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Who What Now posted:You are so very agonizingly close to self awareness that it literally hurts me. I am aware of it. The risk of faith is that what we trust in, what we absolutely depend on, might be false. When it is false we end up like Victor, or the Kochs, or the fascists, or assholish authoritarians, or fundmentalists, etc. But all beliefs hold that risk! It's not peculiar to the religions. I'm not the one that thinks there is something special or unique about a particular method of arriving at beliefs that makes it exempt from this problem. I'm just willing to participate in a specific set of them, the example of Jesus, "in spite of" that risk.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:23
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BrandorKP posted:I am aware of it. The risk of faith is that what we trust in, what we absolutely depend on, might be false. When it is false we end up like Victor, or the Kochs, or the fascists, or assholish authoritarians, or fundmentalists, etc. One might argue that skepticism therefore is a useful solution to the problem of faith, if faith in things produces problems, that forms a worthy argument against having faith, at least in anything that involves large scale decision making or shapes your outlook on the rest of the world.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:29
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Berke Negri posted:Biblical criticism is actually a very necessary field as you really can't take anything at face value without assessing as well authorship, composition date, context, and reference. Criticism and apologetics are two different things. I can critique the Bible like any other work of fiction, discussing the strength of the characters or message, trying to decide how the authors came up with what they did, exploring other fables of the time, etc. But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day my interpretation is just an interpretation; it won't affect how I live my life or how I define my existence in relation to that book's main character. Apologetics tries to make our moral values now fit into what was said by people in a totally foreign time and place. Even considering context, it seems clear that Paul did not want women teaching at least in certain churches, and there is absolutely nothing but speculation to suggest that it was borne of anything other than contempt for women as a whole. He's very clear that women can't teach because woman was deceived, not man, in Eden. Not because of pagan cults or women being chatty or anything like that, but because they are women. BrandorKP posted:Because, the example of Jesus and the stories about Jesus, are what I have chosen to try to pattern how I will live my life on. Ain't got no beef with someone who picked the Buddha, etc, to do that. But I chose one instead of the others, that means I have an opinion about which one is best and most adequate to living life by. It means that I have found my experience of life to be more in line with that particular symbolic story than any other particular story. Using a character as an inspiration for your own life and believing that a character is literally real are two different things. You believe Jesus to be the son of God, yes? And you do not believe the same for Kirishna? Is your argument, basically, that the scripture that resonates with you the most on a personal level is the one that is true? What of the people for whom another scripture resonates stronger? Are all scriptures true so long as someone, somewhere, believes in them? If so, why pick any to follow? One can be inspired by a story without believing it is true. One could even examine every story, and pick parts of each to be inspired by, but still remain religiously neutral.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:33
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Criticism and apologetics are two different things. I can critique the Bible like any other work of fiction, discussing the strength of the characters or message, trying to decide how the authors came up with what they did, exploring other fables of the time, etc. But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day my interpretation is just an interpretation; it won't affect how I live my life or how I define my existence in relation to that book's main character. This brings us back to your main problem, I think. "THE BIBLE" isn't fiction, though parts of it are or may be. Parts of it are also history, parts are poetry, parts are law, parts are biography, etc. You have to stop evaluating it as a whole. If you take nothing else from this or from the other religion threads currently going, you should take at least this very important point.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:37
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BrandorKP posted:Why would you then go onto perpetuate the way in which they think? Why utilize their methodology? Why remain only simplistic and literalistic? The practice of a non-believer reading the Bible in a simplistic and literal way is generally not meant as an endorsement of the practice but as a condemnation, because it is used to highlight inconsistencies, atrocities, and general nonsense. It's a reductio ad absurdum where we assume the Bible to be literally true and then derive badness. When arguing against non-literalists, it's generally meant as an attack on the practice of finding "sympathetic" readings of the Bible in the guise of "correct historical context". As others have pointed out, Bible-readers have a pretty tricky dilemma to face: reading the Bible literally tends to produce nonsensical horrors, and reading the Bible non-literally tends to turn it into a Rorschach test, because there is no limit to how far the text can be stretched in the service of a pre-existing belief. This last fact explains why both slave-owners and abolitionists extensively quoted the Bible to support their causes, and why right-wing conservatives read it as supporting low taxes and banning gay marriage and left-wingers read it as supporting welfare and opposing war. Granted, one of those readings may be the "correct" one, but given what's at stake here, it feels like we're groping around in the dark a bit.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:38
