Religion Matters: Take 3

ttf_timothy42b · Post by **ttf_timothy42b** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 6:28 am

Quote from: John the Theologian on Sep 04, 2015, 05:33AM This also emphasizes that the "blind leap" definition of faith does not fit well with Christianity.
I'll grant you your clarification about the passage.

However, blind leap supported by like thinking peers is exactly how most Christians function, right?

How many of them question or check out even the simplest things?

Here's an example. Protestants and Catholics say the Lord's Prayer differently. Since my kids have been exposed to both services due to Daddy's music, they noticed.

First clue!

And they asked, which is right?

Good kids!

And my older daughter said, "why don't we look it up and see?" And she grabbed a bible and did exactly that.

Now, that's a long way from questioning contradictions or diving into theological questions. It's a low level of alertness which most Christians would find impossible because of the influence of their peer culture.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:16 am

Quote from: John the Theologian on Sep 04, 2015, 05:33AMWhen Paul emphasizes the basics of the Christian faith in 1 Corinthians 15:3ff, he speaks of the saving acts of Jesus, i.e. the death, burial and resurrection. However, he goes on to speak at length of the appearances of Jesus to a large and varied number of people. This also emphasizes that the "blind leap" definition of faith does not fit well with Christianity.
Except of course for the fact that it's often cited as validation of belief without evidence--it's a very common fallback defense or affirmation when the evidence runs out. Based upon my experience I find it a rather unlikely that practicing/church-going believer types haven't run into this--on the order of claiming not to know that there's some controversy in Christendom (and beyond) over exactly how to interpret the Holy Trinity. It's entirely possible, but something a bit more than just not really paying attention has to be going on.

ttf_timothy42b · Post by **ttf_timothy42b** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 8:11 am

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Sep 04, 2015, 07:16AM
--on the order of claiming not to know that there's some controversy in Christendom (and beyond) over exactly how to interpret the Holy Trinity. It's entirely possible, but something a bit more than just not really paying attention has to be going on.

I have yet to meet an ordinary congregant who knows that subsitutional atonement is only one of four explanations for the crucifixion and not necessarily the correct one.

Is that an arcane theological problem? Well, no, because there's a rather obvious reason to wonder about it.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 9:36 am

Okay, so, bad example I gather ... ?

Maybe a benefit of having grown up in a church near a major seminary.

How about not knowing that Brittany Spears and Miley Cyrus aren't the same person, and that they're not Madonna's daughters?

ttf_bhcordova · Post by **ttf_bhcordova** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 1:18 pm

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Sep 04, 2015, 09:36AMOkay, so, bad example I gather ... ?

Maybe a benefit of having grown up in a church near a major seminary.

How about not knowing that Brittany Spears and Miley Cyrus aren't the same person, and that they're not Madonna's daughters?

You mean Brittany Spears and Miley Cyrus aren't the same person??????

Madonna is not her/their mother?????????!!!!!!

I guess next you'll try to convince us that the world is round!

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 1:35 pm

Quote from: bhcordova on Sep 04, 2015, 01:18PMI guess next you'll try to convince us that the world is round!

Nah ... that would be going way too far man!

That reminds me of a question, apparently genuine, that a bouncer friend of mine heard here in downtown Athens, just a matter of yards away from the UGA campus. One of his guests asked another amidst a group conversation; are Sweden and Switzerland two different places? Or maybe it was that they were asking him to resolve their confusion about the matter, or something like that.

ttf_B0B · Post by **ttf_B0B** » Fri Sep 04, 2015 2:13 pm

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Sep 04, 2015, 01:35PMThat reminds me of a question, apparently genuine, that a bouncer friend of mine heard here in downtown Athens, just a matter of yards away from the UGA campus. One of his guests asked another amidst a group conversation; are Sweden and Switzerland two different places? Or maybe it was that they were asking him to resolve their confusion about the matter, or something like that.

You're in Georgia. The only surprising part of that question is that the kids knew of both a place called Sweden and a place called Switzerland.

That's pretty good for down there.

ttf_John the Theologian · Fri Sep 04, 2015 7:18 pm

The upshot of all of this discussion is that many in our culture operate on blind faith in many areas of their lives, not just in the religious realm. I'll grant you that a fair number of Christians do so in regards to their religious convictions, but that's a long way from saying that this is the optimal for Christians. However, I find so many operate on "blind faith" by accepting hearsay that is epidemic in our culture. I'm reminded of my son who, when he was in high school used to say "everybody knows" around the supper table all the time. When pressed on this, it usually turned out to be a couple of kids at his HS. My favorite was his insistence for weeks that Fred Rogers, of TV's Mr. Rogers fame was really a former Navy Seal or Marine sniper or something like that and that his arms were covered with tattoos-- hence the sweaters. I regularly challenged this and finally it took some documentation to disprove this belief he had.

This is but an example of the tendency in our society that is supposedly so rational and sophisticated to believe all sorts of things without any evidence, on the basis of pure hearsay. As I said above, I will grant that many professing Christians approach their faith in just the same way, but I've met plenty of professing atheists and agnostics who have the same approach to their unbelief.

