I once had a friend named Mickey. He was a great guy, though underappreciated at the time. Like so many friends who grow up and part ways, we don’t see each other anymore. Oh, how the ages fly by—that is one lesson you learn from life. But I learned another, a more important lesson from my friend Mickey.
Mickey was one of a kind. He would come over and lounge around the house with the rest of us kids who occupied ourselves with less-than-constructive activities all summer long. We had great fun, but more than anything, Mickey got on our nerves because he broke half the things he touched. He was like “Chunk” from The Goonies.
He once stepped on our cat while walking upstairs. Another time, he crushed two Christmas lights that lit the walkway to our house. He broke two expensive lawn chairs by leaning back too far in them—and these are just a few things. Cassette tapes, tools, and dishes also came to be demolished with the calamitous touch of this oversized, Snickers-eating chum. Mickey was a Class-A klutz.
But Mickey was funny; just after every little mishap, he would say, breathing heavily and in a nerdy, fat boy’s voice, ”Oh, uh, sorry! I’ll pay for it!” He had a few other yucky tendencies too, like sweating profusely all over everything – and farting with the force of a category-1 hurricane – but this was all harmless fun in retrospect. It was actually hysterical. Mickey was a good guy. He still is, I hear.
But the other thing I learned from Mickey was that God must also be a pale-skinned, clumsy, fat kid with an eating disorder and a gland problem. No, just kidding. What I really learned from Mickey was that sometimes saying, “I’m sorry,” is not enough! When Mickey broke an expensive piece of stereo equipment we owned, mom and dad were furious. It took more than an apology to fix what was done—it took money from Mickey’s mom, which we got.
Now an apology is only good when it is followed by a resolution not to commit the same offense again. In Mickey’s case, he improved a little, but then again, he was still Mickey and always would be (what are you going to do, right?). As was the case with Mickey’s meaningless apologies, so it is with Christians and Christianity. We infidels get lots and lots of apologies for Christian shortcomings, but these apologies are totally un-redeemable.
My inbox is filled with emails from evangelical Christians making apologies for this, that, and the other. It’s always something as they apologize that I rejected Christianity without having a chance to know the “real Jesus,” that I was “soil with little root,” that I was ruined to Christianity by the radical Church of Christ from which I came, that I was not raised in or around family or friends of religion x, that I was driven away from the church by “cruel and divisive brethren,” that I was not taught well in preaching school, that I never had anyone take me to see a “real miracle,” that I was hurt inside from a personal tragedy, etc. The list is incredibly long.
Every step of the way, Christians are apologizing for something—for everyone else’s failures and for their own, but never for their deity’s failures. The apologies don’t mean a thing because no improvements can be made. Apologies for “bad Christians” are worthless because human nature is what it is. Humans will keep making the mistakes they make. There is nothing that can be done about that. And what about apologies from God? Well, of course, we get no apologies from that mystical being. God (if he existed) would owe the human race the biggest apology of all for bringing us into such an abhorrent existence. However, because the God of the Bible is like a big chemical company who refuses to be culpable for poisoning a small community’s water supply, you’ll get no apology from him. Allowing sick babies to stay on ventilators may move you and I to tears, but it doesn’t move God. So don’t expect an apology of any kind.
And what do we get in place of apologies from God? We get from Christians the ever popular “we’re all sinners” contention. That sickening gab never ceases to weary me. I’m tired of Christians apologizing for their failures, for the church’s failures (both today and in the past), for my supposed failures, for my parent’s supposed failures, for my preaching school’s supposed failures, and for the alleged failures of the whole human race. I want accountability, damnit, not meaningless apologies! Christians, your apologies are NOT accepted! And don’t tell me that you’re sorry I feel that way!
(JH)
October 17, 2007
Apologies Not Accepted!
The Firepower of Debunking Christianity.
I just want to thank the team members and commenters who make DC what it is. There is some real firepower at DC in our common goal. Here we are in alphabetical order:
Edward T. Babinski has edited a book, written chapters for others and is somewhat of an expert in the issues pertaining to creationism and evolution. He seems to have his hands everywhere, a sort of hub for people who leave the fold. He first encouraged me, and I'll always be thankful, I think. ;-)
Dr. Hector Avalos, a Biblical scholar of the New Atheism.
Jason Long has a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and wrote two books, Biblical Nonsense, and The Religious Condition.
Joe E. Holman was a seminary trained minister who is writing a book describing his deconversion and highlighting the many problems there are for the Christian faith. I just read a rough draft of his deconversion story in his book and it's the most comprehensive and complete one I've ever read. Plus he teaches creative writing and this is reflected in his book. He maintains a website and an online forum.
John W. Loftus, me, *ahem* I have the near equivalent of a Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Religion, have taught apologetics at a Bible College, and I too wrote a book.
Lee Randolph, is my right hand man in many ways. He's a polymath and dabbles in Comparative Religions, ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean history and Mythology, Argument Analysis, Informal Logic, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, Game Theory and Information Technology. He has a great deal to share, and he helps maintain this blog.
