Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Some Thoughts on Christian Faith

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Some Thoughts on Christian Faith

    Elok's excellent post on Christian Faith ( http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=97655 ) has been bouncing around my head for a while so I thought that I might as well honor with with an atheist responce. I'm going to try to make this a responce instead of a rebuttal since I don't want this to become yet another atheist vs. theist slogging match and because I agree with some of what he says and think its one of the better and more honest pieces of Christian apologism that I've run across on the internet.

    Strictly logically speaking (I'm going to basing this bit loosely on Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ), there are two kinds of belief, Strong and Weak Belief (Hume uses different terms but I like these two better). Weak Belief is basically the adding up of the available evidence and thinking about it and deciding provisionally that a given proposition is probable but by no means certain and that new information that may chance things is always welcome. For example, I have Weak Belief that there's no such thing as God since I think its quite improbable that she exists, but if the stars rearrainge themselves to say "Hey Boshko, its God. Start believing in me!" tomorrow, I'd start reevaluating things.

    Then there's Strong Belief, which is thinking that something not being true is absolutely impossible and a logical impossibility. The only way for Strong Belief to make any sense is if our Strong Beliefs are if/then statements grounded on a whole range of axioms (since we have no idea we're not brains in jars being manipulated by alien scientists, completely insane etc. etc. etc.). For example it doesn't make any sense to say that I know that 2 + 2 = 4 since that statement by itself doesn't even make any sense. However, it does make sense to say that IF I'm not insane and IF all the fundamental axioms of mathematics are correct etc. THEN I KNOW 100% that 2 + 2 = 4. So to make any sense logically, you've got to base all your Strong Beliefs on axioms that are themselves unprovable Weak Beliefs. So in other words, to be logical, everything you think you're sure of is built, at least to some extent, on sand.

    This is why you can't justify Christian faith on purely logical grounds. As far as I've ever heard having real faith in Jesus means being absolutely sure or at least seeing doubts as a bad thing. So it doesn't make any sense from a Christian perspective to have a Weak Belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ and whatnot, since that just doesn't cut it (or at least isn't what you should be shooting for). But having a Strong Belief in Jesus doesn't make sense from a purely rational perspective since there's at least a chance (not matter how small) that you're crazy and hallucinate every time you look at the Bible and its really the chronicle of Fred's Athelete's foot, or that the Bible is a pile of BS, etc. etc.

    This means that there's a disconnect between Atheist and Theist points of view and that Atheist beliefs make more sense on a purely rational ground since Atheists only lay claim to Weak Belief, (except for a handful of remarkably stupid Strong Atheists who believe that God is a logical impossibility) while Christians bite of more than they can chew when they aim for Strong Belief (ie complete certainty). This also turns the common Christian argument "but you have just as much faith that God doesn't exist as I have in his existance so we're in the same boat" into a straw-man (except in the case of those moronic Strong Atheists) and puts the Christians into a bit of sticky situation logically.

    There's two ways that Christians can get out of this mess. The first is to rewrite the rules of logic, which is called Presuppositionalism. This is what CivNation believed in and its unbelievably nonsensical and incoherent and has been adequately rebutted elsewhere (Jack the Bodyless wrote an excellent one a while ago) so I won't get into that.

    The other way of that is to come up with extralogical reasons to have a Strong Belief in Jesus. In other words, reasons to make a Leap of Faith. All Christian Theologians worth their salt agree that you can't justify Faith by reason alone, so I think I'm still on the same page as Christians at this point. The problem crops up in the fact that there aren't many good extralogical reasons to make this leap of faith.

    As Elok points out two of the favorite reasons to make a leap of faith aren't worth much:

