posted
Interestingly, there is a certain level of presumption that members of my church not enter the worship buildings of other churches, although it falls far short of proscription. I've never been comfortable with it myself. There's an amusing quote from some preacher or other about how it would be better to be unchurched than "even to enter such a den" as a church with an organ.
Dagonee> "Catholic churches definitely are. At least some Protestant churches aren't, but I'm not sure which ones."
I know ours aren't. I think it's more commonly a function of the very liberal churches, but also those in which there is little or no clergy/laity distinction. Consecration as a ritual doesn't mean much to us; the presence of Christian worshippers does that. Effectively, if we use a gym, community center, or area around a flagpole for the purposes of worship, said area is basically consecrated for the duration.
Pixiest> You might find it at least vaguely interesting that no one (in the gathering, anyway) would likely be offended if you took communion in one of our churches. The standard expression is, "We neither invite nor debar"; it's one of the few things we still have in common with the Disciples of Christ. The assumption is that we cannot know the heart of anyone who participates; anyone may or may not be honoring Christ by his or her actions. (Of course, anyone who partakes insincerely "eats and drinks damnation to himself", but that includes us too. If an unbeliever isn't worried about it, that's their business.)
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First off, I'll answer the original question:
I go to church or temple from time to time, Bar Mitzvahs, weddings, funerals and such. I'm there because there's a person there that I care about, who's celebrating something important in their life, or because it's my opportunity to find closure for the death of someone I love. Religion doesn't play a part in it.
I do sometimes get annoyed by the rhetoric, however. Which leads me to my answer about the "Did you know? Have you heard?" thing.
Dana:
quote: Twinky, does the fact that the entire phrase, including the "Do you not know, have you not heard" part is a direct Bible quote make any difference? It's not just something the person making the posters made up to say "hey you dummies, what's wrong with you?"
No, it makes no difference. If they had quoted psalm 14 or 53 am I to assume that because it is in biblical context it's not really insulting? The person who wrote those passages did indeed made them up to say "hey you dummies, what's wrong with you?"
This thread reminds me of the one when I asked why a painting called "Magdalena and her lover" was specifically insulting to Catholics, as opposed to any other Christian. Dagonee explained that there is historical context that applies specifically to Catholicism.
Ok, well, the bible itself is historically insulting to atheists. There's a reason the terms "sanctimonious" and "holier than thou" are synonyms for condescension.
quote:"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God" -- Isaiah 40:28 (NIV)
No, I don't know. And neither do you. Neither does anybody. It doesn't matter that there's biblical context that supports it. (momentarily slipping into strong atheist mode) There was no God then either, so the author of the Bible was being just as smug and condescending as the phrase sounds now. [/strong atheist]
The person that put up the posters may not have written the "have you not heard?" quote, but they chose to use them to spread a message based on a particular agenda. If you would be insulted by Twinky's response, then you should understand how insulted an atheist should be.
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quote:If you would be insulted by Twinky's response, then you should understand how insulted an atheist should be.
Yeah, but I'm not insulted by Twinky's response. I even understand the response. I just don't understand the irritation - it baffles me, even with the explanations.
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quote:No, I don't know. And neither do you. Neither does anybody.... There was no God then either, so the author of the Bible was being just as smug and condescending as the phrase sounds now.
"Smug and condescending" ... hmm ... would that include telling someone what they know or don't know? The way you just did?
I don't have a problem with someone who says they don't believe in God or even that they KNOW there isn't a God ... as long as they don't try to tell me what I know. There isn't much that grates on my nerves more than that.
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Well, that's just too bad, then, because you don't know. You are apparently confusing 'knowledge' with 'really strong conviction'.
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No, No, Glenn, you didn't slip into Stong Athiest Mode until after you told us what we don't know. You can't get out of it as easily as that. Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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But... epistemology is half the fun of arguing about religion! Which I guess is why I don't get invited to churches much.
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I see that your response was to the part where I (as KoM and Palliard have pointed out) raised the issue of epistemology. But I'm on solid ground there.