Marlene Winell has a Ph.D. in psychology and specializes in helping people go through the process of deconverting. She wrote a book and she conducts seminars for people who leave the Christian faith.
Valerie Tarico has a Ph.D. in psychology and also wrote a book. Her specialty lies in the area of the psychology of beliefs, how we get them, and why the evangelical faith is so hard to shake.
That’s a pretty well-rounded group.
I am very pleased they have come on board and I greatly value their contributions. Of course, I wish some would contribute more often, but whenever I have a question, or whenever there is a person whom they can deal with better than me, I hook them up.
There are others who comment here, both skeptic and Christian, and I thank them all. Christians who visit here help to sharpen us, and I thank them for this. Skeptics who visit here do the same, and add to our combined knowledge.
I personally think this is a great place to discuss the ideas that separate us. I look forward every day to see what people have said. My aim is to make this a friendly place to debate, and I think that goal is being achieved. I also want DC to be a place where people who struggle with their faith can come to ask questions and learn. There are many such people in the church who dare not express themselves. At DC they can. If the church was more open to their questions they wouldn't have to visit DC to express them, and you all know the answers that we offer.
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Past Contributors at DC Include:
How the Torture of Witches Revealed the Sexual Repression of Inquisitors
Austin Cline has a pretty disturbing set of images with a good discussion of the torture of witches. We've discussed it here before, but why did a loving God say, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live?" Why? Why not instead say, "thou shalt not torture or kill people who have different ideas than you," and say it as often as needed?
Stargazer's Story
Stargazer wrote a story which demands a wider audience:
I’ve spent nearly 20 years of my adult life believing what you so often state about the Spirit, being led by the spirit of God, etc. I grew up in a conservative evangelical setting, where even C.S. Lewis was considered ‘iffy,’ (he smoke, drank, and enjoyed bawdy jokes, you know!), but he was allowed. In my late teen years, I expanded my reading to other writers, and found my way eventually to where I felt most at home, with the mystics of the church. My intro to this world was through Evelyn Underhill, Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton—from there I found my way to the Theresas, John of the Cross, Julian, Hildegard, many others and eventually committed myself to a lay contemplative group connected to a Cistercian monastery. Over those same years my church experience and theological outlooks, at least to my mind at the time, broadened and deepened. Like you, the experiential became more foundational than the intellectual, and everything I read in scripture or in the writings of Christian authors and teachers was seen through the lense of my experience. After all, I had opened myself to the spirit of love, the spirit of God, and had come to trust that I would be led into the truth, since that was my deepest desire.
I became the standard by which all things were measured—my perceptions and understanding of the truth were a very subjective measure, and when my perceptions came into conflict with those of my fellow contemplatives, it began to raise more questions. We were all committed to God, we all supposedly desired truth, how did we come up with so many opposing ideas?
I was with that group for about 15 years, and then went into formal spiritual formation training with the goal of becoming a spiritual director (I blush now to think I even allowed myself to think I should do this!). While the experience was very positive in the relational aspect, I found myself beginning to wonder how on earth we could end up in such different places, using the same basic source for our beliefs.
The problem was that, essentially, we become our own ‘popes.’ Even when I would say that my relationship with God was born out by the evidence of experience, it still resulted in belief system—there were things I believed about God and things that I did not. You mentioned offering another option other than liberal and conservative views of scripture and belief—but I think what it comes down to is that it is just another system. And it again results in the cherry-picking that has been mentioned in various posts on this blog. It offers no more of an evidential support for belief in God than any other system of belief. We believe that God is love, we believe that the spirit guides us, we have felt this love and the spirit in our innermost being. Problem is…when I came to the point where I had to honestly admit I no longer believed in a personal god, I would still have that experience—but it was connected to things I would read about the cosmos, or when I would lay outside under the trees and just look at the world around me. I get the same sense of awe, the deep, heart-thrilling, take-your-breath-away sense of being overwhelmed just be the sheer beauty of life and the amazing fact that I am alive in all of this. Part of this comes, I am sure, from no longer having to feel like I have to get it “right” about god. That is done. Now, I just live and learn
I’ve been reading a recent book, Leaving Church, by Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopalian priest who resigned from parish work and is now teaching. She talks about how, for the first several years of her life, she remembers having tremendous joy in the natural world, experiencing a deep oneness with that world, and then says when she finally went to church for the first time at the age of seven, she “got the impression that the people who were there that morning had figured out a way of talking about their feeling (equating that with her experience). They seemed to know where it came from , who was responsible for it, what it meant, and how to respond to it.” When I read that and what followed, I felt very sad. Though for her it remained a positive experience, because it made her hungry for God, it also led her to a way of thinking and being from which she found later she needed to extricate herself. She now is at a place where God is much bigger to her than the church will normally allow, and my guess is if she continues on the path she is on, she may well find herself letting go of all the definitions.
But that is where I now find myself—I’m back in the world again, knowing that I’m a part of life. I want to know and understand as much as I can. I want to know about novas and supernovas, I want to learn some languages, I want to get back to my music, I want a telescope for Christmas, I want to know more about fractals—you name it, I want to know it. I feel like I have been in a cocoon far too long—it was often comfortable, familiar, warm, but dark. And the real me is finally allowed to be. All those spiritual experiences—they were wonderful at the time, but they kept me from asking my deeper questions.
