A small element of my own personal quirks (which, alas, I keep screwing up) is to avoid using the words ‘argue’ and ‘debate’. Arguing is like trying to ‘already be right’, and Debate is a test of social ability, not the rightness of your side. I like to discuss—some of the greatest feelings is when I suddenly get that sensation of “OH! I’ve been wrong, but that makes SO MUCH MORE SENSE!” And some of the scariest feelings are “What? You’re changing your mind to agree with me? But what if I’m wrong and I just argued it better?”
Good attitude. I’m much the same, both in enjoying learning new things even when it means relinquishing a previously held belief, and in feeling slightly guilty when I cause someone to change their mind. :) LW has actually helped me get over the latter, because now that I understand rationality much better, I’m accordingly more confident that I’m doing things correctly in debates.
I’m glad you mentioned your Christianity and your specific belief that it is rationally justified — I’ll be curious to see how it holds up after you’ve read the sequences Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, How to Actually Change Your Mind, and Reductionism. (I hope you’ll be considering that issue with that same curious, unattached mindset — if Christianity were false, would you really, honestly, sincerely want to know?) If I may ask, what specific beliefs do you consider part of your Christianity? The Holy Trinity? The miracles described in the NT? Jesus’s life as described by the Gospels? The moral teachings in the OT? Creationism? Biblical literalism? Prayer as a powerful force? Heaven and Hell? Angels, demons, and the Devil as actual beings? Salvation through faith or works? The prophecies of the Revelation?
Not in response to anyone, but to this thread/topic.
Is this really something that should be on LessWrong? LessWrong is more about debate on new territory and rationality and such, not going to well-tread territory. There are many other places on the internet for debate on religion, but there’s only one LW. Perhaps /r/atheism, (maybe being careful to say that you’re honestly looking to challenge your beliefs and not test your faith.)
Unless there are new points that haven’t been heard before, or people are genuinely interested in this specific debate.
Just not sure this is the right place, and want to hear other people’s opinions on this.
Well, thus far, I’ve mainly seen, “Welcome to LessWrong … let’s poke at the new guy and see what he’s thinking!” I don’t think we’re getting into any real serious philosophy, yet. It’s all been fairly light stuff. I’ve been trying to self-moderate my responses to be polite and answer people, but not get too involved in a huge discussion, because I agree, this wouldn’t be the right place. But so far, it’s seemed just some curiosity being satisfied about me, specifically, and my theology—not theology as a whole. As such, it certainly seems to belong in a ‘Meet the new guys’ thread.
Additionally, I’m personally not here to challenge my beliefs or test my faith, though I certainly won’t turn it down as it happens. Given the lean of belief in the place, I expect it to happen. My main draw, however, isn’t theological but instead in the realm of discovering a knowledge base and discussion area based around rationality, containing elements of discussion which have already done the work I’ve been running in circles in my head because I’ve been lacking someone to talk about them with!
I should apologize for having kicked off the topic—I had some vague ideas of someday getting on the IRC channel and bouncing thoughts back and forth, and didn’t realize that it would inevitably become a conversation in the thread here if I mentioned it.
I’m partway through Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, and it’s very, very interesting. Much better fodder than I usually see from people misusing those concepts. It’s refreshing to see points made in context to their original meaning, and intelligently applied! I’m giving myself some time to let my thoughts simmer, before making a few comments on a couple of them.
I want to know what’s true. Even if Christianity wasn’t true, I’ve already found a great deal of Truth in its teachings for how to live life. The Bible, I feel, encourages a rational mindset, as much as many might think otherwise—to not use one’s intellect to examine one’s religion would be to reject many of Jesus’ teachings. Most specifically, it would reject Jesus’ parable about taking a treasure (reason) that the Master (God) has given his servant (Man), and burying it in the ground instead of using it to create more treasure (knowledge). It also can be seen in the way that the only people Jesus really gets angry at throughout the entire bible, and cries out against, are members of the ‘true religion’ (Pharisees) who abused and misused the tenets of their religion to push their own preconceptions.
The Holy Trinity: yes. The miracles: yes. Jesus’ life: yes. Moral teachings: yes.
Creationism: Not supported by the bible, nor by a thorough examination of the Ancient Hebrew culture, where the ‘6 days’ were considered a metaphor for time too vast to be comprehended by the mortal mind. The Genesis sequence contains quite a few inherent metaphoric parallels with our scientific understanding of how the world was created, too.
Biblical literalism: sorta. I believe the bible was divinely inspired but I believe that man’s language is completely unable to manifest any sort of ‘perfect understanding’ as the language itself is imperfect. Even, theoretically speaking, were the bible able to present a perfect language, man is imperfectly able to understand it. So on a technical level, yes, I believe in biblical literalism (except where scholarly study, historical cultural examination, and the bible itself tells us it’s not literal), but in practice, I treat it a lot more loosely in recognition of man’s inherent bias.
Prayer as a powerful force: Yes, but not like a wish-granting genie. Really, the power of prayer is more a power of inspiration and internal moral / emotional strength, an effect which could be explained by a placebo effect. Studies also show that prayer does have a powerful healing effect—but only if the subject knows that they are being prayed for. But medically speaking, attitude is a strong component of healing, not simply biochemical response to stimuli—so it might be internal strength, might be a placebo effect. As an attitude towards the world around one, I see ‘answers’ to prayers quite a bit, but not so much that I can rule out coincidence and a Rorschach-like effect upon the world around me.
