Depends on what sort of Christianity. For instance, much of blossom’s list is clearly addressed to those who believe that God designed earth’s living things (directly or less so) but some Christians don’t believe that.
Would you care to say a few words about the variety of Christianity you favour?
(In case the answer is no, here are a few suggested weak points for different varieties, all probably expressed too tersely to be more than the barest gesture towards an argument. Hardcore inerrantist fundamentalism: internal inconsistencies in the Bible. More mainstream but still fairly “traditional”: arguments from evil and silence. Varieties that stress God’s love over his power and suggest that for whatever reason he largely has “no hands on earth but ours”, but still see him as exerting moral influence: the fact that Christians are not spectacularly better morally than everyone else. Highly sophistimacated apophatic theology that refuses to say anything definite about God: impossibility of actually having any evidence to speak of for a being so vaguely defined; lack of continuity with the Christian tradition whose existence and longevity are pretty much the only reason for paying any attention to such ideas. All but the last: general shortage of evidence and tendencies for the more impressive sorts to evaporate on closer inspection; maybe complexity penalty for introducing into your model of the universe a god whose properties are so hard to pin down.)
I doubt that many here knows enough about christianity to actually come up with something
I don’t know how LW compares with other places occupied by large numbers of intelligent atheists, but my experience generally is that a large fraction of atheists are former theists, many of them former serious and well informed theists. I don’t know whether we will come up with anything you find impressive (and of course you may be strongly motivated to find anything we do come up with unimpressive...) but if not it probably won’t be out of sheer ignorance of Christianity.
Would you care to say a few words about the variety of Christianity you favour?
I am an evangelic christian and within my belief the gospels override everything else that is or can be seen as contradictory. (I don´t read the Torah since I am not a Jew and I do not seek wisdome in the old testament even though I have had a surprinsingly wise teacher who taught me how to interpret that old rubbish in ways that actually made sense to me.) See, if I believe Jesus was divine, I have to value the words of Christ higher than the words of his followers and mortal predecessors.
I don’t know how LW compares with other places occupied by large numbers of intelligent atheists, but my experience generally is that a large fraction of atheists are former theists, many of them former serious and well informed theists.
Yes, my hope was and is that someone like that will answer my question. You are right, your answers do not impress me, you seem to fail to understand important things about christianity. I can come up with much better counter arguments myself, but I really appreciate the honest try. If you would like me to tell you about what I think might be wrong in your picture of what christianity is about, you can PM me or ask me to answer here.
I am an evangelic Christian and within my belief the gospels override everything else [...]
I take it “evangelic”, as you’re using it, is not identical to the fairly common term “evangelical” despite its obvious shared etymology? Evangelicalism as generally understood is hard to reconcile with calling the OT “old rubbish”. I guess you’re using it to mean something like “centred on the gospels”.
I’d have a pretty good idea of your likely position on lots of things if you were an evangelical in the usual sense (inerrancy of scripture or something close to it, salvation sola fide, strongly substitutionary theory of the atonement, relatively more stress on personal faith and relationship-with-God rather than more corporate things, inclined to skepticism about anything that could be labelled “tradition” or “ritual”, etc., etc., etc., etc.) but unfortunately what you’ve said here isn’t terribly indicative.
your answers do not impress me
They weren’t answers, they were (as I said in so many words) brief gestures in the direction of possible answers. If you think I would think half a dozen words would convince you of anything, then I think you must think I think you’re either much cleverer or much stupider than is at all plausible.
you seem to fail to understand important things about christianity
I honestly do not know how you could possibly be justified in leaping to such a conclusion from what I have written here. I wonder whether you have perhaps misunderstood the nature of my response.
Perhaps it is necessary to say some of the following things explicitly. 1. Christianity—like any religion—is not simply a body of propositions; it is also a community, a way of life, a set of attitudes, allegedly a personal and/or corporate communion with God, a rich stream of traditions of many kinds, etc., etc., etc. My comments are addressing some of the propositions because that is what you appeared to be interested in (e.g., talking about “arguments for God”) but that doesn’t mean I am unaware of the other things. 2. To any simple argument, whether good or bad, there is generally an almost-as-simple counterargument, to which in turn there is generally a counter-counter-argument one notch less simple again, etc. Of course when I say e.g. “argument from evil” I am not suggesting that on hearing the words “argument from evil” a Christian should deconvert on the spot. I am suggesting that there are lines of argument, briefly alluded to by that term, for which at any given level of sophistication the atheist has the better case. I have not actually made any such argument here, and of course I do not expect anyone to be convinced by the mere mention of a family of arguments. Similarly for all the other things I mentioned. 3. I am well aware that there are varieties of Christian thinking that attempt to sidestep some of the arguments I mention—e.g., denying that introducing God into your understanding of the world makes it more complex, because by definition God is supremely simple. For each such, though, (a) there are other varieties that don’t attempt the sidestep, and further (b) disagreeing with something is not the same as failing to understand it.
Or perhaps none of that helps. Who knows? Anyway, I would be interested to know a few examples of things you believe I fail to understand about Christianity. I think it would be more productive to tell me here out in the open, but if you prefer to PM me then feel free.
(I was a Christian for—depending on exactly how you count—at least twenty years. I have held (minor) leadership roles in Christian organizations. I have a few shelves of theology books, maybe 90% of which I have read. My wife is still an active Christian. It is of course possibly that I completely fail to understand fundamental things about the religion that was central to my life for decades (either because I never did, or because abandoning the faith exposed me to some kind of demonic possession, or whatever) but I would suggest that you consider the possibilities (1) that you have arrived at your conclusion prematurely and/or (2) that you would consider that, say, 80% or more of serious Christians fail to understand important things about Christianity. Which, of course, might be true.)
[EDITED to clarify a sentence in which I inadvertently used the word “common” with two quite different meanings.]
I take it “evangelic”, as you’re using it, is not identical to the fairly common term “evangelical” despite its obvious shared etymology? Evangelicalism as generally understood is hard to reconcile with calling the OT “old rubbish”. I guess you’re using it to mean something like “centred on the gospels”.
Wikipedia Yes, it may be confusing but I tend to use words in their original meaning. It is good to check anyway, since english is not my native language.
I honestly do not know how you could possibly be justified in leaping to such a conclusion from what I have written here. I wonder whether you have perhaps misunderstood the nature of my response.
