#Christian atheism

[pagan-corruption]

I FIGURED OUT THE DISCOURSE GUYS!

Cultural christianity, Christian atheism / antitheism etc. were originally terms to describe a (mostly hypothetical) state enforcement to rid the society of any form of religion or spiritual practice, making it, ironically, a theocracy.

But then the term started to broaden into "People raised Christian who are anti religion." Then to "Any atheist who was raised Christian" to "Any non Christian who lives in a Christian hegemony." To finally "If you ever went to a Christmas party without bursting into flames."

By the time it got to where laypeople were hearing about this discourse, it was already in the aforementioned late stages, so you get people genuinely trying to heal from religious trauma being told that they'll never truly leave the Church because they got Sundays off at their job.

[rmmgy-blog]

Religion malarky continued; just went down a rabbithole reading about Christian atheism.

Genuinely just had a

what?

Moment discovering that is a legit theological position certain academics take and a position held by a striking number of people. A literal religious category exists of people that are culturally Christian but without belief in a supreme or separate God. This describes, even though only flawed anf partially, my strange situation of appreciating Christian religious imagery, themes and morals while explicitly rejecting a "higher power" than any that can be felt on Earth.

I won't just say job done, that's clearly me, since it likely still isn't, but this has certainly caught me off guard on a wikipedia binge.

[poetrmmgy]

Jesus Christ of Vevay Road

At day you are hardly noticed

People drive and stop and drive again through their humdrum days

Mechanical, faceless and unfeeling, waiting for traffic lights to permit them to leave

They never bat an eyelid at their murdered God

Yet in the purgatory between night and day, twilight sky abounds

Purple is her colour, and you she fondly shrouds

The moon dimly shines upon you, a halo of faint light illuminates your crown of thorns

Your mother weeps beneath your feet as she stares up at your tortured visage

Mary Magdalene cries out in horror at the bleeding wound pierced into your ribs

You hang aloft, foresaken by your Father, to die for the sins of those who ignore you

But you are not forgotten by all

Those who see you in the twilight glow see your anguish and your plight

From the rats, to the bats, to the lonely souls like me

I don't know if you can see this, if you're looking down, if there's Heaven above

But on Vevay Road, I know you're real

As real as light, as real as hope, as real as love

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

[politijohn]

Source

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[autisticexpression2]

We need the obnoxious atheists back. I know they engineered their own destruction by being annoying and pretentious, but it has become apparent how essential to the ecosystem they were. The religious fanatics have become too bold without their natural predators. Jesus wojaks would have been torn to shreds in 2011.

[inphront]

still figuring out the extent to which i wanna engage with christian atheism but i’ve gotta say i’m exhilarated by the sheer level of absolute fuck you to categories that it presents. one thing about me is if you give me two things and tell me i have to be one or the other i will, 100% of the time without fail, find a way to say “no actually i am both and also neither so get BENT.” i have schrödinger’s gender and schrödinger’s religion and i will devote my entire life to being a walking oxymoron until binaries stop existing and everybody can die mad about it. anyway not quite healed enough yet to stick a label on any of my religious thoughts or to make any kind of return to any kind of faith but like. when i do i will make sure it pisses SO many people off and that’s a promise.

[edenfenixblogs]

The fact that fudgeyourmama read your post and can think that you hate atheists or cultural Christians or Christian atheists is literally proof of your point.

I’m matching your tone here and am not tagging or piling on to fudgeyourmama, but your point is that Christian atheists do tend to view most conflicts as good or bad, heaven or hell, black and white, god or satan, righteous or damned. And that’s just not a mindset that Jews have at all.

There are things that are bad and there are things that are good. But most things are somewhere in between, and we’re comfortable with that. Just because cultural Christianity and Christian atheism exist doesn’t mean that everyone within those identities is evil or that we are demonizing them by recognizing their existence.

Most people I’ve seen, including good friends who are atheists who condemn Christianity, fall somewhere in this spectrum. It’s just like how we say that all white people aren’t bad for being white. But they have privilege and prejudice that they must first unpack if they want to be allies to people who don’t live or think within a Christian or inverted-Christian framework.

I know this doesn’t apply to fudgeyourmama, who has made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of being an ally to Jews at any time. But in making that clear and stating their reasoning, they voiced the exact accusations that we are trying to point out.

They accuse you of not caring about anyone but Jews, because they fail to understand the nuances of your point and can only see you as good or evil. Which they then extend to everyone like you (aka every jewish person, because they can’t fathom the differences between us), so we must all fit into that binary. Then they define themselves by their righteous opposition to us and in so doing fall right into the heaven and hell based dichotomy that traumatized them in the first place.

I truly don’t know why they can’t see they are doing this. But I have noticed that, for some reason, it’s very hard for culturally Christian people to fully divorce themselves from the idea of heaven and hell as inevitable extremes that affect us. It’s even harder for these same people to fathom that not only do Jews not have/believe in hell and do not have a consensus about heaven but also that we simply don’t have the same messaging about good vs evil and threat vs reward informing our choices and driving our actions.

