Guest Post by Chad
As promised, today we have a guest post from a Christian: Chad from Eternal Revolution. I’ve also written a post for his audience. You can read it here.
Happy Labor Day, everyone.
~I AM~
Apologetics or Apologies?
First, I’d like to thank I AM for the opportunity to present my thoughts to you here. It’s cliche to say, but I do believe we’ve become increasingly polarized as a culture. And, as a result, people are less willing to try to understand other viewpoints. It’s a challenging endeavor, but can also be a worthwhile one. At least I hope so.
The tagline of this blog is “Helping Mankind Overcome Religion”. That actually seems like a good idea to me. Over at my group blog, we primarily tell stories. A central theme that arises as you read through the personal narratives is the common experience of losing our religion and gaining hope in Christ. And I’m not just playing word games now. Organized religion has managed to keep more people from God than perhaps any other factor in history.
I realize some of you here have made attempts to join in some online dialogue with Christians recently only to have your thoughts dismissed without reason or deleted. I feel your pain - really. Too many religious folks have it all figured out. And it scares them if someone confronts them in such a way that makes them question whether they really do. Such encounters annoy me to no end.
I doubt I’m telling you anything you don’t already know, but ultimately, when this happens, you’re shaking the foundations of what amounts to a very fragile faith. It’s a faith that has not been examined but merely inherited in most cases. In this type of situation, there’s a certain comfort in religion, but it’s usually as far from a meaningful relational experience as you can get. And I suppose that’s okay for some folks. The problem though is when this sort of unexamined faith is exhibited on a broader scale, skeptics begin to (understandably) equate belief in God (or Christ in particular) with questionable logic or flimsy evidence.
However, this could not be further from the truth for many of us. I’m skeptical by nature. I don’t take things at face value. So I’ve had my crisis of faith. Only a few years ago, I seriously questioned the plausibility of the existence of God, not to mention one taking human form and dying on a cross and subsequently rising from the dead. It’s preposterous sounding sort of stuff I know.
The funny thing is as I read more, I realized I actually believe this story. In fact, I’m not sure that I could bring myself to believe in a God, period, were it not for this one man. Now I really would love to delve into the myriad of reasons why I believe in Christ and have you deluge me with counterarguments, but that conversation will have to wait. (If you want to get an idea as to how I’d structure the case for belief in Christ, you can look here.)
Right now, I’m in a frame of mind that’s pondering “Christian” behavior I’ve been noticing lately. The more cognizant of it I become, the more I feel an apology is in order. I apologize for some fundamentalists proclaiming that we are witnessing God’s wrath on New Orleans with the hurricane there. I’m sorry that when you turn on the TV you see preachers using guilt-trip techniques to get more money - not to feed the poor and downtrodden, but to built bigger facilities and buy private jets. I apologize for Christian spokesmen who call for assassinations of world leaders. I regret to see those who act as if Christ cares more about a political party than about the souls and suffering of human beings.
Quite frankly, a lot of this all makes me want to drop that ‘C’ label and come up with something else entirely to differentiate myself. Until… I realize I’m a hypocrite too. I don’t often live what I preach or believe. I’ve been judgmental towards atheists in the past. I’ve felt as if I were morally superior because of my beliefs. It’s pathetic, but it’s true.
Now understand, religion sets up rules and says if you obey you will be accepted. But Jesus Christ turned this whole thing upside down. He says if you are accepted – and only if you are convinced you are accepted – will you ever begin to obey. It’s not about being a good person. It’s about being a really broken person with all sorts of problems and loneliness and strife. That opens the door for the really great part. That’s the part about grace and redemption.
When I understand it’s not about me, but it’s a whole lot bigger, the weight of the world lifts. And even though I may go on feeling sorry for everything I’ve done (and all the things TV preachers have said and done), I know that God will not give me what I deserve. And I’m eternally thankful about that. So thankful in fact that I just want to figure out how to live in a way that will please Him.
“God weeps with us so that we may someday laugh with him.” - Jürgen Moltmann - Nazi soldier turned theologian
Okay, okay. Now, let me have it. Tell me to stop believing in fairy tales. I love being outnumbered. Really, I do. Bring the noise.
September 5th, 2005 at at 4:12 am
I will say that you seem to be a shining example of a Christian - or at least the general connotation people attach to it. We all are guilty of painting broad groups of individuals with one brush.
You do point out some of the major problems with the religion. The superficial problems. As far as the issues of logic, you still seem to fall on faith, or subjective experience. I’m sure you’ve heard all of them, so I’ll not go there.
Upon deeper reflection of life, one of the only things I find more absurd than the idea of an active, intervening, pre-determinist god, is the idea of a sacrificial redeemer figure. I understand the idea behind them, and how people may feel the need for such, but not the actual need for such. I’ll read your case for it. In my mind though it still boils down to an omniscient god knowing ahead of time that his creation wasn’t going to buy his lie and messed up and sinned, which god really dislikes even though he created it, so after multiple generations of doomed people die, god decides it’s time to come to earth and kill himself, which somehow gets future generations off the hook - as long as they make the right decision using the free will they were given…by a god that already knows if they will or not anyway. Instead of him just making it work from teh get go, or fixing it without killing himself. Oh yeah, and then he reveals himself to a geographically select group of people, dooming even more generations in outlying, disconnected regions. Hmmm.
I’ve heard the arguments - no one can understand god, don’t try to put human characteristics on god, etc. But why would a god - much less one who’s self image was mirrored in man - create a man with such complex, yet structured behavioral, intellectual, and psychological traits - or create ANY ordered systems - that are so completely out of line with how the creator itself behaves? So maybe I DO try to attach human standards of logic to a god, but those same standards of logic seamlessly apply to all of that supposed god’s creation, so why not to the creator?
If nothing else, you’ve shown me that a hypothetical Christian - one who doesn’t push the religion down other’s throats and isn’t afraid to think and ask questions - actually does exist. I suspected you were out there.
September 5th, 2005 at at 8:17 am
And here I thought I would be dissapointed with this experiment. Thank you Chad.
September 5th, 2005 at at 8:57 am
Well written. I just don’t think that people really need religion to give them hope, or to their life meaning. Can’t we find alternatives that do not require suspense of logic?
But thanks anyways.
September 5th, 2005 at at 10:45 am
[…] say which I’ve posted in its entirety below and he has posted my essay on his site. Click here to read my essay. While I know it’s difficult, I feel very passion […]
September 5th, 2005 at at 10:47 am
What I still don’t understand is, why does anything you just described require a supernatural force? It seems you’ve effectively reduced Christianity to philosophy, in effect doing the athiest work for him.
September 5th, 2005 at at 10:51 am
Just to let you know, I posted a comment on your article about your case for belief in Christ.
September 5th, 2005 at at 11:09 am
Chad, Nice post. I also feel your pain but draw a different conclusion. I agree 100% that it is usually established church and not religion or spirituality that causes the greatest harm. Participation in a group replaces any actual piety in most cases and the group and the self grow to be more important than the faith.
My father the Father (Episcopalian Priest) once described to me 4 stages of piety. The first stage is absolutism, the criminal in a 12 step program is a good example. The absolutist is incapable of deviation from the program without falling back on old patterns. Stage 2 has progressed to a point where he/she no longer fears falling back to stage 1 but feels an overwhelming need to persuade others to feel as they do and to belong to a group of like minded people. At stage 3 the individual becomes confident enough in their belief to incorporate dissenting information. Usually stage 3 involves a long period of doubt and reflection. Stage 4 is supposed to happen when you have gone through stage 3 and resolved your faith to an irrevocable point.