Perhaps I arrived prematurely at the conclusion, but as I said, I think you might have misunderstood, I didn´t say you actually had. If I mean to say that you are wrong, I say that you are wrong. Okey, so you only hint at stuff. Well that don´t help me, is that a more political azccurate term?
Anyway, I would be interested to know a few examples of things you believe I fail to understand about Christianity. I think it would be more productive to tell me here out in the open, but if you prefer to PM me then feel free.
Okey, I will point out the hings I saw as weird. 1. “Hardcore inerrantist fundamentalism: internal inconsistencies in the Bible.”
Why would a christian need to be a hardcore fundamentalist and interpret the whole Bible literal? You don´t interpret science fiction literal. I guess you mean that this only apply to SOME christians. 2. “the fact that Christians are not spectacularly better morally than everyone else.” Well, this seems like an ambitious statement in my eyes. Compare all the countries with a cross in their flag with countries that don´t have it. Compare BNP and corruption, crime rate and wellfare etc etc. Now think about this: Why WOULD christians need to have higher moral? Where do you find that premise in the NT? It seems to me like that isn´t based in christian theology at all, but if you have 20 years experience as an active christian maybe you know something I don´t. 3. “Highly sophistimacated apophatic theology that refuses to say anything definite about God.” Hah! Like we have been very successful at definitely defining the universe for hundreds of years of scientific struggle. Anyhow, here are something to consider;
The holy trinity
Jesus saying: I am the way and the life
The statement that Jesus is the son of God and God and all his teachings showing what he valued and who he was and how he acted, which is kind of the whole point of christianity.
First Epistle to the Corinthians, verse (?) 13
Now if we compare this with other religious teachings, I think we will find that we can see differences between the deities.
Not a bad policy. The trouble is that saying “my version of Christianity is rooted in the gospels” doesn’t really do much to distinguish you from everyone else, because pretty much all Christians consider that their version of Christianity is rooted in the gospels. So describing your variety of Christianity as “evangelic” tells me rather little.
as I said, I think you might have misunderstood
Well, your actual words were “you seem to fail to understand important things about christianity”. But it’s OK; I’m not offended.
so you only hint at stuff
Well, you know, I did consider just asking you “so what kind of Christian are you?” and refusing to say anything about what might be the strongest arguments against any kind of Christianity until the kind is precisely specified. I thought it might help us move forward a bit quicker if I gave some indication of the kinds of arguments that might be appropriate, so that we could work in parallel on figuring out (1) what kind of Christianity to look for good arguments against and (2) what those arguments actually are.
Why would a christian need to be a hardcore fundamentalist and interpret the whole Bible literal?
They wouldn’t. My whole point was that there are different kinds of Christians with different kinds of Christianity. One kind—by no means the only kind—is the hardcore fundamentalist who claims to believe everything in the Bible (not necessarily literally, but I never claimed otherwise). If I were looking for good arguments against that kind of Christianity, one thing I’d look at is inconsistencies between different bits of the Bible (that appear to be intended as straightforward history or doctrinal teaching rather than any kind of metaphor).
I guess you mean that this only apply to SOME christians.
Yes. If I hadn’t already made that clear enough, I apologize. (I thought I had.)
Well, this seems like an ambitious statement in my eyes.
Really? You think a good default position is that Christians are spectacularly better than everyone else, morally? OK.
(I think the cross-country comparison you suggest is totally invalidated by lots of other things that historically happen to correlate a bit with Christian heritage.)
Why WOULD christians need to have higher moral? Where do you find that premise in the NT?
Christians are supposed (at least according to some varieties of Christianity, the ones I’d be taking aim at if I were making that kind of argument) to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, who is the source of all goodness and value in the world.
Christians typical pray frequently (both individually and if following standard liturgies of various churches that have them) for their hearts to be purified, to be cleansed from sin, to be enabled to live righteously. This seems like very much the kind of prayer that the Christian god might be expected to grant, if he were real (it is clearly in line with his stated goals; it doesn’t require “interference” with the world beyond people’s minds; the minds in question are of people who have already declared themselves willing for him to change them, and are specifically asking him to do it.)
Like we have been very successful at definitely defining the universe for hundreds of years of scientific struggle.
Well, actually, we have. Spectacularly so. Do you really disagree?
[EDITED to add a few other things since I had to write the above in a bit of a rush, which is one reason why it’s too long:]
Some suggestions in the NT that Christians should be much better morally than they generally are: 1 Peter 2 says that Jesus “bore our own sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin but live to righteousness”; one can read that as talking about some kind of “imputed righteousness” that doesn’t actually involve acting righteously, but I think it’s a stretch and more to the point a Christian of the particular kind I said this might be a good response to wouldn’t take that position. 1 John 1 and 2 similarly talk of being “cleansed from all unrighteousness” and again I don’t think it’s likely that the author means some purely formal transaction that doesn’t involve actually becoming morally better. He seems to admit only reluctantly that genuine Christians might continue to commit sins at all. In chapter 3 he goes further: “No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.” Now of course 1 John paints with a very broad brush, but there it is in the New Testament and even if the author is overstating his case he must mean something by it. That famous chapter that you recommended I should consider, 1 Corinthians 13: read it in its context; it is saying that love (with that whole extravagant litany of virtues it brings along with it) is the most important gift of the Holy Spirit that is supposed to be present and active within every Christian’s heart. Galatians 5 has a lengthy list of “fruits of the Spirit” (which Christians are supposed to exhibit) and most of them are moral virtues (and the corresponding “works of the flesh” opposed thereto are mostly moral vices).
here are something to consider
I’m afraid it’s not obvious what sort of conclusion you’re hoping I’ll draw from your list. Rather than guessing, I’ll comment briefly on the individual items in it. I may very well be missing your point, though.
The holy trinity … seems to me a doctrine of doubtful coherence and at best ambiguous support in the NT documents that are generally reckoned the foundation of Christian doctrine. Some Christians contemplating it have had neat ideas (e.g., the idea that the love Christianity makes a big deal of is found within, so to speak, the very structure of the Deity). I don’t see that Christianity is any more likely to be right, or beneficial, on account of having this idea in it.