October 16, 2007
A Psychiatrist on C.S. Lewis' Apologetic as an Answer to Why Christianity Flouishes
Hi. I’m new here, but I follow this site and have a few thoughts about this topic that I haven’t seen brought up yet. I am an atheist-leaning agnostic, a former fundamentalist, and a psychiatrist, so I hope I can bring that perspective to this discussion.
What I suggest as part of the reason for the flourishing of Christianity is apologetics – but not the “conscious”, logical sort of apologetics debated on this site, but rather a more “implicit” sort, more emotional and rhetorical (in the sense of classical rhetoric), that otherwise uncritical prospective believers come across.
I recently wrote my deconversion story and, as part of that process, went back and looked at some of the apologetics that I used to find convincing. What an interesting exercise! It is fascinating to re-examine these things, now that I am a much more critical reader, and note the assertions and bad arguments I used to accept.
Most significant for me was CS Lewis (like many people), especially his Mere Christianity and The Problem of Pain. Here’s what I noticed:
It is quite noteworthy, I think, that Lewis does not begin with philosophical or evidential arguments about God or the Christian Bible. He instead argues from the basic human experience of guilt. He asks his readers to consider all of the times they have acted, or thought, selfishly, or done something they knew was wrong. This is a master rhetorical move, because it gets his readers into a state of affective arousal (we are social creatures, and all experience guilt), which makes them less critical. And then he pulls a bit of slight-of-hand, which it goes without saying I did not notice at the time.
(a) He defines “sin” extraordinarily broadly, encompassing anytime we have any bit of self interest in our actions (for example, if we take any pleasure in having done something good – i.e., the fact that *I* did something good – rather than pure egoless pleasure in the fact that *good was done*, that’s sin), as well as any “primitive” emotions, such as jealously (which implies selfishness) or irrational anger (“If you are angry with your brother…”). Since human beings cannot control what they feel, then obviously, by this definition, we are all sinners.
(b) He suggests that these experiences of shame and guilt are the truest and most accurate intuitions we have, so we should heed them. They imply what kind of creature we are. There is no irrational or misplaced guilt, for Lewis.
(c) He suggests that this is only the tip of the iceberg, that we are actually much, much worse than we realize. He does not even bother to argue this. He simply states, in Problem of Pain, that once we *feel* how bad we have acted, that something about us is really awful and unforgivable, then we will begin to see how pervasively wicked we really are.
Lewis then makes another Christian assertion, which is common (not unique to Lewis) but is almost never argued: that God cannot tolerate sin. Yet this seems curious and at least would seem to require an argument. Why not? Isn’t he God? Doesn’t he tolerate our “corruption” already, while we are alive? Why does he stop after 80 or so years? Lewis does make a somewhat oblique argument for it, when he suggests that “real” love, such as God has for us, “demands the perfection of the beloved.”
Love that does not wish its object to be perfect is disinterested, and therefore not real love, according to Lewis. Yet this, too, seems curious, and is inconsistent with human relationships: we wish those we care for to be the best they can be, yet accept their foibles nonetheless, indefinitely. We even laugh about them. Its what makes us interesting! But Lewis’ readers are not likely to notice this. Now that they are convinced how utterly corrupt they “really” are, being told they are loved fiercely by God (Lewis has a stirring passage describing this) is likely to engender even more guilt and a sense of undeservedness.
Taken together, if Lewis is effective (and his popularity suggests he is very effective) then it is likely because, it can be argued, he gets his readers into emotional arousal, taps into bad feelings they have about themselves, and then convinces them that they are much worse than they think and God will not tolerate even minor imperfections.
What out does a reader have at this point but accept the cure that Lewis offers?
I think some psychology can shed some light on this process. Most schools of thought within psychology, though they differ on the details, agree that self-esteem is a learned phenomenon. We are not born knowing how to feel okay about ourselves, and feeling that we have worth. But anything that is learned, can be learned well or it can be learned poorly. Self esteem can be spotty, uneven, even in healthy people, and can be lower during times of difficulty in our lives.
Moreover, modern psychology suggests that the emotional life of young children is much different than the emotional life of adults. Consider when you are angry, as an adult, at someone you love. You may be very, very angry, spittin’ angry in fact, but somewhere, deep down, you still know (and could say, if pressed), that this person is still the same person they were, the same person you love, and still has good qualities, despite your being so angry. This sense is what children probably lack. Their emotions have a global, totalizing quality. When they are mad, that anger is, for the moment, all they know and all they have ever known. It colors their whole experiential world.
The reason is that the ability to discriminate emotions from self is also a learned behavior. In older analytic terms, it is an ego function. It takes brain maturation and good parenting to learn that what you feel at the moment is not all of who you are; feelings are part of the self but not identical with it. Thus, the upshot is that, for a young child, there is no or little difference between *feeling bad* and *being bad.*
The point here is that we all carry within us a residual sense of “inner badness” that most of us eventually learn to master, but during periods of stress and emotional upheaval, can be reactivated. Christianity has a keen sense for human frailty, and well-honed methods for rooting out any sense of imperfection we already harbor.