    So far as I can tell, there are two popular but nonsensical views of salvation. The first is popular among evangelicals like Chick and seems to be based on the concept of salvation through faith. Under this system, Heaven is something like a divine mob protection scheme, or a gang membership. Come judgment day, Jesus is going to bust the cap of damnation in the collective rears of humanity, with the exception of his designated holy homeys, who signed up to be part of his crew, took the membership oath, and support the group by giving cash to guys on TV with bad suits and excessive hair-gel. Provided you are on the ok list, all your sins are redeemed. Aside from not making a lick of sense, this whole scheme is very reminiscent of the Mark of the Beast, and makes you wonder how exactly the road to salvation is supposed to be as hard as the Book of Matthew makes it out to be. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to spout some babble about accepting Jesus as his personal savior and get in on the outfit. Um, no.
    Then there's the even more popular works-based fallacy seen in Dante's Inferno(I really hate that book!), in which the Kingdom of Heaven is like unto an income-tax form. Come Judgment Day, God will measure each man's sins, make deductions for every sacrament he has taken part in, give credits for helping old ladies cross the street, and add all the numbers up and see if the balance is positive or negative. Thankfully, we can all clean up our credit history via confession. I don't know why exactly the king of glory who knows the hearts of men is required to add up numbers like a calculator to determine their worth, and if so why he was so harsh on the Pharisees for showing good fiscal sense.
    They are both popular conceptions of heaven, and both pretty much completely wrong.
    I completely agree. There's a couple more bad reasons to make a leap of Faith:

    -Tradition. If it was good enough for my forefathers its good enough for me. The problems with this should be pretty apparent.
    -Morality. The morality presented in the Bible is so sublime and makes so much sense all by itself that you've got to subscribe to the Faith bit in order to take the morality bit seriously. I was in this boat when I was young. Apart from the morality in the Bible having some serious flaws (don't want to get into that argument here), if a code of morals makes sense and seem like a good bunch of follow without any outside justification why does it make sense to get so attached to them that just because someone else happened to also like them that they have to take his claims of divinity seriously?
    -Jesus died for you sins, which was somewhat uncomfortable. He loves you that much! How can you be such an ungrateful bastard as to not Love him and believe everything he says? Pretty silly arguement really. Someone having something bad happen to them doesn't make them any righter.
    -I'm sure you can think up several more. There's been huge lists of these things compiled on the internet.

    So we're left with one just one good reason to make the leap of faith, the one that Elok presented (although I think of it in slightly different terms). Basically if you think of Faith as a mystical communion with God in which (to use a Sufi analogy) the believer is like a moth that flies toward the candle of God and comes so close that you can't draw a line between where the fire that consumes the moth when it flies too close ends and the fire of the candle begins, then Faith is something that means something and is worth leaping at. Thinking of achieving perfect faith for Christians is then the same sort of thing as achieving Enlightenment for Buddhists, which makes Faith make sense. Faith becomes a fundamentally transformative experience and there's a REAL difference between those that get into Heaven and those that don't, the Heaven-bound have experienced a mystical connection with God and have reached a point where God is an imtimate part of their life while the rest of us haven't tried or haven't gotten the knack of it and are thus separate from God and thus it makes some sense for us to not end up in a position of basking in the presense of God for all eternity.

    But then Christians run into problems again. In absolutely every religious tradition (except for some strains of Protestantism and some of the more annoying and philosophically juvenile bits of the New Age movement) the number of people who have even claimed to have any kind of mystic or have a mystical connection with God was pretty miniscule. They were/are mere handfuls of Monks in monasteries, Gurus on mountain tops, shoeless wanderers, shamans running around in the woods etc. This goes for every culture with a mystical tradition I can think of from Sufi Muslims, to Shi'a Muslims, to Buddhists, to Hasidic Judaism, to Animists right on down the line.

    The second problem is Hell. Everyone who doesn't get the hang of this Faith thing gets fried painfully for all eternity. Ouch.

    So basically just about everyone agrees that getting a real meaningful mystical connection with God is damn hard and rare but Christians say that everyone who doesn't have this connection with God (ie doesn't have Faith and get transformed) gets tortured forever. Seems a bit harsh. Christians have number of ways of dealing with this seeming contradiction.

    -Acknowledging it. In Late Medieval Catholicism it was said that the ratio of people going to Heaven to the Hell bound was about equal to the number of people who ended up in Noah's arc to those to drowned. Sounds about right. But then you've got the vast majority of even those who honestly try to be good Christians going to Hell, which makes God a sick sadistic bastard. Bah!

    -Ignoring it. This is what happens most of the time. Doesn't do much good.