Jesus saying: I am the way and the life … and the truth; don’t forget the truth. Anyway, again I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be being impressed by here. There’s a fair chance that Jesus’s grand-sounding “I am …” sayings, found only in John’s gospel, were in fact made up by the author of that gospel—don’t you think they’re the sort of things that the authors of the synoptic gospels might have been expected to record? So if you’re working towards a “lord, liar or lunatic” argument then I don’t think this is a great place to start. (Such arguments have other weaknesses, but I won’t belabour them unless it turns out you really are making one.)
The statement that Jesus is the son of God and [etc.] … well, it’s a statement. I don’t find that contemplating it fills me with awe or certainty that he must have been who the NT writers say he said he was. Many other religions don’t make similar claims about their founders; I guess that’s part of your point; but I’m not sure where you’re going from there. (Lord/liar/lunatic again?)
First Epistle to the Corinthians, [chapter] 13 … yeah, it’s a fine piece of writing. So are some other things in the Bible. I don’t see that they’re supernaturally good, though, if that’s where you’re heading; I’m not familiar enough with other religions’ scriptures to know how good their Best Bits are (though I know Muslims sometimes say that the sublimity of the Qur’an is evidence of its divine origin).
You have yet to tell us what you believe, apart from the tribal/political reassurance about evolution. What do you mean by “divine” (this is important for prior probability), and what evidence do you believe you have for this variety of Jesus?
I assume you know that scholars largely consider the Gospels unreliable. The earliest one dates from during or after the war that destroyed the ‘Second Temple’, and we know of no Christian leader in Jerusalem who survived it. Shortly before this Nero supposedly persecuted the Christians in Rome. We know nothing about the history of Christianity at the time when the Gospel of Mark likely appeared, which weakly supports the claim that all the leaders were dead. We can’t name anyone who definitely had the power to insist on points of doctrine or prevent innovation.
On the assumption most favorable to the reliability of the early Gospels—that someone in the know wrote them to preserve original Christianity in this difficult time—we should still conclude that they have a lot to do with theological/political disputes of the time which we know nothing about. We should expect to misinterpret something in the text through not knowing this context.
They have lower priority than what could be the words of God. I do not disregard the New testament, I just “like” the gospels more than the rest of it.
I take it you refer to christian churches. No. But I haven’t fully read any non-canon gospels yet. Do note this is off topic, PM me or continue our old chat instead, you have not answered there yet :)
Examples of misunderstanding. (Though I think Jiro may have misunderstood your statement that I fail to understand important things about Christianity as saying that the LW population at large fails to understand important things about Christianity.)
Because I don’t see any of them. Just saying “you misunderstand Christianity” isn’t really an example. Give some details about what in particular the person misunderstands.
You did not give even one. Another user gave some hypothetical arguments against different varieties of Christianity because hardly anyone agrees what the religion entails, and you hadn’t explained what you believed. You still haven’t explained it clearly. Instead you act like “The holy trinity” has a clear and accepted meaning, and “the Gospels” can only be read in one (trinitarian?) way.
If you write in this impossible-to-engage manner, you should expect people to engage with different positions instead. And gjm most definitely did not assume you believed anything on his list (I assume “his”).
Dude, Jiro asked for examples of people who misunderstand, he did not ask for examples of what I believe. As for The Holy Trinity, it is found in the Nicene creed, in the Apostle´s creed and finally precised in the Athanasian Creed. It has a clear and accepted meaning amongst theologists. Before you say anything more, know that I got an Laudatur in religion (Evangelisk-luthersk religion, which I can´t translate but it refers to lutheranism,) on my matriculation exam and I won´t tolerate nonsense.
Actually, this is getting to the point where it doesn’t seem worth anyone’s time. You seem to have said:
that you reject the Hebrew Bible, or at least consider it irrelevant
that the Gospels have a clear meaning which we should understand without explanation from you (and which you believe).
This may not contradict itself directly, but it certainly seems impossible to maintain once we admit that countless Christians read passages like that one differently. Why would the Gospel accounts of Jesus be clear to us, when your co-worshipers don’t agree on what they mean?
If you do continue the conversation on this topic, please try to explain yourself more coherently.
I note that you are talking about other comments (not related to Jiros weird question) here. Well, you are a bit ignorant. I never said the gospels should make clear sense to anyone, I said that the holy trinity should make sense. You are the one off topic. I don´t find it useful to discuss christianity with you either, so we can cut off the chat on this so called “topic”.
I didn’t downvote you, but you should be aware that this seems like trolling, because the Mystery of the Trinity is seen by most Christians as a famously hard problem.
Thank you Vaniver, these comments are one of the reasons that I don´t yet have given up on this community and only stick to reading Eliezer´s articles. Yeah, well the malicious/outright stupid people who downvoted me fail to understand/pretend to fail to understand that what I obviously referred to was my earlier comment, about that The Holy Trinity is a widely accepted concept, studied and defined by professional theologists with ACTUAl knowledge on the subject.The implications of the Holy Trinity is indeed a mystery, but the dispute about what it is, is settled since long ago, meaning that there is an actual, real, consensus there.
Yeah, well the malicious/outright stupid people who downvoted me fail to understand/pretend to fail to understand that what I obviously referred to was my earlier comment
The beauty of theological study (and the internet) is that you can look at the source material and translations in detail and directly yourself. You have access to the very small amount of source data on the subject. Most of what people ‘know’ about the Trinity was made up hundreds of years after the fact.… and quite obviously these theories about the holy trinity have been untested.
Far from that. The Orthodox Church fervently rejects filioque, which is official doctrine for Catholics, but not for Anglicans. And that’s without mentioning the rest of the entire spectrum of interpretations, ranging from the strong unitarianism of Jehovah’s Witnesses to the blatant tritheism of Mormonism.
Yes, yes you are right, That is an article I should reread. I´ll do it before I answer anything else. It is also wrong of me to assume that everyone here is very rational and also to think that just because you are very rational, that means that you are [well informed and intelligent].
Yeah go ahead and downvote me for not wanting to talk to you. How dare I refuse to answer all of your questions immediately, even though you don´t pay any attention to my answers?
Pretty sure you’re getting downvoted for some combination of the following: unclear, incoherent, unspecific, and impolite. Compared to your growing wordcount in this conversation so far, you have shown little evidence of having something to say.