I slipped into strong atheist mode to demonstrate what it's like when someone makes a claim that they "know" what they merely believe. That's condescending.
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quote:I slipped into strong atheist mode to demonstrate what it's like when someone makes a claim that they "know" what they merely believe. That's condescending.
posted
The problem lies in assuming what someone else knows, and how they know it. What's condescending is assuming that because you don't know something and don't see any evidence for it, it is impossible for anyone else to know it either, therefore they must merely "believe" and are using the wrong word when they say they know it.
But you don't know what experiences they've had that led them to say they know. You know that you don't know. That's all you can claim.
It's like religious people who say "there really are no true athiests; deep down they all believe in something". I find that just as condescending.
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quote:I slipped into strong atheist mode to demonstrate what it's like when someone makes a claim that they "know" what they merely believe. That's condescending.
No, it's not.
Or, more accurately, you are not qualified to say what I "merely believe" and what I know.
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So, Dag, I'm assuming that you agree that it's condescending for someone to make a claim that they "know" what they merely believe, but that I'm not qualified to say what you "merely believe" rather than what you know.
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quote:But you don't know what experiences they've had that led them to say they know.
Actually, every theist (including my wife) that has ever described those experiences to me, has limited them to a "very strong feeling" or an amazing coincidence.
Secondhand I've heard of people who claim to hear the voice of God or something, but even theists usually attribute that to hallucinations.
I feel pretty comfortable making the distinction between knowledge and belief in those cases. If there is more concrete evidence (even if it's not transferable) I'd be interested to hear it.
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Glenn, the problem is that you don't know that what they claim to "know" is "mere belief" any more than they could (in your estimation) know what they claim to know. (I know that's a confusing sentence, but it parses well if you make the effort )
Most of us build a concept of reality through our own experience, and call that "knowledge" with the caveat that further experience may reinforce that knowledge or destroy it completely. Over time we grow in confidence about which blocks of our "knowledge" are strong enough to serve as a foundation upon which we feel we can confidently interpret the rest of our experience. It's only logical that by the very nature of human experience disagreements will arise over which experiences -- and the interpretations of them -- are valid to serve as foundation blocks.
You have a very strong belief that their "knowledge" is on shaky ground, but that's as good as you can get. You are not them and have no way of knowing what they have experienced. Simply the fact that they cannot convey to you adequately (in their estimation) what they have experienced does not lessen the experience itself (to them). Can you always adequately express every emotion you feel, or thought that you have?
quote:I feel pretty comfortable making the distinction between knowledge and belief in those cases. If there is more concrete evidence (even if it's not transferable) I'd be interested to hear it.
I also feel pretty comfortable making the distinction for myself. I feel like I know enough about human nature, the human brain, science, and religion to satisfy myself that there is a rational non-theistic explanation behind individual "religious" experience. However, I can't prove it, any more than Dagonee can prove to me the essential kernel of his faith.
The sticky part to me is that ultimately each side, deep down inside, feels the other is somehow mistaken. The crucial factor, though, is in how we deal with this deep down suspicion. There are those of us humans who adamantly refuse to acknowledge the possibility of interpretations of experience other than our own. If it doesn't fit in the context of our lives then it can't be consistent at all. There simply is no other valid context. On the other hand, the more polite ones of us are willing to entertain the possibility, however slight, that it's we who are mistaken, even as we remain otherwise fairly confident it is they.
quote:So, Dag, I'm assuming that you agree that it's condescending for someone to make a claim that they "know" what they merely believe, but that I'm not qualified to say what you "merely believe" rather than what you know.
Is it condescending for a science professor to tell his students what he knows? What if what he "knows" later turns out to be incorrect? That has happened before, and surely will happen again as that's the history and very nature of science. Even knowing this, we still talk (within the context of science) about what we "know", and build on what we "know" even though we understand that yes, it's possible (even if only in the slightest way) that something might in the future lead us to believe otherwise. Still, we don't talk or act that way about most things we scientifically "know", largely because we're firm in our trust (one meaning of "faith") that our premises are correct. I suspect that religious knowledge (to the religious) is similar in its own context. I'm fine with that.