Lewis taps into these feelings. This sense of inner badness and (potentially) low self-esteem is ubiquitous in our development and so Lewis, in activating these feelings, presents what is essentially an emotional argument that serves as both an amplification of bad feelings, low self worth, and a solution to them.
And if we feel overwhelmingly that we are bad, worthless, and unable to help or improve ourselves, well then what option to de have except to accept the “rescue” of a larger-than-life figure such as Jesus?
My proposed solution to this focuses much more on emotional health than on the more cognitive arguments that many atheists gravitate toward. We should be teaching our children – perhaps in schools? – how to deal with their emotions. How do you recognize when you are upset, or hurting? How do you seek support when you need it? How do you ask for and get what you need from others, effectively? How do you make, and keep, friends? How do you make yourself feel good about yourself? What do you do when you get mad, or sad, or lonely, or upset? How do you “regulate” emotions, as psychotherapists say? These are skills that many of us learn, imperfectly, as part of growing up, from watching others and trial-and-error, but they can also be taught explicitly. I think we can make people much more resistant to Christianity or any other form of ideological indoctrination, not only by making them more adept at critical thinking, but more adept at managing their emotional lives. We can impede Christianity by getting people to need it less.
So, my basic idea is this: critical thinking is extremely important. But it goes out the window when emotional needs are not being met. We need to teach people how to take care of themselves emotionally. Psychotherapists know how to do this. I’m not saying everyone needs therapy; these are skills that could be taught in a classroom.
I apologize for the length of this post, but this material is hard to summarize quickly.
I’m interested in hearing others thoughts!
Posted from Richard M
Solomon Asch Conformity Experiments
Watch YouTube Video
This article is intended to show how people will conform to peer pressure against their own convictions and in what conditions. It is relevant to the influence exerted in the church community among its members. There is significant pressure in the church to prevent the expression of doubt or critical questioning of the properties of the religion. People would rather conform than go against the group. Since people are evolutionarily tuned to be social animals, the perceived benefit of belonging to the group should outweigh the benefit of dissension. I am grateful to Matthew, one of our readers, for submitting this and his kind sentiment. Click on the Link above to show a short video documentary on them. Click on the Link below to read a short summary from Wikipedia.From Wikipedia
Solomon Asch "became famous in the 1950s, following experiments which showed that social pressure can make a person say something that is obviously incorrect.
The way he did this was through an experiment in which participants were shown a card with a line on it, followed by another card with 3 lines on it labeled a, b, and c. The participants were then asked to say which line matched the line on the first card. At first, the subject would feel very at ease in the experiment, as he and the other participants gave the obvious answer. Shortly after, the "participants" in front of the subject would start all giving the same wrong answer. Solomon Asch thought that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong, but the results showed that an alarming number of participants gave the wrong answer. See Asch Conformity Experiments"
REFERENCES
Debunking Christianity
The Role of Persuasion and Cognitive Bias In Your Church
The Role of Persuasion in the Question of The Holy Spirit
Suspension of Disbelief
All Lee's Persuasion Articles
Wikipedia
Solomon Asch
Asch Conformity Experiments
YouTube
Asch Conformity Experiments Video from YouTube
My Book is Ranked 11th on Amazon
Did Josh McDowell Lie?
Are Believers More Likely to be Hypocrites Than Atheists?
October 15, 2007
The Canon Within the Canon
Which parts of the Biblical canon are to be emphasized while others are minimized? If Christians really believed the Bible they wouldn’t let women speak in their churches (I Cor, 14:34), for the man would be the domineering patriarchal head of the house in which a wife is to “obey” her husband just like Sarah obeyed Abraham (I Peter 3: 6), even to the point of lying to save his life by having sex with another man (Genesis 12: 10-16), and by letting him sleep with another woman so he could have a child (Genesis 16). And yet in order to blunt the force of these passages, today’s Christians focus on Paul’s principle that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ.” (Galatians 3:28). Which is it? What Christians stress becomes “the canon within the canon,” and this is cherry-picking plain and simple.
This problem forces Christians to specify exactly where they get their morals from. If they can stress one part of the Bible to the neglect of another part, then how do they actually decide which parts to stress and which parts to neglect? I maintain Christians get their morals from the same place I do…from the advancement of a better understanding of who we are and what makes us happy as human beings in society. Christians do not get their morals exclusively from the Bible. Christians have just learned to interpret the Bible differently down through the ages in keeping with our common sense of morality, that’s all, as our moral values change with the times.
Christians will object, without good reason, that I cannot provide an ultimate moral standard for my values. However, I just don’t think we need an “ultimate” justification for our morals, and I don’t think any of us has such thing, either. Let me just offer one analogy here. Take for instance, the scientific method. Can anyone tell me exactly what it is, and can someone also provide a complete and full justification of it? As far as I know no one has done so. Some thinkers, like Paul Feyerabend, have even argued there is no scientific method. And yet we have a general idea of what it is. In a like manner it falls on deaf ears to ask me to provide some kind of fully complete or ultimate justification for my morals before I can behave morally, in the same sense as it does to ask a scientist to provide a complete and full justification for the scientific method before he does science.