That is because I waste time on replying to comments while trying to be polite. I think that I have tried very hard to be polite, and it is hard to be specific when people go off topic all the time. It is confusing aswell. I only tried to be critical on my own belifes, but apparently it is forbidden to ask “weak points of christianity” unless you explain all of christianity and everything you believe in at the same time. (When you say that you are a physicists, no one asks if you believe in string theory or inflation, they find out subsequently.)
It feels to me that almost the majority of those who have commented here, totally disregarded my request that they would only answer after seriously thinking about my question and actually be familiar with christianity.
I don´t have time to explain christianity to everyone and I don´t want to, and it don´t help me either.
Here is what I can say about my belief: I am an evangelic christian, I confess to the Apostles’ Creed and I believe in a personal God. I am enrolled as ev. luther, and I can live with that, but I don´t agree with everything the church does, just as a democrat doesn´t agree with everything Obama does. If there is anything more people need to know, they can ask me personally and treat me with respect, or they can have it and everyone can be happy.
To be blunt, I’m not really seeing answers from you. Most of your responses to most people’s claims have been “well I don’t believe that anyway”. Meanwhile, you haven’t even read most of Christianity.
Your specific responses seem to say very little:
No. But I haven’t fully read any non-canon gospels yet.
You haven’t done even your basic due diligence. You believe your eternal soul is controlled by God, but you can’t be bothered to read a few documents that claim to have worthwhile information? This is absurd. Instead you’ve randomly latched on one set of documents, which you fully acknowledge are contradicted elsewhere.
I am an evangelic christian and within my belief the gospels override everything else that is or can be seen as contradictory. I have to value the words of Christ higher than the words of his followers and mortal predecessors.
There are direct contradictions WITHIN the gospels. How can something with basic logical error be an ultimate truth? Moreover, most theologians acknowledge that the gospels were not written during Jesus’s claimed activities… let alone BY Jesus.
I just “like” the gospels more than the rest of it.
You like something, fine… that doesn’t make it true. That fact that you liking something doesn’t make it true is simply a fact. Having not even read the alternatives, why does what you ‘like’ even matter?
If the only ice cream you’ve ever had is broccoli flavored, a statement that ‘you it more than the rest’ doesn’t mean anything. You need something to compare it to.
Actually read and investigate the various documents across ‘flavors’ of Christianity that claim to talk about your God. Honestly ask yourself why you only choose the Gospels, and try to think about the various contradictions. You don’t need us for this.
but you can’t be bothered to read a few documents that claim to have worthwhile information?
Not true. I intend to read non-canon gospels, do you know how many there are? I don´t NEED to read non-canon gospels to believe in Jesus, just like I don´t need to read Feynman to believe in physics.
Most of your responses to most people’s claims have been “well I don’t believe that anyway”. Meanwhile, you haven’t even read most of Christianity.
Not true, I did not respond that way to “most people´s claims”. Prove it. I haven´t even read most of christianity? Yeah? how do YOU know that? The fact that I was amongst the top 5% of all Finnish people who took the matriculation exam in religion the year I did is proof enough that I am not ignorant, at least amongst academics.
You like something, fine… that doesn’t make it true.
Never said it would, Totally irrelevant comment, you purposely try to make me look stupid by taking that out of context. Why do you think I used the quotations mark?
There are direct contradictions WITHIN the gospels. How can something with basic logical error be an ultimate truth?
Feel free to refer to those contradicitons you talk about. Meanwhile, in the gospels JESUS do not contradict himself. If he does, prove it.
Honestly ask yourself why you only choose the Gospels
Haha, how silly. I never said I disregard everything that is not the gospels and you know it. I said I prioritize the gospels more, which is 100% logical if I believe that Jesus was a God. Why would I NOT give the gospels higher priority? Yeah, I can´t know that they aren´t falsified, but I can´t know that about any other NT scripture either!
errancy.org is a good reference. A simple reading of the first page should be sufficient to put doubt in the fact that the gospels are completely ‘true’.
While this is not enough to convince someone that the Biblical God is false, it at least is a good gate to further discussion. If someone can’t acknowledge that there are factual errors and contradiction… I’m not sure what there is left to talk about.
don´t NEED to read non-canon gospels to believe in Jesus, just like I don´t need to read Feynman to believe in physics.
Absolutely true, but if your belief on some specific part of physics is based on a single untested book which has demonstrable errors, you should read some other sources. Especially when there really isn’t a huge volume.
[As a side note ‘belief in physics’ doesn’t really mean anything. If you believe that a dropped apple will fall, you ‘believe in physics’… you have direct evidence of it.]
I intend to read non-canon gospels, do you know how many there are?
It’s shorter than A Song of Fire and Ice. In your world view, your religious documents should be much more important than George R Martin’s musings are to millions.
Never said [liking something makes it true]
You’re missing my point. Tour reason for believing the Gospels appears to have no foundation other than your ‘like’, and as you seem to agree, you liking it doesn’t make it more true than all the other religious documents. If you have some other reason for believing it, share THAT and we can discuss. Currently you’re leaving everyone to guess why you believe what you believe. If you go ask 10 fellow believes ‘why’, I guarantee you won’t get the same answer each time.
I never said I disregard everything that is not the gospels and you know it.
I never said you did; I said you choose the Gospels over everything else… you have multiple sources, all of which are easily available to you; and you appear to randomly chose a subset. Even worse, you appear to have randomly picked a complete religion.
Your chance of having picked the right religion is near zero. Hopefully any real supreme being doesn’t send you to some analogue of hell for believing in the wrong god.
Meanwhile, in the gospels JESUS do not contradict himself.
To be clear, almost nobody claims Jesus wrote the gospels. Different gospels have Jesus saying different things in the same situation. For a straightforward indisputable example refer to Matthew 26:34 and Mark 14:30. A response that the above example may be misquoted could apply to everything Jesus is quoted as saying.
(You can Google other examples, but many could be argued as Jesus telling a story in which he describes different activities. This one is more straightforward.)
Feel free to refer to those contradictions you talk about.
Again, you can easily Google this. The Old Testament is demonstratively wrong on facts, but I suspect you’ll say you don’t follow that. Mark has a large number of demonstratively wrong facts as well. You’re trusting Mark to correctly quote Jesus, when his stories have numerous other mistakes,
Okay then, could you please answer my earlier question about scientific consensus in one particular instance? State your own opinion. It seems meta-relevant to the discussion.
