Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Liberal Christianity, and a side-dish of bizarre hopefulness

Old news, but it has just come to my attention. Apparently it is true when they say that fundamentalists are not as prolific as they seem. Because 65% to 70% of Christians in America believe that people of other religions can go to Heaven, including the nonreligious and atheists (more the former than the latter, for whatever reason). Man... are they becoming divorced from traditional beliefs in these times, or what? It's kinda nice! Makes you wonder how long it will be until we finally get a majority in support of gay rights. It's looking even more possible all of a sudden.

Oh, but apparently there was either some sort of error in this chart, or we are really despised by the black people. See for yourself (well...if you can read through the blur).



Heartening news, overall. Even if I am still a little curious about why some of them even bother to call themselves Christian given how little of the religion they actually believe. I might not have needed to hear this kind of statistic in order to go on living in this country if they were brave enough to more accurately label themselves (though I guess it is hard to come up with a name for someone who is Christian but doesn't think Jesus was a divine entity. "Judaism with New Testament supplement" doesn't have a good ring to it).

9 comments:

pboyfloyd said...

Goodness is equal to or better than Godliness?(instead of the other way around)

I like it!

Anonymous said...

' I am still a little curious about why some of them even bother to call themselves Christian .."

Well, I believe - at least where I live (bible belt)- that a lot of people fear losing out on business deals, etc...

I know it's cynical but unless you are seen at church every once in a while, you're not going to get the job - or contract - or whatever.

It truly is a 'good ol' boys network.

Folow the money.

GearHedEd said...

An alternate terminology suggestion: How about "Christian Zeitgeist"?

mac said...

I agree with Stacy.

I would add that a lot of them call themselves christian out of fear and laziness.

They follow what they've ben told was right, never questioning, never examinig anything. Surely, if they did, they would see the glaring errors in the religion.

Asylum Seeker said...

Fear, laziness, business deals...sounds about right. I think that it also just might be that they don't know what Christianity entails, thinks that their beliefs are close enough that they might as well associate with it, or just feel that they are compelled to call themselves that because they are from a family, and in a community, that identifies themselves as Christian (making them cultural Christians, as it were). I'm sure a variety of things might push someone to adopt the label. I just wonder what the statistics would look like if we were all on the same page when adopting those labels, though.

Asylum Seeker said...

Christian Zeitgeist, or Zeitgeist Christian might work. Christian by accident of geography, or Christian only because calling yourself Christian keeps people from preaching at you might also work, but are a little clunkier.

mac said...

"Christian only because calling yourself Christian keeps people from preaching at you"

Indeed ! This reminds me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago:

Preacher type:
" Please sir, allow me to speak with you about Jesus."

Me:
"No thanks, I'm in a hurry."

Preacher type:
But sir, if you aren't prepared when the Lord comes back, your soul will suffer for eternity. You really should make the time."

Me:
" OK buddy, you had to ask. I think god is a crutch for weak minded people. Your Bible is full of non-sense, anyone who pushes this crap is either a fool or a con man"

Preacher type:
"Why are you atheist types so pushy?"

I am speechless !

Asylum Seeker said...

That ties into me next post quite nicely, mac! They call people "pushy" when they are really just "push-backy".

Anonymous said...

I know, they think everyone can get into heaven. It's awesome news for me, frankly. It means that if there is a heaven, that most people think I'm going. Great.

I think it's funny that there are acutally less fundies than most people thought. I guess it's true, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the squeaky fundagelical gets the headlines. I still wonder, though, why it seems like ALL of the christians online are fundagelicals... Or why they all have AOL.