Heaven and Hell, angels, demons, faith or works: I believe Heaven is where beings go in order to serve and follow the rules (which are there for our benefit, not just arbitrary). I believe that when beings of free will expressed a desire to do things their own way, not according to the rules, God created a place we call “Hell” which is where people who wish total freedom from the rules can go to do things their way without hurting the people who are following the rules. Not a punishment at all. As such, the “Salvation” question becomes rather a bit more complex as neither faith nor works is an appropriate descriptor. I’m looking into some theological scholarly writings at the moment which recently were brought to my attention which goes into more detail on this concept.
Prophecies, finally, tend to be awfully confusing till after they’ve happened, so till I see fire in the skies over Israel or an earthquake that shakes the whole world at once, I’m really not paying too much attention to them. The prophecies of the OT seem to have held up pretty well, though.
Studies also show that prayer does have a powerful healing effect—but only if the subject knows that they are being prayed for.
Citations please. The only well controlled study00649-6/abstract) I know of found the opposite—subjects who knew they were being prayed for suffered more complications than those who did not.
I actually found it several years ago through an atheist site which was using it as evidence that prayer had only a placebo effect, so I’m afraid I don’t have a citation for you just at the moment. I’ll see what I can do when I have time. My apologies.
I want to know what’s true. Even if Christianity wasn’t true, I’ve already found a great deal of Truth in its teachings for how to live life. The Bible, I feel, encourages a rational mindset, as much as many might think otherwise—to not use one’s intellect to examine one’s religion would be to reject many of Jesus’ teachings.
Having been religious (in particular, a very traditionalist Catholic, more so than my parents by far)† for a good chunk of my life before averting to atheism a few years ago (as an adult), I would have agreed with you, but a bit uneasily. And now, I can’t help but point out a distinction.
When you point to the Bible for moral light, you’re really pointing to a relatively small fraction of the total text, and much of that has been given new interpretations†† that the original apostles didn’t use.
Let’s give an example: to pick a passage that’s less emotionally charged and less often bruited about in this connection, let’s consider the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. People twist this every which way to make it sound more fair to Martha, when the simplest reading is just that Luke thought that the one best thing you could do with your life was to be an apostle, and wrote the episode in a way that showed this. Luke wasn’t thinking about how the story should be interpreted within a large society where the majority are Christians going about daily business like Martha, because he expected the end times to come too soon for that society to be realized on Earth. He really, genuinely, wanted the reader to conclude that they should forget living like Martha††† if they possibly could, and imitate Mary instead.
Now, when faced with a passage like this, what do you prefer? The simpler interpretation which doesn’t seem to help you as moral guidance? Or a more convoluted one which meshes with the way you think the truth should be lived in the world today? Which interpretation would you expect to find upheld in letters of the Church Fathers who lived before Rome converted? Which interpretation do you think was more likely for Luke?
And most importantly, if you’re saying you’re learning about moral truth from the Bible, but you’re choosing your preferred interpretation of Scripture by aesthetic and moral criteria of the modern era, rather than criteria that are closer to the text and the history, why do you need the Scripture at all? Why not just state your aesthetic and moral principles and be done with it?
† Sorry for these distracting parentheticals, but I know the assumptions I’d have made had I read the unadorned account from someone else.
†† For one year at school, I took on the task of finding both Scripture readings and commentary from the Church Fathers to be read during a weekly prayer group. The latter task proved to be a lot harder than it seemed, because the actual content of typical passages from the Church Fathers is really foreign, and not in an inspiring way either. Augustine gets read today in schools as exemplar of Christian thought basically because he’s the only Church Father of the Roman era who doesn’t look completely insane on a straightforward reading of any full work.
††† There are places of honor in Luke and Acts for patrons who help the apostles, but they’re rather clearly supporting roles, and less admirable than the miracle-working apostles themselves.
Every time someone says, “The simplest reading...” about a passage, I really draw back cautiously. I see, usually, two types of people who say “There’s only one way to read that passage,” on any nonspecific passage. The first is “I know what it means and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong because I know the Will of God,” and the second is “I know what it means and it’s stupid and there is no God.”
I’m not saying you’re doing that—quite the opposite, you agree that there are many ways to approach the passage. The way Luke may have approached it, I couldn’t say. I just see a story being presented, and Jesus rarely said anything in a straightforward manner. He always presented things in such a way that those listening to it had to really think about what he meant, and there are many ways to interpret it. Even Jesus, when pressed, usually meant many things by his stories. Admittedly, this wasn’t a parable, this was an ‘event that happened’, but I think any of Jesus’ responses still need to get considered carefully.
Second, we have the fact that you’re talking about what Luke saw in it. I don’t pretend the Apostles were perfect or didn’t have their flaws. Every apostle, every prophet, was shown to be particularly flawed—unlike many other religions, the chosen of God in JudeoChristian belief were terribly flawed. There was a suicidally depressed prophet, there was the rash murderer, there were liars and thieves. The closest to a ‘good’ prophet was Joseph of the Coat of Many Colors, but even he had his moments of spite and anger.
I’m interested, but not dedicated, to what Luke thought of the situation. I’m much more interested in what Jesus did in the situation. Additionally, what about the context in which that scene appears? Jesus was constantly about service … and that’s what Martha was doing. He never admonished Martha … he simply told her that Mary had made her choice, and it was better. He never said Martha should make the same choice, either.