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:Criticism and apologetics are two different things. I can critique the Bible like any other work of fiction, discussing the strength of the characters or message, trying to decide how the authors came up with what they did, exploring other fables of the time, etc. But it doesn't matter because at the end of the day my interpretation is just an interpretation; it won't affect how I live my life or how I define my existence in relation to that book's main character. I am guessing you don't really understand biblical criticism if you think the Bible is a "work of fiction" where you are determining the "strength of the characters" depicted.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:43
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GAINING WEIGHT... posted:You believe Jesus to be the son of God, yes? And you do not believe the same for Kirishna? "I always give here, as an example, something many of you might have experienced, e. g., suddenly somebody comes to you and asks: "Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?" Now this question is an absolutely inescapable threat, if you accept it as a question. You cannot get out of it, because whether you say yes or no, it is absurd. But you can do something else. You can ask back: What do you mean by this term "Son of God" ? -- And then the fear and trembling is on the other side of the fence. Then he looks at you and asks you to help him, and then you can help him and can say: "Son of God" is a very largely used symbol for a special intimate relationship between God and a human being. In paganism this relationship was mostly a relationship by propagation. In Judaism it was the relationship by election. But in any case it is a symbol which interprets such a relationship, and your question, my dear friend, can only mean: "Are we justified in using such a symbol for the event Jesus as the Christ?" And to this answer I answer fully affirmatively. " - History of Christian Thought Are people who believe in Krishna justified in using such a symbol to talk about Krishna? Maybe it's not appropriate for me to answer that for them is it? OwlFancier posted:One might argue that skepticism therefore is a useful solution to the problem of faith, if faith in things produces problems, that forms a worthy argument against having faith, at least in anything that involves large scale decision making or shapes your outlook on the rest of the world. Must be why I talk about doubt as necessary part of faith.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:44
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BrandorKP posted:Must be why I talk about doubt as necessary part of faith. To me, that sentence makes as much sense as 'black is a necessary part of white'. The two are polar opposites, where doubt exists there is no room for faith, where faith exists, doubt cannot, you can apply the two alternatively and arbitrarily to different parts of your life, but you can't apply both to the same thing. I would describe myself as vaguely spiritual but I can't correctly say I am a person of faith because there is doubt everywhere that meaningful faith would go in my life.
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Dec 10, 2014 20:49
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bokkibear posted:Granted, one of those readings may be the "correct" one, but given what's at stake here, it feels like we're groping around in the dark a bit. Fortunately, we all have each other. We are not alone in this!
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Dec 10, 2014 20:50
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OwlFancier posted:To me, that sentence makes as much sense as 'black is a necessary part of white'. Either your definitions don't match with ours, or you may be simply mistaken. Doubt and faith can coexist. In fact, I think doubt can go with pretty much anything- and probably should. Very little good seems to come from absolute certainty. If you say they can't coexist and as a result you can't have faith- you're right. But only insofar as it pertains to you. Self fulfilling prophecies and all. Finally, if you have no doubt... What are you having faith IN? How is it separate from simply KNOWING? (Or, at least, thinking you know.)
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Dec 10, 2014 20:54
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Mr. Wiggles posted:This brings us back to your main problem, I think. "THE BIBLE" isn't fiction, though parts of it are or may be. Parts of it are also history, parts are poetry, parts are law, parts are biography, etc. You have to stop evaluating it as a whole. If you take nothing else from this or from the other religion threads currently going, you should take at least this very important point. The problem I have, which by now you're more than aware of, is that classification of which parts are what always seems to me to be suspiciously in line with the personal preferences/biases of whomever I'm talking to and/or the social mores of their time and place. If, say, some part of the Old Testament, for instance, appears on first reading to portray God as whole-heartedly endorsing (or even demanding) something that would (ideally) land you in front of a war crimes tribunal these days, wow wouldn't you just know it, turns out it's either post-war propaganda made up by the Israelites to excuse whomever it was they slaughtered, or a tortured metaphorical passage about obedience and the consequences of sin, or whatnot. And yes, we can narrow down what might have actually happened by closer historical understanding of who wrote what, when they wrote it, and what (usually little) we know about their own intentions in writing this or that passage, but for much, perhaps most, we're still left with an awful lot of "well it would be pretty awful if Paul actually meant [THING REPELLANT TO MODERN SENSIBILITIES] so that must not be the case, or even if it is, we'll just sorta leave it aside and pretend that aspect of his character doesn't color at all [OTHER THING HE WROTE WHICH WE DON'T DISLIKE]."
