dagnarus Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 BTW, I have to say I've heard several examples (not from you) of people taking their personal experiences with "moderates" that in some manner was connected with them falling into more radical thinking (which I always attribute to self as the cause, rather than others), and then extending that reaction with themselves to say all moderates do this to everyone. I don't find that a very 'scientific' evaluation. Just saying... Of course it was my fault, I'm just saying that I find it highly unlikely that I'm unique. After all when it comes down to it wasn't really the more fundamentalist radical elements fault either now was it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 First, while we don't emphasize the passages of love and mercy, we acknowledge them. We simply refuse to let others ignore the passages of blood, gore, rape and infanticide. It would waste time and bandwidth and defeat the purpose of showing the inconsistency of the bible except to counter those who only quote the "good stuff."But many anti-theistic atheists are doing more than that. They are not simply refusing to let others "ignore" the excessive violent passages (never mind that moderate Christians acknowledge and criticisize those verses too). Many anti-theistic atheists are over-emphasizing the extremist passages over the loving passages and trying to pigeonhole all true believers as fitting into this one tiny narrow definition that only adheres to the violent passages. For example, Sam Harris only considers fundamentalist Christians to be true Christians and tries to cherry pick the most extremist passages in the bible and impose them on all believers by insisting that to be a real Christian you have to follow the violent passages literally and anyone else is a heretical enabler. This is the exact same thing fundamentalists do but in reverse. It's the same rhetoric I grew up with in church expect Sam Harris is arguing against it rather than for it. The New Atheists are of course nowhere near as dangerous as fundamentalists but it's still the same black and white us vs them thinking. Which also brings up a point, if moderates aren't real Christians anyway, how are they enabling something they don't really belong with in the first place? They still imbue the bible with some mystical connection to their God, therefore they still imbue the bible, a book which definitely if taken to be authoritative does encourage anti-social behaviour, basically even if they don't strictly speaking follow it, they still do legitimize it. Yes but that doesn't mean that Jesus didn't have a negative few of those Jews who didn't follow him, much like the Pharisees had a negative view of the Sadducees and vice-versa. It's quite possible that the source of the NT's antisemitism stems from the historical Jesus's contempt for those who wouldn't follow him, and to argue that this couldn't have been the case because Jesus was a Jew, is quite frankly, ridiculous, remember the NT's antisemitism is based upon belief, not ethnicity.But again, it's clearly a literary invention. If the historical Jesus was bigoted towards other Jews, wouldn't you expect the same level of extreme Antisemitism in the earliest gospel Mark that you find in the last canon gospel, John? Instead what you find is a progression where Mark starts off with the least amount but it slowly progresses and becomes more extreme which clearly to me points to the Antisemitism being a later post-Easter development. Not if the historical Jesus was only Mark level antisemitic, and then the later gospel writers ran with it. Personally, I think that if you are willing to accept the reasoning which comes to the God of liberal christianity, you should equally be willing to accept the reasoning which comes to God of conservative Christianity. Neither one can prove that any omnipotent being, the natural universe or otherwise, agrees with them.I don't see why one should reach that conclusion anymore than an atheist should become a nihilist simply because they stopped believing in God. The difference between progressive Christianity and fundamentalist Christianity is that progressive Christianity is incorporating the discoveries of science like evolution and the date of the Earth and the discoveries of biblical scholarship into their beliefs while fundamentalist Christianity is denying it. Fundamentalist Christianity is a denial of reality. Progressive Christianity is reality + unproven god concept. I know christians who accept evolution, accept the age of the earth, accept science in general, and also accept that God commanded the Israelites to slaughter the Canaanites, and you know what, they deserved it. Anyway so if one person's reasoning is well, Biblical criticism shows that these texts have been redacted and don't represent real history and what have you, so we can say well these not very nice verses represent the believes of the people whereas these verses which speak to me show God coming out of the writings of these people, what is really so different to the person who says well these texts are redacted and what have you, but God is sovereign and as such what ever form the texts come to me today is what God wanted them to be in for me, therefore I will accept it all, slaughter and all. Also do the positive teaching a believe system might have justify the horrendously bad ones it also has? No, they do not and progressive Christians are just as actively criticizing biblical literalism as atheists are. But I must ask you the reverse question, do the horrendously bad passages negate the positive teachings of a belief system that rejects them? First what does literalism have to do with bad teachings, Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac on the altar is bad teaching whether you take it as being literal or not, its message is clearly negative. Second I was more referring to Islam. Third, as long as moderates hold onto the bible, I don't think they've really rejected them. If your going to give divine authority to certain texts just because they happened to be contained in a particular book, then you pretty much give authority to other texts because they happened to be contained in that particular book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 Third, for those who are literalists, they still overlook the passages or soft-pedal them into something merciful - as though summary execution were a merciful act. Only by concentrating on those controversial passages can the literalistic believer be confronted with the god they refuse to acknowledge. The one thing I don't hear in this, is for them to consider a 3rd alternative. That the entire thing is a non-literal reflection of their culture in symbolic language. What I hear is saying back to them on their level, "It's false because of this", or "God is a monster in the Bible", "It's inconsistent" - period, with no thought to bring any understanding to it; no attempt to bring higher understanding, other than, "It is wrong". There is no balance from either extreme, and that is why the observation that this is accepted on their terms as a literal book, either from God to become the Authority for beliefs, or not from God to be rejected as any authority. It's my belief that given these only two options, it's either right, or wrong, trustworthy or untrustworthy, accept it or reject it, that it creates a false choice that will only result in polarization and stunted growth on both sides. Why? Because it is not such a simple, black and white choice. That is as much of an oversimplification as those who say, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it for me"; or "God didn't say it, I don't believe it, that settles it for me." Both is not any approach to understanding, simply belief choices. Correct me if I'm wrong but are you basically saying that the third choice is that we can look at the bible as being A, a reflection of the culture which produced it and the symbols which they produced to deal with existential problems such as death, the basic unfairness of life, and all the rest of it, and B something which I can potentially read today and take away subjective truths related to my own situation, or not, it's up to me. Because if you are for me your option three is pretty much encapsulated in my option two, it's not from God and should be rejected as an authority. As soon as you reject it as an authority you can do all that stuff. Shit I don't really have much of problem with the thought that back in 20th century bc it was considered common practice to go to your neighbouring tribe and kill everyone, it only becomes a problem for me when you insert the thought and this was a divine mandate from God. