For Wololo Re Critical Thinking About Christianity

[bornagainathiest]

Wololo...

 

"I'm arguing that perpetual popularity makes something reasonable to us."

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Surely, you mean perpetuated popularity?

Where an idea, concept or thought is perpetuated from one generation to the next or from one person to another.  Also, perpetuated popularity doesn't necessarily make something reasonable to us - it makes it unquestioned by us, leading it to be unquestioningly perpetuated down the generations.  Reason requires that things be questioned, not accepted unquestioningly.

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You even give support to this, Wololo.

Posted Today, 12:52 AM

I own a copy of the Koran (the expression of the lady at the counter when I bought it was priceless) and am studying it carefully.

It's remarkably similar to Christianity. For a long time I've held that it's just an eastern culture with the same God as Christianity. I'd run into problems explaining and justifying that one though.

If I was born in the Middle East, I'd probably be a Muslim. Culture plays a big part in what we find convincing.

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If you'd been born in the Middle East, you'd probably be a Muslim?

Because the perpetuated beliefs of that culture play a big part in what you'd find convincing, right?

Because that belief system has been unquestioningly perpetuated down the generations?

Meaning that your belief in Allah wouldn't be based on reason and questioning, but because you'd simply accepted what's been perpetuated down the generations.

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Sorry friend!

Reason requires questioning - so if you've accepted something because it's popular and/or because it's been perpetuated from earlier generations, then you aren't using reason... you've switched your reasoning abilities off!

 

BAA

 

 

[Wololo]

I'll respond properly tomorrow perhaps when it's not so late at night and I'm not so tired. I just want to comment here...

Why do so few of you actually respond to the content in my posts? Some of you just ignore most of what I say (especially questions I ask) and just go about trying to find ways to come after me or dismiss my arguments with generalizations. ADDRESS THEM. Some of you are respectful enough to do so (and you probably know who you are), but others feel it's above them. Until I start seeing responses and answers to my questions and the entirety of what I'm writing, I'm not going to respond to posts that stray off topic. That doesn't mean I'm not responding to anyone. There are people I will continue to respond to, but the rest of you need to stop picking and choosing, and stop ignoring my questions! Either you answer my points like I answer yours or I won't bother with you. If I have a side chat going on with you (such as bornagainathiest) I'm fine with smaller more direct posts...

[Vigile]

It may not be extraordinary to believe in god/s but appealing to large numbers doesn't make belief in something without evidence any more reasonable. The difference between belief in god and the tooth fairy is simply one is institutionalised while the other is not.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Wololo, my Danger Button was really pushed by your earlier link to the guy who promotes Radical Orthodoxy, but I accept that you favor separation of church and state. And like William Davis, I appreciate the time and thought you have put into your posts. It's great to have actual dialogue, even with the many disagreements.

 

I've been over this with some of you before, but you don't pay attention. People do not die as martyrs for things they know are lies. I'm not sure how I could be clearer. Every single one of the original followers after the death of Jesus went to his or her grave believing what they wrote. If they had made it all up, they would have recanted. Someone would have recanted. None of them did. Clearly they were fervent believers in their own writing. If they weren't absolutely certain in what they wrote, they would have given it up.

OK, here: "I've been over this with you before, but you don't pay attention." Heh heh. I'm not sure whether you hold that "every single one of the original followers of Jesus" was martyred; tradition says John was not. But you hold that many of them were martyred. This we do not know. We also do not know whether any of them recanted, if they were martyred. This is an argument that seems persuasive at first. It remained as one of the last pieces of the rope holding me to the Christian dock. The stories about the earliest martyrs may be true, but they are no more reliable than the stories in the NT (which include, e.g. the martyrdom of Stephen - problematic on several levels). So when you use stories of 1st century martyrdoms as evidence for claims, from which in turn you argue the reliability of the central stories of the NT (such as the resurrection), you are working from a construction of sand.

 

We all know that conclusions about ancient history can at best be plausible. The evidence for conclusions such as, Jesus rose from the dead, needs to be stronger than merely plausible, and I contend that it does not even reach that point. Maybe we need a separate thread on the argumentum ad supplicia, or whatever we want to call it. Is the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead really the best explanation of our texts?

 

The point of my saying this is not to argue that you as an individual should not be a Christian. Rather, it's part of my response to the religion as a whole, as many of its proponents appeal to its doctrines to seek to impose things on other people.

 

I rejected the condemnation of homosexuality and gender uncertainty (though I am definitively male and straight).

I am very interested in your statement above, Wololo. If you're inclined to expand on what you reject in Christian condemnation of homosexuality and gender uncertainty, and your reasons for rejecting that condemnation, I will appreciate hearing what you have to say.

[mydisplayname]

He can spell and it must have taken him a considerable time to write this out. So thank you for that Wololo. You do seem serious about debate at least in my opinion.