It’s worth noting that Mary was in a position that was traditionally denied women—but Jesus defended her right to be there, listening and learning from a teacher.
And I almost forgot the ‘most importantly’ part…
The strong lessons I learn from the bible … wouldn’t necessarily have occurred to me otherwise. Yes, I interpret them from my bias of modern life and mores … but the bible presents me with things I wouldn’t have thought to bring forward and consider. Methods of thinking I wouldn’t have come up with on my own, or by talking with most others. This doesn’t mean it’s ‘The True Faith’, but it does make it a useful tool.
At any rate, we need to be careful not to go too much further. This is getting dangerously close to a theology discussion rather than a ‘meet the new guy’ discussion.
Anyhow, I think it’s illuminating to be aware of what criteria actually go into one’s judgments of Biblical interpretations. Your particular examples will vary.
Why? This seems to be the foundation for all your justifications here, and it’s an incredibly strong claim. What evidence supports it? Is there any (weaker, presumably) evidence that contradicts it? I’d suggest you take a look at the article on Privileging the Hypothesis, which is a pretty easy failure mode to fall into when the hypothesis in question was developed by someone else.
A weighty question… At the moment, I’m not entirely able to give you the full response, I’m afraid, but I’ll give you the best ‘short answer’ that I’m able to compile.
1: The universe seems slanted towards Entropy. This suggests a ‘start’. Which suggests something to start the universe. This of course has a great many logical fallacies inherent in it, but it’s one element.
2: Given a ‘something to start the universe’, we’re left with hypothetical scientific/mathematical constructs or a deity-figure of some sort.
3: Assuming a deity figure (yes, privileging the Hypothesis—but given a small number of possibilities, we can hypothesize each in turn and then exhaustively test that element) we need to assume that either the deity figure doesn’t care if we know about it, in which case it’s pointless to search, or that it does care if we know about it, in which case there will be evidence. If it is pointless to search, then I see little difference between that and a hypothetical scientific/mathematical construct. Thus, we’re still left with ‘natural unknown force’ or ‘knowable deity figure’.
4: Assuming a deity figure with the OOMPH to make a universe, it’ll probably be able to make certain it remains known. So it’s probably one of the existing long-lasting and persistent belief systems.
5: ( magic happens ) Given a historical study of various long-lasting and persistent belief systems, I settled on Christianity as the most probable belief system, based on my knowledge of human behavior, the historical facts of the actions surrounding the era and life of Jesus such as the deaths of the Disciples, a study of the bible, and a basic irrational hunch. I found that lots of what I was brought up being taught about the bible and Christianity was wrong, but the Bible itself seemed much more stable.
6: Given certain historical elements, I was led to have to believe in certain Christian miracles I’m unable to explain. That, combined with the assumption that a deity-figure would want itself to be known, results in an active belief.
3: Assuming there is no deity-figure, or the deity-figure does not care to be known. In this case, the effort expended applying rational thought to religious institutions will not provide direct fruit for a proper religion.
4: If there is no deity figure, or the deity-figure dose not care to be known, the most likely outcome of assumption #1 will likely have a serious flaw in it.
5: ( magic happens ) I searched out (and continue to search out) all the strongest “Christianity cannot be true” arguments I could (and can) find, and compare the anti-Christianity to the pro-Christianity arguments, and could not find a serious flaw. Several small flaws which are easily attributable to human error or lack of knowledge about a subject, but nothing showing a serious flaw in the underpinnings of the religion.
6: Additional side effect: the act of researching religions includes a researching and examination of comparable morality systems and social behavior, and how it affects the world around it. This provides sufficient benefit that even if there is no deity figure, or a deity figure does not care to be known, the act of searching is not wasted. Quite the contrary, I consider the ongoing study into religion, and into Christianity itself, to be time well spent—even if at some later date I discover that the religion does have the serious flaw that I have not yet found.
1: The universe seems slanted towards Entropy. This suggests a ‘start’. Which suggests something to start the universe. This of course has a great many logical fallacies inherent in it, but it’s one element.
If this point is logically fallacious, why is it the foundation of your belief? Eliezer has addressed the topic, but that post focuses more on whether one should jump to the idea of God from the idea of a First Cause, which you do seem to have thought about. But why assume a First Cause at all?
On a slightly different tack, if Thor came down (Or is it up? My Norse mythology is a little rusty) from Valhalla, tossed some thunderbolts around, and otherwise provided various sorts of strong evidence to support his claim that he was the God of Thunder with all that that entails, would you then worship him? Or, to put it another way, is there some evidence that would make you change your mind?
(Apologies if I’m being too aggressive with my questions. You seem like good people, and I wouldn’t want to drive you away.)
Oh, no, not at all! I’m quite happy to have people interested in what I have to say, but I’m trying to keep my conversation suitable for the ‘Welcome to Less Wrong’ thread, and not have it get too big. ^_^
As far as ‘If it’s logically fallacious, why is it the foundation of your belief?’