Blind leaps of faith are certainly used by some religious people, but I would argue that it really does not fit well with historic Christianity, even if it is popular, in so many areas of life, in our culture.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 7:50 am

Quote from: John the Theologian on Sep 04, 2015, 07:18PMThe upshot of all of this discussion is that many in our culture operate on blind faith in many areas of their lives, not just in the religious realm. I'll grant you that a fair number of Christians do so in regards to their religious convictions, but that's a long way from saying that this is the optimal for Christians. However, I find so many operate on "blind faith" by accepting hearsay that is epidemic in our culture. I'm reminded of my son who, when he was in high school used to say "everybody knows" around the supper table all the time. When pressed on this, it usually turned out to be a couple of kids at his HS. My favorite was his insistence for weeks that Fred Rogers, of TV's Mr. Rogers fame was really a former Navy Seal or Marine sniper or something like that and that his arms were covered with tattoos-- hence the sweaters. I regularly challenged this and finally it took some documentation to disprove this belief he had.

This is but an example of the tendency in our society that is supposedly so rational and sophisticated to believe all sorts of things without any evidence, on the basis of pure hearsay. As I said above, I will grant that many professing Christians approach their faith in just the same way, but I've met plenty of professing atheists and agnostics who have the same approach to their unbelief.

Blind leaps of faith are certainly used by some religious people, but I would argue that it really does not fit well with historic Christianity, even if it is popular, in so many areas of life, in our culture.
I don't think I've ever agreed more with one of your posts, John.

They key difference, though, is that in many churches (a great many but certainly not all) blind faith is institutionalized as a high virtue--the highest virtue in fact, since it's their view of faith, and without faith one cannot please God, and pleasing to God is the foundation for their definition of goodness and virtue. In other contexts--perhaps all others if we isolate this aspect of thinking--the same thinking is a liability that has to be excused or justified. Blind faith is closely associated with religion, and for good reason, but the same exact kind of "religious" thinking shows up in other contexts as well, and we tend to consider those contexts pseudo-religious. People who display this thinking are accused (accused) of practicing a religion because they're clinging to a belief irrationally without anything anywhere near justification by any reasonable means.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Sat Sep 05, 2015 8:02 am

Patheos on Kim Davis:

How Kim Davis' Imprisonment is a Win for Religious Liberty
Kim Davis and Religious Freedom: A Supernova of Religious Scruples
Kim Davis: Conversion and Confusion
We Need to Be Able to Call Out Kim Davis Bigotry without Slut-Shaming or Hillbilly-Shaming
Three Reasons Why You Shouldnt Call Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis a Hypocrite
On Kim Davis: Kindness While Pursuing Justice

ttf_John the Theologian · Tue Sep 08, 2015 10:14 am

I just read the link below today and I couldn't agree more. I believe that so many have made up a Jesus in their own thinking that only superficially resembles the Jesus of the New Testament and the Christian tradition.

http://theaquilareport.com/10-counterfeit-christ-figures-we-should-stop-worshiping/

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Thu Sep 10, 2015 7:50 am

Patheos still maintaining it's standard of consistently putting out interesting stuff (still a lot on Kim Davis).

Pan Patheos
Patheos Atheist

And here's a piece by Lawrence Krauss about which I'd like to see some comments (it's been interesting to me over on the General Discussion section of the Project Reason Forum).

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Thu Sep 10, 2015 10:19 am

Quote from: John the Theologian on Sep 08, 2015, 10:14AMI just read the link below today and I couldn't agree more. I believe that so many have made up a Jesus in their own thinking that only superficially resembles the Jesus of the New Testament and the Christian tradition.

http://theaquilareport.com/10-counterfeit-christ-figures-we-should-stop-worshiping/
Here are a couple of others from the NYT along those lines from different angles:
Choose Your Own Jesus
Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity

ttf_John the Theologian · Thu Sep 10, 2015 3:29 pm

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Sep 10, 2015, 10:19AM
Here are a couple of others from the NYT along those lines from different angles:
Choose Your Own Jesus
Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity

Douthat's piece is a good short piece of journalism, but the Bawer piece is a perfect example of exactly the problem that the article I posted is all about. Very few who professed to be Christians would recognize the Jesus the author advocates until around the late 17th-early 18th century. The historical lateness of his position alone should cause most people to recognize that this is likely a Jesus of his own making and not the Jesus of historic Christianity. He can contrast his own faith with
"fundamentalism" or "conservative evangelicalism" all he wants, but the Jesus he is advocating doesn't resemble the New Testament Jesus if viewed in any holistic way nor the Jesus of the majority of the history of the Christian church in very many substantial ways.

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Sat Sep 12, 2015 3:53 am

Cheeky little advert here...