October 14, 2007
Dr. Witmer on the Design Argument v. Problem of Evil
October 12, 2007
"When Our Vices Get the Better of Us"
This article weakens the claims regarding Gods Justice, Mercy, freewill and Human Accountability.
As humans, we have limited resources to control ourselves, researchers say; all acts of control draw from one source. So when using this resource in one domain, such as dieting, we’re more likely to run out of it in another domain, like studying hard.
www.world-science.net
Inzlicht and Gutsell asked participants to suppress their emotions while watching an upsetting movie. The idea was to deplete their resources for selfcontrol. The participants reported their ability to suppress their feelings on a scale from one to nine. Then, they completed a Stroop task, which involves naming the color of printed words (i.e. saying red when reading the word “green” written in red), yet another task that requires selfcontrol.
The researchers found that those who suppressed their emotions performed worse on the task, indicating that they had used up their selfcontrol resources while holding back their tears during the film.
An electroencephalogram (EEG), a recording of electrical activity in the brain, confirmed the results, they said. Normally, when a person deviates from their goals (in this case, wanting to read the word, not the color of the font), increased activity occurs in a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, which alerts the person that they are offtrack. The researchers found weaker activity in this brain region during the Stroop task in those who had suppressed their feelings. In other words, after engaging in one act of selfcontrol this brain system seems to fail during the next act, they said.
If we are expected to make moral decisions and are going to be held eternally accountable for them, we have a poor mechanism to do it with. Our brains design is such that it is more likely in any given situation that we will make an error in judgment.
October 11, 2007
Five Big Rocks (part two)
To help Christians understand why I left the Christian faith, I am writing a series of articles about the obstacles that dissuaded me from belief. I call them the Five Big Rocks:
1. The Problem of Evil & Suffering
2. The Problem of Communication.
3. The Problem of Scriptural Errancy
4. The Problem of Theological Incoherence
5. The Problem of Religious Toxicity
I dealt with the first rock here. Danger! Falling rocks ahead!
2. The Problem of Communication.
Jim Benton (aka Prup) is the first one I know of to name this argument in this way. I won’t attempt to articulate it as Jim would, because I probably won’t do it justice (he’s got some great insights to share, though, and I look forward to reading his comments a little later).
One Christian article I read recently asks, "Have you telephoned God today?" Would that it were that easy! The article continues, "Every endeavor on earth requires proper and clear lines of communication, otherwise, there would be chaos." And chaos there is. If there is a God, why does he have such a hard time communicating with his creation?
If God exists and if communication originated with him (as Genesis and John's Gospel imply), then he should be able to communicate far better than any communicator who has ever lived. According to communication experts, a good communicator:
• Knows his audience
• Knows his purpose
• Knows his topic
• Anticipates objections
• Achieves credibility with his audience through good argumentation
• Takes different learning styles into account
• Presents information in several ways, using multiple communication techniques
• Communicates as little or as much as it takes to be properly understood
• Follows through on what he says
• Develops practical, useful ways to obtain feedback
If God exists, it is imperative that he communicate with us in a way that encompasses all of these things. He should convey his will in a manner that anyone, anywhere, anytime can recognize, understand, and respond to without significant barriers. You might suppose God would have little trouble delivering a message to the human race. Yet, if Christianity is to believed, God chose one of the worst channels of communication possible: a 2,000+ year old book, full of factual & historical errors, antiquated cultural nuances, confusing & conflicting teachings, and translation difficulties. This, as it turns out, was a sure-fire way to be MISunderstood--just look at the myriads of Christian denominations today who can't agree on such basic Biblical issues as salvation, election, worship, baptism, etc.
Neither is evangelism (the one-person-at-a-time model of spreading the Word) the most efficient way of communicating God's will. Millions will die without ever hearing the Gospel; many millions more will hear the Gospel but not understand it because of cultural and intellectual problems inherent in the message itself. Christians, how often have you virtually beaten your head against the wall, frustrated because people don’t "get" the Gospel? You really shouldn't blame yourself. After all, isn’t it God's responsibility to make sure that his point of view is both apprehended and comprehended? As one Christian recently commented, "But in the end, it's really not my job to convince people of God's existence. If he can't provide proof himself, he's not much of a God." Amen to that.
Here's what might work better: God could initiate a personal conversation with every man, woman, and child, tailored to their unique needs and situations. As a Christian, I always wondered why it was that God spoke so very long ago, but didn’t bother speaking today. And why did the miracles come to a halt? If the purpose of the signs, wonders, and healings of Jesus and the apostles was to confirm the word of God (Hebrew 2:4), then surely miracles would do the same today. Think of the wonderful PR for God! Think of the victory against skepticism! God could speak through his actions--cleaning up the evil and corruption flooding the world at large.
Speaking of the apostles, why was there no succession of apostolic authority? The early church started departing from the teachings and traditions of the apostles shortly after they died (leading to the horrible monster of a church-state that was the Roman Catholic Church).
