Christian here (and very long-time lurker), of more or less the “I believe on faith” stripe. I’ve noticed that in addition to the uses you mention here, /Mere Christianity/ serves as a summary of doctrine. (I can’t really speak to other apologetics.)
I’ve found that Sunday school and sermons generally incline much more to vague, feel-good platitudes than to actual, you know, positive or normative claims. You’re left in this position of “OK, I have [for whatever reason] bought into the Church and its credibility—now what do these people actually believe? How can I draw on the collective experience of all these people?” /Mere Christianity/ tells you what, exactly, the vast majority of those people you find credible believe.
Further, it does so in a way that attempts to make those things plausible and memorable, even though you believe them not because of the Lewis’ attempts at plausibility, but because of the credibility of the people who’ve given their assent to those things. This is much more readable, enjoyable, and amenable to discussion than a catechism. It’s sort of like worked-out examples or concrete special cases in a textbook.
One of the things that I think many atheists misunderstand about Christian belief is the degree to which it has to do with belief in the sense of having trust for particular people, not only the sense of having credence in a proposition.
I was reminded of this a while back when talking with a young Christian boy, a relative of mine. He had said that he believed something-or-other — I think the proposition was that the Devil exists; or possibly that temptations to do bad things (like get in fights with his brothers) are caused by the Devil. I asked him why he believed that. His answer was that he believed it because his guardians and teachers had taught him that it was true; and he trusts them.
This creates an interesting trap for teaching rationality: If someone ties credence in particular propositions to their trust in particular people, then asking them to doubt the proposition can come across as a threat to their relationship with the person. Many people are taught when they’re young to regard “I don’t believe you” as a bit of an insult. So to someone whose reasons to believe rest on trust in individuals, even saying, “I don’t believe the Devil exists” carries the implication, “I think your guardians and teachers taught you wrongly.”
On the other hand, it is emotionally perfectly okay to throw away all the inconvenient parts of science, because those scientists were usually not a part of one’s family or circle of friends. They were just some strangers, and offending them indirectly is no problem—even suggesting that they devoted their whole lifes to spreading lies and participating in evil conspiracies. That’s still emotionally more acceptable than imagining that my Mommy and Daddy lied to me every day for my whole life.
That scenario assumes a kind of religion that is more directly in opposition to science than is typical outside of conservative evangelicals. Admittedly that’s a large faction with political power, but they aren’t even a majority of christians, let alone theists.
People routinely accuse scientists of participating in conspiracies, even when there is no religion involved. Just tell them how homeopathy is not scientifically proved, or horoscopes.
I heard that small children get offended by hearing that their favorite teacher was wrong about something. But somehow this effect gets weaker as they grow up.
A part of it may be realising that humans make mistakes, even humans we love and respect. But I suspect another important part may be that as we grow up, the details of beliefs of elementary-school teachers are forgotten, and the high-school teachers don’t have the same impact on us because we meet them older. At some moments people realize their own parents make mistakes, which starts with a big disappointment, and then gradually becomes just an acceptable fact about fellow humans.
So seems to me there are circumstances which make “this is what people I love and respect believe; thinking otherwise would mean betraying them” thinking stronger or weaker. Typical religious education has a few aspects that make it stronger: it starts at a small age, it is reinforced periodically, it is a belief of community instead of just individuals, and it is intentionally connected with strong emotions. There are whole institutions built for this purpose, it doesn’t just happen accidentally. Many kinds of manipulation, lying, and emotional blackmail are considered fair game for this noble purpose. -- I mean, small children are literally scared by prospect of torture unless they agree to think and feel certain way! (Sure, it’s the invisible imaginary person that is supposed to torture them, but the whole point is that the imaginary person and therefore the threat is presented to the child as a sure fact, confirmed by all respected authorities.)
Other beliefs usually don’t have this strong support, although in some situations a political belief can work the same way. North Korea would be a textbook example, but on a smaller scale it could happen everywhere if you have sufficiently mindkilled parents and neighbors and censored access to information outside of the community. Ordinary beliefs typically don’t have this kind of elaborate repulsive system.
I heard that small children get offended by hearing that their favorite teacher was wrong about something. But somehow this effect gets weaker as they grow up.
A part of it may be realising that humans make mistakes, even humans we love and respect. But I suspect another important part may be that as we grow up, the details of beliefs of elementary-school teachers are forgotten, and the high-school teachers don’t have the same impact on us because we meet them older. At some moments people realize their own parents make mistakes, which starts with a big disappointment, and then gradually becomes just an acceptable fact about fellow humans.
Small children are quite helpless, and in a society more tolerant of harming or abandoning them (eg. the ancestral environment), offending the adults around them carried severe risks. Teenagers and adults could probably better afford to express disagreement.
That meshes well with another study that found that children under 5 assume adults know everything that the child knows. It’s only after around age 5 that children begin to stop ascribing that trait to adults. Link:
Lane concludes: “…data from the current study provide compelling evidence that when children begin to understand the cognitive limitations of humans, they typically attribute those same limitations to God, and this applies even to religiously exposed children.