 

In my christian days I too rejected the trinity as a polytheistic belief. In fact it never occurred to me that it was one. I also rejected young earth creationism as well as condemnation of homosexuality. I did believe in hell though. So all in all my beliefs wasn't so different than yours. 

 

"It's hard to put into words, but not everyone that stays a Christian is just 'deluded' and 'stupid'. We don't deceive ourselves."

I'm not stupid and I bought it and was very serious about it. Religion has nothing to do with intelligence and I know many serious christians that are brilliant.

 

"How do you know we've been programmed to think a certain way?"

I was programmed a certain way by my parents church and community. I'm going to say the odds we're had you been born in my place you would be a dutch reformed christian today. If people weren't programmed by their specific community there would be much more religious diversity in countries.

 

"I have very little doubt that Jesus was a real man. Most respectable historians don't argue against it (though some remain that do)."

I'm going to disagree on the "most respectable historians" part of your argument, but don't see any point in taking the conversation further on that point. It won't add any value.

 

Thank you for your input. If I had more time I would have loved to work through all the detail.

 

You do remind me very much of myself. I hope for your part you stop discussing this with us because once your mind goes there it's impossible to unlearn what you have learn't. For me, ignorance is bliss. I wish I could go back into the matrix, but it's impossible.

[pratt]

many read but did not reply because there are other exC who can explain things better than others,,,, we do read and did not rspond individual just in case you cannot answer to a barrage of questions.

 

for example

 

. People do not die as martyrs for things they know are lies.

 

I read muslims died as martyrs in recent years as suicide bombers and have yet to see any recent christians die as martyrs, and that does not make islam any truer than chritianity,,,, but this is just a small matter,,,,

 

so i would prefer others who have better historical, archeological, philosophical and whatevercals background to question and anwer your presentation.

 

cheers

[Ravenstar]

People throughout history… and even today, die for their beliefs, become martyrs. Religious, cultural, political… millions have dies for all sorts of beliefs.. they can't ALL be true.

 

What a ridiculous statement. They happily died in the thousands as sacrifices for the gods in South America… hundreds threw themselves into a pit for their emperor in China. I could give you a hundred examples of people dying for their beliefs.. 

 

Martyrs die all the time too… that young muslim man who drove the car into the checkpoint a few days ago in Iraq and blew himself (and 11 other people) up is a martyr. Shia, Sunni, Catholic, Protestant, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Jain, etc, etc, etc,… they've ALL been martyrs at one the or another.

 

I hope you don't think that christians are the only group of people who've been killed for their beliefs?  no, not even close. Please.. read some more history.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Hi, Ravenstar, true, but Wololo's contention is that the apostles (or most of them) did not die for what they believed was false. So their testimony gains credibility.

[Ravenstar]

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

[directionless]

Wololo, thanks for the reply. I think it would help if you describe the concept of God and Christianity that you believe. Maybe you already described this somewhere and can simply link?

 

I think I understand what you are saying about deism:

- You are saying that you only appear to be arguing for a deist God, because you cannot include the non-naturalistic evidence that most atheists would dismiss?

- You are saying you need us to accept that some kind of God is reasonable before you can move forward?

 

It seems like you are trying to deductively prove your beliefs from assumptions. That is good if you are trying to prove your beliefs true, but I think we should start by trying to prove your beliefs false. We might be able to show you historical evidence, scientific evidence, common sense evidence, ... that contradicts your beliefs. After a consensus emerges that your beliefs are coherent, then you can provide arguments for choosing your beliefs over other coherent beliefs.

 

That is my suggestion.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

Wololo, while I appreciate the thoroughness and thought you put into your posts, I do need to offer a bit of critique.  You complain that people do not respond to your posts and that many do not answer the questions you ask or address the individual points you make.  However, I'm sure you can understand that when a single one of your posts is longer than the rap sheet of a gang-land thug, it's difficult for many people to zero in upon the one point or question they would like to address for you.  In the age of information in which we live, attention spans are growing shorter.  Your posts are too easy to get lost in, or overwhelmed by.

 

Instead of responding to 17 people in one novella-length post, try responding to 17 people in 17 short-story-length posts.  I'd be willing to bet two of Lot's drunken daughters and one authentic Son of Man^TM that you'll get more interaction from the people here.  There are many points of yours that I would like to utterly destroy for you; however, for me to do so would entail producing another wall of text as gargantuan as yours, if not more so.

[♦ ficino ♦]

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

Of course, Wololo must answer for himself. From what I used to think about this argumentum ad supplicia (appeal to their tortures)-- I used to think that it's not plausible that some of Jesus' disciples knew he had not risen from the dead, passed off this message anyway, and then, when faced with a choice of torture or recantation, would choose torture rather than give up what they knew was their own lie. This argument used to be convincing to me. The case of immediate disciples who may have stolen the body or otherwise concealed Jesus' non-resurrection is different from the case with later martyrs who were not witnesses to the (supposed) events of Easter morning and the immediately following days.