We've decided to free up the rules in the Bible-reading thread, as it felt that they were proving a little restrictive. From now on, it's first come, first served. Whoever gets to the next chapter first posts on it. Latest summary as things currently stand is Genesis 11. Please feel free to jump in and get involved - it's the work of a very small team of people at the moment.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 4:19 am

One of those tight logic feedback loops so many believers live in.

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:29 am

One of the less expected lessons of adult life for me has been that there is a vast amount of projection out there. So often when somebody accuses someone else of a fault, the accuser can be seen to have done it first and more so. It's a surprisingly persistent pattern everywhere I've looked.

One learns to treat more easily the words of those that do not ever do this.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:53 am

Quote from: MoominDave on Sep 16, 2015, 05:29AMOne of the less expected lessons of adult life for me has been that there is a vast amount of projection out there. So often when somebody accuses someone else of a fault, the accuser can be seen to have done it first and more so. It's a surprisingly persistent pattern everywhere I've looked.I've found that to be true to a surprising degree as well, and the more egregious the projection, it seems, the greater the presumption of certainty behind it. Most of us are very hesitant to assign motives and tend to intuitively consider margins of personal error and such, but many aren't and don't, and there are patterns to be found and considered behind all of this behavior.

Quote from: MoominDave on Sep 16, 2015, 05:29AMOne learns to treat more easily the words of those that do not ever do this.I'm not sure anyone's clear of projection though. I suspect it's much more a matter of degree than a does or doesn't kinda thing, but I suppose it can still function in a binary manner (the degree to which one is projecting is either an imposition upon the subject or not, or something like that).

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Wed Sep 16, 2015 6:40 am

Sure - shades of grey rather than black and white. Another lesson (one that wasn't quite so surprising) was that there is no pure black or white on any topic - just darker and lighter shades of grey. Sure, some things are very close indeed to one end or the other (e.g. ref: What is Evil? debate strand in the previous now-departed thread). But it is rare indeed that it is most useful to treat an issue as a binary rather than a spectrum.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Wed Sep 23, 2015 4:48 am

Leave.

Had to take pause to be sure I hadn't just lost about 7 months when I saw this.

Wow ...

What a world, what a world.

ttf_John the Theologian · Sun Sep 27, 2015 10:21 am

On the first incarnation of this topic, I often talked about transcendental apologetics, as practiced by many in my Reformed tradition. Here's a link to good summary of that approach by Nancy Pearcey, who is a very good proponent of this approach, ina very understandable way.

http://byfaithonline.com/man-the-master-idol-maker/

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 11:14 am

So as I see it, there's an interesting point there. It amounts to identifying what your reference frame is, to being honest with yourself about where you've derived your precepts from, and taking a good long look at where they ultimately trace their justifications back to. For us secular people, the answer is often a rather unsatisfying one - they've been worked up from various sources, and those that work well we retain, while those that don't we reject. It's a subtle process, one that builds by increments, and it's one that people who think of themselves as tied absolutely to a religious position also partake in, though some may not care to admit it - no-one, not even the most ardently closed-minded Christian literalist, lives 100% by the Christian bible. I'm not even sure that that is logically possible to do - but in any case, various instructions violate other precepts held more strongly (e.g. punishments for rape victims).

There are also some things on that page that I find less satisfying...

Quote from: Nancy PearceyFor example, we all have direct awareness of human nature. How does that give evidence for God? Since humans are capable of thinking, the first cause that created them must have a mind.
Stop right there. Please justify this statement.

Quote from: Nancy PearceySince humans are capable of choosing, the first cause must have a will.
And this one, that immediately follows it. And the chain of the same stuff that comes after. Same deal, really.

Quote from: Nancy PearceyThe great drama of history is the tug of war between God and humanity, as God reaches out to make Himself known and humans seek to suppress that knowledge.
Is this chain what the presuppositional idea is based on? I am bound to say that it does not seem remotely compelling, if so...

Quote from: Nancy PearceyA woman once sent me an email saying she was raised in a home where the rule was that Christians should never read books written from a nonbiblical perspective. But when I read your book Total Truth, she wrote, I discovered that I had unconsciously absorbed ideas from secular thinkers like Rousseau and Kant. Because she had never studied their ideas, she had no critical grid to recognize and reject them.
This to my mind, is an extremely self-harming way of thinking. "This thinker is not listed as one of my Christian Thinkers (a quick TM for Byron's sake here), and so I must reject whatever they say. I must purge my mind of thoughts that align with their thoughts". This is the result of treating thought as an exercise in reconciling what one learns with some predefined set of ideas - the mind must be deliberately subjected to bending to keep out attractive notions that happen to challenge what the preconceived ideas are. It is very explicitly a credo that says "I will not learn about things new to me; I am not interested in what lessons they might have for me; I already have all that I need". For someone to have written something so explicitly closed-minded shows a mentality that to my mind borders on the unwell.

Quote from: Nancy PearceyThere are really only two types of questions we use to test a truth claim: Does it fit the real world? (External test.) Is it logically consistent? (Internal test.) And we can be confident that every idol-based worldview will fail both these tests. Why? Because of its reductionism.

