For quite some time last year I spent hour after hour carefully, and cordially, communicating to my friends why I left the faith and why I found it to be not only unreasonable, but unethical to stay. It did nothing. Well, I should say it never accomplished what I hoped it would.
All that energy spent eventually spilled over into a period where I just cut almost all debate out completely and “laid low” for a while. During that time I’ve had some ability to reflect on things and explore why it is that logic and reason never fully convince a person that their faith is wrong.
The easiest answer is that humans are not logical or rational. There is a reason the Greeks emphasized Logos (e.g. logic), Ethos (reputation of speaker), and Pathos (appeal to emotion) – not just logos. Yet in most apologetics and modern debate, the focus is on logos. Humans have learned that ethos depends upon appeal to authority and pathos cannot be trusted because human emotion is fickle and subjective. In our modern scientific age, then, we focus primarily on different forms of logos when making arguments or during debates.
Well, most of the time.
The problem is that people are still influenced – whether they want to admit it or not – by ethos and pathos. So at the end of the day, a perfect argument in the form of logos will not cause a believer to leave their faith, unless that believer is committed to being logically consistent regardless of how it may harm them. This was a huge influencing factor in my leaving the faith. I had decided that – regardless of the harm it may bring – if need be I would abandon the faith if the arguments were stronger on the side of atheism.
But I get the impression that most believers use logic and reason somewhat like play toys. Because they believe their God invented logic and reason (or that logic and reason are extensions of His innate nature), then logic and reason are subject to their faith claims. By definition, then, all logic and reason that counter what they already believe is just logic and reason falsely applied. So logic and reason, in their mind, are only accurate so long as logic and reason defend what they have already decided is true. If a person uses logic and reason and comes up with a conclusion that counters what they believe, then it is the person who is at fault for not using their God-given ability to apply logic and reason to reason to the “truth”.
Let me give an example. A fundamentalist Christian must believe that God is just and that God is a person (or at least has traits of personhood, since we were made in His image). By definition, a hypocrite is a person who teaches others to do one thing but does not do that thing themselves. Therefore, a just person cannot be a hypocrite without condemning themselves.
Furthermore, Jesus says that we are to judge a tree by its fruit. A tree which does not bear good fruit should be ignored.
Well, by simple inspection of a few key passages in Scripture, we find that God does things that He commands others not to do. For example, God explicitly says that a child should never be put to death for the sin of a father, but we find that God put to death David’s baby for David’s sin.
Quite simply, by logical inspection a person outside the faith concludes that God is a hypocrite and unjust.
It seems so simple.
But in the believers mind there are an entire host of influencing factors besides the reason and logic contained within this argument. These seeds of influence are often ingrained during years of church attendance where intelligent pastors and spiritual leaders weave tangled webs of ethos and pathos to keep their flock organized and safe from the “wisdom of the world”. Here are some examples of these types of influences:
“If God does not exist, you will have no basis for morality” – implication: your life will descend into chaos if you leave
“Satan is smarter than you” implication: even if something looks like a sound argument against the faith you are being deceived.
“Hell is hot and eternal” implication: it is not worth the risk to leave our church
“Many will come and try to lead you away from the faith” implication: because we predicted people would try to lead you away and our prediction came true, you should not listen to their arguments.
And on they go. In the end, almost all of these amount to threats. In times past, these threats were much more physical (stoning in the Old Testament, complete social isolation in the New Testament, burning at the stake or torture in the middle ages.) Today the physical influences have been removed, but the underlying threats still remain. As a last resort, for example, a spiritual leader can appeal to an eternity in hell if needed. A tiny chance of hell will beat any logical argument.
So when dealing with fundamentalists, I think I have discovered that at the end of the day we are not dealing with logically driven humans. We are dealing with fear-driven humans. They are terrified at the thought of being wrong. To some extent I am kicking myself for not seeing this more clearly sooner.
For most believers, they are firmly convinced that their faith is saving them from harm. In other words, their faith is making them happy. How does any living thing react when someone tries to take something away from it that makes it feel happy and secure?
It is not about the arguments.
In order for a person to leave a faith, the perceived value of leaving the faith must exceed the perceived value of staying.
Evangelism, then, is the art of marketing an idea’s value. Good evangelists dance the dance of making God’s wrath hotter and God’s salvation sweeter. The greater the perception of God’s wrath, the greater one’s perception of God’s salvation. Conversion is ones entrance into a social structure whose entire end-goal is to fine tune and balance this perception of God’s wrath and God’s salvation so that the greatest number of people convert and stay. Those faiths that achieve this balance between threats and rewards most effectively will survive and reproduce.
The only catch is that the entire thing is based on elements you cannot see. Faith is a product whose core value is found entirely in ones mind. If you could see any aspect of it, it would not longer be faith.
A hotter hell and a sweeter salvation is only part of the deal. The product that is being sold has to be secure as well. Christianity tackles this marvelously by claiming that ones faith is an invisible gift from God. The gift cannot be touched, so it cannot be taken. This is why most believers appear so calm when their faith is attacked. Their faith is secure – hidden in Christ with God – and no argument of man can touch it.
I truly hope some of you who have never believed can understand the incredible joy and peace that can flow from this incredible combination of beliefs. It does not matter which sect of Christianity you are a part of, as long as the beliefs are put together properly one can feel an enormous sense of relief at being set free from the threat (God’s wrath) and being given in its place a great “reward” (heaven, salvation, childhood of God, a new life, etc.). The sweetness of the deal is strengthened all the more by promises that the salvation cannot be lost and that they are eternally secure. It is a fine-tuned invention of ideas, specifically tailored to always make staying in the faith a safer and more comfortable proposition than leaving.
Furthermore, believers are sold into the faith on principle, not on details. John Loftus points this out clearly by showing that most (if not all) of believers enter the faith without knowing the apologetic arguments. Generally, all they are taught are the principles. As most believers will point out, these “principles” can be found in the verse John 3:16:
For God [all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing, Creator of everything: ethos] so loved the world that He gave His only son [appeal to God's character and goodness: ethos and pathos] that whosoever believes in Him [appeal to convert] will not perish [threat] but have eternal life [reward].
Notice there is practically zero logos in the entire argument that the author makes here. A person who is sold on this is not being converted on the basis of their ability to reason and think. They are being emotionally and socially coerced. To reject the offer means social isolation and emotional trauma of the highest degree (“perish”). To accept the offer means not only avoidance of the threat, but an addition of unlimited reward. It would not be enough if the offer only eliminated the threat, because then the converted would not love the one making the offer. If I walk up to a person, push a gun into their face and say “Say I’m awesome or I shoot,” they will say I am awesome just so I do not shoot, and then they will hate me. But if I walk up to a person and say “I am the ruler of the land you are on and my law says you deserve to die, but if you bow to me and praise me for having the mercy to spare your life, I will give you unlimited wealth”… well… they will be in quite a pickle. The trauma of that moment and the relief at accepting the offer will only be outmatched by the spiritual experience often expressed by born-again believers when they turn to the Lord. The end result is that not only are people coerced into accepting the offer, but they fall in love with the one who offers them the reward. This is conversion: it has absolutely nothing to do with the logic and reason behind the offer, but it has everything to do with the psychological manipulation being employed by the combination of ideas and the imagination of the one falling for it.
For a perfect conversion: increase the perception of threat, increase the perceived justness of the threat, and make sure the reward offered exceeds the threat. Gently stir until your subject perceives the value of his current system of thought and life is less than accepting the offer. As soon as this happens, they will convert.
For a perfect religion: Slowly teach them the above coercive principles until they understand them well enough to use them to coerce (convert) others into the faith system as well. As time passes tweak the faith system to the ideas and philosophies of the current age and to eliminate the objections from previous generations.
A person enters the faith because they have received a combination of coercion by threats and promises of rewards. Logic and reason will not convince them to leave unless the perception of threat is reduced and the rewards are shown to be hoaxes.
So I guess my main point is that arguments will not cause anyone to leave. Furthermore, even when trying to carry on a logical, well-reasoned debate with a believer, they will inevitably resort at some point to pulling out the threat or rewards card because in the end this is the core of any message. People do not listen to someone unless that person is offering something of value to them. A thing only has value if it allows a person to escape harm or increase their comfort. Pure logic and reason are really only good if they are used to increase someone’s comfort or decrease potential of harm.
The problem with most logical and well-reasoned arguments against Christianity is that the value of what they offer can never match the perceived value of the faith system the believer has already accepted. It does not matter what us atheists say – unless we have something of higher value to offer. This is why most believers will say things like “prove to me that God does not exist”. They ultimately recognize that they are being coerced by the threat of rejecting a possibly-existing God. In their minds, Christianity offers certain escape from an eternal demise. That is a pretty good offer. Atheism must also offer certain escape from this same demise, or at the very least should make living with the reward despicable enough to accept the demise. This is why some atheists will say things like “I would rather live in hell than with your God.” At the end of the day, the threats and coercion by Christianity are so strong that living with an uncertain faith appears has more perceived value than living with a rejection of it.
This often boggles the minds of non-believers, who cannot understand why anyone would live under such a coercive and manipulative system. From the outside, it can all appear so marvelously stupid. The people inside look positively ill. But they are not necessarily ill, they are just coerced by threats and tantalized by rewards. Logic has no bearing where emotions hold the heart. Just ask any lover – genuine or abused.
So I am not sure where to go from here. In the end, it seems that understanding how this manipulation and coercion works is a good step. I would think it could immunize people from conversion – at least most of the time. You can teach a kid about drugs and how awful they are, but the kid might still be curious when he sees his friends happily enjoying a joint. You can show someone the coercion and manipulation of Christianity, but if their heart is taken by it (either in fear or in love) all logos is a lost cause. This is probably why Christianity has evolved to emphasize the relationship aspect so strongly. Relationships are not logical and cannot be thought of as logical. It is a great way to immunize members from thinking about it. This is about as far as my thoughts take me right now.
Feel free to chip in.
- Josh
Further Reading:
http://timoelliott.com/blog/2009/01/is_there_such_a_thing_as_good_.html
I completely agree. Last week I finally told some of my friends that I’m done with organized religion and like I said in other comments they really went off on me. They did ask me what moral system I plan to use if I’m not a Christian, with all my comments they kept reverting back to scriptures- which were mainly feel good verses.
And regarding the “hell” thing- it really freaks me out. I see that this religion- this relationship with “Jesus” isn’t bearing “fruit”- “god” is completely uninvolved in my affairs-I have a whole list of major dilemas in my life that with all my time in Christianity “god” hasn’t lifted a finger to help or make my “burden” lighter- and with that I’ve begun to question the faith. But now that I don’t pray or go to church death really scares me. The idea of just not existing is horrible.
Also I agree it’s better not to argue or debate- it’s a waste of time- people will do like you said what feels good. Christianity really does tug alot on the emotions- and it’s gotten worse over the years, I remember working in a church and the youth pastor was always looking for visual effects, music that “relates” to youth, and movie clips to share the gospel—– “God forbide” actually having God show up, the church resorts to things to draw you in. It’s amazing how much work I put into entertainment and advertising in that church verses something actually spiritual. Good post.
@Bonita: I hope you are able to find a way of dealing with the idea of death and accepting it as part of being human. I understand your fear–I was afraid of death while I was still questioning my faith. Now that I’ve completely left the faith, however, I no longer have any fear of death. I just look at it as something completely normal and natural. Nothing that ancient religious texts tell me about death and afterlife will influence my ability to live a full life. I don’t know your background, but I encourage you to do whatever you can to get over the fear of hell and death…
Josh–you’re right on with the idea that it’s not about the arguments. I don’t even really like trying to argue with people, especially the ones who are more fundamental. It’s pretty much impossible. They have to figure things out for themselves. In the meantime, I’m going to live my life in such a way that Christians can see in me exactly what they want other people to be seeing in them–joy, happiness, and security.
Josh,
Good to see you posting again.
I’d like to raise a point regarding your comments on logic. As I’m sure you know, there are many things you say that I think are profoundly mistaken, but this is the one I’d like to hone in on. It first occurred to me when analyzing some of Christopher Hitchens’ arguments. As I see it, there are two problems with this:
1. Atheists often suggest that people of faith do not use reason (logos reason, to use your term), or if they do, that they allow ethos and/or pathos to override the clear, “assured results” of a properly objective logical train of reasoning. Then they spend much of their time trying to ponder why people of faith cannot accept “reason” and instead choose to live lives blinded by what cannot be seen.
People of faith do, in fact, use reason. You may not agree with all or many of their arguments, but guess what–people disagree. In fact, there are large numbers of professional epistemologists who are Christians, publishing and teaching in secular universities with the full support of their unbelieving peers. These people understand human reason much better than you, me, Christopher Hitchens, etc., and would run intellectual circles around us for days on end. The issue here is certainly not that they have not heard your arguments; they probably understand them better than you do! Rather, the issue is that no one–neither the Christian nor the atheist, nor anyone in between–can claim to have a monopoly on logical argumentation.
I’m not saying we should believe something only high academics can understand and just accept the fact that someone else has “done the math” and therefore we must accept their conclusions. Nor am I suggesting that there are not just as many atheistic philosophers who provide counter arguments to those Christian philosophers I mention above. What I am saying is that no one can claim to have logic exclusively on their side–and to use this as an argumentative checkmate–when legitimate debate is alive and well.
2. Atheists need to be careful not to cherry pick arguments of certain Christians and to represent them as if they are representative of the entire Christian intellectual community. Your friends might respond to your objections one way, but that does not mean that this is the best any person of faith can do. There are many arguments that Christians use that I would join with you in refuting (as you know). You need to aim high, not low. I do, however, understand that you deserve a chance to respond to a poor argument when you are given one.
One distinction that has helped me over the years is the difference between what I call “high” and “low” arguments. A good example of this might be the undergraduate Bible student who attends his undergraduate “Bible Intro” class and then is troubled by the fact that the information learned there is inadequate to dispute the claims of a Bart Ehrman book. The problem there is is that he is matching a set of low, introductory Christian arguments to a set of high, quasi-specialized non-Christian arguments. I tried making a similar point with you a while back when I asked you what scholarly Evangelical views on the use of the Old Testament in the New you were familiar with. We need to always make sure we are seeking high arguments.
Hope you are doing well,
Your Friend,
Doug
Doug, in all honesty you did not understand my post.
I’ll just point out one thing you said and respond to it:
“Atheists need to be careful not to cherry pick arguments of certain Christians and to represent them as if they are representative of the entire Christian intellectual community.”
Christianity claims to have the Holy Spirit not only indwelling believers, but unifying them. You have just admitted that the Christian community is divided enough on important issues that its objectors should not lump everyone together. From my experience in the faith, every believer has enough varied beliefs that if you place them in a room together they will eventually find something important they disagree on (nature of Trinity, eternal security, etc.) My argument is that this is strong evidence the Holy Spirit does not actually exist because there is not distinguishable difference between the unity and divisions found in Christianity and… say… the unity and divisions found in the Republican Party. One would hope with divine influence that there would be some distinguishing factor.
It is absolutely impossible for me to “tailor” every single post to specific Christians. That leaves me with two options:
1) I can add a disclaimer to each post that says something like: “Christianity is entirely bunk, but this particular belief is what I will be focusing on today and it is held by this particular group of Christians in this particular part of the world in this particular denomination who have this particular hermeneutic who are viewed by other denominations as being ‘mistaken’; and these beliefs should not be considered mainstream of the entire Christian community lest I offend those in the Christian community who claim to have the same Holy Spirit but who think their brothers and sisters are mistaken and not listening to the Holy Spirit or applying hermeneutic principles properly.”
2) Every time I make a comment about a Christian belief I can add a tiny note explaining every single possible Christian position to make you all happy and feel special.
I hold that Christianity is all bunk from the ground up, so can you give me a good reason why I should expend energy trying to appease every possible Christian position?
The real problem here is that you would rather I did not use the word “Christianity” when your own personal view of “Christianity” differs from how I represent it. Am I correct?
Just remember you all are claiming to have absolute truth in some form or another, but you cannot agree with each other, yet you all claim the same name. It is impossible for any of us on the outside to get it right. Apparently, it is also pretty much impossible for anyone on the inside to get it right, too.
This is sidestepping what I am saying to you. You’ve pulled one thing out of my comments, which I did qualify (“I do . . . given one”), and have ignored the point. I understand your frustration–it takes time to understand the issues–but you do no service to yourself or your friends who read this post by only addressing the simplest of views.
If a Christian is allowed to dismiss Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormonism without grappling with all the details of very nuanced and complicated Islamic, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormon theology, why am I wrong for dismissing Christianity based on simple arguments?
If a Christian can feel justified in rejecting Mormonism based on simple arguments without studying Mormon apologetics in depth and in detail, I feel justified in rejecting all of Christianity based on simple arguments.
All the nuances of the study of vampires means nothing if vampires do not exist.
Well it may be the case that you have indeed dismissed Christianity “based on simple arguments” (such as the vampire/flying spaghetti monster analogy). But this is not the way you present yourself in your writings.
Haha, well, then I guess I’m coming across exactly as I wish :)
One would think that if a deity like yours existed, then being a good designer, he would encourage intelligent minds to accept or dismiss claims based on simple arguments. It is ironic that if he is such a good designer, his greatest invention – Christianity – is so convoluted. Given the endless debates, wranglings, and constant expending of energy trying to rehash every theological point, it makes more sense to conclude that it was invented over time by men who continually reinvent it and tweak it according to their culture. That explains the convoluted part.
Don’t you think?
I can either accept a convoluted Christianity that looks like it was invented by humans in the hopes that it was actually the truth, or dismiss it based on simple arguments. If your God – a good designer – exists, would he not encourage the latter?
If you say I am giving up too soon and not trying hard enough, I will just have to remind you that your god supposedly said it was not by works that we are saved.
Why use a complex argument where a simple one will suffice? If I can checkmate an idea with one move rather than five, why not?
This goes right back to what we always wind up talking about–you think that if there is debate over the subject matter, the subject matter is wrong. And as I’ve told you a million times this does not follow. You are so willing to write about your superior logic, why do you not see the fallacy in this?
And notice how far you have strayed from the original point. I rest my case on my original response.
I completely agree with the first paragraph of your previous comment. Yes, that is a fallacy. Always has been, always will be. I agree with you 100%.
Except that that is not what I am saying.
Doug, for the sake of clarification, could you please repeat back to me my argument as to why inconsistency of thought internal to the church is evidence that Christianity is false?
Perhaps if you are able to verbalize it back, we can figure out why your interpretation of what I am saying and what I think I am saying are two different things.
“You are so willing to write about your superior logic”
And whoah there, buddy. Are you kidding me? When the hell have I ever made this claim?
For your first question, you wrote:
“It is ironic that if he [God] is such a good designer, his greatest invention – Christianity – is so convoluted. Given the endless debates, wranglings, and constant expending of energy trying to rehash every theological point, it makes more sense to conclude that it was invented over time by men who continually reinvent it and tweak it according to their culture. That explains the convoluted part.”
For your second question:
Here is just one example: “So at the end of the day, a perfect argument in the form of logos will not cause a believer to leave their faith, unless that believer is committed to being logically consistent regardless of how it may harm them.”
You are claiming that you are able to furnish “perfect” arguments such that anyone who would not concur with you could only be logically inconsistent. In other words, after hearing your (superior) logical arguments, the believer, if he is logically consistent, will adopt your position. How is this–along with most of your post, for that matter–not a claim of logical superiority?
“It is ironic that if he [God] is such a good designer, his greatest invention – Christianity – is so convoluted. Given the endless debates, wranglings, and constant expending of energy trying to rehash every theological point, it makes more sense to conclude that it was invented over time by men who continually reinvent it and tweak it according to their culture. That explains the convoluted part.” – What Josh said
IS NOT EQUAL TO
“you think that if there is debate over the subject matter, the subject matter is wrong” – Doug’s interpretation of what Josh said
Anybody can copy and paste :) I was hoping you could, in your own words, verbalize my argument back to me.
“So at the end of the day, a perfect argument in the form of logos will not cause a believer to leave their faith, unless that believer is committed to being logically consistent regardless of how it may harm them.” – What Josh said
IS NOT EQUAL TO
“You are claiming that you are able to furnish “perfect” arguments such that anyone who would not concur with you could only be logically inconsistent. In other words, after hearing your (superior) logical arguments, the believer, if he is logically consistent, will adopt your position.”
Every time we discuss something you end up making moral accusations and insinuations – exactly what my post was talking about.
Just deal with the arguments.
“How is this–along with most of your post, for that matter–not a claim of logical superiority?”
One of your leaders taught you to believe that you have superior knowledge and wisdom than the rest of us. So what right do you have to judge me for claiming superiority (which, I am not)?
I’m sorry that you think I am making moral accusations against you. I am not. I know you to be a good guy. The unfortunate thing about writing is that it is difficult to assess tone. My points have nothing to do with your morality.
And I am addressing your arguments. Every single thing I am saying is a response to your arguments.
Now I’m sorry for cutting and pasting. I thought that was what you were looking for when you asked “where the hell” you had made these claims. Apparently not. On the other hand, if you were looking for a paraphrase of your argument, why not settle for my initial wording? I understand your argument as follows:
P (premise) 1: If the Christian God exists, he would make all the points of doctrine that I desire to understand undisputedly clear.
P 2: Not all the points of doctrine that I desire to understand are undisputedly clear.
Conclusion: The Christian God does not exist.
I see this logically-flawed argument to be entailed in your point that the Christian God, who is supposedly a “good designer,” has designed something that is allegedly convoluted (i.e. “Christianity,” “his greatest invention”), and that the simplest explanation is therefore that Christianity was instead created by men.
Disclaimer: Now of course I believe that Systematic Theology was created by men (and women). But what I do not agree with is that the reality that it seeks to understand was likewise created by men.
With respect to your objection to my second comment, regarding superior logical arguments, I think that is exactly what you are claiming. How are you not? How is anyone engaged in any argument with any level of conviction–including myself–not implying that their argumentation is superior? I freely acknowledge that I do this. I’ve spent time today writing to you because I think my reasoning is superior. But so do you. There’s nothing nasty about this. Disagreeing with someone doesn’t make you their enemy. This isn’t something I take offense at, and it isn’t something you should.
“P (premise) 1: If the Christian God exists, he would make all the points of doctrine that I desire to understand undisputedly clear.
P 2: Not all the points of doctrine that I desire to understand are undisputedly clear.
Conclusion: The Christian God does not exist.”
Holy crap. Yeah, that is one bogus argument for sure. If a personal deity exists, there is nothing that says he would need to reveal anything to our satisfaction.
That is not what I am saying at all. Honestly, I’m scratching my head trying to figure out how in the world I ever communicated that.
“With respect to your objection to my second comment, regarding superior logical arguments, I think that is exactly what you are claiming. How are you not? How is anyone engaged in any argument with any level of conviction–including myself–not implying that their argumentation is superior? I freely acknowledge that I do this. I’ve spent time today writing to you because I think my reasoning is superior. But so do you. There’s nothing nasty about this. Disagreeing with someone doesn’t make you their enemy. This isn’t something I take offense at, and it isn’t something you should.”
Thanks for the clarification.
Doug, post July 7, 2009 at 2:00 pm, “there are many things you say that I think are profoundly mistaken, but this is the one I’d like to hone in on.”
Doug, post on July 7, 2009 at 4:23, “This is sidestepping what I am saying to you. You’ve pulled one thing out of my comments, which I did qualify (”I do . . . given one”), and have ignored the point.”
Hmmmmmmm……. Sauce for the goose doesn’t seem to be sauce for the gander.
Yeah Leo…
Doug – this is not meant to derail you – but in all our discussions on Facebook I have noticed you tend to want me to address every little detail of what you say and if I cannot I get accused of rejecting Christianity because I “don’t understand”.
For example:
Doug: “I understand your frustration–it takes time to understand the issues–but you do no service to yourself or your friends who read this post by only addressing the simplest of views.”
I am confident that you feel satisfied in fully rejecting Islam based on the simplest of views.
Why then do you constantly judge me for rejecting Christianity based on – what you see as – the simplest of views?
Complex argument B depends upon simple argument A. If A is debunked there is no need to study B.
Doug: “One distinction that has helped me over the years is the difference between what I call “high” and “low” arguments. A good example of this might be the undergraduate Bible student who attends his undergraduate “Bible Intro” class and then is troubled by the fact that the information learned there is inadequate to dispute the claims of a Bart Ehrman book. The problem there is is that he is matching a set of low, introductory Christian arguments to a set of high, quasi-specialized non-Christian arguments. I tried making a similar point with you a while back when I asked you what scholarly Evangelical views on the use of the Old Testament in the New you were familiar with. We need to always make sure we are seeking high arguments.”
BTW: I completely and utterly disagree with you. This is absolutely ridiculous. If an argument only grows in complexity over time, I would propose that it is because there is a fundamental flaw in the entire thing.
There are numerous “high” arguments in Mormonism, but if Joseph Smith was not a prophet and was just making shit up, who gives a damn about them? All one has to do is find a simple argument that dismisses Joseph Smith as a prophet. That’s it.
This simple process of elimination was recommended by Moses when he offered a simple test to determine whether a prophet was a false prophet. No quibbling over arguments or dealing with “high” intellectual debate. Just a simple test. No appeals court. No chance for debate. If what he says does not come true, he is a false prophet and should be ignored.
All one has to do is put Christianity up to a simple test. If it fails, the entire thing can be safely rejected – according to the Old Testament, anyway.
Jesus said all these things would take place in this generation. They did not. Jesus can be ignored.
The article is really well written and excellently thought through Josh.
The easiest answer is that humans are not logical or rational.
What I been sayin’ fer years. A book I love is, “Irrational Man”.
There is a reason the Greeks emphasized Logos (e.g. logic), Ethos (reputation of speaker), and Pathos (appeal to emotion)
Love Aristotle too.
So at the end of the day, a perfect argument in the form of logos will not cause a believer to leave their faith, unless that believer is committed to being logically consistent regardless of how it may harm them. This was a huge influencing factor in my leaving the faith. I had decided that – regardless of the harm it may bring – if need be I would abandon the faith if the arguments were stronger on the side of atheism.
My mantra for many years (including many years before I even thought of leaving the faith) was, “I don’t care what the truth about any given matter turns out to be, I just want to find out what the truth is and get on the right side of it.”
A few people asked me what I’d do if that investigative attitude ever led me to the sure conclusion the Christianity was untrue.
I answered that while (at that time) I could not even imagine how that could ever happen, if indeed I was convinced, then I would indeed have to leave the faith. (You may imagine my shock when it actually happened…. OTOH you don’t have to imagine do you?)
Because they believe their God invented logic and reason (or that logic and reason are extensions of His innate nature), then logic and reason are subject to their faith claims. By definition, then, all logic and reason that counter what they already believe is just logic and reason falsely applied.
This is called circular reasoning, or presuppositional thinking. Or as I like to call them, ‘circular illogic’ and ‘presuppositional thoughtlessness’.
Your analysis of the lack of efficacy of rationality in religion is absolutely spot on. My wife, who has a PhD is nuclear physics, becomes a completely illogical, sub-grade-school-level, moron when she argues religion with me. She simply cannot allow logic to lead her in her beliefs. The usual high/low point of any such discussion turns out to be something like an angry, “Why do you want to destroy my faith?”
Yep. You’re absolutely right, “In order for a person to leave a faith, the perceived value of leaving the faith must exceed the perceived value of staying.”
Now how to “up” the value of atheism (i.e., real truth). ??
Perhaps Doug would be so kind as to describe his extensive studies of Islam, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Hinduism, Confucianism, etc. Since he expects us to study Christianity to a point quite beyond a fare-thee-well, before dismissing it, it MUST follow that he has studied all other religions to a fare-thee-well.
Wouldn’t it also follow that he must investigate atheism in similarly in-depth fashion? I.e., come to know every little nuanced subvariety of atheism/agnosticism before he can dismiss it?
Leo- that’s an interesting point about Christians needing to study other religions. In my experience- not all of them- but many Christians won’t objectively look at any other religions- some are afraid even research it for fear it will somehow take away their faith- I don’t feel compelled to say that they should jump into other religions and start trying them, but it doesnt’ hurt to research them.
It’s interesting that with these simple or “low” arguments a Christian can dismiss other religions but when one points the finger at the flaws within the Christian religion believers make others jump through all kinds of hoops, hidden meanings, and ideas that aren’t planly written in the Bible to support their beliefs and systems. I’ve had conversations with friends and have even heard preachers talk about christian ideals and come up with lengthy formulas and a big web of tying together various Bible verses to come to some great meaning that wasn’t there if you had just read the book as it is.
Should one have to read a bunch of commentaries and word reference books just to understand their own religion? If Christianity isn’t flawed why would anyone have to become so qualified just to defend their faith even if it was up against the thoughts of well educated atheist ideals or this Bart Erhman I keep hearing about. A religion that isn’t flawed should be able to “stand” on it’s own feet.
“but many Christians won’t objectively look at any other religions”
The key word here is “objectively”.
Up until my 23rd year of life I had never once objectively studied any other worldview. Every worldview was spoonfed me. I learned about evolution through Answers in Genesis. I learned about history through A-Beka and Bob Jones homeschool curriculum. I learned about Christianity from those who were already devoted to a particular sect. I learned about atheism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, etc. all through books written by believers who were exposing the “flaws” in every other worldview while “solving” the best objections to Christianity.
At Bible college we studied other religions, but I remember one moment in Philosophy class that stands out. We were studying the arguments for God’s existence and in particular the Problem of Evil. Our teacher basically said that the there were several possible “solutions” to the problem from the Christian perspective and that smart men had “worked on” solutions for centuries.
Ironically, when it came time for our test, one of our essay questions was coming up with a solution to the Problem of Evil. It occurred to me that if undergraduate students at a Bible school were allowed to “come up with” a solution, then there probably was not one. Why not just go with the natural conclusion of the argument?
We were not supposed to look at it objectively, we were supposed to subject the argument to Christianity and whatever we could do to find a *possible* flaw in the argument was better than admitting defeat. Because… well… we already knew the solution, we were just supposed to shuffle the numbers until they yielded the solution we wanted.
we already knew the solution, we were just supposed to shuffle the numbers until they yielded the solution we wanted.
This approach reminds me of a funny article by Art Buchwald in which he writes about cancer researchers hired and paid by the tobacco industry.
Hey guys. I just saw that you’ve been posting about our conversation for the last day or so. I’m spending the evening with my wife right now, so I can’t take time to read everything you’ve written, let alone respond. As it stands, I have a feeling that there is too much here for me to address in any kind of economical way. But I’ll try to get around to something approaching a response early tomorrow morning.
If, before then, any of you have a chance to read this and want to let me know something specific you’d like me to comment on, please leave a post before then.
I look forward to our ongoing conversation.
Take care,
Doug
Well, Doug, there’s nothing in particular I personally want you to comment on, I suppose.
Actually, yes, there is. Please take time to read this carefully and consider that I spent a good semester trying to figure out the answer to this question while I was still a Christian and it was a riddle I could not solve.
When I was taking your class, you made it clear early on that you were not a six-day creationist.
Growing up, we learned under Ken Ham and Answers in Genesis.
Ken Ham believed firmly that he was called by God to lead people to the Lord by upholding the “accurate” interpretation of Genesis 1-2, and so he stepped out in faith that no matter what evidence is found, it will never contradict the six-day-literal interpretation of that passage.
He has devoted his life to this.
You also claim to have the same Holy Spirit, but do not agree with this interpretation. In other words, your interpretation fucks over Ken Ham’s primary life work and millions and millions of dollars that were spent promoting that interpretation.
You both cannot be right: one of you is wrong.
You both have the same Bible.
You both have the same Holy Spirit. (Note: if you disagree with this premise, I have a completely different argument that is just as frustrating.)
Given these premises, here are the only options I can think of:
(1) Your interpretation is correct. This means that Ken Ham has wasted countless energy, his entire life, and untold amounts of other people’s money on a wrong interpretation.
(2) Ken Ham’s interpretation is correct. This means that all of your Hebrew studies and “high” arguments have not helped you one damn bit and that people are wasting time, energy, and money on your Genesis class.
(3) Either you are both wrong, you are both right, or it does not matter. If any one of these three is true, it means the Holy Spirit is allowing both of you to waste other people’s time, energy, and money on an interpretation that is wrong or does not matter.
Here is one key question I could never answer to a place where it gave me peace, no matter how many countless hours I tried:
If the Holy Spirit is allowing one of you to waste countless time, energy, and other people’s money on bogus interpretations, how can I know that the Holy Spirit will not also allow me to waste countless time, energy, and other people’s money on bogus interpretations of salvation?
Hint: I could only come up with one answer.
Josh, LeoPardus, and Bonita,
Thank you all for being willing to engage in discussion with me. I think it is great that we can participate in conversation with one another in order to refine each other’s views.
Let me say first that I typically do not have internet access during the day time (my earlier conversation with Josh was a bit of an exception), so please be patient in waiting for my response. I’m sure we all have very busy schedules anyway and have lives offline as well.
I was able to respond to all your points after all. Hence the length. Josh, I address your new question in a separate post at the end.
I’d also like to say that I (obviously) do not speak for all Christians. I probably hold similar views as you with respect to a variety of topics and would join with you in refuting foolish things you’ve come across in your journeys—whether in casual conversations, exposure to certain teachings through sermons and/or in classrooms, or in print.