 

But this is probably obvious, Ravenstar, so we may not be disagreeing over replies to Wololo here.

 

Whether there were immediate disciples who were later martyred over their Christian testimony is at question. The historical basis for St. Peter's tomb's being beneath the Vatican, for example, is very sketchy (I looked into this in some detail).

[Vigile]

Hi, Ravenstar, true, but Wololo's contention is that the apostles (or most of them) did not die for what they believed was false. So their testimony gains credibility.

 

I can't see how a second hand story about what men who may have never even existed lends credibility.  We don't even have writings from any of them. 

 

[directionless]

 

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

Of course, Wololo must answer for himself. From what I used to think about this argumentum ad supplicia (appeal to their tortures)-- I used to think that it's not plausible that some of Jesus' disciples knew he had not risen from the dead, passed off this message anyway, and then, when faced with a choice of torture or recantation, would choose torture rather than give up what they knew was their own lie. This argument used to be convincing to me. The case of immediate disciples who may have stolen the body or otherwise concealed Jesus' non-resurrection is different from the case with later martyrs who were not witnesses to the (supposed) events of Easter morning and the immediately following days.

 

But this is probably obvious, Ravenstar, so we may not be disagreeing over replies to Wololo here.

 

Whether there were immediate disciples who were later martyred over their Christian testimony is at question. The historical basis for St. Peter's tomb's being beneath the Vatican, for example, is very sketchy (I looked into this in some detail).

 

Also, the earliest disciples that were eyewitnesses and martyrs probably didn't die for the Christian beliefs of the gospels that were written decades later. For example, they may not have believed in a physical resurrection.

[Roz]

Just on to make the point that whatever points of RO Wololo is claiming to adhere to does not fit with what RO actually stands for. 

 

The 2 videos I've linked has the major figures of RO explaining the 'myth of the secular.'  We do not need any form of religion to influence any facet of government.  While Wololo is on record that he's for separation of church and state RO (in the John Millbank video) does not. 

 

This is not a minor RO point but one of its core beliefs. 

 

Another of his points that strike me.

Wol stated that for him, "His (jesus') divinity is certainly questionable."  It's quite rare for someone to declare themselves christian and then doubt that jesus was ever divine (although on the other thread he did say that if he were born in the mid-east he'd probably be a muslim).  I'm interested to know his reasoning on that point.

[mymistake]

 

 I'm arguing that perpetual popularity makes something reasonable to us. I'm saying that the idea of God is reasonable and not extraordinary. We have a predisposition to it, so to call it outrageous or absurd is just not true.

 

 

Your claim is wrong.  Cats are predisposed to chase little red dots that move.  Predisposition can be nearly anything.  Predisposition is not evidence of truth.

 

 

I hate God of/in the gaps. I hate it. It's intellectually dishonest to put God into the gaps of anything we don't know. 

 

Ironic given your statements in this thread.  Look at how much you have in common with the God of the gaps argument.

 

 

Every single one of the original followers after the death of Jesus went to his or her grave believing what they wrote. 

 

Wishing very hard won't make this true.  Fictional testimony is fictional.  Aside from Paul you don't even know who those writers were and about half of what was attributed to Paul was written by somebody else.  You have no idea which of those writers (or even if Paul) believed what they wrote.  They could have known it was all pure lies.  You have no idea how any of them died or why.

 

What you have are religious believes that you cling to.  It must have been that way because it must have been that way.  Mere assertion is not evidence.

 

 

 

When I say I've evaluated things, I'm not making a joke to you people. I have thought about this. I have questioned it aggressively.

 

I'm sure you have.  However the fact remains that you have not applied critical thinking to all your religion and you are not as much of a skeptic as most of the members here.  I'm sure you are very sincere and that is fine.  But you shouldn't claim to be a critical thinker regarding religion.   

 

 

We really don't know how religion came to be. Some anthropologists have tried to assign it to evolution, but their arguments are far from concrete.

 

Anthropology will never be "concrete".  We don't have time machines.  Instead what we do is come up with explanations that best fit the known data.

 

 

We'll get to the silly "what created God? argument a few posts down my response.

 

It isn't silly.  Assuming a being used magic does not solve any of the dilemmas about our universe existing.

[mymistake]

 

I rejected the Trinity as persons (polytheism if you ask me and doesn't make logical sense according to our very own scriptures). I rejected the doctrine of eternal hellfire (a wicked Medieval doctrine that contradicts the entire purpose of Christianity) I rejected the condemnation of homosexuality and gender uncertainty (though I am definitively male and straight). I rejected young earth creationism (contrary to science, our cultural understanding of the Hebrews, and the wording of the book of Genesis). I rejected a literal worldwide flood (beyond the realm of all reason. A regional flood makes far more sense.) Those are the things I can list off quickly, and I'm sure if I searched a little further, I'd remember at least a few more.