Judaism is a religion of community. That’s why you can be both completely, religiously Jewish and also an atheist. Our goodness is always contextualized but not by heaven or G-d. G-d is everything. We don’t have hell or the devil so G-d is also the source of much suffering. But also we bring so much suffering on ourselves and upon each other. Our goal is always just to bring goodness to our community and the world and to reduce suffering and harm everywhere we can. We are not responsible or liable for what G-d does. But we are responsible for being good to each other.

Fudgeyourmama is fundamentally not operating within a framework that is compatible with respect for Jews. But they are operating within a framework that offers respect for Christians. That doesn’t make them BAD. It just makes them antisemitic. But antisemitism isn’t a person it’s a belief. They can undo that belief anytime, but they have to be willing to do the work.

In this context work means confronting their own religious trauma and reckoning with how they still subscribe to beliefs they thought they left behind. That doesn’t make them bad. That makes them wounded. The unwillingness to do the work is more detrimental to their character than the hateful belief itself. Ideas can change. People can grow. And hate can fade. So it doesn’t point to an inherent evil inside of someone.

It’s just a shame that they’re unwilling to do this work. Because it ultimately means that we are giving them more respect than they are giving us. We are understanding their background and their culture and being nuanced in our approach to this conversation as best we can through the lens of our own worldview.

But they are still using the religious framework that harmed and traumatized them to condemn us. And more than good or evil, it’s just tragic. It hurts us. It makes them continue their own cycle of trauma by inflicting it on others. And it makes the world worse for everyone overall. Which is disrespectful to Jews, because it is fundamentally at odd with how we move through the world. Nobody wins. The world gets worse. Everyone is wounded. What’s the point?

And just to follow up on that previous reblog without derailing it: a lot of the really weird relationships and discourse that exist out there in the neo-pagan, Satanist, and atheist communities are in fact echoes of the weird relationship that Xtianity has with Judaism.

Xtianity has a weird, tumultuous relationship with Judaism because they must simultaneously validate the Tanakh and the Jews who created it or else their own religion is devoid of context and built on a house of cards. But! If they validate Judaism, then they have to grapple with the fact that the Jews did not accept their interpretation of the Tanakh, that we still, against all odds, exist, and that because we still exist, we are still around to point out the ways in which the New Testament does not fit with the Tanakh and that the Tanakh does not inherently or naturally point to Jesus. And that's to say nothing of the bloody history of Xtianity towards Judaism. Our continued existence is a sore point and a weakness in the Xtian narrative that has been a constant source of irritation, frustration, and violence since the dawn of Xtianity. And, at the same time, there is a certain fascination with Judaism related to things that have been appropriated by Xtians or understood as particularly useful in spreading supercessionist ideas. So what you wind up with is a toxic mix of antisemitism and philosemitism (effectively fetishization and orientalism) that drives too many Xtians to "love" us by attacking our beliefs and way of life, and stealing whatever they think will be most helpful in their mission (especially as it pertains to Jews) in order to try and convert us.**

Many people who have also been hurt from inside of Xtianity or by the broader Xtian culture they live in seek to deconstruct those ideas by creating an inverse of Xtianity in one way or another. Those who turn to Satanism typically do this by worshipping the opposite force of the Xtian god. Those who turn to neo-paganism typically do this by embracing an unambiguously polytheistic religion and/or by turning to the cultural historical enemies of Xtianity. Those who turn to atheism typically do this by rejecting "God," "faith," and "organized religion" (as these concepts are understood by Xtian norms.)

And honestly? That's fine. If it helps, if it brings you meaning and joy, knock yourselves out. I have no problem with people turning to these beliefs for reasons of healing as well as simply being drawn to it. And for what it's worth, I did a similar thing by turning to Judaism. Obviously I had many other reasons for becoming a Jew as well, and I assume that's true for the aforementioned folks, too. Judaism healed a lot of Xtianity-shaped wounds for me, and if your paganism, Satanism, and/or atheism helps you in the same way as well as bringing you meaning, I sincerely wish you the best.

However, the problem is that many times, unless you turn to Judaism and learn our side of the story, it's very difficult to deconstruct the antisemitism of your past entanglement with Xtianity. Xtian antisemitism has permeated western society so thoroughly for so long that it is real *work* to identify and unlearn it. Those converting to Judaism have the benefit of the Jewish community and extensive educational resources to help. Other folks do not.

Here's the problem: if you simply invert Xtian ideas, you are still treating Xtianity as the baseline reality from which your other assumptions and beliefs flow. If you just choose the opposite at every chance, you divorce yourself from Xtianity, but not its prejudices.

Now you might fairly ask, "hey Avital, if we are making the opposite choice at every turn, wouldn't that invert the antisemitism to being at least neutral if not positive towards Judaism?" And that would be perfectly logical! But unfortunately deeply and (for us) dangerously incorrect.