By way of response, the first thing I’d like to address has to do with comments expressed by all three of you, on the issue of “high” and “low” arguments, and whether I hold my own religious preferences to the same standards as those to which I have challenged Josh to hold his. I’ll respond to this here, since you all raised this issue.
I do my best to understand other religions. This morning, in fact, I read a book on Islam. I’ve also invited Mormons into my home to discuss their beliefs in detail. I have Hindu friends with whom I regularly converse, as well as some supposed “Buddhists.” My wife’s best friend is a Muslim. And most of my acquaintances outside of school and work are unbelievers—many of whom are confessed atheists. My best friend’s parents are Chinese immigrants and I often converse with them regarding faith. I also minor in cuneiform and general ancient Near Eastern studies and so am actively involved on a daily basis with learning the details of much ancient religion, including those attested among the Sumerians, the later inhabitants of Mesopotamia (Babylonians, Assyrians, Kassites, etc.), Canaanite religion as attested at Ugarit, Phoenicia, various, smaller-scale Levantine religions, Syrian religion such as that attested to at Emar, Hittite religion, and Egyptian religion. Do I understand these other worldviews as well as my own? Probably not. I think I have a very good idea of most of them, especially contemporary worldviews. I could probably defend atheism better than many of the atheists with whom I associate. I do my best, and I suspend judgment when I don’t feel I have a good handle on things. I think this is all anyone can be expected to do: know your own beliefs really well and know as many others as possible as well as possible.
Perhaps I don’t know them as well as I expect Josh (and probably both of you) to know Christianity. But then again, I don’t blog about how wrong they are, accusing their adherents of being foolish, ignorant, and mean-spirited. If I did have a public outlet regarding the faults of Islam, I would expect Muslims to address my errors, and to point out my own misunderstandings. I don’t mean to suggest that Josh shouldn’t be posting these things—it’s a free country, and I respect him. But I feel that he is open for an honest discussion about these things. He strikes me as a very open-minded fellow. And you would think that if there were places where his arguments are flawed, he would want them pointed out. Of course, he’s allowed to respond. This is the essence of healthy debate.
LeoPardus,
You have attempted to call me out for complaining that Josh has only addressed a small portion of what I said, while at the same time admitting to have only addressed two points myself. Perhaps this is a valid criticism. I understand that it is largely undesirable to address every small point when writing a response, and that no one—especially Josh, who goes out of his way to converse with people on these message boards—has time to do so. But I’d like to say that my problem with what Josh had done was that the problem I had raised, in my estimation, was at the heart of what he had been saying, while his response to me was more of a red herring that avoided my main point. And so my latter comment to him was in order to point out that he had steered the conversation away from the heart of the matter.
Josh,
No offence taken, amigo. I know you are cordial and are not trying to derail me. At least, not in a nasty, inappropriate way.
I’m sorry if I come off sometimes as wanting you to address “every little detail”—I do not, and I wouldn’t expect you to, just as I do not address every little detail of what you say. But in cases where detail is required, yes, I expect you to be detailed. If I were to post a blog about atheism that only took into account simple atheistic arguments (perhaps using Ray Comfort’s classic “banana” argument for intelligent design), it would be perfectly acceptable for someone to point out that I had not done sufficient research and was offering an argument that misses key points about what informed atheists actually think. The same would be true if I just simply said, “Well you need to read Michael Behe’s book.” This is all I am saying to you. If you want to raise the points you do, that’s fine, but it needs to be acceptable for me to point out specific places where I think you’ve got it wrong.
I also think you are mistaken in the following statement:
“Complex argument B depends upon simple argument A. If A is debunked there is no need to study B.”
There are several flaws with this. First, this is by no means a deductively valid argument, because it entirely turns on whether B is actually dependent upon A. But that may not be the case. Even if you have a deductively sound argument (e.g. a = b, b = c, therefore a = c), it can be rendered invalid if the variables or premises are untrue. Second, and perhaps more significantly, this is virtually irrelevant to the example I supplied (and with many others that I could supply) because a “high” argument is often simply a more thorough and better-argued form of a “low” argument. So, for example, if you are told in Sunday school or wherever that the text of the New Testament can be established with reasonable certainty, and perhaps given some manuscript statistics, you are given a “low” argument. Then, if someone comes in and refutes this by showing some very convincing technical examples of textual corruption, the low argument would (or should) be rejected because of a “higher” counter argument. But then say instead of using a low argument in favor of the New Testament’s textual reliability, one learns Greek, and takes a graduate course on textual criticism, and is able to assess the original “higher” argument, in light of a now sufficiently “high” argument. This is an example of the kind of thing I’m taking about. The second error in your formula above, therefore, is that it depends too heavily on the argument that is used to debunk A, whether the person doing the investigation is able to properly assess both arguments, and whether A, B, or the “debunking” argument are, in light of the best analysis, good arguments.
Now you propose also that, “If an argument only grows in complexity over time . . . there is a fundamental flaw in the entire thing.” This is in response to my comment which you found “absolutely ridiculous.” But think for a second about what you are saying. How can this possibly be true? Say, for example, you are a scientist, and you formulate a hypothesis in order to explain a certain set of data. Your initial explanation may be however so complex. But then what if other data is brought in that needs explanation? Well, then your model needs to be adjusted. Guess what—it just grew in complexity. And then say someone else comes along, likes what you’ve done, but realizes that it needs to be qualified in such and such a way. And so on and so forth. Complexity on complexity.
This is how human knowledge progresses—including arguments in favor of atheism. For example, once it was shown that the deductive Problem of Evil was unsustainable, it had to be adjusted into the form that it now takes. But guess what—the inductive approach is more complex than the deductive approach. While I agree that simple arguments should be favored over more complex ones, if possible, we need to keep in mind that (1) some arguments are too simple to be taken seriously, and (2) there is nothing inherent in simplicity that makes a simple answer the correct answer by default.
In addition, by referring to some arguments as high, and some as low, I refer not only to simplicity, but also to correctness.
Now at the end of your comment there you mention Moses’ test for a false prophet, and suggested that this applies to Jesus with respect to certain comments he made during his Olivet Discourse. Here is my response to this:
I take it you are referring to Jesus’ comment in Matthew 24:34, “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” I’m sure that I don’t have to point out that you are assuming one of many interpretations of this text when you suggest it is a “false prophecy.” Yet this is not a false prophecy at all. With respect to the Olivet Discourse as a whole, it seems clear to me that the disciples, in verse 3, think that the destruction of Jerusalem and the eschatological day of the Lord are chronologically tied together. Jesus, however, is foreseeing a delay between these two events, during which his followers will experience tribulation, especially during the fall of Jerusalem. Verses 29-31 make clear that the “coming of the Son of Man” will come immediately after this period of tribulation. Yet Jesus at no time in the discourse hints at how long this period will be. What he seems to be describing is a rather lengthy chain of events (“many will come in my name,” “you will hear of wars and rumors of wars,” “this must take place, but the end is not yet,” “nation will rise against nation,” “there will be famines and earthquakes,” “all these are but the beginning of birth pangs”). When we get to the short lesson of the fig tree in verses 32-35, notice that “after all these things” take place, then “he is near, at the very gates.” It is here that Jesus makes the statement, “This generation will not pas away until all these things take place.” “All these things” in verse 34 is a reference to “all these things” in verse 33, which must refer to the earlier tribulations, including the destruction of Jerusalem. If it referred to the eschatological end of the age, described in 29-31, then why would he then be describing the blossoming of the fig tree as indicating merely that “the summer is near,” that “he is at the very gates?” If Jesus were referring here to the events of 29-31, then wouldn’t the summer already be here when “all these things take place?” Even if you disagree with my interpretation, you must at least acknowledge that Jesus is here, in verse 34, referring to a very large sequence of events that were, at his time, being set in motion. And so it is quite true that “all these things” were indeed taking place during the lives of the generation to whom Jesus was speaking.
Finally, Josh, I’d like to suggest that I think you’re going a little hard on the presentation of the Problem of Evil in your philosophy class. Every philosophical problem—and they exist in virtually every philosophical position—is solved with things philosophers call “solutions.” Every philosophical issue has been worked on for centuries. And yes, I do mean to say “every”—except, of course, ones that weren’t noticed until this century. And when he asked you to “come up with” a solution, I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he wasn’t asking you to pull something out of your butt (unless you hadn’t studied!!), but rather for you to formulate a convincing response based on what you learned in class.
Bonita,
I believe I’ve addressed your comments in my opening response to all three of you. Please feel free to respond if you think more needs to be said.
With respect to your third and last paragraph in your 8:15 post, I’d like to point something out. Why is it that you believe a Christian shouldn’t study to understand his faith well, when the ideal conversation partner you mention is a “well-educated atheist”? By writing this, you seem to have indicated (perhaps not even on purpose) that it is important for atheist views to be educated, well-argued, and rightly represented. Why is it not okay for me to insist that the Christian have the same level of knowledge?
My contention is that, as with almost anything, there are different levels of understanding when it comes to religion. To answer your question, I don’t think a Christian needs to have to read commentaries and word reference books to understand their religion, because there is an elementary understanding that is, in some ways, acceptable. But, as with any other area of understanding, one can have a basic understanding, but one can also choose to pursue a deeper understanding.
My ex-boss is a staunch atheist. The kind that likes to accuse all people going into the ministry of incipient pedophilia and thinks we are all backwater snake-handlers with Answers in Genesis set to our internet homepage. And he has a young son. His son, of course, is an atheist. Why? Because his father is—most children share the religious views of their parents. But it would not be fair to take this son and insist that he “defend his views” in light of even poor Christian apologetic arguments. Such a dialogue would be unproductive and probably even harmful. My point is that of course one does not have to be a scholar for one’s beliefs to have rational warrant. But we’re not talking about simply meeting the criteria of rational warrant. We are talking about engaging in debate over technical things, exposing error, and trying to work together towards a better understanding of the issues.
Josh,
Here is my response to your latest post. Let me preface this by saying that it was not my intention to connote intellectual hubris by calling some arguments high and some low, but I feel that this is what it has become. I just meant to indicate that some are better informed and argued than others.
Hmmm . . . I wonder which answer it was that you came up with. ;) In all seriousness, though, I’ve talked with you about this before. The first time I can recall was when we had sushi together. I do believe the Holy Spirit leads us into truth, but not in every single area. As you know, I believe that God has given us enough to inform those with childlike trust and faith in him to walk a godly, repentant life. In other words, the Holy Spirit leads us to sufficient unanimity, but not absolute unanimity. Three points:
1. Being a good Christian has little to do with intelligence (now THERE is a quote that’s begging to be quoted out of context). God does not call us all to write commentaries, argue with skeptics, and make posts on MethodicalMusings.com. My walk with Christ actually has very little to do with the way I understand Genesis 1, or whether I have the best response to other skeptical questions. I believe God gives us understanding that is sufficient. Of course, we want to take that understanding and argue with it, and make it more complex than it needs to be. This doesn’t mean that truth is not important, but that, more often and not, the most important truths are those things we do understand, not the things we do not.
2. Perhaps you will feel compelled to respond that this makes some sense when we talk about more “incidental” portions of Scripture (creation, eschatology, ecclesiology, etc.), but that the problem is much more acute because not all Christians agree on what it is to be saved. But I think my observation still holds. I would say that even those who have an inadequate and somewhat incorrect understanding of their own salvation can possess saving faith.
Let me give you an example. My mother’s best friend called me up a year or two ago, after she began attending a Presbyterian Bible study. Her own church was a rather typical large, dispensational, run-of-the mill quasi-mega church. She was disturbed at the fact that the Presbyterian minister (who was leading the Bible study) was arguing that there was more to “getting saved” than simply praying a prayer. This actually disturbed her, because she had learned the typical, Evangelical evangelism strategy with which we are all familiar. One of the things I pointed out in our phone conversation with her was that she was closer to the thought of the Presbyterian minister than she understood. I suggested that one of the things that the minister (and Jesus!) was concerned with was hypocrites who hear the offer of completely free salvation and pervert it into a license for sin. For her, simply praying the prayer was enough. She could not understand how anyone could respond to an altar call and then not live a life of humble thankfulness and obedience to Christ. Her less-correct theology had produced in her sufficient knowledge of the truth.
And so, I would say that even Christians who have incorrect soteriology have a sufficient knowledge of the truth because they understand that God send Jesus to save them from their sin, and that this salvation is appropriated by displaying trust in him. John 3:16 isn’t such a bad verse to quote after all.
3. Do you see that this is a version of the argument that we discussed earlier, when you asked me to reword it and I gave you two premises and a conclusion, and you agreed that it was a poor argument. I am a bit sympathetic, however, with what you are saying because I understand that when we throw the Holy Spirit in the mix, who is supposed to lead us into “all truth,” it does constitute somewhat of an argument to ask why then we do not experience complete unanimity. And so I do feel the force of your argument. I just am not compelled by it because I do not think that “all truth” means complete unanimity (see my first two points for what I do think is implied in the noetic ministry of the Holy Spirit).
In anticipation of what you might be thinking, I must add here that I do not think that John 16:13 is the best place to inform us of the noetic ministry of the Holy Spirit. This is for two reasons. First, Jesus is speaking to his apostles regarding their own ministry. Specifically, the Spirit will reveal to them “the things that are to come.” Second, even if this verse were speaking about all believers, “all” is very often used in Greek (as well as in English) in a non-absolute sense. This is not twisting words to yield an interpretation I desire, by the way—it is a fact of human language usage.
At all points in the discussion, we need to acknowledge that the New Testament is actually not entirely clear on specifically what the Holy Spirit does to influence our thinking. When Christians claim that the “Holy Spirit” reveals certain nuggets of truth to them, I think they are claiming something beyond what Scripture gives them warrant to claim. Perhaps you’d like to do a study of specifically what the New Testament claims in this area. I suspect you will find that it is quite different from the notion that you are assuming here.
Haha, so we agree Doug :)
The answer to my main question above, is… quite simply:
“We don’t know, we just believe”
Which is, if I am not mistaken, what you have admitted.
[You were probably thinking that my atheism was a result of that question. It is not. I am not that foolish. Atheism was the result of the weight of numerous congruent lines of thinking converging at that point - many of which have greater weight in my opinion than the small argument above.]
~
Point (1) in your post above is equivocal, in my opinion.
~
Doug: “I would say that even those who have an inadequate and somewhat incorrect understanding of their own salvation can possess saving faith.”
You would say, would you? No offense, but I don’t care what you think. I want to know, because according to every Christian I know, belief is not enough. Why is belief not enough? Because millions of people believe the wrong things and think they believe the right things and will end up in hell anyway. How can I know that I am not one of those people who is believing the wrong thing but thinks I am believing the right thing? How do you know Doug that you are not one of those people who is believing the wrong things (and will end up in hell for it)?
Your opinion means nothing to me. When it comes to something as important as whether I spend eternity in hell or not, one would hope I would have something more substantial to lean on than what you or I or the Apostle John thinks. Wouldn’t you say?
How do you know, Doug?
You don’t know, you just believe.
How do you know you are believing correctly?
You don’t know you are believing correctly, you just believe you are believing correctly. This means you have faith that your faith is correct.
Sorry, Doug, but there are people who believe that your beliefs are leading you to hell. They have faith in faith. You believe they are going to hell. You have faith in faith. You both believe the other person has the potential of ending up in an eternity in hell for believing the wrong things.
That is quite a gamble, would you not say?
You don’t know, you just believe that your belief is correct because that is all you can do.
But if Christianity is true, there are millions of people who have faith in faith who could end up in Christianities eternity in hell. You could be one of them.
Why?
Because you don’t know, you just have faith that your faith is correct and “enough” – whatever that means.
In the end, your faith is just that: faith. The arguments and logic and reason and study are all extensions of that faith, not the foundation for it. So if your beliefs are wrong, all your study based upon that belief is practically meaningless.
I don’t want a meaningless life, Doug. I would rather create my own meaning and not exist after death than trust a meaning that is given to me on faith and potentially get it wrong and end up in hell.
That is not why I am an atheist. This is only one small line of thinking that headed me in that direction.
~
Thank for finally seeing the weight of my argument regarding the Holy Spirit. Personally, I think it is quite an argument. When I was a Christian I could never figure it out and “just believing” I had the Holy Spirit and had the core beliefs of Christianity good enough (that I was regenerate, etc.) was not a good answer to me because I would never accept that answer from someone else and I did not want to be a hypocrite.
~
Over time, I hope you will begin to see that the weight of the arguments I discovered is far beyond the simplistic view you apparently have of my decision right now. We have only scratched the surface.
“Her less-correct theology had produced in her sufficient knowledge of the truth.”
Genius! The way in which most educated Christians can tie together humility and condescension is an art I am sorry to have mastered.
:)
[I hope my readers get this...]
~
“And so, I would say that even Christians who have incorrect soteriology have a sufficient knowledge of the truth because they understand that God send Jesus to save them from their sin, and that this salvation is appropriated by displaying trust in him. John 3:16 isn’t such a bad verse to quote after all.”
So why should Christians study? It only risks making them prudes. Christians should avoid this temptation by just accepting the “simplicity” of their faith – to use Paul’s advice – and just avoid Bible schools altogether.
After all, why spend countless thousands of dollars on an education and potentially end up with bad theology? Even the profs cannot agree with each other. So in the end each person leans upon their own understanding, making Proverbs 3:5-6 look like a joke.
Why not just use that education money to save the countless starving Africans who die and go to hell every day?
Christians are horrid stewards of God’s money, from my perspective. During each class you teach Doug, hundreds – if not thousands of dollars – are spent on students learning “high” arguments for Christianity. During that time, thousands of starving Africans go to hell. Ironically, my guess is that none of those Africans care about anything you teach. They just want food. But Christians spend money on theological opinions instead of food for Africans.
And then most of them have the audacity to claim a moral high ground over atheists.
Crap, now I’m using ethos and pathos. Oh well. Just trying to point out that it can be used in atheism too. It doesn’t make me right, but it is far easier than using logic and reason, which is probably why the gospel is so effective.
Haha, I’m having waaaay too much fun with this….
As my coworker Mario says: I’m not wrong, I’m just an asshole…
Contemplating deleting my previous post… I was apparently pretty worked up. Oh well.
Why delete it? You made brilliant points.
It’s not just ethos and pathos. The Bible says Christians are to feed and clothe the hungry and naked. NOWHERE does it say to study theology for beaucoup dinero. Nowhere does it say to build HUGE buildings. It does however say that those who did not feed, clothe, etc will go to hell. So if I were a Christian who was spending his time and money on cars, houses, ThD’s, cathedrals, and so on, I’d be worried.
No sir, don’t delete. You were bang on.
Josh- I think you did raise a good point about how Christians use their money. In the past I had worked within the church and have seen how money is used. It’s amazing how much is wasted. I’ve seen people become missionaries in foreign countries off of the donations of people here in the US- they spend countless years in their mission country spending most of their time with other Americans, they buy all kinds of equipment to make the gospel intesting, and meanwhile somehow never learn the language. I know missionaries who’ve been in these countries for 10 years and still only know how to speak english. In these cases I wonder where the money had gone. Aren’t they “preaching” the good news. It really pissed me off when I had visited some missionaries in Ecuador through some friends and every missionary family I had met wasn’t using their money correctly or much for ministry. They would try and raise a big salary, one that would match a US salary, than they’d live in Latin America where the cost of living is way less and live like rich people with maid and everything, when back here at home they weren’t rich. I’ve seen missionaries get rich off of the mission field. It’s amazing. Alll in the meantime not learning the countries language to actually do what they went there for. By the way I learned to speak Spanish and I speak it rather fluently so it is possible for americans to learn foreign languages- for those who think I’m too hard on the “missionary investors”.
And regarding what you said Leo-
“The Bible says Christians are to feed and clothe the hungry and naked.”
It’s amazing how in place of doing what the Bible actually says it’s so common to see the wrong priorities in the church. Imagine if they put all that money and time into helping the “least” of these- that might actually be “good news” to those who need it.
I have been really turned off by the financial priorities of many churches and missionaries in particular.
Josh- don’t delete you’re post I agree with Leo.
Josh, Leo, and Bonita,
Good morning, guys and gal. Since you all are concurring with Josh’s post, I’d like to throw in a few cents of my own.
I’m not sure which comment of mine led you to believe that I am saying, “We don’t know, we just believe.” I can’t account for all Christians. I can only speak for myself and those Christians with whom I find myself in agreement. There are different reasons all types of people form the beliefs they do. And this goes for atheists as well as Christians. I speak only for myself, and I can say that I have done the necessary thinking and research to know what I believe and why I believe it. I also think that the arguments for my beliefs are much stronger than the arguments I’ve heard you give for yours. And so it simply will not do to speak in abstractions about me, claiming that just because I am a Christian it must be due to some blind, purely emotional leap of faith. From my perspective, although you’ve made some good points, I rarely see you provide an argument that stands up under scrutiny (e.g. your “Jesus is a false prophet” argument), and so it seems to me to be premature for you to claim that you “know” your newly-found atheism to be true. Rhetoric is not enough. You need to focus on arguments, and this is where many of your claims fall short.
In addition, by criticizing the fact that I use the words, “I would say,” you’ve provided another example of how you take something that is incredibly tangential, twist it, and then knock down the straw man you’ve created. Do you really think that those three words are a comment on my entire thought process, that I just say things and think that just because I say them they are true? Do you really think that there are no reasons why I think this? This is just further confirmation that you are unwilling to address substantive issues. Every single time you encounter anyone making any claim of any kind, you are always dealing with what someone thinks. The only way to avoid this is to think nothing (which is impossible). The real issue then is whether good reasons can be given to account for that belief.
I acknowledge that this is “only one small line of thinking” that has led you in the direction you have chosen for yourself. Fine. But it is erroneous. And I really have yet to see you provide anything else that would justify your position. If you want me to see that your arguments have the weight you claim they do, you need to show me. I’m not accusing you of laziness or dishonesty regarding your intellectual search for truth. I know neither of these are true, and that you truly believe you have rational justification for your position. But the proof is in the pudding, and I haven’t seen anything that would compel me to buy what you’re selling.
I’d like to comment now on your final remarks regarding Christian academics, as well as your opinion as to how Christians are bad stewards of God’s money.
1. In cases such as the ones Bonita cites, where Christians, even (or especially) missionaries are wasting money, I agree. Christians can waste money. Given the information she has noted—provided it is accurate—I would say they should be placed under reevaluation and, if need be, pulled off the field. I am in complete agreement with you all that there are many examples of Christians being poor stewards.
2. I do think that the money spent in Christian education is justified, although I definitely acknowledge that it may be too much in some cases, especially in ones where students are lazy and do not use their education as they should. But there is such a thing as money wisely spent on education. This is because, although a basic knowledge of the faith is sufficient in terms of personal belief, it is not enough in terms of public ministry, for at least two reasons.
First, God has given church leadership the task of shepherding his flock, and it takes skill and knowledge to do this. This takes education to accomplish. If there were a way to do it where it would not cost money, that would be the route to go. But it does cost money, because teachers do this on a full-time basis, and deserve to have provision for the work they do. It also costs money to maintain a situation where students can focus their attention on learning what needs to be learned and to develop in the ways they need to develop. I am referring to schools. If there is a better, cheaper way to do this, I’d love to know about it.
Second, there is the task of maintaining Christian witness to the world. For a long time there have existed many institutions and scholars who have done research from a point of view that is hostile to the Bible. This is not to say that every secular scholar reaches the conclusion that the Bible is entirely false. I can cite many examples of high-ranking secular academic scholars who do not share the views of their more antagonistic peers. But Christian scholarship continues to make important contributions to many fields of academic research, and this is important. If anything, the respect that Christian scholars have held for the Bible has led them to expose flawed and inadequate arguments of their peers who otherwise would probably have continued to create a stagnant consensus on positions that, under further scrutiny, have proved to have been incorrect. A good case in point is the Wellhausian Documentary Hypothesis. Christians were the ones who originally exposed most of the faults in this outdated system, and paved the way for other scholars (many of whom are secular) to reject it as being based on false assumptions and as being undermined by incongruencies regarding historical data. Had this old “consensus” gone unchecked, it would have badly skewed future research on the Bible, as well as our historical understanding of the ancient Near East during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages.
3. As far as feeding starving people in Africa is concerned, I’d like to make a few points. First, Christians do feed countless millions of people in starving countries every year, stemming from their love for the poor and obedience to Christ’s commands. In fact, this has been the motivating factor for the vast majority of charitable work in human history, including the present.
Second, can and should more be done? Absolutely, yes. Notice that all three of you (LeoPardus and Bonita to a greater extent, and Josh to a lesser) are appealing to, as LeoPardus puts it, “What the Bible says.” I think it is always so important, though, to clearly distinguish what you see as a problem with the Christian community, and what you see as a problem with Christian belief.
Third, isn’t it the task of all of us, not only the Christians, to attend to the needs of the poor. Is this not the duty of all of humanity? What have YOU done to address this problem? This blade cuts both ways. As Paul says, “You who judge others, do you not judge yourself?” Those who complain that God would be so unjust to judge them are the same people who have no problem with spending more money on a night of drinking (such as the ones that Josh celebrates on this page) than they do in an entire month, year, or sometimes even lifetime, on charity to the poor. Why do you work? Couldn’t you spend your money on less material possessions, education, and leisure activities and give more to the starving in Africa? If you’re going to pull that card, I have to pull it on you too. And it is illegitimate to say that starving Africans do not care about what we teach in seminaries and Bible colleges, because, in addition to physical humanitarian needs, they ASK for us to come and teach them. It is not an “either/or” decision; it is a both/and.
I’d also like to recommend a book to all three of you that may provide some clarity on actual charitable data:
“Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide, Who Gives, Who Doesn’t, and Why It Matters” by Arthur C. Brooks, professor of public administration at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Doug- I agree with you that it is for everyone and not just “christians” to help those in need. It’s just interesting how so many other things take priority in the church when it comes to the use of money. My problem with overspending in the church on computers, sound equipment, and of course I haven’t met a church that doesn’t have one- the new building budget- why do they spend so much money to get peoples attention- if the religion is correct- and is based upon a super natural deity or agent wouldn’t it prove itself? Why is their so much emphasis in the church on material things? In the “world” I know why we waste our money- but does “God” really need all of this money? Do leaders need to be so educated to share a “god” that “exists”? Shouldn’t their “testimony be enough, the Bible says to be ready on all occasions to give an account of your beliefs- I’m paraphrasing- sorry- where does it say- “Get a good Christan education to share your beliefs”? Shouldn’t it be simpler than that if it is true? Sounds to me like they need training to know what strings to pull and the money to know what to buy in order to market their product- “Jesus Tm”.
By the way I’m not a full atheist- I think I’m more agnostic. I’ll take Bill Mahrs aproach- “I just don’t know”.
Also regarding this part of your post:
“From my perspective, although you’ve made some good points, I rarely see you provide an argument that stands up under scrutiny”
Can you give me an argument that stands up any better? Do you have solid rational reason that you are a Christian? If not I can agree with you latter statement:
“…because I am a Christian it must be due to some blind, purely emotional leap of faith..”
Maybe I’ve missed it but where is your “argument”? We have life experience that proves it all to be flawed. Just read some of Josh or Leo’s blog or maybe I’ll tell you my life story. I’d love for Christianity to be true- than I could just call all my “suffering pure joy” but after 15 years in the faith, and not living by works but sincerly serving this God and than finally giving in to my realization that “he” really isn’t in control- if it were so, than he’d just make an aparent apearance in just one of my dire circumstances.
He doesn’t need to appear, I don’t need to see him, I’d just like to see him “bear fruit”.
I await your argument that isn’t pure emotional leaps of faith.
I hope I don’t come across too harsh.
“I’d also like to recommend a book to all three of you that may provide some clarity on actual charitable data:”
It’s not who gives, Doug. It is what a person teaches and how that reflects in reality.
If believers are inconsistent and their actions reflect that the reality they claim to believe cannot be true, then that is enough for me.
A Christian spends 10k on a Christian education when 10k could save 10k Africans from dying and going to the hell that the Christian is spending his 10k to learn about.
Conclusion: the Holy Spirit who indwells the Christian either does not exist or cares more about the Christian’s education than the 10k Africans who go to hell of starvation. Because if the Holy Spirit is indeed as powerful as Christian’s say, he certainly does not need the Christian to go to some Bible school before he can be sent out into the mission field to save those Africans. It is easier to conclude that Christians – in the end – do what they want to do and what makes them feel comfortable. Just like everyone else in the world.
This inconsistency finally convinced me that the concept of Holy Spirit is internally incoherent. Reality is not equal to the claims Christians and the Bible make about the character of the God they claim to serve.
Can it be more simple?
“I can say that I have done the necessary thinking and research to know what I believe and why I believe it.”
Did the research precede the belief? Or did the research tailor itself to the belief’s chief end?
“I think it is always so important, though, to clearly distinguish what you see as a problem with the Christian community, and what you see as a problem with Christian belief.”
Why not drop the beliefs and just fix the community? Apparently the beliefs do not reflect the communities behavior, so what good are the beliefs?
“Is this not the duty of all of humanity? What have YOU done to address this problem? This blade cuts both ways.”
No the blade does not.
“Why not drop the beliefs and just fix the community? Apparently the beliefs do not reflect the communities behavior, so what good are the beliefs?”
Why are they even a community if they aren’t following these so called “beliefs”? Is it just to get together and pat each other on the back and say- they’re part of some type of club? Shouldn’t the “beliefs” and the community go together, if we are separating the two- than Christians apparently aren’t followers of the christian belief.
And technically if they aren’t followers of the belief in Christian terms- they would be unbelievers- lol.
It’s much simpler being agnostic or atheist- also more practical- at least we don’t have a set of beliefs that we don’t follow. We just are, we look at the realities of life and adapt. I’m talking for me, not all ags and atheists- in case someone doesn’t agree- it’s my interpretation.
Josh,
You make a good argument regarding Christian giving (or lack thereof. The problem with it is that you are misunderstanding what the Holy Spirit does. To use a point you made earlier, I am not concerned with what the Christians whom you have heard “say” about the Holy Spirit. Where in the Bible do you find anything that suggests that the Holy Spirit is supposed to irresistibly compel someone in the sense that he is the sole agent motivating the actions (not just belief/nature) of Christians? Christians have a choice as to whether or not they will act in accord with their nature. And anyway, I think I’ve made a good point for the legitimate use of Christian funds for education. It’s not that I don’t see your point. I just don’t see how it constitutes an argument against Christian theism.
Not all of my research preceded my belief, but a lot of it did. Unlike you, Josh, I did not really become a Christian until I was about twenty. And even if it didn’t, it is perfectly acceptable to believe something prior to fully understanding why we believe it. Of course, if reasons are presented that ought to force someone to abandon that belief, one should abandon it. But I have not encountered such reasons.
And yes, the blade does. There is a word that describes people who do not realize this. It begins with hyp and ends with ocrisy.
Bonita,
I don’t think you come across as being harsh. Your comments are insightful, inspire me to think, and give me conviction. Again, I agree with you on much of your criticism, such as what you are saying about overspending. In my opinion, this does apply to education somewhat, but there are legitimate uses of funds for this end. But I think you are exaggerating the extent to which Christians disagree on things. Of course, some of the extent of disagreement will depend on how broadly we define the term, “Christian,” but I do think that shared beliefs, as well as the lifestyle that is motivated by such beliefs, do give us a community that exists for purposes beyond just patting one another on the back.
With respect to your challenge about having not seen me give a positive “argument” for what I believe, this is mainly because of the subject of this post. I’m responding to what Josh has written and challenging him to defend what he has written. You may not know this, but Josh and I have a bit of a history of dialoguing about these things. Much of what I refer to here is in reference to those previous conversations, although some of that has occurred in this discussion.
You challenge me to provide an argument of my own, and I am happy to oblige. I can’t speak for your experiences, because I don’t know them, and I can’t speak for God. All I can give is my intellectual reasons for believing Christian theism. Also, for the sake of practicality, I cannot address all of the relevant issues, such as what constitutes justification for religious beliefs, the nature of historical evidence, exegesis of particular texts and many of the specific instances of historical knowledge that confirm the biblical testimony. What I give here is a basic outline.
To begin with I’d like make three points clear. First, I do not consider myself a “presuppositionalist” with regard to my approach to defending Christian beliefs—at least, not in the sense that it is used in the so-called presuppositionalist literature (Greg Bahnsen, Cornelius Van Til, et al.). Second, I do not think that God is a logically necessary being (in the technical sense). I believe he is ontologically necessary. Third, although I am a bit sympathetic to some claims of religious self-verification, I do not think that an appeal to religious belief as self-verifying can in any way be substantiated in terms of a good argument, so I do not go this route.
I begin with the existence of God. A book I would recommend on this subject—one with which I find myself in general agreement—is Richard Swinburne’s “The Existence of God” (2nd edition, Oxford University Press). The existence of God can be rationally justified via what is called a cumulative case argument. That is, as with millions of other beliefs, it can be justified based, not just on one line of evidence, but on several lines of evidence converging. While each argument is compelling in itself, it is the force of all the arguments together that counts. Here are the ones I find particularly convincing:
1. The cosmological argument. Particularly, I think the strongest version of this is what is known as the Kalam version. It can be summed up as the following:
a: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
b: The universe began to exist.—This is not only the general scientific consensus (think big bang), but can also be demonstrated by the logical impossibility of an actually infinite set of moments in time extending into the past (disclaimer: it is not logically impossible for an infinite set of future moments to exist).
