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Comment by brink | Hacker News Reader

As a child I had a subconscious assumption that Christianity wasn't rational, and maintained that view into my mid-twenties. Thankfully, I had the drive to do research on it, and an open enough mind to accept it, because I was ready to reject Christianity completely for a short period. I know this view isn't popular, but today, I see Christianity as the most rational philosophy/religion out there.

I think it's been wrongfully misconstrued as irrational by people who don't really understand the religion, inside and out.

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Speaking as an Atheist, Christianity gets a very bad rap from popular culture and because of the fact that so many people in the west know about it's core tenets but they only have a casual understanding of the theology. And thus, it's much more readily criticized.

Could you explain what's rational about Christianity? Moreover, do you refer to a specific branch or Christianity as a whole?

On that subject the blog undivided looking touches on using applied history and theology to rationalize Christianity. It appeals to my sense of mrationality at least.

http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/

I would recommend that blog as well; it is among my favorite places on the internet. Aron's writings have had a huge and very positive impact in my life.

I took a look at that blog, but it doesn't seem historical at all to me (for example, I can't think of any historian that dates the synoptics to before 70 AD). I also can't say I'm a fan of the way he treats other denominations of Christianity as non-Christian religions.

For a good historical look at Christianity, I'd recommend people look into the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast, the NT Pod podcast, or, for the old testament, the writings of Mark S. Smith (you can also find lectures of his on Youtube).

You don't need to know much about it. Christians believe in a god. That's open and shut right there.

Belief in a god in itself is not really that irrational.

Even secular thoughts like simulation theory agree in some sort of force that is outside of the material space-time universe we exist in.

I don't think the belief in creation by God requires any more leaps of faith than a belief in other cosmologies, such as the big bang, etc.

The big bang is a scientific hypothesis. You don't have to believe in it. You can accept it because it was proven, reject because it was disproven or suspend your judgement in between.

The Big Bang has physical evidence for its existence that you can personally verify.

Yes, but in practice who follows it to that level of detail?

From a layperson's point of view, are the astrophysicists that much different than a priestly caste?

I believe the physicists, but I don't think that by itself makes me a particularly rigorous thinker. In the ancient world I probably would have believed the priests, because it was what made sense to people.

And for better or for worse we have lots of evidence that people can reject science and still enjoy its benefits. It's not like refusing to believe in the Big Bang gets you blacklisted from using rockets or microchips, or rejecting evolution means you can't get vaccinated.

> From a layperson's point of view, are the astrophysicists that much different than a priestly caste?

I have yet to see an astrophysicists burn you on a cross because you don't "believe" in the big bang.

If I hypothesize that a blue Honda Civic was the origin of space, time and the known universe, physical evidence that blue Honda Civics exist does absolutely nothing to confirm or refute my hypothesis.

What do you mean by other cosmologies?

"Belief in creation by God" is not mutually exclusive with believing that the Big Bang model correctly describes the structure and evolution of the universe. Belief in creation by God is not another option among an array of cosmological models, since it is not even a scientific model.

Anyway, I'm trying to understand what you mean my there not being a difference in leaps of faith required…

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. […] By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."

Perhaps there are scientists that depend on a certain model not being proven incorrect for their own research to be viable, then, they might hope for something that they do not see. If (<- not biconditional ;p) that model stands on a solid basis they might even have confidence and some assurance about its truth. Is this somewhat what you mean?

In any case, I don't think that believing that a certain cosmological model is correct requires someone to be confident with regards to it. The currently predominant model might not be 100% right and that's perfectly fine. Thus, "belief in other cosmologies" might not require one to have faith while the verse quoted above states that it is through faith that someone understands that God is behind the creation.

(Unless you want to say that confidence in the scientific method is required for belief in a scientific model, but then, confidence in history (or God!) might be required on the other side as well, and so on).

Then, at least 1 more leap of faith is required, wouldn't you say? I'm not sure, tbh. :-)

But then, faith being involved in a process is not necessarily wrong (nor necessarily good).

I mean, these days, at least in Europe, quite a lot of people who identify as Christians _don't_, or certainly not a personal god.

Christians have always been 1/3 scholar, 1/3 philosopher, and 1/3 priest.

The premise of Christianity is "revelation". That a higher power revealed knowledge to humans that is not knowable by any other means.

That there is revealed knowledge has meant that Christians spend much of their time thinking about and working out the implications of their revealed knowledge and trying to fit it into the rest of the world.

How rational you find Christianity depends on willing you are to accept it's premise. If you are then it is completely rational. If you aren't then it is nothing but castles built in the clouds.

What knowledge would that be? At least in these Catholicism-dominated parts, that knowledge seems to look something like "you better watch it because you're a sinner and might end up burning in hell, except that Jesus saved you because he loves you, but for some reason despite being saved you are still a sinner and might end up burning in hell". You kind of sound like that's not the premise you mean.

The roman branch of christianity (from which Roman Catholicism and protestantism arise) are hugely influenced by lawyers and roman law, which emphasises sinning and punishment a lot. If you are a sinner your priest is a parole officer.

The eastern christianity still recognises sin, but treats it more like a disease, the priest is more of a doctor.

I find this more appealing from a philosophical point of view, yet I lack any reason to believe.

The whole "Catholic guilt" thing is of often pointed to as some whacky vehicle of control, which is a total mischaracterization of what that perspective is meant to do.

Many religions and philosophers understand the idea that humans are not basically good people. They are generally self centered and not sacrificial. So to say that Catholicism or Christianity is strange for placing emphasis on our "fallenness" is a little unfair IMHO.

The daily struggle of a Christian is to strive to rid one's self of their sinful desires (selfish / evil) and live as Christ commands. This a continual process, and one that cannot be stopped. If one just "gets tired" of being a Christian, and lives differently, then they are in danger of losing their salvation.

I only go into this detail to illustrate that there is more to "Catholic guilt" than a flippant "critique".

"Be nice to each other" is preached by every other world religion, as well as being at the center of many non-religious world views. The fact that we can and should be nice to each other to make the world a better place can hardly be what the grandparent meant by "knowledge to humans that is not knowable by any other means", which was what I was really asking about.

Thanks for your perspective. You're certainly selling it better than the Catholic Church is. (You won't be surprised to hear that I'm not buying into the whole thing either way.)

> The daily struggle of a Christian is to strive to rid one's self of their sinful desires (selfish / evil) and live as Christ commands. This a continual process, and one that cannot be stopped. If one just "gets tired" of being a Christian, and lives differently, then they are in danger of losing their salvation.

How is this not a vehicle of control? It steers you in the direction of behaving the way Christianity prescribes for fear of the ultimate bad consequence which is losing your salvation.

> I think it's been wrongfully misconstrued as irrational by people who don't really understand the religion, inside and out.

You mean by 99.9% of the people. I have no doubt there is everything one may need to get enlightened in Christianity also but Christians have seemingly done amazing job obscuring that. And I can't recognize Christianity as rational because it requires you to just believe all the way through (in Buddhism as I know it believing is considered harmful, you are meant to experience it yourself and even then you are considered a fool if you start believing).

It is rational to say that creature won. It is not rational to worship it out of love, which Christians began doing. Whatever it is, it does not act in the interest of mankind.

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