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 BTW, I have to say I've heard several examples (not from you) of people taking their personal experiences with "moderates" that in some manner was connected with them falling into more radical thinking (which I always attribute to self as the cause, rather than others), and then extending that reaction with themselves to say all moderates do this to everyone. I don't find that a very 'scientific' evaluation. Just saying... Of course it was my fault, I'm just saying that I find it highly unlikely that I'm unique. After all when it comes down to it wasn't really the more fundamentalist radical elements fault either now was it? What it is is a combination of many factors, and nothing we can pin to the wall and make the scapegoat, such as blaming moderates, or blaming fundamentalism, or our parents, or even entirely ourselves for that matter. Ultimately it is our responsibility to deal with the hand we are given: which is a combination of genetics, personality, family, society, culture, etc. Fundamentalism was attractive to me at one point, for right or for wrong, but it wasn't their fault for me choosing them, nor was it the moderates fault for having their beliefs and supposedly are responsible for created the seeding ground for fundamentalism to exist (aka, Sam Harris' reactionary hypothesis). My choices were influenced by my culture, my family life, and my personality type. I could just as easily, start a threat saying we should attack my family for creating a vacuum in my life where I needed to turn to a highly structured enviroment of cleanly defined edges because they were too sapped of their ability to set boundaries for me because of dealing with my BDP sibling when I was growning up. Attack my sister, it's her fault. No, attack culture for being so wrapped up in this whole "evidence" debate for determining what is "true", that it doesn't foster children learning to be adaptive in a symbolic, non-literalistic reality (the *REAL*, real world, IMHO). Or we can blame my great grandfather from Norway for having genes that added to my personality type that found that sort of linear world appealing. Attacking moderates? How about taking responsibility to make good choices? To allow ourselves the space to learn, and to grow, and become rational and understanding souls? I say no to scapegoating. That's just a lateral shift of perspective, not rising above where I was before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 28, 2010 Share Posted March 28, 2010 They still imbue the bible with some mystical connection to their God, therefore they still imbue the bible, a book which definitely if taken to be authoritative does encourage anti-social behaviour, basically even if they don't strictly speaking follow it, they still do legitimize it. I disagree and I think it is the opposite, that in reality it is the anti-theistic atheists who are attributing a "mystical" connection to the bible. Moderates do accept the bible as authority in some way but they also respect other religious teachings and they also accept science textbooks and history. On the other hand, anti-theistic atheists try to over-simply the problems of religion by blaming every bad thing religion does on the bible. Other factors like being a product of their culture can't be taken into account, let's simply chalk it up to being the fault of the bible. At the same time, any positive actions moderate believers contribute to society is not the result of their religion, it's solely the result of the messiah of secularism. This is a double standard of the anti-theistic argument which seeks to hold religion responsible for any immoral action its followers do but doesn't want to give religion any credit for any of the positive actions its believers do. To me, this is truly imbuing the bible with a mystical connection because anti-theists are blaming all the problems of religion on the holy texts and ignoring other factors and any believers who contribute positively to society are still guilty by association. I know christians who accept evolution, accept the age of the earth, accept science in general, and also accept that God commanded the Israelites to slaughter the Canaanites, and you know what, they deserved it. Anyway so if one person's reasoning is well, Biblical criticism shows that these texts have been redacted and don't represent real history and what have you, so we can say well these not very nice verses represent the believes of the people whereas these verses which speak to me show God coming out of the writings of these people, what is really so different to the person who says well these texts are redacted and what have you, but God is sovereign and as such what ever form the texts come to me today is what God wanted them to be in for me, therefore I will accept it all, slaughter and all. There are atheists who accept evolution and science in general as well but also think the murderer of an IRS member is a hero, too. First what does literalism have to do with bad teachings, Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac on the altar is bad teaching whether you take it as being literal or not, its message is clearly negative. Second I was more referring to Islam. Third, as long as moderates hold onto the bible, I don't think they've really rejected them. If your going to give divine authority to certain texts just because they happened to be contained in a particular book, then you pretty much give authority to other texts because they happened to be contained in that particular book. Where in the bible does it say you have to believe everything in its scriptures are divinely inspired? And which bible? Should fundamentalists believe in the Catholic apocrypha too? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 First what does literalism have to do with bad teachings, Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac on the altar is bad teaching whether you take it as being literal or not, its message is clearly negative. Second I was more referring to Islam. Third, as long as moderates hold onto the bible, I don't think they've really rejected them. If your going to give divine authority to certain texts just because they happened to be contained in a particular book, then you pretty much give authority to other texts because they happened to be contained in that particular book. Where in the bible does it say you have to believe everything in its scriptures are divinely inspired? And which bible? Should fundamentalists believe in the Catholic apocrypha too? Which is the point, what reason does anyone have to believe that any part of the bible was inspired by any God? If I come to the bible and say, well I think this part here about loving my neighbour, and going to heaven and what have you is divinely inspired, but all the rest is just human junk, what grounds do I have to say that the person who says well I think that all the stuff about sacrificing Isaac, dealing with the Canaanites, tormenting the infidels eternally is inspired, but the whole forgiving the adulterous woman is bunk, is wrong? It's not like I've ever coherently spoken to this God, how can I say that my view of what this God is, is superior to my bloodthirsty friends? Maybe I could say something about the moral superiority about my pick, but it doesn't prove anything, and the other guy can always shoot back, well obviously the bloodthirsty passages are more likely reflect the true speaking of God. Otherwise my happy and nice God would have allowed sentiments which were completely the opposite of his nature to get into his holy writ, and thus help many of those who tried to serve him to cause unspeakable acts of barbarism in his name. How can I be sure that he isn't right? Apocrypha just confuses the issue further. They still imbue the bible with some mystical connection to their God, therefore they still imbue the bible, a book which definitely if taken to be authoritative does encourage anti-social behaviour, basically even if they don't strictly speaking follow it, they still do legitimize it.I disagree and I think it is the opposite, that in reality it is the anti-theistic atheists who are attributing a "mystical" connection to the bible. Moderates do accept the bible as authority in some way but they also respect other religious teachings and they also accept science textbooks and history. On the other hand, anti-theistic atheists try to over-simply the problems of religion by blaming every bad thing religion does on the bible. Other factors like being a product of their culture can't be taken into account, let's simply chalk it up to being the fault of the bible. At the same time, any positive actions moderate believers contribute to society is not the result of their religion, it's solely the result of the messiah of secularism. This is a double standard of the anti-theistic argument which seeks to hold religion responsible for any immoral action its followers do but doesn't want to give religion any credit for any of the positive actions its believers do. To me, this is truly imbuing the bible with a mystical connection because anti-theists are blaming all the problems of religion on the holy texts and ignoring other factors and any believers who contribute positively to society are still guilty by association. At this point I would like to make a clarification. I think that attack is to strong a word, probably even when referring to fundamentalism, challenge would be better, in the sense that we should challenge their believes and why they believe them. I think you definitely have many good points here. It would be foolish to think that religion is the font of all evil, or that if religion were to go away the world would magically become perfect. Furthermore moderate christians do contribute to society, so do fundamentalists, should we not challenge their believes. Furthermore the bible cannot be the source of all of Christianity's ills there has to be other factors as well, some of these of course could possibly be traced back to the bibles effects on society, but ultimately trying to work out how all the factors fit toghether is probably about as optimistic as trying to find out who the historical Jesus was. But that said, it is still reasonable to say that the bible has an effect, and that while you can say well, the bible is contradictory and has a thousand and one different interpretations, to a person who is trying to find God within it, it can only have one, because there is only one God, arguably this should hold true of the liberal Christian just as much as the fundamentalist. We might refine this to state that God might have different things to show different people, but ultimately it should have to represent the one God, would you agree with this? I would say that this is truly where the problem comes in, while the bible be interpretable as showing the liberal God, it is equally quite capable of showing a fundamentalist God, something in between, and arguably, probably something completely different, ultimately the believer has to have faith that the God which he sees therein is God's true face, he might see his own face reflected therein, a God who reflects his own core values, thus giving his every thought divine sanction, or he might see a face completely