Therefore, the universe has a cause.
This cause, like all other causes, must be outside itself—that is, outside both space and time (hence, God’s “eternality”)—and must be powerful enough to cause this universe. Any explanation, including “scientific” explanations, must at this point posit a cause that is in some way supernatural—outside the bounds of observable natural phenomena. I see the theistic conception of God as the best explanation for this. There is nothing outside of an a priori rejection of theistic causality that would qualify this as in any way unacceptable.
2. The teleological arguments/arguments from design. Despite the controversy over whether inferences over intelligent design or the fine-tuning of the universe constitute science, it is scientific observation that leads to these inferences (note that any arguments against these inferences are also inferences). While I certainly think that the notion that biological systems have evolved on their own (I am not opposed to guided evolution) is improbable, given argument 1 above and the general considerations of the complexity of these systems, I think an incredibly strong case can be made via the fine-tuning of the universe as one that is capable of sustaining life. I do not think that the only purpose of the universe is to sustain our existence—I think it does a good job at declaring the glory of God. But I do think that many of the variables that must be in place for our universe to exist are simply too perfect to be convincingly explained as chance.
3. Moral arguments. Let me make it very clear that I understand that natural selection is capable of providing explanations as to why moral absolutes—or at least, what appear to be moral absolutes—exist. Let me also make it clear that it is exceedingly difficult to prove that moral absolutes do actually exist, although almost all human beings seem to believe they do. But given arguments 1 and 2 above, the fact that we do live in a world which, since the dawn of history, shows evidence of human beings who have a consciousness of right and wrong, I think we have another argument that strongly suggests the existence of a moral creative agent who gave us that sense. Again, aside from a priori assumptions against theistic causality, this is a perfectly plausible explanation for this phenomenon.
Given these three arguments, a good p-inductive argument is established for the existence of God (btw, most things we believe can only be justified via p-inductive arguments). Is God the only possible explanation? No. But they do provide us with three reasons that provide ample justification for belief in God, showing that we are well within our rational bounds to hold to some form of theism. And they have also shed light on three sets of data for which atheistic explanations seem exceptionally weak.
What about potential defeaters for the existence of God? As far as I am aware, there is only one, though it is significant, and this seems to be the one that has led you (at least in part) to abandon your belief in Christian theism. This potential defeater, of course, is the Problem of Evil. Let me make the point more clear: Every aspect of our existence fits extremely well into a theistic conception of reality except, perhaps, the existence of evil—or, if you like, we should maybe call it suffering. There is also the problem of divine hiddenness, but I, along with many theistic and atheistic philosophers, see this as part of the Problem of Evil, and so I will not address them as separate points, unless you’d like me to. Now it has been known for many years that the Problem of Evil does not constitute a deductive problem for Christian theism. That is, it is does not provide a logically necessary argument against Christian theism. But it does constitute an inductive problem. In other words, as the arguments for the existence of God are based largely on probability, so the argument against his existence is based on largely on probability. Yet even this, I think is not as strong as it first appears. That is because much (if not all) evil is explicable, given the Christian theistic worldview. It makes sense that a morally good God who is omnipotent would create a world in which he desires his creatures to perform moral good. Yet to create a universe in which both natural and moral evil do not exist would be to deprive them of this. In other words, in order for beings the act in ways that demonstrate freely-chosen love, heroism, virtue, altruism, and self-sacrifice—all things which are better to demonstrate than not to—God must create a world in which moral and natural evil exist. Swinburne adds to this the note that those who will find such an argument most compelling are those who understand that good is best understood, not in what is done to me, but in terms of what I can do for others. This, coupled with God’s ability to show justice and equity to those who have been wronged, as well as other reasons he may have for allowing evil that we do not fully understand, constitutes a reasonable defense against the Problem of Evil.
And so I find it to be the case that we live in a universe that is exactly what we would expect if a morally good, powerful, God does indeed exist and did in fact choose to create. This universe both declares the awesome power of the one who made it, and is set up in such a way that his creatures have real opportunities to act in ways that demonstrate a real choice between real good and real evil.
I recognize that there are special cases that deserve more than this general commentary, but this is already an exceedingly long post, and these can be addressed in the days to come.
Now if such a God does exist, and I think the arguments above give us good reason to believe that he does, I find it very reasonable to expect (1) that he would choose to communicate with us in such a way that neither forces us into obedience nor leaves us so in the dark that we are utterly and completely dependent on our own whim to understand what is good and (2) that such a God would take it upon himself to provide a solution to the moral guilt that is incurred when his creatures inevitably stray from what is good. These expectations may be somewhat circular (perhaps I expect them because of what I already believe God is like), but I find nothing in them to judge them as improbable or something that would not reasonable be expected of a morally good deity.
Given the first expectation, I then look to the potential candidates for divine revelation, and find the Bible to be one that truly fits the bill. Not that I think there is no value to other expressions of religious ideas, but the Bible is one that presents to us a God that meets both expectations 1 and 2 above. Hence my belief in Christian theism. Although I readily acknowledge that there are many things in the Bible that I do not understand (which is to be expected of revelation that is truly divine, at least as much as the opposite expectation that we would be able to perfectly understand everything—perhaps faithful study of the word is another virtue that God wishes us to demonstrate), I find it to be the case that it provides a compelling metanarrative for theistic reality, and, in every case that I have seen opportunities for confirmation/disconfirmation of the historical and philosophical information it contains, I have found it to be truthful and reliable.
Much more could be said, and my last point is very loaded. If you want more details, just ask. I hope this has shown you, not only that I have reasons for my own beliefs that are not utterly emotional and illogical. Please feel free to respond.
“You make a good argument regarding Christian giving (or lack thereof. The problem with it is that you are misunderstanding what the Holy Spirit does.”
You know what Doug, I almost want to tell you to stop right there, because who are you to stand up and be the guy who “knows” the proper interpretation of how the Holy Spirit works? Why should I trust your interpretation?
Realizing that Scripture itself is unclear on how the Holy Spirit “works” was just another crack in the argument for me. All my Christian life I just wanted to know: did sign gifts cease or not?
And that rolls into your next statement…
“Where in the Bible do you find anything that suggests that the Holy Spirit is supposed to irresistibly compel someone in the sense that he is the sole agent motivating the actions (not just belief/nature) of Christians?”
No where. He wouldn’t have to be irrisistably compelling. Except, of course, that He is supposed to be powerful. And how the hell are we supposed to know if He is powerful if He is not irrisistably compelling? At that point, what is the difference between the Holy Spirit and the “burning in the bosom” or logic or a dose of LSD? LSD is irresistibly compelling, so they say. I would hope the Holy Spirit would be at least that powerful.
If the Holy Spirit is – at the most – equally powerful as:
* a good argument
* a good kegger (it is ironic that Paul admits that alcohol is equally as powerful as the spirit, no?)
* a dose of LCD
[Notice all of the above are physical phenomena]
why would I conclude the Holy Spirit is God and not just the combination of some psychological tricks?
~
This is the absolute beauty of the invention of the Holy Spirit: it is sublime. No soul can ever tell whether He has been at work or not. Even the Apostle John pointed that out in John 3. The idea is quite simple: if the Holy Spirit is like a wind (unpredictable), nobody can ever fault it. Nobody can ever say where it has been or where it has not. It’s a mystery even to Christians.
Did Jonny die last week because he took of the bread and the wine in an unworthy manner? Nobody knows. But God knows.
~
One of the greatest inventions, in my opinion, was the conclusion that sign gifts have ceased. It is perfect: elegantly “designed” (I put that in quotes because I don’t think Christians consciously realized what they were doing).
If the greatest evidence for a Holy Spirit no longer exists: miracles; then this means Christians never have to defend their faith with actual powerful experiences. They can just appeal to what happened a long time ago and is recorded in their book.
No more Elijah moments, which means the Christian can lambast someone for not believing and at the same time feel justified with shitty arguments.
And then they can say that “you wouldn’t believe anyway even if a miracle was performed”.
It is absolutely brilliant.
Sublime.
The unbeliever wants evidence. The Christian says there is “plenty” of evidence. The unbeliever says to demonstrate the presence of the Holy Spirit (which is a smart question, considering Christians themselves teach regularly to test the spirits). The Christian avoids the point by claiming that if the unbeliever does not believe without miracles, he would not believe with them.
*zing*!
And then the Christian probably says something about how you test the spirit by checking the theology or teaching of the person who claims to have the Holy Spirit. [Because - after all - the devil can do miracles too.] If the theology or teaching matches the Bible, then they are speaking the truth (i.e. they most likely have the Holy Spirit).
But you guys cannot agree on interpretations. Damn. So you will not do miracles (conveniently) and you cannot even agree on your back-up plan: proper understanding of Scripture. But if the Holy Spirit actually exists, one would hope that He would be using His magic powers at least a little bit to help you guys interpret the Bible.
Except…
There is a direct correlation between how much super power the Holy Spirit uses in helping the believer interpret Scripture and how much effort the Christian puts into studying the Bible.
So…
The Holy Spirit is no more powerful than the Christian’s ability to study hermeneutics, theology, and apologetics?
Can I get a completely respectful, but elegantly tactful, “what the fuck?”
~
This is why I feel completely justified in ignoring almost every single Christian intellectual argument. I do not care how intelligent it is. Because if a super intelligent argument is required where the Holy Spirit’s powerful presence would suffice, this only becomes more evidence to me that Christianity is just a really intelligent thought system and nothing more.
And I’m the one who avoids logos reasoning?
Haha, I went back while you were posting your comment, Doug :)
If you want me to lay out the logic step-by-step, I will.
Doug, let me just wrap up this post with one simple question:
Given the fact that many deceiving spirits have gone out in the world and believers themselves are supposed to test the spirits, will you demonstrate to me that you indeed have the Holy Spirit?
Note: if your demonstration is no more compelling than a psychic or Alcoholics Anonymous, I will just conclude that your “Holy Spirit” is using the same tactics as well.
Am I asking for too much, where eternity is at stake and Paul himself advised believers to avoid empty philosophy?
“Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.”
Oh Doug, that verse cracks me up :)
AFAIK, every single sect and cult of Christianity since the gnostic period admits that.
They have to or else they violate the verse.
I believe Jesus Christ came in the flesh (meaning that I believe He was not just spirit). Do I have the Spirit of God?
Not to mention that quoting a verse is something any deceiving spirit could do…
~
According to Paul, if a person says “Jesus is Lord”, they have the Spirit of God. For years, I said “Jesus is Lord”.
Yet supposedly I was “never saved in the first place”.
Neither one is much of a test, in my opinion. Unless you live in the first century and buy into that type of stuff.
~
Anyone see a table I can use? I’m trying to figure out where to rest my case…
Addendum:
Let me post-fix my comments by saying that I once honestly and truly believed in Christianity, and I do know that my attitude probably sounds degrading and inconsiderate; but while at the same time I understand all the hopes and fears associated with being in the faith and the panic that can be associated with leaving, I also understand the freedom and joy that comes from breaking the surface and finally getting the breath of fresh air that comes from discovering how it all “works”.
I hope my Christian readers will also be able to experience this moment that in many ways feels just like the born-again experience (but can be explained in an entirely physical way). It is like a light finally turns on and the world suddenly makes ten times more sense. It’s great.
And yes, I know this comment oozes pathos. But if Christians are allowed a double-edged sword, why can’t we?
Okay, I guess I sort of walked into that one. I take it you were setting me up in your boldface letters to quote 1 John 4:2, which you consider to be one of your classic “gotcha” verses. Very nice. Very nice indeed. I’d like to point out a few things about this, however.
First, 1 John is a textbook example of a book that must be read in its entirety. The brief saying in it must be tempered against other brief sayings and measured in light of them. And so, when John says that “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,” it must be read in light of the following statement, “And every spirit that does not confess Jesus (notice the lack of the content marker, “that”) is not from God.” So even this verse alone cannot mean that all one simply must do to be saved is think or even say that Jesus Christ is a human being. This is certainly not a sustainable interpretation in light of the other Johanine corpus, and it isn’t even sustainable in light of the second clause of the verse, because “confessing Jesus” obviously has to do with a bigger affirmation than the one hinted at in the first clause. In addition, consider 4:15, where he says, “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” Of course, you’ll probably accuse me here of twisting Scripture to mean what I want it to mean, but again, it is the interpretation not only of words but clauses, and not only of clauses, but clauses in context that counts. How do you support your interpretation of 4:2 in light of verse 4:15, Josh?
Second, in light of other Johanine teaching, 4:2 is clearly a “minimal requirement”—not something that indicates whether one has the indwelling, saving Spirit of God, but rather whether one has the “spirit”—in a less theological sense of the word—of the particular Christological heresy John is addressing here.
As for Paul, he makes a comment about the confession, “Jesus is Lord,” twice: Rom 10:9 and 1 Cor 12:3. In the first, it is coupled with the requirement that one believe in their heart that God raised him from the dead. In the second, he is obviously, in light of the theology that Paul is famous for, not saying that all one has to do is say a certain set of words to have the Spirit of God. I mean, technically, anyone reading 1 Corinthians out loud (as the churches surely did) uttered the phrase, “Jesus is accursed!” Would that mean that such a person was not speaking in the Spirit of God? What Paul not writing in the Spirit of God when he penned the letter (at least, did he believe he was)? But no one can reasonably claim that all Paul is saying that it is the sequence of these specific words that confirms whether one has the Spirit of God. These are confessions of life and worship, an entire disposition of the heart. Remember, a text without a context becomes a pretext for a prooftext! And that is exactly what you are resorting to: Prooftexting to try to come up with gotcha verses. This is what you did with the Jesus/false prophet argument, and this is what you are doing here.
The very fact that this is the kind of argument you are resorting to is confirmation to me that you are for some reason either unable or unable to grapple with substantive issues. If these arguments (which sound like the type that someone would pull off of a “prove the Bible wrong” website) are truly your reasons for abandoning your Christian faith, then I suppose that’s your business. I just pray that no one is foolish enough to follow you.
“I take it you were setting me up in your boldface letters to quote 1 John 4:2, which you consider to be one of your classic “gotcha” verses.”
Actually, I wasn’t. I had no clue you would quote that verse.
I’m telling you, I’ve thought this all through Doug. I’ve never once been surprised by a response from a Christian.
I did not give up the faith easily.
“First, 1 John is a textbook example of a book that must be read in its entirety… ”
Sigh.
I don’t care about hermeneutics Doug (at least in this instance). To start using is just completely beside the point. Well, actually, it just makes my point even more clear. If a person can’t take the plain meaning of the Bible, it is insufficient. If a person has to add on all sorts of training and hermeneutical study methods which were not invented until the last couple hundred years and commentaries which men invented etc. etc., then the Bible is most definitely insufficient. And who wants an insufficient Word from God?
Doug, where’s the Holy Spirit? You are beating around the bush and ignoring my question for you to demonstrate that you have the Holy Spirit. I don’t care what you believe, because then I’ll just tell you I believed the same thing. And we both know that I don’t have the Holy Spirit :) That would put your claim to believe those things in question too. Hell, even the demons believe, right?
“The very fact that this is the kind of argument you are resorting to is confirmation to me that you are for some reason either unable or unable to grapple with substantive issues.”
The very fact that you are resorting to argument is confirmation to me that you do not have the Holy Spirit and instead are leaning upon the wisdom of men.
Doug, where’s the Holy Spirit?
“I just pray that no one is foolish enough to follow you.”
Bingo :)
Like I said, you always end up resorting to moral accusations. I love it, just love it. Like clockwork.
http://de-conversion.com/2007/07/03/dont-ask-me-to-read-your-holy-book/circular-reasoning/
Because this is what you are doing :) Of course, I am sure you will accuse me of the same… although I tend to notice that we go through a big loop rather regularly whenever I have these discussions with you in particular. It does so get old.
~
Doug, I know you have probably made me your personal ministry project and have lots of people praying for me and everything. That’s cool and everything. I would have done the same thing when I was a Christian.
But you seriously need to sit down and just chill for a while and think about this a little bit.
Let me guess: you desperately want to find out “where I went wrong”. Trust me, I did that over and over and over with atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins and Barker and god-knows who else. I could see small errors in their thinking or what they said and at first it was fun to find the stuff. Somehow I had convinced myself so much that they had “gone wrong” that any tiny mistake they made became evidence of their error. Sadly, I did not apply the same critique to my own behavior or thinking. At least not at that time.
And personally, I think you are doing that right now. Your level of criticism of me is far above the level of criticism you give yourself. Not necessarily academically, but when it comes to your own beliefs, that is what I see. I do not see this as “wrong”, per se. Everyone does it.
Just to clear things up, for about the last half a dozen or so posts I’ve been basically getting bored and have been putting very little – if any – effort into trying to be strictly logical. Partly it is because I do not even need to know what you are going to say next, because nothing you say ever surprises me in the least. I’ve already thought about it all. I really have. I’m being serious. Perhaps not to the academic level you have, but that is because I realized really early on that just because something is deeply academic does not mean it is true. It takes a ton of energy to rehash everything I thought through last year. I’ve already thought about it – intensely – for hour after agonizing hour, trying to figure it all out until my head hurt and I couldn’t sleep at night. The mind sees a potential threat and it works overtime to resolve the threat until the person reaches a sense of safety.
I’ve reached a sense of safety, and personally, I have men like you to thank for it. Because every time I discuss these things with Christians I become more firmly convinced that Christianity is indeed one big loop of circular reasoning. Just for some people – like you – the loop is much bigger.
But adding to the circular reasoning loop does not make it stronger: it just makes it harder to spot.
Sorry, I can spot it and once I do, I just lose a lot of interest.
The things I say are a potential threat to your faith and life and family and all the things you hold dear. It makes sense that you would want to defend that. Complete sense. It also makes sense that you would want to be a ministry to me, because you “see” threats to me (hell, rejection by God, God’s wrath, sinful nature, demonic forces, etc.) of which I seem completely oblivious. Or, to paraphrase what you said: “foolish” to ignore.
But I am not oblivious. And I have not been foolish. A fool is a person who carelessly ignores a grave danger. Trust me, I know there is great danger if I am wrong. (I might end up in the Catholic hell!)
Last year I woke up in a nightmare, terrified that I was demon possessed. I almost screamed at the top of my lungs as if a demon was coming out of my chest. If I only told you this much, you might conclude I was indeed demon possessed. Stories like this generally spread in the church as evidence of existence of the spiritual realm.
Then I stopped myself from screaming. Why? Because I didn’t want to wake the neighbors. And I realized all in a moment that if I had the self-control to keep myself from screaming, I could not be possessed. Possessed people are supposed to be oblivious and out of control, for starters. But secondly, it made more sense to say that if I believed I was possessed, I would probably act like it. Right? Watch some videos of demon possessed people on YouTube to see this in action (I watched dozens last year trying to find any evidence for the existence of demons).
Does this mean that demons do not exist? Of course not. Just because someone can mimic demons does not mean they could not exist.
But then that opens pandora’s box. What about ghosts, goblins, warlocks, seances, channeling, psychics, necromancy, vampires, UFO’s, new age healing methods, etc.? Are these things real too?
So how could we determine which ones are real or not?
We know that a person’s beliefs influence their feelings and their behavior.
So the answer to the riddle is to do some placebo tests.
So I have been basically applying the placebo test to every Christian I meet. I want to see if there is the possibility of something genuinely different between Christians and the rest of the world that cannot be chalked up solely to a difference in beliefs (which is the sole hallmark of the placebo).
I have not found it yet. Even you continue to resort back to “well, I believe”. You have to, because that is what it is: faith. Faith is belief in something not seen. You just believe. Sure you can have all sorts of cool arguments and stuff, but in the end you just believe. After all, if you had a solid proof, it would no longer be faith.
To me, this is nothing more than the placebo effect in action. You believe something. It influences your behavior and your feelings.
So I ask the question again: where is the Holy Spirit? How do I know the entire concept is nothing more than the placebo effect in action?
There has to be something more than just beliefs or from my perspective there is no difference between Christianity and a sugar pill. I’m sorry, but that is just the way I see it.
I know the terror and fear associated with the potential that Christianity is correct and a person who rejects it is going to suffer. But I also know that potential of error within the faith is just as large. A person can claim to believe and still go to hell (demons believe). A person can think they believe and still go to hell. A person can believe as strong as you believe and still go to hell – because they believe the wrong things.
Doug, accepting what you believe would actually leave me in terror that I was not quite believing things rightly.
After quite a bit of agony with this one issue (can you believe there is yet another completely separate line of reasoning for why I rejected the faith that we have not even touched upon?) I realized that it all was quite silly. Hell was better described as an invention of men, which they used as a tool to manipulate others. You, as a historian, know that in the first century the concept of hell was used as a tool for copyrighting books. Why could it not just be an invented tool to manipulate men in religions too?
It works well enough for cults. Why not for Christianity?
So, you call me foolish.
But is it foolish to reject a potential threat that looks to be invented by men for control of others from a group of people who appear to victims of the placebo effect?
To be honest, it seems more foolish to accept it now that I am out. But in all honesty, I understand. I do not think you are a fool.
Given the information you have and the threats of which you are aware, you are making a wise decision.
I am just trying to show you that it is an illusion. You seem unable to demonstrate that it is not. That is a hallmark that it is.
Josh,
I’m not sure why it’s so important for you to find empirical evidence for the Holy Spirit. When we investigate something, we cannot pick what pieces of evidence we are going to find and which we are not. A juror cannot say he will not believe a defendant is guilty unless the prosecution produces dna evidence. A scientist cannot say he will not believe in black holes unless someone can produce a video of something going into one. We cannot choose what pieces of evidence we have. Don’t you see that this is what you are doing?
Nor do I understand why this quest for the Holy Spirit has so thoroughly eclipsed every thing else for you that you feel that you no longer have to pay attention to what the verses you quote actually mean, nor to other arguments that properly belong on the table during this kind of discussion. If you say you are not interested in talking about this stuff until I can give you a picture of the Holy Spirit, then I guess this is where I will have to respectfully bow out of this conversation. I hope you find what you’re looking for.
“I’m not sure why it’s so important for you to find empirical evidence for the Holy Spirit.”
Not true. You don’t get it.
“When we investigate something, we cannot pick what pieces of evidence we are going to find and which we are not.”
Then why not believe anything? You just don’t get it.
“A juror cannot say he will not believe a defendant is guilty unless the prosecution produces dna evidence. ”
What the fuck does a jury have to do with this? Bad analogy.
“A scientist cannot say he will not believe in black holes unless someone can produce a video of something going into one. ”
Dude, if this is the best you can do, you don’t understand science.
“We cannot choose what pieces of evidence we have.”
Duh?
“Don’t you see that this is what you are doing? ”
Um, no. I don’t believe in UFO’s, I don’t believe in ghosts, I don’t believe in spirits, I don’t believe in necromancy, and I don’t believe in your damn Holy Spirit.
Does that make sense?
“Nor do I understand why this quest for the Holy Spirit has so thoroughly eclipsed every thing else for you that you feel that you no longer have to pay attention to what the verses you quote actually mean”
This is NOT true! You keep misjudging me over and over and over and not getting the point. STOP IT!
“if you say you are not interested in talking about this stuff until I can give you a picture of the Holy Spirit”
You do NOT get it AT ALL.
“I guess this is where I will have to respectfully bow out of this conversation. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
Good riddance. Thank God you are finally leaving.
I know that nobody is paying attention to this argument anymore, but I have to just say my piece or I’m going to explode.
It took Doug a good 3 months to finally figure out my argument regarding the inconsistencies within the church, at which point he says:
“I am a bit sympathetic, however, with what you are saying because I understand that when we throw the Holy Spirit in the mix, who is supposed to lead us into “all truth,” it does constitute somewhat of an argument to ask why then we do not experience complete unanimity. And so I do feel the force of your argument.”
3 months. And that was after a huge break, and I finally had to have Doug repeat back to me my own argument, at which point it was obvious he did not ever understand what I was saying. Quite frankly, he still does not understand it, because I am not asking for “complete unanimity”. I never have. I wouldn’t expect it – even though I could ask for it given that verse.
Doug keeps assuming over and over that I’m asking for perfection. I am not. Never have. It is driving me crazy that he keeps assuming that.
And Doug, you are just doing it again… I’m not going to wait 3 months for you to figure this stuff out every single time I present one of my dozens of arguments. This could take 5 – 10 years at that rate…
Good luck.
He cannot “get it” Josh. He’s too invested in the cognitive dissonance, the circular reasoning, the presuppositionalism, and all the other self deceptions that you and I were in for so long.
Worse yet, he’s making his living from it. So he’s financially as well as emotionally and socially invested in it.
One of the major points of the original article was that it is VERY hard for the truth to get through to serious, committed believers. (And as we well know it never gets through to most of them.)
To leave one’s livelihood and thus put one’s home, family, friendships, etc all on the line just for truth when a fantasy pays well is damned hard. Not to mention incomprehensibly frightening.
Thanks Leo, I “know” that, but its hard. I’m glad the original point of my argument hits home even after all the ramblings :)
Which, ironic as it seems, I find it funny that the only person who still regularly debates me is a person who gets paid to teach this stuff. I don’t get paid anything. I’m not even making money off of advertising. I have gained basically nothing except a sense of freedom by leaving the church, so it is not like I am going to lose much if Doug is right. Quite frankly, if Doug is right then I stand to gain everything. I’ll get my family back, my old friends back, my old life back (everything I knew), and my education at Moody will actually mean something.
*sigh*
It boggles my mind that Christianity teaches to take the narrow road. I took the narrowest road available to me and now the people “persecuting” (I’m not vain enough to really call it that) me are the very Christians who taught to go against the flow…
That actually brings up a question if you don’t mind. What are you pursuing for a living/education now?
You’ve certainly got the mind for science. Your writings indicate that you’d be a good teacher, or a writer of some sort.
Just curious.
Well, right now I am a software engineer. I’ve been doing it as a hobby / work for about 14 years now and it is doing me just fine.
Although I still don’t have my degree because I decided to drop out of Moody. I’ve got 4.5 years of school (2 years of a “secular” education including an Associates Degree, and 2.5 years worth of Bible school). Honestly, I’m sortof scratching my head as to where to go next. I’m pretty interested in genetics, but I don’t know if I want to quit the software engineering and potentially “get behind” so that I can pursue finishing a completely unrelated degree.
I would finish the software engineering degree, but at this point all my bosses keep telling me that getting a degree would not get me a raise.
Night classes are an option, but I probably would not start them until next year.
Thanks for asking! What are you doing these days, LeoPardus?
Ugh, anyway,
THANK YOU, Bonita and Leopardus for your comments. I do apologize for not interacting more directly with you two. A common theme of my discussion with Doug is that they end up being us two going at it and I tend to make the mistake of ignoring everything else out of frustration. That is something I am working on :)
Thank you as well, Doug, for taking the time to respond. Sorry I normally end up just getting pissed off. And no, I don’t get pissed off because you have good arguments. I get pissed off because you don’t understand mine but presume you do and then end up calling me a fool or some such nonsense. Quite frankly, I don’t read half the things you write because within the first few sentences I can tell you did not get what I am saying. And if you are not willing to take the time to understand my objections, I do not see much of a reason to take tons of time to read your unrelated responses – no matter how intelligent. And Doug, you are intelligent and insightful, etc. etc. but I just want to be understood FIRST before you respond. I am not as dumb as you sometimes make me out to be. The core of my argument is that it does not matter how smart or detailed you are, if your core premise is bunk, then any argument built upon that premise is bunk too. Sadly, you cannot see that it is circular to start with the concept that the Holy Spirit inspired the Bible and then take arguments in the Bible to defend the existence of the Holy Spirit. Oh well – at the end of the day I guess that’s all you’ve got.
Wish you all the best week! I’m sure I will see you all around as I continue writing.
Your computer expertise would actually make a very good fit with genetics. Throw a strong mathematics background in too and you’d be golden. You’re young. You’ve got lots of time. Work on it a bit at a time and you’ll get there. (FWIW, I didn’t finish until I was 32. I generally recommend folks being a bit quicker than that but…..)
I was a lab rat for years. Did research in immunology, cancer biology, and some other stuff. Finally landed in a medical writing job. It’s a great fit for me as it uses my education background and my science background, and it indulges my love of just learning all sorts of stuff.
On your rant about understanding: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” It’s a great principle but it doesn’t apply if the other guy is just wrong.
Doug- to sum up in laymen’s terms what your saying, your argument for God are—
1) Cause and effect- big bang happend it’s not describable so God must of done it.
2) People have a common stance on morality
3) Order
Regarding all of your arguments first about the cause and effect- “who made God”???
Next a common morality- so if we all have this and it’s connected to God why do we need a Jesus? And how do we know the muslims aren’t right- they believe most of the same things as christians? Just christians have a get out of jail free card- that in the end doesn’t matter anyway because of the few inpardonable sins like someone divorcing outside the biblical guideline and than marrying and going to hell b/c- adulterors don’t enter the kingdom.
Finally the order we see in the Universe- I believe things just are- I don’t know how they got there. I’m okay with the idea of possibly energy- but I don’t believe their is some divine being that consciously put everything in order. Could everything have just been or evolved from billions of years of floating in space and just little by little fell in place much like other things we see in nature- animals evolving and adapting- water and salt crystallizing in caves making beautiful crystals.
“It makes sense that a morally good God who is omnipotent would create a world in which he desires his creatures to perform moral good. Yet to create a universe in which both natural and moral evil do not exist would be to deprive them of this. In other words, in order for beings the act in ways that demonstrate freely-chosen love, heroism, virtue, altruism, and self-sacrifice—all things which are better to demonstrate than not to—God must create a world in which moral and natural evil exist.”
So are you saying “god” the one you believe in is also evil? He wants evil to exist? Is he going to hell also? Hello- this doesn’t sound good at all- honostly it’s quite contradicting to all I’ve heard and been taught regarding God- doesn’t Jesus say- be holy as my father is holy- I’m paraphrasing.
Sounds much like either taoism or confuicism- where good and evil balance things out- I can’t remember which one has that belief.
Also regarding the inspiration of the Bible- at what time was it inspired in your opinion and which books. You as a professor know that the Bible in it’s completeness as we have it today is the compilation of various books, letters, poems, and profetic books that were all voted into the Bible at on point by the catholic church- and I’m not sure when but I’m assuming it was revised by the protestants and that’s why the prostestant church now lacks books such as- Maccubes- Tobit- and the Apocrafa- might be miss spelled can’t remember the word in english- also not sure if you know this but the church of ethiopia has an extra gospel that they accept in their Bible- I thought Satan was the one who makes all confusion- these people don’t seem to hear that “Holy Spirit” too well or they’d at least agree upon the books.
So which Bible is inspired? Or are you talking about individual books?
Bonita,
Glad to see you posting on here again. Unfortunately, things got a bit too heated with Josh in the day or so intervening between my response and your counter-response–probably much more so than if we were talking face to face. I consider Josh a friend, and I think he still considers me a friend, but the fact of the matter is that we just do not see eye to eye on these things. What one of us finds plausible the other does not, and so it ends as it usually does–we agree to disagree.
I’d like to show Josh the respect that I do owe him and not use his website as a conversation board between you and me. But I am interested in continuing our conversation, and responding to your points, if you like (as well as hearing more of your responses to mine). If so, please send me an email at w i t t e n b e r g d o o r @ h o t m a i l . c o m . This invitation goes for Leo and Josh as well. I look forward to hearing from you, but if not, I also understand.
Josh, Leo, and Bonita, take care,
Doug
“What one of us finds plausible the other does not, and so it ends as it usually does–we agree to disagree.”
This comment just makes Christianity look all the more silly given that debates end up in stalemates. Where’s the Holy Spirit? Hmmm… Christianity is only as powerful as a logical argument when it comes to us intelligent folk – and even then we don’t listen. Apparently the Holy Spirit only works on the gullible. I’m hoping at least Leo will see the irony behind your unconscious, subtle confession :)
“and I think he still considers me a friend”
Not really any more, you are kind of an arrogant asshole after a while. Your condescension gets really annoying, which is one reason I have not gotten together with you lately. It drives me crazy that you absolutely refuse to understand what I am saying before you try to critique it. And for this reason, Bonita, I highly recommend you do not email Doug. You will probably regret it. I have.
Especially do not email Doug to talk about ancient documents and inspiration. It will drive you mad. Primarily because Doug has mostly studied one side of the argument and will recommend commentary after commentary and constantly tell you that you need to research the “latest” Christian research on the subject, and completely miss the simple argument that if modern Christian research is needed to understand the Bible then it is pointless to say it was inspired 2000 years ago. What’s the point of an ancient inspired document that nobody can understand without modern uninspired commentaries? Doug has never understood this despite the countless hours I spent trying to get him to see it. You will almost want to tear your eyes out. Trust me. Its a simple argument and he still does not get it.
Oh, and Doug, I’m going to hide your email… not because I don’t want people emailing you, but because I don’t want you to get spam bombed by all the bots that search these blogs for those types of things. Although I suppose it won’t matter because its a hotmail account and those get spam-bombed anyway.
Ok Doug, I didn’t hide your email, I just spaced it out.
Email Doug at your own risk folks… he has the Holy Spirit!
