This isn’t really that strange. To an atheist, there is a conclusion he/she has come to which is that there is (likely) no God, and therefore all religions are wrong.
To a follower of Jesus, they have come to the conclusion that Jesus, as described in the Bible exists, and that therefore all (other) religions, and non-religions that don’t accept this are wrong.
Follower’s of Jesus don’t accept religion is right / accurate. They accept a very specific set of facts as described in the Bible.
So one can still use this set of facts as a basis for their morality, without accepting religion’s as whole have anything to offer in regards to morality.
If I wasn’t a follower of Jesus, I’d be an atheist. It makes a lot more sense to me than any religion.
From an outsider’s perspective, this position also appears to be very hypocritical.
If two people from two different religious traditions disagree on what is moral, then who is right? It would seem to me that religion doesn’t provide an objective morality because it is all relative to someone’s subjective opinion on which religion is right.
And from a Christian’s perspective, if two people, one who is religious and one who isn’t disagree on what is moral, than who is right?
It makes no more sense to lump all religions together, than it does to lump all non-Christians together.
You as an atheist have looked at the evidence and concluded there isn’t (or isn’t likely a God).
I as a Christian, have looked at the evidence and concluded that Jesus as described in the Bible is factual.
However, your assumptions seem to be, that Christians first concluded religion made sense, then concluded that Christianity was the “best” religion, but this would be incorrect. Religions in general make no more sense to me than they do to you.
That’s where moral philosophy comes in. We determine what human society wants as a whole, and that is the foundation of secular humanism. We determine who is right by what makes sense to us as humans and through human reason. We don’t determine what is moral by what someone wrote in a book thousands of years ago.
Actually, it makes a lot of sense to lump all humans together and discuss what we want from society as humans.
Others have looked at the evidence and concluded that Muhammad was God’s true prophet, and the Koran is God’s command to us. Others have believed in other prophets, all of which also claim to have access to what God wants, and they often disagree with one another.
Look up Josh McDowells testimony sometime. He was exactly in your shoes. He could not understand why Christians seemed rational good people yet subscribed to what he thought was a foolish worldview. So he set out to disprove the Christian faith where he centered attention on falsifying the resurrection. As you may know, he has ever since been one of the leading apologists of the faith. His son is Sean at Biola. He subscribes to an old earth creationist view but he is doing good work as an apologist for Christianity as his dad. The book “more than a carpenter” by the dad a simple read.
I think you are conflating to things here. The first is what is moral, and the second how we want society to operate.
We’ll have to disagree on the best place to get our morals from as that is fundamentally linked to what each of has concluded is the set of facts about the reality of Jesus existence.
In regards to the second question, we are a pluralistic society, where individuals will each have a source for their morals, some of which be in conflict with each other. However this conflict only exists in two cases. 1) Where someone believes it is necessary to enforce their morals on another person. 2) Where there is a “3rd party” that requires protection and we disagree based on our morals on what is right in regards to that protection.
I don’t believe resolving these two issues is really a question for the source of our morals, but instead a discussion between all humans on how to live together pluralistic society.
As a Christian, the only place in practice that I feel I fundamentally disagree with the morality enforced by our laws is on the question of abortion, which falls into 2) to above, and which I believe my position against abortion can be argued, without being based on a “religious” argument.
The Government should NOT to part of any woman’s health and reproductive decisions. That is what the whole abortion debate about - What is the Government’s role in any woman’s health and reproductive decisions. I say that the Government’s role is to minimize harm, to educate, to make sure care is safe, available, and not cost prohibitive.
You keep talking about abortion as a moral issue. It isn’t. It is about the role of Government in the private lives of woman to live their lives as they chose.
I don’t see what that has to do with what I wrote.
For the record, I think Christians are good, rational people because they use their human sense of morality.
We have laws, so we obviously force morality on people. Morals are our ideas of how we ought to treat one another, so it is impossible to separate the question of morality from human society.
I do think there is a valid debate over abortion within a secular setting. We both agree that this issue should be discussed and debated. However, it is a hot button topic so I don’t want to take the conversation down that road.
One last reply, then I have to get back to work… I don’t really think we are that far apart in practice.
I believe that morals encompass much more than how we treat one another. However, interestingly, I think most religions, and the non-religious agree for the most part on how we should treat one another, so in practice coming to agreement on this isn’t that difficult. (As a Christian, this is not surprising to me as I believe we were all made in the Image of God, which includes an innate sense of right and wrong).
I don’t see what that has to do with what I wrote.
Agreed. I mentioned it to show only how close we are in practice to agreeing on how society should operate.
So how would one be a Christian secular humanist? To say that “human reason” is used is almost so vague as to be meaningless. Just because you think doesn’t make you a humanist, let alone a secular humanist does it? Isn’t it more the exclusive use of human reason that defines the secular humanist, that it’s human reason alone? In that case I have a hard time seeing how a Christian could be a secular humanist. Also, every definition I’ve found for secular humanist includes philosophical, and not just methodological, naturalism. That seems pretty much like a deal breaker to me for the Christian.
We can’t go around passing laws because they are in the Bible. We can’t go around passing laws just because Evangelicals say it’s Biblical.
Being “Secular Humanist” is how America functions in the public arena… and it was the thousands of protestant preachers living in the time of the American Revolution that made sure of this!
The one thing these preachers didn’t want to happen was for some kind of National Anglican Church rising up to oppress the smaller denominations or congregations … which is what happened in Britain over and over, whenever the main church had the chance!
So wouldn’t it be better to say something like “in public and political discourse, we adopt a secular and humanistic mode of dialog”?
To say that someone is a secular humanist seems to me to indicate that they personally adopt philosophical naturalism and human reason-alone and also reject supernaturalism.
But a lot of people vote for passing laws because of what they read in the Bible, or other religious texts. There’s a difference between using a Bible verse to motivate particular legislation, or to motivate people to vote for particular legislation, and the mandatory adoption of a Bible verse as legislation. We don’t use religion as a club, but neither should we act as if it doesn’t exist.
I think it is very similar to the split between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism. I think we can all agree to use the same type of reason and human values without requiring each other to sign onto a specific philosophy. It would be completely unfair to label a christian a secular humanist just because they agree with the wisdom of having a secular government and laws.
Excellent point. The origin of morality is secondary to the justification for the morality when it comes to society as a whole. Secular Humanists are big on citing the Golden Rule, even thought it comes from the Bible.