The reason is because (1) antisemitism has never been rational but reactionary instead, (2) philosemitism is also bad, and (3) it is structured in a way that it's pretty much always "heads I win, tails you lose." Have you ever noticed that according to antisemites, Jews are both ultra-white and also dirty foreign middle eastern invaders? That we are supposedly very powerful and run the world, but are also weak and degenerate? That both the Right and the Left have extensive antisemitism problems? Etc.? There's a reason - it's because antisemitism is designed to other us no matter what. So oftentimes I see folks inverting Xtian philosemitism to being "those awful fundamentalist Old Testamenters" or inverting Xtian antisemitism to valorizing Judaism, but only to the extent that they can meme-ify our religion down to fighting God and/or being un-pious godless liberals.

But like other groups, we are a diverse and complicated group with a very long history and a lot of trauma to boot.

If you're trying to unpack your Xtian conditioning, please also unpack your antisemitism and philosemitism. If not for our sake and for it being the right thing to do, at least do it for yourselves, because unless you deconstruct that as well, you will still be operating within a really ugly aspect of a Xtian mindset.

(**Please note that this isn't literally all Xtians everywhere, but it is a lot of Xtians in most places and throughout most of history. There are absolutely Xtians who are good allies to Jews, but they are much smaller in number and are swimming upstream in their relationship to both Jews and Xtianity.)

[pagan-corruption]

Another issue I have with Christian atheism (both the academic post post modernist term and the way Tumblr uses it) is that Christianity doesn't make sense outside of a relationship let alone belief in the Holy Trinity*

I did mention earlier that the people who use this term to describe (particularly ex Christian) atheists were Jewish. I'm not saying that as a JQ thing. I think it's more that they're erroneously projecting how Judaism works onto Christianity.

Obviously Jewish people worship the Hasem and have a relationship with the divine, but there is a sub group of atheists who engage in Jewish culture as a form of preservation of the culture, especially given how marginalized and persecuted it is.

There isn't a Christian equivalent of that. It's the most common religion in the world. There is no one Christian culture. If you tell a Roman Catholic they in the same community as an ELCA member and you tell both of them they are in the same community as (May Allah forgive me) a Calvinist, they would kill you.

I was watching a documentary about nuns and the interviewer asked one of them what they would do if they came to a realization that Christianity was false and she said "I'd leave in two minutes. This is all for Jesus. This is all for the glory of Heaven."

Christians don't honor the Sabbath because it's nice to take a break. They do it explicitly, directly, and only because God told them to.

Christian atheism is impossible.

*this is also why I think unitarians are weird but that's a whole different post

[chanaleah]

It's interesting to me that growing up Jewish seems to have given me a fundamentally different understanding of religion from my Christian friends. For me, I think that your religion (or ethnicity, since Judaism is an ethnicity) is not something you can get rid of. You can convert to another religion, but I never understood friends of mine who said that they weren't Christian, but Atheist.

"But you celebrate Christmas, right?" I asked them.

"Well, yeah," they said, "but we don't celebrate Christian Christmas. I'm atheist."

That didn't make any sense to me. Sure, maybe the version of Christmas they celebrated in their house looked more like treats and presents and less like nativity scenes and prayers, but it was still the same holiday.

So, I came up with the concept of the difference between "Not Christian" and "non-Christian". Which of course my "not christian" friends didn't understand. But my idea was that there are people who are "not christian" - mainly culturally christian atheists - and people who are "non-christian", like Jews, Hindus, Muslims, or others.

Because while both groups generally don't identify as Christian, we have different experiences. As a Jew, my experience as a religious minority is not the same as that of a culturally Christian atheist. They're not Christian, and I'm not Christian, but in different ways.

note (11/27/23)— I don’t entirely stand by the contents of this post anymore, specifically the part where I said that religion isn’t something you can get rid of. I have changed my mind and as of now do believe that atheism fully separate from Christianity is something that can be achieved, and while I’m not apologizing to many of those in my notes who despite their avowed atheism have continued to uphold Christian hegemony— I do apologize to atheists who have taken steps to distance themselves from Christianity and be careful not to uphold Christian hegemony.

[oceanicmarxist]

1929 cover of Bezbozhnik u Stanka, the magazine of the League of Militant Atheists in the U.S.S.R. Cover depicts industrial workers tipping Jesus into a garbage disposal while another smashes a church bell with a big hammer.

[sinful-skeptic]

Another fine case of “practice what you preach.” It’s not the woman’s fault that you lack self control.

[whereserpentswalk]

Fellow pagans. Remember that the pagan experience is not purely an ex Christian experience. That experience is worth talking about, but please don't talk about the pagan experience as if leaving Christianity is universal to being neopagan.

Ex atheist pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Ex Muslim pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Non practicing Jewish pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Pagans who have been pagan for most or all of their life deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

[fuckyeahreligionpigeon]

[politijohn]

Source

This should never have been a thing