Only later, at around age 5 years did religiously exposed children reliably differentiate between humans’ fallible mental abilities and inaccurate mental states versus God’s less fallible abilities and states.
These results suggest that in their everyday reasoning, even children who are raised in religious settings often initially understand God’s mind as constrained and fallible, very similar to their understanding of ordinary human minds.”
So children have to develop an understanding of omniscience, even if they are raised in a religious environment. However, when raised in a religious environment, they seem to understand omniscience earlier—evidence of the importance of learning, as well as brain maturation.
Christian here (and very long-time lurker), of more or less the “I believe on faith” stripe. I’ve noticed that in addition to the uses you mention here, /Mere Christianity/ serves as a summary of doctrine. (I can’t really speak to other apologetics.)
I’ve found that Sunday school and sermons generally incline much more to vague, feel-good platitudes than to actual, you know, positive or normative claims. You’re left in this position of “OK, I have [for whatever reason] bought into the Church and its credibility—now what do these people actually believe? How can I draw on the collective experience of all these people?” /Mere Christianity/ tells you what, exactly, the vast majority of those people you find credible believe.
Further, it does so in a way that attempts to make those things plausible and memorable, even though you believe them not because of the Lewis’ attempts at plausibility, but because of the credibility of the people who’ve given their assent to those things. This is much more readable, enjoyable, and amenable to discussion than a catechism. It’s sort of like worked-out examples or concrete special cases in a textbook.
One of the things that I think many atheists misunderstand about Christian belief is the degree to which it has to do with belief in the sense of having trust for particular people, not only the sense of having credence in a proposition.
I was reminded of this a while back when talking with a young Christian boy, a relative of mine. He had said that he believed something-or-other — I think the proposition was that the Devil exists; or possibly that temptations to do bad things (like get in fights with his brothers) are caused by the Devil. I asked him why he believed that. His answer was that he believed it because his guardians and teachers had taught him that it was true; and he trusts them.
This creates an interesting trap for teaching rationality: If someone ties credence in particular propositions to their trust in particular people, then asking them to doubt the proposition can come across as a threat to their relationship with the person. Many people are taught when they’re young to regard “I don’t believe you” as a bit of an insult. So to someone whose reasons to believe rest on trust in individuals, even saying, “I don’t believe the Devil exists” carries the implication, “I think your guardians and teachers taught you wrongly.”
On the other hand, it is emotionally perfectly okay to throw away all the inconvenient parts of science, because those scientists were usually not a part of one’s family or circle of friends. They were just some strangers, and offending them indirectly is no problem—even suggesting that they devoted their whole lifes to spreading lies and participating in evil conspiracies. That’s still emotionally more acceptable than imagining that my Mommy and Daddy lied to me every day for my whole life.
Or even that Mommy and Daddy were mistaken.
That scenario assumes a kind of religion that is more directly in opposition to science than is typical outside of conservative evangelicals. Admittedly that’s a large faction with political power, but they aren’t even a majority of christians, let alone theists.
People routinely accuse scientists of participating in conspiracies, even when there is no religion involved. Just tell them how homeopathy is not scientifically proved, or horoscopes.
I suppose so, but isn’t this true of most beliefs?
I heard that small children get offended by hearing that their favorite teacher was wrong about something. But somehow this effect gets weaker as they grow up.
A part of it may be realising that humans make mistakes, even humans we love and respect. But I suspect another important part may be that as we grow up, the details of beliefs of elementary-school teachers are forgotten, and the high-school teachers don’t have the same impact on us because we meet them older. At some moments people realize their own parents make mistakes, which starts with a big disappointment, and then gradually becomes just an acceptable fact about fellow humans.
So seems to me there are circumstances which make “this is what people I love and respect believe; thinking otherwise would mean betraying them” thinking stronger or weaker. Typical religious education has a few aspects that make it stronger: it starts at a small age, it is reinforced periodically, it is a belief of community instead of just individuals, and it is intentionally connected with strong emotions. There are whole institutions built for this purpose, it doesn’t just happen accidentally. Many kinds of manipulation, lying, and emotional blackmail are considered fair game for this noble purpose. -- I mean, small children are literally scared by prospect of torture unless they agree to think and feel certain way! (Sure, it’s the invisible imaginary person that is supposed to torture them, but the whole point is that the imaginary person and therefore the threat is presented to the child as a sure fact, confirmed by all respected authorities.)
Other beliefs usually don’t have this strong support, although in some situations a political belief can work the same way. North Korea would be a textbook example, but on a smaller scale it could happen everywhere if you have sufficiently mindkilled parents and neighbors and censored access to information outside of the community. Ordinary beliefs typically don’t have this kind of elaborate repulsive system.
Small children are quite helpless, and in a society more tolerant of harming or abandoning them (eg. the ancestral environment), offending the adults around them carried severe risks. Teenagers and adults could probably better afford to express disagreement.
That meshes well with another study that found that children under 5 assume adults know everything that the child knows. It’s only after around age 5 that children begin to stop ascribing that trait to adults. Link:
Is this, basically, the theory of mind?
Wow thank you! Great insights.