Interfaith Dialogue
Irradiated by LabRat
Friend Roberta has gotten herself cross-threaded, as we infidel sometimes do, with one of the faithful in some way or another, and what I regard as a thoughtful statement has of course attracted at least one more faithful-and-aggrieved at her disrespect. As you do.
I liked the original post a great deal, as it articulates something I think can be quite difficult to get across to the sincerely religious, which is that it’s not that I have anything whatsoever against religion in general or any religion in specific as I don’t get it. No text nor sermon nor life gracefully lived has quite the same effect on me as it seems to others; I can get quite into analyzing theology and theological concepts, but the spark at the bottom- the faith- is dead for me or in the first place nonexistent. Roberta likens it to being tone-deaf, and I would too. I can tell *that* there are subtle differences in pitch and tone and grasp that’s how music works, but I can’t discern or replicate them in the ways I can, say, color. Faith is much the same in concept to me; I can observe that it exists in others and its effects upon them and upon the way they interact with the world, but it’s not an experience I can in any way duplicate or empathetically relate to. The world is the world, the people in it are people, and on an entirely visceral level I not only cannot connect with a god or gods, I can’t even understand the need or desire theorizing about them rather than going straight on through the tough stuff with just “the world” and “people”.
The reason it’s so monumentally difficult to have a discussion about the entire subject is that there’s something rather insulting in just the premises alone, no matter which direction the subject is going. Saying “I’m not religious, but I wholly respect the religious” sounds nice enough, but there really is no way to explain any further that doesn’t boil down to “I believe the foundation of your worldview and morality to be fictional, but I really like what you’ve done with the story and have no problem if you want to keep telling it to yourself.” Likewise, coming from the other way around it boils down to: “I believe you to be fundamentally rejecting an important cornerstone of reality on which I firmly believe all morality rests, but no pressure. It’s only your immortal soul and, y’know, forever that’s at stake. Good luck with that.”
It is perhaps unsurprising and understandable that the natural human response to either of these is “Fuck you and your asinine claim of respect.”
The other third rail of civil discourse, politics, is similar- in order to come along politely with disagreement between significant ideological rifts, one must pointedly ignore that said ideological distinctions are so fundamental that you believe the other to be basically deluded about the way the world works and the right way to go about ordering society. Much of political rhetoric consists of gleefully pointing out the gap and how profoundly lacking and even malicious one position looks from another, and it is hardly fictional. However, politics is less personal than religion is; it’s a little easier to come to friendly terms with Uncle John the Pinko given enough beer than it is to similarly overcome ideological differences that relate directly to the terms on which you define right and wrong and not just your ideas on the shapes they take. Much of the time it’s accomplished by pointedly looking away from the terms of the disagreement.
Of course, one cannot go through life by consistently pretending that fundamental viewpoints with which you disagree do not exist or only do in some sort of cute social-nicety fashion. When one must have an honest discussion or disagreement, it may impossible to totally avoid insult, but you can at least avoid insult based on complete and utter misconception of the opposing party’s actual views, or based on an extremely poor representation of your own. Thus, here are a few common serious errors made and how they look coming from the other side. I can do a few examples of “how atheists screw up talking to the religious”, but being on the infidel side myself, most of my “facepalm” experiences come from that side of the fence.
If you want the Cliff’s Notes version, they basically all boil down to “Telling someone what their experience is when they, being them, know definitively that it’s not true, is arrogant. Telling someone what their experience is, while being wrong, in a really insulting way will just make them write you off as an irredeemable ass.”
Religion is just a fairy tell people tell to comfort themselves about death.
Have you read any sort of religious text, especially the Bible? I have a lot of words for it but “comforting” isn’t really one of them. God’s not a sugar daddy and often not particularly sympathetic to human failings, and if you decide to embrace every word of it it pretty well sentences you to a life full of moral dilemmas and making hard choices rather than comforting ones. This is only true if the person in question deliberately chooses to ignore all content which is not satisfying, and that’s not exactly the book’s fault. Sure, death is an alarming concept, but just about any religion also includes a lot saying that not only is life pretty fucking alarming too, it also has eternal consequences.
Religion is just a way to simplify the hard questions.
If it’s simple, you’re doing it wrong. There’s a reason they call it Bible (or Torah, or Talmudic, or Koranic) study. Not only are you attempting to divine the attributes, motivations, and preferences of an intelligence far too old and vast to be readily comprehensible by the human mind, you’re trying to do it based on a collection of writings originally set down in a language you do not speak and from a cultural mindset alien to your own. Or else you can hope like hell the person interpreting it all for you is right, seeing as how it’s, again, your soul at stake and God does not accept excuses. Have fun.
Atheism is just a way to simplify the hard questions.
Not really. There do indeed exist some people whose philosophical point of view really does seem to boil down to “the universe wasn’t personally gift-wrapped for me and I didn’t get a destiny, so it’s all pointless and I may as well just hang out looking moody”, but they tend to be uncommon and easily disturbed by bumps in reality. The popular view of existentialism as represented by The Stranger is rather skewed by the fact that that particular line of thought was developed by people who could not conceive of any life more meaningful than being a clinically depressed French intellectual.
Life is confusing, difficult, and will frequently force you to make tough choices whether you like it or not. This is inherent to the nature of life. No philosophy or cosmology on earth will get you out of this reality, whether you believe your final fate is “game over, that was your only chance to do it right” or “now everything you did will be judged by someone who cannot be deceived and has standards you cannot possibly have consistently lived up to, but he’s somewhat forgiving”.
There will be a part two, possibly more. I have a lot more I need and want to do today than I have time to do it in, but getting a start on this is better than punting to a link and then trying to see if I can do it all tomorrow.
May 24th, 2010 at 6:12 pm
I don’t know if dead-certain atheists can truly respect religious people, or vice versa, but a lot of people have at least a little sliver of agnosticism in them. If a math test is hard enough, I can see my friend got a different answer, and decide that I’m not changing mine but I’m not going to argue with hers, because I realize that I only think I know.
I say this as someone so agnostic she never really got past the “what if I’m a brain in a jar” issue, so maybe I just don’t know what it’s like to be certain of something.
May 24th, 2010 at 7:41 pm
My compliments for attempting to address the question honestly and even-handedly. It is a heterogeneously distributed capability….
May 24th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Labrat, as always, I’m with you 100% on what you’ve expressed so far. I’m a believer, but I have absolutely no problem with those who differ from me, either in the identity, number, race, gender and even species of their particular Invisible Friend(s), or in those who believe there’s no Invisible Friend(s) at all. (I’ve given conniption fits to certain folks of, shall we say, a narrowly defined faith, by being both a Christian pastor and an initiate into the mysteries of the Zulu sangomas or witch-doctors. They find that not just threatening, but almost schizophrenic. I take great delight in agreeing with them!)
I’ve left a reply to Roberta’s post, which I hope will help bring a little light, rather than more heat, into the debate. I’m looking forward to seeing what else you have to say.
(Oh - and when we meet at Blogorado, would you and Stingray rather be baptized, or have the bones thrown for you? Please advise, so I know what to pack!
)
May 24th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
Coming from the believer side of the fence, I have to say that’s extraordinarily fair.
Actually, I think you and Roberta have done yourselves a disservice, as “tone deaf” definitionally implies there’s music to be heard. But then, the analogy very much helps me understand and appreciate your position, so thank you.
My own sense of the Divine makes the question of “is there a God” as nonsensical as “do you have feet at the ends of your legs” or “can you feel the wind on your face?” The extent to which the Hebraic/Christian tradition captures the*essence* of that Divinity - to say nothing of His wishes - is another question entirely. The only thing I can really say with any certainty is “I Am that I Am.” But we’re all crafted differently, and I can appreciate from the outside, without that experience, it can be easily written off as just funny chemicals in the brain doing their thing. It is what it is.