different to his own, in fact he could be trained by other to see a particular face of God within the bible, and once so trained it could be nigh impossible to see any other. This is the danger, because people believe that the bible is God's speaking it has the power to create, Gods, and once these Gods are created they have the potential power to enslave. I'm not certain whether that made any sense at all, and it could be a load of bullocks, but regardless, the way I see it, fundamentalism is really just a symptom of this process, somebody looking into the bible seeking God and he saw the fundamentalist God looking back (obviously there is more than one of these) whereas somebody else looked into the bible and saw the moderate God using basically, the same process. In a sense I believe the process is the root cause, and a such I think the fundamental assumption that the bible, in whole, or in part, reflects the will of any God is what should be challenged. Feel free to tear this apart, I don't think I've fully fleshed this out yet, could be total crap. There are atheists who accept evolution and science in general as well but also think the murderer of an IRS member is a hero, too. Yeah, but, as near as I could tell, the Christians I knew only believed that the Canaanite genocide was justified, because they thought they had to for the sake of their religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classicchinadoll Posted March 29, 2010 Author Share Posted March 29, 2010 You are missing a very important point, atheists don't cherry pick the bible to justify their disbelief in god, rather they think the whole thing is rubbish but in arguing against a bible believing theist ofcourse you are going to pick the worst bits. its a matter of trying to point out that if you are going to accept homosexuality is a sin and god said so then you also have to accept that god did this the other and that. It is a purely logical method of getting christians who justify one passage to evaluate their beliefs. Imagine saying to a christian "so you think homosexuality is a sin well did you also know jesus said love your neighbour as yourself man how can you justify that"They may not justify their disbelief through cherry picking but there are many anti-theists who justify their hatred of religion through cherry picking the most extremist passages in the bible. For example, when virtually all of Christendom disowned Pat Robertson because of his comments about Haiti, Dawkins didn't congratulate them for standing up to Robertson but instead he bashed the moderates and Dawkins cherry picked the most extremist passages in the bible to try to "prove" that Robertson is the only true Christian and all those moderates who don't agree with him are phoneys. When was the last time you saw Sam Harris cherry pick a positive teaching from the Koran? No I don't believe atheists use those passages in the bible to justify their hatred of religion, how many people are stoned for working on the sabbath these days? atheists generally hate religion because of the effect it has on the world. They use these passages to logically debate people who adhere to the bibles teachings. You are almost arguing that atheists hate god for what he did in the ot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 BTW, I have to say I've heard several examples (not from you) of people taking their personal experiences with "moderates" that in some manner was connected with them falling into more radical thinking (which I always attribute to self as the cause, rather than others), and then extending that reaction with themselves to say all moderates do this to everyone. I don't find that a very 'scientific' evaluation. Just saying... Of course it was my fault, I'm just saying that I find it highly unlikely that I'm unique. After all when it comes down to it wasn't really the more fundamentalist radical elements fault either now was it? What it is is a combination of many factors, and nothing we can pin to the wall and make the scapegoat, such as blaming moderates, or blaming fundamentalism, or our parents, or even entirely ourselves for that matter. Ultimately it is our responsibility to deal with the hand we are given: which is a combination of genetics, personality, family, society, culture, etc. Fundamentalism was attractive to me at one point, for right or for wrong, but it wasn't their fault for me choosing them, nor was it the moderates fault for having their beliefs and supposedly are responsible for created the seeding ground for fundamentalism to exist (aka, Sam Harris' reactionary hypothesis). My choices were influenced by my culture, my family life, and my personality type. I could just as easily, start a threat saying we should attack my family for creating a vacuum in my life where I needed to turn to a highly structured enviroment of cleanly defined edges because they were too sapped of their ability to set boundaries for me because of dealing with my BDP sibling when I was growning up. Attack my sister, it's her fault. No, attack culture for being so wrapped up in this whole "evidence" debate for determining what is "true", that it doesn't foster children learning to be adaptive in a symbolic, non-literalistic reality (the *REAL*, real world, IMHO). Or we can blame my great grandfather from Norway for having genes that added to my personality type that found that sort of linear world appealing. Attacking moderates? How about taking responsibility to make good choices? To allow ourselves the space to learn, and to grow, and become rational and understanding souls? I say no to scapegoating. That's just a lateral shift of perspective, not rising above where I was before. I don't think I ever suggested to attacking moderates, if I did, I apologize. The way I see is that as we grow and develop in this world, we have know real way of know real way of truly knowing whether we have grown, or developed, whether how we impact on society truly helps it or hinders it, and indeed which direction we should take to truly go forward in a positive way, all we can really do is make an educated guess based upon what we have learned up to this point. An example of this would be those whom I left behind at my church, even now they believe that they are traveling down the one and only path to spiritual maturity, yet in my estimation they have taken the path to eternal babyhood, and yet for many of them they have probably made the best decision they could based upon what they had available to them. That said who am I to say that the reason why humanity survives the next hundred years will not be because they caused a revival in fundamentalist teachings The best I can do is try to figure out now what I think is the way I should go forward. At the same time I try not to have negative feelings towards those who brought me into the more radical element of Christianity, after all responsibility has to in the end rest with me, furthermore in my estimation, that person has had his life robbed from him already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Which is the point, what reason does anyone have to believe that any part of the bible was inspired by any God? If I come to the bible and say, well I think this part here about loving my neighbour, and going to heaven and what have you is divinely inspired, but all the rest is just human junk, what grounds do I have to say that the person who says well I think that all the stuff about sacrificing Isaac, dealing with the Canaanites, tormenting the infidels eternally is inspired, but the whole forgiving the adulterous woman is bunk, is wrong? The standard moderates use is the golden rule as the center of their faith, which is one of the few common moral teachings all the major world religions and philosophies have in common with each other and passages which do not reflect the golden rule are rejected as illegitimate. This video by the progressive Christian historian Karen Armstrong might help better to explain what standard the moderates use to interpret scripture: At this point I would like to make a clarification. I think that attack is to strong a word, probably even when referring to fundamentalism, challenge would be better, in the sense that we should challenge their believes and why they believe them. I think you definitely have many good points here. It would be foolish to think that religion is the font of all evil, or that if religion were to go away the world would magically become perfect. Furthermore moderate christians do contribute to society, so do fundamentalists, should we not challenge their believes.I use the golden rule when approaching religious criticism. If your religion doesn't screw with me, I won't screw with you. I agree it's important to challenge beliefs and I believe in promoting critical thinking and rational thought. If a religious believer wants me to believe in their claims, I'll gladly challenge their beliefs no matter what their denomination is. At the same time, I don't believe in evangelizing atheism and if you're not forcing your beliefs on me, then it makes little difference to me what you do with your free time on Sunday mornings. I take the same approach with non-religious ideologies and beliefs. Also, while I believe in challenging religious beliefs, I also believe there's such a thing as good arguments and bad arguments. Just because something is arguing against religion doesn't make it a good argument and I think it's important to back one's arguments whether for or against religion up with facts and evidence. But that said, it is still reasonable to say that the bible has an effect, and that while you can say well, the bible is contradictory and has a thousand and one different interpretations, to a person who is trying to find God within it, it can only have one, because there is only one God, arguably this should hold true of the liberal Christian just as much as the fundamentalist. We might refine this to state that God might have different things to show different people, but