Are there any erudite free thinkers out there? Do the research before you do the gags.

@Biff57 Using the term "christian atheist" is sophistry. You are trying to deceive people by not being clear about what you believe. Maybe you do it out of fear, but it's still not honest. Therefore everybody who seriously uses it should be mocked.

Thank you Steven for your articulate and well thought out response. I did want to stimulate discussion and to that extent I was successful. To me, the main value of the definition is twofold, it helps create a bridge with theists so that we can start discussing our common ground instead of our differences (I am tired of being labelled immoral, for example) and secondly, when I am applying for a job at a Catholic school and am asked in the interview if I am a Christian I can answer, hand on heart, in the affirmative, conveniently not giving any further explanation.

Then I invite to read all of my comments and think more freely.

@Biff57 I can’t think any more freely than I already do....I have been a lifelong freethinker, and in my opinion you cannot be both a Christian and an Atheist. I think the teachings of Jesus Christ are admirable, and used purely as a philosophy would be the ideal way to live and treat others....however, that does not mean I am a Christian. It just means that I agree with what he entreats, in other words what any good human should do in respect to his fellow man, I call that humanitarianism not Christianity. I’m sure there were plenty of human beings who espoused such beliefs and put them into practice long before Jesus was born. The rest of the baggage that comes with Christianity is very unpalatable and is unfortunately fettered to Judaism.....so, although I can see the benefit of following Christ’s teachings, the magical thinking and the fearsome Old Testament god of spite and vengeance nullify the goodness as far as I am concerned. I believe in humanity, and Jesus the man was admirable, however Jesus the son of God is fantasy.

I appreciate where you're coming from but Christian Atheists are striving disentangle the man from the magic and mumbo-jumbo and undo the damage that has been done by the myth-makers so that people are once again examine what is real and useful about him and his philosophy in the same way we do about Socrates, Aristotle, Buddha or Confucius. This, I believe would be a more empowering approach than throwing the baby out with the bath water. And I am not suggesting he is the only one who held this philosophy or taught these ideas but his is the name most people in the world hang their morality on. I feel, therefore, that as a way of bridging the gap between atheists and those who think we are immoral devil worshipers, we make use of the title Christian Atheist.

@Biff57 Can we just agree to differ on this.

@Marionville Happy to do so but I am guessing you might be American. I may be wrong but I sometimes feel that American atheists feel the need to be more rigidly anti-Christian because they are seemingly an embattled minority group who equate Christianity with Bible Belt Tub Thumping Snake Oil Salesman who spread their 'Thoughts and Prayers' around like manure at every available opportunity. In Australia, where I was raised, and England, where I now live, we don't get force fed 'In God we trust' as if it were literally true. The great majority of us are atheists (or at least agnostics) and few of those who sing 'God Save The Queen' take it literally. This gives us the freedom to examine the historical Jesus with a more open mind and acknowledge that his teachings made a huge difference to the history of Europe at a time the law allowed men to take the lives of their own children with impunity. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of early converts to Christianity were the powerless and the put upon; the poor and the women. It is very possible to be, in this context, a believer in the rectitude of his philosophical posits and be a Christian Atheist in the same way as one might be a Marxist Atheist. I am not trying to cloud the waters here: I am simply trying to broaden dialogue in a way that might make Atheism appear less threatening to Christians and Christianity less threatening to Atheists.

@Marionville Sorry. Following my last message, I have seen that you are from Northern Ireland. Well, I think you will agree that something of what I have said may still apply for slightly different reasons. You have to admit that 500 years of sectarian violence is going to colour your opinion of Christians somewhat.

@Biff57 You seem to be wrong on all levels as far as I am concerned....and very muddled in your thinking, I suggest it is always a good idea to have a good read of the profile instead of making assumptions when replying to another person’s remarks. If you had done so, you would know that you could not be more wrong about my nationality. I am also far from being rabidly anti-Christian, indeed I am most relaxed about the fact that all my friends are churchgoers, they don’t try to persuade me I’m wrong and I afford them the same courtesy. I just happen to think that you cannot be both a Christian and an atheist at one and the same time...in fact I believe the term Christian atheist to be an oxymoron.

@Marionville I apologised in my addenda.

@Marionville As for an oxymoron, it ultimately comes down to whether or not you acceptthe received definition of Christian as necessarily being theist. I am not the only person in the last 2000 years to label him or herself a Christian Atheist. Many books have been written on the subject. There just don't seem to be any in this group ...yet

You don’t have to believe in a literal god to be Christian or any other religion. They can’t make you. You can believe whatever you want, practice whatever you want, and call yourself whatever you want. You may lose your standing in the church if you let your opinions be known but they don’t own you. They can’t control your private thoughts unless you choose to let them.

You are missing something. One does not have to believe in the divinity of Christ to follow his teachings just as one does not have to believe in the divinity of Karl Marx to follow his. Having studied the words of Christ in detail and in part at least in Aramaic, I am of the conclusion that even Christ did not believe himself to be nor suggested himself to be the son of God in any but a metaphoric sense of the phrase that could be used to describe any human.