(My impression so far is that you are not as accepting of d-separation as the general public here. As in, the set of mammals and the set of unicellular organisms are d-separated, and at least one set that ‘blocks’ mammals from unicellulars is ‘part of reptiles’. It means that learning some new feature about mammals, you can theorize about the corresponding feature/lack of it in reptiles, but you can’t infer much about unicellulars. Consider this model: God → Physics → Civilization. God and Civilization are d-separated, with Physics as the blocking set.)
I, too, hadn’t known about it before joining LW. Make a search on the site or on Wiki, and there is a book by Judea Pearl about causality that can be downloaded from web. It is a bit heavy, though, I am struggling to read it.
Depends on what sort of Christianity. For instance, much of blossom’s list is clearly addressed to those who believe that God designed earth’s living things (directly or less so) but some Christians don’t believe that.
Would you care to say a few words about the variety of Christianity you favour?
(In case the answer is no, here are a few suggested weak points for different varieties, all probably expressed too tersely to be more than the barest gesture towards an argument. Hardcore inerrantist fundamentalism: internal inconsistencies in the Bible. More mainstream but still fairly “traditional”: arguments from evil and silence. Varieties that stress God’s love over his power and suggest that for whatever reason he largely has “no hands on earth but ours”, but still see him as exerting moral influence: the fact that Christians are not spectacularly better morally than everyone else. Highly sophistimacated apophatic theology that refuses to say anything definite about God: impossibility of actually having any evidence to speak of for a being so vaguely defined; lack of continuity with the Christian tradition whose existence and longevity are pretty much the only reason for paying any attention to such ideas. All but the last: general shortage of evidence and tendencies for the more impressive sorts to evaporate on closer inspection; maybe complexity penalty for introducing into your model of the universe a god whose properties are so hard to pin down.)
I don’t know how LW compares with other places occupied by large numbers of intelligent atheists, but my experience generally is that a large fraction of atheists are former theists, many of them former serious and well informed theists. I don’t know whether we will come up with anything you find impressive (and of course you may be strongly motivated to find anything we do come up with unimpressive...) but if not it probably won’t be out of sheer ignorance of Christianity.
Thank you for your answer.
I am an evangelic christian and within my belief the gospels override everything else that is or can be seen as contradictory. (I don´t read the Torah since I am not a Jew and I do not seek wisdome in the old testament even though I have had a surprinsingly wise teacher who taught me how to interpret that old rubbish in ways that actually made sense to me.) See, if I believe Jesus was divine, I have to value the words of Christ higher than the words of his followers and mortal predecessors.
Yes, my hope was and is that someone like that will answer my question. You are right, your answers do not impress me, you seem to fail to understand important things about christianity. I can come up with much better counter arguments myself, but I really appreciate the honest try. If you would like me to tell you about what I think might be wrong in your picture of what christianity is about, you can PM me or ask me to answer here.
I take it “evangelic”, as you’re using it, is not identical to the fairly common term “evangelical” despite its obvious shared etymology? Evangelicalism as generally understood is hard to reconcile with calling the OT “old rubbish”. I guess you’re using it to mean something like “centred on the gospels”.
I’d have a pretty good idea of your likely position on lots of things if you were an evangelical in the usual sense (inerrancy of scripture or something close to it, salvation sola fide, strongly substitutionary theory of the atonement, relatively more stress on personal faith and relationship-with-God rather than more corporate things, inclined to skepticism about anything that could be labelled “tradition” or “ritual”, etc., etc., etc., etc.) but unfortunately what you’ve said here isn’t terribly indicative.
They weren’t answers, they were (as I said in so many words) brief gestures in the direction of possible answers. If you think I would think half a dozen words would convince you of anything, then I think you must think I think you’re either much cleverer or much stupider than is at all plausible.
I honestly do not know how you could possibly be justified in leaping to such a conclusion from what I have written here. I wonder whether you have perhaps misunderstood the nature of my response.
Perhaps it is necessary to say some of the following things explicitly. 1. Christianity—like any religion—is not simply a body of propositions; it is also a community, a way of life, a set of attitudes, allegedly a personal and/or corporate communion with God, a rich stream of traditions of many kinds, etc., etc., etc. My comments are addressing some of the propositions because that is what you appeared to be interested in (e.g., talking about “arguments for God”) but that doesn’t mean I am unaware of the other things. 2. To any simple argument, whether good or bad, there is generally an almost-as-simple counterargument, to which in turn there is generally a counter-counter-argument one notch less simple again, etc. Of course when I say e.g. “argument from evil” I am not suggesting that on hearing the words “argument from evil” a Christian should deconvert on the spot. I am suggesting that there are lines of argument, briefly alluded to by that term, for which at any given level of sophistication the atheist has the better case. I have not actually made any such argument here, and of course I do not expect anyone to be convinced by the mere mention of a family of arguments. Similarly for all the other things I mentioned. 3. I am well aware that there are varieties of Christian thinking that attempt to sidestep some of the arguments I mention—e.g., denying that introducing God into your understanding of the world makes it more complex, because by definition God is supremely simple. For each such, though, (a) there are other varieties that don’t attempt the sidestep, and further (b) disagreeing with something is not the same as failing to understand it.
Or perhaps none of that helps. Who knows? Anyway, I would be interested to know a few examples of things you believe I fail to understand about Christianity. I think it would be more productive to tell me here out in the open, but if you prefer to PM me then feel free.
(I was a Christian for—depending on exactly how you count—at least twenty years. I have held (minor) leadership roles in Christian organizations. I have a few shelves of theology books, maybe 90% of which I have read. My wife is still an active Christian. It is of course possibly that I completely fail to understand fundamental things about the religion that was central to my life for decades (either because I never did, or because abandoning the faith exposed me to some kind of demonic possession, or whatever) but I would suggest that you consider the possibilities (1) that you have arrived at your conclusion prematurely and/or (2) that you would consider that, say, 80% or more of serious Christians fail to understand important things about Christianity. Which, of course, might be true.)
[EDITED to clarify a sentence in which I inadvertently used the word “common” with two quite different meanings.]
Wikipedia Yes, it may be confusing but I tend to use words in their original meaning. It is good to check anyway, since english is not my native language.
