Not at all. I just find amusing your constant carping on the inferiority of systems of belief to some vaguely alluded to system of rationality that you do not have the courage to express.
You continue to claim (for example) that you are opposing systems of belief because they are in opposition to the purpose of the Straight Dope. However, you are in error. The Straight Dope fights ignorance, not non-rational belief or irrationality. It is quite possible to have knowledge (which is the opposite of ignorance) and to apply it to life in a manner that is not wholly rational. Your claim is a straw man intended to bolster your opinion of yourself.
Certainly, one can hold the view that faith is a problem in the world. However, your implication that faith supports ignorance is bogus except in the particulars of specific incidents–just as a claim that rationality always produces good results can be shown to have been horrendously wrong in particular incidents, whatever may be the reality in general.
Well, yes, they do indeed work well within the fundamentalist perspective, but that’s the point; the fundamentalist perspective is reluctant to critically examine and is desperately requires certainty.
Originally posted by badchad
However, the first questions that you raised and I quoted earlier regarding the fundamentalist positions were (I thought) worded really well and I would like to see you address them first as I think those questions/arguments from the fundamentalist perspective are quite strong.
Sorry I was unclear in the latter part of my sentence. When I said “from the fundamentalist perspective” I was meaning that the questions you wrote were from their perspective not that they were strong only from their perspective. I think they are strong regardless of any perspective.
Just for clarification:
You say that the fundamentalist perspective is reluctant to critically examine (evidence?) and desperately requires certainty. I don’t think this answers the questions or explains whey they are not good questions, nor do I think this is all that different from your view when it comes to the stuff that really matters.
How certain are you about Jesus being the creator/savior of the universe? Are you 100% sure, 50%, 20%, 10% or less. At what percentage does one stop being a Christian and start being an agnostic? How critically did you examine the evidence regarding Jesus being lord and savior?
**From a neutral perspective (if such exists), the Bible would appear to be a collection of writings of diverse origin and non-uniform (or at least not necessarily uniform) veracity; do you disagree?
I honestly can’t say what percentage of certainty I have about anything, but my point is that fundamentalism is obliged to insist on certainty, by definition.
There are a lot of contradictions between books, which would indicate above, however there are also contradictions within books indicating that the writers (for the most part) just didn’t think their philosophy through very far. Though there is a possibility that they were just being divinely inspired from a manic depressive god, see the link.
So I guess it depends on if your “neutral perspective” allows for divine inspiration or not. I myself don’t buy into any of that divine inspiration stuff so I think the bible is of diverse origin though I think the books are uniformly full of crap with regard to anything miraculous happening. Also I’m not sure how this helps you answer the questions you posted earlier.
quote:
How certain are you about Jesus being the creator/savior of the universe? Are you 100% sure, 50%, 20%, 10% or less. At what percentage does one stop being a Christian and start being an agnostic?
You can estimate or guess can’t you? If I asked you what you thought the probability of the sun rising tomorrow (really the earth rotating so we can see the sun, ok Eli:)) I think you would say the probability was pretty close to one. If I asked you what the probability was that Zeus and the other Greek gods were controlling our destinies I think you would estimate that pretty close to zero (correct me if I’m wrong). My having read both Homer and the bible I would say they are both very close to zero WRT the existence of said deities but from what I think is a fairly neutral perspective Homer jives a lot better with reality.
So I ask again, what is your estimate for Jesus being creator/savior of the universe? How critically did you examine the evidence regarding Jesus being lord and savior?
I don’t insist or assert either. Personally I don’t find the Homer entirely true but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it or don’t think it contains good lesions (better than the bible IMO). However before I start worshiping Zeus or Apollo, I would want to see some very strong evidence that they existed. If the Iliad were seemingly inerrant and it made future predictions which were non-vague and verified to have come true that would be a start.
I assume you starting point might be the bible (I’ve seen you mention passages from it indicating how you thought Jesus wanted you to live) though I would wager that the vast majority of Christians haven’t read the thing entirely, and get most of their input from their parents, friends, and clergy. Regarding the deity status of Jesus and the morality he wants you to follow, what are your starting points?
Perhaps it’s me but it seems like I’m answering all of your questions but you’re not answering mine.