Josh,
I’m sorry you feel that way. I just want to have an honest dialogue. I am not trying to sound arrogant or condescending.
Trust me buddy, I know you are not “trying to”. Your beliefs imply that you must.
See if you can figure out what I mean by that on your own. I’m tired of trying to explain things.
Where’s the Holy Spirit? Hmmm… Christianity is only as powerful as a logical argument when it comes to us intelligent folk – and even then we don’t listen. Apparently the Holy Spirit only works on the gullible.
Yappers. A thought I’ve tried to hand to some Christians is this: Can you imagine Paul, or Peter, or Elijah offering up the lame crap that comes from modern apologists? No. They did sometimes offer arguments (e.g., Mars Hill), but as Paul said, they came not just with words, but with power. They could back up their talk with a healing or some such. Jesus even said, “Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.”
So what can the Holy Spirit do nowadays? NADA! ZIP! ZILCH! ZERO! All we get is lame-ass apologists. There’s certainly nothing godlike in that.
And will Doug or any other theist understand that? Not a chance. They’ll actually offer up more lame-ass apologetics.
not just with words, but with power
That was all I was asking of Doug. Seems so simple, but when Christians are cornered it is so much easier to invent a super complicated argument to justify error.
Doug, where’s the power? All I see are words.
Hey guys,
Just dropped in to see what’s been said. Josh, I must say that your personal comments about me last night hurt me deeply. For the first time in a long time I actually could not sleep because I have such regret that I have hurt you so deeply that you would deny my hand of friendship. So I’d like to say that I am sorry if I’ve spoken in a way that has offended you.
I see that you are both now very committed to your points regarding the Holy Spirit. I do not deny that people experience the Holy Spirit and that it is real. I ground my beliefs in my own reasons for trusting the Bible as the word of God and my own experience as well. Yet I do not use arguments from personal experience in my dialogues because it is impossible to verify whether such experiences are veridical. The same is true for experiences of answered prayer, which certainly have value for those who are effected by them, but are often very difficult to verify. As I said before, I acknowledge that this argument has some force, but I do not think that it is a strong enough argument to render other considerations null and void.
This goes back to what I was saying about the fact that some people just find some things more plausible than others. It sounds like what you are saying is that there is no need to discuss other issues, because lack of irrefutable empirical evidence is for the work of the Holy Spirit constitutes such a strong argument against Christian theism that it cannot be true, even if its truthfulness can be demonstrated on other grounds. For me, this is just not the case. I am willing to consider that the thesis, although perhaps not demonstrable on these grounds, may be demonstrable on other grounds. I don’t think there’s anything objectionable or condescending about this.
And Josh, I read every word you write to try to understand what you’re saying. You admit to not reading much of mine. So the next time you think I’m misunderstanding you, don’t get mad. Just show me.
Doug gives extremely long, complicated argument based on a simple premise.
Josh identifies the premise and shows it has a fault and then refuses to read the rest of Doug’s long, complicated arguments based on that premise.
If Doug would show Josh that the premise is true without appealing to the details or circular reasoning, Josh would then pay attention to the many fine details Doug likes to present.
For example, you cannot quote the Scripture as inspired, inerrant material when I ask you to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit exists, because the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture is dependent upon the existence of the Holy Spirit. That is circular reasoning.
Can you do it?
You cannot make a circular argument valid by increasing its complexity. Does that make sense?
Let us start very simple, with clean, neat arguments that do not depend on details. Details come later *once we have determined what type of evidence will suffice to resolve the issue*.
A forensics expert does not gather all the data and start mashing it together. The forensic expert figures out what to look for first to determine whether a hypothesis is correct or false.
Help me Doug. What sort of evidence should I look for to determine whether the Holy Spirit exists or not? Keep in mind, the existence of the Holy Spirit must be falsifiable (a claim that is not falsifiable cannot be true). If we cannot find the evidence, you need to reject Christianity. If we do find the evidence, I accept Christianity. That is the only way it would be honest and fair.
This is also the only way I could think of that one can genuinely follow the Golden Rule in argument.
We first have to agree to a set of premises to start the test.
These are the premises I propose:
P1 The physical universe exists
P2 Men interact with the physical universal through their physical senses
P3 If a spiritual realm in the Christian tradition exists, it interacts with this physical universe.
Ergo
We can test the interaction between the spiritual realm and the physical universe with our physical senses.
[Note: I must at this point clearly iterate that the Bible is a part of the physical universe and could easily be invented by men, so it cannot be appealed to as a genuine trustworthy source when it comes to the spiritual realm, because we are still trying to establish that premise and that would be circular reasoning.]
Let’s start there. Do you agree with these three premises?
Hmmmm…… let’s look again.
In the Bible a person wants proof of God, or God’s will, or some such. Far more often than not, the person gets a wet/dry fleece, fire from heaven, tongues, knocked off his ass/donkey, booming voices, prophecies, healings, and so on and on and on.
Outside the Bible a person want proof of God’s existence, will, power, etc. Without fail they get an apologist explaining why God never gives any obvious signs.
Somehow that second situation is entirely not satisfactory.
On a personal level scrapping argument, Doug I’m sorry to have hurt you. A lot of that extends from the pain I felt in the church (edit: that is not excuse for hurting you, but bear with me…). So often I would go to church leaders and with massive pain in my heart ask them questions that were causing me to be depressed and terrified almost to a suicidal point.
In most cases I was just accused of being arrogant, of not having faith, or in other cases my salvation was questioned (lot of help that did). That only made me feel worse and more determined to figure things out. How could the holy spirit be speaking through responses that did almost nothing to help me? It was pretty rough.
Sorry for taking some of that out on you. And FTR, you are about 1 in a group of 100-200 people I don’t really want to be friends with quite yet, so don’t take it personally :) Although now with your apology I’m warming to you again…
It’s hard for me right now to be friends with people whose belief system teaches them to start their interaction with me by assuming I am a foolish, depraved liar and who worship a deity they believe is going to send me to an eternity in hell. Not exactly a great place to start a friendship. I also have conversionphobia when around Christians and wonder how many of them want to primarily be friends not because they genuinely like me and want to listen but just because they feel sorry for me and want me to come to Jesus.
But maybe I am taking it too seriously.
So… if someone wants to talk me back into Christianity, they will have to come onto my turf and reason me out of it. Problem is, I haven’t met a Christian who isn’t scared to death of coming onto my turf. There is something about walking in another man’s shoes, though…
Josh,
I appreciate your last post, thanks for understanding. On a personal level, I think you’re a cool guy. I too like video games (though the wife won’t let me play them because I become insanely addicted) and beer (which I can finally drink since I am finished teaching at Moody!). Of course, common ground extends to more than this, but I’ve always enjoyed your company and conversation. You were a pleasure to have as a student, and the time I spent over sushi with you is one of my fondest memories in recent times that I would not wish to trade. I prefer to think about laughing with you over how funny it would be to Rick Roll my students, than to think of heated arguments where we’ve come across in ways that have been less than charitable. So while we may disagree profoundly on certain questions, I mean nothing but respect and acceptance for you as a person. And Leo—although I don’t really know you, the same goes for you.
Now on to the discussion at hand. I’d like to first address something you wrote:
“What sort of evidence should I look for to determine whether the Holy Spirit exists or not? Keep in mind, the existence of the Holy Spirit must be falsifiable (a claim that is not falsifiable cannot be true). If we cannot find the evidence, you need to reject Christianity. If we do find the evidence, I accept Christianity. That is the only way it would be honest and fair.”
If the presence of the Holy Spirit were the only way to demonstrate the truthfulness of Christianity, I would agree with you completely. But it is not, in fact, the only way to demonstrate the truthfulness of Christianity. A proposition may be improbable or undemonstrable given a certain line of evidence (or lack thereof), but that does not mean it is false. That is because this proposition may indeed be probable on another line of reasoning. Let me be clear that what I mean by “the proposition” is not “the Holy Spirit exists.” If that is what you are requiring here, then we are not on the same page. What I mean by “the proposition,” is “Christian theism is true.” The existence of the Holy Spirit is a part of this, and it is reasonable to believe in, given the force of the argument for Christian theism in general. Consider the following two statements:
A1 If the Holy Spirit exists, then the Bible is true.
A2 If the Bible is true, the Holy Spirit exists.
A1 is obviously false, but A2 is obviously true. My approach is to use A2 to argue the case. You may not be interested in that right now, but even if the Holy Spirit’s existence cannot be demonstrated apart from Scripture, it does not follow that it does not exist, given A2. That is my position.
Another point I’d quickly like to make before addressing the premises with which you presented me is that I disagree with your statement, that “A claim that is not falsifiable cannot be true.” This is more of a guideline for science than a law of logic. For example, if I tell you that I had eggs for lunch yesterday, this claim is unfalsifiable, but it is also true. You may claim your right to not believe in it without sufficient evidence, and that would be fine. But in the case of the Holy Spirit and Christian theism, there is more than one way to address this issue. I am referring to A2 above.
For the sake of where we are now in our conversation, I will try to address the argument you have given.
Here are your premises:
P1 The physical universe exists
P2 Men interact with the physical universal through their physical senses
P3 If a spiritual realm in the Christian tradition exists, it interacts with this physical universe.
Yes, I agree with all three of these. But the third one I think needs qualification (the second can be qualified too, but that may be unnecessarily pedantic on my part). It is true that the spiritual realm “interacts” with the physical universe. But the point I would stress at this juncture is that we cannot presume to know how this happens, and in what way this happens. If we are discussing the question of the spiritual realm in reference to Christian theism, we need to establish exactly what Christian theism claims about this interaction. And for that, we need to turn to the Bible—not as an appeal to it to “prove” anything, but to establish what exactly it is that the Bible tells us about it. If what the Bible tells us about the spiritual realm can be shown to be false, then you have a good argument. But if it not, then you not. Do you follow?
if someone wants to talk me back into Christianity, they will have to come onto my turf and reason me out of it.
My take:
If someone wants to talk me back into Christianity, they can forget it.
If they want me back in the faith, they will have to actually come up with a real deity. A product of their imagination will NOT do.
“If the presence of the Holy Spirit were the only way to demonstrate the truthfulness of Christianity, I would agree with you completely.”
I honestly don’t think this makes any sense at all. I’ll just stop there.
“My approach is to use A2 to argue the case.”
You cannot “prove” the Bible false. A smart person can invent a harmony. So I am not sure how this will get us anywhere.
I mean, the problem is that if the Holy Spirit exists, I would like to see consistency in the harmonies.
But when two Christians agree that a harmony exists between two “seemingly” contradictory passages, but they have two different interpretations on what that harmony is, I conclude:
a) The Holy Spirit does not exist (because He is not enlightening them to the same solution)
b) It is silly to call the Bible the “Word of God” because interpretation is subject to the reader.
All I see is a man reading a book and interpreting it according to what he knows. Nothing divine taking place at all. That’s why I keep coming back to the core question: where is the Holy Spirit?
I know where your arguments are going, Doug. I’ve been there, around and around, and it comes down to that core question.
[All I am doing is making the assumption that if the Holy Spirit exists, there will be some undeniable interaction with the physical realm. I don't see it.]
So, since we cannot trust our own interpretation to be accurate, and the results of the Holy Spirit’s enlightening our minds to the Scripture are contradictory, what is the point of saying the textual source is inerrant?
It would fit the data better to say the Holy Spirit does not exist and the Bible is not inspired, but men believe it is and out of self-preservation they defend it by inventing harmonies so that their god cannot be attacked.
Let me give another example of test I applied.
When I was writing my notes last year on Facebook, I was doing a test. My assumption was that if Christians were right, I would see:
a) agreement that I was wrong
b) agreement among Christians on what was right (assuming the Holy Spirit actually indwells them)
Responses from Christians all fit (a), but they were extremely incongruent on (b). Christians were all over the map.
At that point I had a dilemma. I didn’t know where to go.
If Christian A and Christian B both have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is stronger than both of them, and they are both lead to tell me I am wrong, but the Christians tell me contradictory things, I have to conclude there is no unifier between them except a tertiary belief.
So in a way, every response I get from a Christian only becomes more proof to me that there is no Holy Spirit amongst them. Instead, it becomes proof that men unite around common beliefs. That’s all.
“It is true that the spiritual realm “interacts” with the physical universe. But the point I would stress at this juncture is that we cannot presume to know how this happens, and in what way this happens.”
But Doug, what would you do if you lived in first century Israel and a greek-god worshipping fellow came up to you and said the exact same thing:
“It is true that the greek gods ‘interact’ with the physical universe. But the point I would stress at this juncture is that we cannot presume to know how this happens, and in what way this happens.”
How would you argue with the man that his Greek gods are only in his head? He allows no hook for his position to be falsified.
…
You see the problem with what you are saying?
That argument gives a free pass to just about anyone who wants to believe in any form of metaphysical reality.
Yet you presume to know *which* metaphysical reality is the accurate one. I just want you to demonstrate the selection process you went through to determine which one is accurate.
The only way to narrow the process down is to presume that the metaphysical reality interacts with the physical reality, note which metaphysical model the interaction matches, and then choose that metaphysical model.
If metaphysics exist :)
If there is no difference between the evidence of all the proposed metaphysical realities, then perhaps we are making a mistake somewhere. Perhaps the mistake is assuming that metaphysical reality exists. Perhaps physical reality can explain why men invent the metaphysical. But I am getting ahead of myself…
My wife is home. I ready your comments, but don’t have time to respond. I’ll get back to you tomorrow morning. Have a good night.
Josh,
Concerning your first reply post, this seems very close to an argument that I claimed you were using, which we both agreed was poor, and which you claimed not to be using (see my post above, July 7, 10:46 and your response following). If I am misunderstanding you here, please let me know. Is this the argument you are making?
P 1: If the Holy Spirit exists, he would make all Christians agree on the interpretation of Scripture.
P 2: Not all Christians agree on the interpretation of Scripture.
Conclusion: The Holy Spirit does not exist.
This appears to be the argument that implicitly lies behind the following statement:
“But when two Christians agree that a harmony exists between two “seemingly” contradictory passages, but they have two different interpretations on what that harmony is, I conclude:
a) The Holy Spirit does not exist (because He is not enlightening them to the same solution)”
The problem I have with this is that the Bible doesn’t claim that the Holy Spirit brings complete doctrinal unanimity of believers. In order for your argument to constitute a valid objection to Christian theism, you simply have to show that the Bible itself claims this. Otherwise, you are arbitrarily assuming that the Holy Spirit should do something that the Bible does not claim it does, and then using a lack of empirical evidence for this activity as grounds for rejecting Christian theism. In short, this is a straw man argument.
Your illustration concerning the “Greek-god worshipping fellow” is helpful here. In such a case, if he said this, I would not feel compelled to believe. You are certainly right here. Yet if he had other grounds by which he could demonstrate the truthfulness of his worldview, then this would no longer be a problem. And this is what is crucial. And so, if I have understood your position correctly, and I think I have (I’ve read it three times now), my response is twofold:
1. If it cannot be shown where the Bible actually claims that the Holy Spirit leads believers to complete unanimity on doctrine and interpretation, then your argument is a straw man. In fact, there is much in the Bible to suggest that it does not, such as commands to “be of one mind,” which of course assume that it is possible for believers not to be.
2. This by no means renders Christian theism unverifiable, because there are other means by which it can be verified.
“The problem I have with this is that the Bible doesn’t claim that the Holy Spirit brings complete doctrinal unanimity of believers.”
equals
“It is true that the spiritual realm “interacts” with the physical universe. But the point I would stress at this juncture is that we cannot presume to know how this happens, and in what way this happens.”
equals
“It is true that the greek gods ‘interact’ with the physical universe. But the point I would stress at this juncture is that we cannot presume to know how this happens, and in what way this happens.”
equals
“I don’t know how the interaction occurs or could be spotted, I just believe it exists.”
equals
0 hooks to determine the existence of the Holy Spirit or not or to make any distinction between a belief in the Holy Spirit and a belief in the Greek gods.
~
I’d like a sure-fire way to determine interaction from the Holy Spirit in this physical realm (at least those in the first century had physical evidence of miracles that could not be “ignored” without willful desire to disbelieve – if the miracles actually happened – if the Holy Spirit exists – which is the point we are addressing. I do not willfully desire to disbelieve, I just am skeptical because it looks a lot like the greek gods…)
“In order for your argument to constitute a valid objection to Christian theism, you simply have to show that the Bible itself claims this.”
Circular reasoning. This assumes the Bible is the accurate (and solely accurate) source on the Holy Spirit which presumes that the Holy Spirit inspired it, which assumes the Holy Spirit exists, which is the very point we are addressing.
This absolutely is not circular reasoning. And I explained why in my 4:43 post July 14 (yesterday)–I’m not trying to prove it is so by appealing to the Bible. All I’m trying to do is say that if we are speaking about Christian theism, we need to be sure that we are refuting/defending something that the Bible claims.
Think about it, man, you were very upset with me because you felt that I was arguing against a position that you were not arguing for–that I didn’t understand your argument. All I’m saying is that you need to do the same for the Bible (and for me). If I misrepresent what you are saying, then I am guilty of attacking a straw man. Likewise, if you misrepresent what the Bible is saying you are attacking a straw man.
I’m not sure what else to say here. The objections just posted here in your last two comments are completely answered in my twofold response at the end of my comment (the one I wrote this morning). I’m not trying to lead you into a circle. I just want you to show me that what you are arguing against is not a straw man.
“All I’m trying to do is say that if we are speaking about Christian theism, we need to be sure that we are refuting/defending something that the Bible claims.”
Circular reasoning. This assumes Christian theism extends from a Biblical worldview, which assumes the Bible is solely the inspired source of Christian theism, which assumes the Bible is inspired, which assumes the Holy Spirit did the inspiring, which assumes the Holy Spirit exists, which is the very point we are addressing.
Doug you are stuck in a circular reasoning loop. Until you see it, we can’t continue our discussion.
The loop is large, with probably dozens – if not hundreds – of individual points all in a cause-effect chain. That’s why it is hard to spot. A lot of Christian education is the art of adding to the chain so that it seems logical by making it very large.
You are demanding that I accept one of the items in this chain of reasoning. Why should I? If acceptance of any one of the items requires that I enter a chain of circular reasoning that depends upon the very issue that we are addressing, it would be illogical for me to do so.
So, quite simply, we come back to having to agree on foundational premises from which to start.
I proposed these three:
P1 The physical universe exists
P2 Men interact with the physical universal through their physical senses
P3 If a spiritual realm in the Christian tradition exists, it interacts with this physical universe.
In our following discussion, make sure that *nothing* you present depends on any other premise than these three, because these are the three we agreed to.
“I’m not trying to lead you into a circle.”
lol. You are doing a really good job of it. Glad you are seeing it finally…
Personally, I think you are a closet presuppositionalist :) Meaning that I have to accept a presupposition in a large chain of circular reasoning or I will never see the truth of Christianity. Meaning that the leap of faith is a leap of illogic into a chain of circular reasoning.
Which is why you are getting frustrated. I am getting frustrated because you want to show me something but I am refusing to do something that I see as illogical to “see it”.
Meaning you believe that understanding begins with faith. You want me to make that leap of faith. I don’t want to because it would mean being illogical. And if your God exists, I would hope He would respect that.
Sorry for repeating myself so much. My argument is very, very simple. It is not long-winded and it does not require you to accept any premise that you are hesitant to accept.
It just requires that you admit your position is circular. Of course, you would not want to admit that because it would break a massive chain of reasoning on your part and you would be left to pick up the pieces – or start over.
Which is where I am at today. I saw the chain collapse before my eyes and Christianity go with it. If someone can demonstrate the truth of Christianity without using a chain of circular reasoning, I would be obliged. Until then, I will just continually point out to every Christian I know that they are thinking in circles – no matter how large the circle may be.
Start with a few core premises we both can agree upon, and then build up your argument from there.
“This absolutely is not circular reasoning.”
Big claim. You can prove this.
Tell me what premise it stands upon. Make sure that premise does not depend upon Christian theism being true. Then I will admit you are right.
I’ll just keep repeating myself over and over and over until it clicks…
On a personal level, Doug, I’ve got to admit you are pretty damn smart. I think you are pretty close to “getting” my point. Sorry if I appear to not be “getting” your point. I just smell circular reasoning and every argument you make within that circle I do not feel the need to address, if that makes sense.
Demonstrate that the existence of the Holy Spirit can be demonstrated without assuming the Holy Spirit exists, and you win, hands down.
[BTW, I'm not asking for empirical proof, although "biblically" I have a right to do so. I just want evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.]
Josh:
I’ll give Doug a point on this latest exchange. He said that the Bible does not say that “the would make all Christians agree on the interpretation of Scripture” or would “bring complete doctrinal unanimity of believers”. He’s right there.
Since, in Doug’s world, the Bible is the sole source for what the HS is like, then, if the Bible does not say a certain thing about the HS, you can’t use it as an argument against the HS.
Yes, I know there are teachings about what the HS does or is like, but at least for Doug, those teachings are of no consequence.
It’s like telling a Muslim that you don’t believe in Allah because you never see miracles in Allah’s name. He’d tell you the Koran doesn’t speak of miracles like that, so your objection is irrelevant.
Thanks LeoPardus.
Sometimes in chess, you have to sacrifice a couple pieces…
I’ll make some intentional “mistakes”, draw Doug’s attention to them. He’ll point them out, and at that point the circular reasoning of his argument is plain for everyone to see.
“He said that the Bible does not say that “the would make all Christians agree on the interpretation of Scripture” or would “bring complete doctrinal unanimity of believers”. He’s right there.”
I completely agree, and always have.
Eh, whatever. Your turn Doug…
[To clarify: I do not expect "unanimity" among believers. I only expect a level of agreement that is higher than groups of people who do not have the supposed Holy Spirit indwelling them. If the unanimity among those who claim the indwelling Holy Spirit is equal to those who do not have the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit is either not revealing truth (which would produce unity), the believers are not listening properly (classic Christian position), or the Holy Spirit does not exist. But "believers not listening properly" is a completely subjective and unverifiable argument and is begging the question. So that brings us back to the core question: where is the Holy Spirit?]
Josh–I think ten consecutive posts is a record! Congrats! :)
And Leo, good to hear from you again. Thanks for chiming in.
Okay. We can agree that the Bible does not teach that the Holy Spirit leads believers to complete unanimity.
So then where are we at? Your “core question” is: “Where is the Holy Spirit?”
My answer to that question is that it is indwelling all believers. But this is not something that can be proven apart from the Bible, or apart from personal experience, and neither one of these will get us very far in this conversation. I think that is a point we can agree on. But (and this is a VERY big “but”) that doesn’t effect my position. Why? Because my position is that the truthfulness of theism can be demonstrated on other grounds.
If it is your position that the only way Christian theism can be demonstrated is by accumulating extrabiblical evidence for the existence of the Holy Spirit, then you must conclude that Christian theism is false. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die. However, I say that it is not. That is why I used my court of law illustrations above (July 13, 11:27). We need to deal with the evidence we have. We cannot say that because we do not have “DNA” evidence, we refuse to judge the case–especially if the prosecution has other evidence.
So judge for yourself. If extrabiblical evidence for the Holy Spirit is the only condition upon which you will accept the truth claims of Christianity, you win. You are responsible for your own beliefs, and if that is what you need, then I hope you find it. But if you can acknowledge that it is not (and I hope you will), let us continue our conversation. Either way, I wish you well.
“My answer to that question is that it is indwelling all believers. But this is not something that can be proven apart from the Bible, or apart from personal experience, and neither one of these will get us very far in this conversation.”
How is this different than a claim regarding the Greek gods or superstition?
“If it is your position that the only [Josh edit: not 'only', but 'core'] way Christian theism can be demonstrated is by accumulating extrabiblical evidence [not 'extrabiblical', but biblical evidence that does not preclude the Bible is inspired] for the existence of the Holy Spirit, then you must conclude that Christian theism is false.”
Tada! [This is not my claim, but thanks for getting pretty close.]
“We cannot say that because we do not have “DNA” evidence, we refuse to judge the case–especially if the prosecution has other evidence.”
Other evidence, eh? You just admitted that there is no other evidence without circular reasoning (breaking logic) or subjective personal experience (opening up pandora’s box to every metaphysical system). If this is all your evidence, I think I would win in the courtroom.
“If extrabiblical evidence for the Holy Spirit is the only condition upon which you will accept the truth claims of Christianity, you win.”
It’s not the “only condition”, this is only one “condition”.
Doug, you are really confusing and if I may be so bold, a hypocrite.
You do not believe in the greek gods. If I asked you why, you would (I can only presume) provide the very reasons I give you for not believing in the Holy Spirit. Yet somehow you find fault in me for using these reasons when it comes to your beliefs. Why do you find fault in me for using reasons that you would not fault yourself for using when it comes to other belief systems?
Is this not breaking the Golden Rule?
“Check”… I give you about two more moves…
Honestly, while there are lots of reasons for leaving the faith and one of them is no good evidence for the Holy Spirit, the main one was that I realized I had to be a hypocrite to remain a Christian.
“Where is the Holy Spirit?”
My answer to that question is that it is indwelling all believers.
To what end? I.e., what is the HS doing there in those people?
But this is not something that can be proven apart from the Bible, or apart from personal experience
Oh, it’s purely subjective then. Dandy, I’m done.
my position is that the truthfulness of theism can be demonstrated on other grounds.
Wait a sec. It’s not purely subjective?? OK. What would those other grounds be? They wouldn’t be Biblical, since all the Biblical examples that would be useful for proving the existence of God/HS are REALLY clear ones (like miracles, revelations, visitations, etc).
If extrabiblical evidence for the Holy Spirit is the only condition upon which you will accept the truth claims of Christianity, you win.
Oh. Well. I guess I’m done again then.
Exactly, Leo. We are on the exact same page, exact same problems with what Doug is saying.
Ironic that the agreement that Leo and I have right now could almost be described as unity. Perhaps we have the Holy Spirit (said jovially).
Awaits Doug’s next move…
I can’t figure out why you stop there, Leo, when there is a massive gaping hole staring you right in the face that you could drive a truck through that undermines the entirety of Christianity.
Which hole speakest thou of?
The Golden Rule.
I think we’re moving past one another because you are saying that I must prove the existence of the Holy Spirit, and I am saying that this is not required in order to demonstrate the truthfulness of Christian theism. I realize that you are saying that it is not the only way to do this, but only the “core” way to do so. But this is not even the case. Why should this be the core way to do so? Is this not arbitrary? If it is not the “only condition” (as you admit), but only “one condition,” why are other lines of reasoning being treated as inadmissible?
You also make the following comment:
“Other evidence, eh? You just admitted that there is no other evidence without circular reasoning (breaking logic) or subjective personal experience (opening up pandora’s box to every metaphysical system). If this is all your evidence, I think I would win in the courtroom.”
When I refer to “other evidence,” I’m not speaking of other evidence for the Holy Spirit, but rather other evidence for Christian theism, which is the thesis which I am defending. I’ve been very clear about this, but let me say it one more time:
I am not interested in defending the Holy Spirit via extrabiblical evidence. I acknowledge your point: It can’t be done (at least, I don’t think it can). If that is what you are requiring, then have a nice day. But this doesn’t even get us close to ending the discussion. I am interested in making a case for Christian theism on other grounds. I’ve said this many, many times so far.
Leo,
I’m not trying to ignore what you’re saying. If you like, we can do a systematic study of what the Bible claims that the Holy Spirit does (although this would take some time). And when you ask for other grounds, see my response to Bonita’s challenge to the same question above.
“I’m not speaking of other evidence for the Holy Spirit, but rather other evidence for Christian theism, which is the thesis which I am defending.”
But all the other evidence for Christian theism depends on the existence of the Holy Spirit, no?
Find me one piece of evidence that does not.
“But this is not even the case. Why should this be the [Josh edit: "a"] core way to do so?”
Because it is one link in a massive chain of reasoning that is circular. An entire realm of Christian thought depends on it.
“I’m not speaking of other evidence for the Holy Spirit, but rather other evidence for Christian theism”
But the Christian theism you depend upon presumes the source – the Bible – is inspired by the Holy Spirit, right? If the Holy Spirit does not exist, the Bible is not inspired, and the Christian theism you speak of collapses.
In other words, I am aiming at the “root” of your entire Christian theism and asking you to defend it without appealing to any of the tertiary conclusions if you are right.
Do you see it LeoPardus?
“I am not interested in defending the Holy Spirit via extrabiblical evidence. I acknowledge your point: It can’t be done (at least, I don’t think it can). If that is what you are requiring, then have a nice day.”
I love it. Just love it.
Is a confession that one must assume the Bible is the sole source on the Holy Spirit because the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit? If so, perfection in circular reasoning has been achieved!
The Holy Spirit might as well not exist at all outside of the Bible!
“Check”… again…
[To clarify, Doug: you are claiming two things:
The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible. So you want to be able to use the Bible to defend accurate portrayals of the Holy Spirit. Fair enough, except that it is circular to assume that the Bible has accurate portrayals of the Holy Spirit. So this is invalid.
You have also made a second claim. You claim the Holy Spirit indwells you. Yet bizarrely enough, if I cannot ask you to demonstrate this claim without you saying you need to quote from the former argument, you might as well be admitting that the Holy Spirit has absolutely and utterly zero affect on you personally. So the Holy Spirit might as well just be a belief.
Why, if you claim you are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, do you completely ignore the fact that this indwelling has absolutely zero external affects? Isn't that weird? What the heck is the purpose of the Holy Spirit indwelling you if there is no measurable difference between you and anybody else who does not have the Holy Spirit?]
[To Clarify AGAIN:
Doug, you have admitted that there is no way you can prove the Holy Spirit's existence without appealing to the Bible. This means you are not evidence of the Holy Spirit's existence. This means you might as well not be indwelled by the Holy Spirit at all.
Doug: "I am not interested in defending the Holy Spirit via extrabiblical evidence."
This is bizarre beyond my wildest comprehension. First Doug claims he is indwelt by the Holy Spirit - and is therefore a piece of extrabiblical evidence for the Holy Spirit's existence. Then he contradicts himself by saying that he is not interested in being a piece of evidence for the Holy Spirit's existence. wtf?]
Josh wrote:
“All the other evidence for Christian theism depends on the existence of the Holy Spirit, no?
Find me one piece of evidence that does not.”
Earlier on in our discussion, Bonita asked if I would lay out a basic case for my beliefs. I did (July 12, 2009 at 1:14 pm).
Now I understand your point, correct me if I’m wrong. One cannot claim that the Bible is inerrant because it is inspired by the Holy Spirit if one cannot claim that the Holy Spirit exists apart from knowledge that the Bible is inerrant. I agree. This would be circular reasoning. Here is my answer to this problem:
God inspired the Bible, and there is evidence that God exists. “The Spirit of God” is simply a way of explaining the mode of operation of God in this world.
P.S.—You guys are probably sick of hearing this, but my wife is home again, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Have a good night, and thanks for the conversation.
I think I’m ready to call check-mate.
Wife stepped out ;)
How so, Josh? I don’t need to argue specifically for the Holy Spirit in order to build a case for inspiration. There is absolutely no force to your argument for circular reasoning because God’s existence can be rationally justified apart from an explicit appeal to Scripture.
Knight takes rook.
Aww man. If you want to start a new game, that’s fine. I was about to win the first one anyway…
*clears chess board*
*replaces pieces for new game*
“There is absolutely no force to your argument for circular reasoning because God’s existence can be rationally justified apart from an explicit appeal to Scripture.”
What is this God thing of which you speak? Which one are you talking about?
I don’t know what a “god” is, can you help me out?
[BTW, if you want to keep the old game going, we can. Although you are basically starting the whole circle of your argument over again and its getting a little old:
"I don’t need to argue specifically for the Holy Spirit in order to build a case for inspiration."
My only comment: good luck!]
You know what Doug, I’ve got to just stick with what Leo said. The Holy Spirit didn’t show up. So sad.
If you can come with power, not words, be my guest. Until then, you are just endless rhetoric and circular reasoning. Hope you figure it out someday.
Josh,
None of that is the case. We can still consider this the old “game”–the only difference being that I’ve shown that this isn’t circular. The argument to circularity just doesn’t work.
By claiming the God exists, I mean that there exists necessarily a person without a body (i.e. a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things.
BTW, I don’t have internet access today, so it might take me some time to get back to you. Have a good one.
“We can still consider this the old “game”–the only difference being that I’ve shown that this isn’t circular. The argument to circularity just doesn’t work.”
Once we get done with this next debate, you’ll understand what I mean.