Also, I can’t run a nuke thingamajiger. Which, as RX says, is an eminently more practical affair.
Thanks y’all. Well done.
May 24th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
But you have to believe exactly as I do; otherwise how will I ever know that I’m right? /snark
I’ve long said that faith is nothing more than a choice to believe something you cannot know. Blind faith is doing so without any evidence. Retarded faith is doing so in spite of contrary evidence. Faith is not passive, nor is it an innate ability as RobertaX’s post seemed to indicate. Some people are prone to belief (in whatever, for whatever or no reason at all) others are tougher to persuade. But faith itself is a necessary operator in the acquisition of knowledge, the development of intellect, and the formation of a worldview. If I may be permitted to speculate, I would say that you’re not tone-deaf to faith, per se; rather you find it superfluous to apprehend certain forms of faith whose logical conclusion is a worldview contingent on supernatural influences.
What we’re all after, in spite of our various approach vectors, is Truth, though I’ll stipulate that some in the several traditions have sought and continue to seek to monopolize Truth as a means to power. Where facts fail to prove and ultimate Truth lies in the realm of the unknowable a rational person must draw a reasonable conclusion and choose to believe it, otherwise he may simply ignore the question entirely. Far too many folks choose (or default to) the latter. I’m always glad to see you take the first course.
The purpose of my particular brand of faith (Biblical Christianity) is not to make life easy or to explain everything, and I’m grateful that you point that out. The purpose is to bring spiritually dead people to life by reconciling us to the Creator with whom we are at war in our natural state. The faith required to do that is entirely contingent on personal choice, the most fundamental of God’s given rights. It is so fundamental that even He respects it, though He has every right to do with His creation as He so pleases. My part in this is to contend for the faith (be a witness unto the Lord) to the best of my ability so that you can make as informed a decision as your life affords. And I hold no malice toward people who reject the Bible as Truth, so long as they treat me with the same respect I show them.
In interpersonal terms, LabRat, this vast disagreement does elicit an amount of discomfort. You have one of the sharpest minds I’ve encountered, and your counter-stance to nearly everything I believe is a constant challenge to re-examine my presuppositions. It’s hard work being a fan of your writing for a committed believer such as myself. I’m constantly wary of promulgating a flawed doctrine or communicating a difficult belief in a disrespectful way. The other side of the coin is that I have a Christian duty to answer for my faith and a real desire to see you reconciled to God, should you so choose. Yes, some of my self-worth is bound up in the need to have my beliefs validated by someone whose mind I respect. That’s a personal flaw, a consequence of my self-obsession (manifesting as insecurity in this case), and rather common (nigh universal, I wager) as human motivations go. The prime motivator, however, is simply that I want you to live the way we were meant to live, free and secure in the knowledge of God’s great love for you.
So I’ll keep trying my hardest not to antagonize you too much, mostly by lurking until something stirs a response or by occasionally answering a direct question. That’s the best way I can think of to show my respect for you.
May 24th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
As a good scientist, I’m looking for general principles that’ll explain and predict with high consistency (and I’ll worry about the high-frequency components later). Right now it looks like “assume that the other folks know more about what they believe than you do” is the big winner. Funny how obvious that looks when typed out, and how hard it is to remember when I’m thinking about picking an argument about theodicy with the local bishop….
May 25th, 2010 at 5:45 am
Well said LR- This is one of the best and most thought provoking posts I’ve seen you put up. What was it Rodney King said? “Can’t we just all get along?” …
May 25th, 2010 at 5:58 am
As always excellent! I hadn’t thought about faith as being analogous to being tone-deaf, but it does make a useful comparison. It cuts both ways, of course. People who don’t have that ‘spark’ don’t get that visceral feeling. I, on the other side, can’t fathom not having that visceral and (what to me at least) instinctual drive to believe. My particular theology is neither simple nor cozy, yet without it I would be adrift. But, while I can explain the theology, I can’t explain that. The scientific arguments for evolution and religion make perfect rational sense to me, but faith makes perfect instinctual sense. I can’t turn it off or stop believing, it genuinely would be like losing a body part.
May 25th, 2010 at 6:06 am
I think being a healthy human being in an intellectually free society requires some basic ability to deal with people thinking you’re crazy. Yeah, a religious person’s core belief requires him to assume that I’m completely blind to an utterly pervasive aspect of the universe. And yeah, on its face that’s an insulting assumption. But I’ll live. If we approach the issue with a mutual respect for each other as people, there’s no need for any acrimony.
Religion is just a way to simplify the hard questions.
If it’s simple, you’re doing it wrong. There’s a reason they call it Bible (or Torah, or Talmudic, or Koranic) study.
Boy howdy. Internet Atheists often have a cartoonish image of religious belief, forgetting that the major world religions have centuries- or millennia-long traditions of smart people putting lifetimes of thought into what they mean and how they apply to a changing world. I can still think that-having started from what I consider a flawed premise-all that brainwork has lead to false conclusions, but it’s flatly wrong to dismiss the major religions as simpleminded fairy tales. The people who take religion seriously are practicing a complex, highly nuanced worldview in a rich intellectual tradition. Ignoring that fact-that’s legitimately insulting.
(This is why, as atheist religious commentators go, I’m a much bigger fan of Asimov than of Dawkins.)
May 25th, 2010 at 6:28 am
I’ll offer my two-cents worth as a person of faith with a decent amount of scientific understanding, understanding that I may have to give you change from your two-cents. As a preface let me say I’m a devout Christian, but not one of the “The earth was created in six 24 hour days eight thousand years ago and the Bible was dictated word-for-word by God in the King James Version bound in black Corinthian leather, with words of Jesus in red.” Christian. The earth being 4+ billion years old and humans being around in their current form for 250k years (I think those are the currently accepted figures) don’t phase me a bit.
Science, at its root, is concerned with measuring that which is repeatable in the universe. God, as creator of said universe, exists outside that universe, so His actions are generally not measurable nor are they repeatable for the most part, placing God outside the realm of scientific inquiry (along with such things as love, hate, empathy, etc).
I like to use an example of a High School physics experiment. Suppose you want to measure the acceleration of gravity. You get a ball bearing and a stop watch, get on the roof, drop the bearing, and time its descent. You do this over and over, in an attempt to average out measures of reaction time and such. One time a seagull sees the ball bearing falling, swoops down, grabs it, flys off and drops it five minutes later. Do we include the five-minute time in our data? We do not. Why? Because the seagull was outside the bounds of our “universe” consisting of a mass and a height. We throw that test out (unless we’re getting grants to prove that the acceleration of gravity is decreasing and it’s all America’s fault that is, but we’ll leave Al Gore out of this for now).
Now, here’s the sticky part. You can do this experiment a hundred times, a million times, or a googleplex times. If during all those iterations a seagull never interferes, that does not disprove the existence of seagulls.
Some of us have experienced the seagull. Some haven’t.
Oh, and next time some yahoo tries to disprove evolution using the Second Law of Thermodynamics, ask him if he realizes that the earth isn’t a closed system. Yeah, I have to deal with such people too.
May 25th, 2010 at 7:51 am
My major concern is going from “there is a God” to “we can base our morality on this fact”.
I think that whichever priest-king first came up with “you will obey my rules or you will go to Hell when you die” was simply a master demagogue.
(Ps very clever putting the Captcha *below* the “submit” button - weeds out spambots and fools on mobile phones!)
May 25th, 2010 at 11:40 am
I would suggest reading Julian Jaynes’ book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind if you want to get a good handle on this “faith” thing.