Perhaps I arrived prematurely at the conclusion, but as I said, I think you might have misunderstood, I didn´t say you actually had. If I mean to say that you are wrong, I say that you are wrong. Okey, so you only hint at stuff. Well that don´t help me, is that a more political azccurate term?
Okey, I will point out the hings I saw as weird. 1. “Hardcore inerrantist fundamentalism: internal inconsistencies in the Bible.” Why would a christian need to be a hardcore fundamentalist and interpret the whole Bible literal? You don´t interpret science fiction literal. I guess you mean that this only apply to SOME christians. 2. “the fact that Christians are not spectacularly better morally than everyone else.” Well, this seems like an ambitious statement in my eyes. Compare all the countries with a cross in their flag with countries that don´t have it. Compare BNP and corruption, crime rate and wellfare etc etc. Now think about this: Why WOULD christians need to have higher moral? Where do you find that premise in the NT? It seems to me like that isn´t based in christian theology at all, but if you have 20 years experience as an active christian maybe you know something I don´t. 3. “Highly sophistimacated apophatic theology that refuses to say anything definite about God.” Hah! Like we have been very successful at definitely defining the universe for hundreds of years of scientific struggle. Anyhow, here are something to consider;
The holy trinity
Jesus saying: I am the way and the life
The statement that Jesus is the son of God and God and all his teachings showing what he valued and who he was and how he acted, which is kind of the whole point of christianity.
First Epistle to the Corinthians, verse (?) 13
Now if we compare this with other religious teachings, I think we will find that we can see differences between the deities.
Not a bad policy. The trouble is that saying “my version of Christianity is rooted in the gospels” doesn’t really do much to distinguish you from everyone else, because pretty much all Christians consider that their version of Christianity is rooted in the gospels. So describing your variety of Christianity as “evangelic” tells me rather little.
Well, your actual words were “you seem to fail to understand important things about christianity”. But it’s OK; I’m not offended.
Well, you know, I did consider just asking you “so what kind of Christian are you?” and refusing to say anything about what might be the strongest arguments against any kind of Christianity until the kind is precisely specified. I thought it might help us move forward a bit quicker if I gave some indication of the kinds of arguments that might be appropriate, so that we could work in parallel on figuring out (1) what kind of Christianity to look for good arguments against and (2) what those arguments actually are.
They wouldn’t. My whole point was that there are different kinds of Christians with different kinds of Christianity. One kind—by no means the only kind—is the hardcore fundamentalist who claims to believe everything in the Bible (not necessarily literally, but I never claimed otherwise). If I were looking for good arguments against that kind of Christianity, one thing I’d look at is inconsistencies between different bits of the Bible (that appear to be intended as straightforward history or doctrinal teaching rather than any kind of metaphor).
Yes. If I hadn’t already made that clear enough, I apologize. (I thought I had.)
Really? You think a good default position is that Christians are spectacularly better than everyone else, morally? OK.
(I think the cross-country comparison you suggest is totally invalidated by lots of other things that historically happen to correlate a bit with Christian heritage.)
Christians are supposed (at least according to some varieties of Christianity, the ones I’d be taking aim at if I were making that kind of argument) to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, who is the source of all goodness and value in the world.
Christians typical pray frequently (both individually and if following standard liturgies of various churches that have them) for their hearts to be purified, to be cleansed from sin, to be enabled to live righteously. This seems like very much the kind of prayer that the Christian god might be expected to grant, if he were real (it is clearly in line with his stated goals; it doesn’t require “interference” with the world beyond people’s minds; the minds in question are of people who have already declared themselves willing for him to change them, and are specifically asking him to do it.)
Well, actually, we have. Spectacularly so. Do you really disagree?
[EDITED to add a few other things since I had to write the above in a bit of a rush, which is one reason why it’s too long:]
Some suggestions in the NT that Christians should be much better morally than they generally are: 1 Peter 2 says that Jesus “bore our own sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin but live to righteousness”; one can read that as talking about some kind of “imputed righteousness” that doesn’t actually involve acting righteously, but I think it’s a stretch and more to the point a Christian of the particular kind I said this might be a good response to wouldn’t take that position. 1 John 1 and 2 similarly talk of being “cleansed from all unrighteousness” and again I don’t think it’s likely that the author means some purely formal transaction that doesn’t involve actually becoming morally better. He seems to admit only reluctantly that genuine Christians might continue to commit sins at all. In chapter 3 he goes further: “No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.” Now of course 1 John paints with a very broad brush, but there it is in the New Testament and even if the author is overstating his case he must mean something by it. That famous chapter that you recommended I should consider, 1 Corinthians 13: read it in its context; it is saying that love (with that whole extravagant litany of virtues it brings along with it) is the most important gift of the Holy Spirit that is supposed to be present and active within every Christian’s heart. Galatians 5 has a lengthy list of “fruits of the Spirit” (which Christians are supposed to exhibit) and most of them are moral virtues (and the corresponding “works of the flesh” opposed thereto are mostly moral vices).
I’m afraid it’s not obvious what sort of conclusion you’re hoping I’ll draw from your list. Rather than guessing, I’ll comment briefly on the individual items in it. I may very well be missing your point, though.
The holy trinity … seems to me a doctrine of doubtful coherence and at best ambiguous support in the NT documents that are generally reckoned the foundation of Christian doctrine. Some Christians contemplating it have had neat ideas (e.g., the idea that the love Christianity makes a big deal of is found within, so to speak, the very structure of the Deity). I don’t see that Christianity is any more likely to be right, or beneficial, on account of having this idea in it.
Jesus saying: I am the way and the life … and the truth; don’t forget the truth. Anyway, again I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be being impressed by here. There’s a fair chance that Jesus’s grand-sounding “I am …” sayings, found only in John’s gospel, were in fact made up by the author of that gospel—don’t you think they’re the sort of things that the authors of the synoptic gospels might have been expected to record? So if you’re working towards a “lord, liar or lunatic” argument then I don’t think this is a great place to start. (Such arguments have other weaknesses, but I won’t belabour them unless it turns out you really are making one.)
The statement that Jesus is the son of God and [etc.] … well, it’s a statement. I don’t find that contemplating it fills me with awe or certainty that he must have been who the NT writers say he said he was. Many other religions don’t make similar claims about their founders; I guess that’s part of your point; but I’m not sure where you’re going from there. (Lord/liar/lunatic again?)