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quote:Or, more accurately, you are not qualified to say what I "merely believe" and what I know.
Is that something you need to be qualified for? I would say the only thing you need to claim someone "merely believes" what they claim to know is a good reason.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: I just don't understand the irritation - it baffles me, even with the explanations.
What (if anything) about my explanation on the last page doesn't make sense to you? I'd like to think I at least made some sense. Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:When I am around people that are praying, I feel it would be rude to not bow my head. It would be hard to distinguish my bowed head from the bowed head of somebody who was actually praying. Would you prefer that I not bow my head?
For my own preference, I would prefer someone remain quiet and respectful but not bow their head. I think it shows more respect to other people's prayers to not engage in it insincerely.
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I find the initial question very interesting, so I'll answer.
I'd never hurt my family's feelings if I could help it, so I will (and have) go to places of worship for various family functions. My mom and sister sometimes go to church for the purpose of worship (e.g., on Christmas Eve) and on those occasions my dad and brother and I decline to go.
But I do pointedly avoid helping to foster the spread of religion in certain ways. So I won't give to religious charities, for instance, because I don't want to fund the evangelizing or conversion of needy people.
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quote:you don't have to pretend to pray to be polite. If you just sit quietly and are not disruptive, that would be even more polite.
kmboots, I am curious about this. When I am around people that are praying, I feel it would be rude to not bow my head. It would be hard to distinguish my bowed head from the bowed head of somebody who was actually praying. Would you prefer that I not bow my head? [/QB]
It doesn't really matter if you bow your head - however you feel comfortable is fine. I think it was the "pretending" that was troublesome to me.
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quote:For my own preference, I would prefer someone remain quiet and respectful but not bow their head. I think it shows more respect to other people's prayers to not engage in it insincerely.
I understand what you're saying, and agree that someone shouldn't pretend just for pretending sake, but it takes more than a bowed head to pray. The person may choose to bow their head and meditate, or go over their laundry list, whatever.
Just because they're bowing their head to be polite doesn't necessarily mean they are pretending to pray or doing something disrespectful. They may be bowing their head to be polite and focusing on something completely unrelated to religion. And I think that's fine. Bow your head, or don't bow your head, I think it's a personal choice.
Participating in rituals or sacraments just to fit in, though, that I do disagree with. My former step-father is not a believer and when he came to church one day to watch the kids sing, we were having communion. He did not participate. I respected that, and was glad he didn't do it just to fit in or try to make us feel better. Not that I didn't wish he would convert, I did and still do, but I respected that at the time, he was not a believer, and was glad he did not partake of communion that day.
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I agree, head bowed or not, neither is more polite than the other. Craning your head around and staring at the person behind you to see if they will feel the burning power of your gaze and open their eyes, however, is right out. As is peeking over the shoulder of the person in front of you to see if they were doodling on their bulletin during the sermon.
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What about smacking your child on the head because he's poking his sister with the pencil he's been using to doodle on his bulletin with? Is that okay, Dana? Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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I think that's a currently disputed point of doctrine.
Last week a mom showed me a cartoon strip her daughter had drawn. It was titled "In Puppy Church" and it was drawings of various scenes from worship, but all the people were puppies standing on their hind legs. The puppy in a robe holding the communion bread was labeled "Pastor Dana." Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Now, i could see a college science professor saying, "This is what we know, but I gotta tell you, there are some guys out there way smarter than me trying to prove it wrong..."
I could not, however, picture a pastor/preacher/what-have-you saying something along those lines about God or Christ: "This is how we believe God works...but it could change at any moment!" But, as with the science professor, if there's anyone out there who can prove me wrong...I'd love to hear it.
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quote:Or, more accurately, you are not qualified to say what I "merely believe" and what I know.
Is that something you need to be qualified for? I would say the only thing you need to claim someone "merely believes" what they claim to know is a good reason.
