It isn’t any different with respect to Christianity. Popular religion is one thing; thoughtful, informed religion is another.

Should people judge and repudiate Christianity based on its most ignorant expression? That hardly seems fair to me.

Thinking Ape:
Is it true that Liberal Christians don’t believe much? That’s an interesting perspective.

Liberal Christians believe in God’s existence; they believe God created the cosmos; that Jesus constitutes a revelation of God to believers; and that Jesus’ death and resurrection (whether physical or spiritual) speak deeply to us about the universal human experience of suffering and about survival beyond the grave.

They also believe in many of the values and mores of the Bible (e.g. the responsibility of the wealthy to assist the poor).

So what do you mean, they don’t believe “much”? If they believe the core elements of the Christian faith, isn’t that actually rather a lot?

That said … I think Liberal preachers are quite tentative about teaching scripture. Maybe because they are confused as to what they believe themselves — there is such a wide range of opinion among scholars.

Partly, I suspect, because they don’t want to tell their parishioners what to think. Thus they do people a disservice: in my experience, people who attend Liberal churches are deeply interested in being educated about the Bible.

While it isn’t so unreasonable for an agnostic / atheist to say: “you Christians should first agree among yourselves what Christian beliefs actually are; until you’ve done that I don’t see any need to take any of you seriously”?, I do think that any group of people who justify their philosophy rationally should take the trouble to engage fairly and broadly with their opponents. All fundamentalists, religious and secular, believe that their way is the only true one; it’s not a fault of the philosophy itself per se (which of course will have its own problems), but the fault of fundamentalism itself. I am certain that all atheists/agnostics don’t agree among themselves either, but that doesn’t shut down rational discussion.

Thanks for the other comments, which are fair, as far as they go. My problem is not with the question of causes and effects, which materialist investigation and empirical approaches to science have identified pretty clearly; my problem is with the political end result, which I find atheism does not clear up; by belittling the philosophies of entire civilizations by labelling them “erroneous”, atheism and atheists can advance the cause of racism and bigotry as much as religion does. This is what I protest, and this is why I have pretty major political objections to atheism.

Atheists and scientists can be as narrow in their definition of “evidence”, as theists may be irrational in their faith. which is more suitable for the material, inanimate world, but which is inadequate when applied to human beings. Anecdotal evidence, being largely unmeasurable and variable (hence untrustworthy), is pretty completely discounted in materialist thought. But a social anthropologist, I’ve discovered that materialist thought doesn’t go very far when applied to questions of human behaviour and human societies. So there is room in my discipline for anecdotal evidence. As I cannot prove that my grand-aunt did not see and speak with her dead sisters the week before she died, I choose not to dismiss her experience; I don’t know what happened, I can’t find a materialist explanation for it, I may not believe what she said it meant (that they were calling her to come with them), but I cannot discount it without disrespecting her. I choose to say I don’t know what happened instead.

Why is the only option theologically liberal Christianity? I’m smack in the middle. I am theologically conservative (inerrancy of scripture, divinity of Christ, justification by faith, etc.), but very liberal culturally (I love all kinds of music, believe in equality and social justice, and believe that beer is proof that God loves men). Why must the alternative to fundamentalism be liberalism and not moderation? Why not a TRUE attempt to read scripture as it eas intended instead of how we wish it would read?

Want an example? Here are several:

http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/index.html
http://theresurgence.com/
http://www.epc.org/
http://www.marshillchurch.org/
http://www.journeyon.net/

Stephen said:
“I think what you are saying is that fundamentalism is a false form of Christianity and we aren’t addressing what you consider to be the “true” Christianity. But that leaves me (and probably numerous other people here) wondering how we are supposed to know what the “true” Christianity is. After all, fundamentalists are adamant that their Christianity is the only true one.”

I agree, but would hold that true the Christianity is the one that is revealed in the bible. Read the bible, contextualize it (consider author, audience, time period, environment), and apply it in today’s context. Allow for some tweaking by the Holy Spirit, and voila! You have a gospel-faithful Christianity (see Gospel Coalition link for more of this).

I cannot accept the material world as all that is, which is what seems to me to lie at the bottom of any atheist discussion. There is a fundamental, political arrogance that lies at the bottom of atheist theory that turns me off; as a person from the so-called Third World, I choose not to accept the idea that all the theories about life and the world that at least half of my ancestors — if not most of them — believed are in error, which becoming an atheist would force me to do.

Very much of what people have thought in the past was in error. For most of human history people have thought that the sun went around the earth. For most of human history people held erroneous ideas about the cause of disease. Many people still do hold erroneous ideas about biological evolution.

Perhaps the single quality most vital to advancing humankind and making the world a better place is the willingness to say “having looked at the evidence, I see I was wrong”.

If there is an arrogant position, it is the refusal to accept that religious ideas should be subject to the same scrutiny as any other idea.

The difference, of course, is that religious people believe in revelation, while atheists and agnostics don’t, and there’s not a whole lot any human being can do to change either perspective.

I wouldn’t be so pessimistic. After all, we do have some evidence. If there is one god revealing himself to people, then one would expect that all, or at least most, religious people would have closely similar beliefs. In fact we see a wide range of beliefs, and often violent disagreement (literally violent) between religious groups. This is strong evidence that there are either many gods or none, but at any rate not just one.

Of course many religious people will refuse to accept this, but a growing number are seeing the force of this and other arguments – which is, after all, why this weblog exists at all.

… the discussion on De-Conversion, rather than addressing real solid issues of belief and non-belief, appears to be attacking the straw man that fundamentalism has created of itself …

This comment has me very puzzled. In a strawman argument one attacks a position that ones opponent does not actually hold. But fundamentalist beliefs are held genuinely, and fiercely, by millions. There is certainly no strawman, and you can’t find more solid issues of belief than those held by fundamentalists.

I think what you are saying is that fundamentalism is a false form of Christianity and we aren’t addressing what you consider to be the “true” Christianity. But that leaves me (and probably numerous other people here) wondering how we are supposed to know what the “true” Christianity is. After all, fundamentalists are adamant that their Christianity is the only true one.

Is it so unreasonable for an agnostic / atheist to say: “you Christians should first agree among yourselves what Christian beliefs actually are; until you’ve done that I don’t see any need to take any of you seriously”?

**I would have thought that also, but actually I’ve met loads and loads of liberal and moderate Christians online who’ve deconverted. Probably it’s more prevalent among them than it is among fundies, actually. The beliefs aren’t that strong in the first place, and play a less critical role in identity, so they’re easier to shrug off.** Thanks for the correction. It makes sense, and would explain why I’ve never stumbled across a blog for de-converted liberal Christians: as you said, it’s less of a critical role, and probably a lot less guilt/fear involved in the decision, too. And I would hope that their friends/family would still treat them the same.