@Gwendolyn2018 FYI, I wasn't being nasty, in fact I was merely suggesting.

@Gwendolyn2018 If that be so, then I stand corrected.
However it WAS, in my opinion, a completely inane question to ask in the first place.

@Gwendolyn2018 That is ever so nice that you can judge me without even knowing me.

@Gwendolyn2018 HoHum,

@Gwendolyn2018 Do the words " Judge ye not, lest ye too be judged," ring any bells with you?

@Gwendolyn2018 What a truly wonderful and insightful person you must be, a source of pride to yourself without a shadow of a doubt I'm sure.

@Gwendolyn2018 Oh no, please don't let facts or doubts, etc, spoil your venting of your spleen, I'd never want to prevent that, not in the least.

@Triphid I notice that you feel affronted by Gwendolyn2018's judging you without even knowing you and that you rather ironically quote the very philosopher upon whose teachings Christian Atheism is based. The quote in its entirety is from Matthew 7:1-3 Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged: and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why do you notice the mote that is in your brother's eye, but do not consider the beam that is in your own eye? Despite this, you feel free to judge me as being, in your words 'Dumb as a Fuck and Thick as a Brick' so let me judge tell you that I am a lecturer in Philosophy and Ethics at Marlborough Academy and consider myself quite well read on such matters. You I judge are not. So may I, in turn, nominate you for the DAAF/TAAB award that you have inaugurated. I am sure, as no offense was intended by you then you will not take offense either.

You should probably think about your reply. Try this link for staters

[bbc.co.uk]

Neither do all Christians. It is a theist myth that to believe in and follow the teachings of Christ you have to believe in his divinity. a careful reading of the Bible in Aramaic and an understanding of the metaphorically ambiguous terms used will reveal that even Yeshua, himself, made no such claim

I am tempted to ask, "Which one are you?" but that would be rude and I only mention it in fun. I am sure you are more sharp than dull and thus will accept that most oxymorons contain within them an element of metaphorical and poetic truth that needs to be explored in depth in order to gain true understanding

"A Harris Interactive survey from 2003 found that 90% of self-identified Protestants in the United States believe in God and about 4% of American Protestants believe there is no God."

[en.wikipedia.org]

@skado Most people don't know what atheism is and is not, and so sure, some people who don't believe there is a god could nevertheless somehow identify as a protestant Christian, but they would so identify in the face of definitional impossibility.

This is not simply something that appalls me as an atheist, I guarantee you it appalls a lot of Christians, too. The foundational basis of Christianity is theism of a very specific kind, not atheism.

@mordant
You have chosen that definition for yourself, which is your prerogative, but I don't see it born out as any kind of absolute in the history of Christianity or religion at large. Everything I read says there is no scholarly consensus on the definition of 'religion'. So we are left to our own devices to assess the evidence and decide for ourselves.

There are probably as many ways to do this as there are people. One approach might be to just look at what the majority thinks and declare that the standard, but in what other field of study do we use the popular opinion as the gold standard? Do we want to leave the possible existence of manmade climate change up to popular opinion? or the effectiveness and safety of vaccines?

Of course it would be foolish to disregard public opinion altogether; I'm never going to entrust my worldview entirely to the ivory tower. But when I'm facing a close encounter with a brain surgeon I'm really hoping the guy has some credentials. "Folk-lobotomy" just doesn't carry the warm-fuzzies I need.

So do we take our definition from the bottom of the barrel or from the cream of the crop? Even though most of the academic theologians speak well above my level of understanding, they at least demonstrate that questions about the existence of God have much more potential nuance than is suggested by a survey of street wisdom. One of the highest-of-the-high such Christian theologians of the twentieth century, Paul Tillich, said in many ways that the God the common man worships does not exist, but Tillich's love of Christianity was undeniable.

The more I read about the the real movers and shakers (no, not those Shakers) of world religions, the more I run into these thinkers and philosophers who, while being passionate supporters of their faith, did not personally interpret the mythologies literally. So to whom do we turn to help us establish an informed position on what is probably the oldest and most controversial question ever contemplated by human kind; the hawkers of popular books who would happily set us against each other in exchange for fame and fortune, and their many followers, or those rare individuals who spent their entire lives trying to stitch back together the psychic fabric of a weary world?

@skado Yes the definition of religion is very squishy, to the point that some religions don't have a deity or deities (e.g. Buddhism in most of its forms) though they still tend to assert various dogmas without evidence. I'm simply approaching it from the opposite direction. Unlike the definition of religion, the definition of atheism is not in the least squishy. It is lack of any belief in any gods.

Sure, there are people who identify as Christians who take Christian teachings entirely metaphorically and non-literally and may personally not believe in the deity of Christ or that there is an actual personal interventionist Jehovah creator-god. So I concede it is possible to unofficially and somewhat covertly be a Christian non-theist / religious atheist and so you could say, Christian atheist.