I would say the only one qualified to judge the difference between what someone knows and what someone merely believes is that person ... and sometimes they don't look at themselves closely enough to know the difference, either.
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quote:I could not, however, picture a pastor/preacher/what-have-you saying something along those lines about God or Christ
Edit: assuming that by "along those lines" you would include something like "our understanding of God is constantly developing, this is how I understand x now, but perhaps someone will come up with a better explanation someday."
quote:Originally posted by dkw: Hey Palliard, wanna come to church with us on Sunday?
I sincerely doubt that would work out well. I have little patience for the rituals and less for the mythology involved in most church gatherings. Comments like "grade D mind control techniques" when they play with the lighting have gotten me barred from more than one church.
I might come if there was free food. But that doesn't have much to do with epistemology.
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...and that means, what? You agree? Or you've heard a pastor/preacher/what-have-you saying "our understanding of God is constantly developing, this is how I understand x now, but perhaps someone will come up with a better explanation someday."?
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Also, I've never seen them "play with the lights" at any of her churches, so you should be fine, Palliard.
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Well, we do turn them off before lighting all the handheld candles and singing "Silent Night" on Christmas Eve. It's shameless emotional manipulation, but people seem to like it that way.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:Is it condescending for a science professor to tell his students what he knows?
Yes, but condescension isn't really the issue.
A science teacher should never express information as an absolute. Science by it's nature demands that information be expressed in terms of a level of confidence that supports that information.
A science teacher doesn't necessarily have to avoid all use of the word "know," as it's commonly used, but when explaining a piece of information there should always be an implied "We know X, because we have observed Y." References to experiments and observations imply a relative confidence in the information, which in turn implies that the confidence in the information is always up for review.
As far as religious rhetoric is concerned, it's perfectly reasonable to say "We know that the bible says X." Because that's verifiable. I have no issue with a preacher saying "We know that God wants us to love our neighbor," because if you're in church it's assumed that you're talking to an audience that accepts certain axioms.
But the poster with the Isaiah quote sits amidst a long history of evangelism, and from where I sit, the "good news" that's being spread is often just the sheep's clothing that's meant to disguise the evangelist's true intent, which is usually some kind of self promotion. In this case, "Do you not know? Have you not heard?" is insincerely incredulous, and implies that anyone who doesn't accept this "obvious truth" is just plain wrong. In a church the passage might just be a biblically accepted axiom, but on a kiosk, it's just rude.
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My experiences with churches are, admittedly, limited. But they have been almost universally unfavorable.
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I appreciate all of the answers to my question. I think I will continue bowing my head when others pray. I don't say amen or do anything with my hands that suggests I'm praying. But not bowing my head would stick out greatly and would draw attention to me and away from their worship. I bow because I believe it is respectful to those around me. If many people believed that it was indeed disrespectful, I would reconsider my position.
quote:The central issue is to not engage in meaningful activities insincerely.
I absolutely agree with this. To me, it would feel like a mockery of others beliefs to do so. Thus I refrained from such activities.
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quote:But the poster with the Isaiah quote sits amidst a long history of evangelism, and from where I sit, the "good news" that's being spread is often just the sheep's clothing that's meant to disguise the evangelist's true intent, which is usually some kind of self promotion. In this case, "Do you not know? Have you not heard?" is insincerely incredulous, and implies that anyone who doesn't accept this "obvious truth" is just plain wrong. In a church the passage might just be a biblically accepted axiom, but on a kiosk, it's just rude.
So is your problem just with the quote? Or the whole idea of evangelism itself? Your comments lead me to believe the latter. If so, that's fine. Some religious people I know have a problem with evangelism, too. But is it possible that your general antipathy toward evangelism perhaps colors your perception of the intent of the poster in question? I'm just not sure it's warranted to assign ulterior motives to anyone in this case. At worst, I think it's an innocent case of someone poorly choosing a quote and not really thinking about how it might be perceived by active non-believers.
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quote:...an innocent case of someone poorly choosing a quote and not really thinking about how it might be perceived by active non-believers.