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Dec 10, 2014 21:00
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The Snark posted:Either your definitions don't match with ours, or you may be simply mistaken. Doubt and faith can coexist. In fact, I think doubt can go with pretty much anything- and probably should. Very little good seems to come from absolute certainty. I can understand doubting one thing and having faith in another, that's not difficult or inherently contradictory, but doing it about the same thing would appear impossible. To have faith in a thing is to trust that it is a certain way, to, for the moment, suspend your criticism of it and accept its perceived state as truth, presumably so that you can go on to build further ideas on top of it. Arguably this is necessary to some degree at all times because your brain would wear out otherwise, but when you describe 'having faith in a thing' I would assume you mean having that uncritical trust for a protracted period of time. Otherwise the term doesn't really say much. Doubt is the precise opposite of that, to doubt is to be in the state of questioning that trust, to be not assuming your perception is true about a thing, and to be presumably unable to build further ideas on top of it because you have nothing solid to build on. Even an irrational person would presumably have difficulty building an idea on something they genuinely do not believe is true, as irrationality is usually decided based on someone holding unsupportable premises, not on your ability to do basic logic. If your definitions of faith and doubt are different please do tell me because otherwise I'm going to have a very hard time understanding what is meant. I would describe faith and doubt as being generalised versions of the above, to have faith is to generally do the former, to doubt is to generally do the latter. The Snark posted:Finally, if you have no doubt... What are you having faith IN? How is it separate from simply KNOWING? (Or, at least, thinking you know.) There isn't really a difference, though I suppose the colloquial use of faith would be to describe the idea of knowing something while acknowledging that the evidence for it isn't generally accepted, while saying you know something is usually accompanied with the tacit suggestion that 'also everyone else agrees with me so I'm more right'. But internally I don't imagine there's much difference. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 21:01
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BrandorKP posted:Why would you then go onto perpetuate the way in which they think? Why utilize their methodology? Why remain only simplistic and literalistic? The point being your ability to reinterprete thr Bible has no bearing outside of the Catholic church. Its nice that YOU are progressive, but the interpretations yiu make in no way improve the status of Christianity and the Bible overall, because it makes the assumption that everyone will accept your light hearted interpretation, when they won't. Hell, even within the church there is massive disagreements over even the Popes progressive interpretation.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:08
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OwlFancier posted:I can understand doubting one thing and having faith in another, that's not difficult or inherently contradictory, but doing it about the same thing would appear impossible. And I would define faith more along the lines of acting if and hoping that something is true even with insufficient evidence to prove it. Doubt then, is not incompatible- or if we are to say Faith is different from Knowing- it's absolutely vital. To have faith means you consider and accept you COULD be wrong but do not believe you are. Otherwise if you simply profess faith is knowing something, then there is no uncertainty in that. There is no consideration that you could be wrong. You aren't saying you believe God is there, for example, you are saying you know God is there. You might as well be saying you know the sky is blue. (and on that note would likewise be wrong on on at least one level)
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Dec 10, 2014 21:24
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Hmm, I would argue that any sane person would include a measure of skepticism in their concept of 'knowing' because to know without awareness of the underlying reasoning and its foundation on the accuracy of your own perception is... well it's pretty much madness. It's to believe that your head defines universal truth, which is such an alien concept that I have difficulty parsing it. Hence why I would define the distinction mostly as a social one, it's acceptable to say you 'know' something if everyone else (in the immediate vicinity, at least) agrees with you, whereas to say you have faith in something is more saying 'I know it sounds odd to you but I believe it'. Both faith and knowing in common use I would expect to be fairly practical ideas, believing for the purpose of achieving some greater rationalisation without completely losing the concept of the possibility of being wrong. Obviously you have people who take both to extremes and do lose the concept of being wrong but I would expect those people to be comparatively few, and frankly, mental.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:40
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The less someone is willing to consider they may be wrong, the more radical and 'mental' they tend to be. This certainly seems to be true with any topic, not just faith.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:47