You appear to be in stage 3 of that description of piety. Most of the “religious” world is stuck in phase 1 or 2 forever. I feel that I also was once in stage 3. I then moved sideways to become a firm stage 4 agnostic. I do not believe that there is a God but will allow that I cannot prove that there isn’t, and even if there is a God he does not participate in any aspect of the observable world.
September 5th, 2005 at at 1:27 pm
Thanks all for reading and commenting. I really appreciate your willingness to do that.
Seth, I think you get to the heart of the matter with your question: “Can’t we find alternatives that do not require suspense of logic?”
I would imagine that the idea of the existence of miracles is a real obstacle for a lot of you in even beginning to try to understand where someone like myself is coming from. I would ask you to consider, however, whether any instinctive repugnance you may have toward the idea of believing in the miraculous is more emotional or aesthetic at root than it is entirely rational. It seems to me the construct of a modernist view entails a deep-seated longing for belief in more order and regularity in the world that is actually present. One example to illustrate a much less homogeneous reality than we would envision comes from scientific discovery: Newtonian atomism was much more the sort of the thing we expected (and hoped for) than Quantum physics.
While what I’ve just said is far from being some indisputable case for the existence in miracles, it does, hopefully, trigger some thought as to the underlying assumptions we make. So often we’re tempted to think of ourselves as being completely rational or unbiased, but it’s nearly impossible to extrapolate the emotional element from it entirely.
So, DUB, when you mention that much of my experience is subjective, I’m not going to deny that, but then again aren’t we all coming at this issue with a lot of preconceptions and ingrained opinions.
LBBP: That’s a good explanation of the four stages of piety. It makes sense though I’d imagine I’m in stage four as well, but with the caveat that I could still be wrong about a lot of things.
You also said, “…even if there is a God he does not participate in any aspect of the observable world.”
It’s interesting because I just got back from camping in the mountains of central Colorado with some friends and we all remarked of breathtaking beauty of God’s creation in our surroundings. We see it in all sorts of places and it’s deeply spiritual. An atheist or agnostic is looking at everything through an entirely different lens. That’s not an argument, of course, but an observation of the huge dichotomy in how we view the world.
September 5th, 2005 at at 1:51 pm
Well, I’m afraid this didn’t really change my stance on religion.
But it was quite enlightening, though perhaps not quite in the way meant by you. I realized I should actually read the bible instead of hearing about it from the correct, though rather slanted, point of view of atheists. I’m sure there are some interesting philosophical points that would be good to live by, but god-wise, I’m still an atheist.
All in all, the main theme I got from this was “I’m really, really sorry. But. . .” I heard you, in a rather Christian way, presenting the best story you had before us, then saying “Now, let me have it.” and effectively telling us to make you suffer. Well, suffering is what Christianity is based on after all, it’s just interesting to see it in action.
But, seriously, thank you alot for that Chad. It takes real courage to do that, and even though I still think your wrong, at least I respect you and your resolve now.
September 5th, 2005 at at 2:11 pm
First let me congratulate you for apparently not being one of the insane christian right that is currently working to dismantle freedom and sanity in America. However, I have to be honest in that I can’t give any support to the idea that a belief in Jesus as the son of god and personal savior makes any sense at all, that it is anything but blind devotion in the face of very convincing arguments to the contrary.
First off, with the Jesus thing, I have to agree with what DUB said. How the hell does it make sense for Jesus to kill himself and “save” us? God is sitting up there in the clouds and says “hey, I’d like humanity to be able to be saved for their sins” and god’s secretary says “okay, why don’t you just make it so? you are the one that punishes them for their sins as it is, you could easily let them off the hook” to which god responds “oh no no no, you have much to learn, I have to kill my son first, then I’ll tell myself to change the rules”.
And even if you could somehow bring yourself to believe “oh but god works in mysterious ways” you still have to find a way to dismiss the fact that there have been savior figures EXACTLY like jesus wayyyy before he ever was claimed to exist. The god Zeus had a half-man, half-god son Hercules with a mortal woman, just like the christian god had jesus with the mortal mary. Other savior figures rose in 3 days, turned water into wine, etc. It’s clearly made up.
September 5th, 2005 at at 3:27 pm
“Grace”, “redemption”, as if humans were naturally ugly and evil. Original sin is human-hating drivel. Original sin means people have to work their whole lives to “redeem” themselves. If I believed in that stuff, I would say “fuck it, why should I work all my life just to AVOID going to hell? Since I’m doomed to go anyway, might as well enjoy life whilst I can, and screw everyone else over in the process.”
Christ did not die for my sins, he did not die for me, he did not die for anybody. He died, that’s it. (If he really existed at all). Even if he was real, and did die, and claimed it was for the “sins” of others, why does this make god (or any supernatural deity) any more plausible? Its a nice archetype, a brave act for a noble cause, but it does not serve as proof for god(s), just as the warm fuzzies for you and other believers. Finding good qualities in humans through the tales of ancient civilisations is reassuring, but cannot serve as a basis for the belief in god(s), nor does it promote or encourage belief in a particular religion.
Most humans are a product of their upbringing and their conditioning. Were they born in another place and time, their beliefs, language, and worldview would be almost entirely different. But humans all have some things in common: we laugh, we smile, we cry, we (can) feel empathy, we are emotional. We are animals with slightly larger (size to body size ratio), more complex brains. We have more complex behaviour, but this does not mean there is a god, or that supernatural powers exist. It does not mean the world is ordered according to some divine will.
Our complex brains enable us to ponder in abstractions, and abstractions can go beyond models that work in the world around us. One such model, god, is the most powerful but useless model. A god that created anything or everything is a great explanation, and would work in all cases to explain origins, but it is useless to help make predictions, to help describe the workings of the universe. It is also used as a tool to control gullible people.
Had you been born on the moon and raised in isolation by impartial, non-religious robots, and had no knowledge of earthly beliefs, you would not know of nor believe in christ. So it would be for each and every human. Religion is just another meme, just another abstraction that has more control over behaviour than our supposed “free will”.
Sometimes little kids think there are monsters under their beds. Some are afraid to look, others to move, and still more to cry for help. The IDEA that there are monsters under the bed is so powerful in their minds, they actually BELIEVE there are monsters, and that they are residing under their bed. Every last kid that has looked under the bed was rewarded with the knowledge that there never was a monster under the bed. I looked, because I knew that what I thought to be true, and what IS true, do not always line up, no matter how much I desire them to do so.
Without previous knowledge of god, one would have no way of discovering god. Therefore, god is a manmade invention. Any and all qualities of god are all manmade. Any and all religious, social, and political structures created around the idea of god(s) are entirely manmade. Any and all good things humans have done in the name of religion has been entirely the result of their actions, not of the deity. All human actions, all human deeds, all human desires are entirely human, there is no outside force controlling our behaviour or our beliefs.
I cannot believe in supernatural powers because I understand that these things are just memes, and do not help me in any way. I can glean no insight from things that are beyond my understanding. I cannot use these beliefs to better my existence on earth. The most I could ever get out of them is comfort in knowing that something was watching over me, taking care of me. But that’s only if I assumed that these supernatural powers were kind and gave a shit about me. Besides which, this kind of comfort is only possible if I lie to myself, meaning I must convince myself these forces exist and have an effect on me, without any proof whatsoever. “God has not been proven to not exist, therefore, he must exist.”
Thank you for your post and your apology. It would mean more if you gave up religion.
September 5th, 2005 at at 10:03 pm
Chad- Any particular reason you could share with me why one of my comments (a non-inflammatory statement on the topic of whether or not the resurrection was a historical event) was deleted/dissapeared from your website?
