quote:Which of these two purposes is your purpose for holding this conversation? To change your mind? Or to learn why you believe as you do?
The latter.
quote:I learned the most about myself after leaving a small town where I was surrounded by people just like me. If I didn't want my comfort zone challenged, I wouldn't return to Hatrack.
Why did you clam up completely when I asked you questions of the form "If X, would you change your mind?"
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When I learn X about others, it tends make me more clearly see the Y in myself. If the spirit of Odin appeared in my living room I might have doubts.
Of course there are things that could shake my faith. I can clearly imagine something terrible happening to my wife and children that might rock my foundation...it's human nature.
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Ask me again so I don't have to go back and try to figure out the exact question you are referring to.
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quote:Why do I have faith in Jesus? I believe the eyewitness testimony that has been written down.
quote:Christianity spreads of its own accord, even under threat of death and persecution.
quote:if I lived in Iran I would probably be a Muslim and not be satisfied.
So, summarising, you have three main reasons for your belief; first, that the biblical accounts are true; second, that Christianity is expanding without state intervention; third, that Moslems and presumably other kinds of theists have a 'hunger' which would be satisfied if they were Christians. Is that a fair rephrasing?
These reasons are, as you must well know, utterly unconvincing to anyone not already a Christian; but I won't attack them just at the moment. Instead I'll repeat my previous question. Suppose you were shown that the Gospels are matched by equally well-attested accounts of miracles in other traditions. Would this undermine the first pillar of your belief? Then suppose you were shown that Christianity was in fact retreating, or that its expansion required force, or that all things equal it is atheism that expands of its own accord. Would your faith be weakened? And third, if I were able to attach a satisfaction-O-meter to the heads of Christians, Moslems, and atheists, and show no statistically significant difference, would you conclude differently?
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The first quote supports my belief. The next two are just opinions I hold that aren't integral to my faith. I believe that there are many cases of miracles, real or imagined that have nothing to do with Jesus. I'm sure God was interested in all mankind prior to the life of Jesus and there are many miracles in the Bible performed by others. In regards to the Muslim faith, that too can be tracked to Isaac and Ishmael. God promised Ishmael a kingdom of his own and they certainly have it today. The fact that one religion expands under oppression and another expands under freedom is affirming but not a pillar of my belief. The satisfaction meter is a nice idea..the kingdom of Ishmael is definitely not going to be satisfied until the kingdom of Isaac is destroyed, including the Christians they spawned. Atheists might very well have a more satisfying life. Unhindered by petty moral codes, one could live this life to the fullest. Not suggesting atheists are amoral, but things like drugs, promiscuity, greed, etc without the burden of guilt would be fun. Hey, live life to the fullest and enjoy it, it is all you have. I always had the most fun the last week of summer, knowing it was going to end soon.
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All right. So we seem to come down to the veracity of the Gospels, no? But this doesn't really help with the question I was asking. On what grounds do you believe the Gospels, and not the accounts of Joseph Smith's golden plates? The gospels are not eyewitness accounts; they were written three or four decades after the fact, and at that the earliest copies we have are a century or two later even than this. You surely know how plastic memory is over a span of decades; an 'eyewitness' account this old would not stand up in a modern court if it were attesting that someone stole 10 bucks from the till, much less a crucified person arising from the dead! Joseph Smith's witnesses, on the other hand, gave their accounts within days of the events they testified to. On the face of it they would seem much more reliable. You must have some reason for believing the one and not the other; what is it?
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The Book of Mormon SHOULD be more convincing since it is modern and SHOULD have more proof. Being so new why haven't the numerous revisions been tracked and were is the original? I have a problem believing in individuals who run off to the wilderness and come back with a great revelation. David Koresh and Jim Jones did that too and they too were running from polygamy laws. Jim Jones collected 900 followers in short order and people witness big foot and aliens all the time.
No doubt old eyewitnesses accounts wouldn't stand up in court and revisionist history has been a problem for all civilizations. We see it today. The bulk of the new testament are letters written to other communities from Paul. The gospels are four accounts that back one another up, each written by different people in different places. It does take a level of faith to believe the oral history was passed on faithfully until written down. Without computers, pens, paper, photography, etc and massive illiteracy, I doubt the oral history was altered that much. Like songs that can be passed on from generation to generation in tact - Psalms. I worry most about compromised meaning due to translation from one language to the next. Biblical revisions usually are not due to content, rather the correction of translation mistakes. Old depictions of Moses showed him with horns because of a translation error.
