Letter to a Christian Nation

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Leela

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Hi everyone,

I’m new to this forum. I have never had much of an interest in religion. My philosophy was always, “live and let live” with regard to people’s various religious beliefs. Recently a friend lent me a book called Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, and it has gotten me concerned about the religioius beliefs of others. Can we ever have peace when one group of people believes in the Koran and another believes in the Bible?

Best,
Leela
 
Leela said:
Can we ever have peace when one group of people believes in the Koran and another believes in the Bible?
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What do you mean by “peace”?

And is that “peace” more important than those “beliefs”?
 
Leela said:
Hi everyone,

I’m new to this forum. I have never had much of an interest in religion. My philosophy was always, “live and let live” with regard to people’s various religious beliefs. Recently a friend lent me a book called Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris, and it has gotten me concerned about the religioius beliefs of others. Can we ever have peace when one group of people believes in the Koran and another believes in the Bible?

Best,
Leela
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Of course. We have over 200 years of peace between those who accept the New Testament and those who don’t. We’ve had over 200 years of peace of those who accept the Judeo-Christian deity, and those who don’t. I live in a city that has significant numbers of Jews, Eastern Orthodox (pretty much all types, Greek, Assyrian, Antiochian…), Catholics (mostly Latin rite with some Byzantines, Melchites…), and Black Evangelicals. All of these groups are able to live in peace with one another. They don’t interact much (with the exception of the PADs shelters which move from institution to institution doing one night a week), but they do live in peace. In recent decades, we’ve absorbed Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus without any sign of a lack of peace. I’m guessing we also have a significant number of none-of-the-above folks who don’t choose to worship anything in particular.

It is the genius of our system that all of these disparate groups may speak their piece and try to get converts from each other, but none speaks for the body politic.
 
CatsAndDogs said:
What do you mean by “peace”?

And is that “peace” more important than those “beliefs”?
Click to expand...
Hi CatsandDogs,

I mean “peace” in the usual way. People not killing each other over their beliefs? As for whether the beliefs are more important than the killings I would say that beliefs that result in killing are probably bad belief.

Best,
Leela
 
Leela said:
Hi CatsandDogs,

I mean “peace” in the usual way. People not killing each other over their beliefs? As for whether the beliefs are more important than the killings I would say that beliefs that result in killing are probably bad belief.

Best,
Leela
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Would it have been wrong for the Catholic Martyrs to have held to their beliefs, because it was their beliefs, after all, that caused others to kill them?

Was it “criminal” (meaning “not promoting peace”) of the Martyrs to have forced others to kill them by believing as they did?
 
a_cermak said:
Of course. We have over 200 years of peace between those who accept the New Testament and those who don’t. We’ve had over 200 years of peace of those who accept the Judeo-Christian deity, and those who don’t. I live in a city that has significant numbers of Jews, Eastern Orthodox (pretty much all types, Greek, Assyrian, Antiochian…), Catholics (mostly Latin rite with some Byzantines, Melchites…), and Black Evangelicals. All of these groups are able to live in peace with one another. They don’t interact much (with the exception of the PADs shelters which move from institution to institution doing one night a week), but they do live in peace. In recent decades, we’ve absorbed Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus without any sign of a lack of peace. I’m guessing we also have a significant number of none-of-the-above folks who don’t choose to worship anything in particular.

It is the genius of our system that all of these disparate groups may speak their piece and try to get converts from each other, but none speaks for the body politic.
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Hi a_cermak,

I suspect you are a rare Jew in thinking that Jews have been living in peace with Christians for 200 years, but that is absolutely wonderful to hear that these different groups are able to live together peacefully in your city.

Why do you think it is that your city has been able to exist peacefully with so many diverse religions while religion seems to be such a source of conflict in so much of the world?

Best,
Leela
 
CatsAndDogs said:
Would it have been wrong for the Catholic Martyrs to have held to their beliefs, because it was their beliefs, after all, that caused others to kill them?

Was it “criminal” (meaning “not promoting peace”) of the Martyrs to have forced others to kill them by believing as they did?
Click to expand...
I don’t see how one person’s belief causes someone else to kill him.
 
Leela said:
I don’t see how one person’s belief causes someone else to kill him.
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You’ve heard of “martyrs”, right?

If I hold to my religious beliefs and, say, refuse to worship some idol as a god and, in the place that I happen to be at that time, the custom is that those who don’t worship that idol must have their brains scooped out and served up on ice-cream cones for the crowd outside that idol’s temple, I’ve essentially FORCED them to kill me.

That’s a somewhat goofy example, but not unheard of, but that’s how one’s beliefs can cause others to kill him.

So, the question is, is it wrong of me to become a martyr (the scoopee) by holding to my beliefs?
 
CatsAndDogs said:
You’ve heard of “martyrs”, right?

If I hold to my religious beliefs and, say, refuse to worship some idol as a god and, in the place that I happen to be at that time, the custom is that those who don’t worship that idol must have their brains scooped out and served up on ice-cream cones for the crowd outside that idol’s temple, I’ve essentially FORCED them to kill me.
That’s a somewhat goofy example, but not unheard of, but that’s how one’s beliefs can cause others to kill him.