    -Mysticism For Dumbies. Basically if everyone's got to have a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ" to get into heaven, then damn are we going to have a lot of people with "personal relationships with Jesus Christ." In other words the entire community of believers becomes mystics who have been Enlightened (ie Born Again). I just don't buy this, it all seems too easy and too fake. Do you really think that all Pentecostals who speak in tongues have been "baptised in the holy spirit" and that all people who are "born again" have a meaningful mystical connection with the Divine and have reached the Christian equivalent of Enlightenment? It just doesn't square with what I've seen or with what EVERY other religious tradition with a mystical component says about mysticism.

    -Separate the Visible from the Invisible Church. Basically Christian doctrine is more suited for small sects of pretty much full-time and really committed believers for whom cultivating a relationship with God is their #1 priority and what they spend most of their time doing. Christian doctrine makes sense in this kind of context (since this was what the early Church was like). But then you've got the vast majority of self-professed Christians (even those who honestly try to be good people and good Christians) being tortured for all eternity after they die, which again makes God a sick sadistic bastard.

    -Getting rid of Hell and giving those without Faith oblivion or something. Something that makes sense and something that I don't mind at all. I like sleeping in on Sundays and I don't especially want to spend all eternity basking in God's presense in any case. But then this involves scrapping a pretty central piece of Christian doctrine.

    Other religions deal with this sort of thing a lot more gracefully (and without making God a sick sadistic bastard). Sufism says that all you have to do is follow the rules of the Sharia to get into Heaven (or at least the lower bits of heaven where you get the wine and the women) but what mysticism does is helps provide you with the reasons behind the rules and/or gets you into a higher level of heaven (beyond all the wine and the women) where you are consumed by the presense of God or something along those lines. Sikhism and Buddhism give you unlimited second tries until you finally make it, which seems like a pretty fair set up. In Hasidic Judaism and Shi'a Islam the mystic acts as more or less and intermediary between the common believers and the divine (at least I think that's how it works, I'm not an expert on their group) so everyone ends up more or less OK.

    So unless I'm missing something the only way Christianity can avoid making God evil or not making any sense is to scrap a pretty central bit of doctrine (Hell). And because of this (and a couple other reasons) Christianity seems even less appealing to me than its competitors.

    Or am I missing something here? I'm sorry about the length of this post but I would really appreciate some thoughtful replies from Christians (or anyone else).
    Stop Quoting Ben

  • #2
    Hume was wrong.
    Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

    Comment


    • #3
      I didn't read all of it (I will, but I have a lot of grading to do and I am sure I will need further breaks in the future)

      but how I view things

      everybody makes some initial assumptions

      there is a God, there is not a God, ect

      than logical reasonings are used to fill in the rest, and as long as it is logically coherent, than it is rational

      for example, I don't assume the Christ raised from the dead, rather, that is a logical result of my assumptions (among them: There is a God)

      why I am Christian is simple, I made some initial assumptions, and than picked the set of beleives that were logically coherent and set best with my expereinces

      I don't see how you can do it any better, or be any more rational

      not that I view being rational to be the end all and be all

      Jon Miller
      Jon Miller-
      I AM.CANADIAN
      GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

      Comment


      • #4
        oh

        and I don't beleive in hell, at least, not hell as you consider it (if anywhere, hell is here)

        Jon Miller
        Jon Miller-
        I AM.CANADIAN
        GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

        Comment


        • #5
          Your moth to the flame argument sounds very much like Gnosticism.


          But God is a logical impossibility, so it doesn't matter.
          Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by chegitz guevara
            But God is a logical impossibility, so it doesn't matter.
            How is God a "logical impossibility"? You can't prove his existence scientifically, but neither can you prove his non-existence IMO.
            ...people like to cry a lot... - Pekka
            ...we just argue without evidence, secure in our own superiority. - Snotty

            Comment


            • #7
              my church's doctrine (And has been)

              (I disagree with my church on issues, but agree with it more than I agree with others, that is the reason it is mu church)


              Silver Spring, Maryland, USA ... [ANN] The Seventh-day Adventist view of hell as annihilation rather than eternal torment is quoted in an October 5 Associated Press (AP) report.

              "The Seventh-day Adventist Church, founded in 1863, is best-known for worshiping on Saturday, but annihilationism is another of its distinctive tenets," says Richard N. Ostling, AP religion writer, defining annihilationism as "the unsaved will be lost eternally, but instead of suffering they will simply cease to exist."

