 percent of the U.S. population to 20 percent between 2007 and 2012; almost a third of them are under 30. These are the people who identify with ambivalent, ambiguous statements like “I’m spiritual, but not religious”; “I’m kind of agnostic”; “Now I’m an atheist, but I grew up Catholic”; or “I believe in something, but I don’t know if it’s God.” There are those of us, too, who still feel a profound connection to the Christianity we grew up with but who can no longer — or never could — connect those feelings to theistic belief. Some miss the ritual of singing in unison or wishing peace to their neighbors in a pew. Others miss feeling grounded in a community where they can celebrate life’s milestones and heartbreaks. Some find secular life lacking in sufficient ethical frameworks and systems of accountability to reinforce them.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I often wish that cultural Christians would just drop the act and become atheists or buddhists or whatever. I get tired of them saying, “I’m a Christian too, but I just don’t believe...”
Billy Joel is a “cultural Jew”. First time he said that was first time I heard the expression. I have plenty of acquaintances that are “cultural Christians”.
WH% do those terms mean?
And are there “cultural muslims?”
Lunatic... perhaps she should try reading Lewis’ Mere Christianity to understand what Christianity is all about
“agnostic (n.)
1870, “one who professes that the existence of a First Cause and the essential nature of things are not and cannot be known” [Klein]; coined by T.H. Huxley (1825-1895), supposedly in September 1869, from Greek agnostos “unknown, unknowable,” from a- “not” + gnostos “(to be) known”
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=agnostic
ignoramus (n.)
1570s, from an Anglo-French legal term (early 15c.), from Latin ignoramus “we do not know,” first person present indicative of ignorare “not to know” (see ignorant). The legal term was one a grand jury could write on a bill when it considered the prosecution’s evidence insufficient. Sense of “ignorant person” came from the title role of George Ruggle’s 1615 play satirizing the ignorance of common lawyers.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=ignoramus&searchmode=none
“AGNOSTIC” sounds so much more sophisticated than “IGNORAMUS”, though the meaning is the same (less your ‘nuances’).
There’s a church for people like that - the Unitarian Church. Everybody can believe what they want and still come together for church suppers. Mixed marriage couples, like Jewish-Catholic, can raise the kids nominally Christian and the service won’t offend the Jewish parent because the church doesn’t insist on the divinity of Jesus.
If you take out CHRIST .. there is NO CHRISTIANITY .. THERE’S ONLY ...IANITY.
Hmmmmm ..????? That sounds similar to INSANITY to me.
Without Christ .. there is no life.
The so-called Episcopalian church has become the “high church” version of Unitarianism. No faith, no true beliefs, but the trappings of Christianity retained for the nonbelievers who want pancakes on Shrove Tuesday to go with liberal orthodoxy from the pulpit.
This is why I left the rotting corpse of the episcopal church a few years ago.
What a load of drivel.
Liberation Theology at its best.
The KGB plan is in full flower.
The Man said something like, he comes to “fulfill the law”.
Too late, “Christians” like this will find that the Law, or as they would say, Karma, has a nasty habit of coming around and biting you in the ass.
You observe the rituals but have no faith or belief in them.
And are there “cultural muslims?”
Yes.
Self deluded people like the author of this article, do ~NOT~ trust in Jesus, but instead in their blindness seek (and arrogance) seek to “work” for their salvation.
You did notice her attraction to “social activism” and where “godless” works lead to??
Indeed so.
The only time you heard God mentioned in a Unitarian Church
was when the janitor fell down the stairs.
The difference between knowing the truth and believing it. Head-knowledge vs. heart-knowledge.
When I was a kid a a speaker at a camp I attended referred to this as “missing Heaven by 18 inches”.
Tragic.
bmp
All these people think they are onto something so original and radical. In reality it is just a rehash of Desist movement so popular in the 18th century. These people never heard of Voltaire, Jefferson, and Hume? Jefferson did a cut and paste job on the Bible. John Adams was a Unitarian. Frederick the Great was at best a Deist and was hostile to Christianity in his private thoughts. The French Revolution renamed Notre Dame to The Temple of Reason. The foundational problem with this movement is they have taken for granted the Judeo-Christian value system. If you throw out the baby with the bath water then why should an individual consider dignity and empathy as “good”. That is what Nietzsche was trying to get at in his writing.
"If you take 'Christ' out of 'Christian', all you have is 'I-A-N'; and Ian cannot save you."
Funny quip. But true.
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