If I'm not quite a Christian, can I still join a church?

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In what respect, Charlie?

Ruveyn > "
Beware of any religion that requires you to park you brains by the door. "

Which means:

University Liberalism
My Brother's "Science"
Most Varieties of Atheism
Oprah Worship

There are, yes, CHURCHES where you are not welcome if you think too much and especially if you ask questions - I hear some pastors are trained to look for sceptical expressions and nonconformist body language - and where you are more welcome if you bring your tithe and all your unchurched acquaintances. Where you fit in or else. I have seen them in action.

But there are other churches, and CHRISTIANITY and JUDAISM and ISLAM and BUDDHISM do not UNFILTERED BY DEMAGOGUES AND IDIOTS penalize thought, sceptical, independent, probing thought. In the pure form they stimulate and encourage it.

Moving into Christianity was one of the most thought-intensive periods of my life.

Don't throw the baby out with the Holy Water.

Don't lie about anything.

Based on my experience in various churches, most would be welcoming and friendly, and would not require you to formally join. Finding one that you could be comfortable formally joining would probably be a good idea, however.

There is quite a variety of churches, so you can probably find one that fits you fairly well. If you find out what moderate to liberal churches are in your area, you could attend services in several of them, and see what you think of them.

You could probably talk to (or email) one of the local pastors and ask about the various local churches. If they're anything like the ones I've been around, they probably have some interaction with the other local pastors and churches, even the ones they disagree with more or less strongly.

I hope you find what you're looking for.

If you pay the dues or entrance fee you can join.

ruveyn

The only one that I can say for sure of is the last one. Can you elaborate a bit more?


Well, Buddhism is very philosophical, and Judaism has liberalized a lot. However, I am not sure that a lot of Christian or Muslim churches have maintained their freedom very well. I also question notions of a "pure form". As it stands, I do think that Christianity and Islam have some messages that are potentially very anti-intellectual.


I am not surprised in the slightest, but this does not mean that Christianity is fundamentally free-thinking.


I hate babies.

Don't be ridiculous, we all know you love babies. Especially with ketchup.

I agree. Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden of eden for eating from the tree of KNOWLEDGE of good and evil. God wanted them to be innocent (innocent = ignorant) and when they weren't god didn't want them anymore.

They were kicked out for eating from the tree that they had been forbidden to eat from. Disobeying a direct order from God was the sin, not knowing things.

I'm curious as to where you guys are getting this 'anti-intellectual' idea from. Or how anti-intellectualism could be compatible with, say, the entire book of Proverbs, which spends an awful lot of time saying things like, "Choose instruction instead of silver, knowledge rather than choice gold."

And what do you suppose the motive was in God's ordering Adam and Eve to not know the difference between good and evil?

One quote from Proverbs doesn't decide the entire matter. Additionally, the issue is partially a matter of comparison. The religion, compared to many others, tends to be less philosophical and more historical. After all, while there is Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist, and Hindu philosophy, there isn't a such thing as Christian philosophy. There are Christian philosophers but the biggest "Christian" philosophical group is the Thomists and they took a lot of their ideas from the Greeks causing me to put the matter partially in quotes, most other western philosophies are almost purely secular though. This isn't to say that wisdom literature doesn't exist either, but even then the real issue isn't wisdom literature in the OT but rather how well this kind of message is maintained in the NT.

I wasn't thinking about the tree at all. Instead verses like these:

Col 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

1Co 3:19-20 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile."

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

1Ti 6:20 O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called "knowledge,"

And as well, the doctrine of the Trinity within standard Christianity not only seems unintellectual, but also an outright contradiction.

Perhaps you think I am just quote-mining, but Christianity it still remains true that Christianity is known as a religion in which "You hold to beliefs X, Y, and Z and you are saved, no sense questioning the matter", and of course some Christian philosophers are known for their cavalier approach to the idea that philosophy is the pursuit of truth, instead they say "I've already got truth, philosophy is just my way to prove it to you people who are being so stubborn". Now, is this to be overly cruel or cynical? I think not, but rather I do think that these things are not incidental and instead part of Christian religion.

One quote from anywhere doesn't decide anything. It was meant to be representative, since one of the big themes of Proverbs is how wonderful knowledge/wisdom/insight/etc. are.


Less philosophical and un-philosophical aren't the same thing. Neither are un-philosophical and anti-intellectual.


Granted.

Here's something that I ran across while looking for something else: 2 Peter 1:5 "For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self control; and to...."


