[epiccoleman]

I would be genuinely interested to hear what conclusions you came to - and I don't say that as a typical internet atheist waiting to pounce on some flaw in your logic.

I've come at this from the other side many times and, though there's certainly a part of me that would like to, I just cannot find it within myself to believe that the human condition is explained in any way by Christian theology.

I've found a good deal of resonance in the mystical traditions of various religions - I'm especially a fan of some of the Jewish mystical stuff (e.g. Kabbalah and other portions of the long tradition of debate and interpretation of scripture).

But in spite of a lot of examination I've still wound up with, at most, a kind of "spiritual but not religious" attitude, which usually translates to, frankly, not much.

I've found myself somewhat jealous of people of faith, who can find some system of belief that seems resonant enough to provide comfort and a framework for living a good life - but also, frankly somewhat nonplussed that people can buy into these various theologies and not run up against the same "...really, that's supposed to explain all this?" that I do.

[knightoffaith]

Why is it that you think the human condition is not explained by Christian theology? To be sure, you don't mean "I think Christianity is false", right? It can be false but still explain the human condition.

[epiccoleman]

> It can be false but still explain the human condition.

Sure - and as a matter of fact, this is largely the angle I approach religion from these days - i.e. that we collected a series of parables, rules, and traditions that, when combined, lead to a "good life" (or, more cynically, provide competitive advantages to societies who adopt them in a sort of "memetic natural selection" paradigm).

But when I look at the mythology of Christianity, especially the parts of it that are mainstream and not parts of mystical or esoteric traditions, I don't find it to be a compelling enough story to base my life around (or at least, not enough to go and declare my faith in it every Sunday).

The central "myth" of Christianity is that humans are born into a state of sin and cannot reach salvation (Heaven, eternal life, or maybe more "mystically" a state of oneness with the Divine). And the myth goes on to state that God essentially allowed/caused humans to sacrifice his son to Him so that this original sin could be washed away and allow humans to be "saved."

It seems to me that this has very little explanatory power for the sorts of existential questions like "why are we here," "why are we conscious," "why is there so damn much other stuff in the universe".

As a story, there's a lot of appeal to me. Jesus as a role model, as an example of how we ought to try to be, has some good features (some bad ones too, but that's OK with me since I'm not taking the story as the literal word of God). I just don't know how people go from "this story has some nice features worth meditating on in a secular way" to "this story explains why things are the way they are and what we're supposed to do about it."

This is one of the things I find more appealing about Judaism, because there appears (to an outsider) to be much more of a tradition of grappling with faith, of trying to unpack the meaning of the "words of God" and relate them to the human condition. I'm sure there's some of that in Christian traditions too, but it was never a mainstream feature of the Catholicism that I grew up with.

[knightoffaith]

I don't know that the story of Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection specifically is supposed to explain something like "why we are conscious", but here is my (somewhat shoddy) explanation of what Christianity says about the human condition:

The purpose of our life is to be in a loving relationship with God. This entails becoming who we are - becoming our true, ideal selves, who express our love for God through our lives, building the kingdom of God. This is why God has created us.

We cannot attain this full self-actualization without the help of God. Thankfully, in God's infinite love, He has given us His son, allowing us to attain salvation. Indeed, no matter how wretched and sinful one might think one is, because of Christ's sacrifice, nobody is beyond repair (see Luke 15).

>This is one of the things I find more appealing about Judaism, because there appears (to an outsider) to be much more of a tradition of grappling with faith, of trying to unpack the meaning of the "words of God" and relate them to the human condition. I'm sure there's some of that in Christian traditions too, but it was never a mainstream feature of the Catholicism that I grew up with.

I grew up as a Catholic as well, so I understand why you might think this. But I really do not think this is because of Catholicism so much as it is because of shallow education (possibly because it's hard to get someone to think deeply about these issue when they're young, and it's far easier for them to get them to be able to recite John 3:16). If anything, Catholicism is a highly intellectual tradition. I know Orthodox Christians and some Protestants actually dislike Catholicism because they think it is too rational, that they bring too much of human reason into religion when they should just trust in the traditions handed down to us. Catholicism, and Christianity in general, have a very strong tradition of grappling with faith and trying to understand how the words of God relate to the human condition. Like, it's quite surprising that your takeaway is that Christianity doesn't do this and that this is the reason you don't find it appealing because if anything this is a key characteristic of Christianity. 2000 years of people arguing about biblical exegesis, theology, Christology, etc. It is really a great shame that catechesis today is so poor that people like you who are genuinely open to it have come away thinking "These people aren't really grappling with their faith or seriously engaging with the word of God and what it means for us today."

TL;DR - There's more to Christianity. Even if you haven't found anything I've said above interesting, it would probably be worth your time looking more deeply into it.

[epiccoleman]

I think I've been failing to express my biggest issue - entirely my fault. Trying to squeeze my problem into "it doesn't seem to address the human condition" really breaks down, because as you describe above, Christianity does have an answer for this.

As for the issue of spiritual exegesis in Christianity, I'm certainly aware that it exists, and a lack of it also isn't my real issue. I guess my problem, in short, is that the central theology of the death and resurrection of Jesus doesn't seem to ... add up for me, for lack of a better way to put it. I'm sorry in advance, because this is going to feel like a move of the goalposts from my first posts.

I am once again going to struggle to express this clearly, especially in the context of an HN post, so fair warning, but here's my best shot:

God - a being/intelligence/force with the capability of creating a universe - sacrificed his son / himself to himself in order to wipe clean the cosmic debt of sin of humanity. This was done as a gift to humanity, because without this sacrifice, humans could never attain salvation - which, in short, means the ability to become our true, ideal selves - to have a relationship with God, to reach a oneness with him.

It just feels so ... small, in a sense. That the whole point of Jesus was to thread some cosmic loophole in the rules that gave humanity a clean slate in terms of sin. Surely there has to be some bigger explanation? surely knowing everything we know about what it took for conscious humans to exist on this planet - how can I be satisfied with this explanation that the cosmic currency of the universe and God and conscious beings is sin and sacrifice?

Now - with all that said - clearly there's room for exegesis and interpretation here. I can start to wind together explanations - maybe the whole notion of the "sacrifice" is not the full picture. Perhaps the life and death of Jesus was less about paying off some cosmic debt, but more about some sort of change in consciousness of humanity. Without that story and the culture / religion that spun out of it, maybe we never could have reached that understanding of the divine that would let us have that full relationship with God. I can play the game of rationalization all day and come to conclusions that feel more satisfactory to me - but it all feels like "theory building" and I don't see the same urge to that kind of thing in the average churchgoer.

But as soon as I have to start playing these games, it seems to call into question the whole central notion of the theology, and I'm left scratching my head, wondering what I'm missing. Either way, as much as I'm open to the ideas and the sort of "secularly obvious benefits of religion," I'm still left in a place where I certainly don't feel comfortable saying the Creed every Sunday. (And this discussion doesn't even begin to get into other ideas of Christianity/Catholicism, like the Eucharist, or problems inherent to any theism like the so called "trilemma").

I'm not sure if all that will make sense, it's a difficult feeling to express.

Anyway, I've enjoyed the discussion. Since HN isn't the best platform for these sorts of long running threads, if you feel like continuing the conversation, feel free to find my email in my profile. I am fascinated by these sorts of debates and always enjoy finding someone to have them with in good faith. If not, that's ok too, either way, thanks for the chat!