September 5th, 2005 at at 10:26 pm
SA, Your comment is up there now. For some reason, your comments needed ‘approval’ before being posted. Usually the spam filter doesn’t cause this problem, but occassionally it will delay the posting by giving me the option to ‘moderate’ it first (which I never do).
Mookie, Original sin is the one explanation that makes sense of all the conflict we experience in our lives. Whether it is manifest in selfishness, pride, war, addiction, whatever, there is some great conflict in the universe with which we are interacting. I don’t believe the inherent existence of conflict in so many areas of our lives would make sense to us were it not for original sin. The story of Adam and Eve (whether interpreted metaphorically or literally) and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil explains the essence human struggle that we face everyday.
Had I been born on the moon and raised in isolation, I’m pretty certain I would still feel this sort of inherent conflict. You mentioned little kids: why is it that little children will intentionally lie? Is there not some inherent sort of proclivity to act in a manner that is inconsistent with what we consider good morality? Why is it so hard to find someone you can really, truly trust and that won’t let you down? To me, God is the only source of unconditional love and that is an indictment against the sinful nature of humanity.
September 5th, 2005 at at 11:11 pm
That was a nice post Chad. It didn’t convince me, of course, but your willingness to actually come and talk to us, as opposed to just ranting, is appreciated.
September 6th, 2005 at at 1:31 am
“Had I been born on the moon and raised in isolation, I’m pretty certain I would still feel this sort of inherent conflict.”
Conflict? With whom? With what? You would be living on the moon, with no other humans in sight! Sorry, but I call BS on that. As Darth Vader says: “There is no conflict.”
The notion of original sin is also why you find heyzeus so appealing. You’ve accepted that humans are in need of “saving”. We are vile, wretched creatures, even newborn babies. Your favourite jew gets killed by these naturally evil humans and you think you owe him something.
Original sin is one aspect of religion that is very harmful, quite possibly the very worst. It makes humans inherently evil, justifying all manner of horrendous acts. Untold thousands have died because of this idea. The Inquisition (and other “purgings”) were based on this belief. The Native Americans in the New World were also subjected to this labeling. It was the job of the catholic church to “save” the inherently evil souls of the unbelievers. The golden age of christianity is known now as the Dark Ages. It was only when people stopped hating humanity and began to find beauty in the human experience that the Renaissance began and spread. Now you and your ilk are trying to drag us back into one. This is why religion sucks balls. Your apology is meaningless if you insist on finding humans sinful.
Why be good if its not in our nature to be so? That’s not to say that humans are inherently good; they are inherently nothing. We are CAPABLE of both great good and great bad, but again, our behaviour is more a product of our conditioning than of anything else. We don’t kill and destroy because we are preprogrammed to do so. We CHOOSE to take up arms against our fellows, we CHOOSE to subjugate and ridicule women, homosexuals, minorities, etc, we CHOOSE to rape and pillage the earth. I CHOOSE not to harm others, I CHOOSE not to be an asshole. I am responsible for my actions, and I try to be as aware as possible of the consequences of my actions. Sinning makes one a sinner, existing does not.
Original sin is such a hateful and negative idea. With it, you have insulted my very existence, and the existence of every other human on earth. Meaning that to be xian, I have to hate myself and every other human, because we are all a bunch of rotten sinners. This is why I find religion so repulsive and detrimental to human progress. Sorry, but fuck you. I am not inherently evil, I do not hate myself and all humans, I do not need to be saved, nor will I be going to hell. You can keep your religion to yourself, there’s plenty of hate out there already.
September 6th, 2005 at at 5:43 am
“Original sin is the one explanation that makes sense of all the conflict we experience in our lives. Whether it is manifest in selfishness, pride, war, addiction, whatever, there is some great conflict in the universe with which we are interacting. I don’t believe the inherent existence of conflict in so many areas of our lives would make sense to us were it not for original sin”
I am an Indian and was born in a Hindu family. I don’t believe in religion and god anymore.
The Hindu religion doesn’t have the concept of Original sin. I heard it when I started learning about Christianity.
The whole idea looked so absurd to me. In Hindu philosophy the child is considered to be pure and closest to the God. This philosophy also tells that we move away from God, as we start interacting and merging with the world.
So what you say, according to the Hindu philosophy, why there are wars calamities, crimes.
“Had I been born on the moon and raised in isolation, I’m pretty certain I would still feel this sort of inherent conflict”
What if you were born into a Hindu family like mine?
Will you would have believed in original sin and need for a savior to ‘save’ you. Remember you will be going against the norms of the society you were born into and brought up by doing so.
You accept the original sin idea because of you bringing up in that kind of philosophy while I feel it absurd because I was brought up in totally opposite philosophy.
September 6th, 2005 at at 8:10 am
Mookie, Original sin is the one explanation that makes sense of all the conflict we experience in our lives.
First of all - not really. Read some Lacan, for example. He claims that all our conflicts arise from the fact that we perceive and express the world through an inexact medium that always leaves a gap between what we say and what we mean - language. So that’s another explanation right there.
And anyway - who says our live must make sense? sure, we want our lives to make sense, because we are reasoning beings - but just because we want something to happen, doesn’t mean it will or should. Without Original Sin life is meaningless and makes no sense? fine. So life makes no sense. I don’t understand how the next logical leap is some cosmic AllFather with a little notebook and a penchant for stacking the deck in his favour.
why is it that little children will intentionally lie?
Because morality is a human invention. Living by it is not unnatural because we are inherently evil (Original Sin), but because we are inherently amoral.
To me, God is the only source of unconditional love and that is an indictment against the sinful nature of humanity.
That is very very sad. I much prefer human love, with all its faults and inherent “sinfulness,” if only because in this random and amoral world, to make a conscious choice to be moral and love is a much greater act of “Grace” then some supernatural being doin’ what comes naturally.
September 6th, 2005 at at 8:37 am
Chad, thanks for the friendly post. You ask whether the atheists dislike of the idea of God is aesthetic- maybe it is. You compare it to Newtonian and Quantum physics. Two points I have to make:
1. We accept quantum physics despite it’s nature, which makes some of us uneasy. We do this because it accounts for observable evidence and is not contradicted by observable evidence. We also allow the possibility that it is wrong or may need to be modified to account for new observations, etc. We base the knowledge on the observations. A bible, stripped of contradictions and false predictions would amount to philosophy, so why not make philosophy your faith?
2. Isn’t the idea of original sin, God, etc. basically a way to give the world meaning for those who believe. Surely, then, this is to make the world a more aesthetically pleasing place in which to live.
September 6th, 2005 at at 9:16 am
Chad Says:
To me, God is the only source of unconditional love and that is an indictment against the sinful nature of humanity.
*************************************************************
Really?
How so?
Seems to me that *true* unconditional love would accept ALL souls into heaven. Period. There wouldn’t be any…conditions to it (Like there are with Christianity). You wouldn’t *have* to believe, you wouldn’t *have* to repent, you wouldn’t *have* to do a damn thing. God would just love you, period. Warts and all.
Just as I will love my own son - unconditionally - until the day that I die. It doesn’t matter if he tells me he hates me. I’m a big enough person that I won’t cast him into a lake of fire for not loving me.
Nor would I let him cast himself into a lake of fire for making the “oh-so-tragic” mistake of doubting me. Even though I am supremely worthy, and he may actually deserve to be cast into a lake of fire for doubting or not accepting me, I still wouldn’t do it. [/smartassness]
Nor would I allow my nemesis to build a lake of fire which my son could even potentially be thrown in. I’d either put out the fire, or kill the nemesis who sought to harm my son. I love him. I’m weird like that.