This book is second on my recommendation list for figuring out what is going on between your ears, just behind Korzybski’s Manhood of Humanity.
People need to come to terms with their borderline schizophrenia, before they start shooting, burning, or blowing up people over it.
May 25th, 2010 at 11:46 am
At the risk of sounding trite, this post was so full of win that I’ve erased the comment box a half-dozen times, and am left just typing this vague bit of general approval.
May 25th, 2010 at 12:31 pm
Lots of good comments, probably ought to save all replies to Notepad before I run into a surprise character limit…
Holly: the whole agnostic-versus-atheist issue is a sticky one, partly because neither is all that clearly defined and partly because people tend not to be clearly defined either. I say I’m an atheist, but if I were to get really clear I’d say I’m on a sliding scale of agnosticism in which I get more certain something is wrong the more tightly it’s defined. I’m completely agnostic with respect to whether the universe was created by a larger intelligence, and completely atheistic when it comes to, say, Calvinism.
Peter: Bones thrown FOR me, or bones thrown AT me? It’s an important qualifier. Baptism, for example, is more of a “thrown AT” kind of rite. Or thrown into, depending on denomination. Also: stout or IPA?
Jenny: appreciated, and the analogy works for the purpose I had in mind. I’m fascinated by the sheer difference of experience, to the point where writing it off as “funny chemicals in the brain” seems inadequate to me as well- I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
May 25th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Dr. Feelgood:
I’ve long said that faith is nothing more than a choice to believe something you cannot know. Blind faith is doing so without any evidence. Retarded faith is doing so in spite of contrary evidence. Faith is not passive, nor is it an innate ability as RobertaX’s post seemed to indicate. Some people are prone to belief (in whatever, for whatever or no reason at all) others are tougher to persuade. But faith itself is a necessary operator in the acquisition of knowledge, the development of intellect, and the formation of a worldview. If I may be permitted to speculate, I would say that you’re not tone-deaf to faith, per se; rather you find it superfluous to apprehend certain forms of faith whose logical conclusion is a worldview contingent on supernatural influences.
Your conclusion is accurate. I’ve actually written before on something touching on this subject, which I don’t know if you’ve read since I can’t remember when you started commenting here other than our culture-wars fencing. What I’m really trying to say with respect to “faith”- one term for so many concepts!- is that I don’t experience, at all, what Jenny describes above. I’ve never had any apprehension of a supernatural force that felt more real than speculation or like fantasy, and I’ve never had any counter-voice in my head when thinking or having an internal battle that wasn’t very clearly some aspect of my own consciousness putting on a hand puppet to tell me things I maybe didn’t want to hear.
I keep seeing Hebrews 11:1 analyzed as the Biblical definition of faith, and what interests me about it is that “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” does indeed describe things we definitively know not to be supernatural and are operated on routinely. Nobody in the world can bring me an imaginary number, but not only does the math work out, a lot of fields depend on them- like electromagnetism, fluid dynamics, and quantum mechanics. The electrical system in my house wouldn’t function without it, and I’m sure as hell not going to bend any electrical safety rules because the system is based on something “unreal”. Imaginary numbers exist even if they are pure abstraction, or else I would not be typing this and you would not see it. Their physical reflection is the proof and I think the two concepts are linked.
This is an awkward example because math is most definitely not supernatural and I’m not even entirely sure where I’m going with it. I do know I now want to write something other than the second half of this post and I don’t even know if I could finish it. MY LIFE IS FULL OF HARDSHIP.
Anyway, as to the rest of your comment, I find your worldview equally fascinating for the profound and sometimes discomfiting difference and I appreciate both your respect and your self-awareness.
May 25th, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Elmo: Augh, Dawkins drives me INSANE! As a writer on evolutionary theory he’s brilliant, far better than Gould was, fantastic at distilling large-scale complex concepts into something that can be understood intuitively. As a commenter on religion and the lack thereof he’s aggressively ignorant even as he accuses learned scholars of that exact sin. He’s embarrassing to the cause of science education and atheism alike. And it just kills me dead to see a professor of evolutionary theory look at a human cultural universal with a wide diversity of forms and conclude that it’s a maladaptive parasitical trait.
Kristopher: I haven’t read it, but I’ve read much of what came after, the consensus of which seems to be “he was wrong, but he was really interestingly wrong”. Although in the fifteen minutes between when I put the period on that sentence and when I started this one I couldn’t find anything on my bookshelves saying outright he was wrong, maybe I should just read it and draw my own conclusions.
May 25th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
…And Tam: *blush*
May 25th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I am really liking these posts, which put things ever so much better than I have.
Withal, I have to criticize this: “Nobody in the world can bring me an imaginary number, but not only does the math work out, a lot of fields depend on them- like electromagnetism, fluid dynamics, and quantum mechanics. The electrical system in my house wouldn’t function without it, and I’m sure as hell not going to bend any electrical safety rules because the system is based on something “unreal”. Imaginary numbers exist even if they are pure abstraction, or else I would not be typing this and you would not see it.”
Um, no. Not in the least. The electromagnetic behaviors exploited to allow you to type $WHATEVER and readers to see it exist without any imaginary numbers at all. The math is just a language we use to describe what’s going on; any correspondence between what happens inside the math that predicts the behavior and what happens inside the box does the thing is just a handy similarity — and one engineers and even scientists routinely short-cut. Pull out an ARRL Handbook and even the most basic “hard math” like the formula for the value of a capacitor (just sitting there missing Leyden) based on its physical parameters is in actual fact a shockingly simplified, specious piece of handwaving, wrong in every detail when closely examined; it just gives us a good-enough answer.
A better analogy might be the way in which we cannot directly perceive any but the crudest of electrical phenomena. The teeming anthill of activity in my home computer is a ringing silence to me except for the fans carrying away the heat it incidentally produces.
The score is not the symphony — I have noisy, low-fi 1930s Raymond Scott recordings, sessions he produced, in which the band expertly mimics the cries of gulls, a ringing buoy and the beat of a small maritime steam engine. Modern recordings on good equipment by skilled musicians playing the same score, not so much; the gulls fall flat, the buoy doesn’t float and the little engine is merely percussion. Whatever’s missing, it wasn’t on paper and yet note for note, every one is there in both performances, not one sixteenth note difference between them.
May 25th, 2010 at 6:28 pm
Now that you mention it, I’ve never really had the experience of feeling like Jenny, either. I ‘know’ God is real, but He seems to have appealed to me more in rational terms and less through a tug on my intuition. That working on my heart did come eventually (and continues apace) but not until after I had already determined in my mind that I would seek and follow Jesus. My choice was based mainly on the evidence for the Resurrection-to my knowledge, Jesus of Nazareth is the only man in recorded history to have claimed to be God and then proved it by rising from death (you might even call a flogging followed by crucifixion a “super-death”). That historical fact gives ultimate credibility to each of His other claims.
Oh, and I did read your earlier post (and Peter’s, too, on that subject) but didn’t have much to comment on since I mostly agreed, other than to pick nits. You may also remember me from comments at Rachel Lucas’s. I moved away from Albuquerque just as you and Stingray got your blog going, but I’ve been reading for some time now.