 

Hey, good for you.  It's is a good sign that you feel comfortable enough with ideas to think this much through.

 

 

 

What you want is fully empirical evidence (if I'm right...bit of an assumption there). If that's the case, you, like others here, need to prove why empirical evidence is the only valid form of evidence. I asked this question a while back in another thread and it was never touched.

 

This is silly.  Every confidence scam that ever happened demonstrates why empirical evidence beats the alternative.  Now it has been touched and refuted.

 

 

We do have evidence. It's evidence you discount because you want to be as skeptical as possible about everything religious. 

 

Uh no.  We no longer accept it as evidence because without Christianity we are not desperate to accept wishful thinking as evidence of our religion.  Only real evidence will do for those who walk without faith.

 

 

No, I don't suspend critical thinking. I just don't suspend assent to the degree that most of you do. To me skepticism is good enough to cast things into doubt. It should not be used as our favourite tool to try and destroy things.

 

Clearly you are not just as skeptical and as much of a critical thinker as most of the people here.  That was the claim that prompted this thread and these questions.  However in my opinion you are more skeptical and much more of a critical thinker than most of the people who attend church.  You certainly started down that road and I am pleased with some of the progress you made.

 

Defend the Bible less and you just might make a fine member of this forum.

 

[Leo]

Wololo, thanks for responding to my post. I can't reliably quote for some reason.

So, you said God is outside the universe and has no mass. Then how can God interact with matter? matter interacts with matter, via energy.

Even to burn something, you need mollecules to vibrate fast enough that the composit breaks down.

RE: intelligent systems, there are companies in Japan and elsewhere working on what you're talking about. But since most machines are constructed by us to serve us, we don't create them with a whole lot of individuality and needs for emotions. The self-aware security sentry in the cloud knows what to watch out for, but behaves a lot more like the Cauldron-Born from Llloyd Alexander's Prydain series.

But anyway. To be outside of something is to be unable to operate within it. The only alternative is if God were outside the universe, but could operate it somehow by remote control. And were that the case, it would be detectable with instruments.

The whole idea of God being outside of spacetime never came into being until we understood the relationship between space and time. The whole idea of God being nonmaterial, or not made of matter, was only realized once we could describe matter. Even the new-age gods made of energy, are only possible due to the extremely elementary understanding of matter/energy relationships that the new agers apparently have.

In fact, when you read Genesis, it's apparent they thought the atmosphere was full of air ad infinitum. They had no concept of space. And, God couldn't just come out and explain to them what space was.

What we have is this god idea evolving, if you will, with our understanding of our world. If God were constant, he would have communicated this to us from day one. After all, I told my daughter at age 4 how a rainbow really works, what the moon is made of, and so forth.

I find some of your ideas interesting, and agree that you seem to really be thinking about it.

I'd also echo what someone else said: Be careful of how much you learn from us. You won't be able to unlearn what you find out, and deconversion is never a choice to disbelieve. You might end up realizing you really don't believe any of it anymore. And that, in the world we live in today, has its problems in relationships and family. Especially young people who can lose access to resources from their parents if they leave the faith, or at least be seriously hounded.

None of us are immune to having our belief systems changed. That is why so much science and other literature is so prohibited among the evangelicals. They can control street porn, but they cannot control skepticism and analysis, and deep down they know it.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

Hi, Ravenstar, true, but Wololo's contention is that the apostles (or most of them) did not die for what they believed was false. So their testimony gains credibility.

 

I can't see how a second hand story about what men who may have never even existed lends credibility.  We don't even have writings from any of them.

 

On the argument from the apostle's martyrdoms, here is what Candida Moss says in The Myth of Persecution. How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (Harper Collins 2013).  Moss teaches at Notre Dame;  as far as I know, she's a Catholic, though not right-wing.  Not enough is on Google Books, so I summarize/quote.

 

Moss acknowledges that "a lot is at stake in the martyrdom of the followers of Jesus" (p. 135).  "Even if we might not agree with the apostles' decision to die, we might still find ourselves conceding that they wouldn't have been willing to die if they hadn't really seen something.

     This entire argument hinges upon the idea that the apostles were actually executed for being Christians.  This means (1) that they thought of themselves as Christians, (2) that the motivation for their arrests and executions was that they were Christians rather than troublemakers, and (3) that they actually were arrested and executed.  Of these three assumptions, the third is the most important...