ultimately it should have to represent the one God, would you agree with this?I disagree with this because if we're going to define who the "true" followers of Yahweh are as whoever the original believers were, then all modern day Christians are not following Yahweh correctly because the original followers of Yahweh were polytheistic pagans from Canaan who worshiped multiple gods and some Israelites even believed Yahweh had a wife that they worshiped. This is why I think we can't use a literal reading of the bible to determine who the "true" Christians are because what a literal reading of the bible says contradicts what reality and history tells us the original believers really were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 The standard moderates use is the golden rule as the center of their faith, which is one of the few common moral teachings all the major world religions and philosophies have in common with each other and passages which do not reflect the golden rule are rejected as illegitimate. This video by the progressive Christian historian Karen Armstrong might help better to explain what standard the moderates use to interpret scripture: Then I suppose the question becomes, why Christianity? By this I mean, why would you choose to put any particular focus on Jesus or the Bible, after all this teaching does not originate with either of them, if you were to state that your concept of reciprocity, wouldn't it make more sense to make your holy text based around all the various text which expound upon this? Because wouldn't it follow from such a principle that all such text were divinely inspired? whereas large portions of the Bible, would not be. Also wouldn't this reflect liberal Christianity more than moderate? I know I opened the door with Spong. I use the golden rule when approaching religious criticism. If your religion doesn't screw with me, I won't screw with you. I agree it's important to challenge beliefs and I believe in promoting critical thinking and rational thought. If a religious believer wants me to believe in their claims, I'll gladly challenge their beliefs no matter what their denomination is. At the same time, I don't believe in evangelizing atheism and if you're not forcing your beliefs on me, then it makes little difference to me what you do with your free time on Sunday mornings. I take the same approach with non-religious ideologies and beliefs. Also, while I believe in challenging religious beliefs, I also believe there's such a thing as good arguments and bad arguments. Just because something is arguing against religion doesn't make it a good argument and I think it's important to back one's arguments whether for or against religion up with facts and evidence. I like to think I try to do the same, perhaps I fail, perhaps I don't, I have upon occasion taken upon myself to defend what I view to be a twisting of the Christian position to make it seem much nastier than it actually is. I disagree with this because if we're going to define who the "true" followers of Yahweh are as whoever the original believers were, then all modern day Christians are not following Yahweh correctly because the original followers of Yahweh were polytheistic pagans from Canaan who worshiped multiple gods and some Israelites even believed Yahweh had a wife that they worshiped. This is why I think we can't use a literal reading of the bible to determine who the "true" Christians are because what a literal reading of the bible says contradicts what reality and history tells us the original believers really were. Was my original post tldr or just incomprehensible? I wasn't talking about the original interpretation of the book, I don't know what that is, I don't think I would be able to think like 20th century bce desert nomad if I tried. I wasn't talking about the actual interpretation of the book, if there is indeed even such a thing. I was talking about the fact that if you were to come to it with the presupposition that it was in fact, the word of God, or God gave his commandments to man in someway through it, there could be only one view of it, much like liberal Christians interpret the bible through the lens of the golden rule to cut through the contradictions, anyone else who comes to it with the assumption it has Gods speaking must assume that it has only one speaking, unless that person's God is insane, which is a whole other can of worms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 Then I suppose the question becomes, why Christianity? By this I mean, why would you choose to put any particular focus on Jesus or the Bible, after all this teaching does not originate with either of them, if you were to state that your concept of reciprocity, wouldn't it make more sense to make your holy text based around all the various text which expound upon this? Because wouldn't it follow from such a principle that all such text were divinely inspired? whereas large portions of the Bible, would not be. Also wouldn't this reflect liberal Christianity more than moderate? I know I opened the door with Spong. I can't speak for liberal/moderate Christians, but I don't limit myself to just one religion, teaching, or philosophy. I draw inspiration from the bible, Greek myths, the Koran, atheist literature, and even science fiction and fantasy novels. To limit myself to one set of teachings is spiritually suffocating to me and I don't hold allegiance to any one teaching as the one true way. I think it's because so many people still don't get the golden rule that the golden rule needs to be re-taught and updated with the modern age to remind people of the importance of treating others like they would want to be treated and to treat people with love and kindness. If people were actually following the golden rule, there wouldn't have been a need for so many religions to continue adapting this teaching to address their current era. I suppose one way of looking at this question of why do some people still ally themselves with a religion like Christianity that might not be entirely original or perfect is like asking why are some people Americans. America isn't the only nation in the world that has the values expounded upon in the U.S. constitution and there are other secular nations that some would argue are far better than America yet many people continue to live in America and some people continue to move here from other countries. Some people continue to live in America even if there's better countries out there to live in because they've lived here all their life and it's what they're most familiar with and they have a certain attachment to their home where they grew up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 29, 2010 Share Posted March 29, 2010 I don't think I ever suggested to attacking moderates, if I did, I apologize. That's what the name of this thread is. The way I see is that as we grow and develop in this world, we have know real way of know real way of truly knowing whether we have grown, or developed, whether how we impact on society truly helps it or hinders it, and indeed which direction we should take to truly go forward in a positive way, all we can really do is make an educated guess based upon what we have learned up to this point. Really? I would say I have grown light years beyond where I was at. I am far more mature in reasoning, and have a much deeper spiritual sense since my days of living underneath the mythic system. There are criteria by which we can make that assessment, not the least of which is the degree of peace and awareness we feel (that side of knowing that is downplayed so much in our 'scientific' culture). If you look at the stages of growth of a human child, you see clear stages of reasoning and emotional development going on. Then there is the side of human society, and it too follows these stages at a much slower pace. Archaic, Magic, Mythic, Rational stages of human society follow this individual developmental pattern. And the judge of individual development to a global society development is the moving away from egocentric, or sociocentric, thinking to be more inclusive of others. A good word is aperspectival. You are able to see the world and internalize it from many perspectives, understanding and seeing truth in all, yet none as absolute. It leads to greater understanding, greater compassion, greater love, greater consciousness, greater sense of wholeness, of being. I do agree there is a time to challenge someone's beliefs - and that would be as part of a global society, and not simply because they have a different god than your tribe's. But maturity fosters Wisdom. And Wisdom acts through many things, in its time, to know what is appropriate, when it is appropriate, or if at all to challenge. No science can teach you that. That is truth that develops in the mature person, and it can be recognized and known. We aren't in complete darkness. An example of this would be those whom I left behind at my church, even now they believe that they are traveling down the one and only path to spiritual maturity, yet in my estimation they have taken the path to eternal babyhood, and yet for many of them they have probably made the best decision they could based upon what they had available to them. I agree from their perspective, they think they have the truth (Read my signature line below). But this is like the adolescent whose head is filled with knew knowledge and learning to be a young adult thinking they have it all figured out! It really is little different. Remember our social thinking tends to mirror our individual development, but at a much slower rater (a group changing is different than one individual, and each influence the whole, and the whole influences much of the individual as well - it gets complex). They are in the sociocentric mode of thought. This is a valid point of view when it can afford to be this. It is helpful in establishing individual identities within it. Where it becomes problematic, or limiting to the individual, is when it has to interact with others. An individual within the group may wish to grow beyond the group, and thus, that mythic-membership system will hinder them - even if they are not seeking to entirely abandon their friends and family. Mythic-membership systems keep people safe by protecting them from outside influence. The members within it will in fact grow and mature, but only to the limits of that system itself! In the larger scheme of things, the mythic system itself must give way to a system of global thinking, based on something that moves them beyond themselves into a global society. At that point, maturity and growth is understood in the context of the greater community. In the mythic system you have the less mature and the more mature. In the global community, you have the less mature systems and the more mature systems. Mythic systems will have great difficulty moving beyond their sociocentric/ethnocentric identities. That is after all why they developed in the first place - to create that. I'm way out of time here... I hope some of this helps put things in perspective a little. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 I don't think I ever suggested to attacking moderates, if I did, I apologize. That's what the name of this thread is. Did I start the thread? I don't remember doing so. The way I see is that as we grow and develop in this world, we have know real way of know real way of truly knowing whether we have grown, or developed, whether how we impact on society truly helps it or hinders it, and indeed which direction we should take to truly go forward in a positive way, all we can really do is make an educated guess based upon what we have learned up to this point. Really? I would say I have grown light years beyond where I was at. I am far more mature in reasoning, and have a much deeper spiritual sense since my days of living underneath the mythic system. There are criteria by which we can make that assessment, not the least of which is the degree of peace and awareness we feel (that side of knowing that is downplayed so much in our 'scientific' culture). If you look at the stages of growth of a human child, you see clear stages of reasoning and emotional development going on. Then there is the side of human society, and it too follows these stages at a much slower pace. Archaic, Magic, Mythic, Rational stages of human society follow this individual developmental pattern. And the judge of individual development to a global society development is the moving away from egocentric, or sociocentric, thinking to be more inclusive of others. A good word is aperspectival. You are able to see the world and internalize it from many perspectives, understanding and seeing truth in all, yet none as absolute. It leads to greater understanding, greater compassion, greater love, greater consciousness, greater sense of wholeness, of being. I do agree there is a time to challenge someone's beliefs - and that would be as part of a global society, and not simply because they have a different god than your tribe's. But maturity fosters Wisdom. And Wisdom acts through many things, in its time, to know what is appropriate, when it is appropriate, or if at all to challenge. No science can teach you that. That is truth that develops in the mature person, and it can be recognized and known. We aren't in complete darkness. An example of this would be those whom I left behind at my church, even now they believe that they are traveling down the one and only path to spiritual maturity, yet in my estimation they have taken the path to eternal babyhood, and yet for many of them they have probably made the best decision they could based upon what they had available to them. I agree from their perspective, they think they have the truth (Read my signature line below). But this is like the adolescent whose head is filled with knew knowledge and learning to be a young adult thinking they have it all figured out! It really is little different. Remember our social thinking tends to mirror our individual development, but at a much slower rater (a group changing is different than one individual, and each influence the whole, and the whole influences much of the individual as well - it gets complex). They are in the sociocentric mode of thought. This is a valid point of view when it can afford to be this. It is helpful in establishing individual identities within it. Where it becomes problematic, or limiting to the individual, is when it has to interact with others. An individual within the group may wish to grow beyond the group, and thus, that mythic-membership system will hinder them - even if they are not seeking to entirely abandon their friends and family. Mythic-membership systems keep people safe by protecting them from outside influence. The members within it will in fact grow and mature, but only to the limits of that system itself! In the larger scheme of things, the mythic system itself must give way to a system of global thinking, based on something that moves them beyond themselves into a global society. At that point, maturity and growth is understood in the context of the greater community. In the mythic system you have the less mature and the more mature. In the global community, you have the less mature systems and the more mature systems. Mythic systems will have great difficulty moving beyond their sociocentric/ethnocentric identities. That is after all why they developed in the first place - to create that. I'm way out of time here... I hope some of this helps put things in perspective a little. Quite simply, I'm not convinced by what you have said, this is not surprising seeing as how I'm not certain I fully understand what you are saying. Actually I'll think of it like this, I'm not certain if everybody would be physically capable of growing into a happy person in the way you described, for example would the person of the more reductionist bent, be capable of living comfortably in your world view, of course I'm not certain if your asking him to. Of course the other question is how society should develop in order to deal with things such as internal/external conflict, when to challenge as you say, as well as pollution and other such problems. Personally I don't think anyone truly knows how to lead the world into the future, but that the decision will ultimately be made in the way it always has, using the evolutionary algorithm, hopefully being used in its less bloody form. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 I think I have come to a better understanding as to how I think about this issue. More specifically why I don't agree with more conservative versions of the Christian faith. I don't disagree with, or think doctrines such as homosexuality being evil, hell, salvation from hell for those who believe, or anything of that sort should be challenged because I think that they are evil, don't get me wrong, I do believe that they are evil, I just don't believe this fact is a valid reason to challenge them. For example if someone were to come up to me on the street and tell me that me any or all of these doctrines and then back it up with solid proof for what he has told, say, his God knocked over every person on Earth, told it to them, on three separate occasions, would continue to do it for anyone who asked whenever they wished, and wrote it in the stars just for good measure, then I don't see that I would have any grounds to challenge this persons believes, they would still be evil of course, so is childhood cancer, I wouldn't hold that against someone who told me it happened. Nor would I hold the fact that they willing served this God against them, why because while some people may believe that it is better to suffer for all eternity than to serve an evil God, I am not one them, especially when defying him can do nothing to save myself or others from this fate. The point of this is, I am not opposed to the conservative Christian doctrine that God hates gay people, because I think it is wrong to hate gays. I am opposed to the doctrine that God hates gays because I have no good reason to believe that God hates gays. Likewise I have no real reason to believe that God wants us to follow the Golden Rule because it is cross-cultural, anymore than I should believe God wants us to wipe out the neighbouring tribe because it is cross-species. Therefore I think that more liberal religiosity should be challenged in so far as it argues for anything based upon what God may think or feel, if only to be consistent with my view of conservative religiosity. That said I'm of the opinion, tell me if I'm wrong, that God's mind on anything is usually supplementary to any of the arguments of liberal religiosity, and not the main selling point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 I think this is why we see this issue so differently. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and was raised to see religion in us vs them and black and white terms. I believed the entire bible was the literal word of God and I believed in an eternal hellfire, but I started to question my faith because I realized I was gay and that I was going to hell. I tried to change my sexuality and I tried to ignore my feelings but nothing I did changed anything. Eventually I started questioning why a loving god would torture people in hell for all eternity no matter what the reason. Even if such a god existed, I could not in good conscience worship a deity and would rather go to hell. I wanted to believe in a god of love and justice and I used to think the god of fundamentalism was that god until I found myself on the other side of hell's firing squad for something I had no control over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 I think this is why we see this issue so differently. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and was raised to see religion in us vs them and black and white terms. I believed the entire bible was the literal word of God and I believed in an eternal hellfire, but I started to question my faith because I realized I was gay and that I was going to hell. I tried to change my sexuality and I tried to ignore my feelings but nothing I did changed anything. Eventually I started questioning why a loving god would torture people in hell for all eternity no matter what the reason. Even if such a god existed, I could not in good conscience worship a deity and would rather go to hell. I wanted to believe in a god of love and justice and I used to think the god of fundamentalism was that god until I found myself on the other side of hell's firing squad for something I had no control over. I too desperately wanted a God who would love me. I fully believe that that was, in the end, the main reason why I came to Christianity (although hellfire probably came into it too). I think that is probably a main reason for most people, I remember my church specifically stated that when preaching the gospel you should emphasize God's love, rather than hellfire, as hellfire, in the end can be a major turn off. The problem for me was that after realizing that the God of my denomination only loved me in so far as someone might love a finely made pot, to quote Paul, was that that, for me, didn't mean he didn't exist, it just meant that the universe was far more unfair than I had at first believed. Praise the natural universe for infidels.org. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
