Opinion of "Non-practicing Christians"?

[Former President tack50]

Basically opening this thread to discuss the phenomenon of "Non-practicing Christians" (or non-practicing religious people in general).

What I mean by this is people who, when questioned about their religious beliefs would answer "Yeah I am a Christian" in spite of not having been to a church in several years (sometimes never since their childhood!) and who don't really think about religion at all in one way or another.

Asking this question because at least here this is an extremely common category of people and I know a ton of people like that. They are basically the kind of people who were brought up in a somewhat religious family, inherited their religion (church shopping is non-existent here) and then basically fell out of religion while still identifying as Christian.

To put some numbers to it, roughly 65% of Spain would self-identify as Catholic (essencially synonymous with Christian here for obvious historical reasons). However, only around 23% of the population actually is a "practicing Catholic", meaning they go to church regularly and what not.

This is a different cathegory from self-declared atheists, agnostics and even the people who self-identify as "religiously indifferent".

I am particularly interested on how the more devoutly religious people see this kinds of people.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If they don't go to church but still pray and have a relationship with God still I can understand it. If they're actually atheist/agnostic than it's utterly absurd and a contradiction.

[Former President tack50]

If they don't go to church but still pray and have a relationship with God still I can understand it. If they're actually atheist/agnostic than it's utterly absurd and a contradiction.

By this I also mean they don't pray or do any sort of religious activities at home either yeah. Basically a sort of "Christian in name only" kind of person; which is very common in my experience.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

If they don't go to church but still pray and have a relationship with God still I can understand it. If they're actually atheist/agnostic than it's utterly absurd and a contradiction.

By this I also mean they don't pray or do any sort of religious activities at home either yeah. Basically a sort of "Christian in name only" kind of person; which is very common in my experience.

Not in the US.

[Former President tack50]

If they don't go to church but still pray and have a relationship with God still I can understand it. If they're actually atheist/agnostic than it's utterly absurd and a contradiction.

By this I also mean they don't pray or do any sort of religious activities at home either yeah. Basically a sort of "Christian in name only" kind of person; which is very common in my experience.

Not in the US.

Fair enough, I could see this being mostly/exclusively an European phenomenon for varous cultural reasons (or possibly only happening in certain parts of Europe; I do know France has a similar proportion of "non practicing Christians")

[afleitch]

I think you have to meet where people are. I have no doubt that the same people who clutch at their pearls over the 'audacity' at them still considering themselves Christians are the first to headcount them in any census or poll of Christian numbers and strength. Nor is the 'but really though?' prompts of non theists an appropriate challenge.

People will go where they go. Americans have a weird tendency to think they are all 'middle class'; arguments or statistical bean counting isn't going to shift identities.

[Bismarck]

I fall into this category. I rarely attend church (except when I visit my family) but I still identify with my mainline Protestant denomination even if I don’t really have strong religious beliefs. I think we need to have some sort of identity like this, it certainly seems to be helpful for our catholic and especially Jewish brothers.

[RINO Tom]

FFs, and we could use a lot more of them in the United States.  First of all, if you want your relationship between God and you to be a personal one that you experience in the privacy of your home, nobody should chastise you for that.  People should go to church because they WANT to go to church, period.  (Yes, I am a Lutheran, lol.)  Secondly, the dichotomy of being religious or not religious has, IMO, directly led to the total breakdown in discourse we have seen in the last few decades.  As I have said previously, this is ironically a dynamic pushed by both intense securalists/anti-theists AND Christian fundamentalists/Evangelicals.  They might not agree on nearly anything on paper, but they end up cooperating in pushing the narrative that "fake Christians" are just that - fake.  The fundies want thought purity within Christianity and would rather "go it alone" than share space with the original American Christians Mainliners or Catholics, and the super secular types want to swell their numbers and therefore influence.

If somebody doesn't pay religion too much mind and wants to identify as a Catholic because his or her ancestors came here from Ireland or as a Lutheran because he or she sees it as tied to Swedish heritage ... so what?  I think that's awesome.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If they don't go to church but still pray and have a relationship with God still I can understand it. If they're actually atheist/agnostic than it's utterly absurd and a contradiction.