Bottom line: if God wants us to follow him so badly--and if there is an eternity of either heaven or hell at stake--there are innumerable ways that God could make himself known to us. We could all have a vision (like Saul of Tarsus) or a dream (like Joseph of old). God could commandeer all telecommunications ("Stay tuned for a special message from the Intergalactic President of the Universe"). He could stop all traffic and machinery (like the visitor from outer space in The Day the Earth Stood Still) so that we'll stop and listen. The possibilities are almost limitless for an omnipotent God. Instead, we are left with copies of copies of copies of a very old collection of religious writings (the originals were long ago lost to antiquity), with so many variants that the science of textual criticism has developed to try to piece together the "authentic" text of the Bible.
In the end, perhaps George Benard Shaw was right: “The problem with communication is the illusion that it has occurred.”
Scripture Only Is a Myth
One of the sects of Christianity that is on the rise, especially within the Evangelical branch, claims that the sole religious authority comes from Scripture, and the traditions, doctrines, and interpretations of man have no authority. Martin Luther was perhaps the most famous person to preach sola scriptura, the idea that the Bible is the sole source of religious truth. However, I argue that it is impossible to hold to the idea of scripture only with logical consistency. The reason is simple; the determination of what the sacred writings make up the Bible is wholly extra-scriptural and based on church tradition, doctrine, and politics. In order to logically hold to scripture only, one of the writings in the Bible would have to have a list of all of the books of holy writings, including itself; otherwise, one must go outside of the scriptures themselves to determine the which writings should be in the Bible, which renders the claim of "scripture only" false. Since this list does not appear in the Bible, any claim of authority based on scripture alone is facially false as the identity of scripture itself is based merely on tradition, doctrine, and church politics, which are the works of humankind. In order to support scripture, Christians must appeal to doctrine, thereby abondoning their imagined authority of God-breathed scripture.
Two Chinks In The Armor
The reference to Pascal's Wager in a previous post has incited to me address the issue of why Christians believe, and what is the basis of that belief.
Pascal's Wager is as follows: "If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having, neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is ... you must wager."
From my position, I see an impasse in the struggle between theists and atheists...neither side will ever be able to prove their basic supposition, that there is or is not a "God." Arguing from the atheist's side of the table, I don't see how our side could ever prove conclusively that there is not a God...our science will never be able to plumb the depths of reality in our universe. Certainly at this point in our evolution, there is far more that we do not know...and do not even know how to identify or measure.
So, what is our challenge, and what is the basis of our activity to "debunk" christianity? If we cannot achieve the goal of debunking by disproving the existence of God (which, I posit, we cannot), then what are we saying or doing?
I want to propose that christianity has to be debunked at two vulnerable points: (1) the legitimacy of the bible as the "source" reference for all that christians believe, and (2) the creed statements that grow out of an attempt to summarize and dogmatize the essentials for salvation contained in the bible.
In my experience as a believer and pastor for over 30 years of adult life (I became a believer as an adult, not a child) - and having spent 25 years of that life as a theologian and pastor - I observed that most christians fall back on the caveat of personal experience when threatened with logical arguments against belief or doubt in God. The statement I heard most often was - "I may not understand God, or the bible, but - I once was lost, and now I am found, was blind and now I see." In other words, they had an experience...and that experience is their fall-back position when threatened with logic or doubt.
I mention that fall-back position of experience because as I have read and participated in the commentary on this site, I have noticed that the christians fall back to a common position - "if you knew God like I know him, yada yada." That kind of fall-back (a retreat, in my opinion, and a admission of failure to prevail in the debate) is probably inevitable, and so must be expected in any debunking activity.
AND EVENTUALLY - BECAUSE MY EXPERIENCE OF GOD PROBABLY RIVALS THE BEST OF EXPERIENCE OF OTHERS ON HERE - I WILL BEGIN TO ADDRESS THAT EXPERIENTIAL POSITION.
But right now, I want to insist that christians are vulnerable at two points:
- their faith in the inerrancy or infallibility of scripture (yes, two different positions that lead to the same conclusion...what the bible says is true and can be believed about the essentials of salvation), and
- their trust in the summation of the essentials, found in the creedal statements of the Apostle's Creed and the Nicene Creed. These two documents were produced in the earliest years of christian formation, in response to perceived theological heresies and rebellion against centralized authority. They were intended to provide a common belief system that any and all groups, nations, and individuals could understand and agree with. My take on these creeds is that they are riddled with assumptions and contradict much of what the bible says about god and salvation...and so they represent - not an accurate summation of biblical essentials, but a made-up system of belief that most christians ascribe to whether they know it or not.
Remember, when challenged and debunked, most christians will fall-back to the well-worn "I may not understand, but I know what happened to me" position. There is a christian commentator on this site who admits that God does not answer prayer in the way he promises to in the bible, but that is OK with him because he has grown to believe (through his experience) that God only answers prayers that are prayed in a specific way for a specific thing. HIS EXPERIENCE has trumped biblical revelation and creed...and who can argue against that? We can only point it out.
What if We're Wrong?