Sorry Chad - The Christian requirement for hell absolutely removes the “unconditional love” classifier from *any* description of God. Any God that would create (or even allow) a “hell” is not worthy of mention.
No temporal “crime” - even the unthinkable “crime” of calling bullshit on the existence God - deserves eternal punishment.
In other words, the problem of evil (or suffering) is the coup de grace for Christianity. Any attempt to “explain” otherwise is a journey into apologetics-land.
September 6th, 2005 at at 9:47 am
Matt Says to Chad:
Isn’t the idea of original sin, God, etc. basically a way to give the world meaning for those who believe.
*************************************************************
Nope. Original sin is required by Christianity. Imagine what the concept of a person born without sin would do to the Christian doctrine.
What would this person need saving from?
Here’s something Chad may not know, but just in case…
Sin - “original” sin that is - was originally a very objective act of failing to act in accordance to the Torah. That is, it was very clear who had sinned, and who had not. If you ate Pork…boom…you sinned. If, on a beautiful Sabbath day, you looked outside your window and observed mana falling from heaven, and prayed silently to the Lord, thanking him for the wonderous gift, you were OK. No sin (think of it as a misdemeanor) had been committed.
However…if you looked out the window…sorry…”hole in the wall”… at the mana falling from heaven, AND you went outside to collect it…you just crossed the line buddy. You would have violated the Sabbath by working, and would thus be seriously fucked.
*shrugs*
Rules are rules.
Anyway, it was Paul (the apostle) who turned the Jewish concept of sin - a very clear description of some act that did not observe the Torah - into the modern Christian concept of sin as a *condition* which all people are born with.
September 6th, 2005 at at 12:48 pm
Hi Chad,
Thanx for the thoughtful post. This is a cool experiment that you and I AM devised, and Im glad its going so well. Civilized conversation between atheists and Christians on the internet is kinda rare, so its nice to have it here while it lasts
I was a Christian for the majority of my life. Not until I started thinking independently (17 years old) did I have a crisis in faith, and eventually become an atheist.
Let me tell you some of my major objections to Christianity, and if you got time, maybe you could tell me (and all the readers here) what you think of my objections:
1. Inherited guilt from ancestors. Chad, if I were to commit murder or rape, would it be okay to punish my children? Or my grandchildren? Should modern day Germans be punished for the crimes of their now-deceased Nazi ancestors? Or should modern day American whites be punished for the crimes of their racist slave-owning ancestors? The concept of inherited sin from Adam and Eve is morally repugnant, especially considering that it has been thousands of years and countelss generations since Adam and Eve ever lived (assuming the Biblical historical accounts).
2. Original Sin undercuts real morality. This is a bit of an extension or tangent from the first point I listed. Morality, and being “innocent” or “guilty,” must involve a choice or decision made on the part of the one being judged. What I mean is, for you or I to be judged as guilty or innocent, there must have been an action we performed or a choice we made DIRECTLY to justify such a judgement. To judge someone as “sinful” or “guilty” before they even made a moral choice or action, is NOT MORALITY but instead is an a priori judgement made on someone. Again, it is not a teaching or practicing of morality if a judgement is passed before a direct moral choice is made by the subject/person being judged.
3. Two wrongs dont make a right. In other words, punishing an innocent person for the crimes of another is not a path to forgiveness, justice, or salvation. Jesus was innocent, and he was sacrificed to pay the penalty for everyones sins. Lets apply this Jesus teaching to modern times: Can we forgive the crimes of the BTK killer or maybe Osama bin Laden, if we take an innocent 5 year old girl up to a cross and crucify her? Or what if we just hang her or shoot her? Would that be adequate to let the BTK killer go free? What if the 5 year old girl offered to willingly be sacrificed for Osama and BTK? This is obviously another concept that is morally repugnant. Now I have had other Christians tell me that this wouldnt apply because even a 5 year old girl has original sin, and only Jesus was pure enough to be sacrificed. But that response only ADDS strength to my argument, because it makes the sacrificial victim even MORE pure and undeserving of the punishment. If it is morally repugnant to sacrifice a 5 year old girl for the crimes of Osama, then it is even MORE morally repugnant to sacrifice the most innocent human that ever lived (Jesus). Two wrongs dont make a right, and it is only underscored even more when its Jesus instead of a 5 year old girl being sacrificed. To put it yet another way, I would not be satisfied if Jesus sacrificed himself to absolve the crimes of a murderer who killed my mom or sister or child. I would only find some satisfied if the murderer himself paid the price.
4. Sacrifice is always wrong. This is also a tangent of the earlier points. But seriously. When is sacrifice of any innocent person ever good; ever redeeming; ever absolving? Sacrifice is a primitive, barbaric, and downright EVIL concept that has no place in modern social thought. Any red-blooded, freedom-loving American should condemn sacrifice as worthless and evil, especially the types of people that fight against abortion and stem cell research (assuming that fetuses and stem cells are humans with rights, they are other forms of sacrifice), dontcha think?
5. The incoherency of the Jesus/God story. The centerpiece of Christianity is summed up as such: “God had to temporarily sacrifice himself to himself in order to circumvent a law he created himself that would have forced him to send his own deliberately flawed creations into a hell that he created himself.” Sorry Chad but logically, this story makes no sense.
September 6th, 2005 at at 1:03 pm
I am really enjoying this discussion (and I am procrastinating at my job!) -but I wanted to add a few things.
RMadison Says:
No temporal “crime” - even the unthinkable “crime” of calling bullshit on the existence God - deserves eternal punishment.
I am a Christian and the concept of hell has always really, really bothered me. Eternal punishment for temporal crimes. It is a difficult pill to swallow. I have read C.S. Lewis’ “The Great Divorce” and I appreciate his depiction of hell. It looks more like Suburbia in his book. The book also suggests that Jesus still pursues people in Hell. But I don’t have a good answer for this.
Butterfingers, you mention Lacan and I find this interesting. Lacan talks about the four discourses and includes in this the “Discourse of the University” which is a worship of “objective facts” and purports to be a Master Discourse. The discourse of spirituality and faith, in my opinion, most resembles the hysteric discourse (the bucther’s wife) which pokes holes in the airtight, scientific discourse of the university- the dominant discourse in our day and age. In other words, “faith” speaks to the gaps in language, to the symbolic, whereas science builds it’s strength on the illusion of being “true” and “objective”.
I think in all this argumentation over original sin and the mystery of the crucifiction we are missing a key point: these things only make sense from within the “myth” of Christianity. You have to be within it for it really to make sense.
The sad thing is that the rationalism, modernism, objectivity, and the scientific discourse are equally mythical. However, the myth that the scientific discourse rests on attempts to call itself “truth.” Furthermore, the myth of rationalism fuels itself by debunking, discrediting, and discounting all other mythical ways of thinking and knowing. It is like a myth with a safety shield by convincing those that think in those ways to think it is the “truth” and that everything else is “merely superstition.”
September 6th, 2005 at at 1:16 pm
I’m glad to see an example of a Christian who agrees on the issue of organized religion being a dangerous thing. I think that, and your general tone, show you consider this a spiritual and philosophical issue, not an issue of legislation and society. In other words, I’m glad to see one who is accepting of another viewpoint without proclaiming how wrong others are; at the very least, you’re willing to converse with atheists in atheist terms. From speaking with Christians in Christian terms, I know it can be very difficult to adopt such a different viewpoint. Let me first thank you for contributing to cross-wise understanding.