“By claiming the God exists, I mean that there exists necessarily a person without a body (i.e. a spirit) who necessarily is eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things.”
a person without a body: Prove this is not an oxymoron. As a thought exercise to realize how silly this is, consider that one of the experiences of being human is to have fear. Fear is produced by the amygdala, a physical gland in our body. In order to be a person without a body (i.e. spirit) this being must have the ability to fear. But how can something fear without an amygdala? Furthermore, what the hell does the originator of the universe have to fear? Second thought exercise is to consider that one of the great experiences of being a person is the ability to hope. But hope cannot exist except inside of time. So if this originator of the universe is to be fully a person, he must be able to hope and fear. Which is impossible. A person without a body is plain and simple impossible. I haven’t even begun to discuss the ability to think (requires time), to reason (requires existence inside of a closed system according to a set of rules), to laugh (requires the existence of contradiction or fear), to speak (requires air, space, distance, and a listener), to judge (requires two possible outcomes, and therefore time), etc. etc. Buddy, think it through. This doesn’t make sense. This could be a completely different game if you want.
eternal: The universe could be eternal – even if there was a Big Bang.
perfectly free: Free from what? Free from external control and influence? The universe seems pretty free from external control and influence.
omnipotent: What does all-powerful mean? Powerful over what? Why can’t the universe be omnipotent? Can this being destroy itself? If not, does that mean it is not all powerful? Omnipotence is potentially a logical impossibility. And if it is not, why can’t the universe by omnipotent? Hell, the universe even destroys itself – over and over and over…
omniscient: Does God know what made Him? Omniscience is also a logical impossibility. Does this being know the things it does not know? How does this being think? Does it have memory? You can’t have memory unless you exist inside of time. But if this being exists outside of time, then it cannot have memory. How can a being without memory know things? Also, omniscience implies the ability to think. But you cannot have a thought unless there was a previous moment at which you did not have the thought – or at the least an external influence that caused the thought. But this being is supposed to be free from external influence and outside of time. So how can it think? And if it cannot think, then this means it cannot be omniscient.
perfectly good: By what standards do you judge a being to be perfectly good? Who made you the judge? If everything this being does is good, then all you are saying is this being is good because this being is good. That is a tautology. Regardless, if anything this being does is good, then anything this being does is good. That means it can be “evil” and we would not be able to judge it. If this being is subject to a standard of goodness that exists despite itself, then this being is less then that standard, and that standard is therefore God. Read that sentence again, Doug. Read it over and over and over.
and the creator of all things: Including itself? The universe is the creator of everything I see.
Furthermore, I would propose that logic is only applicable inside (“inside” for lack of a word that actually makes sense, because we cannot comprehend a place where space does not exist) of the universe (because logic requires cause and effect, which requires time, or the ability to make distinctions, which requires space). Therefore nothing an originating being of the universe does has to follow any standard of logic or reason that we can possibly comprehend, rendering theology completely meaningless, because thinking about God is meaningless.
Buddy, I’ve thought this through until my head was about to explode. Over and over and over. I haven’t even scratched the surface. Are you sure you want to start this?
And… let’s say you could demonstrate that all of the above is true, logically valid, and meaningful and that this being exists. You still have the task of demonstrating that this being is the God of Christianity. And that one is a completely different ballgame…
Personally, all I see you doing is anthropomorphizing something you cannot comprehend: the origins of the universe. Animists are humans who do the same thing with other elements of the physical universe they do not understand. Men do not understand the origins of the universe and so we want to anthropomorphize (sp?) it. That’s all that is happening here.
Yeah, this is a completely different game. Or several games.
Yep Josh. You pretty well spelled out why each term applied to God ( eternal, perfectly free, omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly good, and the creator of all things) is impossible or ridiculous or meaningless.
The one that is the worst is “good”. Once I finally accepted and started dealing with reality, I was stunned at how inapplicable that word is to BibleGod.
As I’ve thought to myself so many times, “How did I keep deluding myself all those years?” I don’t think I’ll ever have a complete answer.
“As I’ve thought to myself so many times, “How did I keep deluding myself all those years?” I don’t think I’ll ever have a complete answer.”
I ask myself that so many times and I think that for me at least it was because there were a) things I did not know and b) things I would not allow myself to think out of fear.
In the end, its all fucking bullshit.
Dude, I just figured it out!
Holy crap I just had an epiphany. I don’t even know how to describe it.
Existence *is*.
That’s it.
If God “exists”, then this means that God is subject to the concept of existence. He did not choose to exist, which means He is eternal.
But if God is subject to existence, then He cannot make Himself not exist. Which means that existence itself is eternal.
Now we know the universe exists. If we extend the universe to include the set of all possible existing items, this would encompass any deity.
Which means that god is the universe and existence is the only non-dependent concept. Yet existence is not a tautology. Why? Because existence *cannot* exist. Existence just is. Existence cannot apply to itself. Existence is eternal. So by default, there is no such thing as nothing.
Which means the universe is eternal.
…
I’m going to have to mull that over…
So by default, there is no such thing as nothing.
This puts me in mind of a favorite mock headline of mine:
Nothing: Is it really something?
You know, this long discussion is going quite well to prove the point of your original article.
Doug will not/can not leave the faith because the perceived value of leaving the faith does not exceed the perceived value of staying.
I mean really his job, his livelihood, his reputation are all on the line. There’s a good chance of family disruption if not dissolution too. There’s a tremendous loss of friends and colleagues to face.
The perceived value of staying is HUGE. What the heck benefit is there for Doug in leaving?
Or, looked at the other way, what is the COST of him leaving? HUGE! And the cost of staying is perceived as zero.
Yeah LeoPardus. I recall something about a narrow and wide road. For all the Christians I personally know, the narrow road is to leave.
Ironic.
The Golden Rule comes to mind again for some reason.
The wife went for a walk with her friend! Ha ha! Time to engage in my current favorite past-time!
Here I respond point by point to your objections to my statement this morning.
The ability to have fear is not a precondition for qualifying as a person. Perhaps for being human, but not for being a person. Neither is hope. In fact, all the examples you give are things (human) people do, but none of them are part of what it means (i.e. the definition of what it means) to be a distinct person. Is a person in a coma a person, Josh?
The universe cannot be eternal. The universe is absolutely finite. This is because it is impossible to actualize an infinite set of anything, including moments in the past. The finitude of the universe is also widely held by many (atheistic) scientists.
Omnipotence is certainly not a logical impossibility. If it is, show me, by means of deductive argument, how it is (BTW, logical impossibility is an extremely strong claim, and encompasses things such as square circles, 2 + 2 = 5, etc.; to show this, you must demonstrate that it is not even theoretically possible in any possible world). Sure, we can speak of the universe as being powerful, but to be omnipotent in the sense that God is omnipotent means that he must be powerful enough to cause the universe. And no, the universe does not create and recreate itself. This is a common misconception held by those who attempt to account for the universe’s existence via natural means: The issue is not whether the universe has retracted and expanded over time (which is not at all clear, anyway), but goes back to the fact that it simply cannot have existed for an actually infinite number of moments.
~Note well~ I do not describe God as “infinitely” anything, because I do not believe the term “infinite” has any application to reality.
Omniscience is also not a logical impossibility. Again, if it is, show me, by means of deductive argumentation. No, God does not know things he does not know (this is a logical impossibility). God’s omniscience means that he knows everything that is possible to know. He does not access these thoughts via memory, because to be omniscient means that one has knowledge of all actual and potential states of affairs. Thus, memory is not the means by which such a being would access their own knowledge. If we choose to speak of God thinking, we would have to say that this happens in time. But for a being who is by definition omniscient, thinking appears to be unnecessary (i.e. if you know everything that can be known, you do not need to think).
On perfect goodness—yes, Josh, I am aware of the Euthyphro dilemma: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” The moral goodness of the creator can be inferred from observation of moral creatures. Namely, we are able to contrast what we desire to do and what is desirable, and this includes the good of other creatures, even at our own expense. In both evolutionary and non-evolutionary models, it makes perfect sense to suggest (1) that moral good actually does exist and (2) that a creator would endow us with moral knowledge that corresponds to his nature. The latter point is my answer to the Euthyphro dilemma—good is good because it corresponds with God’s nature, which is, by nature, good. Arguing that this then makes good arbitrary is like arguing for square circles. Things that are wrong are inherently (by definition) wrong.
“Creator of all things: Including itself?” No, God did not create himself. God exists outside of time (at least, he did before he created) and therefore does not require a causal explanation, because, as your arguments above seem to imply you are aware, causation is only necessary for things that exist in time. And in case you think this is avoiding the question, bear in mind that any explanation for the creation of the universe must eventually posit a cause that is itself uncaused (probably because it does not exist in time). Again, this is because of the impossibility of the existence of an actually infinite set of moments in the past.
I would object to your statement that logic only exists in our universe. This is because laws of logic are (unlike the inverse for omniscience and omnipotence) logically necessary. To put it another way, for logic not to be true is a logical impossibility of the first rate!
I appreciate your having thought this through, man. I really do. I just think your arguments err in many different places, and I think this can be demonstrated. I absolutely do want to continue down this path, as long as you’re up for it.
As for your eureka moment, Josh, that is clever, but I think you just came up with the atheist/pantheist version of Anselm’s ontological argument! Hey, I can throw the theistic version in there if you want! ;)
“The ability to have fear is not a precondition for qualifying as a person. Perhaps for being human, but not for being a person. Neither is hope. In fact, all the examples you give are things (human) people do, but none of them are part of what it means (i.e. the definition of what it means) to be a distinct person. Is a person in a coma a person, Josh?”
Then what the hell is a person, Doug? And keep in mind, you can’t define God into existence as a person. It’s just stupid to do so. And it is impossible, because every attribute you can imagine a super-person having is nothing more than an attribute that you could imagine yourself having to avoid more harm. Which fits into my point later about morality being nothing more than the outcome of the human desire to avoid harm.
Name one quality of personhood that is not physical without assuming the spiritual realm exists. Because, after all, we have not established a spiritual realm as a reality yet anyway. That would be circular.
For example, consciousness can be removed by a coma. Coma’s are physical. Consciousness can be restored by bringing a person out of a coma. Therefore consciousness is physical.
Honestly Doug, you are just making empty assertions all founded on a circular argument. We are just going to go down that path again and we’ll hit a point where you’ll make a statement that requires the existence of the Holy Spirit or God and then whammo.
I’m getting really tired of this.
“This is because it is impossible to actualize an infinite set of anything, including moments in the past.”
Dude, you just blew your entire next set of arguments about omnipotence and omniscience out of the water with that statement.
I’ll should just stop there and let you start over.
“The finitude of the universe is also widely held by many (atheistic) scientists.”
Appeals to authority? Are you serious? So the fuck what?
“Omnipotence is certainly not a logical impossibility.”
Umm, you just said you can’t actualize an infinite set of anything. Would that not include an infinite set of possible actions, thus nullifying omnipotence.
“If it is, show me, by means of deductive argument, how it is”
You did that just fine.
“And no, the universe does not create and recreate itself.”
How do hell do you know? Nobody knows this. My comment was that the universe destroys itself over and over, in the sense that black holes are self-perpetuating and explosions in the universe are common.
“No, God does not know things he does not know (this is a logical impossibility). God’s omniscience means that he knows everything that is possible to know.”
Dude, you can’t make bold claims about a deity when the deity is in question.
“but goes back to the fact that it simply cannot have existed for an actually infinite number of moments.”
Well sure. At the Big Bang we had a singularity. At that point, time may not have existed. We don’t know. It is a singularity.
“but goes back to the fact that it simply cannot have existed for an actually infinite number of moments.”
I don’t think so at all.
Morality is simply the product of a desire of creatures to avoid harm. I can explain every human action from this.
If God is moral, then He must be trying to avoid harm. What harm is he trying to avoid, Doug?
And you still have to account for the original point in my article about God being a hypocrite.
All your fancy language about morality extending from God means nothing if God is judged by a different standard :)
“But for a being who is by definition omniscient, thinking appears to be unnecessary (i.e. if you know everything that can be known, you do not need to think).”
So how can God repent if he doesn’t have to think?
You are starting to blow little holes in your Biblical Christianity because your philosophical God is not matching the God of the Bible anymore. Doug, just stop now. I feel like I’m watching a car wreck in slow motion.
“Things that are wrong are inherently (by definition) wrong.”
Well duh. All I’m saying is that you cannot demonstrate any standard that was not invented (or a product of) man. Try it. You will not be able to do it without using circular reasoning or applying a man made standard to your God.
Good luck!
“No, God did not create himself.”
The only begotten son of God…. who proceeds from the Father… who exists in the bosom of the Father… blah blah blah
“I would object to your statement that logic only exists in our universe.”
Oh God Doug, seriously?
“My ways are higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts”
“God has made the wisdom of man foolishness…”
I’m about ready to call it quits… Leo, should I just quit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnH_gvhI9OI
The car is Doug. I climbed into the passenger seat for the ride.
The blue box is reality.
I’m regretting my decision.
Especially since I am, in slow motion, proving the original point of my article… and Doug has already decided that no matter what I say, he will not change his mind…
And at this rate, it is going to take about 300-400 more comments for us to finally come around and me to show Doug the circularity of his reasoning.
You can’t assume items dependent upon Christianity’s truthfulness in order to prove Christianity’s truthfulness…
:(
Hi, I’m still here just don’t have time to really write much. Also I agree- Doug is using circular reasoning. Regarding the Holy Spirit- how do you believe in something you don’t seem to have anyway to attest to? Also it’s interesting the thoughts I’m getting through the discussion- the debate for awhile has been the existence of the HS- Where the HS is- how it effects “believers”- and the inspiraton of scripture. I know alot more has been spoken about since I’ve been away from the discussion.
Regardless if the Bible says the HS will “cause” believers to agree on all matters it is still curious to think that”believers” can claim to hear from God and argue over different topics- each one saying God said this or that. I’ve seen this alot in churches- the pastor feels “lead” to go this way- and the youth pastor another direction- it’s typical for y pastor’s and regular pastors to be at odds.
I also can agree with Josh’s argument- that Doug doesn’t give much of a reason as to why he is so supporting of the “christian” deity when he might not chose the greek god’s for example.
Doug in short what is the reason you might take “christianity” over the greek god’s can you answer that for all of us. please no circular reasoning “por favor”.
““No, God did not create himself.”
The only begotten son of God…. who proceeds from the Father… who exists in the bosom of the Father… blah blah blah”
Josh regarding what you said- that’s looking at the Bible from the trinitarian view point- how do we know it really is implied that “Jesus” is “God” but not just his “son and messiah”? So technically this verse might not imply that he creates himself- just some thought.
Josh,
I’d like to point one thing out. Earlier you called me an arrogant asshole. I took that very hard, and was seriously disturbed by it. But now you feel perfectly okay with adding comments about how you feel you are watching a car accident, etc. Is this not arrogance? And is attempting to make fun of your opponent while debating them not assholeness? Can’t you just let your argument speak for itself, or are you so unsure of yourself that you feel you need to add these little flourishes? Debate is about the force of your argument, Josh, not the force of your rhetoric.
The definition of a “person” is an individual with right and duties (this is not something I am making up, you can research this, if you like). Ability to feel emotions has nothing to do with this. For example, a newborn baby shows virtually no of the emotions you listed above. Ability to fear, for instance, is not something the child will develop until weeks, or even months into its life.
My friend, every example of an attribute that you give in an attempt to show they are dependent on biological systems (e.g. “consciousness is physical”) only show that, for human beings, in the state we are in now, yes, these things are dependent on our biological systems. The only thing that follows from your arguments is that possession of a properly functioning body is a necessary precondition for these emotions in humans. Either way, this has little to do with personhood, but even if it did, it would not follow that a being that is spirit cannot feel them.
Are you conceding that the universe is not eternal? Or are you going to defend the notion that infinite numbers are actual possibilities? Which one? And look, by mentioning the near-consensus of atheistic scientists, I’m not making an utter appeal to authority, where I could not give further argumentation to back it up. I’m just trying to not make this post any longer than it has to be.
You suggest that, because I deny the possibility of an actual infinite amount of anything, I have, by definition, denied the very possibility of both omnipotence and omniscience. Yet this is absolutely not the case. In our previous post, I said that omniscience is the state of knowing everything that can be known. This is not the same as saying that God’s knowledge is infinite. “Everything that can be known” is a finite set. The same goes with omnipotence. Omnipotence is the ability to do anything that can be done. This too is a finite set. If you don’t want to take my word for it, please look up the prefix “omni-” in the dictionary. You will never find that it means “infinite.”
Perhaps I should have qualified my statement, “That the universe does not create and re-create itself,” in a way that was more germane to the discussion: The universe does not create and re-create itself infinitely into the past. BTW—black holes are not an example of the “universe” destroying itself, because black holes are not “the universe,” they are things in the universe
Regarding the infinitude of the universe (or lack thereof), it does nothing to posit a singularity. This just pushes the question back further, because it is impossible for the singularity to exist in the infinite past. And the singularity is used to describe matter’s compression to a singular point, as well as the (gravitational?) curvature of light rays. This absolutely has nothing to do with actual time (and is even typically described as effecting something that is “time-like”). THERE STILL MUST BE A BEGININNG TO THE SINGULARITY (capitalization to denote emphasis, not frustration). Since you disagree with my statement that the universe’s existence cannot have gone back in time an infinite number of moments, please defend how this is in any way a possibility.
You wrote: “Morality is simply the product of a desire of creatures to avoid harm. I can explain every human action from this.” What about risking one’s life to save another? All examples of morality can not be reduced to a simple desire to avoid harm. In fact, some of the things that we consider most moral have to do with self-sacrifice. I don’t accept your thesis here.
From a certain perspective, I can understand and sympathize with attempts to give naturalistic accounts for human morality. Yet claims that breaches in morality are only violations of social taboo seem very deficient, because it means that things like rape are not wrong in all places or all times, and that events like the holocaust are not actually evil. I am not willing to accept this. Are you?
Regarding God’s ability to think: God can “repent” (better, “regret”), because he experiences time in reference to his creation. What causes God to feel emotions that require change in his disposition is the actualization of scenarios that occur within space time. I have no problem as speaking of God’s existence in terms of temporality after the act of creation takes place. It is only after his act of creation that things that are merely potential come into being. Before this, all that exists is actuality (which is an extremely big problem for anyone positing a nonpersonal cause for the universe). Afterwards, there is potentiality, so in reference to creation, it is perfectly acceptable to say that God experiences time.
You wrote: “All I’m saying is that you cannot demonstrate any standard that was not invented (or a product of) man. Try it. You will not be able to do it without using circular reasoning or applying a man made standard to your God.”
Okay, how about this: Prove to me that moral standard were invented by man without using circular reasoning (Perhaps I could also add, “or applying a God-made standard to man”).
I’m not sure it helps to quote Christian creeds (or a weird combination of them, at least) (Bonita—he is not quoting the Bible here), as proof to show that Christian theology holds Jesus was created (i.e. not eternal), especially when we both know very well that the eternality of the Son was something made very explicit ever since the earliest Christological debates (Nicene and Constantinople Creeds: “God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the father”). I’m not trying to use a creed to prove my position (I hope this is obvious), but I am wondering why you think this makes your point (unless I am misunderstanding you at this juncture and you’re purposely rambling).
Are you serious? Logic only holds in our universe? How do you know this? I have given you plenty reasons as to why this is not the case. How about this? Why don’t you show me how you know you are right on this point? And quoting Isa 55:9 and 1 Cor 1:27 doesn’t help—are these verses saying that logic doesn’t apply?
Bonita,
I don’t have a lot of time to respond to your question right now–I’m about to lose my internet connection for the day. I will say that I cannot defend what you have heard people say in your churches. If people claim that God told them something, then fine, but I would join with you in being skeptical of such claims.
As far as moving to “Christian” deity is concerned, the reason why you haven’t heard this is because we have not yet agreed that God exists. In order for the argument not to be circular, I must first show how my understanding of God is not entirely dependent on revelation. So I think your challenge here misses the point. This is the first step in doing this.
And while we’re talking about not using circular reasoning, Bonita, here is a project that I’d like you to answer for me:
Your intellectual faculties consist of the following things:
1. Sense perception
2. Memory
3. Introspection
4. Acceptance of the testimony of others
Show me how any of these can be justified without using any of 1-4.
This is the kind of logical positivism you are all committed to. Show me that you can meet the expectations you require me to meet.
“And is attempting to make fun of your opponent while debating them not assholeness? Can’t you just let your argument speak for itself, or are you so unsure of yourself that you feel you need to add these little flourishes? Debate is about the force of your argument, Josh, not the force of your rhetoric.”
Ethos, pathos, and logos.
And yes, I’m being an asshole. I don’t think I’m being arrogant, because honestly I don’t think I’m better than you in any way.
I’m just getting a little bored. I’m enjoying the debate, but I mean, look at it. We are about 140 comments into it and are not getting anywhere.
At this point I would like to reiterate all the points you have not substantially addressed to my satisfaction:
Point 1: You claim that the Holy Spirit indwells you. Yet you also claim that you need an inerrant view (you did not use these exact words, but you want to be able to quote Scripture as if it was the authority on the Holy Spirit, which requires a form of inerrancy) of the Bible to defend the Holy Spirit’s existence. But why, if the Holy Spirit indwells you, can you not use yourself as evidence of the Holy Spirit’s existence?
Point 2: Earlier it appeared you found fault in me for dismissing the Holy Spirit’s existence because I pointed out that it was subjective or dependent upon a form of circular reasoning. You finally somewhat admitted I was right. Here is my question: If you are allowed to dismiss other worldviews because they are circular or subjective – without deep interrogation of their every claim that you seem to want me to do with your worldview – yet you find fault in me for my conclusions about your worldview, does this not make you a hypocrite? You cannot fault me for dismissing Christianity because I have not studied it enough if you also dismiss other religions you have not studied enough. In order for your argument to work, you will have to follow the Golden Rule and not reject any other worldview until you have studied it in-depth to the extent that you wish me to study Christianity.
Point 3: You claim that logic and goodness extend from God’s nature. But if God must be logical and must be good, then this means that there is a standard of goodness or logic that is “above” God. This means that logic and goodness are God. Please comprehend the force of this argument.
Point 4: You are now attempting to defend a philosophical God. Are you not then using isegesis to read that philosophical God back into the text of Scripture? Why does your holy book not address these issues? Is it insufficient?
Point 5: You still have not told me what a person is, yet you keep making a distinction between a person and a human. What is a person, Doug?
Point 6: You still have not defended why, if the Holy Spirit exists and Paul is correct, you are required to use words and not power to defend your position.
’1. Sense perception
2. Memory
3. Introspection
4. Acceptance of the testimony of others
Why do you make a distinction between 1 and 4? All testimony from others comes via my senses or memory.
“If people claim that God told them something, then fine, but I would join with you in being skeptical of such claims.”
You just aren’t skeptical when it comes to anything said in the Bible, for some reason. Even those these are people who claimed God spoke to them.
This is where your circular reasoning lies and I can spot it from a mile away.
I don’t mind if you use the Bible to make points at all. Heck, I’ll use the bible. But you cannot quote the Bible as if it was the:
a) final authority
b) inerrant truth
Until we have established that the Holy Spirit exists.
And I cannot for the life of me figure out why – if you are right – the Holy Spirit is doing absolutely nothing to help you out with this matter.
“Are you serious? Logic only holds in our universe? How do you know this? I have given you plenty reasons as to why this is not the case. How about this? Why don’t you show me how you know you are right on this point? And quoting Isa 55:9 and 1 Cor 1:27 doesn’t help—are these verses saying that logic doesn’t apply?”
I “know” this by deduction.
Every logical argument requires time and space. Time and space are components of our universe. Find me one logical argument that does not require time and space, and I’ll change my view.
Now. If there is something (a god, for example) that exists independent of our universe, then this thing is not subject to time and space, which means that this thing is not subject to any logic.
So you can argue two things:
1) God is logical. This requires that God exist in time and space, which means He is less than the universe, which means the universe is greater than God, which means the universe is actually god.
2) God is independent of this universe. This means God is outside of time and space, which means He does not need to follow any logic. My conclusion would then be that theology is meaningless… unless…
You could then argue that God does not need to be logical, but He reveals Himself according to the law of our universe, therefore making everything He does when interacting with our universe logical. I would recommend taking this route, but if you do, I will show you that this makes God completely untrustworthy.
In short, arguing that God is logical and independent of our universe is internally self-contradictory or makes logic itself god.
“And quoting Isa 55:9 and 1 Cor 1:27 doesn’t help—are these verses saying that logic doesn’t apply?”
If God is logical, why does Paul make such an effort to describe why what he does does not look logical to the wise people of the world?
“In our previous post, I said that omniscience is the state of knowing everything that can be known. This is not the same as saying that God’s knowledge is infinite.”
Ok, fine. Your God definition says he “knows” everything.
One could also argue that the universe “knows” everything too, because it internally contains all possible information. But that is a tautology. If the universe is the set of everything, then we are just saying that everything contains all information.
How is your claim of God’s omniscience any different?
“God can “repent” (better, “regret”), because he experiences time in reference to his creation.”
Now I regret even referring to the Bible. All I am trying to point out is that the things are saying are becoming very apparent to be at odds with what your source-book says. Your philosophical God looks like a serious contradiction with the Biblical God. I’m not ignoring what you’ve said, just admitting my mistake of referring to the Bible at this point in the discussion.
“Prove to me that moral standard were invented by man without using circular reasoning”
I’m not really sure what you are asking. Are you asking me to iterate through every single moral standard ever proposed and to show by historical analysis that its source was man? I don’t even know what you mean. It sounds like you are asking me to assume that morality is a “thing” that exists “out there” and then you are asking me to show where this “thing” called morality comes from.
First, you have to demonstrate that morality is a “thing” that “comes from” somewhere.
Morality is, afaik, nothing more then the accepted mode of behavior within a certain social structure. These codes of conduct shift and fluctuate with societies as those societies discover what causes and what alleviates harm.
Better morals are morals that alleviate harm.
For example, in the Old Testament it was “an eye for an eye”. This seemed fair. Then in the New Testament, Jesus says we should turn the other cheek. Reduction in harm.
Paul’s notion that people naturally do what the Law says completely misses the point. People in all cultures pursue similar morals because certain morals naturally alleviate more harm.
The real question you have to answer is how is it moral, by any standard, for God to punish the entire human race for one man’s sin? But that will come later, once we’ve established that a deity of your description actually exists…
The very fact that men can hold any deity up to moral judgment is good evidence that a morality exists that is above any deity. This is good evidence that deities are all invented by men. Try to figure that one out…
Just a brief pipe in here. Omniscience is impossible. Here’s why.
Omniscience would require that God knows the location, spin state, energy, motion, etc of every subatomic particle in the universe. (That’s just part of the definition of ‘all knowing’.) BUT to know that requires some way of registering that information, and storing it, and accessing it. Where/How is that information registered, stored, and accessed (r/s/a)?
Now if you tell me where/how the info is r/s/a, God must know the same kind of information about the place/means of storing the information. That information also needs to be r/s/a. And so it goes forever.
You can step out of time and apace and into other dimensions if you like, but it won’t help. Information must still be r/s/a. You need infinite r/s/a capacity for infinite information, and then you need “another infinite” storage capacity for the infinite knowledge, and so we go around the circle again.
There is perhaps one escape though. I don’t recall the Bible explicitly stating that God is omniscient. Does it say that? Where?
Oh and another thing that is not in the Bible. “God exists outside of time” Where’s that in the Bible? Can’t recall it.
Of course it’s a silly statement anyway. Nothing exists, or can exist, outside time. Nothing happens outside time.
Try to imagine your deity outside time. Did he have thoughts? (Yep. He decided to create.) That makes time. One moment the deity had not made the decision to create, the next moment he had made the decision.
You just can’t have thought, action, existence, anything at all without time. It’s like logic. Time simply is a universal. Logic is simply a universal.
No one could create an infinite sized rock, or a square circle, because those things cannot exist since they are not things. They are just meaningless statements. The laws of logic don’t allow them to be anything real.
Likewise nothing can exist apart from/outside of/without time. The laws of logic don’t allow it. Such expressions as “outside of time”, “apart from time” and the like, when applied to ‘existence’ are meaningless in the same way as ‘a square circle’ is meaningless.
And to quote CS Lewis, “Nonsense does not suddenly become sense just because it is preceded by ‘can God’.”
Ok, after reading through my previous comment, I realize I am at a loss as to how to refer to the Bible or the Christian God at this point.
I would simply say this:
The Bible can be referred to as a source for man’s opinion or observations in ancient cultures, but not as if what it says is true. This should be done until we have established:
1) That a deity exists.
2) What the attributes of being a “person” are.
4) That a theistic (personal) deity exists.
5) That this theistic deity can be trusted.
6) That this theistic deity is Yahweh.
7) That Jesus is related to Yahweh in some manner.
8) That Yahweh is the God of the New Testament and the Old.
9) That Jesus is the Son of God.
10) That Jesus rose from the dead.
11) That the Holy Spirit is related to Yahweh and inspired the particular canon that we now possess in 21st century Protestant Christianity.
12) That inspiration means the exact Biblical canon we now possess is without a single error.
13) That our interpretation of this inerrant book is trustworthy enough to be a source for truth.
All this could be resolved in an instant if the Holy Spirit would make His presence known, but apparently He is making Doug work super hard.
In the meantime, I’ll just use the Bible like any other book.
LeoPardus, I’ll just let you take over :) Perfectly said.
“There is perhaps one escape though. I don’t recall the Bible explicitly stating that God is omniscient. Does it say that? Where?”
Apparently God stood back and waited to see what Adam would name the animals. Why would he wait unless he existed inside of time and why would he wait unless he did not know what Adam would name them?
And what’s the point of free will if God knew what Adam was going to choose anyway? Apparently God chose believers before the foundation of the world. This means God knew Adam would sin.
But then this means Adam had no choice in the matter, which means that justice does not exist…
And so on and so forth with other little details thrown in…
Doug- I’m sorry I wasn’t rambling- Just adding to the conversation. The conversation had touched the topic- did God create himself and than Josh had quoted part of the Bible- I than added my opinion. Also just cause the Nicene Creed accepts your view- many believe the trinity was something made up by the Romans- hence Roman Catholic Church- because at that time the Romans were pagans- many things have been changed on account of them- explicitly celebrating the Sabbath on Sunday- but that’s fine if you take my comments as rambling. Maybe Josh was just being sarcastic using that quotation in his post.
By the way, it’s fine Doug you don’t have to answer any of my questions- possibly you like to answer things in “order” not to stray from your form of reasoning. I think that’s why you feel my comments are just rambling. Maybe I won’t respond to you’re comments anymore.
Josh- Regarding “god” being omniscient- you just have to realize- “christianity” states things that arent’ in theBible- like the Trinity for example- it’s all “faith”- lol.
About justice and Adam sinning- I don’t know if anyone has ever been apart of the “Calvinistic” form of thinking- but it at least can explain or give a reason for you’re arguments. I don’t agree with Calvins or really any Christian but if you’re looking for an answer to this maybe Calvinism might help.
Maybe Adam was “reprobate”, just kidding.
Josh- Even if the Holy Spirit is proved to be existent- how would we still know that the Bible was inspired by the Holy Spirit? I would doubt the Bible even before I would doubt the HS. Historically the Bible has been composed by men who voted on which books to use and which not to. Their are Bibles today- Catholic- Ethiopian- that have other books. I feel that the Bible speaks for itself- it’s contradictory in nature- different stories make it seem contradictory- the different accounts of David’s concesus- who made him give the consensus. By the way- Doug I’m not rambling- rather I’m not responding to you b/c you never answer my questions or feel they have nothing to do with the arguments.
What I’m understanding is this-
To prove the Bible inerrant the HS has to be proved.
But what about the errors and disagreements regarding the compilation of the Bible? Doesn’t that already cancel out the Bible being inerrant? Meaning it has errors. Or are we saying that if the HS exists than all those men who voted on which books to put into the compilation where also inspired?
“Maybe Josh was just being sarcastic using that quotation in his post. ”
It is hard not to be sarcastic. I can’t imagine the difficulty being serious if trying to show a Mormon their beliefs are bunk. Haha! :)
“I think that’s why you feel my comments are just rambling. Maybe I won’t respond to you’re comments anymore.”
Personally, I enjoy your comments Bonita. Quite a bit, actually. It is just going to be difficult for them to grab Doug’s serious attention because Doug is an intellectual Christian. Having begun to study apologetics, I know how that normally goes.
“Josh- Regarding “god” being omniscient- you just have to realize- “christianity” states things that arent’ in theBible- like the Trinity for example- it’s all “faith”- lol.”
I know, and you are spot on. Doug comes from a background where integration of multiple passages of the Bible based on the assumption they are communicating the exact same thing is allowed. It is true that the Trinity is not explicitly taught in the Bible… and the early Christians knew it. Which is why they added an explicit reference at one point to the manuscripts.
Now Doug is going to come back and derail me and tell me to read this book and that book and that I got all the wrong information.
Oh well. I guess the devil got to me before the Holy Spirit could send Doug.
“To prove the Bible inerrant the HS has to be proved.”
You are spot on, Bonita. One cannot start with the assumption that the Bible is inspired and then work to prove the function / nature of the Holy Spirit. That would be circular.
The Bible does claim that the Holy Spirit is proved via miracles and revelations, but never makes the claim to be inspired the way Doug and I were taught to believe. It never even comes close.
“But what about the errors and disagreements regarding the compilation of the Bible? Doesn’t that already cancel out the Bible being inerrant? Meaning it has errors. Or are we saying that if the HS exists than all those men who voted on which books to put into the compilation where also inspired?”
Doug’s simple argument is going to be that errors are only “apparent” errors. In other words, if the Bible is interpreted “properly”, there will be no errors. Sadly, people like Doug would never, ever allow this type of interpretation for other holy books.
I’ve debated Doug for hours and hours on this stuff, and it basically comes down to this: if Doug can invent any possible interpretation that could possibly come close to making two seemingly errant passages agree, Doug will hail that interpretation as the accurate one – without regard to its plausibility Why? Well, you said it: because it is his faith. Belief trumps rationality where ever “God” can be inserted as an influencing factor.