     The problem here is that our sources for these events are the stuff of legend, not history.  The documents that contain the stories of the deaths of the apostles, the apocryphal acts of the apostles, were written many, perhaps hundreds, of years after the events they purport to describe.  Even the five earliest apocryphal acts of the apostles -- the Acts of Peter, Acts of Paul, Acts of Thomas, Acts of Andrew, and Acts of John -- were composed in the second century under the influence of the Greek romance novel." (she gives a footnote on that influence)  "This is to say nothing about the unreliability of the stories pertaining to the other apostles."

  Continuing, p. 136:

15 different versions of deaths of Peter and Paul

Acts of Peter, the earliest, dated by most scholars to final decades of second century

Clement of Rome says Peter was killed "on account of jealousy" not  (p. 137) because he was a Christian, doesn't mention Peter as crucified upside down or indeed give any detail about his death

It's believable that apostles might have been arrested as seditionists if they attracted crowds or seemed to promote unrest.  They could have been executed as revolutionaries or for disturbing the peace

we don't know whether they were given chance to recant  (esp. if arrested for political/criminal reasons of the Romans)

Acts of other apostles filled with fanciful details like talking animals, resurrected smoked fish, flying magicians

 

Moss concludes that these stories cannot be used as evidence for the truth of the resurrection etc.  138  "The stories about the apostles tell us a great deal about how early Christians thought about and valued suffering and death, but they are not historical accounts and they do not demonstrate that Christians were persecuted."

 

Emphasis by Ficino:  if some apostles were arrested for political/criminal reasons, in the eyes of the Romans, and executed, they need not have been offered their lives in exchange for recanting their beliefs.  Or, if they did abjure their Christian testimony, we have no way of knowing, since we don't have reliable reports of the circumstances. 

 

The stories of apostolic martyrdoms are even more laced with elements of romance and legend than are a good chunk of the gospels.  Appeals to them in arguments for the truth of the resurrection accounts are not grounded in historically secure evidence.

 

One must remember that the second century is a period when there was a "market" for martyr stories of many kinds: Jewish martyrs, pagan martyrs, philosophical martyrs as well as Christians.  The notion that martyrdom is part of robust religion goes back at least to the Judaism of the pre-Maccabean period. 

[ironhorse]

Wololo, thanks for responding to my post. I can't reliably quote for some reason.

So, you said God is outside the universe and has no mass. Then how can God interact with matter? matter interacts with matter, via energy.

Even to burn something, you need mollecules to vibrate fast enough that the composit breaks down.

RE: intelligent systems, there are companies in Japan and elsewhere working on what you're talking about. But since most machines are constructed by us to serve us, we don't create them with a whole lot of individuality and needs for emotions. The self-aware security sentry in the cloud knows what to watch out for, but behaves a lot more like the Cauldron-Born from Llloyd Alexander's Prydain series.

But anyway. To be outside of something is to be unable to operate within it. The only alternative is if God were outside the universe, but could operate it somehow by remote control. And were that the case, it would be detectable with instruments.

The whole idea of God being outside of spacetime never came into being until we understood the relationship between space and time. The whole idea of God being nonmaterial, or not made of matter, was only realized once we could describe matter. Even the new-age gods made of energy, are only possible due to the extremely elementary understanding of matter/energy relationships that the new agers apparently have.

In fact, when you read Genesis, it's apparent they thought the atmosphere was full of air ad infinitum. They had no concept of space. And, God couldn't just come out and explain to them what space was.

What we have is this god idea evolving, if you will, with our understanding of our world. If God were constant, he would have communicated this to us from day one. After all, I told my daughter at age 4 how a rainbow really works, what the moon is made of, and so forth.

I find some of your ideas interesting, and agree that you seem to really be thinking about it.

I'd also echo what someone else said: Be careful of how much you learn from us. You won't be able to unlearn what you find out, and deconversion is never a choice to disbelieve. You might end up realizing you really don't believe any of it anymore. And that, in the world we live in today, has its problems in relationships and family. Especially young people who can lose access to resources from their parents if they leave the faith, or at least be seriously hounded.

None of us are immune to having our belief systems changed. That is why so much science and other literature is so prohibited among the evangelicals. They can control street porn, but they cannot control skepticism and analysis, and deep down they know it.

 

 

"None of us are immune to having our belief systems changed. That is why so much science and other literature is so prohibited among the evangelicals. They can control street porn, but they cannot control skepticism and analysis, and deep down they know it."

 

 

What prohibitions on literature?

 

Please, give it a rest.

 

You seem to have God all figured out and in your pocket of disbelief.

 

I don't. 

[mymistake]

 

 

Please, give it a rest.

 

You seem to have God all figured out and in your pocket of disbelief.

 

I don't. 

 

 

 

So sorry but we are not going to repeat the Christian agenda simply because you are uncomfortable with other points of view.

[ironhorse]

 

 

 

Please, give it a rest.

