Biblical Liberalism (2006)

[Larry_Borgia]

A couple of points, based on some things BadChad andgodzillatemple have said.

Faith is bad. Look at all the persecutions and atrocities etc.

First of all we seem to be genetically predisposed for faith so good luck getting rid of it. Broad social attempts to squash religion simply result in the religious instinct manifesting itself in things like Naziism and Maoism, as I already said. The best way to deal with faith is to accept it and limit it to the private sphere.

Secondly I’m not sure that faith is all that bad, especially when it’s removed from the realm of public policy. Many Christians I know are moved by their faith to work with the homeless or domestic violence victims, and in general to act in a compassionate and benevolent manner. They do a hell of a lot more good than I do, at any rate.

Faith is non-verifiable.

So what? Most of our ethics and aesthetics are based on non-verifiable beliefs. Science answers specific questions about nature. Our overall picture of ourselves is largely non-verifiable. If someone feels a spiritual connection with the universe and chooses to express that connection through some well established religious tradition, I don’t see what the big deal is. Provided of course that they don’t do the obnoxious things fundamentalists do.

We’re fighting ignorance here, damnit!

Most liberal Christians (or should I say non-fundamentalist Christians per Baronsabato’s point) are well aware of the nature of their faith, and don’t try to contradict any well established scientific truths. That’s certainly my experience on this board and in life, at any rate. So what ignorance are people fighting? I think Polycarp and the other liberal Christians on this thread are well aware of the absence of empirical evidence for their faith. Poly in particular seems pretty well versed in biology. So what ignorance is there to fight? What arguments are you putting forth that people haven’t put forth since Hume, or Demokritos?

Obviously if people start putting accross things like Intelligent design or 9/11 conspiracy theories, then the fight against ignorance becomes important, as both of these ideas assert things about the physical universe which are flat-out wrong, and are somewhat dangerous. Also, obviously, answers in GQ should be verifiable. But simple religious faith, where the absence of verification is acknowleged, doesn’t seem to me to be worth fighting.

Well, that’s what this board’s about.

This board’s about whatever its members make it about, as long as they don’t break the rules. People come here to post pictures of their cat and debate whether or not the Green Lantern could defeat a Borg Cube. If it makes you happy to denounce Polycarp I suppose that’s between you, him, and the mods. It just seems like a bizarre use of time to me.

This is probably my last post in this thread as I’m going out of town for a while.

[badchad]

@Polycarp

That’s not a hijack from the topic that badchad set; it’s groundwork for my answer. Because nothing is quite so obvious to me as that one’s evaluations of whether God, a god, gods, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, or anything else in the general category of “the supernatural” exists, is a subjective judgment. When someone says, “It’s obvious that…”, the only thing that’s obvious to me is that whatever comes after the “that” is very likely to be a conclusion the someone has drawn that is at minimum debatable, a subjectively held judgment.

It is obvious when I let go of a rock some force pulls it to the earth. It’s obvious that when I read the bible and the Iliad that, saving for the say so of authority figures, the bible comes in second place with regards to both believability and morality.

Now, to the key points. First, to me Christianity is about trust. The proper word for that is, of course, “faith” – but that’s a slippery term. For a Rationalist, it means, “something you think or hope is true that you don’t know is.” For a Dogmatist, it means “a body of doctrinal assertions.” I intend to mean neither of these. If I have faith in someone or something, it means I put trust in it.

Putting trust in an object or assertion should be based on some kind of evidence. More “trust” should be put in an thing with more and better evidence and less in one a lesser quantity or quality of evidence. If this is what your describing, then your trust or faith differs little from my reason. If however you have 100% trust or faith in things regardless of the quality and quantity of evidence then this differs much from my use of reason and you are aligned with what most Christians eventually admit their faith is. Which is it?

I should point out that the bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things unseen, and Jesus, rather than congratulating Thomas for his reasonableness, blessed those who believe without seeing.

And the God in whom I have trust, faith, is for me a Person. A somewhat elusive Person to know, but one Whom I’ve encountered and believe that I can trust.

This person of yours is wholly indistinguishable from an imaginary friend.

When you trust someone, you put your confidence in that person despite any apparent negatives.

Trust, if reasonable, should not be all or nothing. The more negatives the less the trust, the more outstanding their claim the less the trust. If your wife called you from work and said she was going to be late because she just sprouted wings and wished tour the city by air for a few hours, I dare say you might not trust what she said was accurate. I should also say that trusting someone should be contingent on their being real. If you were talking about some imaginary friend, other than a religious figure, and how he means so much to you, you would probably be institutionalized.

When I say “rationalize,” I’m not investing it with positive or negative connotations.

While I don’t recall the exact context, I think if that were true you would not be so reluctant to admit it to yourself and anyone else, as you put it.

Everyone builds a worldview with which they can feel comfortable based on their own subjective interpretations of the data available.

Are you saying your subjective interpretations the legitimacy of Christianity are on par with mine that the earth attracts objects to its center?

I am honest enough with myself, and have enough intellectual integrity, to recognize that I could be fooling myself, and to examine my worldview for possible error.

Given all the competing concepts of god out there, and the near infinite suffering and evil out there, what (subjectively) do you think are the odds that you are in error? 1%, 50%?

@Polycarp

I am not going to address the “second coming” bit at all. There have been “Christ figures” – people who, in real life or fiction, have died in a manner that works a major change in people – throughout history.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. Are you decreasing the importance of Christ down from one and same as the creator of the universe to that of a common martyr? Or are you elevating influential martyrs up to being god?

