Discussing 1 conservative Christian vs 20 liberal Christians

 So, I just watched the new jubilee debate, and much like the PBD one, I wanted to react. I'm mostly responding to the points discussed, but I will be also mentioning some stuff brought up. I'll be responding to this from my own perspective, which is of a former conservative christian who became a liberal christian who became an atheist who became spiritual but not religious. As such, in discussing Christianity, I'll be a bit all over the place on this one and can contextualize the debate from multiple perspectives and give my honest thoughts.

Claim #1: The bible says marriage is only between one man and one woman 

Uh, yeah, this was mostly discussed within the context of gay marriage, and I would generally agree that the Bible does not affirm that. However, the Bible is very complex on marriage. In the old testament, people had multiple wives. Polygamy was allowed. And while the conservative kept going "mo women mo problems", uh....in the old testament this wasn't particularly discussed in a moral way at length, and I'm inclined to believe if God had a problem with it (since god couldn't tolerate ANY imperfection in the OT it seems and would smite entire communities over the smallest "sins" at times), he would have said something. So....yeah, not quite one man and one woman. There was a graphic on r/atheism a while back that showed biblical marriage in all of its forms, and it definitely wasn't just one man and one woman. it was one man and multiple women a lot of the time too. 

Now, on gay marriage, I do not believe that the bible condones or justifies that. The bible is rather hostile toward homosexuality, although I've heard liberal christians argue they were referring more to...uh..."man boy relations" with a lot of those verses. Still, the bible, to my knowledge, never one affirmed homosexual relations and was quite hostile to them in a plain reading of the text.  Sorry liberals, but the moral basis for affirming that stuff is not really biblical, as I'll discuss later.

Claim #2: Abortion is a grave moral evil

 However, this is one issue where I will side with the liberals. The bible is at best, conflicted on abortion, and, if anything, relatively permissive of it. The recent controversy (over the past 50 years) with abortion is, as one of the liberals pointed out, manufactured by the religious right to mobilize voters to the conservative cause. There are many verses that either affirm that life begins at first breath, or that fetuses were property, and there was even that abortion potion women who were suspected of being unfaithful to their husbands were given. Sure, from a "worldview" perspective, and using verses that are largely taken out of context like the whole "you were formed in the womb" and stuff, you could argue "life begins at conception", but this is not a very strong perspective. I would say the stronger biblical perspective is actually the liberal perspective, which is more permissive of it. 

Claim #3: Empathy can be toxic and lead to sin

 Okay, so this is where we come back around to homosexual relations. The conservative argued that empathy toward sinners could lead christians into sin. As an ex christian, I would actually agree with this one. Here's how I see it. There's the letter of the law, and the spirit of the law in the bible. The letter of the law is the commands themselves. The spirit of the law, as Jesus stated, is the golden rule. Love god, love your neighbor.

I would argue (and affirm claim 5 btw) that the biblical literalist approach to morality leads to a lot of suffering for, say, gay people. I was so shaken by what the conservative christian community was doing to gay people when I went to college that I very quickly stopped affirming that perspective. It also helped that I was shaken out of biblical literalism by taking bible classes themselves. It's almost as if reading and understanding the bible can fracture the conservative worldview and put you on the path to leaving christianity...

But yes...that said, if you're christian, it leads to "sin". One day you'll wake up and realize that you're arguing with biblical literalists with a plain reading of the bible and realizing they have the correct claim WITHIN christianity, but then you realize your morals are no longer christian. They're something else. You realize the bible was just a product of its times, that it was flawed, and that morality should probably come outside of legalistic interpretations of old texts that were never meant to be read that way.

 After a while, you kinda realize that you know better than the biblical god does. I kid you not. When you reach a certain stage of moral development, you kinda realize that the bible's authors werent very smart people, and that if god existed and wanted to communicate a perfect morality for all people for all times, that this ain't it, dawg. I mean, as I said the other day, what perfect moral code ignores the evils of slavery? What perfect moral code guides people to hate homosexuals, and do unloving things to them? In a way, empathy leads back to the original sin, eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and realizing that you are like god, and that you can no longer just blindly follow morality, but that you are an autonomous moral agent who can decide what is good and what is evil and probably do a better job than the bible does. 