 

You seem to have God all figured out and in your pocket of disbelief.

 

I don't. 

 

 

 

So sorry but we are not going to repeat the Christian agenda simply because you are uncomfortable with other points of view.

 

 

 

I did not realize you were repeating the Christian agenda.

 

Say what you want.

 

I'm not offended.

[Wololo]

So because I just hit multiquote on 11 posts, I'm going to cut it in half. Expect another post after this one with the rest of my responses.

 

 

Wololo...

 

"I'm arguing that perpetual popularity makes something reasonable to us."

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Surely, you mean perpetuated popularity?

Where an idea, concept or thought is perpetuated from one generation to the next or from one person to another.  Also, perpetuated popularity doesn't necessarily make something reasonable to us - it makes it unquestioned by us, leading it to be unquestioningly perpetuated down the generations.  Reason requires that things be questioned, not accepted unquestioningly.

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You even give support to this, Wololo.

Posted Today, 12:52 AM

I own a copy of the Koran (the expression of the lady at the counter when I bought it was priceless) and am studying it carefully.

It's remarkably similar to Christianity. For a long time I've held that it's just an eastern culture with the same God as Christianity. I'd run into problems explaining and justifying that one though.

If I was born in the Middle East, I'd probably be a Muslim. Culture plays a big part in what we find convincing.

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If you'd been born in the Middle East, you'd probably be a Muslim?

Because the perpetuated beliefs of that culture play a big part in what you'd find convincing, right?

Because that belief system has been unquestioningly perpetuated down the generations?

Meaning that your belief in Allah wouldn't be based on reason and questioning, but because you'd simply accepted what's been perpetuated down the generations.

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Sorry friend!

Reason requires questioning - so if you've accepted something because it's popular and/or because it's been perpetuated from earlier generations, then you aren't using reason... you've switched your reasoning abilities off!

 

BAA

 

 

 

Perhaps that's why the vocab came back lacking...but you're on the right track. What I'm arguing is that regardless of cultural and scientific changes to our, the concept of God continues to exist, making it a plausible concept. I wouldn't say it goes unquestioned. Especially over the past few hundred years, it has been very heavily questioned. With the explosion of population on the planet, it's becoming even more popular to question it. Of course, you could certainly argue that the reason it exists still is because of dogma, and there is some truth to that...but dogma does not appeal to all of us. When I hear platitudes from the pulpit...and when I hear other people spouting doctrine like the purest of facts, I wrinkle my nose. If God exists, why should he fear my questioning? I'm a puny human, if there's a God, what threat am I to him? This is why we should question religion and question God...we have nothing to lose either way. Either he doesn't exist and we will confirm this is the case, or he does and we will be vindicated. To not question is just stupid. If I was afraid of questions and hard attacks, I wouldn't be here.

 

It may not be extraordinary to believe in god/s but appealing to large numbers doesn't make belief in something without evidence any more reasonable. The difference between belief in god and the tooth fairy is simply one is institutionalised while the other is not.

 

This actually touches on something really important. No matter what we do with philosophy, it must be grounded in an empirical reality, because it's the world that we interact with all the time. Logic and mathematics (which are the only things we can be absolutely certain are real according to structural realism, which I am a proponent of) are what underlie everything. They should be the foundation of everything we believe. This is what differentiates made up concepts of real ones. This is why numbers are real, and the story I write in my spare time isn't. Numbers can be represented physically. They exist independently of the physical world, but the only way to discover them is through correspondence with the world around us. My story is a product of my mind and occupies no eternal 'space'. If you were to delete all copies of the story and kill me, the concept would cease to exist, while numbers wouldn't, even if you destroyed everything representative of them.

 

In the same way, our belief in God needs to be founded on empirical principles, if only because we need something concrete to substantiate our claims. God can be argued from an empirical foundation through the use of philosophy. The tooth fairy cannot.

 

Wololo, my Danger Button was really pushed by your earlier link to the guy who promotes Radical Orthodoxy, but I accept that you favor separation of church and state. And like William Davis, I appreciate the time and thought you have put into your posts. It's great to have actual dialogue, even with the many disagreements.
 

I've been over this with some of you before, but you don't pay attention. People do not die as martyrs for things they know are lies. I'm not sure how I could be clearer. Every single one of the original followers after the death of Jesus went to his or her grave believing what they wrote. If they had made it all up, they would have recanted. Someone would have recanted. None of them did. Clearly they were fervent believers in their own writing. If they weren't absolutely certain in what they wrote, they would have given it up.