The translation I'm using has 'basic principles of the world' in the place where yours has 'elemental spirits of the world', and in v20-23, it comes back to that subject and refutes 'basic principles of the world' again when it quotes them as saying, "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"

So I think that's talking about a specific philosophy -- asceticism.


This is not a condemnation of wisdom, but a comparison of God's wisdom to man's.


This is pro-faith, not anti-intellectual.


What is anti-intellectual about avoiding what is falsely called knowledge?


Quantum mechanics and Relativity also seem like nonsense if you don't understand them.

Dorothy Sayers' book 'The Mind of the Maker' explains the idea better than anything else I've ever read.


Some Christians mistakenly hold that, Christianity, however, does not.

James 2:26 "As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead."

James 2:19 "You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that -- and shudder."


That some Christian philosophers may act in an un-philosophical way does not show that all of Christianity is anti-intellectual.

Right, but knowledge/wisdom/insight isn't a matter of inquiry but rather fearing God even in the wisdom literature such as Psalms and Proverbs.


Well, I brought that up because you were suggesting that it had a high emphasis on wisdom, but really it doesn't seem to be philosophical in nature but rather a bunch of brute facts taken on faith. That latter is pretty anti-intellectual.


Do you think he is talking about philosophy or rather the religion? I think the latter, and this notion of knowledge with faith as the central issue doesn't seem to be intellectual.


Umm..... elemental spirits isn't the issue. Elemental spirits is easily a more figurative expression for something. The real issue was the term "philosophy".

As for a specific philosophy? It says "philosophy and empty deceit", this seems to really be a broad category and thus seems cynical to actual learning.


It is a condemnation of wisdom. The attempts at man to get wisdom compared to the revelation of God. Devaluing human intellectual effort is anti-intellectual.


And following Hebrews was a large set of claims to be taken on faith. Intellectualism does tend to stand opposed to faith as intellectualism is constructing a world through intellectual effort, which often means that intellectualism has a bit of a skeptical role.


The issue is that this is a sign of an in-group, out-group distinction


Ok, but the two you mention have empirical confirmation, mathematical formulation, and other things. The trinity is a doctrine that seems to openly defy entail a contradiction. Now one can say "oh, there's just some underlying reason", but the issue is that accepting ideas that seem like nonsense on faith really does seem like a threat to intellect.


You do realize that those passages in James are fully compatible with the idea of salvation by faith, that most Christians hold in some form or fashion. I mean, the scripture seems pretty clear also that salvation is through the faith in Christ.

John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

Romans 10:9: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

Generally speaking this is considered to be the right beliefs, which is why Robert Price argued that the heart of Christianity is the belief on the atonement. http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/art_damn.htm


Well, ok, but the issue is whether their theology is completely wrong. I tend to doubt that they are just bizarre here, but rather it really does seem that their anti-intellectualism is something inherited through their beliefs.

Granted, the view of knowledge and wisdom in ancient wisdom literature is broader and more inclusive than the modern view of intellectualism.

If you insist that you find a modern understanding of philosophy clearly delineated before you can see evidence of pro- or anti-intellectualism, you will find neither. Would you expect Euclid's proofs to match modern standards of mathematical rigor?


That was to help clarify the link I was trying to draw to the couple of verses that came right after. I was trying to point out that what specifically might have been meant could be better understood with a bit more context.


So if someone from the Bible says 'philosophy', then they're talking about philosophy in the modern sense; but if someone says 'wisdom', 'understanding', 'insight', or 'knowledge', then they are referring to a primitive idea that has no relation to any of the modern terms?


What kinds of philosophy were floating around in those days? The Pythagoreans had built a kind of religion around certain mathematical truths. Would an objection to, for example, Pythagoras sacrificing a bull to the gods in honor of a mathematical theorem be something you would object to?

The problem probably being addressed here was gnosticism, which had the idea that matter was evil, and thus everyone should be very ascetic.


Is not. We could go on like this for awhile.

Saying 'Michael Jordan is far better at basketball than I will ever be' is not the same as saying 'I'll never be as good as Michael Jordan, so I shouldn't try'.


Okay. But what's the problem?


I recommended the Dorothy Sayers book because I didn't want to have to explain it myself.

There is an analogy to an eye - there is the eyeball, that which is seen, and how it is perceived in the mind. They are, in a sense, all separate, and they are, in another sense, joined together inseparably/united/one.

Or perhaps another analogy would work better: a photon consists of an electrical wave that generates a magnetic wave that... In some ways it's worse, since there are only 2 things joined, and they take turns creating each other and dissapearing, but it gets some of it across.

It has nothing to do with the illogical assertion "1=3".