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The Snark posted:The less someone is willing to consider they may be wrong, the more radical and 'mental' they tend to be. This certainly seems to be true with any topic, not just faith. Absolutely, which is part of why I don't generally consider absolute faith or absolute knowledge be a useful use of the words, because it is rare and more accurately described as being insane. I assume a degree of skepticism is present based on the fact that the person is talking to me and not murdering me because their delusional brain is telling them that everything they do is completely correct. That does lead to the two not being very different though.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:57
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Mr. Wiggles posted:This brings us back to your main problem, I think. "THE BIBLE" isn't fiction, though parts of it are or may be. Parts of it are also history, parts are poetry, parts are law, parts are biography, etc. You have to stop evaluating it as a whole. If you take nothing else from this or from the other religion threads currently going, you should take at least this very important point. Fair point, I should have been more nuanced in my description. But I think it's obvious what I meant: much of the accounts in the Bible are so unreliable that one ought to treat them as fiction instead of not. And not just "A, B, C, D, E, F, and G happened and God had something to do with it", but like, the fact that outside of the Bible there is no historical record of the Hebrews ever having been enslaved by Egyptians and then escaping in a mass exodus to the desert. Like, maybe "myth" is better word than "fiction"? But then we're just splitting hairs.
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Dec 10, 2014 22:05
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Captain_Maclaine posted:The problem I have, which by now you're more than aware of, is that classification of which parts are what always seems to me to be suspiciously in line with the personal preferences/biases of whomever I'm talking to and/or the social mores of their time and place. If, say, some part of the Old Testament, for instance, appears on first reading to portray God as whole-heartedly endorsing (or even demanding) something that would (ideally) land you in front of a war crimes tribunal these days, wow wouldn't you just know it, turns out it's either post-war propaganda made up by the Israelites to excuse whomever it was they slaughtered, or a tortured metaphorical passage about obedience and the consequences of sin, or whatnot. While it is true that we will find many things in the stories collected in the Bible distasteful to modern sensibilities, that does not mean that we can't find out what the writings meant to those who originally wrote them and their intended audiences. For instance, the narrative of the the destruction of the Midianites in Numbers 31 is pretty awful when we read it today. The Israelites kill the men of Midian, burn their cities, and take their dependents captive. But then Moses gets angry with them and tells them to kill the male children and the mature females. Terrible stuff by our standards. However, we can't simply write Moses, the Israelites, and the writers of Numbers off as awful human beings just yet. Let us instead look at the context - Numbers was written during the Babylonian exile, a very traumatic and nation-myth building event for the Hebrew people. The existence of the Midianite narrative here serves a couple of purposes, it seems - not only does it reinforce the memory and mythos of Israel as a strong and unified nation in the past which may survive into the future to be strong again, but it emphasizes a recurrent theme in Hebraic literature and religion, that a people are punished collectively when they piss off the Almighty. So now we have a little historical context within which we can discuss the events described in a rational manner without getting into any "did God actually command this or didn't He". To ask that question rather misses the point, because the ancient Israelites who told the story and listened to it weren't asking that question - they just wanted to talk about where they came from, where they might be going as a people, and why they were still stuck in exile. That's a small example of what I mean when I talk about taking each part on its own merits, and is especially important with Old Testament stuff - a lot of the time questions of theology don't even enter into it. In the New Testament this is a bit different, because the whole point of those particular collected writings is to explain the New Theology of Jesus Christ via biographical accounts of his life and death and pastoral epistles between believers (there is also a small piece of apocalypse writing at the end, but that's sort of its own can or worms). When you mention something like St. Paul and his famous intolerances, it's even easier to tell exactly what he meant, because he was very specific. Again, we may find things that we don't agree with, but at no point in his personal writings is it implied that we must agree absolutely with him. Those who would say "Oh he didn't really mean that" are demonstrably wrong by referring to Paul's plain wording, but fortunately with his particular case it doesn't matter. Like any other human being, we can appreciate the things he wrote which we find admirable and put aside those things which we find unacceptable - most of us are happy to use many of the basic theories of Newton, but we're also happy to call his obsession with alchemy a bunch of nonsense. There is no reason to treat Paul any differently.