OK, here: "I've been over this with you before, but you don't pay attention." Heh heh. I'm not sure whether you hold that "every single one of the original followers of Jesus" was martyred; tradition says John was not. But you hold that many of them were martyred. This we do not know. We also do not know whether any of them recanted, if they were martyred. This is an argument that seems persuasive at first. It remained as one of the last pieces of the rope holding me to the Christian dock. The stories about the earliest martyrs may be true, but they are no more reliable than the stories in the NT (which include, e.g. the martyrdom of Stephen - problematic on several levels). So when you use stories of 1st century martyrdoms as evidence for claims, from which in turn you argue the reliability of the central stories of the NT (such as the resurrection), you are working from a construction of sand.

We all know that conclusions about ancient history can at best be plausible. The evidence for conclusions such as, Jesus rose from the dead, needs to be stronger than merely plausible, and I contend that it does not even reach that point. Maybe we need a separate thread on the argumentum ad supplicia, or whatever we want to call it. Is the hypothesis that Jesus rose from the dead really the best explanation of our texts?

The point of my saying this is not to argue that you as an individual should not be a Christian. Rather, it's part of my response to the religion as a whole, as many of its proponents appeal to its doctrines to seek to impose things on other people.
 

I rejected the condemnation of homosexuality and gender uncertainty (though I am definitively male and straight).

I am very interested in your statement above, Wololo. If you're inclined to expand on what you reject in Christian condemnation of homosexuality and gender uncertainty, and your reasons for rejecting that condemnation, I will appreciate hearing what you have to say.

 

 

You're right in many ways, and I'm sure I've touched on this elsewhere (I say it merely because not everyone reads every thread I take part in). We don't have enough empirical evidence to prove the historicity of Jesus and especially his divinity (expressed through resurrection and such). Even in terms of plausibility, there are questions that crop up. I'm aware of the fact that the foundation is not strong, and after all this time has passed, that's the sad state of the historical evidence. It's lackluster at best. Regrettably, I'm not a scholar on ancient history or the Bible. One day I may study that more in depth, but my arguments at this stage are going to be pretty simple. This is why I will probably never declare myself done studying it. There's just too much to study and too much uncertainty.

 

As for your questions about Christian condemnation of homosexuality and gender uncertainty, it's really quite simple as I see it. I feel that a lot of Christians completely miss the point of their religion (dogma is a serious problem, I'm sure we can all agree). The central focus of Christianity is on love for others. Anyone who says otherwise is misinformed. From a Christian perspective, I can make a very very large argument to set up what many of us feel is the original thrust of Christianity (RO is really big on truly fundamental beliefs). Basically my objection is centered on the fact that we use our opposition to it to deprive those people of rights...to deprive them of equality. We oppress them instead of treating them like fellow humans. These people don't choose to be what they are...it's just what they are. I don't recall Jesus telling people not to be homosexual. In fact, I don't recall him judging the marginalized in society at all. It's supposed to be about love for others and love for everyone (just as God loved us...as it goes). There was a time when I tried to argue against homosexuality saying that it was unnatural. I later learned that I was wrong (through rigorous study), and reformed the belief. If they are going to be judged, it is not my place to do it anyway. My job is to love people regardless of who they are. We have a family friend that's homosexual. He's running for city council in a city nearby and we support him. We even went to his wedding (I'll admit it was hard to stomach though). In my favourite forum on the internet, there are several people that are transgender or have changed their gender from the one they had at birth. I care about those people irrespective of their orientation. My objection to condemning them is that not only are they still humans, but they are still capable of love, just like the rest of us. What I ask other Christians is: "Are those people incapable of expressing love like we do?" If the central theme in Christianity is supposed to be love, then why are we abandoning it to judge others?

 

He can spell and it must have taken him a considerable time to write this out. So thank you for that Wololo. You do seem serious about debate at least in my opinion.

 

In my christian days I too rejected the trinity as a polytheistic belief. In fact it never occurred to me that it was one. I also rejected young earth creationism as well as condemnation of homosexuality. I did believe in hell though. So all in all my beliefs wasn't so different than yours. 

 

"It's hard to put into words, but not everyone that stays a Christian is just 'deluded' and 'stupid'. We don't deceive ourselves."

I'm not stupid and I bought it and was very serious about it. Religion has nothing to do with intelligence and I know many serious christians that are brilliant.

 

"How do you know we've been programmed to think a certain way?"

I was programmed a certain way by my parents church and community. I'm going to say the odds we're had you been born in my place you would be a dutch reformed christian today. If people weren't programmed by their specific community there would be much more religious diversity in countries.

 

"I have very little doubt that Jesus was a real man. Most respectable historians don't argue against it (though some remain that do)."

I'm going to disagree on the "most respectable historians" part of your argument, but don't see any point in taking the conversation further on that point. It won't add any value.

 

Thank you for your input. If I had more time I would have loved to work through all the detail.

 

You do remind me very much of myself. I hope for your part you stop discussing this with us because once your mind goes there it's impossible to unlearn what you have learn't. For me, ignorance is bliss. I wish I could go back into the matrix, but it's impossible.