Well, it’s not the foundation of my belief, it’s just a very strong element thereof. It would probably require several months of dedicated effort and perhaps 30,000 words to really hit the whole of my belief with any sort of holistic effort. However, why assume a First Cause? Well, because of entropy, we have to assume some sort of start for this iteration. Anything past that starts getting into extreme hypotheticals that only really ‘make more sense than God’ if it suits your pre-existing conditions. And no, I’m not saying God makes more sense outside of a bias—more that given a clean slate, “There might be laws of physics we can’t detect because they don’t function in a universe where they’ve already countered entropy to a new start state” is about equal to “Maybe there’s a Deity figure that decided it wanted to start the universe” are about equal in my mind. And to be fair, ‘deity figure’ could be equivalent to ‘Higher-level universe’s programmer making a computer game.’ Or this could all be a simulation, and none of it’s actually real, or, or, or…
But the reason that I decide to accept this as a basic assumption is that, eventually, you have to assume that there is truth, and work off of the existing scientific knowledge instead of waiting for brand new world-shattering discoveries in the field of metaphysics. So I keep an interested eye on stuff like brane vibration or cosmic froth, but still assume that entropy happens, and the universe had an actual start.
if Thor came down throwing lightning bolts and etc, and claiming our worship, I’d be… well, admittedly, a little confused, and unsure. That’s not exactly his MO from classic Norse mythology (which I love) and Norse mythology really didn’t have the oomph of world creation that goes together with scientific evidence. I’d have to wonder if he wasn’t a Nephilim or alien playing tricks. (Hi, Stargate SG-1!)
However, I take your meaning. If some deity figure came down and said, “hey, here’s proof,” yeah, I’d have a LOT of re-evaluating to do. It’d depend a lot on circumstances, and what sort of evidence of the past, rather than just pure displays of power, the deity figure could present. What answers does it have to the tough questions? Does it match certain anti-christ elements from Revelations?
Alternatively, what sort of evidence would make me change my mind and become atheist?
I would love to be able to easily say, “Yeah, if this happened, I’d totally change my mind in an instant!” but I am aware that I’m only human, and certain beliefs have momentum in my mind. Negative circumstance certainly won’t do it—I’ve long ago resolved the “Why does a good God allow bad things to happen?” element. Idiotic Christian fanboys won’t do it—I’ve been developing a very careful attitude towards religion and politics in divorcing ideas from the proponents of ideas. And if I had an idea what that proof would be—I’d already be researching it. So I just keep kicking around looking for new stuff to research.
Sounds like you’ve given this some serious thought and avoided all kinds of failure modes. While I disagree with you and think that there’s probably an interesting discussion here, I agree that this probably isn’t the place to get into it. Welcome to Less Wrong, and I hope you stick around.
I’ve certainly tried, thank you very much. I think that might be the most satisfying reaction I could have hoped to receive. ^_^ I hope to stick around for a good long time, too… this site’s rivaling “TV Tropes” for the ability to completely suck me in for hours at a time without me noticing it.
Given a historical study of various long-lasting and persistent belief systems, I settled on Christianity as the most probable belief system, based on my knowledge of human behavior, the historical facts of the actions surrounding the era and life of Jesus such as the deaths of the Disciples, a study of the bible, and a basic irrational hunch.
This sounds interesting. So were you raised an atheist or in some non-Christian religious tradition? Is the culture of your home country predominantly non-Christian? Conversion to a new belief system based on evidence is an interesting phenomenon because it is so relatively rare. The vast majority of religious people simply adopt the religion they were raised in or the dominant religion of the surrounding culture which is one piece of evidence that religious belief is not generally arrived at through rational thinking. Counter examples to this trend offer a case study in the kinds of evidence that can actually change people’s minds.
Apologies, I’m not as interesting as that. I changed a lot of beliefs about the belief system, but I was nonetheless still raised Christian. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise—pre-existing developmental bias is part of the ‘basic irrational hunch’ part of the sentence.
I agree that religious belief is not generally arrived at through rational thinking, however—whether that religious belief is ‘there is a God, and I know who it is!’ or ‘there is no God’. This is evidenced, for instance, the time I was standing there at church, just before services, and enjoying the fine day, and someone steps up next to me. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?” he asks. “Yes it is!” I reply. “Makes you wonder how someone can see this and still be an atheist,” he says.
( head turns slooooowly ) “I think it’s possible to appreciate a beautiful morning and still be atheist...” “Yes, but then who would have made something so beautiful?” ( mouth opens to talk ) ( mouth works silently ) “I believe the assumption would be, no one.” “And what kind of sense would that make?” “I’d love to have that discussion, but service is about to start, and it’s too beautiful a morning for what I suspect would be an argument.”
4: Assuming a deity figure with the OOMPH to make a universe, it’ll probably be able to make certain it remains known. So it’s probably one of the existing long-lasting and persistent belief systems.
I like this argument. If there was such a deity, it could make certain it is known (and rediscovered when forgotten). The deity could embed this information into the universe in any numbers of ways. These ways could be accessed by humans, but misinterpreted. Evidence for this is the world religions, which have many major beliefs in common, but differ in the details. Christianity, being somewhat mature as a religion and having developed concurrently with rational and scientific thought, could have a reliable interpretation in certain aspects.
however, I’m following from an assumption of a deity that wants to be known and moving forward. It certainly doesn’t suffice for showing that a deity figure does exist, because if we follow the assumption of a deity that doesn’t want to be known, or a lack of a deity, then any religion which has withstood the test of time is likely the one with the fewest obvious flaws. It’s rather like evolution of an idea rather than a creature.
However, the existence of such a religion does provide for the possibility of a deity figure.
