To ask if you are not a Christian, what non Christian values you live by?

[BlossomBlanket]

Just that really!

That isn't what it's all about for me. The objection I have is that specifically the Christian faith is still used daily to persecute members of the LGBT community. It would be great if that could stop. But given the fact that sex between gay people is considered just as bad as killing someone, I don't hold out a lot of hope.

The other objection I have is that the writings of Paul are still used daily to subjugate and oppress women. It would also be great if that could stop.

And yes, I know other faiths do it too, therefore my objection extends to all organised religion, not just Christianity. I absolutely would say this to any Muslim, Jew, Hindu - face to face, loud and proud.

You're right, of course it would be absurd (albeit perhaps in a different way) to believe in nothing at all. In fact, I think it would more than likely be simply impossible. Try to imagine not believing that if you held your head under water in the bath too long it would harm you ... or that buses sometimes stop at bus stops ... or that 2 + 2 is usually the same as 1 + 3 ... or that you're reading this ... ...

I suspect you meant something else, a thought confirmed by your "Pure materialism ..." Not believing in an omniscient omnipotent omnibenevolent creator of the universe doesn't entail a belief in materialism, however defined, although I am aware some think it does. (I'm unclear about "pure" in this context, but never mind.)

I'm interested in belief. What is it? What does "belief" mean? (Is that two questions, or just one?) Any thoughts?

I think you have this more-or-less precisely back to front.

Actually, because some facts and evidence can be trusted, the "postmodern chaos" you refer to is far from obligatory.

(Examples of facts and evidence you can trust? 'what goes up usually comes down' ... 'the square on the hypotenuse in a right-angled Euclidean triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides' ... 'having a comfortable bed helps me sleep at night' ... and so on. I'm sure you can add some yourself.)

A belief in "postmodern chaos" and those peculiar epistemological power-relations is possibly absurd (in still another way).

(I wonder: what, if anything, do you think follows from the lack of any transcendental signified?)

That’s not Jesus, it’s St Paul who certainly was a person of his time.

Why is the alternative to believing in Christianity to believe in nothing at all?
What has materialism got to do with atheism?
Why is the atheist view weakly evidenced?

Why is the alternative to believing in Christianity to believe in nothing at all?

I think this is a comforting dichotomy for some people. I don't know why they think it's needed, or why they need to think that not having a faith is somehow 'lesser'. In real life of course, believers and non believers are all as complicated as each other, and are all a mix of the good and the less good. Believing one is superior is what has shaped the world we are in today, and it isn't a positive thing.

@pointythings "The objection I have is that specifically the Christian faith is still used daily to persecute members of the LGBT community."

Daily?

Really?

How?

"But given the fact that sex between gay people is considered just as bad as killing someone, "

Where is this stated?

Daily, really, yes. Because as you are bound to be well aware, in many African countries (Uganda springs to mind as one of the worst), gay people are not free to love who they love, marry who they love, have a family life with who they love. The laws of their country forbid it and they risk jail. Uganda tried to introduce the death penalty for gay sex and was only dissuaded by the threat to withhold international aid. And all of this is enthusiastically aided and abetted by the Church in those countries - often the Anglican Church.

Why do you not want to believe that when a quick Google will tell you it is true?

On the matter of sin and sexual immorality, the list of what is considered mortal sin varies between and within Christian faith branches, but if you look at the lists available, matters of sex occur with a frequency bordering on the obsessive. And yes, sexual immorality and murder are often on the same list, i.e. a list of mortal sins.

i've also just been down an interesting rabbit hole about the concept of 'porneia', which some Biblical scholars take to include sexual acts between a man and his wife if they are not intended for the purpose of procreation. So by those rules, mutual masturbation between a married couple is a mortal sin. Can you see how ridiculous that looks in the context of the moral world?

It would be so much better if religions (all of them!) kept their noses out of what consenting people of age and free from other relationships do together in terms of sex. It's prurient, controlling and pathetic and I take issue with it as an atheist because those concepts are still used to justify the drafting of laws that lead to oppression and persecution. I'm a human being with a conscience and so that matters to me.

@pointythings It's prurient, controlling and pathetic and I take issue with it as an atheist because those concepts are still used to justify the drafting of laws that lead to oppression and persecution. I'm a human being with a conscience and so that matters to me.

So will you be picketing the Iraq Embassy because they have just reduced the Age of Consent for girls to 8 years?

Are you involved in campaigning against FGM?

and women in some Muslim countries being stoned to death for adultery?

How about "honour killings" do they show on your radar?

Have you lobbied your MP for an investigation into the Muslim Rape Gangs scandal?

If not you are just cherry-picking the sexual issues that suit your agenda and don't have a genuine broad-brush approach.

Most of what you've mentioned are solid reasons, in part, as to why many atheists are atheist.

Because why would any God want that kind of thing to happen to ANY of their children / followers?

How are those things actions of a loving deity?

I have a very vivid memory of the moment I knew the faith my grandparents had was a pile of crap. My grandmother was dying. She was dying in a hospital style bed in her home and we arrived to visit to the sound of my grandfather screaming at her that because she needed looking after, he couldn't attend some church event and now God and the church would think badly of him.

