Nb: the quote is from this article: www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/02/22/what-can-humanism-learn/

The idea that evangelicals and fundamentalists don't believe that "self" is important is a *gross* misunderstanding of Christianity, assume that is what you are targeting (i.e. there are "fundamentalists" in every religion, etc.)

Understanding yourself, and in particular understanding the weakness of yourself, is critical to a Christian's "success". Now, the outcome is generally that one is to "daily make a living sacrifice of one's body (self)" in strict obedience to God...which, when it comes right down to it, is a code of morality. A Christian living his life in obedience to the Christ would test every thought, every word, to see if it adhere's to what he or she "knows" is right, guided by the "Holy Spirit" (which is basically the conscience, in actual implementation".


So...the idea that Christians are self-loathing is absurd. The idea that a Christian admits that human nature is, basically, "sinful", is not self-loathing; it is realistic. The idea that you are dissecting the difference between HUmanist and religious, and trying to figure out which is superior, etc...pretty much indicates that you have to struggle with your morality on a daily basis, as well. You don't have some instinctual, superior morality. You weren't born with it. It is the result of your humanist philosophy, and your study/interpretation of the world. It isn't some inner lgith that springs eternal within you; it is you obedience to the secular world, and the acknowledgement that you will most prosper if you do X/Y/Z...that this will benefit you the most. In other words, you give yourself up just as much as anyone else for person gain and benefit.

Sorry about the typos.

It was an interesting article, thanks Orathaic.

In response to the question, I would doubt that any such generalizations could be applied to all churches or all humanist teachings. There are undoubtedly going to be individual examples which would serve to support and others that would refute the assessment.

Krellin did a good job of addressing the idea that there is anything inherently self-loathing about Christianity.

I find it interesting that the article never brought up the counter question “What can churches learn from humanism?”. I tend to think that the churches might be doing a better job of this over time. The article does hint at it with the notion that Humanism has had a subtle effect since the Renaissance. People’s opinions change over time. The idea of women being clergy barely makes anyone bat an eye nowadays, but it had folks storming out and making new churches forty or fifty years ago. Then lots of people realized, “Oh yeah, it really doesn’t make me any less a Christian with a woman at the pulpit”. Thus the churches learned something from feminism, and the lesson didn’t bring about the downfall of Christianity. Now you have churches with women clergy and others with men. There is a choice in how to serve God. Over time I think the dialogue is actually good for churches and for humanists because it helps to separate other ideas from the actual messages posed by groups.

One way to look at "self" where Christianity is concerned that may be helpful is this:

Do to others as you would have them do to you".

As a good rule, Christians are to promote God first, others second and self third. What we see is that we recognize the inherent weakest in the flesh--namely our human desires and selfishness. This selfishness is typically contrary to loving others and God, and it can create a struggle in what is profitable and what is not.

We do recognize self-need. It's not a sin to recognize that we need positive relationships, we need to be loved, we need to have our basic needs met, need to have "down-time" and a need to have a purpose.

Where people often go wrong, and where I think your comments and article are directed, is that of seeking to promote self above others. While I won't say it's wrong to try to live comfortably in this life, we (Christians) seek to serve the Kingdom of God above that of this life because this life is fleeting and temporary, but the one to come is eternal.

That said, it should be important to remove pride that puffs up, and self-seeking and selfishness and instead seek the good will of others and the perfect will of God.

Cool to hear a few Christian points of view? Anyone have a humanist one or alternatively anything inbetween or to one side?

I think krellin, CA, and Tru did a good job summing up my own opinions.

"The idea that a Christian admits that human nature is, basically, "sinful", is not self-loathing"

This, from krellin, makes no sense to me. You're saying that the basic essence of what it means to be human is a bad thing, and yet this isn't in any way self-loathing?

One could argue that the self consists of more than impulses and predispositions, which is more or less what "human nature" means to me

@mendax: The universality of human depravity negates the self-loathing. There's really not much sense in me hating myself when I realize that my faults are non-unique and in fact related to my participation in a fallen race - the bad things I do pretty much everyone else does. We are sinners by nature which leads to us also being sinners by choice.

"There's really not much sense in me hating myself when I realize that my faults are non-unique and in fact related to my participation in a fallen race"

No, but that does kinda seem like a good justification for evil in the world.

Sorry, not Evil, but you doing actions which you think are wrong.

Good lord...what blather. There is really not much sense in hating your non-unique faults? How utterly, incomprehensibly selfish of you.

That my fault is shared by others, in many ways, gives you far less of an excuse to maintain such a fault without at least trying to eliminate it.