Take the first question: Does it explain the world? According to Romans 1, an idol makes an absolute out of part of the created order. The problem is that a part is always too small to explain the whole. As a result, an idol-based worldview will always be too limited to explain all of reality.
Somehow "Does it fit the real world?" has become "Does it explain the [whole] world?" within the space of a short paragraph! The difference is clear. But the elision illustrates a problem that we recognise from multiple conversations here - a common pattern is that the writer proposes that science is not as good as religion because its understanding is limited, and contrasts that with their own understanding, which is unlimited because it is plugged into the Christian God concept. But this is nonsense. Science is not set up in opposition to religion, until a conclusion that it makes contradicts a piece of religion's appropriated 'knowledge area' - it makes as minimal a set of assumptions as it can, carefully acknowledges its extant limits, and seeks to expand them. Religion simply declares that something is so. Different things entirely - and judging each one by the precepts of the other makes it look shoddy.

Basically - seeking to "explain all of reality" is impossibly grandiose of her. And also fails to recognise that in pushing all of the complexity into "God did it", she manifestly fails to explain God, and thereby ends up explaining less than otherwise.

Quote from: Nancy PearceyThis is the first of the two tests: Does it fit the real world? Lets focus on materialism or naturalism, since it is the dominant philosophy in academia today. Materialism redefines all reality in terms of matter. Humans are said to be complex biochemical machines no mind, free will, soul, or spirit.
Bzzt. Wrong.

She fails to appreciate quite how complex emergent complexity is. And quite how massively more complex again a machine would have to be that could model the choice-making algorithms of a human being. To all intents and purposes, we have "free will", and the argument she deploys against it shortly after ("We make choices, duh") is so vapid as to be embarrassing.

Quote from: Nancy PearceyThe upshot is that Christianity is so appealing and attractive that people keep borrowing elements that their own worldview cannot give them. They are all freeloading atheists.
I am getting a bit tired of the lack of intellectual goodwill that this woman shows in this writing. Some great ideas have found expression through religious vehicles. It doesn't mean that we should all pay the estate of Jesus an IP fee whenever we turn the other cheek. She wants to have her cake and eat it - while decrying non-Christians for not being Christian enough, she also gets on our cases for daring to do things in the same way as Christians are supposed to... Hard to see how we can win her approval here!

Quote from: Nancy PearceyLet me answer with a personal example. I recently met a mother who tearfully related that her son had become an atheist. He had attended a state university to study psychology, a field where the dominant theories are secular often hostile to Christianity. Freud treated religion as a sign of immaturity, the projection of an imaginary father figure into the sky. Within a semester, this womans son had rejected his faith background.

She now wishes she had said, Before you go to university, lets learn to critique the major thinkers and theories in your field, and offer a biblical perspective. She would gladly have read about Freud, Adler, Watson, Skinner and marshaled arguments against their basic assumptions, if she had realized how important it was to prepare her son for the secular ideas he would encounter.

In Finding Truth, I cite studies asking young adults why they abandoned their childhood religion. Researchers expected to hear stories of emotional wounding. Relationship issues. To their surprise, the most frequent reason expressed was that they did not get answers to their doubts and questions.

The largest study asked open-ended questions, so these were young people speaking in their own words: It didnt make any sense anymore. Some stuff is too far-fetched for me to believe. Too many questions that cant be answered. The study concluded that the top reason young people de-convert is intellectual skepticism.
This to me is a very telling paragraph. Big shocker - the major reason people give up religion is that they cease to find it compelling as their thinking develops fully. Her response to this is to assert that parents should work harder to shape the thoughts of their children while they are still young and impressionable, a cynicism that I find rather shocking, but not surprising.

If her Christianity really is the philosophical touchstone, the reference point that ultimately we should all aspire to... Then it will stand on its own. It does not need cheap tricks of childhood indoctrination to bind people to it, and nor does it need protecting from the most incisive thoughts that our thinkers can muster. If it is all that, then it will come to be treated as all that. But her words and actions do not produce this suspicion in me... Based on this text, she is closed-minded, dogmatic, and ungenerous. I know many better Christians than this - one of them I am replying to now.

Apologies if this is a little blunt. I think my last post in the bible-reading thread reset my bluntness button somewhat...

ttf_John the Theologian · Sun Sep 27, 2015 3:09 pm

Dave, not enough time right now to respond to each of your objections and comments, although I believe that several are weak at points. However, let me say that I don't at all believe that NP is a close minded dogmatist as you suggest in your last comment. What she is responding to and advocating is that many students who go away to colleges have never been taught by their parents how to think critically-- in the good sense and there is a good sense-- about matters of faith. Her goal-- and I have read her books-- is to urge parents to think in world-viewish categories and to be aware the thinking, including the very important assumptions, that underlie all positions and to to teach their kids how to do that.

When she says that some simply give up on the historic Christian faith "because it no longer makes sense to them" she is arguing that behind such statements is usually a serious lack of understanding how every world view rests on assumptions and teaching children how to think through to those assumptions. We did that with our kids.