I had a very strong feeling that this young man would fall into that role based on his adolescence, but have never heard anything more of him. And yeah, I played that up for all it was worth, and you were right to call me on it.

When you say you “played that up for all it was worth” do you mean you were mistaken or that you deliberately tried to deceive people?

As for the “telepathy” thing, though, for once we were 100% on the same side, and you don’t seem to realize that. In that case, recounting my “telepathic experiences” with my ward was in making the point that oftentimes “supernatural” experiences have a very natural explanation – in this case, his and my knowing each other’s motivations, thought processes, and such well enough that the slightest clue would provide a clear insight into the other’s thoughts.

This is where your long winded replies get the better of you and why I don’t have as much to say for your integrity as I do for His4ever. Rather than answer a question directly, when it comes to supernatural powers in particular, you break into these stories and anecdotes that often say this, that, and both. This is a great example. While you said you did not claim supernatural powers, saying you were agnostic about that, you also most certainly made the claim: “Communication by mind power at a distance? Nearly impossible. We managed it once…” I think you may have had insights into how you friend thought, you may have had a guess as to what he was thinking, but I’ll bet you money that you didn’t “communicate by mind power at a distance” with him. That is exactly what telepathy is, and if you think you can do it again, Randi will give you a million bucks.

For the “What did Jesus really talk about?” question, I’ll ask you, badchad, to set me some examples of what in particular you allude to. He said a lot of things, presuming we can rely on the Gospels for a reasonable picture of who and what He was, said, and did – and I’ll suggest that we assume we can so rely, for the sake of argument, until and unless it becomes necessary to get into textual criticism to discuss this fruitfully.

Let me guess, you’ll want to get into “textual criticism” every time Jesus says something you don’t like. Off the top of my head:

Jesus says love him and hate your family. (yes I know what your going to say)

Jesus said he came not to spread peace but a sword and actually wanted to place division between family members.

He says he’ll bribe you with rewards in heaven if you leave your family.

If you don’t love Jesus/god you will burn in hell (forever or temporarily, your choice)

If you don’t love him he will murder your soul (assuming he’s not torturing it for an eternity).

Jesus is pretty hard on divorce.

Jesus is pretty hard on marrying a divorced woman.

Jesus is pretty hard on wanking it to that 18 year old babe you saw at the bus stop.

Jesus is really against saving for a retirement.

Jesus says to give away your stuff.

Jesus never apologies for or denies any of the smiting he/god did during the old testament and endorses old testament signs and laws.

Jesus says he will answer your prayers/do things for you for real if you believe in him.

Etc. I assume you know the verses.

[badchad]

@baronsabato

You know, badchad, you seem to think you know quite a lot about what Christians believe and in particular, liberal Christians. How much experience have you had with liberal Christians outside of this message board?

Considerable.

For example, all of the liberal Christians I know accept modern scholarship as a means to inform our readings of the Bible, and feel that what Borg calls a Historical/Metaphorical reading can be far more illuminating. In that light, we see find that passages condemning homosexuality and rejecting modern science can be (and often, should be) interpreted in ways that a literal reading would not allow.

What you call “Historical/Metaphorical reading” is indistinguishable from just having adopted secular humanism as a view of morality and creatively interpreting or ignoring everything that disagrees with your preconceived notions. Having discarded the bulk of your religions moral code all you have left is the superstition.

Thus, very few liberal Christians I know believe in a hell in the traditional sense of the word. In fact, Diogenes’s explanation of “Gehenna” is nothing new to me- it was something I learned during Adult Christian Education classes at church.

So do you believe hell is temporary torture before extermination or something different? What do you think of heaven?

Also, while there is definitely some diversity of opinion, most liberal Christians I know do not necessarily believe that God breaks the laws of physics and biology every so often to prove himself. This does not mean we believe in the clockmaker God of the Deist; rather, we believe that God is such a constant presence in this world that He does not need to break any rules to make Himself known to us.

Does that mean you don’t believe in any of the biblical miracles?

Thus, many liberal Christians don’t believe in a physical bodily resuscitation- that is, Jesus’ corpse was reanimated and brought back to life, which is an unbiblical position anyway

Unbiblical? “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Luke 24:39

The point is, for liberal Christians, the Bible is indeed a lens by which we see God, but it’s not the only lens. I believe that’s where you misunderstand most liberal Christian positions… Most will say that God can be known in many ways, through the Bible, through prayer, through personal discernment and conscience.

I don’t think I’m misunderstanding liberal Christians at all. I already acknowledged that they come in different flavors and what you are describing isn’t at all shocking me. Just for my edification I would love to hear the details of your extra-biblical testimony.

It’s wrong of you to say we don’t have enough faith in God, and that’s why we have to go cherry picking rather than reading everything very literally and rejecting anything science or historical scholarship has to offer us. Rather, we have too much faith to invent nonsense like “Creation science” to prove to ourselves that God exists.

Let me see if I have this straight. You don’t believe in any biblical miracles, and as such it takes greater faith (because you have less evidence) to believe Christ is lord, than required by a fundamentalist? If that’s what you saying I might be able to buy it.

Polycarp, as much as I admire him, does not necessarily represent all liberal Christians.

I don’t recall saying nor implying that he did. I’m hoping you will answer my questions. Perhaps you will be a better representative.