I'm a recovered alcoholic. I shared that fault with a great many people. By your logic, I should have embraced my alcoholism, for I shared it with others. The imminent destruction to family, finances and possibly lives that I could have caused...meh....who cares! Others do exactly the same, so why should I have cared!

The only reason I would NOT have cared is that I swaddled myself in selfishness, and cared not about those around me. the nature of "faults" in people is generally that they affect others...therefore by acknowledging your faults, you are thereby acknowledging that you are negatively impacting others. If you then fail to address the faults, you are becoming selfish.

Truly a pathetic point of view.

The above was @maher--

Then Krellin, i think i'm in agreement with you... on this principle at least.

I used to be a Christian and, full disclosure, know orathaic in real life.
I grew up in an environment where almost every aspect was affected by Bible based teaching. God was on my mind surrounding every decision involving any thought.
Perhaps you are going to pull the no true scottsman argument on me and say I wasn't a true Christian or I got it wrong but I found Christianity to be a root of self loathing in my life. I assure you I'm not unique in this respect.

If you spend as much time as I did reading the Bible you'll know that it's a book about how if you obey the rules you're great, and if you don't obey the rules you are doomed. The New Testament, particularly Paul reveals that everyone has fallen short, which is why the sacrifice is needed. If you think about that, you, I mean you the reader, are in part responsible for causing nails to be driven through the most perfect being that has ever existed.
Your life, all of the things you have done, amount to a sentence to eternal torture but fortunately despite what must be hideous crimes you have been forgiven through a sacrifice made by God himself. I don't know how you can consider yourself deserving of eternal torture and at the same time view yourself positively.

@Eval K: the internet is real, and i'm living here :p

Eva - if you think th Bible is about "....if I don't obey the rules you are doomed..." then you pretty much FAIL at Bible 101, since the ENTIRE concept of the New Testament is that you absolutely utterly completely will fail to follow the rules....which is why God sent Jesus to die on the cross and give you grace (which is UNDESERVED redemption). You are told *point blank* that you will fail, and that you will NOT be doomed because of it.

So....yeah....you were an utter, absolute failure as a "Christian". i.e., you were not actually a Christian, since you completely missed the central premise of the text, and therefore could not have possibly believed in salvation through Christ.

@ krellin - I'm not quite sure where you're coming from, but it certainly isn't a Pauline-evangelical systematic theology. My analysis is spot on within that worldview - we're all sinners, we can't improve our lot outside of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. (Gal. 3:3) As a believer, your sin hinders your sanctification, but God has graciously made a recourse for you to confess your sins, repent, and begin anew. (1 Jn. 1:9) The believer who wallows in his own unworthiness doesn't really understand the concept of grace and doesn't understand how to deal with his guilt.

@EvaKnievel - I used to be a self-loathing Christian too. As I grew older, I realized that I wasn't the only person struggling with the things I dealt with. I saw that everyone is pretty much messed up. I studied the Bible to see what God's plan was to resolve the guilt of humanity and reconcile the world to Himself. (

Yes, Jesus died a horrendous death on my behalf. My response to that is more gratitude than to engage in a self-flagellation when Christ has already born the totality of my guilt in Himself. To sit around and be miserable because I'm a fallen creature is to deny the totality of His cleansing and substitution.

I would humbly submit the main reason you may have felt like a self-loathing Christian is because you understood Christianity as about "a book...[where] if you don't obey the rules you are doomed." That's not a very accurate presentation of the NT and it betrays a lack of understanding of NT (particularly Pauline) hamartiology.

Humans are sinners by nature. The sin nature is transmitted genealogically back to our first father, Adam. As a result of our sin nature, we choose to sin. You have no capacity to keep the rules as a fallen creature. As fallen creatures who only compound our guiltiness by continuing to make corrupt choices, God is right to judge us. Instead, God elects to save and forgive and restore. Should we participate in self-loathing because we are corrupt by nature and therefore unable to live a perfect life, or should we instead look to the cross in wonderment at the grace of God and receive His forgiveness?

To sit around and participate in self-loathing is to actually indulge in pride - "look at me, I'm so bad," ignoring both the free cleansing offered through belief in Christ and the reality that everyone else is pretty bad too.

Maher -- you just said what I said. You apparently didn't read what I wrote. I said we are all sinners, doomed to fail in the flesh, and that by God's grace we are saved from the doom we deserve, but will not suffer. THUS Eva's statement was 100% wrong for a true Christian..

Unfortunately, I think we were writing simultaneously or I wouldn't have bothered to repeat what you wrote.

@Krellin yes, although Maher said I lacked an understanding instead of telling me that I failed. That was perhaps a kinder way to disagree don't you think?