Back on topic, your comment regarding Math hits right on what I was getting at. Faith is an operator in all manner of abstract endeavors, be they real, imaginary, seen, unseen, natural, or supernatural. At its most elemental, even the choice to believe that the sky is indeed blue is based on all kinds of unprovable assumptions about your perception, the nature of your existence (how do you know you’re not in the Matrix?), and the predictability of the environment based on consistency in natural law. These are reasonable assumptions whose veracity is born out by experience. Philosophically speaking, the ‘Why’ of natural law is best explained by a Judeo-Christian worldview in which the Creator is Himself internally consistent and never-changing. Logic, for instance, follows the law of non-contradiction. This is an immaterial abstract concept. There’s no reason it should be true except that a standard for Truth exists from which the law is derived. The real point of debate is whether the existence of abstract law is better explained by natural vs. supernatural forces; in other words, which standard for Truth is best. And that seems to be where reasonable, intelligent people draw their lines. For my part, when I ask, “Why” of all the elegant forces and laws of nature, I’m not satisfied with “Because.” Having come to Him by faith, I can now almost hear God saying, “Because I AM.”
So, in my experience, the forms of faith are subordinate to the objective of faith. People, as evidenced by Roberta’s emphasis on the practical, invest their faith in pursuit of that which is most important to them. For the vast majority of the world’s population, this First Priority includes the search for purpose, the desire to live a life not void of meaning. And as Peter might agree, I do not think that is by accident. So, in a sense, I guess Curly was right: the secret to life is just one thing. What’s most important to you? That’s where your faith will go. I sincerely hope it takes you to where you want to be.
I feel your hardship. If the only thing I had to do was raise my four kids, I’d be exhausted. I’m also blessed with a great job and lots of opportunities to serve others and enjoy the good things in life, too. I think I’ve tried to get a blog going six or seven times, but I never can seem to make it work. My only blog post is a letter-to-the-editor of my local paper that I wanted preserved in case they published excerpts out of context. They didn’t publish it at all.
May 25th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
I’ve got at least the shape and feel of what I want to write about next- which will determine which bits go into that post and which go here.
Also, I remember you much more clearly now that I realize we initially met at Rachel’s. It pleases me a lot to know you’re still here.
May 26th, 2010 at 5:47 am
That whole ill-defined atheist/agnostic thing causes no end of trouble, dunnit? The usual pop definition (“an agnostic doesn’t know whether there’s a god, while an atheist believes there isn’t one”, or somesuch) gives us the patronizing insistence from the hardcore religious that atheism is _also_ a religion based on faith.
I’d call myself an atheist in the sense that the overwhelming balance of observation shows me both that there’s no need for a deity to explain the world as we can observe it, and an almost total lack of strong evidence for the existence of a deity. It’s not a _belief_ that there’s no god; it’s a working conclusion that would require some extraordinary evidence to change. That’s about the most certainty you can honestly have, from a scientific perspective. Science doesn’t allow for total certainty.
May 26th, 2010 at 9:58 am
I’m with Tam.
So consider this a “me too” post.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:51 am
This.
It’s hard to convey to a person with religious beliefs, but I’m an “atheist” in much the same way I’m an “aunicornist”. I’ve never seen a unicorn, have never had a unicorn affect my life, don’t have any pressing philosophical or scientific holes that require a unicorn to fill, and generally don’t spend a lot of time thinking about unicorns one way or another except maybe as a figure of speech. If this makes for a “religion”, it’s a pretty strange definition of one…
May 26th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
“Religion” is frequently (erroneously, IMHO) employed in place of “faith-based worldview.” I suggest a secular definition for “religion” that carries specific liturgical connotations and deals exclusively with the human attempt to atone for moral failure-on an individual or societal scale-and achieve perfection, or something like it. This would naturally exclude Atheism and Agnosticism as worldviews, but an atheist follower of Tony Robbins might qualify as sufficiently religious. My definition hinges on method and objective. Buddhism is technically atheistic, but it’s hardly non-religious.
The Bible’s definition of pure religion is the caretaking of widows and orphans while keeping oneself blameless before the world. Note that this in no way confers salvation or forgiveness of sins. There will be many religious people in Hell, just as there will be some non-religious folks in Heaven-we’ll need street sweepers to keep the Au shiny, after all
Rigid atheism is indeed a faith-based worldview, operating on the not-unreasonable, though false, assumption that any God, god, or gods must be empirically observable, testable and repeatable (the naturalist assumption). This is the understanding (I’m being charitable) among ‘religious’ folks that breeds a cross-wired assessment of atheism as religion. Agnosticism is more of a grey area, though I suppose it could be based the flawed assumption that we simply can’t know. Both -isms are non-religious, even though individual adherents may actually be more religious than actual practitioners of ‘Religion’.
May 26th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
“Religion” is frequently (erroneously, IMHO) employed in place of “faith-based worldview.”
Well, okay, but I need some handy word in there just to make the writing flow, yeah?
Given that I’m primarily discussing arguments among peers that are based on misunderstanding and flawed assumption in the first place, I don’t think it’s out of place.
I suggest a secular definition for “religion” that carries specific liturgical connotations and deals exclusively with the human attempt to atone for moral failure–on an individual or societal scale–and achieve perfection, or something like it.
Rigid atheism is indeed a faith-based worldview, operating on the not-unreasonable, though false, assumption that any God, god, or gods must be empirically observable, testable and repeatable (the naturalist assumption).
I would respectfully disagree, but it may be a semantic disagreement- that’s a wrong assumption because it muddles the distinction between “natural” and “supernatural”. Rigid atheism is strict materialism, the assumption that there is nothing beyond the natural, not an assumption that gods are testable. By definition they are not, because they’re gods. If they were subject to natural law they’d be something else.
Speaking strictly for myself when it comes to materialism, given that the overwhelming proportion of claims to the supernatural fail when tested (fail to actually defy or transcend natural law, that is), is it an unreasonable position to conclude that other, uninvestigatable claims are more likely to likewise fail than they are to be truth?
Agnosticism is more of a grey area, though I suppose it could be based the flawed assumption that we simply can’t know.
What about “I don’t have enough data to reach a firm conclusion and I don’t reasonably forsee it based on past experience and outside observation”?
Next post and reply to your last substantive comment under draft. Did not sleep well (unrelated to any of this) and am applying caffeine to the problem.
May 26th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
OK, after going back and forth for awhile on whether it would be more productive to start here on on the next thing I want to write, decided on here.
I ‘know’ God is real, but He seems to have appealed to me more in rational terms and less through a tug on my intuition. That working on my heart did come eventually (and continues apace) but not until after I had already determined in my mind that I would seek and follow Jesus. My choice was based mainly on the evidence for the Resurrection–to my knowledge, Jesus of Nazareth is the only man in recorded history to have claimed to be God and then proved it by rising from death (you might even call a flogging followed by crucifixion a “super-death”). That historical fact gives ultimate credibility to each of His other claims.
This goes back to my other comment regarding my attitude to supernatural claims not subject to direct investigation; if ones that can be directly investigated always fail, then I regard the odds that ones that can’t be are far more likely to be false than true. Admittedly I haven’t dived into the historical research here with both feet, but what’s actually under discussion here is what makes rational, intuitive sense to us as individuals and how that affects later decisions and attitudes.
I mentioned earlier that I’m on something of a sliding scale of agnosticism versus atheism depending on how specific we get on the subject of god. To that end, I start on my point of complete agnosticism: posit a vast, ancient, intelligence that so exceeds the vast, ancient, and complex universe we know that it was capable of creating the entire substance of the universe by writing a simple series of natural laws whose implications of interaction resulted in today’s universe, including us, all as intentional result. A very impressive and intriguing being indeed. Tell me more.
Make the next question to be considered “is the Bible literally true, or at least substantially true in all important respects”, and the next proposition I am asked to accept is that this intelligence handled its relationship with humanity first by spending a few thousand years involving itself in local Middle Eastern tribal politics, then scrapping the old approach and redeeming the whole of humanity via blood sacrifice of a partially-divine Jewish man and making any further relationship contingent on this man being the mediator. For all of humanity. I am aware that there are theological approaches to the question of people and peoples who have never even had the opportunity to hear of Jesus Christ, and whose later contacts were primarily with cultures who, aside from the Good News, also came bearing epidemic and conquest and therefore they might not have such a great reason to trust the word, but enough of the church(es) themselves saw this problem that mass waves of missionaries were necessary in the first place.