 

Yeah, I've found that my 'unorthodox' beliefs are rather popular, though often by people on their way out of the religion. I can see why people think I may be on the way out as well.

 

Indoctrination is a problem. Fortunately, my parents were gracious enough to teach me to think for myself and not to fear questions. It has made me a stronger and more confident person as a whole and has perhaps made this process faster for me. Instead of having to overcome indoctrination, I've been able to skip it entirely. Yes, of course there was early Christian influence in my life that has led me to where I am, but to say I've never challenged it effectively (which a couple here have implied) is just plain wrong. It's just that I have to take off bite sized pieces at a time. I take a long time to process things and assimilate them.

 

Part of me misses blissful ignorance, but I value the truth over comfort. I'm here because I want to make sure that I have the truth, and if I don't, I need to find it. I know the effect of echo chambers, so I intentionally put myself into places where I'm challenged. There is no way I could go back to that ignorance again. My conscience would never forgive me for it. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing I was lying to myself.

 

That begs the question.. obviously THEY thought it was true.. that doesn't mean it WAS true. You'd have to prove the premise first.

 

No, the ONLY thing I'm arguing on that front is that they didn't make the gospels up. If they had made it up, they most certainly wouldn't have been martyred for them. Nobody makes up a story and then dies for it. That's all I'm saying on that front.

 

Wololo, thanks for the reply. I think it would help if you describe the concept of God and Christianity that you believe. Maybe you already described this somewhere and can simply link?

I think I understand what you are saying about deism:
- You are saying that you only appear to be arguing for a deist God, because you cannot include the non-naturalistic evidence that most atheists would dismiss?
- You are saying you need us to accept that some kind of God is reasonable before you can move forward?

It seems like you are trying to deductively prove your beliefs from assumptions. That is good if you are trying to prove your beliefs true, but I think we should start by trying to prove your beliefs false. We might be able to show you historical evidence, scientific evidence, common sense evidence, ... that contradicts your beliefs. After a consensus emerges that your beliefs are coherent, then you can provide arguments for choosing your beliefs over other coherent beliefs.

That is my suggestion.

 

Yes, I'm arguing deistically because I'm stuck arguing deistically. I can't even get anyone to agree that concept of God is plausible. If I can't even do that, everything past it is just silliness to you.

 

Internally, a lot of my logic is coherence rather than correspondence. I've got this massive internal foundation that I've built over a very long time and it's hard to explain it at length.

What I will say though is that people here are trying to use skepticism as a weapon, which it is not. This is a product of deconstructionism which is very prevalent in postmodern philosophy. We want to break everything apart into pieces in order to discern whether or not it's true. We want to get to the source. The problem is that the process itself is fundamentally destructive. I've used the same methodology to attack empiricism and materialism (arguments which none of you have heard because we never discuss it). I would much rather we discuss things productively. It's very easy to attack and dismantle. It's not so easy to try and fit things together or see things from an alternate perspective.

 

That isn't to say that we should just make things up, but rather that we should use more tools than just skepticism when we discuss religion. All of you have done an excellent job of casting significant doubt on Christianity, but that's all you've done. Doubt is not convincing, it just starts a process of thought and a line of questioning. I love to work abstractly. I love to consider possibilities. It's why I study other religions so much. I explore spirituality (and I've even lurked a bit in your spirituality sub-forum). Long ago I escaped dogma, and I wish you would see that. I appreciate all the questions and doubt, but it's not helping you convince me or helping me learn much.

 

MORE TO COME. NEXT POST.

[RipVanWinkle]

Wololo: You want us to respond to your points or questions. The questions in your IP appear to me to be rhetorical, as part of your overall thinking. I'm

going respond to your points as I see them. Otherwise this post would be too long. But first I want to point out that your last point, whether god exists, should be your first. That's because if he doesn't, all the other points are moot. Jesus is irrelevant, what you feel in your "soul" doesn't matter, nor do your convictions. Whether the religion resonates with your basic understandings is also irrelevant. Your conclusions about god are quite candid. You said

about god: "It is fundamentally unknowable as it is." That is certainly true. But then you say: "It has been my experience that he does."

 

What you really are saying, I think, is that you don't know, but you chose to believe in god. That certainly would be commendable in Xtian circles, but it means absolutely nothing if is wholly without basis. And it is without basis. Your belief in god is a feeling based upon non specified experience. You have

set forth your opinions without listing any supporting evidence. For, example, you have come to the conclusion that god created the universe because he is

outside of it. You have no evidence that god exists much less that he is outside of the universe. You have put together an essay based upon your opinions

which are based upon no evidence. But I understand your frustration in your search, since I went through basically the same process. Nice try. bill

[FreeThinkerNZ]

Wololo, your posts are still way too long.  Brevity is a good thing.  Less is more.