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Dec 10, 2014 22:09
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BrandorKP posted:"I always give here, as an example, something many of you might have experienced, e. g., suddenly somebody comes to you and asks: "Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?" Now this question is an absolutely inescapable threat, if you accept it as a question. You cannot get out of it, because whether you say yes or no, it is absurd. But you can do something else. You can ask back: What do you mean by this term "Son of God" ? -- And then the fear and trembling is on the other side of the fence. Then he looks at you and asks you to help him, and then you can help him and can say: "Son of God" is a very largely used symbol for a special intimate relationship between God and a human being. In paganism this relationship was mostly a relationship by propagation. In Judaism it was the relationship by election. But in any case it is a symbol which interprets such a relationship, and your question, my dear friend, can only mean: "Are we justified in using such a symbol for the event Jesus as the Christ?" And to this answer I answer fully affirmatively. " - History of Christian Thought So, "no, but if you take these words to mean something completely else, then yes"?
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Dec 10, 2014 22:23
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If you are a believer you unconditionally believe in the things written in those books. If you don't you are not a true believer. As such it is literally impossible to argue with a true believer.
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Dec 10, 2014 22:23
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Mr. Wiggles posted:While it is true that we will find many things in the stories collected in the Bible distasteful to modern sensibilities, that does not mean that we can't find out what the writings meant to those who originally wrote them and their intended audiences. For instance, the narrative of the the destruction of the Midianites in Numbers 31 is pretty awful when we read it today. The Israelites kill the men of Midian, burn their cities, and take their dependents captive. But then Moses gets angry with them and tells them to kill the male children and the mature females. Terrible stuff by our standards. However, we can't simply write Moses, the Israelites, and the writers of Numbers off as awful human beings just yet. Let us instead look at the context - Numbers was written during the Babylonian exile, a very traumatic and nation-myth building event for the Hebrew people. The existence of the Midianite narrative here serves a couple of purposes, it seems - not only does it reinforce the memory and mythos of Israel as a strong and unified nation in the past which may survive into the future to be strong again, but it emphasizes a recurrent theme in Hebraic literature and religion, that a people are punished collectively when they piss off the Almighty. So now we have a little historical context within which we can discuss the events described in a rational manner without getting into any "did God actually command this or didn't He". To ask that question rather misses the point, because the ancient Israelites who told the story and listened to it weren't asking that question - they just wanted to talk about where they came from, where they might be going as a people, and why they were still stuck in exile. That's a small example of what I mean when I talk about taking each part on its own merits, and is especially important with Old Testament stuff - a lot of the time questions of theology don't even enter into it. Then maybe, instead of applying these mythos to a modern world, we could move the gently caress on to the New Testament and stop praising psychopaths and mass murders?
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Dec 10, 2014 22:25
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BrandorKP posted:"I always give here, as an example, something many of you might have experienced, e. g., suddenly somebody comes to you and asks: "Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?" Now this question is an absolutely inescapable threat, if you accept it as a question. You cannot get out of it, because whether you say yes or no, it is absurd. But you can do something else. You can ask back: What do you mean by this term "Son of God" ? -- And then the fear and trembling is on the other side of the fence. Then he looks at you and asks you to help him, and then you can help him and can say: "Son of God" is a very largely used symbol for a special intimate relationship between God and a human being. In paganism this relationship was mostly a relationship by propagation. In Judaism it was the relationship by election. But in any case it is a symbol which interprets such a relationship, and your question, my dear friend, can only mean: "Are we justified in using such a symbol for the event Jesus as the Christ?" And to this answer I answer fully affirmatively. " - History of Christian Thought Do you actually want me to define "son of God" or will you, as soon as I do, quote another vague poetic-sounding non-answer in order to avoid the question?
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Dec 10, 2014 22:26
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CommieGIR posted:Then maybe, instead of applying these mythos to a modern world, we could move the gently caress on to the New Testament and stop praising psychopaths and mass murders? This is a good idea, yes.
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Dec 10, 2014 22:31
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Though I am enjoying the ongoing conversation about biblical literacy and its transition into a modern contest, I have a theological question for the derail: Would Khorne frown upon blood donations? I just gave today, and I don't want to be in trouble.
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Dec 10, 2014 22:36
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Knifegrab posted:If you are a believer you unconditionally believe in the things written in those books. If you don't you are not a true believer. As such it is literally impossible to argue with a true believer.