I used the word ‘embed’ because this implies the deity could (possibly) be working within the rules of physics. The relationship between the deity, physical time and whether it is immediately involved in human events would be an interesting digression. The timelessness of physics is a relevant set of posts for that.
I agree with your comments. Regarding the strength of implications in either direction, (the possibility of a deity given a vigorous religion or the possibility of a true religion given a deity), there are two main questions:
if a deity exists, should we expect that it cares if it is known?
does the world actually look like a world in which a deity would be revealing itself? (though as you cautioned, such a world may or may not actually have a deity within it)
If this thread is likely to attenuate here, these questions are left for academic interest …
Good attitude. I’m much the same, both in enjoying learning new things even when it means relinquishing a previously held belief, and in feeling slightly guilty when I cause someone to change their mind. :) LW has actually helped me get over the latter, because now that I understand rationality much better, I’m accordingly more confident that I’m doing things correctly in debates.
I’m glad you mentioned your Christianity and your specific belief that it is rationally justified — I’ll be curious to see how it holds up after you’ve read the sequences Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, How to Actually Change Your Mind, and Reductionism. (I hope you’ll be considering that issue with that same curious, unattached mindset — if Christianity were false, would you really, honestly, sincerely want to know?) If I may ask, what specific beliefs do you consider part of your Christianity? The Holy Trinity? The miracles described in the NT? Jesus’s life as described by the Gospels? The moral teachings in the OT? Creationism? Biblical literalism? Prayer as a powerful force? Heaven and Hell? Angels, demons, and the Devil as actual beings? Salvation through faith or works? The prophecies of the Revelation?
Not in response to anyone, but to this thread/topic.
Is this really something that should be on LessWrong? LessWrong is more about debate on new territory and rationality and such, not going to well-tread territory. There are many other places on the internet for debate on religion, but there’s only one LW. Perhaps /r/atheism, (maybe being careful to say that you’re honestly looking to challenge your beliefs and not test your faith.)
Unless there are new points that haven’t been heard before, or people are genuinely interested in this specific debate.
Just not sure this is the right place, and want to hear other people’s opinions on this.
Well, thus far, I’ve mainly seen, “Welcome to LessWrong … let’s poke at the new guy and see what he’s thinking!” I don’t think we’re getting into any real serious philosophy, yet. It’s all been fairly light stuff. I’ve been trying to self-moderate my responses to be polite and answer people, but not get too involved in a huge discussion, because I agree, this wouldn’t be the right place. But so far, it’s seemed just some curiosity being satisfied about me, specifically, and my theology—not theology as a whole. As such, it certainly seems to belong in a ‘Meet the new guys’ thread.
Additionally, I’m personally not here to challenge my beliefs or test my faith, though I certainly won’t turn it down as it happens. Given the lean of belief in the place, I expect it to happen. My main draw, however, isn’t theological but instead in the realm of discovering a knowledge base and discussion area based around rationality, containing elements of discussion which have already done the work I’ve been running in circles in my head because I’ve been lacking someone to talk about them with!
Let’s just not take the discussion outside this subthread.
I should apologize for having kicked off the topic—I had some vague ideas of someday getting on the IRC channel and bouncing thoughts back and forth, and didn’t realize that it would inevitably become a conversation in the thread here if I mentioned it.
In general I’d agree, but a theological argument in which all parties refer to the Sequences seems like a worthwhile novelty.
I’m partway through Mysterious Answers to Mysterious Questions, and it’s very, very interesting. Much better fodder than I usually see from people misusing those concepts. It’s refreshing to see points made in context to their original meaning, and intelligently applied! I’m giving myself some time to let my thoughts simmer, before making a few comments on a couple of them.
I want to know what’s true. Even if Christianity wasn’t true, I’ve already found a great deal of Truth in its teachings for how to live life. The Bible, I feel, encourages a rational mindset, as much as many might think otherwise—to not use one’s intellect to examine one’s religion would be to reject many of Jesus’ teachings. Most specifically, it would reject Jesus’ parable about taking a treasure (reason) that the Master (God) has given his servant (Man), and burying it in the ground instead of using it to create more treasure (knowledge). It also can be seen in the way that the only people Jesus really gets angry at throughout the entire bible, and cries out against, are members of the ‘true religion’ (Pharisees) who abused and misused the tenets of their religion to push their own preconceptions.
The Holy Trinity: yes. The miracles: yes. Jesus’ life: yes. Moral teachings: yes.
Creationism: Not supported by the bible, nor by a thorough examination of the Ancient Hebrew culture, where the ‘6 days’ were considered a metaphor for time too vast to be comprehended by the mortal mind. The Genesis sequence contains quite a few inherent metaphoric parallels with our scientific understanding of how the world was created, too.
Biblical literalism: sorta. I believe the bible was divinely inspired but I believe that man’s language is completely unable to manifest any sort of ‘perfect understanding’ as the language itself is imperfect. Even, theoretically speaking, were the bible able to present a perfect language, man is imperfectly able to understand it. So on a technical level, yes, I believe in biblical literalism (except where scholarly study, historical cultural examination, and the bible itself tells us it’s not literal), but in practice, I treat it a lot more loosely in recognition of man’s inherent bias.
Prayer as a powerful force: Yes, but not like a wish-granting genie. Really, the power of prayer is more a power of inspiration and internal moral / emotional strength, an effect which could be explained by a placebo effect. Studies also show that prayer does have a powerful healing effect—but only if the subject knows that they are being prayed for. But medically speaking, attitude is a strong component of healing, not simply biochemical response to stimuli—so it might be internal strength, might be a placebo effect. As an attitude towards the world around one, I see ‘answers’ to prayers quite a bit, but not so much that I can rule out coincidence and a Rorschach-like effect upon the world around me.