By this I also mean they don't pray or do any sort of religious activities at home either yeah. Basically a sort of "Christian in name only" kind of person; which is very common in my experience.

Not in the US.

Yes it is. Maybe not in your social circles, but in plenty of others.

The distinction between adherence to a religion as a belief system and adherence to it as an identity marker of some other kind is nothing new. Cultural Christians come from all walks of life, just like secular Jews do. So they're impossible to judge as "FF" or "HP" as a group.

[Santander]

If they confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, FF. If not, who am I to judge?

[John Dule]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

[Santander]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

Word of God does not mean it's an Ikea instruction manual. Religion would be meaningless if there was no searching or introspection.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

As long as I live I'll never understand why people with attitudes about religion such as yours are so insistent on letting fundamentalists and literalists set the conversation for how religious texts are to be analyzed. It shows a significantly greater lack of intellectual curiosity than merely having a fiercely antireligious ideological perspective (which plenty of great thinkers did and still do).

[John Dule]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

As long as I live I'll never understand why people with attitudes about religion such as yours are so insistent on letting fundamentalists and literalists set the conversation for how religious texts are to be analyzed. It shows a significantly greater lack of intellectual curiosity than merely having a fiercely antireligious ideological perspective (which plenty of great thinkers did and still do).

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[RINO Tom]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

As long as I live I'll never understand why people with attitudes about religion such as yours are so insistent on letting fundamentalists and literalists set the conversation for how religious texts are to be analyzed. It shows a significantly greater lack of intellectual curiosity than merely having a fiercely antireligious ideological perspective (which plenty of great thinkers did and still do).

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, you intentionally do not understand that, but whatever.

[John Dule]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

As long as I live I'll never understand why people with attitudes about religion such as yours are so insistent on letting fundamentalists and literalists set the conversation for how religious texts are to be analyzed. It shows a significantly greater lack of intellectual curiosity than merely having a fiercely antireligious ideological perspective (which plenty of great thinkers did and still do).

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, you intentionally do not understand that, but whatever.

I'd love an explanation.

[Donerail]

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You understand that large portions of the book are not supposed to be followed to the letter, yes? The parable of the tenants (Matthew 21:33) is not supposed to be advice about landlord-tenant relationships.

[Gracile]

I don't like the term because it creates an unfortunate implication that atheists/agnostics/non-religious individuals who don't practice Christianity as they had been raised will never be free from the label. Non-religious people generally do not see themselves as members of the religion they were raised, and it's incredibly offensive to try to impose that kind of label on them.

As for people who may self-identify with that term, just say that you are Christian or you are not.

[John Dule]

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You understand that large portions of the book are not supposed to be followed to the letter, yes? The parable of the tenants (Matthew 21:33) is not supposed to be advice about landlord-tenant relationships.

I understand that the parables are meant to establish generalized moral truths rather than present literal specific examples, yes. That is still not an explanation of why Christians do not abide by those morals.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You understand that large portions of the book are not supposed to be followed to the letter, yes? The parable of the tenants (Matthew 21:33) is not supposed to be advice about landlord-tenant relationships.

I understand that the parables are meant to establish generalized moral truths rather than present literal specific examples, yes.

Then you should understand in principle why interpretations exist in which other parts of the Bible are understood to have been given allusively or figuratively as well, even if your reading of the text leads you to find those interpretations unconvincing.* And from that you should be able to understand why professional scholars of the Bible (including nonreligious ones!) tend to conclude that some parts of the text were understood literally by the original audience and other parts were not.

If you think the existence of a deity who sometimes imparts information to humanity in an allusive or figurative way is even more implausible (from your perspective) than the existence of a deity who invariably imparts it literally, then that's your prerogative, but that's a theological opinion in and of itself, even though in your case it's only a hypothetical one.

*In the case of some stories, such as the Resurrection, I would be inclined to agree with you that non-literal interpretations stretch plausibility.