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Dec 10, 2014 23:00
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J.A.B.C. posted:Though I am enjoying the ongoing conversation about biblical literacy and its transition into a modern contest, I have a theological question for the derail: Khorne does not care from whom the blood flows, so long as it flows, so you're no more screwed now than you were before (ie: inescapably). Mr. Wiggles posted:In the New Testament this is a bit different, because the whole point of those particular collected writings is to explain the New Theology of Jesus Christ via biographical accounts of his life and death and pastoral epistles between believers (there is also a small piece of apocalypse writing at the end, but that's sort of its own can or worms). When you mention something like St. Paul and his famous intolerances, it's even easier to tell exactly what he meant, because he was very specific. Again, we may find things that we don't agree with, but at no point in his personal writings is it implied that we must agree absolutely with him. Those who would say "Oh he didn't really mean that" are demonstrably wrong by referring to Paul's plain wording, but fortunately with his particular case it doesn't matter. Like any other human being, we can appreciate the things he wrote which we find admirable and put aside those things which we find unacceptable - most of us are happy to use many of the basic theories of Newton, but we're also happy to call his obsession with alchemy a bunch of nonsense. There is no reason to treat Paul any differently. And if Paul, or other authors of/character in scripture were, solely, historical figures we're discussing I'd happily, or at least less grudgingly, agree. However, with Paul in particular (though not limited to him), I find many, perhaps most Christians I end up talking about these things with are more than willing to engage in special pleading with regards to the character flaws/bad ideas. Since he is so important a figure in the formation of the early Church, and make such a number of proclamations about what is/is not acceptable moral behavior, that's when I time after time see the "well he must've really meant..." contortions. Paul's alleged connection to the divine, as well, muddies those waters troublingly, as that's the larger basis on which he's making both the claims that don't hold up to modern eyes and the ones that do. Look; by this point I've come around that you, Mr. Wiggles, are capable of grasping the nuance, but I've yet to see much to suggest most of your coreligionists have given the matter nearly as much thought, particularly in the realm of American Protestantism (which yes, I know has its own issues going back at least to the Great Awakenings if not further when it comes to dealing with the context of when/why the various books were written). I still see more evidence than not that when faced with determining which parts of the bible are history, fiction, poetry, etc, the standard most fall back on is "if acceptable to modern mores, then it's the transcendent word of god; if not, then it's either metaphor or post-hoc propaganda or something."
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Dec 10, 2014 23:36
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Khorne does not care from whom the blood flows, so long as it flows, so you're no more screwed now than you were before (ie: inescapably). You're right, and I completely agree. The problem we have, and which America in particular seems to have had for the last couple of centuries, is that we have an incredible and dangerous lack of education amongst the general populace when it comes to the Christian faith that said populace either professes or disbelieves in. This is shown in these very forums time and again, where we expect the education level to be somewhat higher than the audience spectrum for the average mass market sitcom, and even in this thread. Within the Catholic faith, even, we have begun to term this problem "a lack of Catechesis", though this includes not just Biblical illiteracy but a greater illiteracy as to the current and historical teachings of the Catholic church. Many efforts are being made to educate the laity, but like any other educational effort in America, the audience isn't always very receptive. In many ways, the mis-readings and mis-understandings that we have come to associate with the literalist sects have become a sort of folk-religion, existing on the same plane as bad luck for breaking mirrors and the popular Western concept of Karma. That is to say, they are things heard once or many times and sort of believed in but not examined critically by the believers. But because these beliefs also carry aspects of cultural identity with them for many groups, challenging them is very difficult. On the other hand, when some people come to reject these folk beliefs, they violently reject everything associated with their former conception of religion. But in their rejection they never take the steps to properly understand their former religion in the first place, and thus insist that, for instance, all Christians must be literalists because that's the only type of Christian they can conceive of. I often find that most atheists (not the Dawkins type, to be fair), agnostics, priests, and serious scholars of Christianity often end up agreeing on a very many things, usually in opposition to those who would be termed my "co-religionists". It is a sad thing, but perhaps we should be inspired by it to continue efforts to educate all people in all disciplines in order to raise the general state of humanity. Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Dec 10, 2014 |
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Dec 10, 2014 23:50
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The Snark posted:Who he's referring to never said any of that, so it was indeed. Expecting them not to do it again is silly though, Vital Signs is among several pseudo LF posters who seem to be incapable of addressing any issue with anything BUT strawmen. "Oh me, oh my! These LF brutes keep bringing in their vile sarcasm and humor. Oh lawdy I do feel a case of the vapors coming on!"