That being said, now I’ll go into some questions and constructive criticsm.
How did you emerge from your crisis of faith? I would imagine that one either has it, or doesn’t have it. You became skeptical of the beliefs of your religion, I presume, but then found something that made you believe them again with much less or no doubt. I would think there is no tangible evidence to bolster your religious position, nor logical reasoning to support it. Of course, that’s by my standards, so I’m wondering what made the cut in your case.
Each religion believes itself to be “the one true” religion, and I see this sentiment reflected in your statement, “But Jesus Christ turned this whole thing upside down.” The key word here is “but.” Yes, the Christian dogma may be significantly different, but it seems to me nothing is upside down. The rules are are different; it’s now “believe!” instead of “do!” But it’s still just commanding an action, and hence I don’t really consider it particularly different. A real turning everything upside down would be a god who comes to earth (you must agree with me on this), gives humanity a set of rules and such (again, you gotta be with me so far), and then judges people how the follow them (still part of Christianity, right?). Now, turning things upside down would be a shy god, or a wily god, one who doesn’t want anybody in heaven who followed illogical rules and believed perposterous stories. Let me be clear that while this would be an interesting philosophical debate, I’m not trying to attack, just understand what makes you think Jesus’ rules are fundamentally any different than any other religions’.
Finally, a directly philosophical question. All these bad things humans do, for which (in god’s view) they ought to be punished, how bad can they really be? I am happy to admit, it’s a nice idea, and would be truely graceful of god, that any bad things somebody does, they are pardoned for when they realize the error of their ways. So, because god is so gracious, what ever we do, no matter how bad, we can be forgiven. The one and only thing you can do, the way I understand it, to get punished for eternity, is to disbelieve. There’s a lot to be said, stuff you and I are probably familiar with, about what this would say about god’s personality and responsibility in creating humans. That’s not what I’m trying to ask. What does it really say about living a way god would want you to, avoiding doing things he does not approve of. Good for you, if you decide to honor your god by living a way you believe he would approve of. But on some level, it seems like he wouldn’t really care, so long as you believe. After all, there’s only one thing — disbelief — that will keep you out of heaven; belief or disbelief is the real issue, how you live your life completely second.
September 6th, 2005 at at 1:17 pm
The question is whether you consider what you “know” subjectively or what actually is reality to be more important. Lots of people “know” things about the way the world works. Scientific knowledge is the only form of knowledge that can actually be proven to agree with the way the world actually seems to work.
September 6th, 2005 at at 2:12 pm
…whereas science builds it’s strength on the illusion of being “true” and “objective”.
Uh, you know, when the airplane you are in successfully lifts off the ground in New York, flies across the country, and lands safely in San Francisco, that’s pretty “true” and “objective.”
Don’t kid yourself that physics is just another subjective belief system. It makes you look sorta stupid.
September 6th, 2005 at at 2:23 pm
I enjoyed reading your thoughtful post, Chad.
You mention, and others have commented on this, that original sin explains all human conflicts. How can Adam and Eve be guilty of sin if they had no knowledge of good and evil before eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? If this doesn’t make sense, then the whole basis for Christianity doesn’t make sense and effectively falls apart.
September 6th, 2005 at at 2:35 pm
Chad, thanks for sharing.
Did you go deeply into all the major religions and then decide Christianity best answered the questions you had or was Christianity what you were raised in by your family/culture?
If you tried a bunch of them, I would be fascinated to know what your questions were that only Christianity could answer.
September 6th, 2005 at at 2:38 pm
Sportin Life,
No need for personal attacks- please don’t call me stupid, it is inappropriate.
I assure you- there are many philosophers that support my arguments. For example, a neo-pragmatist (Richard Rorty,etc.) would say that we can fly in a plane and we trust that it works- but we don’t need to appeal to some higher system of “truth” to trust that it works. Just because we trust that we will safely arrive at our destination doesn’t mean it is “objective.” All truth claims are contingent (Check out “Contigency, Irony, and Solidarity”).
As far as other thinkers, I urge you to check out Thomas Kuhn’s book on Scientific Revolutions (he talks about paradigms and paradigm shifts) and Foucault’s work on power and language (maybe his book on the Birth of the Clinic) which discusses the way that experts use language to gain power over others (the way a scientist gains power by using words like “irrelevant” or “unempirical”). To Foucault, the scientist is just as guilty as the religious for using words like “truth” to discount and discredit others.
And calling my argument “stupid” is a power (oppressive) move to discredit me! (similar to the religious that attempt to silence the voice of others)
September 6th, 2005 at at 2:58 pm
Joel, the beauty of science is that it doesn’t matter what the scientist says because his work will be checked by others who are quite willing to call him out if wrong.
It’s true that you don’t need to understand how a plane works to believe that it does, but if you believe it flies across the Atlantic Ocean because it is painted with the “Virgin” logo on it, you will be upset with your purchase of a Virgin Mobile cellphone.
September 6th, 2005 at at 3:07 pm
Joel Says:
The sad thing is that the rationalism, modernism, objectivity, and the scientific discourse are equally mythical. However, the myth that the scientific discourse rests on attempts to call itself “truth.” Furthermore, the myth of rationalism fuels itself by debunking, discrediting, and discounting all other mythical ways of thinking and knowing. It is like a myth with a safety shield by convincing those that think in those ways to think it is the “truth” and that everything else is “merely superstition.”
*************************************************************
First, thanks for your comments Joel
However…. (like you didn’t know *that* was coming!)
I think…well…I think you and I see “rationalism, modernism, objectivity, and the scientific discourse” through totally different lenses.
I get the sense that you feel that rationalism, modernism, objectivity, and the scientific discourse “grow”, or “progress” at the expense of the sacred, the mystical, and the supernatural. It may feel that way to you, but that isn’t the case.
*Note* I’m really speaking more for science here than anything else, because I’m not sure what you mean by “modernism”, and rationalism and objectivity seem pretty clear to me.
Anyway, science doesn’t fuel itself at the expense of mythology. Science is fueled by the joy of discovery. I suppose one cost of doing science is the loss of certain types of ignorance (For example, learning that humans have evolved over millions of years, and were not created in a single act about 6,000-to-10,000 years ago), but that shouldn’t be a bad thing. In fact, the cliche’ is that when science answers one question, two more questions are raised, so (paradoxically) it could easily be argued that nothing has contributed more to our ignorance about the world than science!
As far as objectivity being a “myth”…OK, I can see that. I don’t think it’s very practical to get into those philosophical bits of hair-splitting, but some people like that kind of stuff. I don’t.
Ultimately, we *have* to infer that “What looks red to you also looks red to me” Howerver, science has quantified “red” as photons with a wavelength of 680 nanometers, so at least in that sense, it’s pretty damned objective.
Oh yeah, before I forget…science doesn’t deal in “truth”. Truth is a concept that is best discussed in philosophy. Science deals in reality, and in empirical facts. Anybody who told you that (for example) “Evolution is *true*” was overstepping the bounds. Evolution is a fact. I guess you could argue whether or not it was true, but why? Aren’t facts the things we should base our decisions on? What’s wrong with knowing the facts?
OK, enough rambling for this post. I just sensed a little bit of “anti-science” bias in your comments, but I think your justification for that perceived bias may be a little off base.
[/2-cents]
September 6th, 2005 at at 3:15 pm
I’m sure the effort was genuine, etc., but honestly, this is just a “kinder, gentler” version of the same old groundless b.s.