classicchinadoll Posted March 30, 2010 Author Share Posted March 30, 2010 I think this is why we see this issue so differently. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and was raised to see religion in us vs them and black and white terms. I believed the entire bible was the literal word of God and I believed in an eternal hellfire, but I started to question my faith because I realized I was gay and that I was going to hell. I tried to change my sexuality and I tried to ignore my feelings but nothing I did changed anything. Eventually I started questioning why a loving god would torture people in hell for all eternity no matter what the reason. Even if such a god existed, I could not in good conscience worship a deity and would rather go to hell. I wanted to believe in a god of love and justice and I used to think the god of fundamentalism was that god until I found myself on the other side of hell's firing squad for something I had no control over. I too desperately wanted a God who would love me. I fully believe that that was, in the end, the main reason why I came to Christianity (although hellfire probably came into it too). I think that is probably a main reason for most people, I remember my church specifically stated that when preaching the gospel you should emphasize God's love, rather than hellfire, as hellfire, in the end can be a major turn off. The problem for me was that after realizing that the God of my denomination only loved me in so far as someone might love a finely made pot, to quote Paul, was that that, for me, didn't mean he didn't exist, it just meant that the universe was far more unfair than I had at first believed. Praise the natural universe for infidels.org. There were a lot of times as a christian I felt unsafe in god's love, after all if he was going to condemn anybody to hell then how could I feel safe. Honestly when i first became a christian I relied on the passage that said if you follow god he will give you the desire of your heart. I thought 'that is easy my desire is that no one go to hell and it is more desirable to me then any other desire I have so it must be the desire of my heart.' Then I convinced myself he had some secret master plan to save every body. anyway my love for god became very tainted when I realised I was just wish thinking. For a time I felt I was a sinner for loving mankind more than god, it is really a mindf*$k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 There were a lot of times as a christian I felt unsafe in god's love, after all if he was going to condemn anybody to hell then how could I feel safe. Honestly when i first became a christian I relied on the passage that said if you follow god he will give you the desire of your heart. I thought 'that is easy my desire is that no one go to hell and it is more desirable to me then any other desire I have so it must be the desire of my heart.' Then I convinced myself he had some secret master plan to save every body. anyway my love for god became very tainted when I realised I was just wish thinking. For a time I felt I was a sinner for loving mankind more than god, it is really a mindf*$k Yeah, pretty much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted March 30, 2010 Share Posted March 30, 2010 Quite simply, I'm not convinced by what you have said, this is not surprising seeing as how I'm not certain I fully understand what you are saying. Yes, it's not easy to dump even a fraction of what I'm looking at into a single post and have it be clear. Actually I'll think of it like this, I'm not certain if everybody would be physically capable of growing into a happy person in the way you described, for example would the person of the more reductionist bent, be capable of living comfortably in your world view, of course I'm not certain if your asking him to. Of course they wouldn't be comfortable to simply just adopt the external forms of it, any more than I would be to join the Catholic church and perform their religious rituals 3 times a day. There is no context for me there. But if we are talking about a society, if I grew up learning the external practices and customs, eventually as an adult all those ways would have become normal, and I would filter my understanding of the world through the lens of that framework. That would impact my worldview as an individual who lives and sees the world from within that society. What I am saying is that there is a stage beyond just emerging from the mythic to the rational, and no doubt a stage beyond that, and so on. Right now there is no integration. The battle still rages on the level of mythic thinking, even though rationality is used. I see very few in the religious context who understanding the meaning of their own symbols, nor those outside the context in the largely 'rational' worldspace understanding the nature of symbols themselves in arguing against their facticity. Of course the other question is how society should develop in order to deal with things such as internal/external conflict, when to challenge as you say, as well as pollution and other such problems. On a rational and reasoned level, one guided by a spirit of mutual respect for the validity of having multiple points of view, recognizing the spirit of manipulation of emotions through charged political rhetoric (such as saying those who believe in God are "Delusional") as in fact not exercising Reason and Rationality at all; that Reason and Rationality are themselves beyond just pure dispassionate Logic, but include the whole person, their heart, the hopes, their dreams, their love, etc. What is needed to get us there? Strength of spirit in an embrace of Reason, first recognizing the nature of who we are as humans and why we have used symbols and myths, and that they are in fact a part of us in our development. Not a bunch of good logic arguments from apologists, secular or religious, about who has the real Truth (meaning plain, flat facts). Personally I don't think anyone truly knows how to lead the world into the future, but that the decision will ultimately be made in the way it always has, using the evolutionary algorithm, hopefully being used in its less bloody form. Well, I agree it has to evolve naturally, and of course it should if we don't destroy ourselves in the meantime. Funny thing about evolution that way. It has no 'plan' for us as humans (unlike how the mythic view places man at the center of it). I think evolution moves towards complexity and depth, but it is not a straight line, and we certainly aren't the center of it. But it is marvelous that we are at the stage we are, and are able to participate in it as us. I think that's a good philosophy to hold. We need to move beyond our egocentric, anthropocentric, sociocentric, thinking now. We have to be Worldcentric in Reasoning with the whole person, and by World I mean the entire Universe. Eventually, if we survive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dagnarus Posted April 1, 2010 Share Posted April 1, 2010 Actually I'll think of it like this, I'm not certain if everybody would be physically capable of growing into a happy person in the way you described, for example would the person of the more reductionist bent, be capable of living comfortably in your world view, of course I'm not certain if your asking him to. Of course they wouldn't be comfortable to simply just adopt the external forms of it, any more than I would be to join the Catholic church and perform their religious rituals 3 times a day. There is no context for me there. But if we are talking about a society, if I grew up learning the external practices and customs, eventually as an adult all those ways would have become normal, and I would filter my understanding of the world through the lens of that framework. That would impact my worldview as an individual who lives and sees the world from within that society. What I am saying is that there is a stage beyond just emerging from the mythic to the rational, and no doubt a stage beyond that, and so on. Right now there is no integration. The battle still rages on the level of mythic thinking, even though rationality is used. I see very few in the religious context who understanding the meaning of their own symbols, nor those outside the context in the largely 'rational' worldspace understanding the nature of symbols themselves in arguing against their facticity. Then the question would be, what does that stage look like? Will it look like what your moving towards, like what Dawkins is moving towards, or what LNC is moving towards? I have to ask, how can you say that the religious do not understand