That is still not an explanation of why Christians do not abide by those morals.

We're all sinners.

[RINO Tom]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

As long as I live I'll never understand why people with attitudes about religion such as yours are so insistent on letting fundamentalists and literalists set the conversation for how religious texts are to be analyzed. It shows a significantly greater lack of intellectual curiosity than merely having a fiercely antireligious ideological perspective (which plenty of great thinkers did and still do).

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, you intentionally do not understand that, but whatever.

I'd love an explanation.

Why would you have any vested interest in understanding the complexities - hell, even admitting there ARE complexities - in theological thought regarding the Bible?  Ignoring the obvious fact that it might make your trolling a bit harder and force you to up your game, depriving you of the strawman that you must be a Biblical literalist or realize how stupid it all is, only someone who entertains the hypothesis that there is a higher consciousness of sorts outside of spacetime would have any motivation whatsoever to try to ponder what that being might be like and critically analyze/try to make sense of the more confusing, contradictory or especially unbelievable parts of a grouping of texts many allege to contain significant divine truth.

[John Dule]

If they really believed that the Bible was the word of God, they'd be following it to the letter. This goes for other so-called """practicing""" Christians too.

As long as I live I'll never understand why people with attitudes about religion such as yours are so insistent on letting fundamentalists and literalists set the conversation for how religious texts are to be analyzed. It shows a significantly greater lack of intellectual curiosity than merely having a fiercely antireligious ideological perspective (which plenty of great thinkers did and still do).

And I'll never understand how people can *genuinely believe* that a text is the almighty command of God and not follow it to the letter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, you intentionally do not understand that, but whatever.

I'd love an explanation.

Why would you have any vested interest in understanding the complexities - hell, even admitting there ARE complexities - in theological thought regarding the Bible?  Ignoring the obvious fact that it might make your trolling a bit harder and force you to up your game, depriving you of the strawman that you must be a Biblical literalist or realize how stupid it all is, only someone who entertains the hypothesis that there is a higher consciousness of sorts outside of spacetime would have any motivation whatsoever to try to ponder what that being might be like and critically analyze/try to make sense of the more confusing, contradictory or especially unbelievable parts of a grouping of texts many allege to contain significant divine truth.

So what you're saying is you don't have an explanation?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

only someone who entertains the hypothesis that there is a higher consciousness of sorts outside of spacetime would have any motivation whatsoever to try to ponder what that being might be like and critically analyze/try to make sense of the more confusing, contradictory or especially unbelievable parts of a grouping of texts many allege to contain significant divine truth.

Don't be ridiculous. Plenty of atheists out there are intellectually curious about the Bible; Dule just doesn't happen to be one of them.

[brucejoel99]

When it comes to Christianity, all you really have to do is "acknowledge" Jesus as your lord & savior. Couple that with Jesus "fulfilling the law" & you don't really have to do anything to say you're a "Christian."

[John Dule]

Then you should understand in principle why interpretations exist in which other parts of the Bible are understood to have been given allusively or figuratively as well, even if your reading of the text leads you to find those interpretations unconvincing.* And from that you should be able to understand why professional scholars of the Bible (including nonreligious ones!) tend to conclude that some parts of the text were understood literally by the original audience and other parts were not.

If you think the existence of a deity who sometimes imparts information to humanity in an allusive or figurative way is even more implausible (from your perspective) than the existence of a deity who invariably imparts it literally, then that's your prerogative, but that's a theological opinion in and of itself, even though in your case it's only a hypothetical one.

For the Bible's parables? Yes, this makes sense. For the Bible's literal advice on the treatment of slaves and homosexuals? No, this is not a fair argument. It is hard to take passages that explicitly command slaves to obey their masters as anything other than literal.

We're all sinners.

An abominably lame excuse.

Don't be ridiculous. Plenty of atheists out there are intellectually curious about the Bible; Dule just doesn't happen to be one of them.

I was intellectually curious enough about the Bible to read it, which is more than can be said for quite a lot of Christians.