I'm sure none of my answers will satisfy you...there is faith involved. I'll admit, no faith would stand up in a court of law. If the Supreme Court ruled there is no God, I doubt a single person would leave their church. If even one link in the chain requires faith, then there will be those who will pry at it.
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You made me think about it in a different way, you made me wonder about the family tree of the faith. As Christians (including all the more recent branches in their timeline) came from Jews - Muslims and Jews came from Isaac and Ishmael. What was before? I'm sure as Protestants argue with Catholics about who is maintaining the original faith, so do the Jews and Muslims, but is there some obscure tribe living in the desert that still lives strictly by the earliest laws. Having rejected the political split of Jew and Muslim? Would Abraham call himself a Jew or a Muslim? He probably didn't have a label, only a God. It is one big dysfunctional family.
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quote:is there some obscure tribe living in the desert that still lives strictly by the earliest laws.
Orthodox Jews would, as I understand it, insist that this is them; IIRC, they believe that the laws they follow are the laws given to man after the Flood.
They may believe that, Pre-Flood, there were different laws. I'm not familiar with what legend says on the subject.
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Abraham was a contemporary of Noah and Noah was a contemporary of Adam. There is a lot of Jewish philosophy that believes that till Abraham, people believed in God - they couldn't question creation, having been too close to it. However, instead of serving God, they strayed and served intermediaries.
It was Abraham who was able to come close to the one God through his observations of the physical world.
Also, God gave the 7 Noahide laws to Noah and his children. So there was religion until Abraham.
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quote:Not suggesting atheists are amoral, but things like drugs, promiscuity, greed, etc without the burden of guilt would be fun.
As a side note: I think this quite misunderstands the actual appeal of atheism -- which is not that atheists are free to act without guilt, but that atheists are free to understand where their guilt comes from.
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quote:is there some obscure tribe living in the desert that still lives strictly by the earliest laws.
Orthodox Jews would, as I understand it, insist that this is them; IIRC, they believe that the laws they follow are the laws given to man after the Flood.
They may believe that, Pre-Flood, there were different laws. I'm not familiar with what legend says on the subject.
To clarify there are four periods:
1) Adam in the Garden - his law not to eat the fruit.
2) pre-flood - The talmud discusses a number of laws pre-flood including the prohibitions against stealing, sexual immoralities, and a prohibition from eating meat (that no longer exists)
3)The 7 Noahide Laws - the laws that God gave to Noah and his sons that Jews believe apply to non-Jews till today. (Judaism does not believe non-Jews need to convert, only that they follow the 7 Noahide laws).
4) The Torah - which was given to Moses and Israel
(Some commentators say that the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) kept certain/all commandments that were later formally given in the Torah
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: There are fuzzy boundaries in this conversation. Semantics used in politics and religion. Maybe someday they'll develop a crossover cable so people can directly connect and understand each other, not by each person's internal dictionary or attempt to spin the words, but my intended meaning.
Or maybe one day you'll engage honestly in a conversation rather than dancing around the points you just don't feel like dealing with. I think a critical difficulty here is that you are lazy. That is, in fact, the fatal problem in dealing with you.
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quote:The Book of Mormon SHOULD be more convincing since it is modern and SHOULD have more proof. Being so new why haven't the numerous revisions been tracked and were is the original?
Have you read the Book of Mormon? Just curious. Further, why would there be numerous revisions? From what I understand the current version is nearly identical from the original manuscript.
quote:Is there some obscure tribe living in the desert that still lives strictly by the earliest laws.
Interestingly enough, it sounds like you are talking about Mormons. And if you understand the scriptures, you'd realize that while some aspects of the gospel have taken time to fully grasp, the general format of the atonement, savior, etc were all in place from the beginning, but because of apostasy they have been repeatedly lost.
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quote:you'd realize that while some aspects of the gospel have taken time to fully grasp, the general format of the atonement, savior, etc were all in place from the beginning
That does, of course, depend heavily on how you choose to filter and interpret those legends.
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quote:you'd realize that while some aspects of the gospel have taken time to fully grasp, the general format of the atonement, savior, etc were all in place from the beginning
That does, of course, depend heavily on how you choose to filter and interpret those legends.