This, I think, gets into the definition not so much of religion generically, as the definition of Christianity. And there you have a dichotomy between self-identified / cultural Christians and ideological Christians. The latter in my view can only usefully be defined historically, by the historic Creeds. That has the downside, if you see it that way, as excluding groups like Mormons and JWs that lay claim to the label Christian but reject the historic creeds and see themselves as reformers who restore a long-lost "primitive" Christianity ... but I still think it's more fair than not and I can't think of a better place to draw the line. Since Christianity is asserted truth, the truth asserted by the historic majority seems like the best definition of what constitutes a legitimate claim to follow its teachings.

So what it boils down to in my view is we have cultural Christians who like the cultural / traditional trappings of Christianity and yet reject historic Christian ideology and meet the definition of atheism even if many would not associate the ritualistic trappings with atheists. I personally do not find the label "Christian atheist" helpful in this regard for either ideological Christians, or atheists -- and in fact not even really for "Christian atheists". My concern as an atheist is that there's so much distorted and bizarre ideation around what atheism is and is not and what motivates it, that using such labels just makes that worse than it already is.

But ... it's not for me to control the labels people choose for themselves. If you're a Christian atheist, knock yourself out I guess, but I'm not going to encourage it either.

Firstly, the whole of the Nestorian Christian Church that was widespread throughout the Middle East and Central Asia at one time, while believing in God, did not believe that Jesus was divine: rather they believed that he was born human and received the divine spirit after birth. Secondly, it is perfectly possible to look to the teachings of Yeshua the historical and mortal person as your principal moral guidance without believing in the existence of any God in much the same way as a Buddhist might follow the teachings of Buddha or a Marxist those of Marx.

@Skado The very earliest followers of Yeshua were divided as to his divinity and a great deal of what people believe about him has been appended much later. For example, the Hebrew term Messiah (Greek - Christ) was used initially to refer to anyone who was anointed with oil to rule over the Jews: all of the early kings were messiahs. To then refer to Yeshua Bar Yusef as a Christ is no different to referring to Siddhartha as Buddha and to call oneself a Christian because you wish to promote the values propounded by Christ is no more ridiculous than calling yourself a Buddhist because you wish to propound the teachings and values of Buddha. It doesn't confound anything: it simply invites you not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and to consider what good there might be in reappraising Christ's teachings.

@Biff57 What we are dealing with in the here and now is not the Nestorians but what Christianity has evolved to and is self-defined as in modern times. If some Christians diverge from that (and they do), then that is fine, but definitionally they are not what can be called orthodox Christians, and in some cases, Christians at all. Mormons violate sola scriptura and so are not confessionally Christians. JWs are annihilationists and unitarians, and so are not confessionally Christians. Liberal Christians who, although organizationally affirming the divinity of Christ, personally reject said divinity, cannot, definitionally, be Christians in the sense that Christianity has come to be in actual reality.

It is partly on this basis that I consider "Christian atheist" an oxymoron. Still, as I said before, if you want to be a Christian atheist or a Chevrolet enthusiast who exclusively owns and drives Fords or a heterosexual that only sleeps with members of the same sex or a Republican that only votes for Bernie Sanders, knock yourself out.

I'm sorry but how do you get say what we are or are not dealing with here? I am on this site because I have no belief in any supernatural being, whether it be a universe creator or divine ubiquitous judge, not because I am anti-christian. And I don't believe I am obfuscating but rather clarifying when I try to present to theists that it is possible to believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ without necessarily believing in a god.

@Biff57 I don't know any Nestorians, do you? That is what I was addressing about the here and now.

It is indeed possible to subscribe to most of the teachings of Jesus without believing in god. I would say all of them except the ones that state there is a god and that you should have faith in same.

@mordant In answer to your question, Yes, I know a largish number of Nestorian Christians who congregate each Sunday in their church in the West of London. They are mostly refugees from Iraq, Syria and Iran where the Assyrian Church of the East, as they prefer to be called, continues to hang on through hundreds of years of persecution, but there are similar communities all over the world. This is all a bit off topic, however, since they are not Christian Atheists. They still believe in God and that Jesus was invested after birth with the Holy Spirit. Christian Atheists reject all the magic and juju. I mention them only to point out that, even among the faithful, there is a multiplicity of ways of viewing Jesus without necessarily sticking to the Western Christian tradition and that you may be one who follows the overarching philosophical posits of Jesus without believing all the supernatural stuff that was attached to him, mostly by later writers.

@skado Were you there at the foundation? Don't confuse what 2,000 years of sharing a bed with powers that be has done to obfuscate the teachings of Jesus with the teachings themselves.

@Biff57
Did you intend this comment for mordant instead of me? I think I pretty much agree with your position on this.

@skado Yes, I did.

No, see my comment above.

I think you are confused. You are confusing a moral commitment to put the teachings of Yeshua known as the Christ with a belief in his divinity. Let me refer you to this link from the BBC [bbc.co.uk]