First Epistle to the Corinthians, [chapter] 13 … yeah, it’s a fine piece of writing. So are some other things in the Bible. I don’t see that they’re supernaturally good, though, if that’s where you’re heading; I’m not familiar enough with other religions’ scriptures to know how good their Best Bits are (though I know Muslims sometimes say that the sublimity of the Qur’an is evidence of its divine origin).
Just a note: I see your comments in this thread are getting downvoted, but it’s not by me.
I know.
Just out of curiosity: How? Has someone else been boasting of doing it?
You have yet to tell us what you believe, apart from the tribal/political reassurance about evolution. What do you mean by “divine” (this is important for prior probability), and what evidence do you believe you have for this variety of Jesus?
I assume you know that scholars largely consider the Gospels unreliable. The earliest one dates from during or after the war that destroyed the ‘Second Temple’, and we know of no Christian leader in Jerusalem who survived it. Shortly before this Nero supposedly persecuted the Christians in Rome. We know nothing about the history of Christianity at the time when the Gospel of Mark likely appeared, which weakly supports the claim that all the leaders were dead. We can’t name anyone who definitely had the power to insist on points of doctrine or prevent innovation.
On the assumption most favorable to the reliability of the early Gospels—that someone in the know wrote them to preserve original Christianity in this difficult time—we should still conclude that they have a lot to do with theological/political disputes of the time which we know nothing about. We should expect to misinterpret something in the text through not knowing this context.
Besides the entire Old Testament, do you also disregard the books of Acts, Epistles and Apocalypse?
They have lower priority than what could be the words of God. I do not disregard the New testament, I just “like” the gospels more than the rest of it.
Do you agree completely with the Church’s opinion on which books should be part of the Bible and which books shouldn’t?
I take it you refer to christian churches. No. But I haven’t fully read any non-canon gospels yet. Do note this is off topic, PM me or continue our old chat instead, you have not answered there yet :)
Really? Name the two best examples of people here misunderstanding.
I don´t understand what you mean. Examples of people?
Examples of misunderstanding. (Though I think Jiro may have misunderstood your statement that I fail to understand important things about Christianity as saying that the LW population at large fails to understand important things about Christianity.)
Examples of misunderstandings by people.
Aha. Well I couldn´t give you 2 examples, I think I already gave you one. Why would you otherwise comment?
Because I don’t see any of them. Just saying “you misunderstand Christianity” isn’t really an example. Give some details about what in particular the person misunderstands.
You did not give even one. Another user gave some hypothetical arguments against different varieties of Christianity because hardly anyone agrees what the religion entails, and you hadn’t explained what you believed. You still haven’t explained it clearly. Instead you act like “The holy trinity” has a clear and accepted meaning, and “the Gospels” can only be read in one (trinitarian?) way.
If you write in this impossible-to-engage manner, you should expect people to engage with different positions instead. And gjm most definitely did not assume you believed anything on his list (I assume “his”).
Dude, Jiro asked for examples of people who misunderstand, he did not ask for examples of what I believe. As for The Holy Trinity, it is found in the Nicene creed, in the Apostle´s creed and finally precised in the Athanasian Creed. It has a clear and accepted meaning amongst theologists. Before you say anything more, know that I got an Laudatur in religion (Evangelisk-luthersk religion, which I can´t translate but it refers to lutheranism,) on my matriculation exam and I won´t tolerate nonsense.
Actually, this is getting to the point where it doesn’t seem worth anyone’s time. You seem to have said:
that you reject the Hebrew Bible, or at least consider it irrelevant
that the Gospels have a clear meaning which we should understand without explanation from you (and which you believe).
This may not contradict itself directly, but it certainly seems impossible to maintain once we admit that countless Christians read passages like that one differently. Why would the Gospel accounts of Jesus be clear to us, when your co-worshipers don’t agree on what they mean?
If you do continue the conversation on this topic, please try to explain yourself more coherently.
I note that you are talking about other comments (not related to Jiros weird question) here. Well, you are a bit ignorant. I never said the gospels should make clear sense to anyone, I said that the holy trinity should make sense. You are the one off topic. I don´t find it useful to discuss christianity with you either, so we can cut off the chat on this so called “topic”.
I didn’t downvote you, but you should be aware that this seems like trolling, because the Mystery of the Trinity is seen by most Christians as a famously hard problem.
Thank you Vaniver, these comments are one of the reasons that I don´t yet have given up on this community and only stick to reading Eliezer´s articles. Yeah, well the malicious/outright stupid people who downvoted me fail to understand/pretend to fail to understand that what I obviously referred to was my earlier comment, about that The Holy Trinity is a widely accepted concept, studied and defined by professional theologists with ACTUAl knowledge on the subject.The implications of the Holy Trinity is indeed a mystery, but the dispute about what it is, is settled since long ago, meaning that there is an actual, real, consensus there.
Insulting people is seldom helpful.
The beauty of theological study (and the internet) is that you can look at the source material and translations in detail and directly yourself. You have access to the very small amount of source data on the subject. Most of what people ‘know’ about the Trinity was made up hundreds of years after the fact.… and quite obviously these theories about the holy trinity have been untested.
Far from that. The Orthodox Church fervently rejects filioque, which is official doctrine for Catholics, but not for Anglicans. And that’s without mentioning the rest of the entire spectrum of interpretations, ranging from the strong unitarianism of Jehovah’s Witnesses to the blatant tritheism of Mormonism.
Assuming you’re going through in chronological order, you are likely to find the upcoming Illusion of Transparency helpful.
Yes, yes you are right, That is an article I should reread. I´ll do it before I answer anything else. It is also wrong of me to assume that everyone here is very rational and also to think that just because you are very rational, that means that you are [well informed and intelligent].
Yeah go ahead and downvote me for not wanting to talk to you. How dare I refuse to answer all of your questions immediately, even though you don´t pay any attention to my answers?
Pretty sure you’re getting downvoted for some combination of the following: unclear, incoherent, unspecific, and impolite. Compared to your growing wordcount in this conversation so far, you have shown little evidence of having something to say.