Which is very strange given their chosen audience -- that is, engineering students rather than the students at any or all of the three religious colleges that were a ten-minute walk away. Remember, too, that these posters were put up on the engineering campus over a period of four years. I'm not at all sure that believers were their primary audience. I'm not sure enough to definitely ascribe ulterior motives to the people who made the poster, but I'm not going to rule it out.
In any case, that's precisely the sort of thing that they should have considered. It's very easy to be unintentionally condescending toward people who don't share your views, particularly if you believe them to be True with a capital T, and it's something you should think about before you start putting up posters. Otherwise you wind up annoying people like me enough that we do something we normally wouldn't -- that is to say, respond in kind.
To be fair, though, I don't really like evangelism. I'm generally capable of examining something and drawing my own conclusions, and if I want help, I'll ask for it.
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Just because it's an engineering college doesn't mean there aren't religious people there the posters could have been intended for. I was an engineering student for most of my undergrad and attended church and Sunday School the whole time. And two of my engineering professors were in my Sunday School class.
(Which is not to say that I think the quote was a good idea on such a poster. I said earlier that I think it was a poor choice.)
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quote:I'm generally capable of examining something and drawing my own conclusions, and if I want help, I'll ask for it.
Anyone can examine things and draw conclusions. The question is, can you do draw all the correct conclusions?
The answer is no, I think, just as it is for everyone. That's why evangelism is a useful thing - just as it is good that teachers, journalists, doctors, mentors, special interest groups, advertisers, experts, parents, spouses, and friends are constantly giving advice to people, sometimes solicited and sometimes unsolicited. People do need help - all people.
Of course, you may not ask for advice and you may not want help, but I certainly think it is a mistake to not want that help. That's the approach that leads to so many people who read and listen to only what they agree with, and insist that they are entitled to come up with whatever opinions they want to have on all issues, no matter what experts or evidence says to the contrary. It's what flat earthers say - they can come up with their own conclusions, and they don't need experts and science telling them what is true about the earth or isn't. In truth, though, no matter how much they don't want help, I think it would be better if they were given it. Even more so if the issue were more critical to everyday lives than the flatness of the earth - such as what is right or wrong, or what religion to believe in.
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I didn't suggest that there were no practicing Christians studying engineering at Waterloo -- just that as far as I could tell, there weren't very many. That's partly a result of demographics; the engineering school had a lot of zeroth-generation or first-generation Asian, Indian, and Pakistani students. And with three affiliated religious colleges within ten minutes of the engineering school, why not put the posters up there, or in both places, if the goal was to reach current believers?
Added:
Tres, I'm not sure why you're lumping religious beliefs in with all of those other things, since it's quite separate from them. Do you see people going door-to-door with a set of Kant's most famous writings in my backpack and attempting to convince everyone that he had it right?
Hume? Locke? Hobbes? Russell?
No?
Then, why god?
Added 2: I think I overreacted. It's not as though your reasoning doesn't have some validity. Let me mull it over.
posted
Ten minutes is a long distance. My guess is that they were trying to reach the engineering students that, like most engineers, spent all their time in the engineering building.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:I could not, however, picture a pastor/preacher/what-have-you saying something along those lines about God or Christ
Edit: assuming that by "along those lines" you would include something like "our understanding of God is constantly developing, this is how I understand x now, but perhaps someone will come up with a better explanation someday."
I have often heard that from the pulpit as well. And I have said it myself when "teaching".
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Ten minutes on foot? I think we have different definitions of "long distance."
Regardless, do you think they were trying to reach current believers, or do that they were trying to "reach out" to lapsed or non-believers?
Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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I think they were using coded language. Either they knew it and were attempting to reach only believers, or they didn't know it and still would only reach believers.
Ten minutes is a very long way if there's no reason to go there. I have no idea what is a ten-minute walk from my office - I have no reason to head that direction.
If advertising is to be effective, it has to reach people where they are. They were advertising an event, so it makes sense to put the posters where the people are.
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