Everyone who has a position and recommends that position to their children, could be seen as a "dogmatist." I don't know of any parents who never influence their children. Even those who say that they "want them to make up their own minds," are imparting a world view, if nothing else than saying that everything is relative or all we can be is completely skeptical. However, in spite of the philosophical claims to hold to those positions, I find very few who actually live by them

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 4:02 pm

Thanks for a measured response to my slightly intemperate post, John. I stand by it, but could certainly have phrased it more gently.

There is to my mind a large and important difference between placing a position in front of your children as your recommended option and tearfully writing to someone offering religious instruction to proclaim that next time you'll indoctrinate more efficiently in case your next child becomes a pesky atheist too. This kind of thing makes the partisan nature of this clear - it's turning against the 'home team' that offends, not the rethinking of philosophical concepts - and this to my mind is the key difference between a 'religious' and a 'scientific' mode of thought. One is a mechanism for ordering society that just happens to wear the trappings of knowledge storage; the other is a mechanism for generating and ordering knowledge. Both can live in the same head happily if the owner is clear on what belongs where.

I quite agree that it's important to learn to analyse where one's intellectual roots are, and what one owes to whom. But it isn't essential in order to live a good and fulfilling life. And if someone prefers to direct their intellectual efforts elsewhere, and meanwhile changes their religious position without having done full due diligence - that isn't actually a problem. It potentially only takes one unsatisfactory answer to turn someone off a religious viewpoint - and we both well know that there are many difficult questions - but it isn't a problem if the supernatural (sorry, I know you don't like that word in this context, but it's late and a better alternative doesn't suggest itself - what do you prefer?) elements are simply removed from their thinking. The moral precepts already supplied are still in there - they've just started to filter more. A valuable human being doesn't become any less valuable for simply losing a religious faith, however ill-thought-through that change might be.

At root, how I regard this is the exact opposite of your presuppositional take - you have the view that your god is constantly telling us all that he exists, that we can all hear him, and that those of us who can't hear him are wilfully turning the volume down. I have the view that it's not responsible to add ideas to your worldview that you don't have reasonable justification for proposing, and that as there has not arisen any explanatory use in hypothesising any gods, I have thus far refrained from doing so. To my mind, you (to use you to stand in for Christians generally, or more widely, the religious) are the one proposing a philosophical addition to what is already present, and so the burden of proof lies on you. Insert standard comparison about teapots orbiting Neptune, etc. The presuppositional idea, I am afraid, just seems to me to be an attempt to weasel out of this philosophical obligation, by retreating so far into axioms that one can't be prised out by the cold steel of logic.

If someone ceases without due diligence to believe in something that they shouldn't have had inserted into their thinking without proper philosophical grounding in the first place (and what child of religious parents has that before being ushered towards the same religion?), then I take the view that undoing an improperly applied mental step at all is more important than undoing it in a perfect way. I daresay that doesn't accord with your thinking on the subject, though!

But I think maybe you weren't really wanting to draw our attention to the parts of that text that I took exception to in the first place?

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 5:44 pm

I'm gonna see what the kids over at the Project Reason Forum do with that article (here's an article on what I expect to see, for the most part).

Pearcey is just arguing for making your premise your conclusion as well (as long as it's God did it anyway), and then arguing that those who don't arrive at the same conclusion regarding what's basically the cosmological argument for God are just in denial. Why? Amidst a bunch of other verbiage, because she and hers already know what the correct conclusion is, and anyone who isn't in denial will also agree. Clearly. She also throws in some straw men because she's really got nothing to lose (because she's not really offering anything), and she's targeting a ridiculously friendly audience.

I've heard better religious apologetics. Hell, I'd say even CS Lewis is a much better apologist simply because of his talent with writing in a way that resonates so deeply with believers (rather than trying to dissect bad reasoning and put it back together so they kinda seem to make sense from a very specific angle as long as you don't slip up and move at all off of that angle). But the better arguments may not offer much affirmation for very orthodox or modern traditional viewpoints.

In any case it turns out that if you don't answer the question before "asking" it you may not arrive at the same conclusion as someone like Pearcey who does so. If you start with your answer and you can sell yourself on it, then yeah, she's right--you'll believe your answer. You won't have ever genuinely asked any questions though, not even if you attach an impressive-sounding term to the process.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Sun Sep 27, 2015 9:02 pm

Looks like there are still a few hold outs left who haven't yet been quite entirely won over by Pope Francis:

Junipero Serra statue at Carmel Mission vandalized days after he was made a saint

ttf_John the Theologian · Sun Oct 04, 2015 1:51 pm

A friend of mine sent me this link to a lecture by Hugh Ross. His approach to Christian apologetics isn't the same as mine-- he is more of an evidentialist than a presuppositionalist-- but his lecture can fit within my framework as a part of the transcendental argument that the existence makes no senses without presupposing the God revealed in the Bible. I've included a link below to the lecture and to a short bio of Ross for those interested in the issue of science and religion. Ross is a trained astro-physicist who now focuses on Christian apologetics. I'm not trained in that area at all, but what he shares fits with what I believe about the universe showing the design that only the God of the Bible is the necessary assumption to have our universe.