That is because I waste time on replying to comments while trying to be polite. I think that I have tried very hard to be polite, and it is hard to be specific when people go off topic all the time. It is confusing aswell. I only tried to be critical on my own belifes, but apparently it is forbidden to ask “weak points of christianity” unless you explain all of christianity and everything you believe in at the same time. (When you say that you are a physicists, no one asks if you believe in string theory or inflation, they find out subsequently.)
It feels to me that almost the majority of those who have commented here, totally disregarded my request that they would only answer after seriously thinking about my question and actually be familiar with christianity.
I don´t have time to explain christianity to everyone and I don´t want to, and it don´t help me either. Here is what I can say about my belief: I am an evangelic christian, I confess to the Apostles’ Creed and I believe in a personal God. I am enrolled as ev. luther, and I can live with that, but I don´t agree with everything the church does, just as a democrat doesn´t agree with everything Obama does. If there is anything more people need to know, they can ask me personally and treat me with respect, or they can have it and everyone can be happy.
To be blunt, I’m not really seeing answers from you. Most of your responses to most people’s claims have been “well I don’t believe that anyway”. Meanwhile, you haven’t even read most of Christianity.
Your specific responses seem to say very little:
You haven’t done even your basic due diligence. You believe your eternal soul is controlled by God, but you can’t be bothered to read a few documents that claim to have worthwhile information? This is absurd. Instead you’ve randomly latched on one set of documents, which you fully acknowledge are contradicted elsewhere.
There are direct contradictions WITHIN the gospels. How can something with basic logical error be an ultimate truth? Moreover, most theologians acknowledge that the gospels were not written during Jesus’s claimed activities… let alone BY Jesus.
You like something, fine… that doesn’t make it true. That fact that you liking something doesn’t make it true is simply a fact. Having not even read the alternatives, why does what you ‘like’ even matter?
If the only ice cream you’ve ever had is broccoli flavored, a statement that ‘you it more than the rest’ doesn’t mean anything. You need something to compare it to.
Actually read and investigate the various documents across ‘flavors’ of Christianity that claim to talk about your God. Honestly ask yourself why you only choose the Gospels, and try to think about the various contradictions. You don’t need us for this.
You say alot of things about me which isn´t true.
Not true. I intend to read non-canon gospels, do you know how many there are? I don´t NEED to read non-canon gospels to believe in Jesus, just like I don´t need to read Feynman to believe in physics.
Not true, I did not respond that way to “most people´s claims”. Prove it. I haven´t even read most of christianity? Yeah? how do YOU know that? The fact that I was amongst the top 5% of all Finnish people who took the matriculation exam in religion the year I did is proof enough that I am not ignorant, at least amongst academics.
Never said it would, Totally irrelevant comment, you purposely try to make me look stupid by taking that out of context. Why do you think I used the quotations mark?
Feel free to refer to those contradicitons you talk about. Meanwhile, in the gospels JESUS do not contradict himself. If he does, prove it.
Haha, how silly. I never said I disregard everything that is not the gospels and you know it. I said I prioritize the gospels more, which is 100% logical if I believe that Jesus was a God. Why would I NOT give the gospels higher priority? Yeah, I can´t know that they aren´t falsified, but I can´t know that about any other NT scripture either!
Lots of examples:
http://www.evilbible.com/contradictions.htm
http://www.skeptically.org/bible/id2.html
http://errancy.org/
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/06/contradictory-and-chaotic-gospel-lies.html
http://www.christianitydisproved.com/bible.html
errancy.org is a good reference. A simple reading of the first page should be sufficient to put doubt in the fact that the gospels are completely ‘true’.
While this is not enough to convince someone that the Biblical God is false, it at least is a good gate to further discussion. If someone can’t acknowledge that there are factual errors and contradiction… I’m not sure what there is left to talk about.
Absolutely true, but if your belief on some specific part of physics is based on a single untested book which has demonstrable errors, you should read some other sources. Especially when there really isn’t a huge volume.
[As a side note ‘belief in physics’ doesn’t really mean anything. If you believe that a dropped apple will fall, you ‘believe in physics’… you have direct evidence of it.]
It’s shorter than A Song of Fire and Ice. In your world view, your religious documents should be much more important than George R Martin’s musings are to millions.
You’re missing my point. Tour reason for believing the Gospels appears to have no foundation other than your ‘like’, and as you seem to agree, you liking it doesn’t make it more true than all the other religious documents. If you have some other reason for believing it, share THAT and we can discuss. Currently you’re leaving everyone to guess why you believe what you believe. If you go ask 10 fellow believes ‘why’, I guarantee you won’t get the same answer each time.
I never said you did; I said you choose the Gospels over everything else… you have multiple sources, all of which are easily available to you; and you appear to randomly chose a subset. Even worse, you appear to have randomly picked a complete religion.
Your chance of having picked the right religion is near zero. Hopefully any real supreme being doesn’t send you to some analogue of hell for believing in the wrong god.
To be clear, almost nobody claims Jesus wrote the gospels. Different gospels have Jesus saying different things in the same situation. For a straightforward indisputable example refer to Matthew 26:34 and Mark 14:30. A response that the above example may be misquoted could apply to everything Jesus is quoted as saying.
(You can Google other examples, but many could be argued as Jesus telling a story in which he describes different activities. This one is more straightforward.)
Again, you can easily Google this. The Old Testament is demonstratively wrong on facts, but I suspect you’ll say you don’t follow that. Mark has a large number of demonstratively wrong facts as well. You’re trusting Mark to correctly quote Jesus, when his stories have numerous other mistakes,
Okay then, could you please answer my earlier question about scientific consensus in one particular instance? State your own opinion. It seems meta-relevant to the discussion. (My impression so far is that you are not as accepting of d-separation as the general public here. As in, the set of mammals and the set of unicellular organisms are d-separated, and at least one set that ‘blocks’ mammals from unicellulars is ‘part of reptiles’. It means that learning some new feature about mammals, you can theorize about the corresponding feature/lack of it in reptiles, but you can’t infer much about unicellulars. Consider this model: God → Physics → Civilization. God and Civilization are d-separated, with Physics as the blocking set.)
Sorry, I am too stupid to understand what you ask of me. I don´t even know what d-separation is.
I, too, hadn’t known about it before joining LW. Make a search on the site or on Wiki, and there is a book by Judea Pearl about causality that can be downloaded from web. It is a bit heavy, though, I am struggling to read it.