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Dec 10, 2014 23:57
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Mr. Wiggles posted:You're right, and I completely agree. The problem we have, and which America in particular seems to have had for the last couple of centuries, is that we have an incredible and dangerous lack of education amongst the general populace when it comes to the Christian faith that said populace either professes or disbelieves in. This is shown in these very forums time and again, where we expect the education level to be somewhat higher than the audience spectrum for the average mass market sitcom, and even in this thread. Within the Catholic faith, even, we have begun to term this problem "a lack of Catechesis", though this includes not just Biblical illiteracy but a greater illiteracy as to the current and historical teachings of the Catholic church. Many efforts are being made to educate the laity, but like any other educational effort in America, the audience isn't always very receptive. In many ways, the mis-readings and mis-understandings that we have come to associate with the literalist sects have become a sort of folk-religion, existing on the same plane as bad luck for breaking mirrors and the popular Western concept of Karma. That is to say, they are things heard once or many times and sort of believed in but not examined critically by the believers. But because these beliefs also carry aspects of cultural identity with them for many groups, challenging them is very difficult. On the other hand, when some people come to reject these folk beliefs, they violently reject everything associated with their former conception of religion. But in their rejection they never take the steps to properly understand their former religion in the first place, and thus insist that, for instance, all Christians must be literalists because that's the only type of Christian they can conceive of. or maybe we could just abandon Christianity
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Dec 10, 2014 23:59
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Mr. Wiggles posted:You're right, and I completely agree. The problem we have, and which America in particular seems to have had for the last couple of centuries, is that we have an incredible and dangerous lack of education amongst the general populace when it comes to the Christian faith that said populace either professes or disbelieves in. This is shown in these very forums time and again, where we expect the education level to be somewhat higher than the audience spectrum for the average mass market sitcom, and even in this thread. Within the Catholic faith, even, we have begun to term this problem "a lack of Catechesis", though this includes not just Biblical illiteracy but a greater illiteracy as to the current and historical teachings of the Catholic church. Many efforts are being made to educate the laity, but like any other educational effort in America, the audience isn't always very receptive. In many ways, the mis-readings and mis-understandings that we have come to associate with the literalist sects have become a sort of folk-religion, existing on the same plane as bad luck for breaking mirrors and the popular Western concept of Karma. That is to say, they are things heard once or many times and sort of believed in but not examined critically by the believers. But because these beliefs also carry aspects of cultural identity with them for many groups, challenging them is very difficult. On the other hand, when some people come to reject these folk beliefs, they violently reject everything associated with their former conception of religion. But in their rejection they never take the steps to properly understand their former religion in the first place, and thus insist that, for instance, all Christians must be literalists because that's the only type of Christian they can conceive of. I agree that both theists and atheists agree on a great many things on the macro scale. So I suppose my question would be: what does the theistic position offer that cannot be found in the atheistic position? It's not a sense of belonging or community, since those things exist outside of the church. It's not a sense of morality, since atheists have those. It's not tradition or things that inspire awe because (in typical American Christianity) most traditions have been coopted to have secular meanings and celebrations and things like a good movie, beautiful music, or even the Grand Canyon can can invoke awe and wonder without a god. And it can't be an assurance of an afterlife because at best most people don't believe in one or at least care more about this life and at worst there are afterlives that don't require a god. So what, exactly, does a god offer that is unique?
