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Comment by chaostheory | Hacker News Reader

> I used to think religion was about deep fear, now I see it more as about deep care.

As someone who has grown up in a religious, conservative household, I strongly disagree. Sure, there are many good values that a religious conservative household can foster such as independence and self accountability. However, you cannot its ignore downside either. The same culture promotes fear of the “other” ie different religion, different ethnicity / race, different political ideology, et al. Whether or not these fears are justified is beside the point. I’m just pointing out that they exist which runs counter to your very short and limited personal experience. (I’m also not saying that the other side is free of any fault either.)

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/conservative-and-...

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/liberals-are-f...

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> However, you cannot its ignore downside either. The same culture promotes fear of the “other” ie different religion, different ethnicity / race, different political ideology, et al.

That has nothing to do with religion. These are facets of human nature which find a way to express themselves in all societies regardless of religion.

One of the main tenants of religion is to make it clear that the people who aren’t adherents are wrong and that they will end up in that respective religion’s hell. Religion is a large part of it.

This is explicitly not what the Catholic Church teaches. There is a commonly used rhetorical device in Catholic education asking whether, in fact, anyone has gone to hell (the answer being that we can’t know but it’s very possible that it’s no). This is well summed up by Mother Teresa in her famous response that we are not called to be successful, but faithful.

There are a lot other religions which are similar in this regard. The real issue is that some (many?) who outwardly profess to adhere to a particular religion are totally ignorant of that religions teachings.

Not just the Catholic church, but Christianity in general. It is very much standard Christian doctrine that everyone is flawed, nobody has earned salvation, and that it is a freely given gift from God out of love. To criticize Christianity as being mainly about "if you don't follow these rules you'll go to hell" (as chaostheory has) is to demonstrate a lack of understanding of Christianity.

The crux of Christianity is that if you don’t accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you’re going to hell (or purgatory for Catholics). How am I wrong? What exactly am I missing that you’re alluding to but fail to elaborate?

Nothing, this is one of those rhetorical devices for which one sacrifices their moral agency to the collective. Your read is of a clear phrase even a child understands, its the sensitive adult that seeks to deny what is clear in front of them due to distaste.

Bad take. The Christian faith, outside of fundamentalist sects, is not built around clear-to-a-child interpretations of individual phrases in the bible. The bible is a product of the Christian faith, not it's source. In other words, it's teachings are defined by those sensitive adults, not the naive childlike readers of things they wrote.

> The Christian faith, outside of fundamentalist sects, is not built around clear-to-a-child interpretations of individual phrases in the bible.

To classify your argumentation, this is a "No-True-Scotsman."

Not even remotely. I'm disagreeing with your characterization of the Christian faith, not changing mine to exclude unwanted elements. Disagreeing on the meanings of terms is not the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Yet, I still see the characterization of your comment is spot on. "No real Christian sect interprets things as a child can" is a clear reading of your verbiage. Logically applying your definition results in understanding why it is a no true scotsman.

With that, I'm three comments deep and thus have made my point sufficiently and it will either be accepted or never can be. Good rule of thumb I picked up from religious subreddits and serves well with topics that are always flame wars. Have a good day.

I can respect cutting off conversations before they devolve into endless back and forths. However, I'm still going to take advantage of you giving me the last word to say: the fact that you can rephrase what I said to turn it into a no true scotsman statement doesn't mean that the argument I actually made was an example of one. I did not claim or imply that anyone who disagrees with this position is not a true Christian. I claimed that Christianity is not adequately defined as what some relatively small subset of Christians commonly believe. You would like to characterize the whole (Christianity) by the part (certain fundamentalist sects), which is actually the fallacy of composition. It may be that you won't read this response (I hope not, your resolution really is sensible) but I had to write it up anyway to get it off my chest. Enjoy your day as well.

> I claimed that Christianity is not adequately defined as what some relatively small subset of Christians commonly believe

Ok, back up your claim

I read your comment, appreciate the thought, and will do my best to enjoy the day!

The Catholic Church is a liberal outlier. It’s so far away from the median that many if not most Christian sects do not consider it as “Christian”. One major difference is that Catholicism acknowledges evolution as a truth so it’s no surprise that they consider us as heretics.

For context, I was raised as a Catholic, had well over a decade of theological study (including university level classes), and I’ve had significant contact and relationships with other Christians in the Southern US.

Most religious people do not have the privilege to attend a more intellectual leaning parochial school. Weekly 30 min sermons are not enough, but that is the norm for most religious people.

Being an educated Catholic, you're probably already aware that the Catholic church makes up about 50% of Christians. Throw in the Orthodox church, which says it knows where the church is, but doesn't know where it is not, and you're up to 60%. Throw in the Anglicans and the Methodists, who certainly share the relevant opinions regarding salvation, and now you're over 65%. The remaining denominations are a mixed bag but even ignoring the rest, it's hard to say how you could describe the Catholic church as a Christian outlier. Rather, it is all these tiny denominations which are outliers.

I was referring to only the US since the news article is also US centric, and I’m sure that most of the commenters are also referring to their experience in North America, since HN is primarily a US centric website.

Your statistics are global for Christianity which includes a lot of developing countries. In the US, Catholics only make up 20% of Christians in America.

Are you? Elsewhere you describe this beliefs as "one of the main tenants of religion" and say "The crux of Christianity is that if you don't accept Jesus...". It sounds like you are making claims not just about Christianity as a whole, but about religion in general. If you're trying to make claims about what Americans believe about Christianity, you're expressing yourself very poorly.

My points are clear and to the point where as you keep making claims that you fail to support. Yes, I was only referring to the US for all the reasons I’ve already listed.

This is true of a straw man religion, yes.

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