I am aware that I’m being irreverent and probably very insulting, and I really and truly don’t mean to be offensive. (I actually am out of my own depth enough here to not even be aware of exactly how or how much, just of its likelihood.) I’m just trying to explain how massively unintuitive and incongruent with rational conclusion this is to me.
If I instead look at the Bible as a sort of collective written record both of a culture and that culture’s moral evolution from tribal ethics and morality, in which group identification is trump and the ways in which you are or aren’t a member of a group are most important, to a modern and sophisticated individually-oriented approach to morality in which your group identification is irrelevant and your personal conduct and how it affects yourself and the world is important, then it makes a great deal of sense. It explains why all the begats (very important to a patrilineal tribal culture, irrelevant to morality or modern eyes), why all of it takes place in the same relatively narrow set of locations as though the rest of humanity weren’t really relevant, and why the blood sacrifice- it’s a rather neat mechanism to take a culture that already believes in the spiritual value of such things and not only take them off the table as relevant forever, but be very convincing at the same time by making the sacrifice one that can never again be matched and belongs solely to God’s agency and not man’s.
If I even re-insert an ancient and tremendous intelligence into the scenario and assume that it was all done that way because that’s what would have convinced that culture and set the stage for all that came after, THAT makes sense- but so far as I’m aware it’s also a conclusion that no Christian would come to and is probably blasphemous as well. Especially given that what seems like the next sensible conclusion is that said intelligence probably took other approaches suiting other cultures when approaching humanity. (Now I’m starting to sound a little too hippie even to myself…)
God does not need to make sense to me or do things in a way that seems sensible to any human, least of all me. I understand that. What holds me up isn’t just the unintuitiveness to me, it’s that it would be tremendously intuitive to an ancient Jew steeped in messianic mythology. The Biblical God doesn’t just not think like me, He DOES think like a member of the Bronze Age cultures that wrote down the Bible.
Again: I am not trying to be deliberately offensive. Unfortunately it tends to go with this kind of territory.
May 26th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Back on topic, your comment regarding Math hits right on what I was getting at. Faith is an operator in all manner of abstract endeavors, be they real, imaginary, seen, unseen, natural, or supernatural.
This will be the subject of my next- or at least an upcoming- post, given that it touches conceptually on something I’ve been trying to describe for awhile now. Suffice to say I don’t lack faith in God or the supernatural because I can’t see or directly experience it, though the latter does factor in somewhat.
If I can manage to write the sucker down. It has all the signs of something I may have only half thought through.
For my part, when I ask, “Why” of all the elegant forces and laws of nature, I’m not satisfied with “Because.” Having come to Him by faith, I can now almost hear God saying, “Because I AM.”
See, both of these are equally satisfying- or unsatisfying- answers to me, though the difference certainly does change one’s approach.
For the vast majority of the world’s population, this First Priority includes the search for purpose, the desire to live a life not void of meaning. And as Peter might agree, I do not think that is by accident.
Neither do I. I think it’s a direct consequence of intelligence. Once we became capable of abstract reasoning, everything changed- once we COULD discern pattern, understand purpose, and find or create meaning, we could not stop, which was as much curse as blessing. Speaking of the Bible, I think the story of the tree of knowledge is an excellent parable for this, though again from my interactions with Christians I gather this was not the lesson I was meant to take from it.
What’s most important to you? That’s where your faith will go. I sincerely hope it takes you to where you want to be.
Thank you. Largely I am here; I adore life in general and mine in particular. This conversation would be a case in point.
I feel your hardship.
Oh, my tongue was stuck over in my cheek; I love to write, and while I do find getting ideas I find I can’t ultimately articulate extremely stressful, it’s much worse when I can’t seem to come up with anything at all. And when it works, it’s the entire reason I blog.
As for making it work, the only way I’ve found is to write every day or at least make a serious effort at trying to, whether you think what you wrote is worth much or not. I’m rarely proud of what I write, and I’m always taken aback when something I thought was mediocre filler gets dozens of comments. (And frustrated and confused in an egoist way when something I WAS proud of gets no attention.) But it’s not for everyone.
May 26th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
LabRat, your use of religion works. I was responding to elmo’s comment via Tam’s comment, hopefully trying to clarify what (thinking) folks mean when they say atheism is a religion.
As far as your disagreement goes, you’re right. I’ll stipulate that gods are supernatural by definition and withdraw that portion of my comment, substituting your correction.
…given that the overwhelming proportion of claims to the supernatural fail when tested (fail to actually defy or transcend natural law, that is), is it an unreasonable position to conclude that other, uninvestigatable claims are more likely to likewise fail than they are to be truth?
From within a naturalist framework, that’s totally reasonable. There are few things I detest more than someone punting to God and claiming “Miracle!” for every little thing they can’t explain. There’s usually a good scientific explanation for things we can observe, and we expect this from a Biblical perspective, too. Miracles tend to cluster around transformative theological periods (the nodes of Dispensations is one good example), and the Church Age is between those. But as to the uninvestigatable, applying scientific analysis to, say, historical claims may indeed determine statistical probabilities that lead to rational conclusions about the (un)likelihood of a given event. However, historical analysis (somewhat less fine an art) can also render another set of probabilities with respect to the events surrounding a given event.
For example, the resurrection is a documented historical event, one in which a supernatural force is claimed to have acted. Now, applied biology gives us a degree of certainty (near-total) about the death of Jesus. It also allows us to determine the likelihood of Him being seen alive again after His death (functionally zero). This alone convinces most people that Jesus couldn’t have risen. It also leads to lazy rationalizations like denial of Jesus’ historicity or the ‘Swoon’ Theory.
Historical analysis looks at the chain of events following from the event in question. Like looking for a large planet by observing its gravitational effect on a nearby star, we can determine the historical probability of a scientifically-unlikely event by analyzing the events surrounding those of the initial claim. Jesus’ resurrection was first reported by two women, a grave error in Jewish culture, since the testimony of women was inadmissible. A fabricated narrative should have covered up that embarrassing detail. That’s a relatively mild unlikelihood. The Roman guard watching the tomb could have falsified the claim, unless these professional soldiers really were overwhelmed by an itinerant band of fisherman and religious nuts who spent the last three years following an outcast Rabbi through the desert learning parables and healing the sick. These same disciples scattered to the four winds at His arrest, and yet they are supposed to have stolen the body from a sealed tomb under the watch of a professional Roman guard. That is not likely at all. The Jewish leaders who begged Pilate to execute Jesus had more reason than anyone to falsify the claim of resurrection, which is why they petitioned for an armed guard at the tomb in the first place. All they needed to do to kill the claim was produce the body. They couldn’t. Instead, they fabricated a story that we’ve already seen as highly implausible. The Roman soldiers, too, had not only their professional honor at stake, but possibly their lives for failure to secure their objective. All they needed to do was produce the body. If they really had failed in their duty then they should have been killed. That they weren’t suggests that their commander excused them from fault (uncommon). Jesus appeared to various people and groups for forty days following His death, and each of these was a credible eyewitness (at least, the men thereof) to the fact of His resurrection. Most of the men who were in Jesus’ company during his life went to their own gruesome executions maintaining the claim that He rose from the dead. Perhaps one or two bold people might refuse to recant when faced with torturous death. But eleven men killed, and one who lived to old age, without recanting suggests that they each believed what they had seen (not totally unlikely, since there’s a slim possibility they were all crazy). And this kind of behavior continued throughout the lifetimes of the first-hand witnesses and participants. The whole movement could have been killed in its infancy, simply by proving the resurrection didn’t happen. Instead it spread like wildfire for three hundred years, under severe oppression, to the point where a failing empire adopted it to try and maintain political cohesion. Taken as a whole, these otherwise-unlikely events suggest a center of gravity, if you will, that is best explained by an actual resurrection event. That it’s naturally impossible is the definition of a miracle, and it’s the closest thing to proof of the supernatural we’re ever likely to get.