So, the question is, is it wrong of me to become a martyr (the scoopee) by holding to my beliefs?
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That’s a ridiculous statement. The martyrs did NOT force anyone to kill them. That’s twisted thinking.
 
thistle said:
That’s a ridiculous statement. The martyrs did NOT force anyone to kill them. That’s twisted thinking.
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My point is, quite obviously, that sometimes to hold to your beliefs can cause (though “force” is probably not he correct word) others to literally kill you.

The question then becomes, is that “lack of peace” justified by holding to one’s beliefs?

Is “peace” (lack of conflict) more important, or is “faith” (holding to one’s beliefs) more important?
 
Leela said:
I would say that beliefs that result in killing are probably bad belief.
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Actually, in the case of the major religions, its misunderstood beliefs or people misusing beliefs for their own gain that results in killings.

People with a real understanding of Christianity do not kill.

Blaming faith is a ‘lazy’ explanation for some of the violence in the world. It is far more complex than it seems.
 
Leela said:
Hi a_cermak,

I suspect you are a rare Jew in thinking that Jews have been living in peace with Christians for 200 years, but that is absolutely wonderful to hear that these different groups are able to live together peacefully in your city.

Why do you think it is that your city has been able to exist peacefully with so many diverse religions while religion seems to be such a source of conflict in so much of the world?

Best,
Leela
Click to expand...
Because Chicago has always been a city where what you can do for it is more important than what you are. In other words, in the 1860’s when Chicago first started growing and then in the 1870’s & 1880s after Chicago burned to the ground and needed rebuilding, what mattered was could you work. What you did on your own time, who you worshiped or worshipped with etc. didn’t matter. Chicago was so busy with its own troubles that it missed the whole Americanization craze of the 1920’s. People did largely self-organize at its start into culturally homogeneous neighborhoods, and didn’t mix, but as the 1950s rolled around that started to change too. Chicago, at its heart will always be multi-cultural because it is at the root of what Chicago is. Another reason that peace is maintained is that power is largely shared amongst the ethnic blocks. Largely religion is a subset of ethnicity in this city. Lately, gays and lesbians seem to be considered as an ethnic group in order to get their seat at the table. It’s just the way things work here.
 
Leela, The “live and let live” is the way the USA was set-up by our founders, as far as Religion is concerned. The Chicago example is pretty much how most big cities intermixed in the '50’s and '60’s. The ethnic neighborhoods started mixing, as well as the predominant religions of those ethnic groups. As a result, most of the kids born then became ‘mixed blood’ where their parents were pure blood. Also there were mixed marriages between the religions. That mixing continues today. Very few are ‘pure’ German, or Italian, or Swede, or Irish any more… although, they can be said to favor one over the other for personal reasons 😉 Guess it depends on if they are with their parents or at the in-laws, or whatever group they are in. Even a lot of the immigrants are not pure blood, even though they are coming from the one Country.

As far as the religious mixing, there are converts all ways. And here in the good ole US of A, (Politically) it matters not. It may matter to the particular religion if more are leaving then are gained, but that is for that particular religion to work on, not the Country per-say. We can look at some smaller Countries where the predominant religion still tries to do away with the lesser (the intruder in their eye’s) but here that is not the case. Although I believe the twin tower’s falling had religious over-tones, it tends to have been more by ‘extremists’ then the main body. And, all religions have some that are extreme, kind of off on their own branch rather then balanced by the whole of the tree.

These type’s really do not speak for the whole of the religion they profess to be, they speak for themselves. It’s like if the trouble maker is a male, does he speak for all males? If female, for all females? If 18 years old, for all 18 year olds? If white, for all whites? If Irish, for all Irish? The idea here is to look at the entirety and see that 1% are causing the trouble, while the 99% are not… why focus on the 1%??? When there is so much more of value in the 99%!!!
 
Leela said:
Hi everyone,

Can we ever have peace when one group of people believes in the Koran and another believes in the Bible?
Click to expand...
According to Sam Harris, we cannot. Sam Harris believes faith is basically a destructive delusion. His personally philosophy is predominantly influenced by scientific materialism and also Buddhism. He hasn’t completely denied that there may be a transcendent purpose and/or goal but he believes that if this goal cannot be observed empirically, through the senses, particularly in the brain, then it is faith-based and invalid. Sam Harris is an example of a person who has made reason, as understood by his reductionistic epistemology, the only source for truth. Catholics don’t reject that through reason we can arrive at particular truths but we operate on both faith and reason. Faith alone is dangerous without using our God-given ability to reason. Reason alone is dangerous because it cannot arrive at moral truth without, at the very least, faith in a transcendent moral order. Faith and reason mutually enlighten one another, by the grace of God. To better understand a Catholic response to Sam Harris I would read Fides et Ratio. So, to answer your question, according to Sam Harris it is not possible to live in peace if faith is present in any way because it is a delusion, he does not recognize it as being a valid way to know truth. But the Catholic Church doesn’t believe in utopian thinking, that we could ever have a complete man made peace in this world. To have complete peace you would have to root out pride, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, sloth, and greed from every person who exists and every person who comes into existence from this point on. Impossible. The best we can do is to create moral laws through the application of faith and reason to society that protect the dignity of the human person, and defend these rights when necessary. For the rest, we trust in God’s providence.
 