For you viewing pleasure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=5&v=qqnvfZDJQOQ

Short bio of Ross:
http://www.reasons.org/about/who-we-are/hugh-ross

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Sun Oct 04, 2015 2:55 pm

Some stuff for those who haven't already sold themselves on Ross to check out (and no, I'm not saying JtT has done so, just that once you've sold yourself on some apologetic or set of apologetics criticism will just activate the Dig In and Double Down response):
RationalWiki: Hugh Ross
Pharyngula: Hugh Rosss testable Scientific Creationism?
Talk Reason: A Crusade of Arrogance
Science Blogs: Dispatches from the Creation Wars
TrueOrigin.org Archive: The Dubious Apologetics of Hugh Ross
Also at Creation Ministries International
Bible.ca: A statement concerning the ministry of Dr. Hugh Ross

The first stuff I found was all the creationist disapproval, which I took as a good sign in favor of Ross.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Wed Oct 07, 2015 4:50 am

Jesus & Mo's synopsis of the cosmological argument.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Sat Oct 17, 2015 8:13 am

Just as I suspected, it's all about magnets ... and ball bearings.

ttf_anonymous · Post by **ttf_anonymous** » Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:20 am

Nice!

This is a Jesus & Mo even most of my critics in here will get behind. Of course they'll need to forget it as quickly as possible to avoid losing one of their oft repeated false accusations, but they've never had any trouble with that sort of thing before, so no worries.

ttf_ronkny · Post by **ttf_ronkny** » Wed Oct 21, 2015 10:42 am

Riveting

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Wed Oct 21, 2015 12:40 pm

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Sep 27, 2015, 05:44PMI'm gonna see what the kids over at the Project Reason Forum do with that article

Did they enjoy mulling it over?

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Wed Oct 21, 2015 1:20 pm

Quote from: MoominDave on Oct 21, 2015, 12:40PMDid they enjoy mulling it over?
Here's the topic.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 6:53 pm

A believer explains why theists need atheists.

ttf_drizabone · Post by **ttf_drizabone** » Wed Oct 28, 2015 8:00 pm

So this is what one believer thinks about stereotypical theists and atheists. How interesting.

But believers and theists and atheists are all different. And we wouldn't want to stereotype any of them would we.

So why is her opinion significant and what is she saying of significance?

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 4:52 am

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 28, 2015, 08:00PMSo this is what one believer thinks about stereotypical theists and atheists. How interesting.Actually I find it more interesting when people choose to make those kinds of comments about a particular blog or Op Ed on a discussion forum in which blog articles and Op Eds are posted pretty frequently. Patterns of behavior like that are often revealing--insights into how people think and apply their critical faculties and such.

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 28, 2015, 08:00PMBut believers and theists and atheists are all different. And we wouldn't want to stereotype any of them would we.So you think Harrison is stereotyping when she speaks of groups?

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 28, 2015, 08:00PMSo why is her opinion significant and what is she saying of significance?
You tell me. Just as with any and all posts in here, and any and all other blog articles and Op Eds, there's a single author. Is that an issue for you? Have you considered her comments and her points at all? Or are you complaining about a blog (or Op Ed) by a single author making comments and presenting ideas for consideration posted on a discussion forum?

ttf_drizabone · Post by **ttf_drizabone** » Thu Oct 29, 2015 1:44 pm

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Oct 29, 2015, 04:52AMActually I find it more interesting when people choose to make those kinds of comments about a particular blog or Op Ed on a discussion forum in which blog articles and Op Eds are posted pretty frequently. Patterns of behavior like that are often revealing--insights into how people think and apply their critical faculties and such.
or it may be that I've been told often enough that atheists don't believe the one thing and its not appropriate to treat what them as a group when they think. So I was surprised to read the heading that you posted.

And forming insights without understanding the reasons and motivations is somewhat unreliable.

Quote So you think Harrison is stereotyping when she speaks of groups?

Actually its mainly the title that deals with the groups so no.

This statement she makes though seems inconsistent:
Quote"For me personally, letting go of the defensiveness of my religion has freed up a lot of energy to actually live it more fully. I am no longer interested in trying to proclaim the truth of the Mormon gospel to others."
If her religions is true and worth living then you should defend it, especially if you care about others, and it makes claims that other ways of life are untrue and harmful. If its not true then why bother living it?

What do you think?

I think that the gospel is true and makes makes statements about things that make the difference between life and death. So I'm going to tell you what these critical truths are. If I don't then its just an indicator that I don't really care whether you live or die. And I do.

ttf_John the Theologian · Thu Oct 29, 2015 8:25 pm

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 01:44PM or it may be that I've been told often enough that atheists don't believe the one thing and its not appropriate to treat what them as a group when they think. So I was surprised to read the heading that you posted.

