From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Apr 05 2003 - 04:34:29 BST
Sam, Rick and y'all:
RICK SAID: Most religious doctrine is brittle by definition. I know you
see religion very differently, but from what you've written I don't see any
real parallel between your views of Christianity and those of the average
Christian, who tends to like his Bible taken literally."
SAM REPLIED:
The first part of that I have some agreement with, but I think that you are
depending upon a caricature of Christianity to give force to your argument.
... In particular, the idea that the
Bible has to be taken literally is an *entirely* modern creation, unknown in
the classical and medieval periods, which had a very subtle 'four-fold'
method of interpreting scripture. Don't you think it at all odd that you
'don't see any real parallel between your views of Christianity and those of
the average Christian' - when I have been given authority by a mainstream
church for *teaching* 'average' Christians? Whose views are representative
of the mainstream?
DMB SAYS:
There are statistics about this stuff. Not about medieval literalism, but
about how many and what sort of believers there are. I have a book called
"ONE NATION UNDER GOD: Religion in Contemporary American Society." It only
confirms what is easy to see by paying attention, but its nice to have hard
numbers.
The USA is the most religious in the Western World. Out of every 100
Americans, 96 believe in God or a universal spirit, 86 are Christian, 58 say
religion is very important and seven tenths of one of them is agnostic.
There are even fewer who call themselves humanists. In fact, of all the "No
Religion" categories only add up to 7.5% of the adult population. In the UK,
by contrast, only 76 out of 100 believe in God and only 23 of 'em'll say
religion is very important.
Let's break down Christianity in the USA, which includes 86% of the total
adult population. 26% are Catholic, Baptists are the largest Protestant
group and represent 20%, with the remaining 40% going to more than 40
different demoninations. Nearly half of American Christians believe the
Bible is the literal word of god and can rightly be called fundamentalists,
about 40%. And for the remaining 46%, there are shades and degrees of
literalism.
I think Rick has solid reasons for thinking that Christians tend to take it
literally. Its true, at least in the USA. Fundamentalism is an extreme
postion is the sense that it is a radically divergent worldview, but in
terms of numbers and such, it really IS quite mainstream. The predominance
of fundamentalism in our politics and in our cultural life is hard to
ignore. This is not a caricature, just a snapshot of the sociological
landscape.
Thanks,
DMB
PS Sam, there are more Anglicans in Africa than in the UK, and they tend to
be far more theologically conservative. I guess that makes you a left-winger
of sorts. ;-)
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Apr 05 2003 - 04:36:15 BST