For christians, this is the sin of pride. For me, it's just reaching a stage of moral development where you kinda realize you know better than bronze age dictators do. And that should be a very low bar these days. My own theory was that if god existed, he would have the best morality ever. And that as I learned more, I would become closer to him. THis is what the liberals professed to believe in this debate, especially as we get into claim 4. But....again, then you kinda realize you've far surpassed this ancient book, you know better than it, so why follow it? Why even profess to follow it?

And that's when I stopped calling myself a christian. 

Now, is this a good thing? For christians, no, it's not. Leaving the faith is like the worst thing you can do. For me? Yes, in retrospect, conservative christians are morally stunted people, and liberal christians are better, but they're still like...bargaining with reality here. They profess faith while themselves kind of deviating from the original source text on a lot of questions. 

Now, before I continue this, I do want to offer one caveat on the empathy thing. While some level of empathy is a good thing, empathy without guiding principles is dangerous. Empathy opens one up to emotional manipulation. And one thing where I differ from a lot of liberals is I'm a lot less empathetic to them. A lot of them love to throw empathy into their face like they're good people because see how empathetic they are. Meanwhile I consider myself moderate on it. You can't have NO empathy or you'll end up like the billionaires in the last article I wrote, you need some empathy as a driving force. But it needs intellectual structure. You need to create principles of morality to center your morals around, and to act on them. Otherwise you can just be controlled by those who guilt trip you. As an ex christian, one thing I resent is emotional manipulation. Christianity does that crap all the time. Everything is a guilt trip and a massive gaslighting thing, making you believe that youre wrong and youre broken and god is perfect. And as someone who overcame that, yeah, I won't allow others to weaponize my emotions against me. 

At the same time, you do need SOME empathy. People with no empathy in their worldview and pure "rationalism" is how we get dark enlightenment nonsense where people think culling the nonproductive is the answer. That's psycho crap. I'm sorry, you need to have SOME empathy, some human connection here, to be able to tell that that is massively messed up. So, it's a balance. But yeah, if you're not careful empathy can lead you to places where you really don't want to go. It can help you avoid other places you really don't want to go either though. Again, IMO, it needs some level of structure. For christians, that's the bible. For me, and my more "enlightened" mindset, it's more a humanistic approach to morality based vaguely on a mishmash of harm reduction/utilitarianism and a secularized iteration of natural rights theory. 

 Claim #4: Progressivism and Christianity are at odds

 So...given the above, I will agree with this claim. Here's the core conflict. Progressivism is an evolving understanding of the world toward a better moral state where people live better lives than they did in the past. Christianity, especially conservative christianity, involves being tied to 2000+ year old texts that are vastly outdated in my own understanding of the world. 

While there is some room for progressive christianity, it has the same issues empathy does in the previous claim. At what point does it stop becoming christianity? 

Within the bible, there is progressivism. The oldest texts have different views than the newest ones. Despite what conservative christians claim, sometimes newer texts conflict older ones. Many biblical approaches to topics were shaped by the morality of the day. Their understanding of god at the time was shared by the morality of the day.

But then...progress stopped. New books stopped being written/included, and what we now see as the bible is a very dated book. And many christians believe that this book is the peak of morality and that all morality devised after that is subjective. As such, i view christianity not just as a conservative force, but a regressive one. Christianity seeks to drive us backwards toward the zeitgeist of eras long past, that seem almost intolerable to live under today by any sane person IMO. And yet, millions and even billions will profess adherence to that faith.

Progressive christians, as I see, try to live in two worlds at once. They have one foot firmly planted in the biblical world, and one in the modern one. And the issues are different, the interpretations of the same issues are different, and these liberal christians try to modernize their christian worldview, but it's like drawing lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. Maybe jesus was more based and radical than many christians are today. I dont deny that. Maybe that does give some christians a progressive streak. I dont deny that. But at what point does christianity stop being christianity? When it stops being christ or biblically centered. As you move further and further away from adhering to this one guy's teachings in the gospels, or to the teachings of paul, or OT writers, you have less and less claim to being a christian. until you have a moment where you wonder, gee, are you even christian at all?