And forming insights without understanding the reasons and motivations is somewhat unreliable.

Actually its mainly the title that deals with the groups so no.

This statement she makes though seems inconsistent:If her religions is true and worth living then you should defend it, especially if you care about others, and it makes claims that other ways of life are untrue and harmful. If its not true then why bother living it?

If I'm permitted to use an overused religious expression--

Amen[/u], Martin.

What do you think?

I think that the gospel is true and makes makes statements about things that make the difference between life and death. So I'm going to tell you what these critical truths are. If I don't then its just an indicator that I don't really care whether you live or die. And I do.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Fri Oct 30, 2015 4:54 am

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 01:44PMor it may be that I've been told often enough that atheists don't believe the one thing and its not appropriate to treat what them as a group when they think. So I was surprised to read the heading that you posted.It may be, but it also may not be a singular kind of thing--that other factors are involved.

It also may be that it only happens to look like the pattern of attempting to deny arguments or points presented by some kind of technicality, and the pattern of making sure to express personal disinterest in here, as if that should matter to anyone--as if it's reasonable to enter into a discussion in order to make it clear to those who are interested that you're not.

Good to know that's not the case here--it would be a new and negative twist on your participation in here, even if an old negative issue in religion topics that aren't just about affirming religious ideologies.

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 01:44PMAnd forming insights without understanding the reasons and motivations is somewhat unreliable.Which is a good description of the patterns I just mentioned ... yeah.

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 01:44PMThis statement she makes though seems inconsistent:If her religions is true and worth living then you should defend it, especially if you care about others, and it makes claims that other ways of life are untrue and harmful. If its not true then why bother living it?

What do you think?I think she made a lot of strange and kind of presumptuous (or stereotyping) statements, though I don't think she intended them to be blanket statements, and some of that has to be permissible in order to talk meaningfully about groups. She just kinda pushed it a bit. I thought her presumptions about atheists fulfilling the needs and values she was really talking about were a bit specious as well. Any skeptic of a given religion serves that purpose for believers of that religion, and at least in theory no outside impetus is needed (and if an outside impetus is actually needed in order to motivate a believer to assess his/her beliefs the odds are far lower that the given believer is remotely inclined toward such honest self-evaluation, and the impetus is therefore far more likely to motivate digging in and doubling down instead).

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 01:44PMI think that the gospel is true and makes makes statements about things that make the difference between life and death. So I'm going to tell you what these critical truths are.Thanks.

Quote from: drizabone on Oct 29, 2015, 01:44PMIf I don't then its just an indicator that I don't really care whether you live or die. And I do.Actually I do appreciate that sentiment. I think it's quite presumptuous, but when this is genuinely the sentiment behind it I can't really argue that's a bad thing, and I'm not inclined to. It's part of the connection we have that I think religion, generally speaking, dampens and weakens, which is truly tragic, and that's not hyperbole. So when I see that key, profound aspect of humanity alive and well in a believer I see a fellow human who demonstrates the better angels of our nature in spite of the religious influence, and I think that's really cool--it's why religion ever progresses at all rather than being completely stagnant or regressive, so such people fulfill a very important role if we want to improve as a species/as societies.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Mon Nov 02, 2015 11:59 am

No way anyone could have predicted this kind of problem ... aside from those who wouldn't flatline an EEG of course.

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:19 am

Thought sparked by debate on a friend's post on Facebook about Halloween...

Said friend is a Christian, and one very earnest and serious about it over a long period of time. The thought in question doesn't actually deal with Halloween directly - it's this: she said
Quote ...(snip)... if you believe the Holy Spirit is a ghost and therefore ghosts are real ...(snip)...
Further enquiry made it clear that for her the Christian Holy Spirit and general woo-woo scary ghosts as people sometimes believe in in general are in the same category of things together. My initial reaction was to think that this seemed contrary to what I understood of Christianity, but I wasn't sure, and a bit of Googling has failed to clear it up for me.

Any thoughts?

ttf_ronkny · Post by **ttf_ronkny** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:27 am

Quote from: MoominDave on Nov 03, 2015, 08:19AMThought sparked by debate on a friend's post on Facebook about Halloween...

Said friend is a Christian, and one very earnest and serious about it over a long period of time. The thought in question doesn't actually deal with Halloween directly - it's this: she said
Further enquiry made it clear that for her the Christian Holy Spirit and general woo-woo scary ghosts as people sometimes believe in in general are in the same category of things together. My initial reaction was to think that this seemed contrary to what I understood of Christianity, but I wasn't sure, and a bit of Googling has failed to clear it up for me.

Any thoughts?
I can't imagine someone saying that. It's just silly to equate the two. What was the rest of the sentence? Ghost/spirit does not equate with ghost or spirit as in Holy ghost/Holy spirit. In the Bible it just means immaterial being.
Bvb likes to pick on the few ****** that call themselves Christians with his comics and posts. Most of us are more intelligent than he thinks.