Heaven and Hell, angels, demons, faith or works: I believe Heaven is where beings go in order to serve and follow the rules (which are there for our benefit, not just arbitrary). I believe that when beings of free will expressed a desire to do things their own way, not according to the rules, God created a place we call “Hell” which is where people who wish total freedom from the rules can go to do things their way without hurting the people who are following the rules. Not a punishment at all. As such, the “Salvation” question becomes rather a bit more complex as neither faith nor works is an appropriate descriptor. I’m looking into some theological scholarly writings at the moment which recently were brought to my attention which goes into more detail on this concept.
Prophecies, finally, tend to be awfully confusing till after they’ve happened, so till I see fire in the skies over Israel or an earthquake that shakes the whole world at once, I’m really not paying too much attention to them. The prophecies of the OT seem to have held up pretty well, though.
Citations please. The only well controlled study00649-6/abstract) I know of found the opposite—subjects who knew they were being prayed for suffered more complications than those who did not.
I actually found it several years ago through an atheist site which was using it as evidence that prayer had only a placebo effect, so I’m afraid I don’t have a citation for you just at the moment. I’ll see what I can do when I have time. My apologies.
Having been religious (in particular, a very traditionalist Catholic, more so than my parents by far)† for a good chunk of my life before averting to atheism a few years ago (as an adult), I would have agreed with you, but a bit uneasily. And now, I can’t help but point out a distinction.
When you point to the Bible for moral light, you’re really pointing to a relatively small fraction of the total text, and much of that has been given new interpretations†† that the original apostles didn’t use.
Let’s give an example: to pick a passage that’s less emotionally charged and less often bruited about in this connection, let’s consider the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42. People twist this every which way to make it sound more fair to Martha, when the simplest reading is just that Luke thought that the one best thing you could do with your life was to be an apostle, and wrote the episode in a way that showed this. Luke wasn’t thinking about how the story should be interpreted within a large society where the majority are Christians going about daily business like Martha, because he expected the end times to come too soon for that society to be realized on Earth. He really, genuinely, wanted the reader to conclude that they should forget living like Martha††† if they possibly could, and imitate Mary instead.
Now, when faced with a passage like this, what do you prefer? The simpler interpretation which doesn’t seem to help you as moral guidance? Or a more convoluted one which meshes with the way you think the truth should be lived in the world today? Which interpretation would you expect to find upheld in letters of the Church Fathers who lived before Rome converted? Which interpretation do you think was more likely for Luke?
And most importantly, if you’re saying you’re learning about moral truth from the Bible, but you’re choosing your preferred interpretation of Scripture by aesthetic and moral criteria of the modern era, rather than criteria that are closer to the text and the history, why do you need the Scripture at all? Why not just state your aesthetic and moral principles and be done with it?
† Sorry for these distracting parentheticals, but I know the assumptions I’d have made had I read the unadorned account from someone else.
†† For one year at school, I took on the task of finding both Scripture readings and commentary from the Church Fathers to be read during a weekly prayer group. The latter task proved to be a lot harder than it seemed, because the actual content of typical passages from the Church Fathers is really foreign, and not in an inspiring way either. Augustine gets read today in schools as exemplar of Christian thought basically because he’s the only Church Father of the Roman era who doesn’t look completely insane on a straightforward reading of any full work.
††† There are places of honor in Luke and Acts for patrons who help the apostles, but they’re rather clearly supporting roles, and less admirable than the miracle-working apostles themselves.
Every time someone says, “The simplest reading...” about a passage, I really draw back cautiously. I see, usually, two types of people who say “There’s only one way to read that passage,” on any nonspecific passage. The first is “I know what it means and anyone who disagrees with me is wrong because I know the Will of God,” and the second is “I know what it means and it’s stupid and there is no God.”
I’m not saying you’re doing that—quite the opposite, you agree that there are many ways to approach the passage. The way Luke may have approached it, I couldn’t say. I just see a story being presented, and Jesus rarely said anything in a straightforward manner. He always presented things in such a way that those listening to it had to really think about what he meant, and there are many ways to interpret it. Even Jesus, when pressed, usually meant many things by his stories. Admittedly, this wasn’t a parable, this was an ‘event that happened’, but I think any of Jesus’ responses still need to get considered carefully.
Second, we have the fact that you’re talking about what Luke saw in it. I don’t pretend the Apostles were perfect or didn’t have their flaws. Every apostle, every prophet, was shown to be particularly flawed—unlike many other religions, the chosen of God in JudeoChristian belief were terribly flawed. There was a suicidally depressed prophet, there was the rash murderer, there were liars and thieves. The closest to a ‘good’ prophet was Joseph of the Coat of Many Colors, but even he had his moments of spite and anger.
I’m interested, but not dedicated, to what Luke thought of the situation. I’m much more interested in what Jesus did in the situation. Additionally, what about the context in which that scene appears? Jesus was constantly about service … and that’s what Martha was doing. He never admonished Martha … he simply told her that Mary had made her choice, and it was better. He never said Martha should make the same choice, either.
It’s worth noting that Mary was in a position that was traditionally denied women—but Jesus defended her right to be there, listening and learning from a teacher.