What Dawkins said is the basis for my Outsider Test for Faith. If the point of such questions has to do with Pascal's Wager, well, that's ignorant and irrelevant when dealing with the number of religions making similar threats of judgment after death. Dan Barker turns the tables and asks the Christian what if you are wrong?
October 10, 2007
How Can We Best Debunk Christianity?
Since we now have a few good reasons why Christianity flourishes, I asked this question: "If we have an idea why Christianity flourishes, then understanding this can help us to debunk it. Given these reasons how is the best way to debunk it?" David Ellis was the first one to weigh in:I think the most vitally important thing for debunkers of religion to be aware of is that intellectual argument, while it may be effective for those individuals more inclined by temperment and interests toward rationality in the first place, is only part of the solution. Since most of us are deconverts because of intellectual difficulties with the claims of religion we tend to be a bit myopic in our approach.
I think we can all learn a lot by looking to the example of Julia Sweeney. She does something which is much more likely to have an effect on the thinking of a broader audience than bare intellectual argumentation----she tells the story of her deconversion in LETTING GO OF GOD in its personal and emotional aspects as much as in its intellectual content.
Just a few of the things we should focus on:
--open and personally engaging deconversion stories.
--the positive emotional and societal benefits of critical thinking (with a particular focus on specific examples rather than general and theoretical discussions of the topic).
--the promotion of openness in one's religious skepticism among the atheist/agnostic community. The more people there are who are casually open with the fact that they're skeptical of religion the easier it will be for believers to question their own articles of faith.
Any other suggestions?
Why Does Christianity Flourish?
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As a follow up to this post I ask another question.
October 09, 2007
You Want to Personally Attack Me? Do it Here!
October 08, 2007
What Motivates Me?
People will often ask what motivates me. This is a somewhat complicated topic that several of us have written about here. But I want to tell you what seems to motivate me the most...
I like taking on challenges…big ones. Throughout my whole life people have told me from time to time that I cannot do something, and I liked proving them wrong. I also challenge myself. I want to see how good I can get at something.
Several years ago I started writing up some lessons about 8-Ball for our pool league. The league operators begrudgingly copied them on the back of our score sheets. When pool players in our area saw them, they laughed at me…repeatedly. Whenever I missed a shot they would say, “Hey, Loftus, write that up as a lesson next week will you?” Sometimes people can be unmerciful, and they can hold you down. Apparently only the pro’s could give advice about pool, and since I wasn’t a pro, I shouldn’t presume to tell others how to play the game. Who did I think I was? It’s these naysayers who browbeat others into not even trying to do well. But they motivate me. Those pool players are no longer laughing. For three years now I have been writing monthly instructional columns for the best national billiard magazine in America, and I have a book about pool that is getting some excellent reviews. Just yesterday someone sent me a new training tool (worth $49.95) in hopes I would recommend it, and I did.
Anyway, I hate being laughed at. Being ridiculed and mocked motivates me like nothing else. It’s like pouring gasoline on the flames of my passion. I want to make these people eat their words, and I usually do. Yes, that’s right. I usually do. The reason is that I believe in myself. I know what I am capable of doing if I set my mind to it. I’ve been doing that all of my life. I even have a signature line on one Christian forum that reads: “Personally attacking me is like pouring gasoline on the flames on my passion. I get stronger. I've told you that from the beginning. You didn't believe me. Maybe someday you will.” But the Christian hyenas there like JP Holding and his ilk have ignored it.
So, if you want to motivate me, just mock me. Belittle me. Harass me. Christians have done this to me repeatedly here at DC and elsewhere. In my opinion they are Christianity’s worst enemies, for in doing what they do, they make me stronger. It motivates me to debunk the very faith that justifies their treatment of me. It makes me want to go for the jugular vein of their faith. I doubt very much that the sum total of JP Holding's apologetic efforts his whole life will be in the plus column after factoring in how he and his ilk motivated me to debunk his faith.
There is also a blog terrorist who visits us here at DC under so many names I can’t remember them all. He harasses me almost daily. First he tries to see if he can get by me, then he slips up and repeats (almost word for word) any number of demeaning false accusations against me. Then I ban him. Once banned from DC a person is banned forever (so don’t get banned in the first place). Then he starts another Blogger account and does it again. This process repeats itself almost daily. Then he goes around claiming that I delete any comment that I don’t like, hindering a free discussion of ideas. You’ll see him saying this on several blogs. A year ago there was a Christian named Paul Manata who started a blog claiming to be one of my followers, called the "discomfiter." While claiming to agree with me he grossly mischaracterized my arguments and made me look stupid. I think these Christians and their cronies have even poisoned the well against me with a few other skeptics who seem not to want anything to do with me.
All I can say is that this motivates me. If they are really concerned about the Christian faith against my arguments they shouldn’t do this. They should simply engage me with good arguments. They should defeat my arguments every time I post something. Why they don’t do this and resorts instead to these tactics just goes to show me they cannot adequately deal with my arguments. So come here and argue with us, reasonably. Any reasonable comment that does not harass us will not be deleted. Refer to our comment policy for details.
