Religionless Christianity / Sam Harris answers
Gary Eickmeier makes a point about "religionless Christianity".
We all know what is meant by "religionless Christianity." It is evangelicals reading the bible and interpreting it on their own, without some church telling them what to believe. They think this is the purest form of Christianity.
Even TV preachers don't follow the Bible. They follow their own theology uniquely adapted to television evangelism. It is not any more or less legitimate than any other theology. For that matter, how are we to determine that ANYONE is reading the Bible at all ? For all we know, no one is reading the Bible. I prefer my distinction between "practical atheism" and "practical religious", because it goes to the root of the religious problem, which is behaviour, not belief per se.
After his ground-breaking article, some Christians complained. So... Sam Harris Takes on the Muslim Cartoon Controversy and his Critics.
I would be the first to admit that the prospects for eradicating religious dogmatism in our world do not seem good. Still, the same could have been said about efforts to abolish slavery at the beginning of the 19th century. Anyone who spoke about eradicating slavery in the United States around 1810 surely appeared to be wasting his time, and wasting it dangerously. The analogy is not perfect, but it is suggestive.
Good point, Sam. Stefan Molyneux made the same analogy with defeating belief in government. It doesn't matter if it's even possible, the truth is the truth. And I would add also, that the truth will set YOU free, regardless of whether it can set everyone else free or not...
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Excellent points on both issues. My perennial question to Christians on matters of orthodoxy goes right to this: how is the Bible to be interpreted correctly, and how can we know that we are doing so?
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