September 6th, 2005 at at 4:59 pm
A couple of you asked for more of my own story as to how I emerged from doubtfulness to a strengthened faith. First of all, I needed to know that smart people believed in God and had solid, logical reasons for doing so. That’s about the time I came across C.S. Lewis and read “Mere Christianity”. Shortly thereafter, I read G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy”.
Atheistic arguments (i.e., Bertrand Russell) were no less brilliant, but something about what Lewis and Chesterton were saying resonated in my heart in addition to my mind. They had explanations for weird phenomena that skeptics did not seem to satisfactorily explain. For instance, why would I experience a nagging sense of guilt over various decisions? What was the source of this internal conflict between right and wrong?
Every other religion was about behavior. Each one was all about adhering to all the right steps and doing all the right things. The problem was I could never measure up to something like that. Unlike a lot of you here, I don’t think that the concept of sinfulness is a negative thing. It’s just realistic. I don’t particularly like it or dislike it. To me, it just is because it reflects my own nature as a human being. And the one religion that offers hope outside of my own actions is Christianity. It is the only one that offers grace.
Lily, this may just be “groundless b.s.” to you and that’s okay. But to me it speaks uniquely to the human condition in a way that is truer than any naturalistic/materialistic/scientific idea ever could be.
September 6th, 2005 at at 5:08 pm
Chad said:
“For instance, why would I experience a nagging sense of guilt over various decisions? What was the source of this internal conflict between right and wrong?”
Cha,d that guilt is your own internal morality system that you developed via your own personal experiences. You understand that other people are very similar to you, and the way you act towards them (kindly or unkindly) will affect them the same way that their treatment of you affects you.
Its called identity and relation. You identify with others and relate to them in terms of humaneness. You subconsciously understand the golden rule and you know that other humans want to be treated the same way you want to be treated.
You did not get your moral code from the Bible, and if the Bible never existed, you would still have the morality that you have.
There is no supernatural handing-down of moral code necessary for you to have the morality you have. This is evident in the fact that millions of people develop the same moral codes that you do without ever hearing of Jesus or the Bible.
September 6th, 2005 at at 5:43 pm
Chad/Aaron: I think it’d be fair to say that, when you try to find non-religious explanations for things like morality and consciousness that are traditionally based on religion, you’re walking into a quagmire. I doubt any of us are the brilliant psychologists/neurologists/philosophers who will find complete or easily understandable solutions here. But, Chad, I would say: how do you imagine this nagging guilt makes its way to you, if you believe it comes from God? At what level do you imagine it enters your awareness? At any level you can point to - from signals in the brain matching what you’d get from hearing the words “don’t do that”, down to a gut, chemical feeling of unease - there must exist a physical manifestation of this guilt; so why couldn’t that physical manifestation have a physical cause in your biochemistry and the makeup of your brain, rather than needing to be put there somehow by an intervening God? And if God merely fashioned people so that these physical manifestations would occur - well, if we’re pushing the intervention back that far, why have it at all? Why not simply say ‘it is’? This is similar to the problem of how God could ‘guide’ evolution - and why we neeed a God in the picture if the guidance is essentially undetectable.
Wow… that took longer than I expected, and it wasn’t even my main point. My real question, Chad, is about how you speak of sin. I can understand that a set of expectations - especially rigid religious ones - can be hard to live up to; indeed it’s probably impossible for a person to always be their ideal. But the problem you describe seems to me to only matter in a religious framework. You say (if I’m following you right) that all other religions had sin, but you could only fail in them, by sinning; whereas in Christianity, you could sin, and be redeemed, which seemed to you right and proper. Leaving aside the fact that there are plenty of ways to sin and atone in any religion I can think of (some would say that atonement is the strongest mechanism for an organised church to control its members, by convincing them of their own sinfulness), why do you need this rather slapdash solution - why can’t you just lop the problem off at the root, by leaving aside the notion of sin itself? It’s problematic, I know - where do you draw the line between ’sinful’ and ‘immoral’, for one thing - but in a way it’s similar to the first difficulty I mentioned: in order for God’s forgivness to comfort you, you have to take it as permission to forgive yourself - so why not just forgive yourself?
I think this is the real root of the a/theist difference of view. I honestly can’t understand why certain things *must* be seen to come from God. I would say that when people act from their own selves rather than their belief of God’s will, it is better in just about every way. I think most theists - at least those of a philosophical, rather than a dogmatic, bent, if I can describe you like that - would say just the opposite: that humans are too flawed and impure and sinful and so on for something to have worth unless it comes from beyond them. To be honest that seems a hateful notion to me. I would almost say that it is a sin - that it disfigures the soul.
September 6th, 2005 at at 6:13 pm
Chad: I just tried to post another comment to your blog and got an error message. I tried to post it twice, actually, the second time under the name “S. Anonymous”. I thought perhaps the spam filter was responding to my name as some kind of ad hominem attack (”stupid”), but I guess not.
Anyway, I’ll just copy my post here:
(This is a response to comments at http://www.eternalrevolution.com/archives/2005/08/01/having-faithâ?¦-for-good-reason/ for anyone else who wants to follow this conversation).
Chad: Thank you for clearing up the matter of why my posts say “awaiting moderation” (on “I Am’s” blog) when I post them. One of my posts on your page actually did disappear completely, but it doesn’t really matter that much. I was just afraid that I inadvertantly offended you or your blogmates.
You said:
“But what I can’t fathom is why so many were willing to be humilitated, persecuted, and often killed for such beliefs. That takes the faith to a whole different level - it had to be one in which they believed entirely and without question.”
Even if many early Christians died for their beliefs does that really say anything in support of the truth of Christianity? If so, how does this idea of truth determined by willigness to die factor into the truth of the beliefs of suicide bombers, death cults (like Heaven’s Gate), witches, Baal worshippers, and the multitude of other non-Christians who have been killed/tortured or killed/tortured themselves for their beliefs?
“Jews were deeply offended, particularly (and ironically) the really religious ones.”
Is this statement based on the Bible or another source?
It’s not really that ironic if you investigate how many Jews nowadays see Jesus (they say that the Biblical Jesus didn’t really meet the OT requirements for being a messiah).
“The thought of this person going around calling himself God would be an offensive enough form of blasphemy to have him killed.”
Perhaps, but not necessarily.
This point assumes that Jesus actually existed and called himself God while he was alive.
“Roman leaders - especially Caesar - would also be deeply offended because he expected the people to, in essence, worship him.”
The Jews didn’t worship him. Christianity could have been considered another sect of Judaism.
Christianity also contains pro-Roman teachings like “Give to Caesar what is Caesars…” and taught Jews that they were to focus on spiritual battles and not battles with the Romans.
“I really think Jesus was a highly offensive person to many, many people.”
Again, this point assumes that Jesus actually existed and acted like he did in biblical accounts.
Anyway, even if the people were extremely offended, which I admit they may have been, I don’t see how this helps uphold the statements in your article.
September 6th, 2005 at at 7:08 pm
Sorry, that link I posted should be: http://www.eternalrevolution.com/archives/2005/08/01/having-faith%e2%80%a6-for-good-reason/.
September 6th, 2005 at at 7:37 pm
SA, sorry about the problems you’re having posting comments. I don’t really know why that is. I hope that is not a widespread problem b/c I’m enjoying the conversation and don’t want anyone’s thoughts to get left out.
September 6th, 2005 at at 8:46 pm
Chad: I’ve found that I can still post on your site using a different name and a fake email address, so we can continue our discussion on your blog.
September 7th, 2005 at at 1:20 am
Sorry I’m late to the party, Chad . . . I hope it’s not over.