Yes. But you missed my point (actually James' point) -- salvation by faith is not the same as 'believe x, y, and z, then you're all set and nothing else matters'. Faith in the religious sense entails more than mere intellectual assent.


I'd say rather that their stance doesn't contradict their beliefs. I'm not even entirely convinced that their position (at least as you've explained it) is actually anti-intellectual.

I think of it in a slightly different way. I find it more important to believe true things than to believe the right things according to a certain doctrine.

But if your beliefs and what you believe to be true turn out to be the same, then there isn't much practical difference between the two. (And yes, that pretty much is a tautology).

Well, that's all fine and good of a rebuttal, but if we take 2 Tim 3:16-17 seriously, then we have to recognize that this is supposed to be a God-breathed text, it should be held to higher standards under the Christian view.


Do you enjoy misunderstanding things? Deriding the term "philosophy" isn't very intellectual. As it stands, philosophy is more likely to have similarity to what is intellectual than terms like "wisdom", "understanding", "insight", or "knowledge", because often the usage of the latter is merely a matter of knowing the scriptures or God or some other such rather than an independent study(like philosophies have endeavored to be) or knowledge of an external reality(as was attempted by science).


They had Greek philosophy floating around in those days. I think you are just being a critic here as Pythagoreans were opposed to killing animals. Many of these philosophies are of historical importance and ongoing intellectual importance as well. Certainly there is some point in listening to the ideas of great mathematicians, even if some of those mathematicians were crazy.


Ok? It still makes a good-guy team and a bad-guy team. This is not conducive to intellectual searches.


We could, but I'll win.

Ok, but this isn't the same statement nor is it even similar. It is a statement more like this: "the wisdom of the world is crap, so don't even bother with it, instead listen to God".


In-group, out-group distinctions are a major part of anti-intellectual attitudes. They imply that there is a group that should be listened to a group that should be ignored.


The eyeball, sight, and perception are different entities. They are not one and they are not united. Sight without eyeballs is conceivable, think about cameras and cybernetics. Eyeballs and sight without perception, is also conceivable, and this is the phenomenon known as blindsight. Eyeballs without sight or perception is non-working eyeballs, which also do exist. In fact, experimentally, we know that there are cases in which the perceptions people have CANNOT be the same as what they see, this is noticed with the color phi-phenomenon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Phi_phenomenon

The photon issue is worse. Physics isn't necessarily a statement of ontology. You are assuming scientific realism when I could just as easily be an instrumentalist.

The trinity? It may not directly be the assertion 1=3, but it boils down into that illogical assertion. The more popular idea is the notion of a statue, but the issue is that the entire ontology posited by such philosophical arguments is nonsensical.


Umm.... no, your point is actually just ENTIRELY irrelevant. James wasn't arguing that Christianity was intellectual. He was arguing that Christians need to have works. This does not rebut the point I made with saying this: "You hold to beliefs X, Y, and Z and you are saved, no sense questioning the matter". All it means is that "You hold to beliefs X, Y, and Z, and you are saved, no sense questioning the matter, also you have to do nice things". So, it adds to the matter, but it doesn't detract from the problematic issue. I really don't care about the faith-works debate, it isn't the matter at hand, especially since there is little to nothing arguing that intellectual straining is a work.


I don't know what I can say if you aren't convinced. To me, the notion of openly being an apologist for something rather than a searcher for knowledge is to stand against the intellectual's goal of being a searcher for knowledge and NOT just an apologist for your current opinion.


Um... ok? But ideas that once accepted strongly bias the intellectual framework against honesty towards all questions are problematic. I mean, if believing a wrong thing according to a certain doctrine is supposed to have dramatic consequences then a lot of people are going to be unduly careful about the matter, and many will avoid questioning as much as possible, both of which reduce intellectual strivings.


Umm...... I don't even know what point you are making.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work."

Not "All Scripture is guaranteed to fit in with modern philosophical definitions of intellectualism, or your money back."

Which standard are you talking about? The standard of modern intellectualism that didn't exist at the time? Why?


The term 'philosophy' means the love of wisdom. Christians would have had the wisdom literature around, and would have recognized and obeyed the command that it contained to 'love wisdom'. It isn't fundamentally about the term itself.

You're making too big a deal out of one word, here.


I remember reading about some sort of incident like I mentioned, although it may not have been Pythagoras specifically.

There was another incident, where the Pythagoreans were said to have thrown one of their own overboard, because he had discovered a proof of the existence of irrational numbers, and that did not sit well with their mystical ideas about the whole numbers.