Doug starts with the assumption that what he now believes is correct and waits for someone to “prove” it wrong. What I am trying to show Doug is that he has bought into a carefully constructed system of thought that by its nature does not allow anybody to “prove” it wrong. Catching a Christian and pointing out an error is about like trying to catch a jelly fish. They are really slippery and constantly changing directions. We’ve seen this once already with Doug. He tries to defend the existence of the Holy Spirit, finally realizes what my point was, admits somewhat that I am right, and then tries to completely change the direction of the conversation.
Christianity just reinvents itself every time someone finds a flaw with it so that it is “out of reach” of criticism. That is all Doug will do. It is what I did, and it clued me in to the fact that something was wrong.
For example, the Cosmological argument was shown to have an error. What did Christians do? They just tweaked the argument a little and called it the Kalam Cosmological argument. What?
It is not about the arguments.
The parishioners hide their god behind endless rhetoric so that he cannot be hurt.
Thank you Josh for your response- and by the way- I was saying I wasn’t responding anymore to Doug’s comments- not yours. It’s been a very interesting post.
Bonita: Where, in any post I have ever made, did I ever say you were rambling? I asked Josh if perhaps he was rambling, but I never said this of you.
Okay, I copy and pasted all the posts since mine yesterday morning and it came out to ten pages of a Word document. To try to keep things manageable here, I’ve only really addressed eleven or so points made by Josh yesterday. I’ve read everything you guys have written here, but I just don’t have time to respond. If you’re interested in hearing a response, then you’re just going to have to wait. I’m sorry, I just don’t have the time to spend more than an hour and a half on this each day. My recommendation is to keep your responses neat and concise, and to resist the temptation to add zingers randomly in the middle of the day.
Josh, I have summed up the points you feel I haven’t answered to your satisfaction, here they are.
Point 1: Why do I not use myself as evidence of the Holy Spirit’s existence?
Answer: Because I don’t think that the evidence of personal experience is conclusive in any way that would be helpful for our discussion. It is, by definition, very subjective. To put it another way, while I find my own experience of the Holy Spirit’s work in my life to be compelling given my own worldview, I don’t expect it to be compelling in yours.
Point 2: Am I a hypocrite for not justifying my rejection of other religions with the same rigor I expect you to use in justifying your rejection of Christianity?
Answer: I believe I have adequate grounds for rejecting other religious faith claims, for at least two reasons. First: I am convinced of the truthfulness of Christianity, which is, as you of course know, is incompatible with other contradictory religious views. Second: I have done quite a bit of work in understanding other religions, and have not found compelling reason to accept their claims.
Point 3: The Euthyphro dilemma, applied to logic as well.
Answer: This argument just does not have the force you claim it does. Saying that God is good or is logical is the same as saying that he is powerful. This doesn’t make power some kind of super-deity over God, it is just a descriptive term we use to describe how he actually is. It is like calling my wife “blonde,” which does not mean that there is some ultimate blondeness “out there” to which she conforms. Don’t you see that this objection is based on faulty Platonic reasoning? I’m sorry, but this is more of an attempt at a logical sleight of hand that is given out of desperation (like Leo’s r/s/a argument or a challenge to God to create a rock so heavy he cannot lift it) than an argument that is logical and has any real force.
Point 4: I am guilty of eisegesis by reading a philosophical God back into the text of Scripture. Why does not Scripture address these issues? Is it insufficient?
Answer: The God I am describing fits the God of the Bible. Perhaps the God I am describing is not specific enough to ONLY be the God of the Bible, but I see no real contradiction to the God that can be reasoned via natural theology and the God that is presented in the Scriptures. As for why Scripture does not address these issues, it depends on which issues you are talking about. With most of them, it does. For those other places in which it does not, no, it is still sufficient. This is because the question over the sufficiency of the Bible is is one that must be qualified by asking, “Sufficient for what?” Sufficient for obtaining brownie recipes? Sufficient for telling me the time and date of my death? Sufficient for helping me pass my exam? Sufficient for what? God is able to produce believe in people through means other than deductive reasoning. He doesn’t need arguments. Belief in God is, in this way, properly basic in most people—as are a huge number of other things we believe. This doesn’t mean that all truth is properly basic in this way, or that all theological truth is properly basic in this way, which is why we need revelation. Although God could make the entire content of Scripture basic knowledge to us, he does not, perhaps because the effort to get to know him through them is itself virtuous. Either way, the argument that philosophical arguments render the Bible “insufficient” doesn’t really have any evidential or rational force.
Point 5: I haven’t told you what a person is.
Answer: Yes, I have. I’ll just quote my post from yesterday: “The definition of a ‘person’ is ‘an individual with right and duties.’”
Point 6: Why, if the Holy Spirit exists and Paul is correct, am I required to use words and not power to defend my position.
Answer: Because Paul IS correct, and Paul not only used the Holy Spirit, but he also used argumentation to reason for his point. It wasn’t like his only thing was to do magic tricks to get people to believe. Rather, we are told that he would reason night and day with Jews and Greeks in order to compel them to belief in Jesus.
I could say more about this, but I don’t want to make this unnecessarily long.
Point 7: What is the distinction between sense perception and acceptance of testimony? Does not testimony come through sense (hearing/seeing in the sense of reading) or memory?
Answer: In terms of your own cognitive experience, it is a separate belief-producing mechanism. Testimony is communal and has to do with trusting other people other than yourself, more so than the other senses. In other words, by believing testimony (which is actually how you know most of the things you know), you simply trust what others tell you. Yes, you hear or read testimony to receive it, but your grounds for belief are rooted in trust of the one who told you. In the very few cases where you might investigate testimony, that’s fine, but once you investigate it you are no longer grounding the belief in trust in another person, but your own investigation. ~Note: This is not something that is controversial, and is not a claim that is necessarily religious; Reid and Hume were the first philosophers to really try to work out the epistemology of testimony, but since then there has been much philosophical work on the subject, particularly after the seminal work by C. A. J. Coady.
Point 8: Is believing the Bible the same as believing the claim that God speaks to people today?
Answer: No, it is not. I have reasons for believing that the Bible is the word of God. I also have reasons for believing that many people err when claiming that God speaks to them. So when they do, I am open, skeptical, and cautious.
Point 9: To quote the Bible (which is supposedly Holy-Spirit inspired) as an inerrant, final authority is circular reasoning if it has not been established that the Holy Spirit exists.
Answer: First, I’m not doing this. Second, no, this is not circular reasoning, because the existence of God is a sufficient causal explanation for the inspiration of the Scriptures. I realize that simply demonstrating that God exists does not mean that I’ve demonstrated that he inspired the Bible, but if the question is one of circular reasoning is on the table, then this is absolutely adequate to show why this is not circular. I don’t need to demonstrate the means or the agency by which he inspired the Bible, because of the nature of God. I simply need to show that I am rational in believing that he exists, and then God-inspired revelation is certainly not circular. You might as well ask me to prove the existence of Paul’s pen—it doesn’t matter whether I can demonstrate means or agency; to escape your charge of circular reasoning all I need to do is show that it is rational for me to believe in God.
Point 10: Logic only exists in our universe because logical arguments require time and space.
Answer: Though I’m happy to debate this point with you, Josh, perhaps we should subsume this under the Euthyphro dilemma for the sake of time and sanity. But if you want an answer, I would say that you are misunderstanding what laws of logic are. A law, whether logical or scientific, is simply a description of how things are. In fact, even to say that logical laws do not apply outside the universe would be to posit a “law” for the supposed supra-universal reality. To put it another way, your argument is somewhat akin to the question of whether a tree falling makes a sound if no one is there to hear it. To say that God is logical is not to require of him that he exist in time and space because you don’t need to be arguing for logic to be true. IT JUST IS, IT’S A LAW.
BTW, if you want to argue that logic does not exist outside of the universe, all I have to do is say that God is outside of the universe and therefore I do not need to use logic to speak of him. This, of course, I find unacceptable.
Point 11: You don’t understand what I was asking by requesting that you prove that moral standards were invented by man (i.e. conventional) without using circular reasoning.
Answer: Well, you require me not to use circular reasoning. The question here is from whence come moral laws. If you are giving an atheistic account of reality, you must answer this question. Are they arbitrary? Are they real? Is rape and child molestation just wrong because those with a will to power say it’s wrong? You say that they are generated because a certain society agrees on them. So in a society of child molesters, is child molestation right? What if the society of child molesters argues that they are not really harming children? You don’t get a free lunch. There is not presumption of atheism. You must also give an account for your beliefs.
Point 11: How is it just for God to punish all men for one man’s sin?
Answer: This is not what the Bible teaches.
I apologize again, guys and gal, for not being able to answer everything. Have a great day!
Point 1: We agree. Except that your Bible says that the Holy Spirit should be evidence in someone’s life. The Bible says the Holy Spirit’s presence should not be subjective. If you do not agree with this, then we are not reading the same Bible.
Point 2: Ooh, how nice! I agree!
First: I am convinced of the truthfulness of atheism, which is, as you of course know, is incompatible with all religious views. Second: I have done quite a bit of work in understanding other religions, and have not found compelling reason to accept their claims.
I just reject one more god than you do.
Point 3:
Doug: “Saying that God is good or is logical is the same as saying that he is powerful.”
Bullshit. I would simply say that the universe is good and logical. According to you, then the universe is powerful. Now what?
Point 4: “The God I am describing fits the God of the Bible.”
Sure, if you make the Bible agree with your philosophical God by applying the circular reasoning that if the philosophical God exists He is the God of your Bible.
Point 5:
“The definition of a ‘person’ is ‘an individual with right and duties.’”
I should probably rest my case right here. God, then, cannot be a person.
Point 6:
Why not just say Paul did not do any miracles, just gullible people fell for coincidences? Then Paul used arguments for everyone else?
This is far easier, and fits every other miracle worker.
Point 7:
“Testimony is communal and has to do with trusting other people other than yourself, more so than the other senses.”
So what? I learn through my senses what other people to trust.
Point 8:
“Is believing the Bible the same as believing the claim that God speaks to people today? No, it is not… I have reasons…”
Oh. That’s nice.
Point 9:
“because the existence of God is a sufficient causal explanation for the inspiration of the Scriptures.”
Which Scriptures and which God? The God of your Scriptures? That is circular.
Point 10:
“A law, whether logical or scientific, is simply a description of how things are.”
I’m glad we agree. We disagree in that all I am saying is that we cannot presume that a deity would follow “how things are” unless that deity is subject to “how things are”, and at that point you are just saying that God is “how things are”.
Then what?
Point 11: How is it just for God to punish all men for one man’s sin?
Answer: This is not what the Bible teaches.
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned”
David’s son was killed for David’s sin. What sin had David’s son committed?
If you tell me that David’s son had not yet committed a sin and so was “saved”, then abortion is an act of mercy, because it saves the child from hell. And God says that if you see an innocent person being lead to the slaughter, you are guilty if you do not do something to deliver them. At this point, abortion is the only 100% fool-proof way of guaranteeing that a child will go to heaven.
Furthermore, if you tell me that David’s son had not yet committed sin, you disagree with Paul, who says that all men die for their individual sins.
Furthermore, if David’s son did commit a sin, then Ezekiel is wrong when it says “before the child will know right from wrong.”
Furthermore, God says a child should not be put to death for the sins of its father.
Doug. Your religion does not make sense.
Why, if the Holy Spirit exists and Paul is correct, am I required to use words and not power to defend my position.
Answer: Because Paul IS correct,
OK. NOW you have gone circular beyond any possibility of doubt.
and Paul not only used the Holy Spirit, but he also used argumentation to reason for his point. It wasn’t like his only thing was to do magic tricks to get people to believe. Rather, we are told that he would reason night and day with Jews and Greeks in order to compel them to belief in Jesus.
He did BOTH. WORDS and POWER. Not just words.
Bloody read your holy book. Here, let me help with that.
I Cor 2: 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
I Thes 1: 5because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.
OK now. YOU Doug. Come up with some reality. Your words are worthless because that is ALL you have. WORDS. No power. No deity. Just bad explanations of why your imaginary “almighyty” deity can’t do a bloody thing. That may do something for you, but I cannot see how a totally do-nothing deity satisfies anything. Especially one you have to apologize for incessantly.
Josh,
Point 1: On the Holy Spirit as evidence (of ???) in one’s life.
Answer: I think we roughly agree on this, but I have to disagree in three places. First, where does the Bible teach that the evidence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer can be objectively observed? Second, is the presence of the Holy Spirit in one’s life ever used as a form of persuasion in the New Testament?
Point 2: On being fully persuaded that other faiths are wrong.
Answer: I’m comfortable in leaving this here.
Point 3: “Saying that God is good or logical is the same as saying that he is powerful.” You wrote: “Bullshit [who are you, Penn and Teller ;) ?]. I would simply say that the universe is good and logical. According to you, then the universe is powerful.”
I’m sorry, you are misunderstanding me here; I don’t think I was clear enough. I’m not saying that logic and goodness = power. That would be crazy on my part. I’m saying that “good” and “logical” are, like “powerful,” simply adjectives to describe what a thing is. They are not really created things. They human are descriptions of things that exist. This doesn’t place them “over God.” These are merely descriptions, Josh. God doesn’t create “power,” he doesn’t create “logic,” and he doesn’t create “goodness.” He does things that are powerful, logical, and good. There is a difference.
Point 4: The God of the Bible and the “philosophical God.” You argue that I’m somehow applying circular reasoning here, but I’m not sure how this is the case. I think you guys are throwing around “circular reasoning” a bit too loosely, anyway. There is a sense in which all arguments are circular. The question is whether they are viciously circular. Mine is not. I am not assuming what I am trying to prove? If so, how?
Point 5: On God being a “person.”
Answer: How is God not an individual with rights and duties?
Point 6: On Paul’s use of the Holy Spirit—why not just say Paul didn’t do miracles, but gullible people fell for coincidences?
Answer: First of all, because you haven’t proven your point that Paul’s modus operandi was to prove his preaching via miraculous signs. I’m not disputing that Paul claims to have done signs. I’m just disputing that this in any way should be regarded as something that is being set out in the New Testament as the norm.
Point 7: On testimony.
Answer: I’d suggest maybe dropping this subject because it is now seeming like a waste of time. But if you want to go down this road, then fine. “I learn through my senses what other people to trust.” Yes, but the beliefs you form via what other people tell you are not grounded in your senses. Are you telling me that you investigate everyone who gives you information to see whether or not they’re trustworthy? That is ridiculous.
Point 8: On believing the Bible. I think we can rest this point here, since your response is simply “that’s nice” (I would respond likewise). Even if you don’t agree with me or don’t think I have sufficient justification, I don’t think this is directly on the table right now, and if it’s not I’m sure it eventually will come up.
Point 9: You are claiming that for me to say that God is a sufficient causal explanation for the inspiration of the Scriptures is circular.
Answer: How in the world is this circular? It only is if you do what you are doing and put words in my mouth (and even then, that’s stretching it). All I’m saying at this point is that divine inspiration is possible (and even probable), given the fact that belief in the existence of God can be rationally sustained (and, I would add, is the best explanation for the facts as we have them). This is not circular.
Point 10: I am saying that God is “how things are.”
Answer: Let me know if you’re not okay with this, but I think we can basically subsume this point under point 3.
Point 11: On original sin. You claim that the Bible teaches that God punishes all men for Adam’s sin, and then quote Romans 5:12, and I’m very happy you did. My point is simple. Consider the words:
“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned.”
Now, answer the following question: According to this verse, death came to all men why? (i.e. what are the words after “because”?) In fact, by citing this verse, you contradict yourself when you say that Paul “Says that all men die for their individual sins.”
Point 12: The death of David’s son by Bathsheba.
Now this is a genuinely difficult issue. I sympathize with your thinking here. I can understand why you find this to be a very difficult issue for Christians, and I certainly don’t think you’re dumb in any way for bringing this up. This argument is clever, and I can see why some would find it persuasive. I, however, do not. Here are some of my reasons:
1. With respect to your point on abortion, the Bible does not say that we have the right to take innocent life. Based on this alone, it is not moral to kill infants. I can respond to this in one or two other ways, but I think this is enough for now.
2. You claim that a problem is created here between what God does and what Paul says that God does—namely, that he brings the judgment of death on people for their own sins. I certainly agree with this interpretation of Paul, but it only presents a problem if Paul were saying that this is the ONLY reason people die, but he does not. Common logic dispels this notion: When a person is murdered, he is not dying because of his own sin; he is dying because of someone else’s sin. So I don’t see the contradiction here.
3. I’m not sure which passage in Ezekiel you mean to reference. Do you mean to allude to Isaiah 7? Of course, Eze 18 can be brought into the discussion. I’m not sure exactly which point you are making.
There are, of course, other issues connected with this. I’m not claiming to have given a comprehensive answer at this point. I think you mean to imply that there is a biblical contradiction here, but if so, you need to be more explicit.
Okay, that’s it for now. Have a good one.
Leo,
Settle down, Beavis. You need to read what I wrote: “It wasn’t like his ONLY thing was to do magic tricks to get people to believe.” I’m open to the notion that perhaps signs did accompany Paul’s preaching. I’m just saying that we have no evidence that this was the norm, and quoting TWO verses doesn’t exactly prove your point (I could rest my case here).
But let’s look at 1 Corinthians 2:4 (I don’t have time to do both of them; we can talk about Thessalonians tomorrow, if you like). You are saying that “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” means that Paul came and performed miraculous signs. Does it? All assumptions must be subject to scrutiny. A very important element in this verse that keys us into what Paul means is what he contrasts it to: “Plausible words of wisdom” (peithois sophias—I’m sure you are familiar with the term “sophist”). His terminology here is actually very similar to Aristotle, who contrasted one’s clever rhetorical flourishes (peithos) that were supposed to sway knowledge (gnosis), whether or not one’s claims were true and were based on actual proofs (apodeixis, which is used here for “demonstration”). I would say that it sounds a lot more like Paul is here contrasting sound argumentation with bogus argumentation.
Also, why do you assume that “Spirit and power” are references to miracles at all? Origen, who lived in an age in which (to say the least) people were not as skeptical of miracles as they are today (and was a native Greek speaker), understood this apostolic “power” as a style of “life and disposition . . . which struggles even to death for the sake of truth” (Against Celsus, 1:63). What positive argument do you offer for your understanding of “demonstration of Spirit and power”?
As I expected. More blah blah blah to explain why your deity never does anything. What use is your deity?
I suppose the thought of him makes you comfy, but then snuggly Eater bunnies do that for children.
I can see no purpose whatsoever for your imaginary friend.
Come up with a real deity sometime and we’ll have something to work with. Your do-nothing fantasy is useless (except that making stuff up about it pays your bills).
Doug,
I think my only regret was calling bullshit on a misunderstanding in my last post. Otherwise, we are good.
Point 1: “First, where does the Bible teach that the evidence of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer can be objectively observed? Second, is the presence of the Holy Spirit in one’s life ever used as a form of persuasion in the New Testament?”
For the sake of argument, I’ll assume that there is no objective way to validate the Holy Spirit’s interactions with this world (even though this is bull because I do not understand the purpose of an indwelling deity who is admittedly subjective).
Doug, if one’s subjective reasoning cannot be trusted, and you admit that you take the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of you on subjective grounds, how do you know you have the Holy Spirit?
Point 2:
I am not comfortable leaving this here. You daily worship and adore a deity who is going to destroy me for all eternity. While my cries of anguish and wailing and gnashing of teeth go up forever, you will be singing worship songs, praising God for the “justice” to treat me like that.
What reason do I have to be your friend? Your beliefs do everything they can to make me your enemy.
Point 3:
“God doesn’t create “power,” he doesn’t create “logic,” and he doesn’t create “goodness.” He does things that are powerful, logical, and good.”
Replace “God” with “the universe”.
Regarding your use of the word “good”. Stop assuming God, if He exists, would be a person. That is most definitely viciously circular. It shows your bias toward Christianity’s definition of God.
Point 4:
“There is a sense in which all arguments are circular. The question is whether they are viciously circular. Mine is not. I am not assuming what I am trying to prove? If so, how?”
You keep assuming that God, if He exists, is a person, which is something that Christianity teaches. That is circular.
God, if He [edit: It] exists, is not a person.
Point 5:
Rights and duties assume potential of harm. What weakness does your God have that he needs a right and duty to protect it?
Point 6:
“I’m just disputing that this in any way should be regarded as something that is being set out in the New Testament as the norm.”
You just used the word “norm” when referring to the actions of your deity. This implies that your deity’s interactions with this world have a norm. This means that the Holy Spirit’s actions in this world should be demonstrable.
Yet you still refuse to demonstrate. I’m getting tired of your constant dodging the point.
Point 7:
“Are you telling me that you investigate everyone who gives you information to see whether or not they’re trustworthy?”
No. Our mind takes in massive amounts of sensory data and in most cases makes subconscious decisions on our behalf on what to trust / who to trust. That’s all.
Point 8: See Point 2.
Point 9:
“You are claiming that for me to say that God is a sufficient causal explanation for the inspiration of the Scriptures is circular.”
You are assuming that God, if He exists, is a person, which is a Christian teaching. God’s existence is not sufficient explanation for direct inspiration of any human-originating item. You first have to demonstrate why God must be a person and then what motive he would have to inspire any communication to us.
Point 11:
“According to this verse, death came to all men why?”
Because “all sinned”. Your point?
Trust me Doug, you are digging yourself a hole going down this path. Don’t do it, save yourself!
“In fact, by citing this verse, you contradict yourself when you say that Paul “Says that all men die for their individual sins.”
I don’t get what you are saying.
Point 12:
“This argument is clever, and I can see why some would find it persuasive.”
You need to learn to hide your motives better.
Doug: “it is not moral to kill infants.”
One word: miscarriage.
Josh in original article: “Quite simply, by logical inspection a person outside the faith concludes that God is a hypocrite and unjust.”
Looks like our debate is over.
Oh, Doug, just as an fyi. I love how you cite your
deitiesdeity’s actions by using the word “norm”. As if anything a deity does would be normal. I just love it. It’s like he is a specimen you are studying in the lab.You have the makings of a grade A scientist.
Doug, you might want to read this:
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dgsp8pp3_89cp52w9xd
Just a PS to my last. Origen isn’t really the best choice to back up anything is he? :)
Leo, dude. You got it. It is sooo weird to me that people can study Christianity and get all excited about the church fathers and never realize that they were just adding to the invention.
I mean, what the hell do the church fathers have to add to the very, living Word of God – except their opinions? Really?
And then… Christians do the same cherry-picking of ideas from the church fathers that they do to the Bible. Once I started reading a little of the church fathers it became very, very clear that I would never want to use them for any information on theology. They are clearly contradictory, wacko, and interpret the Bible “wrong”.
Hahaha, I remember discovering that Pilgrim’s Progress misinterprets the Bible left and right. What a quandary I found myself in. A Christian classic, obviously “used by the Lord to change lives”, but its hermeneutic would not pass a basic Bible Study Methods class at Moody. So why was I at Moody again?
If the Holy Spirit moved Mr. Bunyan to write that work, why did the Holy Spirit at least not inform him the accurate way to interpret the Bible (which is supposed to be the more important work and the source)? And if it was not important for Mr. Bunyan to accurately interpret the Bible, why the fuckballs (a technical French term) do we need to spend countless thousands of dollars learning to interpret it accurately?
On the other hand, at least the church fathers were giving real information. I still am not seeing anything from the Holy Spirit yet.
The idea that Pilgrims Progress was a classic anything always made me ill. It’s so poorly written, so very childish, so frankly stupid that I could only marvel that supposedly intelligent people saw it as anything but the silly, little work of an undeveloped mind.
As for the Church Fathers, apart from the Orthodox and a few Catholics, no other Christians know them worth a hill of beans. Nor can they even approach understanding them.
I sometimes wonder if the reason passages in old books “feel” important is because they are so damn hard (or impossible) to understand that people just assume they are saying something wise.
Lol, it reminds me of all the times that preachers would get up and say – over and over – how “deep” they could go into a passage, but they “didn’t have time”. Everyone would nod their heads in agreement and say what a wonder God’s Word was. Nobody ever thought that maybe the only reason they had not scratched the surface of the passage was because nobody had any goddamn clue that the author was living in a completely different world and just making stuff up.
…and it is impossible to understand because it just plain defies reason.
Oh, another thing about the “person” aspect of God.
Why the hell is God a male? Does he have male genes? Who the hell is he going to reproduce with – Mary?
It just doesn’t make sense. Of course, it makes sense to say that humans anthropomorphizing the origins of the universe would ascribe sexual characteristics to that origin.
Ooooo! Ooooo! I can answer that one! Call on me pleeeeasse!
God is “male” because male is the default gender of almost every human language.
God damn! LeoPardus, that’s fucking brilliant!
Wait, that means the deity is probably made up…
Nevermind.
I came up with another one just now!
The apostle Paul says he could wish that he himself were accursed – cut off from God – for the sake of his brethren.
Doug says infants are innocent.
If I were a Christian, I could wish that I myself were cut off from God for the sake of all the infants in the world.
Innocent infants go to heaven…
…
Honestly, the thought is just revolting.
Leo,
You can say that all I do is give “blah blah blah to explain why my deity never does anything.” From where I’m standing this is really starting to look like a defense mechanism for the fact that you’re bringing lousy arguments to the table. You can’t just shield yourself from criticism by retreating to this every time one of your arguments falls flat.
Another thing. Several times already, you have accused me of holding my position because of ulterior motives (e.g. “making stuff up about it pays your bills”). This is very low. Is this really your best response, to try to guess what my motives are for thinking what I do? Well guess what. I don’t do this to you, and I would appreciate it if you didn’t do it to me. Besides, this is ridiculous for several reasons. First, I don’t make money doing this. Have I taught in the past? Yes. Do I now? No. Second, I don’t know what planet you’ve been living on, but Christian education/pastoral ministry isn’t exactly where to go if you’re looking to score an awesome paycheck. Third, it would be just as easy for me to pursue a career in secular academics as it would for me to continue pursuing Christian academics. I am in the perfect position to teach biblical criticism or Semitic philology at a secular university. Fourth, I could just as easily accuse you of believing what you do because of ulterior motives. Hey, maybe you’re an atheist because, like Huxley, you just want to be able to exercise sexual license. Maybe you don’t want to have to live your life accountable to God, and so ignore him. But I don’t suggest that, and I certainly don’t use it as an excuse when my arguments are shown to be lacking. Why? Because I extend you the courtesy of someone in an adult conversation, and I expect you to do the same.
Josh,
As I’ve said before, I am sorry if I don’t have time to get to everything.
Point 1: How can I know I have the Holy Spirit if “I take the Holy Spirit’s indwelling of me on subjective grounds,” and if “one’s subjective reasoning cannot be trusted”?
Answer: I wouldn’t completely say that one’s subjective reasoning cannot be trusted. After all, our subjective reasoning is certainly trustworthy at many points in life. But for this, you’re right, it isn’t entirely trustworthy. So why do I think I have the Holy Spirit? Because my experience of it corresponds to what I understand it to do from the Scriptures (the fruit of the Spirit, Paul’s testimony that all believers are indwelt with the Holy Spirit, etc.). But it’s very important that you understand, I’m not offering this as a proof; the Holy Spirit is not meant to function as one. All I’m doing here is answering your question, not offering you a reason why you should believe in the Holy Spirit.
Point 2: Sorry, I thought you were, and that that was why you didn’t write anything. Now, I though this point was on being persuaded for the falsity of other faiths. But here you’re asking me what reason you should have for being my friend given my beliefs about your eternal destiny. I’m not sure how this relates.
Answer: Josh, be friends with whomever you want. I’m not going to twist your arm so that you come to my birthday party and bring me a Transformer ;). I think your portrayal of my thinking here is a bit off, though. I’m not happy about hell, and I don’t wish it on anyone. If anything, it is because you are my friend that I don’t mind spending time every day to talk to you about this stuff. Because of my beliefs, I see you as a person created in the image of God, who is worthy of love, respect, and kindness. It is not my place to judge you, Josh. If this isn’t good enough for you, then you don’t have to call yourself my friend, but I will always call myself yours.
Point 3: I wrote that God “doesn’t create ‘power’ . . . ‘logic,’ and . . . goodness,” but that “he does things that are powerful, logical, and good.” You wrote: “Replace ‘God’ with ‘the universe.’”
Answer: Okay, that’s true. It’s also true to replace “God” with “Josh,” or “Jim Carrey.” Possession of these attributes doesn’t make something God, and that’s not my point. My point is that these are not things that can exist apart from something that possesses them as attributes, and that therefore the Euthyphro dilemma is not compelling to me.
P.S. You also reply under this point that my definition of God as a person is circular. I’ll address this in the next point.
Point 4: Okay, here’s the next point! You see it as circular (viciously so) for me to assume that if God exists, he is a person, which is only known via Christian doctrine.
Answer: First, if this is circular, then so is your claim that if he exists he is not a person. How do you know this, aside from assuming what you haven’t proven? My point is not circular, and here’s why:
My project in this post has been to speak in terms of natural theology, probably more than I even have to, to avoid leading you into thinking that my reasoning is circular (note, I am hardly holding your beliefs to this kind of standard). This being the case, I admit that the God of natural theology does not need to be conceived as personal. It is possible to conceive of the creator of our universe as an impersonal force of some sort. However, I think that the personal model of deity best explains the evidence that we have for deity. This is because (1) without personal agency, the sufficient cause/agency of the universe would exist without its effect (the universe), which is impossible; it seems that some kind of volition is required in order to initiate creation; (2) part of my cumulative case argument (which I explained to Bonita above) involves the design/fine tuning of our universe, which, if the inference is correct, certainly implies intelligence and volition.
Point 5: On my definition of “person.” You believe that rights and duties assume potential for harm, and that, if God possesses these qualities, he must have some weakness.
Answer: I don’t see how rights and duties assume potential for harm. For example, I have a right to be respected by my neighbor’s kids, even though they are incapable of harming me. Nor do I see how duties imply vulnerability to harm.
Point 6: I said that the New Testament doesn’t set miracle working as proof for Christianity as the “norm,” and you contest my use of the term “norm” because there would be then a “normal” way of God’s interaction in this world, and that therefore the Holy Spirit’s actions should be demonstrable.
Answer: Are you serious, man? How in the world is this a sound argument? Especially when I’m saying that the “norm” for the Holy Spirit’s operation in this world is non-demonstrable via empirical evidence. This isn’t dodging. I’m just refusing to let you set up a straw man here.
Point 7: On testimony. You wrote: “Our mind takes in massive amounts of sensory data and in most cases makes subconscious decisions on our behalf on what to trust / who to trust.”
Answer: I still would argue that this is actually not how we think about this, but perhaps we should say farewell to this point, since it’s not really germane to our discussion. It’s your call.
Point 8: I don’t think there is a point 8!
Point 9: Inspiration assumes God is a person, which is a Christian teaching. God’s existence is not sufficient explanation for direct inspiration of any human-originating item. I need to first demonstrate what motive God would have to inspire communication to us.
Answer: I’ve addressed the issue of God’s personhood above. I think you mean that God’s existence is not a “necessary” explanation for any human action (like composing Scripture). I agree, the existence of the Scriptures can be explained without invoking divine agency. But it is also obvious that it does not follow from this that the Scriptures were not inspired by God. The real issue you bring up, I think, is that I need to know what motive God would have to inspire any communication to us. My answer here would simply be to say that he desires to communicate with the intelligent creatures whom he has created, and that the medium of written communication is particularly suitable for that end. Perhaps he desires to communicate with us that we might know him. Perhaps he desires to communicate with us that we might know what is good. There are many reasons a deity would have for wishing to communicate with his creation.
Point 11: What’s my point with making it clear that Paul says that “all died because all sinned”?
Answer: Because Paul is not saying that we die because of Adam’s sin. We die because of our own sin. Adam’s sin simply introduces sin into the world.
The contradiction that I pointed out was that you were saying that the Bible teaches that “God punishes all men for one man’s sin,” on the one hand, while saying that Paul teaches that all die for their own sin when talking about David’s sin with Batsheba.
Point 12: It is not moral to kill infants. God kills infants. Therefore, God is not moral.
Answer: Are you serious? Do you really think that any theist would say that it is immoral for God to take human life? Do you really think that any passage in Scripture can be exegeted to mean this? Is this hypocritical on God’s part? No, for the same reason it’s not hypocritical for me to tell a two-year-old not to cross LaSalle Blvd alone, while I myself have crossed LaSalle Blvd alone many times during my life. Am I a hypocrite for this?
P.S. By the way, I don’t cite Origen in yesterday’s response to Leo to say, “Here’s what a church father thought so it must be right.” I cited it to give evidence that a native speaker of Greek, who lived in a world in which miracles were thought to be common, still did not think the passage Leo cited referred to miracles.
Doug. Answer my questions straight. If you cannot and pull out more bullshit, the debate is 100% over. Here is your last chance:
“I don’t see how rights and duties assume potential for harm.”
Give me one (1) example of a right or duty that does not involve potential for harm.
“It is not moral to kill infants. God kills infants. Therefore, God is not moral.”
You agree with the premises, but you do not agree with the sound conclusion and pull out this shitty analogy (?):
“Is this hypocritical on God’s part? No, for the same reason it’s not hypocritical for me to tell a two-year-old not to cross LaSalle Blvd alone, while I myself have crossed LaSalle Blvd alone many times during my life. Am I a hypocrite for this?”
