In the UK there’s already a lessening of emphasis on the Christian side of Christmas, and it’s getting back to being just a mid-winter holiday along with New Year.
Mind you, the UK is becoming increasingly less Christian (less than 50% in the last census) and more ‘no religion’.
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I totally get what you’re saying, with regards to factuality, but at some point the religion has to take a stand and say “This is literal, factual, and happened.” , otherwise it’s just a collection of platitudes and morals and parables copied from somewhere else and sold to people.
Which is okay if that’s what it is, but is it still “Christianity” if Jesus didn’t exist, if the stories about him are fake retellings, and if the holy book is filled with contradictions? I can see from the evangelical side that if they keep having to cede things as fictional that they eventually won’t have a religion left of any value.
Yah, at a foundational level, I agree with you. Much of the claims of legitimacy from any religion are “these were real people who did these things that we revere”.
I was alluding to that upthread when I talked about intellectual honesty. A lot of Christians I’ve spoken to are intellectually honest about this stuff and do understand that maybe Jesus was a real guy and maybe he wasn’t, but his stories are helpful, they believe in some kind of god, and church community is nice. For them, it’s not more than that.
The more extreme viewpoints that demand we treat the Bible as a factual historical document (internal contradictions and all) are a lot more problematic and I don’t think anyone can stake that ground without some intellectual dishonesty, and flexible standards of evidence that fall apart under scrutiny.
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