I am not saying that we shouldn't listen to mathematicians, I'm saying that what the biblical authors were warning about in the place where they said 'philosophy' was probably gnosticism, or pythagoreanism, or something like them, rather than anything you would recognize as Greek Philosophy.


That may be true about arbitrary distinctions, but gnostic vs. christian is a distinction of ideas, not at all arbitrary. If you seriously want to say it is anti-intellectual to make a distinction between being wrong and being right, then you are being anti-intellectual yourself in putting me on the side of those who are wrong and putting yourself on the side of those who are right.


I am assuming only that you have heard of the idea and are at least semi-familliar with it. It is meant to be an analogy.


It does not. Take it from someone who has spent some time thinking about and reading up on it -- it is not what you think it is.


Never said he was.


Quite the opposite -- he said that if you have faith, then you will necessarily also do works. Here are the 2 verses I originally quoted in context: James 2:14-26.


You brought it up.


I'm not clear what intellectual straining has to do with work, or works, or anything else.


Currently, you seem to be acting as an apologist for your current opinions. In what way is any other apologist for anything else different?


The keyword here seems to be 'unduly'. What about people who aren't unduly careful about questioning their beliefs? Like anyone properly following the advice of 1 Thessalonians 5:21 "But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;".

Ok, but the issue is "God-breathed". I mean, the problem isn't that scripture isn't modern, but rather that scripture is not incredibly intellectual of a text. If God breathed it, then shouldn't we at least expect that Christianity/Judaism have a powerful and unique philosophy rather than having to borrow from movements like Platonism, Aristotelianism, and whatever else comes along? As it stands, the only work that is ever considered in more philosophical contexts tends to be Ecclesiastes from everything I've heard.


Yeah, I know it means love of wisdom, but Christian wisdom literature isn't that wise as things go. That's part of the earlier complaint, that Christianity lacks it's own natural philosophy and thus couldn't have been very philosophical. This is about the term and part of what it suggests in context.


Ok? In any case though, this still isn't evidence that Pythagoreans shouldn't be listened to.


Well, ok, but as it stands, we actually have board members who do consider some of the Gnostic writings to be of philosophical merit, without even being gnostic themselves. I kind of doubt that there was some popular philosophy of utter nonsense.


It is anti-intellectual not to seek to listen to people. I never said anything about the right-wrong distinction, but rather I am clearly more focused on the listening elements. Is your uncharitable invented interpretation something you strive for? Or is it accidental?





But that's the actual issue at hand.


I've read the context. I even know the debate you are talking about and that there are interdenominational differences, with some, such as Catholics, actually saying that works are needed for salvation which is in their mind the real point. Your interpretation is merely an interpretation taken by certain Protestant groups, such as the Lordship Salvation theological position, others such as those who follow Free Grace theology disagree. That being said, I don't care, but I *know* that you haven't actually disproven the position faith+works equals salvation with just a little contextualization, given that most Christians actually believe that position. But, I don't really care.


No, you did. You brought up the points from James, despite the fact that they were utterly irrelevant to the point I was getting at. The point I was getting at was only the issue of the need for proper facts above a search for truth, not the utterly irrelevant matter of faith vs works, which is more of an intra-Christian debate. I don't care if a Christian is Free Grace, Lordship Salvation, Catholic, or so on, just about all of them say that true religious beliefs are important for salvation.


The previous context maybe? You bringing up James on works? I mean, intellectual straining has nothing to do with works which was why I argued it to be irrelevant.


An apologist is exactly that, an apologist. A person whose major goal is just to defend his current belief systems. What this ends up being is that an apologist often times is less focused on the pursuit of truth or even the possibility of being wrong.


Well, the issue is that if anyone really held to 1 Thessalonians 5:21, they would likely not be Christian. I say that very cynically, but honestly, what evidence is there to show that Christians actually are better people despite supposedly being imbued with the Holy Spirit? Or despite long-standing problems with the Old Testament? How is this really compatible with knowing through faith, as articulated in Hebrews 11?

Well, the real issue is that you ripped it out of context.
1Th 5:20-21 Do not despise prophecies, (21) but test everything; hold fast what is good.
20 and 21 are in the same sentence. The real message is that prophecies should be tested, not the religion itself necessarily. This already fits into the idea of "be afraid of false prophets", with the acceptance of the existence of real prophets, which was in the Old Testament. In fact, Thessalonians isn't talking about philosophical matters at all, but rather is just a devotional, meaning that there is no reason to believe that Thessalonians 5:21 is really the big intellectual falsificationist statement that you want to think it is/have already invoked it as.