Can You?...

[Nitrous]

...Be Christian and not believe in god?

 

[darthrender2010]

no?

 

[ebbixx]

...Be Christian and not believe in god?

If your definition of Christian encompasses "Cultural Christians" I suspect there are many more of them than most people would admit. The question reminds me of that back and forth between Dawkins and that educated twit, Tony Benn (embedded below).

Listen to Benn and I'm not convinced he actually believes in God in any meaningful sense, except that he's attached to it as a cultural relic, and frames and cherry picks those parts of scripture that conform to his own prejudices and judgments. He simply hasn't followed his own insights out to their logical conclusions. I seriously doubt there are any actual Christians.

 

[digitalbuddha48]

...Be Christian and not believe in god?

This is not possible imo. If you like the laws/morals/w/e in the Bible then just follow those, but that doesn't mean you're a Christian. A Christian is someone who believes in the Abrahamic God (and who follows the Bible).

 

[WolfAU]

I guess it depends what you define as 'being a Christian'. I suppose you could define it as simply a member of the Christian community rather than a set of beliefs, but I think most people define it as a theistic set of beliefs... those being:
- Belief in 'the one true god', as described in the bible as being all knowing, all loving, and all powerful
- Belief that God created humans, the earth and all we see.
- Belief that this God sent Jesus Christ, his son and part of the holy trinity to earth to die for us.
- Belief in the resurrection (which confuses me, because he went to heaven almost immediately after, so what difference does it make other than Jesus showing off?)
- If you want some good defining critera, checkout the Nicene creed, a creed many Christians take and I think outlines the core beliefs nicely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_creed

Re the Dawkins link; I think morality is about understanding and Wisdom... wisdom comes from knowledge and experience and wisdom requires good information to go off... so I'd go so far as to say without knowledge we have no real moral deeds (just random 'hit and miss' actions based on our personal beliefs and desires). As such without science... one of the best means of achieving knowledge, we would really have no real morality ot speak of... making the other guy an complete ass.

Also I find cherry picking theists hypocrits... If you believe that the bible is the inspired word of God, yet certain tales are metaphorical or unimportant, that doesn't seem to hold up as God is telling you his perfect recollection of events and if you believe in a God yet do not use any scripture to form your belief about his nature you're a deist, not a Christian.

 

[SchrodingersFinch]

At one point before my deconversion from Christianity I really wanted to believe in God but simply couldn't. I still considered myself a Christian back then.

So I'd say yes, you can be a Christian and not believe in god, but it won't last very long.

 

[WolfAU]

So... apart from being a transitional stage... what exactly does a non-theistic Christian believe? And what are they exactly? a subset of religion, a nontheistic philosophy?

It sounds to me kinda like arguing Christianity from a 'personal God', with your personal God being one that does not exist (and may never have existed) :?

But I guess religion is not required to make sense... only science and naturalism are held to such scrutiny

 

[enterman]

At one point before my deconversion from Christianity I really wanted to believe in God but simply couldn't. I still considered myself a Christian back then.

So I'd say yes, you can be a Christian and not believe in god, but it won't last very long.

Same thing with me. I tried very hard but just felt nothing. Thinking back I don't think I ever felt anything so deconverting wasn't hard. Like SchrodingersFinch said, if you claim to be Christian but don't believe in god, your more than likely in a transitional state towards Atheism.