Again, this is one of the reasons why I left. Because I couldn't properly synthesize the ancient world of christianity and the modern world of my emerging progressive worldview. They ARE at odds. And while many christians love to claim liberal democracy and the enlightenment as their ideas...no, they're very much not. Christians have fought these ideas every step of the way. Sure, some christians synthesized their views with them, but again, I dont generally believe that they go together particularly well. One day, if youre honest about it, you'll realize that the student, you, have surpassed the master, and said master really doesnt know what he's talking about. Because he spoke 2000 years ago when people thought the world was not only flat, but a LITERAL SNOWGLOBE only a few thousand years old.  Seriously, there's a reason why so many christians have such a problem with acknowledging the theory of evolution and an old earth. Because it undermines their entire cosmology that underpins their worldview. And while, again, some liberal christians try to reconcile those elements, they really are more compromising with the modern world while trying to cling to some segment of the past. 

Honestly, I do not believe that the bible, or christianity, or the writings of an ancient religion should hold so much sway over modern society. I really don't. I already criticize old political ideologies as I call them that are like 100 years old, or 200 years old, or 300 years old, and citing that the world has moved on and needs a more modern ethos. What use does something from 2000-3000 years old have? What can it tell us that modern stuff can't? 

So yeah. They ARE at odds, sorry not sorry. This is where i come back around to agreeing with conservatives, while at the same time just rejecting the christian position outright.

Claim #5: The church's condemnation of same sex relationships cause profound damage and unnecessary suffering to gay people

Yes, it does. My first experience was this was reading the Laramie Project in college, which was about the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay person, and the Westboro baptist church movement picking his funeral and screaming "god hates (slur)s". Yeah. That's what that good old non empathetic christian love gets you. You legalistically interpret the bible, and you keep your faith, you live in your own little cultish bubble, and where does it get you? Hating the rest of society for just living their lives. Doing untold damage to people imposing your ancient and delusional views on people. And that said, yes, christianity and progressivism are at odds. And this is, for me, why christianity should be thrown into the dustbin of history. 

You can try to compromise, you can try to be that "moderate" voice in the room that is a christian that loves homosexuals, but if you're intellectually honest about it, you'll probably leave christianity like I did some day, as you realize there's no reason to keep clinging to this old religion, and that you know better than it. 

I feel like this is one of those "low and high IQ agrees while medium disagrees" memes. Conservatives and progressives are two different forces that agree, the two ideologies aren't compatible. And then you have these 100 iq people in the middle who are like "we can make it work." No, no you cant. Because if you think about it for long enough and hard enough, you'll realize that christianity does nothing in the modern day but hold society back. 

Conclusion

So yeah. I just wanted to give my thoughts on this debate. And I did. But generally speaking, the debate was mostly within Christianity and here I am as an ex-Christian where I end up mostly arguing the conservative positions...but from the other side. And generally, it does come down to claims 3 and 4. Empathy CAN lead you to "sin". And as an ex christian, I encourage you to embrace sin as Christianity just mentally stunts your moral development otherwise. And yes, progressivism and Christianity aren't compatible. Sure, maybe medium development people can make it work for a time where you're at a point that you realize there's something wrong with conservatism but you cant justify leaving the faith altogether, but long term, I would advise people to leave the faith. 

Really, I know some don't like my "anti christian" views here, but the religion is 2000 years old, and there are better sources to get your morality from these days. Even good old empathy is a better source, quite frankly. I cant say having too much empathy always leads to the right conclusions, as empathy needs an intellectual structure to exist within to be utilized properly, but yeah. If empathizing with your fellow person leads you to sin, then maybe you should think about what it is you're defending within your religion and whether it has any actual moral value or relevance in the 21st century. Because as someone who is on the other side of that one, I can tell you, it probably doesn't. 

Christianity eventually becomes like that kids sized t shirt that fit when youre 11 but trying to fit into it in your 20s and 30s is just....constraining . Some people never grow out of it. The best of us, IMO, do. When the clothes don't fit, don't feel bad about throwing them out. You don't need them any more. You got a better moral system than you used to. Nothing wrong about that. "Sin" is just a construct created to manipulate people and stop them from leaving.