And I almost forgot the ‘most importantly’ part…
The strong lessons I learn from the bible … wouldn’t necessarily have occurred to me otherwise. Yes, I interpret them from my bias of modern life and mores … but the bible presents me with things I wouldn’t have thought to bring forward and consider. Methods of thinking I wouldn’t have come up with on my own, or by talking with most others. This doesn’t mean it’s ‘The True Faith’, but it does make it a useful tool.
At any rate, we need to be careful not to go too much further. This is getting dangerously close to a theology discussion rather than a ‘meet the new guy’ discussion.
Anyhow, I think it’s illuminating to be aware of what criteria actually go into one’s judgments of Biblical interpretations. Your particular examples will vary.
Oh, I quite agree! Thank you very much for the time spent sharing your thoughts. ^_^
Why? This seems to be the foundation for all your justifications here, and it’s an incredibly strong claim. What evidence supports it? Is there any (weaker, presumably) evidence that contradicts it? I’d suggest you take a look at the article on Privileging the Hypothesis, which is a pretty easy failure mode to fall into when the hypothesis in question was developed by someone else.
A weighty question… At the moment, I’m not entirely able to give you the full response, I’m afraid, but I’ll give you the best ‘short answer’ that I’m able to compile.
1: The universe seems slanted towards Entropy. This suggests a ‘start’. Which suggests something to start the universe. This of course has a great many logical fallacies inherent in it, but it’s one element. 2: Given a ‘something to start the universe’, we’re left with hypothetical scientific/mathematical constructs or a deity-figure of some sort. 3: Assuming a deity figure (yes, privileging the Hypothesis—but given a small number of possibilities, we can hypothesize each in turn and then exhaustively test that element) we need to assume that either the deity figure doesn’t care if we know about it, in which case it’s pointless to search, or that it does care if we know about it, in which case there will be evidence. If it is pointless to search, then I see little difference between that and a hypothetical scientific/mathematical construct. Thus, we’re still left with ‘natural unknown force’ or ‘knowable deity figure’. 4: Assuming a deity figure with the OOMPH to make a universe, it’ll probably be able to make certain it remains known. So it’s probably one of the existing long-lasting and persistent belief systems. 5: ( magic happens ) Given a historical study of various long-lasting and persistent belief systems, I settled on Christianity as the most probable belief system, based on my knowledge of human behavior, the historical facts of the actions surrounding the era and life of Jesus such as the deaths of the Disciples, a study of the bible, and a basic irrational hunch. I found that lots of what I was brought up being taught about the bible and Christianity was wrong, but the Bible itself seemed much more stable. 6: Given certain historical elements, I was led to have to believe in certain Christian miracles I’m unable to explain. That, combined with the assumption that a deity-figure would want itself to be known, results in an active belief.
3: Assuming there is no deity-figure, or the deity-figure does not care to be known. In this case, the effort expended applying rational thought to religious institutions will not provide direct fruit for a proper religion. 4: If there is no deity figure, or the deity-figure dose not care to be known, the most likely outcome of assumption #1 will likely have a serious flaw in it. 5: ( magic happens ) I searched out (and continue to search out) all the strongest “Christianity cannot be true” arguments I could (and can) find, and compare the anti-Christianity to the pro-Christianity arguments, and could not find a serious flaw. Several small flaws which are easily attributable to human error or lack of knowledge about a subject, but nothing showing a serious flaw in the underpinnings of the religion. 6: Additional side effect: the act of researching religions includes a researching and examination of comparable morality systems and social behavior, and how it affects the world around it. This provides sufficient benefit that even if there is no deity figure, or a deity figure does not care to be known, the act of searching is not wasted. Quite the contrary, I consider the ongoing study into religion, and into Christianity itself, to be time well spent—even if at some later date I discover that the religion does have the serious flaw that I have not yet found.
If this point is logically fallacious, why is it the foundation of your belief? Eliezer has addressed the topic, but that post focuses more on whether one should jump to the idea of God from the idea of a First Cause, which you do seem to have thought about. But why assume a First Cause at all?
On a slightly different tack, if Thor came down (Or is it up? My Norse mythology is a little rusty) from Valhalla, tossed some thunderbolts around, and otherwise provided various sorts of strong evidence to support his claim that he was the God of Thunder with all that that entails, would you then worship him? Or, to put it another way, is there some evidence that would make you change your mind?
(Apologies if I’m being too aggressive with my questions. You seem like good people, and I wouldn’t want to drive you away.)
Oh, no, not at all! I’m quite happy to have people interested in what I have to say, but I’m trying to keep my conversation suitable for the ‘Welcome to Less Wrong’ thread, and not have it get too big. ^_^
As far as ‘If it’s logically fallacious, why is it the foundation of your belief?’