As I’ve read through the threads here and at Eternal Revolutions, two points made by the atheist commenters caught my attention above the cacophony of all that has been said. Though said by various people in various ways, these two points begged (at least in mind) clarification. That’s not to say that anything I could add here will be terribly unique or persuasive . . .
1) “Original Sin”
Original sin is such a hateful and negative idea. With it, you have insulted my very existence, and the existence of every other human on earth. Meaning that to be xian, I have to hate myself and every other human, because we are all a bunch of rotten sinners. This is why I find religion so repulsive and detrimental to human progress. Sorry, but fuck you. I am not inherently evil, I do not hate myself and all humans, I do not need to be saved, nor will I be going to hell. You can keep your religion to yourself, there’s plenty of hate out there already.
Mookie’s tirade is quite visceral, but hardly has anything to do with the concept of original sin as it is understood by most Christians. To say Mankind is afflicted with original sin is no more insulting to any member of the group than it is to tell somebody they are too short to ride a roller coaster. To be insulted by such a statement is to merely find the insult one is looking to suffer. Now, I do readily recognize that there are strains of Christianity (unfortunately, usually the ones with cable TV programs) that make their money out of equating original sin with “inherent evil.”
I (and I suspect Chad) don’t think that’s what original sin is all about. Instead of “inherently evil,” think instead “inherently broken,” and I think you’ll have a better handle on what the doctrine is about, and certainly more in line with Jesus’ language of finding the “lost” - the lost sheep, the lost son, the lost coin. I don’t believe we are forever being “punished” in the retributive/punitive sense for the sins of Adam and Eve, as some have decried here. Rather, we are all born into a state of lostness and brokeness that is a result of their choice.
Think of it this way: if my parents had decided to renounce their American citizenship and move to Ecuador before I was born, I could not then claim that America was unfair in “punishing” me by not allowing me to be an American citizen by birth. My citizenship-status is a function of where I was born and to whom I was born - a fact, not a punishment. Likewise, by their choice to act independent of God’s will and rule, Adam and Eve renounced the intimate connection to God that was their original condition. Like it or not, their choice had consequences for all their progeny, but not in the “punishing an innocent person for the crimes of another” model that rankles Aaron Kinney. They willingly moved to a new spiritual zip code, foreclosing the possibility of anyone ever becoming a citizen of God’s Kingdom by birth. From their offspring forward, we all now have the need to become “naturalized,” if you will, into the citizenship that should’ve been our birthright.
To read a hatred of humanity into the doctrine is to take the televangelist’s bait. It’s not there, at least as I see it. And to see it as an issue of “crime and punishment” is, IMHO, to sorely miss the point.
2) The Sacrifice of Christ
First off, with the Jesus thing, I have to agree with what DUB said. How the hell does it make sense for Jesus to kill himself and “save” us? God is sitting up there in the clouds and says “hey, I’d like humanity to be able to be saved for their sins” and god’s secretary says “okay, why don’t you just make it so? you are the one that punishes them for their sins as it is, you could easily let them off the hook” to which god responds “oh no no no, you have much to learn, I have to kill my son first, then I’ll tell myself to change the rules”.
Delta’s inventive sarcasm aside, the question she raised was a common one: why did Jesus have to die? The answer, to me, is simple: he didn’t have to die; we did. Again, this flows from our lost condition. Think of a child lost in the mountains: if he is not found, he will die. Death is the consequence of being separated from all that sustains his life. In the spiritual context, that is our Creator/Father, God.
Of course, all of us throughout our lives do our own share of sinful/evil things to pile on to our original brokeness. In each case, why should a holy God ignore our broken, sinful selves and “accept ALL souls into Heaven” without “conditions,” as RMadison suggests? To do so, without something that repairs and cleanses our condition, is to toss God’s own holiness and integrity out the window, and for what? So that we can have our cake and eat it too?
Consider this: we send our children to school not to torture them (their opinions notwithstanding), nor to make them earn our love via a diploma. Rather, it is simply this: we love our children too much to leave them in their original state of ignorance and illiteracy. We make our children do all kinds of things they find undesirable because we know the good it will produce in them, and we love them too much to leave them in their condition without that good being developed. (I must confess that C.S. Lewis made this argument far more eloquently than I in his The Problem of Pain.)
Likewise, God loved us too much to leave us lost. Yet, his holy nature required that our condition be dealt with. The idea of a payment being required isn’t new or all that bizarre - it’s the central basis for any system of justice (criminal, civil, tribal, etc) the globe over. If your mule runs through my fence, causing my ox to escape, then justice requires a payment be made. If I steal your checkbook and go a-shopping, causing your mortgage payments to bounce and your house to be forclosed upon, then justice requires a payment be made. Likewise, our condition vis a vis God required a payment be made.
Jesus made the payment on our behalf. Thank God his blood was worthy currency. We need only to accept it. It’s not that hard. I just don’t understand the complaints of “Why did it have to be THAT way?” as if “THAT way” is so terribly hard, obtuse, or unfair. We’re like a person who takes a broken watch to the jeweler for repair, and, upon being told that the battery is dead, complains that they don’t want the battery replaced, they want the watch fixed. “But that will fix the watch” says the jewler. “WHY? Why does it have to be fixed THAT way?”
How does Christ’s brutal experience do this for me and everyone else? I don’t know. I really don’t. I have no idea how the shedding of his blood, the separating of his spirit from his body, makes me whole again and restores me to the connection with my Creator that was originally intended. Though I’ve been a Christian nearly my whole life, I no more understand how it works than I understand how this computer works, however proficient in its use I may be. All I know is this: that same Jesus walked away from his death alive again, and he said this is how it works. Call me a lemming, but I’m buying what the Man who defeated Death is selling. Or, better put, I’m humbly accepting the enormous gift he’s offering.
Of course, none of what I said “proves” the existance of God. Obviously, it is a proposition that is immune to such proof either way. But, hopefully, critiques of Christianity in particular can become a bit more fair by taking it on its own terms instead of upon misperceptions and sterotypes. After all, wasn’t that the point of this whole exercise?
September 7th, 2005 at at 1:37 am
[…] nse turned out to be, I’ve decided to exercise my editorial perogative and highlight my comment over at The Evangelical Atheist here. ——— […]
September 7th, 2005 at at 1:47 am
[…] hell. You can keep your religion to yourself, there’s plenty of hate out there already. Mookie’s tirade is quite visceral, but hardly has anything to do […]
September 7th, 2005 at at 3:02 am
Lance, your replacement of “broken” for “evil” does refute my earlier point, it does not fit the context of the Fall story, and it would not explain why God punished Adam and Eve for acting on a natural predisposition to be broken. I maintain that original sin is a fallacious concept.
Perhaps, you presume that God had to allow evil to allow freewill, but this is, likewise, clearly irrational. In my experience, adhering to an irrational belief system prevents one from thinking rationally on tangential issues. Think of the Fall story as belonging to another religion, one to which you have no ties or commitments. Then, sit down and analyze it. Try to find flaws. If you find one, then you have proven that the story and any beliefs built on it are fictitious.
September 7th, 2005 at at 3:04 am
In the first sentence of my previous post, I intended to write “does not refute,” but the Devil tempted my subconscious mind and it caved.
September 7th, 2005 at at 3:19 am
Rmadison:
Thanks for your post- I have been working on this all day and I have done nothing productive at my job!
Anyway, I think you’re right- we are looking through very different lenses. And it is not that I am necessarily anti-science. I am just saying “the emperor has no clothes.” Do you remember that story? The emperor walked around naked until someone finally had the guts to call it out. I feel like modern society has cloaked itself in the language of science using words like “facts, reality, and validity” but it stands there naked.