Of course, that raises the question of whether or not we can trust the history. God always leaves enough room for skepticism so that people can really be free to make up their own minds. I’m looking forward to your next post on the subject. Time to get some caffeine of my own…
May 26th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
But as to the uninvestigatable, applying scientific analysis to, say, historical claims may indeed determine statistical probabilities that lead to rational conclusions about the (un)likelihood of a given event. However, historical analysis (somewhat less fine an art) can also render another set of probabilities with respect to the events surrounding a given event.
I’m laughing my ass off now, because so far as I know you had no way of knowing you’ve just fed me my own words. I’ve ranted, though never I think on the blog, about applying a scientific standard of investigation to history, which is an entirely different art. It’s just that I was talking about (or rather, agreeing with Valerius Geist about) large predator attacks, specifically wolf attacks, on humans rather than anything relating to what we’ve been discussing.
I agree the historical record reflects a “center of gravity” of sorts, though I’m not sure it does so sufficient to convince me of miracle. If I were to postulate an alternate “center” rather than miracle, it would be that the Christ cult, whether based on actual miracle and backed by God or not, rose in a weak point in the history of Roman society by being the first religion around not requiring a group or class identification to belong to and offering tremendous satisfaction to a wide range of individuals that were previously dissatisfied. That doesn’t really address any of the other oddities about the story, though I could satisfy some by pointing out that stealing the body could work just as well as having it come back to life and using culturally odd touches like having the reporters be women would add convincing- but I’m now quite aware I’ve crossed over into outright conspiracy theory.
As you say, it now comes down to whether we can trust the history, and extraordinary claims (miracle is as extraordinary as it gets) always require extraordinary proof- but now we’ve come down to a point we actually agree on again, since there is room for necessary doubt in both your worldview and mine. Interesting.
Be satisfied in that you are making me think rather than fence. As to the next post, Stingray has something for today (which gives me more room to draft in), but I think I see the shape of it more clearly now.
May 26th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Of course, that raises the question of whether or not we can trust the history. God always leaves enough room for skepticism so that people can really be free to make up their own minds.
But don’t you think-again, approaching this as a matter of reason rather than of faith-that’s a pretty glib dismissal of the biggest issue with the whole hypothesis, as well as possibly begging the question?
I admit it’s been a while since I studied Biblical history, but to the best of my knowledge the crucifixion itself documented by the Bible, Tacitus, and a dubious paragraph in Josephus, but the specific details you cite about the story are documented only in the Gospels (that is to say, if one document says a thing happened a hundred times before 100,000 witnesses, that’s still only one word we have that it happened); modern scholarship generally regards Mark-whose author is obscure and identified only by pious tradition-as the source document reworked into Matthew and Luke, whose authorship is also known only by tradition, and John as a much later .
As historical events go, we usually don’t consider certain fact even better documented and corroborated stories than this. Reading up on Roman history, you run into hundreds of details recorded by contemporary writers whose identities we know for sure that are considered dubious because of the writer’s agenda. Basing a rational conclusion about the nature of Jesus on the details recorded in the Bible seems to just push back where the leap of faith takes place.
Going back to my definition of “atheism”, the Biblical record and subsequent events simply don’t require an actual resurrection to have taken place. We have ample documentation of compelling but non-factual or highly embellished stories being repackaged as eyewitness accounts.
I don’t mean to disparage faith; I only bring this up because you’d characterized your decision to accept the divinity of Jesus as a rational one. But doesn’t a rational method in particular require rigorously assessing whether we can trust the sources?
May 26th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
But don’t you think–again, approaching this as a matter of reason rather than of faith–that’s a pretty glib dismissal of the biggest issue with the whole hypothesis, as well as possibly begging the question?
I didn’t intend it as a dismissal; rather I meant to open another corridor for exploration. If my authority is the Bible then, as you said, I’d better be convinced that it’s accurate. In fact, the question has an answer. I believe we can trust the history. But every answer will always raise enough questions so that people can have “necessary doubt.” The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. So either God is impossible to please or humans are capable of faith. If humans are capable of faith then we must also be allowed to doubt. Doubt is the precursor for faith, and faith is the vehicle of knowledge (justified, true, belief, according to Plato) in both the natural and supernatural worldviews. As such, I’ll never be able to prove that the Bible is true or that God is real. Sometimes I wish I didn’t have to fall back on that disclaimer, but it’s the rational conclusion of my worldview. It’s also the ultimate way that God upholds individual freedom. Can you imagine how hard that would be if you or I were an omnipotent deity?
On the veracity of the Bible, I contend that modern scholarship is too narrowly focused on the physical object. Applying a scientific method (document analysis, textual criticism) yields certain types of evidence that, taken alone, lead to conclusions that may or may not be accurate. Applying the historical method defines the scope a little better. The extant manuscripts can be studied. They have rough dates. They have comparative differences that could indicate which is ‘older’ and therefore ‘more authoritative’. But we can also look at the development of the early churches, which was entirely contingent on the testimony of the eyewitnesses. In other words, the contents of the documents and their effects are more worthy of study than the physical manuscripts as artifacts. Granting the dating by modern scholars, this still leaves the Gospels published within the first generation following the source, during the height of the movement when practically anyone who had heard the story before publication could have falsified the written accounts. Additionally, Paul’s letters were written before the Gospels were published and while the original disciples were still alive. Every detail of Paul’s writing corroborates the claims of the Gospels. Paul was not an eyewitness to the life of Christ, so either he invented the whole religion and was the doctrinaire source for the Gospels (unlikely, since as Saul he was charged with putting Christian ‘heretics’ to death) or he accurately understood, transmitted, and applied the historical events of Christ’s life as well as His teachings (see Romans for the deep theology). These letters, too, would have been falsifiable by other eyewitnesses, specifically the original twelve. Paul’s credibility as an eyewitness was second to none, first as a Jewish Pharisee (and highly regarded at that, prior to his conversion) and second as a Roman citizen. Short of being falsified, even if his letters were the least bit controversial then they would have caused a significant amount of infighting, fracturing the churches. This didn’t happen. Paul and the Twelve are recorded to have had disagreements, which casts potential collusion into suspicion as well (unless it was meant that way, like the women at the tomb).
Then consider the sheer volume of evidence. We have over 5,000 extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament from antiquity. These are consistent in the details of Jesus’ life, death, burial, and resurrection, as well as the history of the early churches. Erasmus did a masterful job of codifying them for our contemporary use. Some of these manuscripts (particularly Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, from the Alexandrian tradition) differ in minor points of doctrine, but none so that it would challenge the essentials of salvation by grace through faith in the Resurrection. It took papal decree and the Council of Trent to do that. By contrast, there exist approximately 650 Greek manuscripts of the Iliad, and the earliest date to just under a thousand years after Homer composed the original. Though stylized in epic poetry, it is still the principal text for the events of the Trojan War, which was understood to be historical by ancient Greeks (some dispute today). While the details of the account are somewhat up in the air, the veracity of the document is not. In other words, we generally accept that what we have is faithful to what was originally written.