I think you both focused on my comment about it being a book of rules that if you don't follow you are doomed and ignored the follow on where I describe the sacrifice that saves you from hell. I'm somewhat disappointed, it's almost like you aren't interested in what I had to say at all, just trying to find something you disagreed with.

@Maher I'm glad you overcame your self loathing.

I think that statement took us both by a big surprise, because that very perspective about the Bible and our understanding will itself lead to the self-loathing.

I do understand the idea that focusing on how much Jesus had to endure as a result of our sin may lead to feelings of great despair, and Paul clearly does say that we all fall short. But we all fall short because our nature is corrupted. And although we can easily become despondent over the great pains Jesus bore on our behalf God instead invites us to believe in Him and focus on the grace that He gives us.

It is true, we should not minimize the reality of sin, the fact that we are participants in sin, and the eternal penalty of sin. But we should not become so self-indulgent in bewailing our own evil that we miss the bigger point which is that "mercy triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13) and that "if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." (Romans 10:9)

@Maher well no matter what you have done there is nothing to be gained by wallowing in it.
However if our very nature is corrupt, we cannot trust a single thing that comes from ourselves, so you still need to focus on yourself, and the view is not pretty from a Christian perspective.

@Maher also thank you for acknowledging what I am saying, I can see why it is hard to hear a perspective like that. I think that we all have a different experience of Christianity, I think it suits some people and others not so much.

I would say it's true - we don't and can't trust what's coming from within us. We therefore look to Christ.

As for the "view not being pretty," that's sort of a different issue, right? The question then is do we want to acknowledge how we really are or lie to ourselves and put on the rose colored glasses.

@Maher how do you avoid the problem of your corrupt nature interfering with your perception of what Christ wants of you? I remember that being something I worried about.

No I think it's the same, although perhaps from a different perspective.
If I look at the reality of who I am, and it is corrupt, this is a negative view of myself. I try to see the beauty in myself, I like being able to look in the mirror and not find myself ugly.

Eva,

I think your analysis neglects that fact that Christ's sacrifice does not *merely* pay for our sins (though that is incredible). We get actual new natures, the beginnings of a remade self. I'm sure you read in the Bible about how we are new creations in Christ. The remaking is not complete, and we still have a sinful nature, and we *are* supposed to loath and "put off" that part of ourselves. But to loathe ourselves would be to loathe Christ in us, the foundation of our new natures.

semck - I want to clarify something you said. Man may get a new nature....but some, like Maher, act like the old nature is gone, and we are now just living the magical life through the Holy Spirit, and that man no longer has a responsbility for himself, and can do no thing on his own.

But as you correctly point out, man has to continually be on guard, continually choose between the old and new natures....we have the power, through Christ and the new nature, to do good....but we have the choice to do wrong...thus we are responsible for our actions, and for improving ourselves by actively putting aside the old nature.

It is sad when people like Maher deny man's own continuing responsibility - as he blathered at me endlessly in misguided PM's.

And you are right that we don't loathe ourselves simply by actively being conscious of our faults, any more than I don't loathe all food because I sniff the chicken I take out of the fridge to see if it is spoiled. I loathe my sin and seek to abolish it --- just as any secular humanist loathes his own bad behavior when he recognizes it --- but I don't loathe myself, because through Christ I can see the good in my life that I attribute to the new nature Christ has given me, which IS just as much a part of me as the old nature.

Anti-religious people will probably say that you are saying you are only good because of God, you only like the God in you, and therefore what remians (Yourself) is all bad and you loathe yourself. But that is a wrong interpretation. The Holy Spirit dwells within man, and is inseparable from the man. Salvation is man's gift - and a gift is mine, not someone else's. When God judges man, he sees the good nature and attributes it to me, thought it comes from Christ....thus the good that is man, though it is derived from Chris, is a part of the man. Thus, what a Christian praises in his own life, the things he likes about himself, though they are derived from God as the source, are still a part of the man; his second gifted nature. Therefore, to loathe all of oneself, one would have to loath Christ - as you point out.


I hope I didn't just repeat a bunch of what you said....I am agreeing with you, and also refuting the nutbag Hamas that has been blathering at me in PM (and whom I've since muted because I could no longer tolerate his arrogance, which happens to be strongly coupled with a lack of knowledge...)

@Krellin, i think you have some logic there; though i think your chicken analogy is bad; you don't have to loath the chicken, it's not part of yourself; you can like it when it is good and check to see if it is good, then dump it...

You don't get an option to dump yourself when you're bad, and maybe get a new self, you just have to accept that you're bad. Or is that the sacrament of reconciliation?