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Dec 11, 2014 00:06
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Mr. Wiggles posted:While it is true that we will find many things in the stories collected in the Bible distasteful to modern sensibilities, that does not mean that we can't find out what the writings meant to those who originally wrote them and their intended audiences. For instance, the narrative of the the destruction of the Midianites in Numbers 31 is pretty awful when we read it today. The Israelites kill the men of Midian, burn their cities, and take their dependents captive. But then Moses gets angry with them and tells them to kill the male children and the mature females. Terrible stuff by our standards. However, we can't simply write Moses, the Israelites, and the writers of Numbers off as awful human beings just yet. Let us instead look at the context - Numbers was written during the Babylonian exile, a very traumatic and nation-myth building event for the Hebrew people. The existence of the Midianite narrative here serves a couple of purposes, it seems - not only does it reinforce the memory and mythos of Israel as a strong and unified nation in the past which may survive into the future to be strong again, but it emphasizes a recurrent theme in Hebraic literature and religion, that a people are punished collectively when they piss off the Almighty. So now we have a little historical context within which we can discuss the events described in a rational manner without getting into any "did God actually command this or didn't He". To ask that question rather misses the point, because the ancient Israelites who told the story and listened to it weren't asking that question - they just wanted to talk about where they came from, where they might be going as a people, and why they were still stuck in exile. That's a small example of what I mean when I talk about taking each part on its own merits, and is especially important with Old Testament stuff - a lot of the time questions of theology don't even enter into it. So put into context it is horrible in different ways, which is a step forward because Oh yeah and Who What Now posted:I agree that both theists and atheists agree on a great many things on the macro scale. So I suppose my question would be: what does the theistic position offer that cannot be found in the atheistic position? It's not a sense of belonging or community, since those things exist outside of the church. It's not a sense of morality, since atheists have those. It's not tradition or things that inspire awe because (in typical American Christianity) most traditions have been coopted to have secular meanings and celebrations and things like a good movie, beautiful music, or even the Grand Canyon can can invoke awe and wonder without a god. And it can't be an assurance of an afterlife because at best most people don't believe in one or at least care more about this life and at worst there are afterlives that don't require a god. Reward in the brain, which is activated by thinking of God in religious people, but it is possible to replace this stimulation e.g. by thinking of Steve Jobs if you are an apple fanboi (this is not a joke).
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Dec 11, 2014 00:10
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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blowfish posted:Reward in the brain, which is activated by thinking of God in religious people, but it is possible to replace this stimulation e.g. by thinking of Steve Jobs if you are an apple fanboi (this is not a joke). No, you're spot on. This is exactly what I mean when I ask what religion provides that cannot be provided by a secular alternative.
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Dec 11, 2014 00:26
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Who What Now posted:No, you're spot on. This is exactly what I mean when I ask what religion provides that cannot be provided by a secular alternative. Somewhat inconsistently, so presumably at least some people would get extra endorphins out of religion.
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Dec 11, 2014 00:38
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blowfish posted:Somewhat inconsistently, so presumably at least some people would get extra endorphins out of religion. And some people get endorphins from playing the slots but that doesn't make believing it's gonna pay out a jackpot any second now justified in the least bit.
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Dec 11, 2014 00:56
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Who What Now posted:So what, exactly, does a god offer that is unique? Truth. God offers an absolute foundation for Truth - that Truth is absolute, not relative. God offers a destination. Marriage as the destination for a relationship. Heaven as a destination for being good, Hell as a destination for wrongdoing. It orients our ethical lives - and our souls. Science can never do this or provide answers to these sorts of questions. It's simply a method for chipping away at the shadows of reality. It can hint at it, for example provide evidence that cooperation in-between a species can improve survival chances, but proving it is an impossible task. Yet we all feel we need this kind of assurance, and we feel naked without it. Or at least, we all feel comfortable with some level of assurance offered by one belief system or another, even if it's a belief system erected in the name of science's new cosmology. Without faith in that idea or similar ideas, the pre-socratics are right in saying there is no right or wrong of any matter, whoever has the greatest powers of persuasion will rule the day and everyone else is out of luck.
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Dec 11, 2014 01:44
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what if i believe in right and wrong, but also that god doesn't exist? like have you seriously never heard of / read Camus or Vonnegut?
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Dec 11, 2014 01:44
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CowOnCrack posted:Yet we all feel we need this kind of assurance, and we feel naked without it. Speak for yourself
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Dec 11, 2014 01:45
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CowOnCrack posted:God offers a destination. Marriage as the destination for a relationship. Heaven as a destination for being good, Hell as a destination for wrongdoing. It orients our ethical lives - and our souls.  Yeaaaaahhhhh....Morality and Empathy are sociological forces, not forces of 'God'
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Dec 11, 2014 01:56
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CommieGIR posted:
And marriage is a state and legal institution first, religious an optional second.
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Dec 11, 2014 01:58
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