But let’s assume the New Testament writings don’t exist at all. Tacitus wrote his mocking narrative around 116 AD, discussing “an immense multitude” of Christians—“a most mischievous superstition” named for Christus “who suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.” Josephus, a Jewish historian, wrote a mildly lengthier treatment (some details are controversial today) of the life and death of Christ, and became a contemporary hero to Christians (that part isn’t controversial). In AD 64 Rome burned and Nero blamed it on Christians. Apparently the movement was so wide spread, well known, and reviled that Nero was able to scapegoat and brutally punish its adherents. This also tells us that in 30 short years it moved all the way from Jerusalem (or more precisely, Antioch) to Rome, before any of the Gospels had been written. These people were hearing and believing the eyewitness testimony (second-, third-, nth-hand) of men who still lived. In AD 221 Julius Africanus cites Thallus (AD 52, whose work is lost to posterity) to challenge his assessment of a pervasive darkness as an eclipse of the sun. Africanus says an eclipse is unreasonable as explanation for the darkness. This might refer to the darkness that occurred during the Crucifixion. From external sources alone, we’d still be able to ascertain that there lived in the Middle East a man named Jesus, born under dubious circumstances (the Jews claimed He was the son of Mary by a Roman soldier), and who was a Jewish teacher. He developed a large following in His life, which following was muted briefly when He was crucified by the Romans under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. The following exploded again shortly after He was killed. Those who worshipped Him after His death believed that He had performed miracles, healed the sick, and was, in fact, God on earth.
The historical veracity, from internal and external sources, of the New Testament is compelling enough to fall just short of actual proof. But since we’re dealing in degrees of certainty, if I have to put a number on it then my finger in the wind says that I’m 92.6% sure that the New Testament is reliably accurate. But only my undergrad degree is in History, so I may be a bit rusty
And Snopes further proves my point that false accounts are quickly and easily revealed as frauds, and even more so when the principal actors and source contemporaries are significantly motivated. I think it’s clear that both the Jews and Romans of the first and second centuries were desperate to kill the movement, to the point of butchering converts en masse. All they had to do was to falsify the eyewitness testimonies (plural, in the extreme) and the subsequent publications. Either they could not do so or they did not act fast enough (this is unlikely since the Jews recognized the threat even before Jesus rose again).
LabRat, I want to read and digest your subsequent comments more fully before I respond (caffeine is wearing off, and I need sleep). My last comment was composed before I read your 2:42 and 3:06 responses. I didn’t read anything you wrote as offensive or condescending; and I’m more than a little honored and utterly floored to have made you think. I can’t prove it to you, but that’s a prayer that was answered bigger than I asked-ala, “Dear God, please keep me from saying anything really stupid.” Sorry for the length of my comments, btw. I’ll break them up or jump to another post if you need me to.
May 27th, 2010 at 5:33 am
Dr. Feelgood, You’ve addressed my main question; I don’t think we have any serious disagreement anymore. I’d just like to continue with one or two threads if you’re game, because I love Biblical history.
But let’s assume the New Testament writings don’t exist at all…From external sources alone, we’d still be able to ascertain that there lived in the Middle East a man named Jesus, born under dubious circumstances (the Jews claimed He was the son of Mary by a Roman soldier), and who was a Jewish teacher. He developed a large following in His life, which following was muted briefly when He was crucified by the Romans under Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius Caesar. The following exploded again shortly after He was killed. Those who worshipped Him after His death believed that He had performed miracles, healed the sick, and was, in fact, God on earth.
I agree with this completely. It’s _possible_ that Yeshua bar Yusuf from Nazareth never existed, but the historical records we have make it the far simpler, more likely explanation that he did. The details you cite above seem like as solid historical fact as anything from that time and place can be. For these details, we agree that there’s a pretty heavy burden of proof on the “didn’t happen” side.
And Snopes further proves my point that false accounts are quickly and easily revealed as frauds, and even more so when the principal actors and source contemporaries are significantly motivated.
But there’s the rub. I take it the exact opposite way: even when the nigh-godlike ability exists to access the truth instantly from anywhere on the planet, certain memes are robust enough to be circulated widely and widely believed. And as those of us involved in the gun rights issue know perfectly well, many, many people will not give up dearly held beliefs just because you factually prove they’re wrong. And most of Snopes’ rebuttals rely on access to records and information and communications technology that would themselves have been miraculous in the first century. Compelling memes are so robust that it takes serious technology to fight them, and they _still_ hang on really tightly to lots of people. And bearing in mind that the first century western world was one that already accepted the supernatural as a matter of course, was religiously diverse with countless religious “startups”, and had a long tradition of believing in resurrected gods and heroes, the supernatural elements of the meme probably felt even more natural to new Christians then than they do to established Christians today. They weren’t one-time miracles; that’s just the way the world _worked_.
Let’s say you were a Christian living in Antioch or Damascus or even Rome in, say, AD 60. You’ve heard the testimonies (all oral at this point, I believe) and the philosophy, and have embraced it with all the fervor and deeply _grokked_ certainty that anybody adopts a religion with (assuming for the sake of argument that faith in Jesus feels the same as faith in Baal or Huitzilopochtli). When the Romans circulate a “letter from Pontius Pilate” swearing that he never even buried that one rebel fanatic, but just threw him on the trash heap with all the other criminals, are you going to abandon your faith because a hostile testimony’s come along? The explosive growth of Christianity can tell us a lot about the social value of its message in its context and about the social context of the people who adopted it, but I don’t think it can realistically tell us anything (one way or the other) about the veracity of the events it purports to be based on.
All’s I’m saying is that from a historical point of view, if we don’t give the Bible the weight of divine inspiration, the strongly documented events play out in a pretty straightforward way relying only on well established patterns of how people make and circulate stories, without the need for anything supernatural (though Christianity was certainly an unusually robust and well-timed meme). Having faith in the Biblical account obviously changes the assessment fundamentally.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:26 am
elmo, I have just enough time to respond quickly to two points on my way out the door. First, you know the saying, “A lie can make it halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” That deals with the speed of transmission, but does not address the power of the message. The truth, when it does finally catch up to the lie, always wins. Major Caudill is a good example. For some time, most of the intarwebs attributed Marko’s essay to a phony. The tide is turning on that. The lie will never be eradicated, and many have no doubt gone to their graves thinking Major Caudill was brilliant. Still, whenever folks are corrected and shown how Marko is the actual author, they generally change what they believe. I’d wager it’s probably now 50/50 for those who know the truth vs. those who don’t, and the balance is shifting toward truth all the time. There’s no immortal soul, eternal fate, national sovereignty, or religious purity on the line; we simply correct the error when we come across it because we like Marko. So, yes, if that letter from Pilate was authenticated and corroborated then I would change my belief, otherwise I’d be holding on to Retarded Faith.
Okay, I’m going to hit three points and be a touch late. Second issue is with the first century peoples. These are not blithely superstitious people, even if there was a societal proclivity toward belief in the supernatural. The Jewish people were specifically religious, zealots among zealots. Most of the young men were literate and accomplished in memorization of at least the Torah, if not the entire Tanakh. They prided themselves on genetic, cultural, and religious purity. And they created a social structure in which religion meant everything (ever visit an orthodox household during Pesach?). So the first Christian converts were those who appended the Jesus narrative to Judaism, which is logical given Jesus’ teachings. I suppose what I’m getting at is that the first converts were already established in their traditions, and it took something extraordinary to change that. The widespread nature of Christianity is indicative of the veracity of the eyewitness accounts in that it increased the probability of contact with anyone who could actually falsify the story’s details, while those people were still alive. Back to Maj. Caudill, Marko’s highest profile correction to date has been the Nuge’s attribution error. That error was exposed because the lie had suddenly increased in visibility. Additionally, the claims of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection are specific. They reference persons, places, and dates. Show just one of those claims to be false and you’ve destroyed the credibility of the entire narrative. The Book of Mormon claims a specific history for North America that is utterly false. That casts it as a fraud. As Jesus said, “If I have told you earthly things [things you can see, DF], and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things [things you cannot see, DF]?”
