Is this the first step towards realistic thought?
2006-09-08 02:52:23 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Interesting thought, but no. The Bible contradicts itself. Believers are compelled to rejct parts of it as a result. Of course, they won't admit they rejected it. They'll say Jesus fulfilled it away or 'oh you just have to understand the context', or all kinds of similar excuses.
I suppose liberal Christians who do not worship the Bible might be considered freethinkers, as long as they are willing to expose themselves to information that tends to challenge their position, and are willing to question their beliefs. Those are really the defining aspect of freethought.
2006-09-08 02:56:39 · answer #1 · answered by lenny 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's a start, but there's an even more extreme position. You may want to look up a guy called John Spong, he's a retired Episcopalian bishop who promotes an almost rationalist version of Christianity.
If 75% of Americans believed in THAT kind of Christianity, there wouldn't be this sort of believer/nonbeliever tension. Here are his tenets:
1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.
2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.
3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.
4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ's divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.
5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.
6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.
7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.
8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.
9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.
10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.
11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.
12. All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.
Really interesting guy.
2006-09-08 04:01:43 · answer #2 · answered by rorgg 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i am a catholic. i am a freethinker, open to any possibilities. but my faith holds steadfast deep within me. realistic thought, yes, often do i use such in my life. but it doesn't endanger or debunk my belief in the Lord. nope, i don't disregard any portion of the bible. but realize this, everyone has different interpretation of the holy bible's messages, different manner of observing his obligations to the lord, different approaches in praying to the lord, diiferent practice of his religion... so many differences but one in faith...
2006-09-08 03:04:22 · answer #3 · answered by VeRDuGo 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Ya it could happen.
fortunately, there are some belivers out there who do not disregard parts of the bible.
2006-09-08 02:55:11 · answer #4 · answered by Chris K 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is much to be learned in the entire Bible.
Realistic thought depends on reality--what is more real than the Word of God our Creator?
2006-09-08 02:55:06 · answer #5 · answered by CatholicMOM 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It seems to me what is happening is that as time goes by we are finding that some things in the bible just dont coinside with scientific findings, and we must remember it is a manmade book
2006-09-08 03:08:07 · answer #6 · answered by pookahantiz 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Someone who does not believe ALL of the Bible is not a believer.
2006-09-08 02:58:44 · answer #7 · answered by ♥honey♥ 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Every part of the scripture is God breathed and I would not disregard any word from God.
2006-09-08 02:55:01 · answer #8 · answered by Grandma Susie 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
nah, makes 'em catholic. The catholics have taken out several parts of the bible that they didn't like or didn't think the "general population" would understand
2006-09-08 02:59:33 · answer #9 · answered by mxzptlk 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope, they are becoming what I like to call Convenient Christians.
Wonder if I should trademark that?
2006-09-08 03:06:01 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