I'm sure you meant historical events rather than legends. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:I'm sure none of my answers will satisfy you...there is faith involved. I'll admit, no faith would stand up in a court of law.
So, now we're back to faith. Well then, why do you have faith? You believe things for which, you admit, the evidence is unconvincing. Why? You would not do so in any other context, if it were at all important. I take it you would not consider your faith unimportant; but if this is the level of checking you apply to it, how can you argue otherwise? If someone tells you it's raining outside, you might well believe them without checking, because what do you care? But if you're going out, you would likely stick your head out the door to see for yourself. Yet you apply a lower standard when someone tells you of miracles!
You said that you had been an agnostic in the past; something must have convinced you to stop. You appear to admit that it wasn't any kind of evidence. Why would you make such a leap of faith?
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quote:Which of these two purposes is your purpose for holding this conversation? To change your mind? Or to learn why you believe as you do?
The latter.
If that's the case, then I would suggest approaching the discussion in a different way. Instead of insisting that everyone religious answer your questions in complete accordance with all the assumptions you make about the world and epistemology, take a look at religion from the prespective of the religious, using the assumptions held by the religious. In that way, you can determine which basic observations and assumptions you make about the world which result in your beliefs differing so significantly from the religious folk on this forum.
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: If this is directed at me, it misses the mark. It's quite clear that Afghanistan, if allowed to go its own way, would be a cesspool, especially for women. Its people would be much better off with freedom from religion, as indeed would the US.
I agree with the first point, but but the rest is neither obvious or accurate to anyone but yourself. You should know that by now. Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I'm not so sure if you excised religion from Afghanistan that the sexism, and totalitarianism would also depart. There's a good chance that with such a major shake up of all social morays you could then setup an atmosphere that treats women as equals, or promotes individual liberty.
But I can concede that freedom from their religion currently would be a major improvement over the current situation, no doubt in my mind. Having said that, I still feel that many of issues at play there are more fundamental than organized religion.
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Only the first point was intended to be obvious, as should be clear from the language. The second one is merely accurate.
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They do not need freedom from their religion, they need freedom from those who distort their faith and impose their distorted view on others. As others have pointed out, there are countries where Islam is not a political, totalitarian tool for Bigots. This distortion is common to Arab Muslims. If the militant Sharia types ever managed to wipe out the infidel Jew and Christian, they would then turn their sights on the bad/week Muslims. In fact, they already do in their spare time.
quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: They do not need freedom from their religion, they need freedom from those who distort their faith
What criteria would you use to determine what version of a faith (in this context, Islam) should be preferred i.e. how do you separate out the distortions from the 'truth'?
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The distortions that lead to the persecution of others. You should be free to believe whatever you want as long as you allow others to do the same.
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The persecution of others. If there is an actual religion that kills non-believers, the world should band together and wipe that religion out of existence. This is the only type of religious persecution I see as being just. A religion of persecution deserves persecution.
If you would've quoted the entire sentence you would have your answer...".....and impose their distorted views on others"
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No, I wouldn't have. You said it only applied to those who distort their faith. If someone imposed a true faith on somebody else, your statement would not apply. The language you use to communicate is getting in the way of communicating your point if you think what you said before is equivalent to what you are saying now.
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Good point. I will try to be more precise in my language. Distortion is a relative matter of perspective. Even peaceful Muslims rarely condemn the violent ones, so I can't even presume they view it as a distortion.
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The Moslems are a bit of a distraction; you need to free your own mind before you worry about others. Why do you have faith? What decided you to stop being agnostic?
(I note in passing that I am generally quite skeptical when Christians tell me that they were agnostics or atheists in the past. Apart from plain liars who think this will give them credibility, they usually mean "I disliked some particular doctrine", "I wanted to annoy my parents", or "sermons are really boring" rather than "I decided to base my beliefs on evidence, and found none for Christianity." But this has nothing to do with the question at hand.)
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quote:Or, more simply, if I came to the conclusion that the most basic moral values taught by my religion were false (like "love thy neighbor"), I'd have to reject the religion.
Sorry to come back to this - I realize the conversation has probably moved on - but I haven't had access.
Anyway, can you suggest a scenario whereby you might come to such a conclusion?