              Referencing an article in Christianity Today (CT) of the same date, Ostling says that "for conservative Protestants, hell remains a "‘burning' issue," with polls indicating "increasing numbers of people [who] no longer believe in the place."

              The CT article by Stanley Grenz, a theology professor teaching in British Columbia and Illinois, seeks to answer the question, "Is Hell Forever?" Identifying annihilationism as a position held by "the 1660 Confession of the General Baptists, the Seventh-day Adventists and several other evangelical groups in the nineteenth century," Grenz says that those who believe this version of "Hell" argue for a better "picture of God."

              "They [the annihilationists] argue that because eternal torment serves no remedial purpose, the traditional concept of hell paints a portrait of God as a vindictive despot incompatible with the loving Father in Jesus. Further, they claim that the presence of people in hell throughout eternity contradicts the Christian truth that Christ has conquered every evil foe and God will reconcile all things in Christ," says Grenz.

              Grenz does not necessarily accept the annihilationist argument, and raises what he calls "substantive problems" in their position. Ostling's conclusion is "so take your pick: everlasting hell or permanent annihilation. But the Bible's advice would to do everything possible, spiritually and morally, to escape either fate."

              Commenting for the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Angel M. Rodriguez of the Biblical Research Institute says that it's interesting that the issue of "hell" is being raised, even in press reports.

              "For the public media to pay attention indicates that this issue is important to people," says Rodriguez."We believe that your convictions about your future destiny is important, and also that God's role and character is critical in this. Eternal torment is not a Biblical view, and cannot be harmonized with a God of love." [Jonathan Gallagher]

              JOn Miller
              Jon Miller-
              I AM.CANADIAN
              GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by chegitz guevara
                Your moth to the flame argument sounds very much like Gnosticism.


                But God is a logical impossibility, so it doesn't matter.
                shows that you do not understand logic

                Jon Miller
                Jon Miller-
                I AM.CANADIAN
                GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

                Comment


                • #9
                  An omnicient being would require infinate space. Since all space is not occupied by a deity, then it cannot be omnicient. In order to create the universe and all other universes, a creator would have to be omnicient. Since it cannot be omnicient, it cannot be a creator.
                  Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    On your weak/strong belief system:

                    You state that atheists have a weak belief system in that they say god does not exist but it is entirely possible that he/she does. What about those who say god exists but it is possible that he/she doesn't? What denomination would that be? Deist?

                    I think you did a good analysis.

                    A main reason I do not practice religion in a christian sense is because of this Jesus worship and the "hell" phobia they try to instill. I must say, though, that my wives pastor and the pastor I had growing up do not see damnation to those who do not believe Jesus is the son of god or even question the existence of god. They tell me that Jesus died for our sins and that all sins will be forgiven, sorta of amnistey. They believe in a faith of love and not one hate as some churches will lead you to believe.

                    A preacher once said to me "If you don't believe in Jesus you will burn in hell!"

                    I told him to F' off... He was preaching at my wives church. When I told her pastor what he told to me the pastor got mad. He is no longer allowed to preach there anymore.

                    I still do not practice as I need to question. I talk to my wives pastor once a year and every year he asks me if I have found something I believe... I tell him no, and he smiles, and that's it...

                    I think you, Boshko, have had strange yet common experiences with christianity. Not all denomination, sects, what-have-you are as you have set them up to be. I have a personal relation with god, just not one that will let me capitalize his/her name yet.
                    Monkey!!!

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      initial assumptions of mine (if you care)

                      God exists

                      God is Perfect (and I don't mean this in the perfect cube sense, or in the sterile since, I mean this in a vibrant sense, so it includes Love, Just, Merciful, ect)

                      Jon Miller
                      Jon Miller-
                      I AM.CANADIAN
                      GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by chegitz guevara
                        An omnicient being would require infinate space. Since all space is not occupied by a deity, then it cannot be omnicient. In order to create the universe and all other universes, a creator would have to be omnicient. Since it cannot be omnicient, it cannot be a creator.
                        huh?