Well, it’s not the foundation of my belief, it’s just a very strong element thereof. It would probably require several months of dedicated effort and perhaps 30,000 words to really hit the whole of my belief with any sort of holistic effort. However, why assume a First Cause? Well, because of entropy, we have to assume some sort of start for this iteration. Anything past that starts getting into extreme hypotheticals that only really ‘make more sense than God’ if it suits your pre-existing conditions. And no, I’m not saying God makes more sense outside of a bias—more that given a clean slate, “There might be laws of physics we can’t detect because they don’t function in a universe where they’ve already countered entropy to a new start state” is about equal to “Maybe there’s a Deity figure that decided it wanted to start the universe” are about equal in my mind. And to be fair, ‘deity figure’ could be equivalent to ‘Higher-level universe’s programmer making a computer game.’ Or this could all be a simulation, and none of it’s actually real, or, or, or…
But the reason that I decide to accept this as a basic assumption is that, eventually, you have to assume that there is truth, and work off of the existing scientific knowledge instead of waiting for brand new world-shattering discoveries in the field of metaphysics. So I keep an interested eye on stuff like brane vibration or cosmic froth, but still assume that entropy happens, and the universe had an actual start.
if Thor came down throwing lightning bolts and etc, and claiming our worship, I’d be… well, admittedly, a little confused, and unsure. That’s not exactly his MO from classic Norse mythology (which I love) and Norse mythology really didn’t have the oomph of world creation that goes together with scientific evidence. I’d have to wonder if he wasn’t a Nephilim or alien playing tricks. (Hi, Stargate SG-1!)
However, I take your meaning. If some deity figure came down and said, “hey, here’s proof,” yeah, I’d have a LOT of re-evaluating to do. It’d depend a lot on circumstances, and what sort of evidence of the past, rather than just pure displays of power, the deity figure could present. What answers does it have to the tough questions? Does it match certain anti-christ elements from Revelations?
Alternatively, what sort of evidence would make me change my mind and become atheist?
I would love to be able to easily say, “Yeah, if this happened, I’d totally change my mind in an instant!” but I am aware that I’m only human, and certain beliefs have momentum in my mind. Negative circumstance certainly won’t do it—I’ve long ago resolved the “Why does a good God allow bad things to happen?” element. Idiotic Christian fanboys won’t do it—I’ve been developing a very careful attitude towards religion and politics in divorcing ideas from the proponents of ideas. And if I had an idea what that proof would be—I’d already be researching it. So I just keep kicking around looking for new stuff to research.
Thank you for the interest!
Sounds like you’ve given this some serious thought and avoided all kinds of failure modes. While I disagree with you and think that there’s probably an interesting discussion here, I agree that this probably isn’t the place to get into it. Welcome to Less Wrong, and I hope you stick around.
I’ve certainly tried, thank you very much. I think that might be the most satisfying reaction I could have hoped to receive. ^_^ I hope to stick around for a good long time, too… this site’s rivaling “TV Tropes” for the ability to completely suck me in for hours at a time without me noticing it.
This sounds interesting. So were you raised an atheist or in some non-Christian religious tradition? Is the culture of your home country predominantly non-Christian? Conversion to a new belief system based on evidence is an interesting phenomenon because it is so relatively rare. The vast majority of religious people simply adopt the religion they were raised in or the dominant religion of the surrounding culture which is one piece of evidence that religious belief is not generally arrived at through rational thinking. Counter examples to this trend offer a case study in the kinds of evidence that can actually change people’s minds.
Apologies, I’m not as interesting as that. I changed a lot of beliefs about the belief system, but I was nonetheless still raised Christian. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise—pre-existing developmental bias is part of the ‘basic irrational hunch’ part of the sentence.
I agree that religious belief is not generally arrived at through rational thinking, however—whether that religious belief is ‘there is a God, and I know who it is!’ or ‘there is no God’. This is evidenced, for instance, the time I was standing there at church, just before services, and enjoying the fine day, and someone steps up next to me. “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?” he asks. “Yes it is!” I reply. “Makes you wonder how someone can see this and still be an atheist,” he says.
( head turns slooooowly ) “I think it’s possible to appreciate a beautiful morning and still be atheist...” “Yes, but then who would have made something so beautiful?” ( mouth opens to talk ) ( mouth works silently ) “I believe the assumption would be, no one.” “And what kind of sense would that make?” “I’d love to have that discussion, but service is about to start, and it’s too beautiful a morning for what I suspect would be an argument.”
See also: Epistemic luck.
Ah, yes. that rather strikes a chord, indeed. Thank you.
I like this argument. If there was such a deity, it could make certain it is known (and rediscovered when forgotten). The deity could embed this information into the universe in any numbers of ways. These ways could be accessed by humans, but misinterpreted. Evidence for this is the world religions, which have many major beliefs in common, but differ in the details. Christianity, being somewhat mature as a religion and having developed concurrently with rational and scientific thought, could have a reliable interpretation in certain aspects.
Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
however, I’m following from an assumption of a deity that wants to be known and moving forward. It certainly doesn’t suffice for showing that a deity figure does exist, because if we follow the assumption of a deity that doesn’t want to be known, or a lack of a deity, then any religion which has withstood the test of time is likely the one with the fewest obvious flaws. It’s rather like evolution of an idea rather than a creature.
However, the existence of such a religion does provide for the possibility of a deity figure.
I used the word ‘embed’ because this implies the deity could (possibly) be working within the rules of physics. The relationship between the deity, physical time and whether it is immediately involved in human events would be an interesting digression. The timelessness of physics is a relevant set of posts for that.
I agree with your comments. Regarding the strength of implications in either direction, (the possibility of a deity given a vigorous religion or the possibility of a true religion given a deity), there are two main questions:
if a deity exists, should we expect that it cares if it is known?
does the world actually look like a world in which a deity would be revealing itself? (though as you cautioned, such a world may or may not actually have a deity within it)
If this thread is likely to attenuate here, these questions are left for academic interest …