For instance, imagine I belonged to a religion where the moral belief system relied upon a fundamental principle that it was always wrong to eat animals of any kind. And then imagine I had a child with a medical condition who had to eat meat daily or he'd die. That might lead me to observe that eating meat couldn't be always wrong. In that case, if not eating meat were so fundamental to the religion that I couldn't imagine it being true without that moral principle, then I'd have to reject the religion.
A few points:
1)I had originally asked: ``Can you give an example of something that would falsify your religious faith?" Could you answer as well ``Can you give an example of something that would falsify your faith in the existence of god?"
2)With regard to your example: do many religions have a completely concrete behavioral requisite central to their practice? Anyway, fairly central to Christianity is the notion that there is only one god, and you shouldn't worship anything else. So if a kidnapper took your child and then told you that he would only return the child if you worshiped a false idol, would you conclude that worshiping a false idol is not always wrong, and so leave the religion?
3)I was asking specifically about your religious faith; can you provide such an example e.g. how "love thy neighbor" as a moral principle might be falsified?
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1) No can't think of an example that would falsify my religious faith or belief in the existence of God. Earlier I suggested that events in life could cause me to doubt...I believe the example I gave was if something tragic happened to my family. I would certainly react in the is God just? manner etc. etc.
2) Worshiping is not just the act of kneeling and mumbling words. If a kidnapper had my family ransom unless I knelt before a golden cow and recited their words, I would. My children put their hands over their hearts and say the pledge of allegiance in school, but I do not view this as flag worship. Worship is integral to what is in the heart. I'm quite sure there are many people who go to church every week, just-because and don't actively engage in any manner other than an understanding of "you're suppose to go". As a child attending Catholic mass, I stood, knelt and recited the words but only thought about what I would do after church and wondered how much longer the service would be.
3) I'm not quite sure how this could happen. If any of my moral principles caused harm to others (other than perhaps offense) or otherwise lead to the persecution of other people, I would question their validity. IE, kill the infidel, castrate the homosexual, bomb an abortion clinic, etc. Obviously at times moral principles could be at odds with one another and one might have to weigh the importance. Even Jesus did this..."Keep the Sabbath holy"...but it's ok to save an animal stuck in a field on the Sabbath. It is a very old argument, one that was tried against Jesus for healing on the Sabbath.
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I think mal is saying that if a tragedy struck him, he believes that he would doubt, but he also believes that he would be wrong to do so. This is consistent: If the problem of evil does not trouble your faith in the first place, then it should not trouble it when evil strikes close to home. It also seems psychologically realistic: There are not all that many people who deconvert on the grounds of the problem of evil in the abstract, but people do occasionally see family members die of cancer and realise that prayer doesn't work.
That said, this doesn't address the fundamental problem: Mal, why do you have faith? You admit it's not evidence. How dare you go about and assert a fact based on nothing but your unfounded decision to believe?
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I'm sure you understand the difference in the evidence required for the assertions "X exists" and "X does not exist". So why are you playing dumb?
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Because those are your rules of evidence and they don't apply to this. Surely, you understand that. (Goodness knows I have said it often enough.) So why are you playing dumb?
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quote:Because those are your rules of evidence and they don't apply to this.
I don't see where KoM has demanded that mal adhere to any particular evidentiary standard. He has simply asked that mal actually explain what his evidence is.Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Oh right, I forgot who I was talking to for a moment. Never mind. It's kind of hard to remember that you deliberately disavow sanity so that you can profess your belief in faith. However, although you have abandoned adult responsibility for your beliefs, I retain some hope that mal hasn't. So if you would please run along now and not bother the grownups?
Mal, please note that this is the logical end product of faith: People who assert that they will believe whatever they choose, evidence be damned. The 'reasoning' kmb is applying here is that, although there is no evidence in favour of her god's existence, there is no absolute proof against it, so therefore she is free to "choose to believe".
You will note that she is curiously selective on this; she doesn't "choose to believe" in leprechauns, for example, although the same 'reasoning' could certainly be applied. The contrary view, which I apply to everything and she applies to everything-except-gods, is that if you have no evidence for a thing's existence, you should not believe in that thing. Would you like to state which of these views you hold?
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And if you understand the scriptures, you'd realize that while some aspects of the gospel have taken time to fully grasp, the general format of the atonement, savior, etc were all in place from the beginning, but because of apostasy they have been repeatedly lost.
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