So today was Paul Tillich. Maybe I will catch up with him tomorrow. But today... before I head to bed... soon... I want to talk about something that was on the Whatsapp conversation. Someone brought up "Christian Atheism". It sparked quite the discussion. I dropped in on the weekly Zoom chat and it even made it there. Maybe my mind isn't tracking with most of the conversation that happens around the AFL table... but this one... blows my mind completely. I'm almost glad that no one is reading my posts this year. (That's right... not that many hits). I feel like I can be a bit more candid and less morphing into what others are saying.
Since I have no interest anymore in the label Christian, and the label of Atheist isn't that appealing for me to embrace, do I even need to go there with Christian Atheism? Do I even need to try and understand the premise? I am understanding that with AFL, we are seeing Theism and Atheism as two sides of the same coin. It just gets flipped each week and we see a different side. I am not seeing the attraction factor for keeping the Christian label for anything other than the 2000 year old narrative that needs people to conform to one way of doing life. There is no whitewashing the exclusivity of Christianity and anything that holds to that label. There is no room for the whole world for anything bearing that label. Atheism is also pretty exclusive. For the most part... it doesn't allow for spirituality. I remember Sam Harris being somewhat mocked for his embrace of spirituality along side his staunch atheism.
I get it... If I had paid more attention to conversations... maybe I would see some sense in people's explanations... but I don't see the sense. Co-opting those two exclusive terms into one package seems messed up. Just my thoughts. Another reason to make AFL 2025 my last go around. I'm getting dizzy!!!
For the record... here is what Wikipedia says about Christian Atheism...
"Christian atheism is an ideology that embraces the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated with Christianity without accepting the literal existence of God. It often overlaps with nontheism and post-theism."
I strangely understand Jewish Atheism more. Jewish culture is exactly that ... a culture. Christianity is a religion, a belief system. It's not a people group or a cultural entity. So for me, it makes more sense that someone who is Jewish can still attend Passover even through they don't believe in "Yahweh" that it is for a Christian to take communion if they don't believe in Jesus.
I ditched the symbolism of Christianity long before I let go of Jesus and God. All the trappings were the first to go. So the letting go of Jesus and God didn't give me an invite back to the rituals. Those were long since buried. Now it makes sense why it doesn't make sense.
