Where Faith Comes From in the "moderate" Christian religions

He already answered that. He said that he had a personal conversion.I think your question would be better poised to people like deists. Or are you hinting that most Christians believe because they've been indoctrinated since age 1 and it's now so deeply ingrained that if you asked them that simple question they may not know how to answer it?Edited by Hyroglyphx, : grammer

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"The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher--

Which is exactly why I'm firmly against indoctrination. I'm fine with faith. You can have your perfect relationship with your god(s) all you want; but once you set up a religion, once you try to spread beyond yourself or any others who have come to your same conclusions independently, that's when it becomes a religion and that's when I have a problem with it.Religion, face it: your masses should choose their own path instead of blindly following your words.

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I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen Roberts

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I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in
- Dan Foutes

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"In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has widely been considered as a bad move."
- Douglas Adams

But it doesn't have to be all literally true to convince someone to become a Christian.Consider the following proposition: the Bible is a collection of documents purporting to record human interactions with God. Like any other collection of documents, such as those, for example, relating to the history of ancient Rome, in principle some may be mythical, some fraudulent, some tampered with after they were originally written, some may suffer from lapses of memory on the part of the writer, and so forth.Now, to take a parallel instance, it is not necessary to believe that the documents relating to Roman history are inspired, inerrant, flawlessly transmitted, and so forth, in order to believe that Brutus assassinated Julius Caesar; nor would it be necessary to reject this claim about Caesar if, for some reason, someone had bound together all the purported documents concerning ancient Rome into one volume: one might reject the story of Romulus and Remus being suckled by a she-wolf as a fairy-tale while still thinking that the extant documents were sufficient evidence for the assassination of Caesar.In the same way, the question facing someone contemplating becoming a Christian is not whether every word in the Bible is accurate, inspired, et cetera, but only whether the documents have sufficient historicity to justify the central claims of Christianity, as summarized, for example, in the so-called "Apostles' Creed". If the documents available to us are really sufficient to establish that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead, then the fact that Genesis is, at best, an allegory, would not negate that proposition, to which it bears no logical relationship.A non-fundamentalist Christian could therefore point out that a demand for inerrancy and divine inspiration and so forth is setting the bar for Christianity unreasonably high. No other proposition is required to have that weight of authority on its side, so why should anyone except the most tendentious of atheists suggest that it should be a prerequisite for accepting the Christian faith?In summary, it is perfectly possible to come to Christianity through the Bible without believing it to be flawless, just as it is possible to come to believe in other claims, such as that Julius Caesar was assassinated, through study of the extant documents, without believing that all documents relating to the history of ancient Rome are divinely inspired, entirely free from error, et cetera.

thats the point i thought i was making. i thought the OP was asking where faith came from if it didnt come from the bible...many people have faith without it being based on religion, so i though the OP was asking why this is so.i'll have to re-read it.

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evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus’ earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If Jesus was not the redeemer who died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing!

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Bozarth, G. Richard, "The Meaning of Evolution," American Atheist (February 1978), page 30Substituting the historical view of creation by evolution (by viewing genesis as allegorical) has unsurmountable for christianity ... Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

I have to fully agree with Peg on this. The topic question is about the source of the faith, not the "truth" of the religion.Adminnemooseus

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The "moderate Christians" would/do not agree with this. And it is the "moderate Christians" perspective that is the core of this topic.Adminnemooseus

I have read that religious experiences can be stimulated electrically, so your observation that they seem to be built in seems to be correct.I have not had one of these experiences, but I gather that they can be very convincing. I wonder if faith arises in part from some sort of flaw in the wiring of our brains.(apologies for earlier derail)

Yes in fact they can be, as they stimulate a feeling of "oneness" similarly to that of many drugs such as LSD. In fact, the fact that LSD affects the brain in that manner means that there are receptors for that chemical in the brain, and thus the "Religious experience" can be produced naturally by the brain. Yes in fact they are. In Michael Shermer's book How we believe, he describes how he went through the electric current and was stimulated into an idea of spirituality. The reason that it did not blow into a full religious experience was the doubting and skepticism on Shermer's part. That is a good guess, but no. Religion arose through humans seeking patterns in their environment: it was a sort of adaption trait in the early human's life. Priests and medicine men tended to get more women. In addition, the idea of a God that was watching over the tribe/city/nation was definitely both an orderly set of rules (their theology) as well as a confidence builder (in that they could travel farther from home or wage more war)I'd really like to recommend Shermer's book. It's one of the best I've come across in a long time.

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I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
- Stephen Roberts

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I'm a polyatheist - there are many gods I don't believe in
- Dan Foutes

​

"In the beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has widely been considered as a bad move."
- Douglas Adams

quote:

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In a recent post I've thought about how "moderate" Christians come to their religion besides through the Bible (as to them it's not ALL literally true). If so, then on what do they base their beliefs? Any takers/thoughts?

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Same place I learned about Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, Angels, and Satan. Parents and the Protestant Church system. At some point parents or older kids make it known that Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny are not real (or parents are caught in the act), but we continue to celebrate and enjoy the myths. They are part of our psyche and culture like any other character in a book. The same is true for Angels and Satan.The church community also becomes a part of the persons life, so even those who are moderate and take the Bible with a grain of salt remain with the people they know. They enjoy the fellowship.Even if one understand the reality of religion and the Bible, one can enjoy the fellowship of a church community. It's the easiest community to join and they're required to be nice.I never really read the Bible until I was in my mid 20's. The preacher and teachers present lessons, which are usually various verses combined to present a specific point that doesn't necessarily haven't anything to do with what the author was actually telling his audience.So the belief grew from teachings or doctrine and not completely on what is actually written in the Bible. Understanding the reality of the Bible doesn't negate the lessons within. My father was moderate and kept me grounded in reality. Fortunately I never was in an extreme group.I also agree with what Dr. Adequate said in Message 18.

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"Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz

For once I agree with Peg. But I believe it is this drive that caused the Bible to be written. Faith comes from wonder and innocence.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

After all this time you would think you would have learned at least something about evolution. Or is it just pure dishonesty in trying to promote your beliefs?The TOE says nothing and has nothing to do with the origin of life. That is a different subject in entirety. Please, please try understand at least the basics of the theory.

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Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts

This is what I meant by "ignorance". There is a connotation against ignorance that implies someone who is ignorant is somehow at fault or "lesser" because of it, but I don't think that is always justified. There is no *inherent* negative quality of ignorance, just negative repercussions that can occur.

If Peg were talking about evolution I'd agree with you 100%, and maybe because of Peg's history it's still not an excusable inexactitude; but, scheesh, cut her a break.If I said π is 3.14159 I'd expect agreement. If I said π is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter: π=3.14159 I'd expect you to correct me to say "∏≈3.14159: an irrational number. Its decimal representation neither ends nor repeats."

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

I haven't had one either, but I was there shortly after my cousin had one. He explained it as a sense of euphoria and acceptance of everything, and he swears it wasn't caused by any drugs or anyhting external to his body. He said he could easily see how a person with a religious mind set could have felt it as the poresence of god, but being an atheist, he viewed it more as an example of the complexity of beauty of the human mind/body.These sort of transcendental experiences are rare, but seem to be hardwired into our brains, either through some as yet unknown benefit, or through a misfiring or miscommunication in the brain, akin perhaps to deja vu. The rarity of the experiences, and the peace it gives, grant the experience something mystical, magical, or otherwise mysterious. As pattern seekers, we try to quantify and describe these passing experiences and forever seek after them again by whatever means we find the most likely.