If you check my post on the author of the bible or who wrote it. This will help answer the question. Just by looking back into ancient Sumeria there are carvings in rock thousands of years old predating judeo/xianity. From Mesopotamia you have The ENuma Elish which predates the bible by a min of 1000 years. The Atrahasis Story also predates the biblical genesis by a min of 1000 years. These tablets are currently in the british museum. The ten commandments were stolen from The Code of Hammurabi 2500 bc. I am urging anyone who will listen to think outside of the box, look at the world around you and ancient history. YOu will find the answers in a analytical scientific way. Not some all one creator, but ancient astronauts. Evidence in Sumeria again and where they acquired the knowledge to map the stars, who gave them this information and interesting to note a ancient civilization that popped up out of nowhere but was extremely advanced and one of the first civilazations on the earth if not the first. If you take the bible literaly as the truth word for word you will also find that Elohim is plural when you look up its definition, not one god which originated from the hebrews. YOu will find that there were many gods on the earth and kingship was passed down to each successive god until man was granted kingship of his own. High Priest Dale
Not directly, but you did say that this claim made by fundamentalists was a strong one
**The starting point for my belief was a series of profound personal experiences in which I believe I encountered God personally (before that point, I hadn’t even picked up a Bible since primary school); overlaid upon this were a series of teachings provided (mostly) by Christians, some of whom were fundamentalists; for a long time I allowed this to continue, but lately I’ve been peeling back those layers with a view to discarding those that don’t really belong.
Now I realise that I’m laying myself open to the whole [God is an imaginary being]>[people who talk to imaginary beings are insane]>[since you’re insane, this whole God thing is just your imagination] loop, but it might help to point out that I’m not out to prove anything here, just explain myself.
BTW, I’m having trouble with my broadband and the engineers don’t work weekends; if I don’t manage to post again for a day or two, please assume only that I am unable to get online.
Originally posted by badchad
I don’t insist or assert either.
It’s not the same thing. The fundamentalist claims are very strong IMO, which is being further evidenced by your not coming up with a coherent reason why they aren’t.
With regards to my alleged insistence “that the Bible must be either entirely true, or completely useless” I have been clear that I don’t believe it must be one or the other and gave my Homer illustration. Now with that I must say that once you admit there is error, unless you can put forward a robust method of determining which parts are true and which parts are errant, then that sort of puts everything in doubt to varying degrees and without strong evidence to the contrary I would think the reports of miracles would be the parts that a reasonable person would consider, more likely than not, to have been made up. For example, how can one reasonably believe that the global flood didn’t really happen but the resurrection did? Of course this does not apply only to the miracle stories, another example is how can one take Jesus’ words about not marrying a divorced woman as errant but his “do unto others” words as his?
Could you please describe those experiences with god? There are lots of descriptions of god but you describe your beliefs as Jesus being god. I just want to know how specific they were to the Christianity you endorse.
Also as noted earlier a number of the questions asked of you still haven’t been answered, while I think I have addressed all of your’s (correct me if I’m wrong). As such I think it only fair for you to answer them and just so they don’t get lost in the confusion I’ll group them at the bottom of this post and my future posts if you don’t mind.
I’ll add to this list if more questions are ignored and subtract from it when they have been answered or you acknowledge that you don’t have answers for them. Fair?
Suffice it to say that I have experienced a number of instances wherein, to some extent or other, I was under the very compelling impression that something was communicating/interacting with me and that this something was the kind of entity that is often described as a deity. There isn’t much point in me elaborating as it was all highly subjective.
The experiences were not entirely specific to Christianity, which is why I said above that I am busy peeling away the layers that have been overlaid upon them.
OK, the list of questions:
Simple; for the non-fundamentalist, it simply isn’t necessary to be absolutely certain about everything and have all the answers; the problem I was trying to highlight right from the start of this thread is that there is a certain amount of desperation in this dogged determination that the Bible must be entirely true - it brings about a situation of wilful ignorance - a reluctance to probe or to ask certain questions, in case we don’t like the answer or what it implies. - It almost becomes a situation where the veracity of the document no longer matters, as long as we cling to it.
I honestly have no idea how to answer this question - at what point does a stubbly chin become a beard?
You quite rightly picked me up on my earlier generalisation that I wasn’t fully certain about anything - there are indeed some mundane and trivial things for which I have a degree of certainty which could be practically considered complete.
How would I go about measuring my degree of certainty on thos other set of things?
Not very critically at first, although there has, I believe, been a gradual increase over the course of time.
I think it is worth elaborating that way I can make a guess as to alternate hypothesis regarding the deity interaction. Based on conversations with other Christians similar interactions aren’t even anything I would even call a delusion, rather coincidences rare enough to make even a skeptic ponder for a while. That and perhaps a breathtaking mountain view or sunset good enough to put one in a state of awe. I’ve experienced both of these myself and have come to the conclusion that in a lifetime of millions of events, very strange coincidences are bound to happen and be very memorable when they do, that and sunsets and mountain views are just really cool but are equally offset by things in the world that aren’t so cool.