So let me just take a moment to thank all of those Christians who have ridiculed me in the past for motivating me. To you I owe a debt of gratitude. Your God must be very pleased with you.
October 07, 2007
What Do You Mean? Challenge
I have another challenge for the christians who dare to visit this site! (see my previous blog for the first challenge).
A basic Christianity 101 verse is John 14:14 - "Ask anything in My name, and I will do it." Verse 14 is actually a repeat of the previous verse...in other words, Jesus repeats himself...saying "if you ask anything I will do it."
That particular promise is repeated again in John 16:24 - "Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full."
So - here is the challenge: explain to me what you think is meant by "ask anything and I will do it." And further, explain to me why the promise stated so explicitly in those verses is so often and obviously broken?
One qualifier: you cannot use the old Whittinghill argument - "God says yes, no, or not now." There is no indication that Jesus gives himself wiggle room like that...he does not say "I might say yes, I might say no, I might say later, dude." The promise says "ask and it will be given to you."
I say bullshit! Prove me wrong.
Christian GroupThink Challenge
A few of the previous posts on the site question why Christian sites don't link to sites that present arguments of skepticism about Christianity. Or why Christians don't more willingly embrace skeptical humor concerning their faith.
For over 25 years, as a pastor in Christian churches, I noticed and (unfortunately and tragically) endorsed a "Christian GroupThink" within the Christian community. I can testify personally that one of the main purposes of Christian community (especially churches) is to build a "fortress" around the believer that attempts to deny them access to free thought, skepticism and atheism/agnosticism. This "fortress" is one of love, or the withholding of it - and emotional/relational punishment (isolation, avoidance, judgement) towards those who would dare "question" the doctrines of faith.
The church has a primary purpose - which has nothing to do with glorifying god or evangelism. Instead, the goal is indoctrination...forcing a group think onto individuals by means of Statements of Faith, creedal confessions, confirmation classes, and worship songs. Conformity to this group think leads to rewards - invitations to leadership, affirmation of value to the congregation or community, befriending by key leaders (maybe even the pastor) and a masonic-lodge type revelation of even deeper truths of faith or gossip about the community.
Most relational and organizational observers recognize group think as a process which seeks to hide - or deny - a fundamental lack of confidence in the group's purpose, belief system, or ethic. It is my observation that group think in the church is pervasive because of the failure of most Christians to believe their own religion. Reason is not a cruel task master, and most of the time most people know this. A Christian who would argue against reason in the name of faith would never get on a roller coaster that just had a hydraulic leak (yeh - it happened at Six Flags in Maryland this weekend). Why? Reason, of course! A logical mind would recognize the context and lead towards a decision that would protect the thinker.
That kind of thinking, however, is discouraged in the church because reason quickly leads to profound skepticism and even agnosticism or atheism. The "reason landmines" are numerous, and the only defense the church has is the "mighty fortress" - not of god - but of group think.
I would love to see a challenge where churches invite atheists, agnostics or other free thinkers to visit their congregations and began a reasonable dissertation against Christian faith. I would almost (almost being the operative word here) pay churches for the opportunity to make presentations and open up for question/answer sessions.
I believe there are more free thinkers in churches than most people would initially guess...but who would want to "come out" about their skepticism when it means that their family would be isolated, mistreated, their kids rejected, and perhaps even extended a "disinvitation" to the church because of their honesty?
Christians whine about the cost of discipleship. The cost of free and skeptical inquiry is much, much greater. Prove me wrong.
I make this challenge...if any visitor to this site reads this blog and wants to invite me to your church or group for a discussion and debate about free and skeptical inquiry, the fallacies of faith, biblical inconsistencies, etc...I will consider the challenge and make contact with you. I can't promise a visit...there are factors that I will explain if you express interest.
Come on...what do you have to lose???
Reasonable Doubt about the Problem of Evil
I challenge the whole premise of the problem of evil on the grounds that is not consistent with gods character as described in the bible. (surprise)[irony]
Personally I think this effectively refutes the Problem of Evil as a test and the assertion that it creates a greater good.
- god is all powerful,
- god is all knowing,
- god is perfectly good,
- god is perfectly merciful,
- god doesn't like to see us suffer
- the problem of evil creates a greater good
So a solution that is consistent will all the premises is that god would have breathed people into existence as they would have turned out as if they had suffered through the 'test'.
To say that it is more important to actually do the work and suffer when the same result could be achieved in another way which avoids needless suffering is logically inconsistent with several premises:
- god is all powerful
- god is perfectly good
- god is perfectly merciful
- the problem of evil creates a greater good
If god were not all powerful, then the problem of evil as a test might make sense as an argument from ignorance, but even then the evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
To say that we are ignorant of gods motives means that the bible does not accurately describe god and we can't really know anything about him with certainty. Since the bible is the only authoritative descriptive evidence for god, then nothing else about god can be learned. That is to say that any conclusion about god is uncertain and nothing further can be learned. This is anoalogous to saying "I conclude this, but I am not sure, and I don't know how to know, but I deny evidence to the contrary".
Obviously my solution negates the need to create the universe, the world and us, therefore the problem of evil is refuted by our existence.