You don’t need to use the term loosely. All Christians are in the same boat. Some might be on one side of the boat or another. The people at the bow may hate the people at the stern, and they might tell you that they are on your side. But while they might be closer to you than the stern, they’re still in their boat and you’re not.
It’s a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy and a lot of people make it in order to defend the part of the religious group they like. If you worship Christ, you’re a Christian. That’s what the word means. It doesn’t matter if the Christ you worship has no resemblance to the Christ in the Bible since both of them are fictions even if there was a “real” Jesus in the first century.
I don’t even understand it. If you believe there are good Christians, just call them good Christians and the others bad Christians.
There’s plenty of Cafeteria Catholics and Unitarians and Lutherans the like who are just in the religious game for the social community. The scriptures and rituals are merely pastiche around a generic call to do “good”, with that goodness boiling down to basic compassion and charity and good humor.
they’re still in their boat and you’re not
This is a New Atheist style pitch. But when you get down to where a guy like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris stands on public policy, they all to often fall into the same camp as the Bush Era conservative reactionaries of the late 20th and early 21st century.
I’m sorry, but I’ll take a Liberation Theologist over an Objectivist any day. If one’s opinions are touched by a bit of magical realism, at least their heart is in the right place. The folks who use godlessness as an excuse to feed their neighbors into a meat grinder are only ever in my boat when they’re trying to loot it and throw me overboard.
You don’t need to use the term loosely. All Christians are in the same boat. Some might be on one side of the boat or another. The people at the bow may hate the people at the stern, and they might tell you that they are on your side. But while they might be closer to you than the stern, they’re still in their boat and you’re not.
It’s a ‘no true Scotsman’ fallacy and a lot of people make it in order to defend the part of the religious group they like. If you worship Christ, you’re a Christian. That’s what the word means. It doesn’t matter if the Christ you worship has no resemblance to the Christ in the Bible since both of them are fictions even if there was a “real” Jesus in the first century.
I don’t even understand it. If you believe there are good Christians, just call them good Christians and the others bad Christians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
ACAB. A multi-faceted acronym!
There’s plenty of Cafeteria Catholics and Unitarians and Lutherans the like who are just in the religious game for the social community. The scriptures and rituals are merely pastiche around a generic call to do “good”, with that goodness boiling down to basic compassion and charity and good humor.
This is a New Atheist style pitch. But when you get down to where a guy like Christopher Hitchens or Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris stands on public policy, they all to often fall into the same camp as the Bush Era conservative reactionaries of the late 20th and early 21st century.
I’m sorry, but I’ll take a Liberation Theologist over an Objectivist any day. If one’s opinions are touched by a bit of magical realism, at least their heart is in the right place. The folks who use godlessness as an excuse to feed their neighbors into a meat grinder are only ever in my boat when they’re trying to loot it and throw me overboard.