Last night, I had dinner with my girlfriends.
S. is a Muslim, just home visiting her folks. She returns to Saudi today.
A. is a Jew. I tell her that she should buy me a beer because she killed my God. She buys me beer and tells me that when the REAL Messiah comes, she’ll be the one getting ME to buy her beer.
K. is Hindu. Her wedding was the most visually stunning event I have ever seen in my whole life.
And L., poor sweet L…she is an atheist. She sends me Kwanzaa cards at Christmas. She’s very, um, confused. 🙂

We all get along splendidly. We’ve been friends since high school, through marriages, divorces, kids, moving, jobs, death of friends and family, near death experiences ourselves…
We all get along famously.🤷
What’s everyone else’s problem?
 
You and I both wish. We can try to convince people to tolerate other religions… Everyone has to get to their own Heaven somehow.

I admire your philosophy, but, for others, it just isn’t that easy. They just can’t take “no” for an answer.

Ironically Yours, Blade and Blood
 
There are three choices: Belief in the supernatural, unbelief in the supernatural, and refusal to attempt to know whether the supernatural exists. Refusal to attempt to know is not full use of the mind, for it is a refusal to engage in a major category of thinking at all. Belief leads to another juncture: Belief in absolute good and evil or not. Unbelief in the supernatural leads to the same juncture. Thus, among those who form opinions on these topics, there are four possible basic ways of seeing reality: Natural only, and amoral; Natural only, and moral, Supernatural, natural and amoral; Supernatural, natural and moral.
To choose the first is to choose the law of the jungle – I have been on the street enough to know how much hell that attitude wreaks on everyone it goes near.
To choose the second is to posit a natural-only absolute moral standard – The People (represented by whom? Measured by what means?), The Party, The Leader (who?)… History hangs with the weight of such attempts to invent morality. Let us now walk away from the options unbelief brings.
To choose the third is to choose a rare species of occult theory – one I have dabbled in, to my near destruction. it is more harmful than the law of the jungle and that of The Party (any of them so far) added together in terms of its capacity to destroy individuals mentally, physically and emotionally in a short time and the inability of bystanders to do anything about it, IMO.
The fourth choice remains. Yes, those who hold it have sometimes done wrong. But they have been far more often hunted than hunting, far more often persecuted than persecuting, far more often blessing those who curse them than cursing those who bless them, person for person, year for year, over the centuries. The option of supernatural, natural, moral – religion, in other words, has a better record than the rest of the choices.
It is easy to speak for tolerance, as if tolerating a person, an action and a thought were all one deed. But they aren’t. To tolerate the neighbors’ existence is commendable – everyone I know does so, too. To tolerate a good friend’s statement that life is expendable is not commendable, but apathetic and uncaring. To tolerate a neighbor’s action of harming the innocent is criminally negligent. To tolerate a neighbor’s action of meeting secretly with people who have expressed a wish to wipe us off the planet is hazardous in many cases.
 
yellowbicycle said:
Last night, I had dinner with my girlfriends.
S. is a Muslim, just home visiting her folks. She returns to Saudi today.
A. is a Jew. I tell her that she should buy me a beer because she killed my God. She buys me beer and tells me that when the REAL Messiah comes, she’ll be the one getting ME to buy her beer.
K. is Hindu. Her wedding was the most visually stunning event I have ever seen in my whole life.
And L., poor sweet L…she is an atheist. She sends me Kwanzaa cards at Christmas. She’s very, um, confused. 🙂

We all get along splendidly. We’ve been friends since high school, through marriages, divorces, kids, moving, jobs, death of friends and family, near death experiences ourselves…
We all get along famously.🤷
What’s everyone else’s problem?
Click to expand...
Hi yellowbiscycle,

What’s interesting to me about your post is that you find those who subscribe to beliefs that contradict yours to be closer to the mark than the one who doesn’t subscribe to any religion.

Is it just this particular woman that you think is confused or are atheists in general more confused than Jews and Muslims?

Best,
Leela
 
Leela said:
Hi yellowbiscycle,

What’s interesting to me about your post is that you find those who subscribe to beliefs that contradict yours to be closer to the mark than the one who doesn’t subscribe to any religion.

Is it just this particular woman that you think is confused or are atheists in general more confused than Jews and Muslims?

Best,
Leela
Click to expand...
I can’t answer for yellow bicycle but I can say but there is a vast difference between monotheism and atheism, and while Hinduism isn’t necessarily monotheistic it sometimes approaches monotheism more so than the other Asian philosophies and religions. In that sense a person who is atheist, or who rejects the existence of God (who also usually also rejects a transcendent purpose, objective morality etc.) is vastly different than a person who accepts these things but has not been properly introduced to divine revelation. Atheist is a different category in philosophy of religion and is objectively different than theism, even though there are different types of theism. So, it makes sense that the one friend is more confused. One must first believe in God to believe in God as revealed in history.
 
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