Let me unpack this more. You suggest that evolution is a fact- not really. Nobody was around several million years ago to say what really happened. I put my trust in the creation myth, you put your faith in the evolution myth, but who knows?
And yes, I recognize the mythical nature of science and I agree with you- but it is a myth that attempts to discount other myths (like religious myths).
Let’s take the color red. We talk about “red firetrucks” and “red ketchup.” We can all agree what the color red looks like. However, the word “red” does not mirror something objective in the world (not even damn objective!). We have created “red” in our language systems and culture. There is only language. We can’t speak about something that exists apart from language. In fact, one has to always use language to refer to the photons of light- these are social constructions. So it makes no sense to even speak in terms of objective and subjective- both are bound in the words we speak.
I think where we go around and around is that you keep appealing to “reality” and the “facts.” I say, the “facts” rest on an illusion. Even saying the word “fact” is dubious to me. The word “fact” suggests faith in the “higher power” of scientific logic.
September 7th, 2005 at at 3:24 am
Joel- I was attacking your proposition, not you as a person. And while it may be rude of me to use terms that imply a power relationship, doing so doesn’t affect the validity of either mine or your argument one way or the other.
As far as your proposition goes (that there is no meaningful concept of “objectivity” and that physics is epistemologically equivalent to say, Chaldean mythology), I’ll say it again: it’s preposterous.
The fact of the movement of you or I across the country in an airplane is objective. It works no matter who is the passenger, and it doesn’t depend on whether the passenger chooses to believe he’s moving or not. Are you actually claiming that science, through the social process of discovery that Kuhn describes, could have settled on a different physics that works? One in which, for instance, a solid cube of lead with a chair on top and a big propeller can get you to London in six hours? What are you claiming?
Yes, I’ve read Kuhn. It’s a great book. Very thought-provoking and of course extremely influential. I’m actually doing my thesis in history of science right at this moment. I think you misread Kuhn badly if you think he’s claiming that there is no basis in observed reality for scientific knowledge.
Just because scientists are social actors who naturally seek to increase their power and influence just like all human beings, and yes, are sometimes subject to self-delusion about what they actually do know and what they don’t, is no reason to throw up your hands and claim that any possible statement can be “true” and that all possible interpretations of reality are equally valid. That is intellectually dishonest.
Foucault makes some interesting claims about the power of language and about how language shapes not only interpretation but perception itself. But there simply are limits to how far off the beaten path you can get before your airplane, objectively, drops out of the sky. If you want to talk about sociobiology, for instance, or some “science” like that, I’ll race way ahead of you to rip it apart as (predominantly) a whole load of garbage. But if we’re talking about Newton’s laws, any claim that they don’t describe something that exists outside of our own minds–and that would still exist, even if every living person forgot those laws or died–is an absurd sort of nihilism.
September 7th, 2005 at at 6:53 am
I would like to add something to the discourse about postmodernism, even if it is a bit off-topic.
Joel: “And it is not that I am necessarily anti-science. I am just saying “the emperor has no clothes.” ”
I disagree. by denying the existence of independent reality, you are effectively saying that the emperor cannot have clothes. You are mistaking the use of the word “truth” with its metaphysical meaning. In the strict sense, science is not in possession of the truth, just striving for the best possible explanation for the observed facts (Which is what the aveage Joe would term “truth”, I think). This explanation must be testable of course, since it would only be another narrative otherwise. Checking against the outside world is what makes science science. And by the way, dreams and myths do not lead to dramatic improvements in livespan and dramatic reduction in human suffering. Science does.
Joel: “You suggest that evolution is a fact- not really. Nobody was around several million years ago to say what really happened. ”
Well, in a way, we were there. Because history leaves traces which we can decipher. If you deny that, then you are opening a Pandora´s Box and C.S.I. would make no sense. And how would you argue against the notion that we all were created last tuesday?
Joel:”Let’s take the color red”…
Now we are in the deep end of postmodernism. I disagree with the notion that “red” does not represent something in the real world. Of course, objects do not come labeled “red” by the creator, but they have this intrinsic value of being “red”, even if I would call them blue. Just because language reflects our human nature, is imperfect for describing nature and subject to personal oddities and misinterpretations does not mean that this affects the outside reality.
Joel:”There is only language. We can’t speak about something that exists apart from language”. This is true, but trivial. Caveat: The reverse is definitely not true, it is not true that nothing exists apart from language. Was gravity nonexistent before Newton? If I don´t have a word for “commercial”, do I need a Tivo?
With saying “In fact, one has to always use language to refer to the photons of light- these are social constructions”, you are a worshipping language and mistake the tool for describing reality with reality itself.
I think that this is the whole point of the postmodern exercise: What else can you do, when the things you believe in are not real? Change your beliefs? No. Deny reality itself.
P.S.: Please excuse mistakes or unclear sentences since I am not a native speaker.
September 7th, 2005 at at 8:59 am
Joel,
that comment you made about nobody being around a few million years ago to witness evolution must make anyone who deals with science cringe. I suggest next time you get sick and go to a real doctor, just think about what you wrote. He will use the same science and deductive reasoning tools to cure you that have revealed the fact of evolution. Or you can go to a witch doctor and take your chances, the placebo effect is known through many reproducible experiments to cure enough times to give rise to the concept of ‘miracles’.
Chad: you never answered my earlier question: what questions did you need answered in your life that only Chrsitianity could explain? Did you look at other religions and if so, how did they NOT answer those questions.
Personnaly, I always saw that as the crux of the atheist/theist debate: what itch do you need scratched to put it bluntly, is often what differentiates us into those two camps. I am an atheist for over 40 years now and I HAVE to have real verifiable answers and I can accept that sometimes accidents and therefore bad things happen for no other reason than random chance. I like to investigate the circumstances that cause things so I can reduce those random happening as far as possible. I seldom found religious folk who can accept that fact of random stuff happening, like storms etc.
Yes, before I am told to do so, I HAVE read C.S.Lewis, and Chesterton, the prose is great in an old fashioned way, the convoluted illogic to try make sense of the insensible was kind of like watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire slayer: fun but you know its all pretend.
September 7th, 2005 at at 9:23 am
All I know is this: that same Jesus walked away from his death alive again, and he said this is how it works. Call me a lemming, but I’m buying what the Man who defeated Death is selling. Or, better put, I’m humbly accepting the enormous gift he’s offering.
I’m having some difficulty following your analogy. If Jesus, as a man, paid for humanity’s sins with his blood, why do people need to accept it? Wouldn’t it fall upon god to accept or decline it, since the transgression of sin against god is what needs to be repaid? Or are we to understand that god somehow made a transgression, and is trying to repay humanity with Jesus’ blood, meaning that the repayment is eternal bliss in heaven, but only if we accept the payment?
Also, if this is such an important issue to you, how can you be satisfied without knowing how or why it works this way? I can accept “it just feels right” as a justification for believing it, but not for how believing alone can be satisfactory.
Science as a Myth
Take a story, or specifically, the first half of a story. Then let anybody who wants to finish it with a second half. All else being equal, you’ll probably have as many different endings as you have authors. But, what if there is a method by which to finish the story. Perhaps, some way of continuing the story with the same themes, characters, and settings. With such a restraint, the resulting stories may be still quite different, but becoming more similar.
Science is a very specific restraint on how to proceed from the first half to the second half. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough that almost every story ending is the same on a large scale. Any scientists, anywhere, starting with the same half will come to virtually identical endings. Compare that to myths: where you start has little relevance to where you end up.