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:30 am

Quote from: ronkny on Nov 03, 2015, 08:27AMI can't imagine someone saying that. It's just silly to equate the two. What was the rest of the sentence? Ghost/spirit does not equate with ghost or spirit as in Holy ghost/Holy spirit. In the Bible it just means immaterial being.

Tbh, I didn't want to quote the whole post in public because I'm conscious that I haven't asked her permission to relay her words. I'll PM you the discussion, and you can certify that I haven't slandered her meaning by quoting her out of context.

ttf_timothy42b · Post by **ttf_timothy42b** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:32 am

Quote from: MoominDave on Nov 03, 2015, 08:19AMThought sparked by debate on a friend's post on Facebook about Halloween...

Said friend is a Christian, and one very earnest and serious about it over a long period of time. The thought in question doesn't actually deal with Halloween directly - it's this: she said
Further enquiry made it clear that for her the Christian Holy Spirit and general woo-woo scary ghosts as people sometimes believe in in general are in the same category of things together. My initial reaction was to think that this seemed contrary to what I understood of Christianity, but I wasn't sure, and a bit of Googling has failed to clear it up for me.

Any thoughts?

I think that would be less likely in a more traditional denomination.

I was raised in a strict Lutheran synod, and we would have been horrified at what we would have seen as pandering to superstition. People who die cannot become ghosts, or be reincarnated, or be subject to crystal healing, magnetic influences, UFO abduction, or anything else outside of the confines of the catechism. The Holy Ghost existed as a person of the Trinity, but was completely unrelated to any popular ideas of ghosts, goblins, etc. There is good, and evil, but nothing else.

People I've met in nondenominational "Bible" churches have been rather more generous about the possibility for all sorts of, how shall I say, new agey concepts.

ttf_timothy42b · Post by **ttf_timothy42b** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:37 am

Quote from: ronkny on Nov 03, 2015, 08:27AMI can't imagine someone saying that. It's just silly to equate the two. What was the rest of the sentence? Ghost/spirit does not equate with ghost or spirit as in Holy ghost/Holy spirit. In the Bible it just means immaterial being.

Look to the broader issue, though.

Sure equating the names doesn't make sense, but that may just be the way she explained it. The underlying idea is that she easily believes in some pretty fuzzy unsupported concepts, and her church is fine with it. Growing up, my church would decidedly NOT have been fine with it.

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:42 am

Quote from: MoominDave on Nov 03, 2015, 08:19AMThought sparked by debate on a friend's post on Facebook about Halloween...

Said friend is a Christian, and one very earnest and serious about it over a long period of time. The thought in question doesn't actually deal with Halloween directly - it's this: she said
Further enquiry made it clear that for her the Christian Holy Spirit and general woo-woo scary ghosts as people sometimes believe in in general are in the same category of things together. My initial reaction was to think that this seemed contrary to what I understood of Christianity, but I wasn't sure, and a bit of Googling has failed to clear it up for me.

Any thoughts?
The same is true, more so, of demons and other horror flick type beasties.

In more conservative and charismatic traditions this extension of the "supernatural" is much more openly accepted and culturally navigated. In more mainline traditions it's usually kinda kept behind the curtain with the Great Oz.

ttf_MoominDave · Post by **ttf_MoominDave** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:44 am

Yes, this is the kind of thing I'm after. So there are significant variations between individual denominations regarding how permissible it is for adherents to think things like this then? That seems a helpful way of thinking about it.

So given that the more traditional denominations don't like it, how do they talk against it when it arises? Do they have clear scriptural references saying "This isn't so, don't be silly"?

ttf_Baron von Bone · Post by **ttf_Baron von Bone** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 8:52 am

Quote from: Baron von Bone on Nov 02, 2015, 11:59AM No way anyone could have predicted this kind of problem ... aside from those who wouldn't flatline an EEG of course.
Quite arguably a more serious version of a very similar and related problem.

These arbitration and mediation clauses' unmitigated days are numbered, I think. There was a recent article in the NY Times, I think, about them being slipped into many credit card providers' contracts and the utterly depraved and predatory nonsense that tends to result.

ttf_ronkny · Post by **ttf_ronkny** » Tue Nov 03, 2015 9:03 am

Quote from: MoominDave on Nov 03, 2015, 08:44AMYes, this is the kind of thing I'm after. So there are significant variations between individual denominations regarding how permissible it is for adherents to think things like this then? That seems a helpful way of thinking about it.

So given that the more traditional denominations don't like it, how do they talk against it when it arises? Do they have clear scriptural references saying "This isn't so, don't be silly"?
Yes. Hence why the Catholic Church is considered the "true church" (Arguably the Greek/Russian/other Orthodox religions would beg to differ since the schism but that's another discussion. AND the Catholic Church is not perfect either). All the others have done their own thing based on their own interpretations and some frankly ridiculous practices and beliefs. The Catholic church was never much into the congregation reading and interpreting the bible themselves because of the infinite amounts of interpretation. They leave it to the experts. Similar to the Jews leaving it to the Rabbi's.