                        even your first line does not follow

                        Jon Miller
                        Jon Miller-
                        I AM.CANADIAN
                        GENERATION 35: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Strictly logically speaking (I'm going to basing this bit loosely on Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding ), there are two kinds of belief, Strong and Weak Belief (Hume uses different terms but I like these two better). Weak Belief is basically the adding up of the available evidence and thinking about it and deciding provisionally that a given proposition is probable but by no means certain and that new information that may chance things is always welcome.
                          Boshko:

                          You can have a belief in the existence of God from this so called 'weak-faith' but you cannot reject God on these premises. If God is probable, than one ought to believe in him based on that reasoning alone. If God is improbable, you can only say that the evidence does not favour either side.

                          but if the stars rearrainge themselves to say "Hey Boshko, its God. Start believing in me!" tomorrow, I'd start reevaluating things.
                          Jesus actually addresses your point, look at what happens between him and the Pharisees in Judea:

                          Matthew 12:38-40

                          Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, "Teacher, we want to see a miraculous sign from you."

                          He answered, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.


                          Why this sign? Jesus healed the blind and the lame, and look at the response of the Pharisees.


                          Matthew 12:22-4

                          "Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see. All the people were astonished and said, "Could this be the Son of David?"
                          But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, "It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons."


                          Whereas others healed the blind and the lame, no one has resurrected like Christ. However, people still have to make the decision whether or not they will accept this as evidence of God, or whether they will reject this at first glance.


                          So to make any sense logically, you've got to base all your Strong Beliefs on axioms that are themselves unprovable Weak Beliefs. So in other words, to be logical, everything you think you're sure of is built, at least to some extent, on sand.

                          To understand what Hume means is that all of your experience and knowledge cannot fully account for any situation. You cannot and do not know for sure.

                          What everyone does, Christians included, is that the bulk of the available evidence weighs in favour of the existence of God, or in this so called weak faith.

                          Addressing your individual grievances against this 'leap of faith'.

                          Tradition. If it was good enough for my forefathers its good enough for me. The problems with this should be pretty apparent.
                          Yes, people ought to believe in Christ because it is true, not because their family believed. However, the fact that people can and do believe ought to move you to examine why.

                          -Morality. The morality presented in the Bible is so sublime and makes so much sense all by itself that you've got to subscribe to the Faith bit in order to take the morality bit seriously.
                          Exactly. This is why God accepts faith as small as a mustard seed to help us get over this hump to fuller understanding.

                          Apart from the morality in the Bible having some serious flaws (don't want to get into that argument here), if a code of morals makes sense and seem like a good bunch of follow without any outside justification why does it make sense to get so attached to them that just because someone else happened to also like them that they have to take his claims of divinity seriously?
                          Back to the 'sign of Jonah' and the Resurrection. We believe in Christ because of this sign, which God provided to aid us in our faith.


                          -Jesus died for you sins, which was somewhat uncomfortable. He loves you that much! How can you be such an ungrateful bastard as to not Love him and believe everything he says? Pretty silly arguement really. Someone having something bad happen to them doesn't make them any righter.
                          CS Lewis has a good response from Mere Christianity.

                          "A man might die for a good man, but who would die for sinners?"

                          Not only did Christ allow something bad to happen, you must also understand that he became man in order to do so, knowing full well that he would be crucified for his troubles. He did so willingly.

                          I'm going to split my post to avoid going over the word limit.
                          Scouse Git (2) La Fayette Adam Smith Solomwi and Loinburger will not be forgotten.
                          "Remember the night we broke the windows in this old house? This is what I wished for..."
                          2015 APOLYTON FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPION!

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by chegitz guevara
                            An omnicient being would require infinate space.
                            Says who? That statement is based on nothing.
                            ...people like to cry a lot... - Pekka
                            ...we just argue without evidence, secure in our own superiority. - Snotty

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Omncient = all knowing. This means knowing even the movements and positions of quarks and the particles which make them up, and the likely even smaller particles that make them up, off into the infinate reaches. Even a mote of dust requires a magnitude of knowledge beyond our abilities to even begin to comprehend. It would be required to understand the relationships that this mote of dust shared with a mote of dust on the other side of the universe.

                              Infinate knowledge would require an infinate mind. An infinate mind would need infinate space to exist. etc.
                              Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X