No, you are not a hypocrite, because morality is relative and the POTENTIAL FOR HARM FOR THE CHILD IS HIGHER THAN THE POTENTIAL OF HARM FOR YOU.
Duh.
Dude, fuck it. You can’t see it, you don’t want to see it and I’ve completely lost patience with you.
GROW UP AND ACCEPT THE CONCLUSION OF THE SOUND ARGUMENTS AND STOP BULLSHITTING YOUR WAY AROUND THE OBVIOUS CONCLUSIONS STARING YOU IN THE FACE.
Josh in original article: “So logic and reason, in their mind, are only accurate so long as logic and reason defend what they have already decided is true. If a person uses logic and reason and comes up with a conclusion that counters what they believe, then it is the person who is at fault”
Do you think I want for there to be no god? Doug, do you think I would be that fucking stupid and naive?
All you have are empty words and unsound arguments based on indemonstrable premises and viciously circular arguments.
Where is your deity? Is he on vacation? Is he sleeping?
All you have is a laundry list of talking points and you are so wasting my time – except that you are proving the original point of the article.
I can’t believe we just spent 182 comments to reiterate the original point of the post.
Morality is 100% relative to the potential for harm, it is not absolute.
Doug just admitted that God is allowed to kill innocent infants but humans are not.
Doug will always apply a different standard to his god than he does for humans, thus demonstrating that humans innately know that morality is relative, not absolute.
Doug:
First off, you are the one with the poor arguments. As I said before, I know them well. I held to them, used them, believed them for a lot of years. Your arguments have been shot down here non-stop and you refuse to see it. Josh and I, and quite a number of others, finally acknowledged the bankruptcy of the whole theistic belief system and accepted the truth. You haven’t. Until you’re willing to do so, you will continue to think you’re winning these arguments. (And whatever you do, you’ll still have no deity. Just your imagination.)
Regarding your motives: I believed for 25 years. I know that you truly think you are speaking for the one, true God. You’re not chuckling madly in your den saying, “Heh heh. I’m pulling wool over the eyes of suckers and laughing to the bank with my profits.” You actually do believe what you teach is TRUTH.
That said, you know that you cannot give it up. The cost is too high. Being a Christian educator pays your bills. If you accepted the reality of atheism/agnosticism, you’d have a real problem. (Money, friends, reputation, possibly family.. as I listed before.) That incredibly high price forces you to stay the course and stay away from any possible admission that I or Josh or any other atheist/agnostic might be right.
I know what that cost is like. I went through de-conversion. It was horrible. I know of a few people who’ve had their livelihoods impacted by it. De-conversion was even worse for them. This is a major reason why I do not bother theists about their beliefs unless they insist in engaging. Putting you, or anyone, through what I, and Josh and many others I’ve heard from, went through does not appeal to me.
Maybe that’s why I hit as hard as I do. I’d just about prefer you to run from the ring since I know you can’t win, so maybe if I’m brutal you’ll give up. Or maybe I’ll just get an outright KO and you’ll wake up in a de-converted world.
At this point I shall add that while I don’t much want anyone to go through the hell of de-conversion, I can say that it’s worth going through in the end. Once you’re past the ugly process of letting the old delusion go, the other side is a world of clarity, honesty, reality, and openness that I could never have even comprehended as a believer.
Oh and I know you’re not getting rich with what you do. I never said you were. I only said you’re paying the bills.
Relative to killing infants:
Surely the Source of law cannot violate law and stand unsmirched; surely the judge upon the bench cannot forbid crime and then revel in it himself unreproached.
- Mark Twain, Fables of Man
Of all the things I somehow accepted as a believer, the idea that God could commit genocide, homicide, and infanticide (or order people to do so) and still be “in the clear”, still be called “good”, beggars me the most. What the HELL was wrong with me?
“Being a Christian educator pays your bills.”
I think Doug no longer pays his bills by this, but the rest of your points still stand :)
“At this point I shall add that while I don’t much want anyone to go through the hell of de-conversion, I can say that it’s worth going through in the end. Once you’re past the ugly process of letting the old delusion go, the other side is a world of clarity, honesty, reality, and openness that I could never have even comprehended as a believer.”
Exactly.
Doug: “Because Paul is not saying that we die because of Adam’s sin. We die because of our own sin.”
And god damn it, I agree with you Doug completely. 100%. Why can’t you see that? You don’t get what is going on.
What you don’t get is that it doesn’t the fuck matter whether a person dies for their own sin or for Adams. BOTH WAYS HAVE SERIOUS PROBLEMS.
Fine, people die for their own sin. So the obvious next fucking question is:
So why the hell do you agree that “innocent infants” die? Is it a sin they committed? Death spread to “all men”? Are infants men? Adam commits a sin. If only one innocent infant dies as a result, then you are so, so fucking wrong its not even funny.
You cannot have your stupid cake and eat it too. If infants are innocent, then your interpretation of Paul is wrong. If infants are not innocent, then God sends millions of them to hell every year without a chance of salvation. Unless you want to switch your stance and use some stupid argument about John the Baptist being filled with the Holy Spirit while in the womb.
But you will not like that, because that opens a whole nother can of worms.
Give up Doug. You are losing miserably.
You remind me a lot of my first few classes at Aikido. My teacher over and over almost broke bones in my body and I thought I was doing good and finding all these loopholes in his method. In the end, he explained to me it was because he was playing nice and being patient. Then he started showing me all these places where he just had to move a little bit and my arm would snap in half. He was winning, but because it didn’t hurt yet I thought I was doing good.
I’m playing nice and being patient. Until now. If you stick around, I am going to notch it up one level because you are being extremely arrogant.
Play by the rules. The rules are: change your worldview when a clear argument shows you are wrong – no matter how much it hurts. Follow strict logic. If you agree with the premises, you MUST AGREE WITH THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION.
Fine, now your going to blather on and on now about how morality is absolute, not relative. Fine, I’ll save you the hastle – because I know these arguments backwards and forwards.
I’m only going to make one simple question:
Give me one example of a moral standard that is absolute?
Answer that one question. Find one, Doug. Just one. The problem is that you will not be able to provide one that I will not be able to shut down. Then you’ll whine that if absolute morality does not exist, then morality will descend into chaos, thus proving the point that morality is relative to the potential for harm. You’ll be making the point that harm is caused if morality is not absolute. Get it? You’ll be arguing that it is moral to have absolute morals because without absolute morals there is the potential for harm, thus proving that morals are relative to the potential for harm.
Good luck, buddy.
Give me one example of a moral standard that is absolute?
I know you didn’t ask me, but I wanted to try.
-Raping babies or small children is always wrong.
-Killing or severely beating someone for some minor infraction (e.g., cut in front of you in line, scratched your Corvette a tiny bit, etc.) is wrong.
-Wiping out an entire village (men, women, children, infants, animals, buildings) just ’cause you disagree with them about religion is always wrong.
-Killing babies and toddlers is just wrong.
-Sacrificing your children to any “god” is wrong.
-Torturing someone for the rest of their life for a minor infraction is wrong.
Killing a baby or toddler because his mom or dad committed a crime is wrong.
Well, there are a few. You, and/or Doug, can tell me if you agree with any of them.
Well, Doug would probably say that because God gives life, he can take it whenever he wants. Then I would say that parents give life (because they can choose not to have sex), so they can take it whenever they want, and blah blah blah. And then Doug would be afraid of me because he would fear that I have complete moral bankruptcy and I would just argue that it doesn’t matter, I want to know the truth. Then Doug would tell me that his arguments are all solid and he sees no reason to leave the faith. Then I would point out one of his argument’s flaws and he would come up with another bad analogy and say “are you serious?” over and over and I would say “yes, I am fucking serious” and he would not get that I am taking this more seriously than he is. And he will think that I am only arguing because I deep down know I have a bankrupt view of the world and am trying to secretly hide it and that I don’t “understand” and have been deceived as the Bible says and yada yada…
In the end, Doug wants me to avoid the pain (threat) of damnation. I want Doug to enjoy the freedom (rewards) of no religion and a clear-headed view of the universe. Unfortunately, my offer to Doug presents a series of threats, which is why he will not buy it. The only threat Doug’s offer makes to me is that it doesn’t make any fucking bloody sense and I want my worldview to match the data.
That is why we are arguing right? The original point of my entire article that Doug seems to have completely forgotten? We want to set the other person from from a threat or give them a reward? Freedom from religion is sweeter than having God set you free from a damnation He assigned you to and then having to bump around all your life trying to make the data match your beliefs.
I would simply say that all of the things you listed, LeoPardus, cause an incredible amount of harm to an individual and tons of psychological sympathetic pain in everyone who hears the story or is involved. Thus all the items you listed are extremely “wrong” because the perceived relative pain is extremely high. As such, the standards are relative to the pain involved. Extremely high pain: extremely high evil.
Oh, and Doug, if you say that we have different standards on right and wrong, you prove my point that morality is relative.
I appreciate the genius of your response, Leo :) If you are ever in Chicago, let’s get a beer.
because God gives life, he can take it whenever he wants
This actually holds some merit. If you were dealing with a deity like Zeus, i’d say it was pretty much just fine. But Zeus isn’t said to be “good” or “loving” or “just” as BibleGod is. For BibleGod to be any of those things, the terms must carry a meaning that we humans understand. Otherwise we’re back to my favorite category of “God is we know not what.”
If I am ever in Chicago, or if you take a hankering to see the Rockies again, a beer or two would definitely have to be involved in any meeting.
Hey. Come out here during good weather season and try a 14er. Nothing like dragging your bod 2500 feet over the tree line and down to make food and beverage taste GOOD.
I’ve actually done Long’s Peak before! What a rush. What a pain in the ass, too. But definitely worth it. Ran out of water like 5 miles to the bottom at 2:00 in the afternoon. That sucked. Sadly I was with some rather conservative Christians at the time, so there was no beer drinking… because… well, to some people beer is wrong because it has the potential to cause harm (proving once again that morality is relative).
The quote by C.S.Lewis is beautiful. It goes something like:
“If God’s standard of good is different than ours, then we would not be able to tell the difference between God and the devil.”
Paraphrased, of course. Because I would not want to cause any harm by quoting C.S.Lewis inaccurately and claiming it was accurate like the New Testament authors quoted the Old Testament inaccurately. Wouldn’t want to cause any harm like that, of course. And yes Doug, I said that intentionally knowing you would get bent out of shape and say I am misrepresenting God’s Word and not understanding proper hermeneutics, of which you apparently hold the golden standard. Why? Because you are a Christian, and Christianity is true, and in particular your view of Christianity is true, which means that the hermeneutic which you have studied is accurate and therefore by default all other hermeneutical views (especially those which hold that the Bible is errant) are by default wrong. Therefore it is simply your job to keep asking questions until you discover the interpretation of the passage we have in question that makes the passage not have any errors and then you “prove” the Bible is inerrant.
So much fun.
I love your arguments- I’m in out right now and laughing a bit. It’s funny how well (Josh) you have the Christian argument figured out. It reminds me of the debate I had with friends a week or so ago- It was so annoying because I knew what they would say. I give Doug a little credit b/c at least he tries to be more creative and prove his points on another level.
Regarding morality- it is completely relative in my opinion- it isn’t the same in every culture. A good example of something I had experienced lately with a friend from my former church- he is from mexico- in the area where he is from it is culturally acceptable to rape and also to kidnap women. Him being a Christian and me thinking I know his views get into a conversation about this topic and I leave the conversation realizing he believes in kidnaping. I couldn’t believe it b/c the church where he goes is so conservative- a few moments before hand he was telling me I was a “friend” of the world because I listen to non-religious music- but he’s more “saved” then me b/c he does all the right things- listens to the right music- doesn’t drink- I do do these things but I believe it is clearly wrong to kidnap people. So to me morality is different amongst different cultures- countries- and people groups. Not everyone believes the same things are evil. Another good example is “marijuana”- some people feel it’s wrong to smoke it while other countries have legalized it.
A good example of another controversy is “child abuse” many protestants almost come to the line of or are abusing their kids in the eyes of many non religious when to them it is – child rearing. This is another topic that completely sickens me- that has made me no longer interested in the church. It’s like a sick masochistic game among christian parents- in my opinion. And yes Doug that comment is an added one- possibly rambling.
Bonita, good examples. Doug is probably going to say those are “gray areas”, which will match up with areas the Bible does not specifically address. Absolute morality exists, it is just that there are areas where morality is relative because God gives us a level of freedom – or something like that. I’m actually really curious what he would say.
I will simply point out that every issue you brought forward is relative because the perceived pain caused by those issues is relative. There are some cases, for example, where kidnapping is a perceived pain that is less than an alternative. There are cases where legalizing marijuana is lessening a perceived pain (or increasing a perceived reward).
That is why we debate laws. We debate laws because people perceive the pain or reward differently. Argument, then, is nothing more than selling one’s perception to eliminate pain or increase pleasure. One must first demonstrate to another person’s satisfaction that the threat is imminent enough or that the reward is worth the cost of switching the position. In my “Writings” link above I have an article that describes how religion works based on a mathematical formula… (just for fun, don’t take it too seriously, although it works rather well)
The very fact that we argue morality – or how to interpret Biblical moral codes – is perfect, succinct evidence that morality is relative to the individual’s perception.
The common thread of morality found throughout societies is evidence that humans are similar social creatures that share similar fears of harm and so over time our common perception of what causes harm would normalize as our population increases and communication normalizes. (Doug, give me one example where this is not the case. Just one.)
That’s all Doug is trying to do by debating me. He sees denying the faith as a perceived potential harm. I appreciate that perspective, but am just trying to show him that the harm he perceives is all in his head.
Doug: one final question before you say that you don’t find any solid arguments against the theistic view you hold and that I do not understand and that you are not using circular arguments (“viciously circular”, to use your phrase), and that Leo and I don’t understand modern research in the Christian realm, etc. etc.
(Because we don’t give a damn what modern Christian research says for the same reason we don’t give a damn what modern Islamic research says, because the premise of all their research is wrong.)
Anyway, here is the question:
Doug, what would convince you Christianity is false?
Please clearly outline in one paragraph what it would take.
Oh, and don’t say something stupid like “produce the body of Jesus”, because by the same logic I could posit that Alexander the Great rose from the dead because you cannot produce his body.
Josh,
Well you’ve certainly given me a lot of material to chew on. I’ll get right into it. As usual, I’ve tried to condense them below. Let me know if I left anything out.
1. One example of a right or duty that does not involve potential for harm.
Response: The problem with this is your terminology. “Harm” is too vague to be of value for the debate. An example I would give is the right to have one’s words respected and understood and not misrepresented when one communicates. Does this involve “potential for harm” for God? It all depends on what you mean by “harm.” Is God harmed by those who consciously choose to ignore his words? Technically, no. Does this effect him? Probably yes, in that it causes him sadness. Is this harm? Maybe, but not in the sense that it implies any deficiency on God’s part. Your terminology is too vague.
2. The analogy of telling a child not to cross LaSalle Blvd is a bad one because, in this case the “potential for harm for the child is higher than the potential of harm for you.”
Response: Could not the same argument hold as a justification for God’s actions in the case of infant morality? If a child grows he incurs guilt for sin, for which he will be judged. By God taking the child’s life, does he not spare the child this fate? God is not required to act in this manner towards all his creatures, and has good reason for not doing so, but he certainly is permitted to in the case of some. I am not claiming that this can be the only reason God might have for doing this.
You will probably respond to this by claiming that this would justify abortion on our part. But it does not, because the moral imperative towards humans is not to take the life of innocents. The reason why this is the case is because, by taking life, we are assuming the role that God himself has. God has the right to give life and to take it. We do not. But this is not arbitrary. We have neither the knowledge nor the power to be able to make such decisions. This question can extend into the realm of capital punishment, but I’ll give you the choice whether you want to go there or not.
You charge me with avoiding the conclusion of the premises in the argument I reiterated to you. This is not what I have done, because, as with all arguments, if there are necessary qualifications that rightly belong in the argument, the conclusion may warrant modification. All I am doing is showing you why this argument is not as air tight as you think it is.
This also does not render morality relative. There is a difference between a moral imperative and the moral motivation behind it. The former is relative, but the latter is absolute. This is particularly the case in casuistic law, but even holds for many apodictic statements. This is even clear in the case of human law (e.g. rights of police vs. rights of citizens).
4. Connected to the first point, you ask why innocent infants die. You ask, “Is it a sin they committed? Death spread to ‘all men’? Are infants men? Adam commits a sin. If only one innocent infant dies as a result, then you are so, so fucking wrong its not even funny.”
Response: This objection only holds if all death is regarded as punishment for individual sin. But it is clearly not the teaching of Christian theology (and I’m not just speaking of my own theological positions) that physical death is only ever judgment for sin. Think about it. If believers are forgiven for their sin, why do they die? Death for many is simply the passing from this world into the next.
And with regard to your question about “all men”—with all due respect, this is a perfect example of how you do not think critically before employing biblical texts to support your position. No, infants aren’t men. Neither are women. Is Paul teaching that only males die as a result of sin? Of course not. He is clearly using the word “men” here in conformity to normal Greek and English usage in which the term can be used generically to speak of the human race. Of course, it is my arguments which are bullshit. I’m the one who’s “so wrong it’s not even f—ing funny.” You are the one who is using language like this, and yet I am the one who is “being extremely arrogant.”
5. “Give me one example of a moral standard that is absolute.”
Response: You shall have no other gods before me.
BTW, you can’t respond by saying that it’s not absolute because it isn’t universally recognized among humans—to claim something as morally absolute doesn’t mean it’s universally recognized as such.
Also, I don’t disagree that morality can be motivated by the desire to reduce harm. That’s fine with me. I just don’t think that this provides an adequate ground for morality in the atheistic framework. Here’s why:
What you are espousing is a consequentialist morality. This is the attempt to justify moral principles via certain values, such as happiness, or, in your case, the reduction of harm. This is certainly useful, but the problem with it is that people have different views about the values upon which morality is based. Whose harm are we to reduce? What happens in cases in which what might be harmful for me would reduce the harm for another person? Whose wellbeing do we favor? This is one of the reasons why I am claiming that your notion of “harm” is too vague. Perhaps you could reformulate your “ultimate good.” Of course, another weakness of this position is that it seems to be a way of smuggling absolute morality in the back door. To put it another way, if the ground for all moral decisions is the reduction of harm, does this not make reduction of harm itself a moral absolute?
6. On Bonita’s raping and kidnapping friend.
Response: First, Bonita, if you are reading this—for the second time, I NEVER SAID YOU WERE RAMBLING. Of course, those are not grey areas. They are not areas where we have a measure of freedom. With regard to her comments about child abuse, I don’t know enough of the situation to be able to make a judgment. What exactly is she calling child abuse? Is she alluding to spanking a child? Excessive spanking? There are mothers in this area who think that putting children in time out is child abuse. And why would Bonita speak of these things as if they are only practiced by Christian parents?
7. What would convince me that Christianity is false?
Response: That’s a fair question. Here are a few things (probably a combination of a few of these):
1. I would have to be shown actual defeaters for Christian theism.
2. I would have to be shown evidence that the Bible is false.
3. I would have to be shown a better explanation for the universe.
4. I would need time to review the arguments and to see if what seem to be defeaters prima facie are actually sound.
Basically Josh, these are the things you are doing. I know you fault me for not agreeing with you on these things, but I’m just doing what you’re doing: applying my reasoning skills to counter arguments. Why, then, am I coming to different conclusions than you? Who knows? I don’t think I’m smarter than you. We are working from different knowledge bases. We do have different life experiences. My impression (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that you come from a firmer fundamentalist background than I do. I didn’t have the experience of growing up in the church like you did. I wince every time I recall the conversation you told me you had with your pastor over Hebrews 6—I never experienced anything like that. I don’t really encounter a lot of Christians justifying their beliefs through direct appeals to the Holy Spirit.
Further, it is in general very difficult to justify why certain people find some things plausible that others do not. I understand your frustration—I too feel frustration. But I do not accept that either one of us is guilty of intellectual dishonesty. My experience is that when we demonize opposing points of views we fail to understand each other, and become puffed up with false pride in the soundness of our own argumentation.
Thanks for letting me vent… back to normal Josh…
1: The ability to be harmed implies weakness. My proposition is that morals and rights and duties are only needed where harm is possible. This is my hypothesis: that we will never be able to find a moral standard that does not reflect human mortal perception of the universe. This would include all morals that could be ascribed to a deity. The hypothesis is that men make god in their image, not the other way around.
So one just needs to provide one example of a single moral statement (or one regarding a right or duty) that does not imply a weakness – anywhere.
Does this make complete sense?
2. “If a child grows he incurs guilt for sin, for which he will be judged. By God taking the child’s life, does he not spare the child this fate?”
So why is the innocent child dying? You still have not answered that.
My proposition is that innocent children die because death is natural. Just as innocent germs die and innocent trees die and innocent whales die.
Biblically…
The child is either dying because Adam sinned or because the child sinned (because “the wages of sin is death”) or because it does not have access to the magical tree of life. Death is supposed to be a result of the fall, I thought. If death is a natural part of our world, how can it also be punishment for sin?
If a person is going to die anyway whether they sin or not, what’s the point?
You want to avoid saying that the child died for Adam’s sin because that means God is breaking his own standard that children should not die for the sins of their parents (this still does not escape my accusation regarding David’s child). You cannot say the child died for his own sin, or else the passage in Ezekiel makes no sense (“before the child knows right from wrong”).
So you are forced to say the child is innocent. But the child is still dying. Why?
Backed into somewhat of a corner, you must say that some death is just “passing into the next world”. You then say that God is sparing them a worse fate.
But I already addressed this above. If an infant dying goes to heaven, then it would be noble for one individual to kill all infants in the world – and go to hell himself – but save them from the fate of a sinful life that only increases their guilt.
But this brings us back to the point I originally made which you cannot seem to get at all:
If an innocent infant dies, it dies because of Adam’s sin, which means the innocent infant is being punished for Adam’s sin.
Then you are going to say that the innocent infant is not dying for Adam’s sin, it is just dying because that is a part of our world.
But then you said that infants have the “fate” of sinning and incurring guilt and God could “save” them from that.
Can I have a healthy and well-deserved “what the fuck”?
If it is the “fate” of a person to sin and incur guilt, but they begin life innocent, then it is the responsibility of a moral individual to save infants from that fate. Killing infants is then moral.
Furthermore, if a person cannot escape sinning, then this means that it is not their choice. And if it is not their choice, whose choice was it? Adam’s. Because Adam was the one who first sinned, and thus the sinful nature spread to all men.
Regardless of whether it is Adam’s fault or not, it is unjust of God to kill someone for doing something they had no choice in doing.
Can’t you see that this is all thinking in circles? Why can’t you see that?
Whatever. My head hurts even trying to imagine the circles your mind is going through to comprehend the possibility that this stuff is true.
BTW Josh. A while ago I asked about your reasons for studying Aikido (in your Aikido post). As a long time martial artist I like to hear what reasons/goals people have for their chosen arts. You can respond under the Aikido article if you choose to respond.
it is unjust of God to kill someone for doing something they had no choice in doing.
How about God deliberately killing an innocent baby because his parents did something bad? (Think David and Bathsheba.) Bet Doug’s apologetic for that would be nothing short of funny and insane.
Can’t you see that this is all thinking in circles? Why can’t you see that?
To borrow my all-time-favorite from van Til, “That’s OK, because we are circling around God.” :D :D :D :D
Whatever. My head hurts even trying to imagine the circles your mind is going through to comprehend the possibility that this stuff is true.
My stomach quakes remembering that I once did the very same things.
Doug, just to help you see how ridiculous all this is and to help you understand how silly this looks to an outsider, consider the following questions and potential answers (just to show you I know the possibilities):
Biblically:
Why do people die?
1) Because Adam sinned.
2) Because they sinned, and the wages of sin is death.
3) Because they do not have access to the tree of life.
4) Because it is a part of evolution (entirely dependent upon whether one can justify evolution with Scripture, which is a completely different debate that is subject to the personal interpretation and knowledge of the reader).
[Above choice depends upon interpretation of reader, which depends upon school of thought of the reader, which depends upon where a reader lives in the world and the information they have access to, which will influence their hermeneutic, and will highly influence their entire theology, which means if they get it wrong they could get the rest of their entire moral system and soteriology wrong.]
Ok, fine, lets say the sin nature spread to all men because Adam sinned. Death is a result of the sin nature (this doesn’t work because infants have not sinned yet, right?) Anyway let’s say you could invent an explanation that makes this work.
This means that all men have no choice but to sin, because it is in their nature. And if it is not their choice, how can they be judged for it?
Back to innocent infants. This is tough because David says that “in sin my mother conceived me”. If you say that David is referring to the sin of his mother, I would just say “well duh, why say that at all?” If David is referring to his own sin, then infants are not innocent, defeating your original argument.
But infants must be innocent, because Ezekiel says “before the child will know right from wrong”, implying that their is an age of accountability.
But if kids are not accountable, who is? If a kid (infant, baby, whatever) cannot sin, then why do they die?
This defeats Paul’s whole point that death is the result of sin. The “sting of sin is death”. Death is punishment for sin.
You could argue that death in this world is not a result of sin, but death in the next is a result of sin.
Ok, fine, but then why was the original intent that Adam and Eve would live forever in this world?
If God never planned for Adam and Eve to live forever in this world, then it means that Adam and Eve’s sin was predetermined, which means they had no choice. So how can God judge them? True justice does not exist where a person does not have a choice. Only reactionary justice with an intent to protect from harm exists, which fits my original premise – that all morality extends from a desire to avoid harm.
Ok, so apparently God chose all believers from before the foundation of the world, which means God knew Adam and Eve would sin and bring death to all men. This means Adam and Eve had no choice.
Why not just stop Adam and Eve from sinning and save everyone?
Why not just kill all innocent infants (if they are innocent, which apparently is contradicted by certain Bible passages) and save them from the fate?
It doesn’t make any sense at all.
You cannot argue that God knew before the beginning of the world what Adam and Eve’s choice would be and simultaneously argue that Adam and Eve had a choice. If God knew they would bring about so much pain and suffering, it was God’s moral imperative to protect massive portions of his creation from self-harm, just as God’s knowledge that innocent infants growing to the age of accountability and increasing their sin gives God a moral imperative to save them from that fate and have them die young.
If you say that God does not have a moral imperative to save us from our sins, because we have to have free will, that brings us back around to the problem you have that the Bible explicitly says over and over that God knew what was going to happen before it happened and so this means that Adam and Eve did not have a genuine choice in the matter.
And don’t tell me that this is the “classic arminianism verses Calvinism debate”. I don’t GIVE A RATS TINY ASS THAT IT IS A CLASSIC DEBATE, because the entire thing can be quickly and swiftly solved by saying “where’s the deity?”.
Maybe these guys weren’t inspired and that is why there are so many conflicts in what they say.
Dude, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
If infants are innocent, then why do they die? If death is natural, then how can it be a result of sin? If death in this life is natural and death in the next life is not, then what was the point of the Tree of Life in this life? if the Tree of Life was just a mataphor, then why can’t Adam just be a metaphor? If Adam is a metaphor, why can’t sin be a metaphor? If sin is a metaphor, why can’t God be a metaphor?
Don’t you see Doug? Why can’t you see it?
The reason I’m not pointing out Biblical contradictions anymore to you is because the ENTIRETY OF CHRISTIANITY IS A CONTRADICTION.
Can’t you see it doesn’t make any sense? No matter what you propose internal to this system, it creates another problem and an internal conflict at another point.
I can’t believe I’m taking all this time to go through this with you over and over and over and over. I will continue to rehash these same things until you see it.
Doug, just see it already. Please.
And ultimately, you don’t “know” the answers to these questions, you just hope you are getting the right interpretation of individual passages and hope you can get them to all line up in the end. Why?
Because right interpretation depends upon proper hermeneutic, your proper hermeneutic depends upon proper theology, proper theology depends upon proper interpretation of the data, and the data for you includes the Bible, but you cannot know that you are interpreting the Bible unless you have the right hermeneutic, and you cannot have the right hermeneutic unless you have the proper theology, and you cannot have the proper theology unless you have the proper interpretation of the data, and in your case the data includes the Bible, and you cannot properly interpret the Bible unless you have the proper hermeneutic, and you cannot have the proper hermeneutic unless you have the proper theology, and you cannot have the proper theology unless you interpret the data properly, and you cannot interpret the data properly unless you have the proper hermeneutic…
I will await the day when it “clicks”. Right now its obvious your brain has not been able to even comprehend that you might be wrong.
What would convince me that Christianity is false?
1. I would have to be shown actual defeaters for Christian theism.
Plenty have been shown. But if one starts with the presupposition that Christianity is true no matter what, then one will always and only reinterpret or simply refuse to understand any “defeaters” put forth.
2. I would have to be shown evidence that the Bible is false.
False? Archeologically? Historically? Internally contradictory? What the heck does ‘false’ mean here?
3. I would have to be shown a better explanation for the universe.
Been done. Same problem as 1 above. When one starts with a conclusion that MUST be true and all else must alter to fit that conclusion, it is impossible for one to comprehend alternatives.
4. I would need time to review the arguments and to see if what seem to be defeaters prima facie are actually sound.
Given time to reinterpret and misunderstand, anything can be explained away.
Why can’t you see that the above is the very reason we keep going in massive circles over and over and over…
You propose something about God. I show you that your view of God does not match up with something in the Bible. You say I am not properly interpreting the Bible. I show you that there are tons of ways of interpreting the Bible and that this is a problem. You say it is not a problem, you just have to have the right hermeneutic. I point out that hermeneutic changes based upon a person’s theology and we go back to discussing theology. You tell me that proper theology depends upon a proper understanding of Scripture – or a proper hermeneutic.
And around and around we go…
Don’t you see that you are leading us in a massive circle over and over and over?
Thanks Leo, those were the *exact* points I was going to make next.
Doug – “2. I would have to be shown evidence that the Bible is false.”
This was a massive, massive problem I saw when I began to study inerrancy.
Inerrancy is constantly redefined to defend one’s theology.
“The Bible does not have errors.”
“Here is a grammatical error.”
“That is not an error, it just shows that God uses error-prone humans.”
“Here is an error in transmission.”
“That is not an error, it just shows that God uses error-prone humans.”
“Here is an error in translation.”
“That is not an error, it just shows that God uses error-prone humans.”
“Here is an error in the Greek manuscript.”
“That is not an error, inerrancy only applies to the originals.”
“We don’t have the originals, so how can we know they do not contain an error?”
“Textual transmission is XX% error-free. It is a miracle, the originals can be trusted.”
“Demonstrating that scribes were accurate is only evidence that scribes were accurate, not of divine preservation.”
“But other books do not have nearly as consistent scribal accuracy.”
“Other books do not have warnings of damnation ascribed to miscopying. The scribes were encouraged to copy properly because of threats both internal to what they copying and of being discovered by men if their work was shown to contain errors.”
…
“The Holy Spirit was at work to preserve His Word. We know the Holy Spirit was at work because it is highly improbable that textual accuracy would be preserved to XX%. Because the Holy Spirit was at work preserving the Word, we can trust that the originals were inspired and error-free.”
“You cannot insert [Holy Spirit] where [highly-improbable event] occurs. Saying that it is highly improbable that the scribes would copy the Scripture at XX% is to say your God is nothing more than highly improbable events.”
I don’t even know where things would go from here…
I saw this happen consistently and suddenly I realized that the magic trick of inerrancy is just to define inerrancy so that no errors can be found.
Definition: “Inerrancy means there are no errors in the original manuscripts in the intent that the original author meant to communicate.”
Viola! Perfect inerrancy invention. Whenever someone finds an error, you just say:
a) That if we understood the intent of the original author, the error would disappear.
b) That if we had the originals, the error would disappear.
Both of these are begging the question and reveal the circular reasoning that in order to see that there are no errors in the Bible you must start by assuming there are no errors in the Bible.
We cannot possibly know the exact intent of the original author (we can get close) and we cannot find the originals.
So we try to get close to the original intent of the author, but the fucking assholes called inerrantists constantly say that you must interpret the author “in context”.
You know what “in context” includes as a little side note?
It means to interpret the author in light of all other passages in Scripture.
[In other words we interpret Moses in light of something someone in the New Testament says, right? Do you see where I am going with this?]
You know what “in light of all other passages in Scripture” means?
It means that other authors inform your understanding of the passage you are reading.
You know what this means, right?
Do you see?
It means you must interpret the current passage you are studying so that it agrees with all other passages of Scripture.
Which means you are assuming in your interpretation that all passages of Scripture agree with each other.
So in order to interpret “in context”, you have to assume there are no errors between the passage you are studying and all other passages in the Bible.
Which means that when studying an “apparent” error, you start by informing your understanding of the current passage by looking at all other passages, upon the assumption they are saying the same thing. You then simply normalize what they are saying to the least common denominator and the error disappears.
What the fuck?
If inerrancy is defined in this way, nobody can find an error in the Bible. Why? Because error becomes completely meaningless and unverifiable and one’s interpretation of any supposedly erroneous passage becomes subject to the circular reasoning that there are no errors in the Bible.
It is a clever, devious little trick of definition.
This sounds great, until I realized that this same logic could be used to defend inerrant Shakespeare.