The final issue is that you need not accept the divine inspiration of the Gospels and Letters in order to read them as accurate history. Divine Inspiration governs the doctrine of Biblical Infallibility which is only tangentially (though completely) concerned with historical veracity. Reading the Gospels as the testimony of four men who are reporting their eyewitness experiences is not predicated on accepting a divine or supernatural origin for their words. I think the history contained in the New Testament is reliable, even apart from its religious implications. It’s corroborated by multiple internal and external sources, it’s internally consistent (doesn’t contradict it’s own claims), and it withstood the most violent firestorms of attempts to eradicate it, by both the religious (Jerusalem) and political (Rome) authorities of the day, including those who were alive during the source events, testimonies, and eventual writings. You can choose not believe the claims on other grounds (scientific, doctrinal, etc.), but you can’t really deny the historic validity of documents which are the most well-established accounts from all of antiquity.
And I haven’t even broached prophetic confirmation, yet.
May 27th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
*popcorn*
I’m not as well-versed in the history of the period and its sources as Elmo so I’ll let him do the arguing so long as he’s still willing to play- I’ve already outlined above why I’m not as concerned about close investigation because my basis for doubt or skepticism comes before the question of the details of the resurrection.
However, I WILL point out that exactly what you’ve just stated regarding the Bible’s credibility- it’s destroyed in its authority in large things if it’s unreliable with details so mundane as historical accounting- also creates a very powerful motivation in believers who gain great satisfaction from belief to reject contradictory information. The current example you cited re Marko and the Maj. Caudill is very different in that the message’s content changes very little with authorship; its truth rings regardless of who wrote it. (And not only that, but Elmo’s point re this century versus the first in rapid reliable sourcing of information still stands.) There’s a very, very strong psychological motivation to continue belief in the Bible even if doubt is cast on its credibility as compared to the authorship of “Why the Gun Is Civilization”.
This phenomenon specifically as observed in believing Christians is easily pointed to in young-earth creationists. I don’t believe we’ve ever explored your opinions there, but I’ve seen all sorts of things specifically forbidden by the Bible- deliberate deceit, arrogance, attacks on others, warping the truth- done by such people in the attempt to discredit anything that contradicts the most absolute literality of Genesis, even by people I otherwise regarded as highly intelligent and honorable.
May 27th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
One more point: if we regard the impact and obvious historical ripples outward from the “site” in history as evidence of Jesus Christ’s divinity and the historicity of the resurrection, must we not also apply the same logic to the respective impacts of Siddhārtha Gautama and Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullāh, and their own claims?
May 27th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
And very belatedly, to Roberta: You’re right, I should have used an example I understand better, as there are plenty. Math is not my forte. But damn, the fact that they’re called “imaginary numbers” made it a tempting one to grab for.
May 28th, 2010 at 5:46 am
The truth, when it does finally catch up to the lie, always wins…The lie will never be eradicated, and many have no doubt gone to their graves thinking Major Caudill was brilliant. Still, whenever folks are corrected and shown how Marko is the actual author, they generally change what they believe…we simply correct the error when we come across it because we like Marko.
It seems like you and I look at life’s precedents for this kind of thing very differently, but it’s possible we’re using different assumptions for “eventually”. Let me be explicit:
Human history shows no shortage of lies* that have hung on at least long enough to get outside “falsification range” of the events in question. That is, if the apparition of Jesus to the Magdalene and to the Apostles was a piece of early Christian lore that wasn’t actually factual, it wouldn’t necessarily have to persist for two thousand years to evade falsification. Get that story into, say, the third century, and all the grandchildren of the eyewitnesses are long dead.
To illustrate the nature of human belief as I see it, let’s assume that your conclusion is correct: Jesus was executed and rose from the dead, confirming his divinity and lending extraordinary authority to his teachings, strongly suggesting that at least the core elements of the Jewish cosmology (the one true God who created the universe, for example) are true.
In that case, we can be sure that there’s no shortage of ideas that are flatly untrue have held on for millennia. Humans are “wired” for religious beliefs. Whether that’s because of a dizzyingly complex suite of evo-psych adaptations or because our creator made us that way-that’s a bigger topic than this thread can contain. But human history doesn’t, to my eye, show much precedent for the idea that people en masse will reject untrue religious beliefs (given that many religions profess exclusivity, there have been billions of steadfastly wrong humans regardless of who’s right).
Mormonism is actually a fantastic example of my point: it’s verifiably false, developed during a time with far more robust records than antiquity, and faces the Snopeslike power of modern data transmission. And from what I understand, it’s the fastest-growing faith in American history.
Second issue is with the first century peoples. These are not blithely superstitious people, even if there was a societal proclivity toward belief in the supernatural.
To clarify, I’m not saying the people of antiquity were stupid or gullible, simply that their worldviews included an implicit acceptance of things we’d regard as supernatural. This says more about how much of the world was generally unknown as it does about the people. Birdlions that guard Iranian gold fields? Why not? It’s no different from all the other stuff historians tell us is out there outside our home range, like giant ants, north African lizards that can kill with looks, and the Earthshaking Bignosed Tuskmonsters of the orient.
WRT Jewish acceptance of Jesus, again, it’s been a while since I studied the Bible, so my early Church history may be off. But my understanding is that it was mainly the Jerusalem Church under James-the-maybe-brother-of-Jesus that was made up of Jewish “converts”, and that all the other explosive growth in Christendom happened among Gentiles. Among the Jerusalem Christians, my understanding is that they interpreted Jesus mostly _within_ the framework of traditional Jewish teaching-he was the Messiah, prophesied in the Tanakh and come to liberate the Jews from their oppressors-and that (again, forgiving my poor memory) it took a great deal of time, mental effort, and debate before they were willing to concede to the larger Church on matters of Jewish law (like whether Christians must be circumcised). For them, Christianity was more a refinement of Judaism and rebuke to the social institutions that had pervered its practice than the fundamental remaking of the Covenant that we see it as.
Thanks for the fascinating conversation. It’s always refreshing to have mutually respectful disagreement on a perennial internet-shoutey topic. Next up, we should argue about circumcision, screaming babies in restaurants, and declawing cats.
[* - Lies is just a convenient word, and continues with our vocabulary. No disrespect or offense intended.]
May 28th, 2010 at 5:53 am
Labrat, if you’re ever interested in getting a quick grounding in the historical, social, and literary contexts of the various parts of the Bible, I can’t recommend the aforelinked Asimov’s Guide o the Bible enough. It’s a secular-but-respectful overview in Asimov’s usual readable style which-while not by any means as deep and intensive as more focused scholarly Biblical criticism-gives capsule backgrounds for each book and selected significant passages in those books. There’s little to no theology in there, except when the theology of the time is important to understanding the historical context of the book.
Fascinating stuff. It’s a shame it’s been out of print for so long.
May 28th, 2010 at 6:15 am
Next up, we should argue about circumcision, screaming babies in restaurants, and declawing cats.
I suspect we’d have quite the discussion, since I have four kids under 5, three boys who are all circumcised, each of whom in turn has screamed at an eatery (I wouldn’t really call the places we eat “restaurants” and I always take them outside immediately until they can control their behavior), and we’re just about to acquire a kitten almost one full year after I bought a leather sofa and chair
I’ll try to have a decent response to your and LabRat’s comments crafted by this evening. The coming weekend will be largely media-free, except for Game 1 on Saturday evening.
May 30th, 2010 at 7:06 am
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