the meaning of their own symbols? If it is their own symbol, isn't it they who imbue it with their own meaning? The fact that other might taking a different meaning away from said symbol, is neither here nor there isn't it? Of course the other question is how society should develop in order to deal with things such as internal/external conflict, when to challenge as you say, as well as pollution and other such problems. On a rational and reasoned level, one guided by a spirit of mutual respect for the validity of having multiple points of view, recognizing the spirit of manipulation of emotions through charged political rhetoric (such as saying those who believe in God are "Delusional") as in fact not exercising Reason and Rationality at all; that Reason and Rationality are themselves beyond just pure dispassionate Logic, but include the whole person, their heart, the hopes, their dreams, their love, etc. What is needed to get us there? Strength of spirit in an embrace of Reason, first recognizing the nature of who we are as humans and why we have used symbols and myths, and that they are in fact a part of us in our development. Not a bunch of good logic arguments from apologists, secular or religious, about who has the real Truth (meaning plain, flat facts). I will start out by stating, I have not actually read any books by the new Atheists, neither am I particularly interested in doing so at this time. So I don't feel particularly qualified to judged how charged with rhetoric they may be. As to the whole matter of calling people delusional, for at least ma and the people whom I associated with, I would consider the label of delusional to be appropriate, at least with respect to our God belief, in that we would hold onto our believes in God, irregardless of evidence to the contrary, de·lu·sion ... 4. Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion. dictionary.reference.com I wouldn't be certain whether that label could be applied to a God belief which continually updated itself whenever new evidence arose. Are the new Atheists moving toward a system in which peoples, hearts, hopes, dreams, loves, etc. are ignored? Personally I don't think anyone truly knows how to lead the world into the future, but that the decision will ultimately be made in the way it always has, using the evolutionary algorithm, hopefully being used in its less bloody form. Well, I agree it has to evolve naturally, and of course it should if we don't destroy ourselves in the meantime. Funny thing about evolution that way. It has no 'plan' for us as humans (unlike how the mythic view places man at the center of it). I think evolution moves towards complexity and depth, but it is not a straight line, and we certainly aren't the center of it. But it is marvelous that we are at the stage we are, and are able to participate in it as us. I think that's a good philosophy to hold. We need to move beyond our egocentric, anthropocentric, sociocentric, thinking now. We have to be Worldcentric in Reasoning with the whole person, and by World I mean the entire Universe. Eventually, if we survive. That's the marvelous thing about evolution, it will make certain that we come to a place were we interact with our universe in a sustainable way, one way, or another. Hopefully we'll be willing to come to that understanding with the universe in a way which doesn't require the extinction of either the entire or large portions of our species. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted April 2, 2010 Share Posted April 2, 2010 What I am saying is that there is a stage beyond just emerging from the mythic to the rational, and no doubt a stage beyond that, and so on. Right now there is no integration. The battle still rages on the level of mythic thinking, even though rationality is used. I see very few in the religious context who understanding the meaning of their own symbols, nor those outside the context in the largely 'rational' worldspace understanding the nature of symbols themselves in arguing against their facticity. Then the question would be, what does that stage look like? Will it look like what your moving towards, like what Dawkins is moving towards, or what LNC is moving towards? That’s sounds like a loaded question. I’ll put it this way, growth, maturity, is always towards a more inclusive worldview. As the developmental psychologist Piaget put it, “Finally, as the child becomes conscious of his subjectivity, he rids himself of his egocentricity.” The hallmark of maturity, is overcoming egocentricity, seeing the world from your perspective only as truth. The cry of ‘evidence’, be it from Dawkins or LNC, impresses me as arguing on the same level, seeing the world on the same level, just opposite sides of the street yelling at each other, “Truth here!”, “No, Truth here!”. I don’t see Dawkins as the future, nor LNC, but I do see both as part of that process that will get us there. They are valuable for dialog, for pushing and testing and probing enough that eventually the heart of the world will find what it needs though emerging to a new level where both sides of the same thing are integrated into something new which transcends them both. What will that world look like? I like the word ‘transrational’. I’ll add the word ‘transreligious’. What is there of value in the bathwater of the myth systems, which is of the human, non-rational nature (as opposed to irrational) will be integrated with the world of rationality and transcended into something new. We don’t abandon what we had as a child, but we integrate it into a new level, as we negate living as a child anymore. Exactly what form that will take, what system, is of course unknown (evolution is unpredictable), but that it will be more mature, more inclusive, more global than what we see now, is a given, based on many things. That we make it there as a whole, as a species, is uncertain. I have to ask, how can you say that the religious do not understand the meaning of their own symbols? If it is their own symbol, isn't it they who imbue it with their own meaning? The fact that other might taking a different meaning away from said symbol, is neither here nor there isn't it? Because the average adopter of a symbolic system generally doesn’t engage in digging into the psychology of it, to analyze it as a feature of language, as a sociological phenomenon, nor, frankly, to examine past the symbols into the depth of understanding the why of their creation in the first place, what the existential sense of their humanity is being expressed and looking directly at that above and beyond the symbols to the self that creates them? Yes, I’d say all those things. In order to understand them, you have to see beyond them. I said this the other night in preparation for a presentation I was giving on this, in part, that, “Unless someone learns how to internalize the meaning of the symbols, they will never understand the depth of the faith that the symbols are meant to represent”. In other words, symbols point to something beyond themselves, and they also participate with that as an active part of the experience of it. Your average symbol-adopter, your average church-goer, approaches the symbols as the meaning themselves. That to follow the forms, the rituals, the practices, upholding the language, the myths, the icons, is the meaning itself. It is not. You asked before about Dawkins and LNC. They both are taking the symbols on the same level; as either fact or not. Not as about something entirely beyond that. It is arguing across each other over an ultimately moot point. Evidence is not what makes them valid or not. It has nothing to do with a question of validity in a symbolic world. That is absolutely not understanding them, either from LNC clutching to them as validating God, or Dawkins in rejecting God. So can I say more about them then those who are your average user of them, so to speak? Yes. Definitely. On many levels, not the least of which is I used them myself, and as one having direct experience on both sides of the perception of them, I can say I recognize more than a few things about them now with where I am at today. On a rational and reasoned level, one guided by a spirit of mutual respect for the validity of having multiple points of view, recognizing the spirit of manipulation of emotions through charged political rhetoric (such as saying those who believe in God are "Delusional") as in fact not exercising Reason and Rationality at all; that Reason and Rationality are themselves beyond just pure dispassionate Logic, but include the whole person, their heart, the hopes, their dreams, their love, etc. What is needed to get us there? Strength of spirit in an embrace of Reason, first recognizing the nature of who we are as humans and why we have used symbols and myths, and that they are in fact a part of us in our development. Not a bunch of good logic arguments from apologists, secular or religious, about who has the real Truth (meaning plain, flat facts). I will start out by stating, I have not actually read any books by the new Atheists, neither am I particularly interested in doing so at this time. So I don't feel particularly qualified to judged how charged with rhetoric they may be. As to the whole matter of calling people delusional, for at least ma and the people whom I associated with, I would consider the label of delusional to be appropriate, at least with respect to our God belief, in that we would hold onto our believes in God, irregardless of evidence to the contrary, de•lu•sion ... 4. Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact: a paranoid delusion. dictionary.reference.com I am hoping reason will prevail here. No disrespect meant, but that is a misapplication of a psychiatric diagnosis when applied to a sociological system. Truly. In a sense, it’s like quote mining to take it out of context and apply it to ‘normal’ people. It certainly is not valid to apply to religious systems, and use a psychiatric use of the word that way. A delusion would be pathology, not a norm. You would have to say that every person who lived before the Enlightenment were psychiatrically diagnosable as “delusional”!! That is absurd. No. Again, no. Belief in God is not a mental illness! You, Dawkins, or anyone, cannot legitimately call symbolic thinking as delusional. Frameworks of relating to reality are far more complex and nuanced than just navigating about like a fact/false equation like a computer. I like how the developmental psychologist John Broughton put it, “Reality is defined by the coherence of the interpretive framework.” Is a mythological framework incoherent? No. It is a coherent framework, regardless of it having transcendent symbols floating about in it. Those being there do not disqualify it as constituting a valid framework of reality for people, and in fact as such, denies it being a delusion. Those symbols are part of the ‘coherence of the interpretive framework’. That constitutes reality, not delusion. Does that make sense? Now, you can argue that is not coherent any longer because our interpretive framework of the world has changed and is presenting challenges to the mythological framework, and I would agree with you. And that is a fact. But it is still not a case of being delusional to live with a conflict, even in denial, of challenges to your adopted social system. Delusion is an individual thing – outside a social context. Being part of a social system, a mythological system that is struggling to remain cohesive and continue to offer a valid interpretive framework to define reality for its participants, again does not qualify as delusion. The only way that word has any meaning when used against religious thought, is as a pejorative remark that says more about the person saying it (meaning Dawkins). I hear it like an adolescent calling a 8 year old “stupid”, because he is trying to define himself as “not a child anymore”, rather than legitimately using mature thinking. I wouldn't be certain whether that label could be applied to a God belief which continually updated itself whenever new evidence arose. Are the new Atheists moving toward a system in which peoples, hearts, hopes, dreams, loves, etc. are ignored? If Dawkins and Harris are any indication, I’d say no. However, I wouldn’t be so careless as to assume that those who are popular, like your Rush Limbaugh in the political world, are representative of the whole. It gets complicated when talking about a system that takes all those human, non-rational, non-empirical bits of being a living human being, that can carry us forward into the future. It’s not science that is going to do that. That is for certain. Science and reason are tools of discovery, not a philosophy/theology in and of themselves for living. There is much more than those that comprise who we are. Whatever form it takes, it will have to transcend both rationality and religion, taking both into account, validating them, and transforming them into something above them. It is my belief this constitutes the ‘whole’ human, the “spiritual person” (understanding what that symbols represents existentially above and beyond the past myth). Myths are about that part of ourselves that created them. It is a mistake to deny that part of ourselves, in denying the facticity of the myth as scientific realities. Again, your LNC’s of the world are making the myths something on the same level as that in his trying to validate it scientifically and rationally. In many regards, they are rational, if you understand what they represent in the human who creates them. That's the marvelous thing about evolution, it will make certain that we come to a place were we interact with our universe in a sustainable way, one way, or another. Hopefully we'll be willing to come to that understanding with the universe in a way which doesn't require the extinction of either the entire or large portions of our species. And that’s the marvel about being humans with the world of choice in our hands. What guides those choices? That’s the real question. It’s not a deterministic reality where we damned by virtue of being choiceless in the matter. We can choose and act, with increasing autonomy. And now we come to questions of ethics and morals. What system do we have that can offer that, which isn’t a system from our past which would necessitate the removal of the positive gains we had? Turning back the clock to a “fundamentalist” interpretation of reality is a pipe-dream, a nostalgia of a simpler past. Yes it was simpler, but we don’t live in the 15th Century anymore, and life wasn’t all that great anyway. You can’t turn back evolution, you can only move forward with it. We are here now. And all this battle of science versus religion is itself not looking forward. It’s cleaning up the messes remaining of that transition we’ve already gone through. I don’t see the street-sweepers who brawl with one another over the messes of our past as being tomorrow's visionaries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oddbird1963 Posted April 2, 2010 Share Posted April 2, 2010 Antlerman, Thinking back to the comments you made in a recent post on this thread, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. 1) Regarding Dawkins and the new atheists, how would you describe the mythology and the symbols of their mythic system. If you want to dwell on a specific person, choose Dawkins if you are conversant with his work. I'm having trouble getting my mind around the modern and postmodern mythologies. I think what is absent from them is the collection of narratives disseminated in poetic and literary fashion as with the Homeric works, the sagas of the Norse and the narratives of the old and new testaments. What works of literature bind the non-theistic world view? What narratives? What symbols float around in the virtual reality of adopting minds that provide the inspirational and creative impulses in the new system? 2) Regarding the concept of delusion. My observation is that in many cases religious belief is delusional insofar as it makes claims and statements about the world of time and space but will not adjust those claims in the face of established scientific fact. For instance: Fundamentalist father-in-law: Evolution is not true. Son-in-law: But what about the fossil record? Fundamentalist father-in-law: Satan just put those dinosaur bones there to make scientists believe evolution is true! This is not a conflict of two candidates for the best way to interpret the evidence in the world. This is a conflict between one legitimate candidate and some totally fantasy laden ad hoc reaction to the world. I think it is society that determines if a thought process constitutes mental illness. I think at least one anthropologist has made the point that if society valued schizophrenic behavior, then schizophrenia would not be considered a mental illness. We would make a place for it in our society, lauding the role of shamans alongside that of priests, pastors and monks. As long as a symbolic-ritual system like religion is pretty much self contained, making only limited claims about the world of rocks and plants and atoms and animals, then no harm done. Or if those claims are understood as merely serving the shared suspension of disbelief about the physical world, then no problem either. But I don't know of a word other than "delusion" that describes the total unwillingness to admit that one's religious beliefs must bend when confronted with established scientific fact about the physical world which one's religion may make claims upon. Why isn't a religious delusion considered mental illness? In my opinion three reasons: 1) There are enough like-minded people in a given society to coerce an irenic attitude about the belief. 2) The dissonance created by the reality-denying behavior is profoundly lessoned by the more or less generalized acceptance and regard for people who exhibit that behavior. 3) There is little immediate danger of harm to self or others. Of course "harm" is often a concept defined by society as well. Society defines mental illness and, in general, society has given religious practitioners a pass on their refusal to adjust their views to reality. Can you think of a better word than "delusion" to describe the unwillingness to bend to fact in the religious context? Respectfully yours, OB '63 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antlerman Posted April 3, 2010 Share Posted April 3, 2010 Consolidating discussion into a single topic in other thread. Responded to here: http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?/topic/37126-is-it-really-a-delusion/page__view__findpost__p__548346 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted April 5, 2010 Share Posted April 5, 2010 Not if the historical Jesus was only Mark level antisemitic, and then the later gospel writers ran with it. I think this is highely unlikely. If I'm not mistaken, are you referring to the passages where Jesus talks about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in Mark? Most scholars believe the gospel of Mark was written after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple so I think it's much more likely that these end times passages where Jesus speaks about the destruction of the temple are later post-Easter reflections on the destruction of the Jerusalem temple rather than historical predictions of the event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greatest I am Posted April 9, 2010 Share Posted April 9, 2010 Laurie sorry i worded myself wrong when i said i hope you can reconcile your beliefs what i meant is i hope you can come to a sense of inner peace. I believe being an atheist allows me to hold logical and emotional integrity. I don't believe christianity can establish this. I understand. Thankyou, and don't worry too much about offending me(which you really didn't)that's sorta what i'm looking for. Ok. You'r ugly. Just kidding. Perhaps. Regards DL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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