And this is the exact argument that Joseph Smith used to defend the inerrancy of the Book of Mormon. We don’t have the original golden tablets, so any error found in the translation is Joseph Smith’s mistake, not a mistake in God’s revelation. We do not have Joseph Smith’s first translation of the tablets, so we cannot say there is an error between his first and second translation. The Book of Mormon is inerrant in the original manuscript (the golden tablet).
It’s a beautiful invention.
And Doug, I might add that this is exactly what you were doing on our debate about the birth date of Christ.
You stretched the passages nearly to the breaking point, looking for any possibility that they were not in error, and once you found a slight, tiny door of a possibility that they might possibly not be in error if interpreted just so, then you declared they were inerrant.
Devious.
All that wasted time.
You don’t give a rats ass that the clearest interpretation says they have an error, you just want to bend the interpretation in favor of no error.
I was so pissed that you would be so devious, which is a primary reason why I hated debating you and just quit and never called you.
You look for the tiniest possibility that you are right and then declare you are as soon as you can invent one.
But Doug, do you not see? All you are doing is starting with a conclusion and inventing explanations that reach that conclusion. You are INVENTING. That is all Christians, Mormons, Jews, and all other religious groups have ever done. You assume the conclusion and invent the formula that reaches the conclusion.
Just stopped in, still reading through your comments. Josh regarding babies dying- have you thought of original sin? I’ve never like that story much- about David losing his son due to an affair- but maybe in general it could be answered not just here but in other events that people are born with sin. Also regarding death- I’m not sure where in the Bible- but doesn’t it say that all men are destined to die once and than to be judged- my mom quotes it all the time- possibly out of context.
That’s a good question about Adam and Eve- here’s a better question- why the hell would God put the devil there in the garden? Also what made the devil sin and rebel? What gave him his sinful nature? By the way I have yet to find the whole devil’s rebellion story in the bible- I’ve heard that the story usually told in the church is actually from other sources. The only things you get from the Bible are Satan falling like lightning to earth after the angel kicked him out of heaven.
1. “The challenge to find a moral statement (or one regarding a right or duty) that does not imply a weakness – anywhere. Does this make complete sense?”
Answer: Actually, not really. It doesn’t make complete sense. Again it is way too vague. Anyway, I’ve already given you my answer to this question under numbers 1 and 5 of yesterday’s post.
2. What reason does God have for taking the life of an innocent child?
Answer: How should I know? Why should it be expected that a human being should be privy to the motives of the Creator? I’ve already shown you at least one valid explanation for why God is not culpable in the sense you say he is in this case. Any reason I give for why he might want to do it would be just me making things up. But I don’t need to give a reason. God does not wrong people by taking their lives.
I also reject your analysis of the biblical position on this matter. There is nothing in Scripture that implies that all death is either the result of Adam’s supposed imputed guilt (an unbiblical notion, anyway) or the result of personal sin. This is the hinge of the entire debate here, really. Your point only stands if death is always and only in the Bible the result of moral sin, or the result of imputed guilt. You are the one who has set up this argument. You must demonstrate that this is true. I understand that this is quite a tall order, and I’m not sure how one would go about doing this. Nevertheless, you are the one who has brought this issue upon us, and you are the one who is responsible to demonstrate why your premise should be accepted.
Also, you keep bringing up this passage from Ezekiel, which I pointed out to you is not actually from Ezekiel, but is from Isaiah 7. Are you even reading my posts? If not, that’s fine, but just tell me, because then I’ll stop responding.
And, as I said, there is no obligation on the part of God or any other moral agent to kill an individual to stop them from sinning. It’s not as though we don’t have a choice when we sin. We are morally culpable agents. To argue otherwise is similar to asking why a judge that pardons one felon is not then required to pardon all felons. If the “fate” from which an individual might be spared is one that is brought about from willful transgression, God is under no moral obligation to stop them.
I also don’t buy the notion that people are not responsible for their own sin if sin is in their own nature. If I have an addictive personality like my father before me, am I not responsible for becoming addicted to drugs? If I have a violent nature, am I not responsible if I hurt other people? Human nature does not absolve people from moral guilt.
Your comments regarding inerrancy and textual transmission (12:40 post) are very informative. I can see why you came to your conclusions. The problem is that you assume you know how I am going to respond. But you don’t. Have I ever argued that translations are divinely inspired? No. Have I ever argued that textual transmission is divinely inspired? No, I have not. All of your comments rest on these two assumptions. I even doubt that you picked up these arguments from classes at Moody, because I don’t know of any professor there who would teach this.
And why in the world should anyone be faulted with appealing to the meaning of the original author? Whose meaning are you appealing to?
A word needs to be said about interpretation. I know you are frustrated because I frequently disagree with your reading of biblical texts. I too am frustrated about yours. But what am I supposed to say when I see you ignoring basic principles of interpretation? You claim to be giving me the “clearest interpretation.” But what kind of statement is this? If only we could each simply claim that our own interpretations were the clearest, that would be quite a trump card.
As with any written document, so with the Bible. It is grammatical historical exegesis that gets us closest to the author’s intended meaning. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that the biblical writers used speech in the way that all other human beings use speech:
1. They wrote their statements to be understood within the context of their other statements. Human speech allows for statements to be qualified with other statements, and every writer includes literary contextual clues that inform us of their meaning. (note: I am not even talking about canonical context here)
2. They used words (like “man”) that have more than one meaning. The correct meaning of individual words is determined by that which best fits the context, both literary and historical. Context and usage determines meaning.
3. They write according to the rules set out by the genres in which their writings were composed. A writer composing poetry is permitted to use hyperbole, metaphor, metonymy, and a variety of other non-literal, figurative expressions (did God really give David the strength to jump over walls?). A writer composing apocalyptic literature uses symbolism and images that are appropriate to communicate their message and are not to be typically understood as predictions of the future. Other genres may employ creative scenarios (was the Prodigal Son a historical figure?) or illustrations. None of this is out of the ordinary, and none of this in itself takes away from the truth value of the text, because we can only criticize once we understand the author’s communicative intent (i.e. what is actually being claimed). At the very least, this should warn us against using random statements in poetic literature as proof-texts.
4. I also assume, in the case with synoptic texts such as the gospels, that different writers who compose accounts only give a partial account of the historical situation they describe. If, for example, two random Assyrian chronicles depict different events and yet assign them to the same king’s military campaigns, the knee-jerk conclusion is not that one or both of them are in error, but that they are describing different campaigns. Only in the event of irreconcilable conflict of historical data can historians feel free to disregard primary textual evidence. This isn’t special pleading in the case of the Bible. This is just how historical research is conducted. If sources conflict, harmonization is often the answer.
Don’t forget that you too have the right (and responsibility) to defend your interpretations. If you possess the clear and obvious meaning of the texts you cite, then why don’t you show me? If I am truly “stretching passages to the breaking point,” why don’t you show me?
You might respond by saying that my appeal to responsible interpretation is simply a smokescreen to avoid the conclusion that the text is false. Could I not likewise respond to your posture by saying that your constant claim that I am tinkering with obvious meaning of texts is a defensive mechanism to avoid the data?
You also frequently criticize me for telling you that you are not aware of up-to-date scholarship. Yet most of the time, when I analyze your interpretations, I simply point out basic interpretive principles, such as context, genre, and common knowledge of semantics. Many of my appeals are to other things that are said in the text in the very same discourse (think 1 John 4 or Matthew 24). Can I be faulted for pointing out that your criticisms must be careful and informed? All I am asking when I do this is that you provide support for your arguments. This is your responsibility.
Finally, a word about our old debate about the date of the birth of Christ. All I was pointing out was that there are at least three extrabiblical sources that provide evidence Quirinius did indeed hold governorship before Herod’s death. One of the sources I cited (CIL, III, 6687) even mentions a census conducted under Quirinius that may very well be the one in Luke. I wasn’t trying to change what Luke said. I didn’t even suggest that anything was wrong with the way you were reading the passage. My point is simply that our knowledge about Quirinius is not thorough enough to reconstruct this point in history to any extent that would put us in a position to criticize the biblical testimony. Did I even offer an interpretation of Luke in that discussion? Perhaps you’re thinking about our discussion of Ezekiel’s temple vision?
I LOVE Doug’s method. It dances out of any and all possible objections or problems with the Bible or Christian theology.
Method 1: If it isn’t EXPLICITLY stated in the Bible, then anything (no matter how clearly and commonly taught in the Church) can be dismissed outright.
Method 2: If it is explicitly stated in the Bible, then the use of grammatical, historical, sociological, contextual, or other methods of exegesis can be applied to show that the meaning isn’t really what it appears to be.
I remember doing this same crap too when I believed. I see my wife do it still.
As I’ve said before, what beggars me is trying to understand how I was able for so long not only to miss the glaringly obvious untruth of religion, and worse yet, trying to understand how I was do UTTERLY dishonest not just with others, but with myself.
Leo,
Method 1: Yup. That’s absolutely right.
Method 2: Or perhaps what I am describing is the application of legitimate thought to the text. The bottom line is that if you need to ignore the author’s intended meaning to prove your points, your position is probably not as solid as you think it is.
“Actually, not really. It doesn’t make complete sense.”
If God does not exist, it is foolish to speak of him being strong or weak.
If your God does exist, he must be strong.
Therefore, if one can find any weakness in him, he does not exist.
Understood?
If every moral only exists of necessity because one must protect a weakness, then God – if He is moral – must have a weakness.
Therefore, in order for God to be moral and not weak, He must possess a moral fiber that does not imply a weakness.
Weakness (or the potential for harm) is any possibility of a genuine threat that would decrease the threatened beings power.
Any specific I use will reveal that weakness is a completely physical and human experience.
You want me to use a specific because you are going to respond by saying that that “only applies to humans, who are mortal, and God is immortal, so it does not apply to Him.”
My point – which you are cleverly avoiding – is that you must provide a moral statement which does not imply any weakness.
If you can provide one statement, then it means that immortality and morality are not mutually exclusive.
Let me give you some examples (and I don’t know why I am wasting more time on this):
Jealousy: jealousy is an animal instinct that ensures that one does not lose something that it believes it needs. If God is jealous, then it implies that God needs something. If He does not need it, then why is He jealous? That is a weakness.
Anger: anger is an animal instinct for protection. Anger is a way for an animal to increase its potential of protecting itself, its food, its territory, that which it believes it “owns”, its mate, etc. If God gets angry, it means God is “losing” something essential to His well-being.
For example, the concept of God getting angry at sin is nothing more than God “losing” our complete devotion. Why the fuck He needs our complete devotion I have no idea. Except that He is probably really insecure and jealous. Or Moses realized that it was the only way to keep people organized… if they were organized under a common jealous, threat-giver.
By the way, I’m drunk right now.
“Thou shalt have no other God’s before me.”
Why? Why is God threatened by the ignorance of men who do not know a damn thing about Him? What weakness does the Almighty God of the universe have that he would be threatened by a pygmy in Australia who does know the first blah about hermeneutics or even the Ten Commandments?
Why is God so insecure and threatened by humans worshipping objects which by His own confession are NOT EVEN REAL?
“What reason does God have for taking the life of an innocent child?
Answer: How should I know?”
Dude, just make something up then.
If the child is innocent, God cannot use death as a punishment for sin, because He used it on an innocent being.
If the child is guilty, then it means God puts to death innocent beings who have no chance of hearing the good news of the salvation He invented.
In either case, God is a monster.
“There is nothing in Scripture that implies that all death is … the result … of personal sin.”
Then why does Paul say that the wages of sin is death?
How is the sting of sin death, if death is just normal?
I love how you use the word “all” like that. It’s so cute.
I remember the constant twisting of Christian concepts to the point where there were always little exceptions.
One cannot be too careful saying “all” in Christianity.
Haha, you are good at this Doug.
“Your point only stands if death is always and only in the Bible the result of moral sin, or the result of imputed guilt. You are the one who has set up this argument. You must demonstrate that this is true. I understand that this is quite a tall order, and I’m not sure how one would go about doing this.”
I can’t, because you are a shape-shifting bastard who is doing everything you can to defend your God’s behavior.
You are making the data fit your conclusion, so any data I present you can cleverly twist to fit your pre-conceived conclusion.
If I present a Bible passage, you will simply explain away my conclusion.
Fuck it.
I present the passage where Paul says that because Adam sinned, sin spread to all men.
There are only two ways to interpret what Paul says:
1) Death is spread to men through Adam’s sin.
2) Death comes to men through personal sin.
Hmmm…
Then you want to suddenly wiggle your way out and say that death is “normal”, that men are not suffering for Adam’s sin and that men do not always suffer for their own sin…
That is not what Paul said… are you raising yourself about the apostle Paul and presuming to know what he “meant” to say?
If death is normal, then … well … death is normal.
Doug, the big question for you is: How can death be normal and the wages of sin?
Genesis says death for Adam was a result of the fall.
You said earlier that death for infants is God relieving them of a worse fate.
Note, Doug. Find a place in Paul’s writing where Paul says that death for men is normal and you will have defeated my point.
You cannot find a place in all of Scripture that implies that, because then you would be assuming inerrancy… and… well… we already went over why you can’t do that…
Who is misinterpreting the Bible now?
“Your point only stands if death is always and only in the Bible the result of moral sin, or the result of imputed guilt. You are the one who has set up this argument. You must demonstrate that this is true.”
All you have to do is find one place in “the Bible” (pick a canon of your choosing!) that shows that death is normal and interpret it properly according to your own inerrancy. I’ll hold you to it, or declare the Bible has an error!
If you decide not to use inerrancy, make sure you pick a passage that fits its immediate and authorial context.
If you decide to use inerrancy, make sure you pick a passage that does not contradict any other passage or I’ll point it out. I’ve memorized tons of the Bible. Trust me, I’ll find one – and I’ll take it in context too. There are plenty of passages.
Find one place in the Bible where death was “normal” and not the result of sin.
Remember, I believe death is normal anyway…
I’m having a lot of fun with this.
“And, as I said, there is no obligation on the part of God or any other moral agent to kill an individual to stop them from sinning.”
Maybe its just easier to say “God is whatever the universe does.”
God has no obligations? Weren’t you the guy who was just saying that God has “rights and duties” because He is a person?
If God has no obligation here, how can He be a person?
It was God himself who supposedly said “Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.”
Supposedly everyone has sinned…
It’s odd that you just contradicted this passage by saying that no moral agent has a responsibility to keep a guilty person from death.
You’re not making any sense.
Eh, that’s enough for tonight. It only takes a couple of paragraphs and I’ve found so many problems I could go on for hours.
Peace out everyone (that includes you Doug)!
“Have I ever argued that translations are divinely inspired? No. Have I ever argued that textual transmission is divinely inspired? No, I have not. All of your comments rest on these two assumptions.”
Oh Doug, Doug, Doug.
I know you don’t know these things :) I went to Moody, remember?
I am simply showing a potential progression of thought that reveals that errors become more and more elusive as one studies inerrancy and the Scriptures and finds more errors. Eventually an error becomes impossible to find become the term “Biblical error” has become absolutely meaningless.
That is ALL I AM SAYING.
Why can’t you get this? Why do I constantly have to shout at you in order for you to get ANYTHING I SAY.
Are you that blind?
The reason you are having such a hard time understanding anything I say is because I have completely blown your entire Christian argument to pieces and you must conclude that I am misunderstanding you in order to get anywhere.
I completely, 100% understand you Doug.
I can reiterate all of your arguments back to you if you like, in my own words.
Want me to give it a shot?
1. “If every moral only exists of necessity because one must protect a weakness, then God – if He is moral – must have a weakness.”
Answer: I see no reason why adherence to moral standard should imply weakness in the one who keeps the moral standards. This just doesn’t make sense. Is there some kind of necessary correlation between the two?
You aren’t being clear enough here. Let me explain. The command, “you shall not murder.” Are you saying that the weakness implied therein is on the part of the one who is being commanded not to murder, or are you saying that it is in the potential victim?
And here is the major problem with this line of reasoning. I’ll illustrate by your example of jealousy. Jealousy in God’s case describes his right to have what properly belongs to him. If he doesn’t have what rightfully belongs to him, this in no way implies weakness, because, although he could forcefully take it, he does not. He could force all to worship him, but he chooses not to. This does not imply weakness on his part. You assume that God’s giving of commands implies that he is threatened, but why could not one simply reply that he gives commands for our good?
2. On the death of an innocent child.
Answer: I continue to maintain that the two options for why the child dies are not restricted to punishment for his own sin and imputed guilt. This clearly is not the biblical teaching in light of the physical death of Christians. This is a poor argument.
I don’t know why I should be willing to explain Romans 5 to you, seeing that you will just retreat to saying that I’m trying to twist it, but in case you’re interested, here is why I see it as illegitimate to apply what Paul is saying here to infants:
In Romans 5, death spreads “to all men because all sinned.” Fine. Notice that “all” occurs twice in this clause. Each of our interpretations implies that “all” be taken in the non-absolute sense, the disagreement is on which one it is. You choose the second all to be understood in the non-absolute sense, claiming that, although not really all technically sin (the second all), all men die for it (the first all). I favor restricting both “alls” and saying that the first all is restricted in the same way as the second all—all who sin die for it. Perhaps you claim that restricting the use of “all” in any way is illegitimate (which you are doing, anyway). But if this is the case, how do you explain verse 18, that “one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for ALL MEN”? Or are you also going to tell me that Paul is a Universalist?
But do you know what the REALLY telling factor is? EVERYWHERE else in Paul’s writing sin and the consequences that follow from it ALWAYS imply volition on the part of the sinner. You take one passage and try to make it fit your argument, claiming that it means something that Paul never implies elsewhere. I interpret it consistently, in line with the rest of Paul’s writings. Which one should be taken more seriously here?
3. Your challenge to find a place in the Bible where death is normal and not the result of sin.
Answer: Why should I feel compelled to accept this challenge when you have ignored mine? You need to show me that the Bible always teaches that sin is either the result of moral sin or the result of imputed guilt. Of course, I’m happy to oblige. How about the death of Christians? The death of Stephen, the death of the martyrs in Revelation, just pick any of them. If their sins have been paid for on the cross, why does death still come to them?
4. For me to say that God has “no obligation . . . to kill an individual to stop them from sinning” is contradictory because I claimed that God, by virtue of being a person, has rights and duties.
Answer: Well, you definitely were drunk when you thought of this. By saying that God has “rights and duties” I am obviously not saying that he has any right or duty that we choose to assign to him.
And I don’t know why you think that quoting Proverbs 24:11 proves your point that God is obligated to stop people from sinning by killing them. Soooooo we’re supposed to rescue people from death by killing them. Ooookaaaay. I think I have a right to a WTF here.
Deleting this comment as it was a duplicate somehow.“I see no reason why adherence to moral standard should imply weakness in the one who keeps the moral standards. This just doesn’t make sense. Is there some kind of necessary correlation between the two?”
Onus is on you: find one moral standard that does not imply weakness.
My premise is that morals evolved to help humans survive and reproduce. Therefore, morals are a mortal development. Therefore, morals are related to mortals.
To show that a moral and immortal God is a possibility (thus defeating the premise that morals are an evolutionary biproduct), you have to show that an immortal deity can have a moral standard applied to him that does not imply a weakness. A weakness would contradict immortality.
Make sense?
Simply find one example of a moral that does not imply a weakness, otherwise there is a contradiction between the concept of an immortal AND moral God.
For example, “there shall me no other gods before me” implies that the one making the command is threatened by humans worshiping another deity, for what right could God possibly have threatened by humans worshiping other deities? Furthermore, why would God need this right?
I can think of why a human would say that you should not worship any other deity, because this would threaten that human’s right to power. Without that power, the human loses control and therefore finds a decrease in safety.
If the command was invented by men (fitting the evolutionary model), the moral statement makes perfect sense. Moses (or whoever it was) was “threatened” by the people worshiping other deities. It would produce social chaos and cause the one giving the command to lose control, thus decreasing everyone’s safety (in theory).
In other words, the data matches my hypothesis. And I’ve given a simple task to disprove it.
What hypothesis do you propose?
“you shall not murder”
This implies that if murder is committed, harm is caused.
To whom is the harm caused? Humans.
I can list every moral of man and show how it applies to man and reveals a weakness of man, thus showing that men are all inherently moral by simply being social and needing safety.
My hypothesis is that morals were invented by men to increase their own safety or ability to reproduce – and then applied to deities. If my hypothesis is true, then all moral statements made about God will reveal an underlying mortality or human desire to reproduce.
Stated another way: if every man was immortal, why would we need morals?
And Doug, please understand my argument this time before you try taking it apart.
“Jealousy in God’s case describes his right to have what properly belongs to him. If he doesn’t have what rightfully belongs to him, this in no way implies weakness”
You completely lack imagination.
Saying God “gives it away” means that God cannot judge someone for taking it. Is it free will to turn away from God because He gave us the choice and then to throw us into eternity in hell? What monster does this?
Besides the Bible says Eve was deceived. Can a person choose to not be deceived? Was it her choice? Where is free will being demonstrated when a person is deceived? Is free will being demonstrated when disobeying God’s command to have no other God’s before Him if the person honestly thinks that rocks and trees are gods?
If God can have something taken away from Him, this means something is powerful enough to take something away from God. But if God created everything and is omnipotent, then it is impossible to take anything away from God.
I can see why mortal, social humans would be afraid of this… but God?
Oddly enough, I was just listening to a William Lane Craig debate where Craig was chuckling to himself at how if a concept has an internal contradiction, then the concept is “only in our head”. He used it to show that the concept of infinity is “only in our head”.
Bizarrely enough, there are tons of internal contradictions in the idea of God (like I am showing), but Craig has never figured out that God is only in his head.
“You assume that God’s giving of commands implies that he is threatened, but why could not one simply reply that he gives commands for our good?”
That’s my point. All morals are for humanities “good”. “Good” means our safety. They have absolutely nothing to do with God and can be completely divorced from the God concept.
Except to say that humans who want to pronounce morals can stimulate a larger response from other humans if they say that the morals are coming from an all-powerful deity who will punish them when they do not follow the commands. It is a perfect psychological control tactic – having an all-seeing eye watching everyone’s hidden actions. You don’t even have to have a police force if everyone believes this.
The idea of God is a fucking brilliant political / moral invention: an invisible police-man who rewards you when you follow command X and punishes you when you break command Y. Now all we have to do is figure which commands we want our people to follow…
~
Back to the point at hand, the argument is whether God is moral Himself, not whether He gives commands. The argument is whether God has commands He Himself must follow. If not, then anything God does goes and saying God is good is absolutely pointless, unless we ascribe back to God our own moral inclinations, at which point we are just inventing a God who follows all of our favorite morals.
Method 1: If it isn’t EXPLICITLY stated in the Bible, then anything (no matter how clearly and commonly taught in the Church) can be dismissed outright.
Method 1: Yup. That’s absolutely right.
So I must take it that you are not a trinitarian.
Method 2: If it is explicitly stated in the Bible, then the use of grammatical, historical, sociological, contextual, or other methods of exegesis can be applied to show that the meaning isn’t really what it appears to be.
Method 2: Or perhaps what I am describing is the application of legitimate thought to the text. The bottom line is that if you need to ignore the author’s intended meaning to prove your points, your position is probably not as solid as you think it is.
Perhaps. Or perhaps you are describing a method of getting what you want to get from the text no matter what it says. Given the zillion interpretations of practically any passage in the Bible, (all obtained using methods like yours) I’d say that’s VERY likely the case. (Or maybe you have the ‘one true method’ of interpretation.)
The bottom line is that if the all knowing, all powerful deity can’t communicate any more clearly than via an old text that requires learning at least 3 ancient languages and studying a few ancient cultures extensively, then said deity is one lousy communicator. And even for those very few (presumably like yourself), I could toss 1000 of them in a room and get about as many opinions on the “true” meaning of any number of critical passages. And all of you would swear blind that the other 999 were wrong. And THAT is what you want to base your faith on?????? [No. You want to base your faith on your personal interpretations.]
“The death of Stephen, the death of the martyrs in Revelation, just pick any of them.”
Paul said that judgment begins with the children of God. That’s why we die. It is the destruction of our sinful flesh. That is why our bodies must die. So our physical death is a result of sin… the first death happens to everyone to rid their bodies of this unsanctified fleshly body. (The second death is complete separation from God.) That is why sanctification is not complete until death.
Don’t you get it?
Doug, don’t just demonstrate that you understand some hermeneutic, demonstrate you understand the concepts and principles behind the texts you are applying that hermeneutic upon, on the assumption that the authors were communicating concepts and ideas and were not thinking in detail about every single word they wrote. UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPTS, NOT JUST INDIVIDUAL WORDS.
So even the death of Steven was the result of sin.
And Doug, you do realize that your foreign interpretations of certain passages only become more evidence to me that the entire thing is bunk, right? Why should I accept that you have the answers?
Why should I accept your hermeneutic when the apostles didn’t follow your hermeneutic?
“Well, you definitely were drunk when you thought of this. By saying that God has “rights and duties” I am obviously not saying that he has any right or duty that we choose to assign to him.”
Then name a duty and right he has. Try it :) How can you possibly know what rights and duties God has?
You aren’t saying anything at all by saying “God has rights and duties but no human can know what these rights and duties are.” You are not saying anything intelligible by saying this, other than “I posit God is a person, and people have rights and duties, but God is a special person and I cannot possibly know what His rights and duties are, but he has rights and duties because God is a person.” More circular reasoning.
You’ll quote some Bible verse and I’ll just point out that that Bible verse was written by a human who was just assigning it to God…
Josh,
Here is my response to your post yesterday. I must say that our conversation has been both fun and frustrating for me, as I’m sure it has been for you. It’s been obvious for quite some time that neither one of us is persuaded by the other’s arguments. For this reason, I’d like to say that I don’t plan on posting again. I’m sure you’ll respond to what I have here, and I don’t want you to think that I don’t care to answer you. The fact of the matter is that I can no longer justify the amount of time that it is taking to participate in this exchange. As always, I wish you well.
1. On morality, rights, and duties.
“My premise is that morals evolved to help humans survive and reproduce. Therefore, morals are a mortal development. Therefore, morals are related to mortals.”
And how would you go about proving this premise in a noncircular way?
Here’s the twofold problem you’ve tangled yourself in. You claim that all morals are given in order to avoid harm. The first problem is that there is no reason why this is not compatible with a theistic system. Let’s grant that you are correct, for the sake of argument, and that a desire to reduce harm is the basis for all moral judgments (indeed, this may be the case for most, I just question whether it is for all—this seems to be quite a bold statement). Is it not just as logical to say that God gave us moral imperatives that are designed to reduce harm to us? This would mean that party A gives a moral directive to party B as to how B must treat C, in order to avoid C’s harm, or in order to maintain a generally harm-free society. This scenario in no way requires that party A be vulnerable to harm. There is no reason, at this point, why an atheistic system should be favored over a theistic system. However, when we move to the second point, the scales tip significantly to the theistic system.
The second problem with saying that harm is the basis for all moral imperatives is that it is too imprecise if we do not specify who it is who is receiving harm. The avoidance of the harm of one party may be at the expense of the harm the other (e.g. a soldier who dies in the line of duty). Whose wellbeing do we favor? Connected to this is the fact that this standard limits morality to harm that is perceived, and leads to moral conclusions that I think neither of us are willing to accept. For example, I’m sure you are aware that some cultures in the world today practice a barbaric rite called female “circumcision,” which is basically the mutilation of the female organ. In the cultures in which this occurs, the perception is that this reduces various types of harm (e.g. sexual promiscuity), and is therefore morally justified. How, under an atheistic conception of morality, working only with “harm reduction” as one’s base, would one argue that this is inappropriate? The problem is that their perception of harm and danger is different than ours, and so practices that are clearly morally preposterous are embraced as socially acceptable. According to the Nazis, the human race would ultimately incur less harm if certain entire ethnicities were exterminated. Were their actions therefore morally justifiable? Other examples can be multiplied almost exponentially. Who determines which harms take priority over others? Let me be clear and say that the problem is not so much that we are presented here with difficulties as to how to discern right and wrong; the problem is that none of these things actually are right or wrong—it’s all a matter of perspective. Reduction of harm is ultimately an insufficient grounds by which to determine moral standards, especially when working within an atheistic framework.
You claim that “you shall have no other gods before me” is an example of a command that implies that the Judeo-Christian god can be harmed, because it shows that he is threatened. No, it doesn’t. This is clearly bogus. This implication just is not there. I don’t know what else to say. God is not harmed when people worship idols.
The same goes with when you apply it to a “right to power.” If someone has a right to something, this in no way implies that the person can lose it. Can rights be threatened? Of course. Do they have to be threatened for you to have them? Of course not. But even if they did, they don’t always imply weakness. The right to be respected, for example, doesn’t imply weakness. It implies that other people might not respect you, and in this sense you loose respect, but it doesn’t imply that the individual who has a right to respect is weak or inadequate.
You also claim that, since Eve was supposedly “deceived,” she is not culpable. This just doesn’t follow. Racists are deceived. Does this mean that racists are not morally culpable?
Here’s another claim you make: “If God can have something taken away from Him, this means something is powerful enough to take something away from God.” No, it does not. He allows us to not render to him what is properly his, but it is our choice to do so, and we are morally culpable for it. This neither harms him nor implies that he is vulnerable to harm.
You sum up your comments on morals with this comment: “The argument is whether God is moral Himself, not whether He gives commands. The argument is whether God has commands He Himself must follow. If not, then anything God does goes and saying God is good is absolutely pointless, unless we ascribe back to God our own moral inclinations, at which point we are just inventing a God who follows all of our favorite morals.”
Here’s the problem with this: You are confusing moral imperatives with moral absolutes. A moral imperative is a direct command that is based off a moral principle that may or may not be universally valid. For example, it is illegal in this country to take another person’s life. Yet in some circumstances, it is not. Police officers have the right, within certain parameters to do this, as do soldiers and other people with martial authority. This means that the prohibition against killing people is not itself the principle upon which the imperative is based. The principle is broader, more fundamental. It is based on the right of all men to possess life, provided certain conditions are not met that require one to forfeit that right. Going back from the analogy to our discussion about God, it is the principles by which God abides.
2. Discussion on the death of innocents
I gave Christian death as an example of death that is not judgment for sin. You reply that “Paul said that judgment begins with the children of God” (it’s actually Peter who says this), and that we Christians (according to the Bible) die because our sinful flesh is being destroyed (i.e. judged); death, according to this scenario, is the judgment upon the sinful, “unsanctified fleshly body.”
“Judgment” doesn’t mean that the one being judged is being declared guilty; it’s also used of those who are declared innocent. Both righteous and wicked are judged. The difference is that one is condemned and one is not. I’m not opposed to the idea that some Christians may become the object of God’s discipline, but this in no way implies that all Christians are suffering “judgment on their sinful flesh.”
You also claim that I am not understanding the concepts upon which the texts are based. My question to you is this: “Don’t we infer the concepts upon which the texts are based by reading the texts?” It is illegitimate to make up theology, claim that it is biblical, and then chastise the Bible for not agreeing with it.
~
So long for now.
Respectfully,
Doug
“It’s been obvious for quite some time that neither one of us is persuaded by the other’s arguments.”
Hence the title of this post.
I just wish you understood my arguments :(
“And how would you go about proving this premise in a noncircular way?”
I already showed you.
“The first problem is that there is no reason why this is not compatible with a theistic system.”
If all morals are given to avoid harm, then God cannot be moral, because God cannot be harmed.
“The second problem with saying that harm is the basis for all moral imperatives is that it is too imprecise if we do not specify who it is who is receiving harm. The avoidance of the harm of one party may be at the expense of the harm the other (e.g. a soldier who dies in the line of duty).”
Morality is relative, not absolute.
“God is not harmed when people worship idols.”
Yet he gets so pissed he kills thousands of people.
“Racists are deceived. Does this mean that racists are not morally culpable?”
Morality is relative, not absolute. Why do we let insane people off with lighter sentences?
“Here’s another claim you make: “If God can have something taken away from Him, this means something is powerful enough to take something away from God.” No, it does not. He allows…”
Stop making claims about God as if you were His spokesperson, when we have not even established that He exists.
“My question to you is this: “Don’t we infer the concepts upon which the texts are based by reading the texts?” It is illegitimate to make up theology, claim that it is biblical, and then chastise the Bible for not agreeing with it.”
It is illegitimate to assume the 21st century Protestant canon agrees with itself.
What a messy world you live in Doug.
If all morals are given to avoid harm, then God cannot be moral, because God cannot be harmed.
I’d say, “God cannot be moral because he does and allows tremendous harm.”
”It is illegitimate to make up theology, claim that it is biblical, and then chastise the Bible for not agreeing with it.”
That is precisely what Christians do. They make up their personal theology then “find” it in their Bible. … They don’t chastise the Bible for not agreeing of course because the Bible always agrees with whoever reads it since they can apply any hermeneutic they want to it.
LeoPardus, I would love to do a live debate some day with you – on my team of course :)
Great post and epic comments. Thank you Josh for putting into words the frustration with discussing with Christians sometimes. LeoPardus always enjoyed your posts on decon blog, nicely done here as well.
Thank you Josh for putting into words the frustration with discussing with Christians sometimes
You’re very welcome. As you can probably imagine, I have had my fair share of dealings with this. It is good to sometimes just get the frustration out of your system, if you know what I mean.