I’m wondering if you experiences were like the above, a dream, or something else?
That sounds about right according to others I have talked to and felt myself before I became an infidel. I think when people have the above feelings they attach it to the most proximal god in their society. For you and me that was probably Christianity, for an ancient Greek it would be Zeus et al. Still I don’t think such non specific feelings are in anyway evidence that the Christain god exists (which you believe in) vs. the Greek gods (which I think you don’t believe in).
OK, the list of questions:
quote:
“If we can’t be sure that the Bible is utterly true about X, then how can we be sure that it is correct on any matter?”
So; “If the Bible is wrong about the Earth being created in six days, then how can we be sure that Jesus died for our sins?”
“If we can’t be sure that our interpretation of what the Bible says about X is utterly true, then how can we be sure that the other stuff we have picked out and interpreted is correct?”
But is it necessary to be absolutely certain about anything or have any of the answers? If you say no, then I think we are getting somewhere (welcome to my world;)). If you still maintain certainty that Jesus was the founder and creator of the universe and has heaven in store for you then I still maintain that this belief is largely based on that “combination of wishful thinking, trust, dependence and fear” we talked about earlier.
Well I agree with that, and from an atheist or agnostic position I think it is a legitimate position to hold. However, if one wants to maintain any kind of certainty that Jesus did die for your sins, then one (out of desperation as you say) must maintain that the bible is supernaturally inerrant with supernatural accuracy with regards to prophesies told, etc. or else it is just plane insufficient evidence for anyone to reasonably accept all or any of the supposed miracles of Jesus.
quote:
How certain are you about Jesus being the creator/savior of the universe? Are you 100% sure, 50%, 20%, 10% or less. At what percentage does one stop being a Christian and start being an agnostic?
It’s easy, just take all you know about the subject and make a guess, it can be subjective as you want it too be. For example if you asked me if there ever was a guy named Jesus that these stories were based off of, I would estimate a probability of 0.6, if you asked me what I guessed the probability is that this Jesus guy was the creator of the universe being generous I’d say a decimal point followed by 50 or 100 zeros and then a 1. What’s your guess? Regarding when a stubbly chin becomes a beard, yes that’s subjective, and I’m asking where you draw the line. Once drawn we could then talk about it.
A wild guess. Here’s how I did it, though I’m giving fairly formal estimates in hindsight for degradations in belief that weren’t quantified at the time. I started out in childhood a 100% believer giving Jesus the 1.0 with regards to his being god based on nothing more that what my mom said and what they taught in Sunday school. However, when the preacher talked about asking for anything you want and ye shall receive, Jesus lost a few points with his nondeliverance. My sick cat died in spite of family prayers and anointing with oil, that cost Jesus some points. Lots of things happened in life that didn’t seem according to any productive plan, which cumulatively took more points than anything else. Philosophy 101 brought me below 50% (well into agnostic category). Alternate deities having as equal a came as Jesus further divided it. Evolution, weak answers to my questions from believers, the problem of evil, Bertrand Russell, Neitzsche, Voltair… Well, I’m pretty damn atheist now and believe it or not I feel good about it.
It also helps that I play and read a lot about poker which teaches one to put probabilities on just about everything. Certain things like “how many spades are still unseen” and uncertain ones like “how likely is it that this guy is bluffing.” I use those estimates now for gods, business, girls, you name it.
quote:
How critically did you examine the evidence regarding Jesus being lord and savior?
That puts you at a disadvantage as psychological research has shown that having formed your beliefs before examining any evidence makes you less likely to reasonably asses the validity of evidence when you come across it. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
I sincerely appreciate you responding directly to my questions.
Here’s how I did it, though I’m giving fairly formal estimates in hindsight for degradations in belief that weren’t quantified at the time. I started out in childhood a 100% believer giving Jesus the 1.0 with regards to his being god based on nothing more that what my mom said and what they taught in Sunday school. However, when the preacher talked about asking for anything you want and ye shall receive, Jesus lost a few points with his nondeliverance. My sick cat died in spite of family prayers and anointing with oil, that cost Jesus some points. Lots of things happened in life that didn’t seem according to any productive plan, which cumulatively took more points than anything else. Philosophy 101 brought me below 50% (well into agnostic category). Alternate deities having as equal a came as Jesus further divided it. Evolution, weak answers to my questions from believers, the problem of evil, Bertrand Russell, Neitzsche, Voltair… Well, I’m pretty damn atheist now and believe it or not I feel good about it.