Sounds like a properly loving God, right? Just the kind of thing we should be teaching people. Attend things for God or you'll be considered bad.

I mean, I already kind of knew it was a pile of crap because my mother was kicked out for being pregnant with me and my grandfather also told me I'd never be allowed to join the church (so sad). But that moment cemented it for me.

@esthersouwester that's your defence? 'Other faiths are doing it too'?

Two wrongs do not make a right. And yes, I do what I can within my financial and time envelope to agitate for women in all situations. I'm opposed to all rape gangs (because of course you know full well that grooming gangs are not exclusively Muslim).

Your post is not the 'gotcha' you think it is, but it does neatly expose where you are coming from. Your first response should not have been 'well, Muslims do it too'. It should have been 'This kind of behaviour is to be condemned irrespective of the faith background of those perpetrating it'. But you didn't say that. Why not?

@pointythings I don't know a great deal about the Anglican church in Uganda or other African countries other than they obviously tend to be more conservative, but I find it hard to believe they are allowed to remain in communion with the Anglican Church and encourage discrimination, violence or the death penalty in the way you're suggesting? Are you saying the official Anglican church is actively promoting those things in Africa? I know the last Pope spoke out against the Uganda thing but wasn't aware the Anglican church there had taken a hard line.

I'm not sure how your anecdote about your grandfather proves anything about God or faith as a whole. Was he abusive? Or was this some sort of controlling cult? It's stretching credulity that a normal church would have been anything other than sympathetic to the circumstances so I imagine your grandfather was having a tantrum for his own reasons. Obviously stressful circumstances and some men can be horrible when their wives are ill.

@IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos So I put the same question to you, what are you doing about these "wrongs"?

And i think you should show some compassion for your grandfather. Here we have a deeply religious elderly gentleman who is out of his mind with grief having to watch his beloved wife of years die in front of him. He feels powerless, angry and betrayed and abandoned by God.

If you had ever spent any time with Marie Curie nurses you would know that people deal with grief in different ways and if you can't accept that sometimes what they say and do could be deemed inappropriate (by others) you totally lack any real understanding of human nature.

If you spent any time with my grandfather you'd know different.

Let's get one thing straight - I'm not answerable to you.

Having said that, it seems you are quick to throw brickbats at Christianity ( which tells me you have some kind of an issue with it) but turn a blind eye to far worse abuses of women by other religions

Then you become indignant when I flag up this dichotomy.

Either you're against womens' right abuses or you aren't.
As I said just stop 'cherry-picking'.

It's a well known religion, that I grew up hearing about from my grandparents. I can acknowledge that they have relaxed about some things in more recent times (my mum and her family still have friends in the church).

But I heard the tantrum myself, I wasn't a young child, I knew his behaviour beforehand and I knew that his church would "talk" if he missed this thing.

The anecdote is because it made me wonder what kind of "all loving" God would allow this? And what kind of person would want to follow one who did?

Why do you keep posting about other religions, though? People are posting about why they don't personally subscribe to Christianity and/or why they don't believe their whole moral worldview has been inherited from it. Your posts aren't really relevant.

This is a man who reported his own daughter to the church for getting pregnant outside of marriage. Despite the fact they were engaged and married before I was born.

It's a man who spent his entire life putting the church above his family.

It's a man who referred to me as "that child" or the "reason his daughter was going to hell" for my whole childhood, but was completely loving to my cousins.

It's a man for whom screaming at his dying wife wasn't out of character.

So yes, people are entitled to compassion. But I'm also allowed to know that my grandfather wasn't a nice man and all his actions were "justified" by his church and his beliefs.

You can decide that that makes me not a nice person if you want. But for me, it's just evidence that some (extreme) religious beliefs are bad. And following some to the letter makes people do bad things.

Me having a negative experience of a religion doesn't make me a bad person, simply because I see it how it was.

@IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos
Do you mind me asking which group it was? I'm imagining Plymouth Brethren or something of that ilk. There are some extreme sects which are very problematic. As far as God allowing things to happen, assuming he does exist then he probably isn't very impressed with what a lot of people do in his name. I suppose that comes down to how interventionist you think he should be. But shouting at your dying wife would certainly be discouraged in any major religion.

I'd rather not, because the story is quite outing for my family, if any of the many people who know us are on here. But more "common place", less niche.

The title of this thread is " To ask if you are not a Christian, what non Christian values you live by?"

I think that covers other religions, don't you?

It's strange that no-one from other religions has responded (so far)

Your posts aren't relevant to the people you are responding to.

If I, and other posters, were professing to believe in Islam, then your responses attacking Islam would be relevant.

You don't need to convince me, IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos or any other non-Muslims not to believe in Islam.

In my case, I expressed that I found it hard to understand why the Son of God did not denounce slavery. Your response was, essentially, "well Muslims didn't either"...well, so what?

Sounds like JWs to me.

Incidentally, they are not classed as a "Christian" denomination.