The Devil Is In The Details

This is a kind of commentary and overview of my observations after participating here for a year.

Reasoning is a discipline. There are several heuristics you can use for reasoning that speed up the process, but the process depends on the quality of detail and evidence you introduce into the process. I solve problems for a living. My bread and butter depends on how well I provide solutions to other peoples problems. I became an atheist after I started using the tools that contribute to my success to my personal philosophy. My religion.

Stephen Toulmin, Richard D. Rieke and G. Thomas Goodnight all talk about spheres of influence or reasoning. The concept goes that there are schemes of reasoning that are more successful depending on the field they are applied in. For example you don't use the same reasoning schemes in critiquing art that you use to convict criminals or determine a drug is safe for use. However, there have been plenty of artists and writers that have discovered and investigated, in their own way, concepts that have been incorporated into science. The most notable ones are that Natural Philosophy has a relationship to Science, the exploration in literature of Human Behavior and Psychology has a relationship to modern day Cognitive Sciences. Artists discovered the Golden Ratio as a perspective that just "looked good" and it was later described in mathematical terms and has a relationship to Architecture.

Religion is and always has been a philosophy about life. A way of thinking about life. This is what it has in common with art, music, law, medicine and science. Dealing with the questions of life. Since all these disciplines share this commonality, and since we know there is overlap, the principle of science can be used to investigate religion.

Christianity depends on the Bible. What is the bible? It is scripture. Where did this scripture come from? That is the question. It says it came from God. But applying the principles of Science, Law and Medicine to this question necessitates another form of validation, or another form of ID. Something to verify that it is what it says it is.

This is where looking at the details comes in. Looking at where these scriptures came from. Tracing the source. Doing this will take you from textual criticism, to sociology, to psychology, to biology, to paleontology, to archeology, to philosophy and not in that order.

Most of the arguments that Christian use here are some kind misrepresentation or misunderstanding of the world. They are referred to commonly as "straw man" arguments. Their philosophy is outdated, needs an upgrade, it doesn't represent an accurate picture of the world. They need new information. Decision making depends on new information. People should change their minds according to assessment of new information. It shouldn't be discouraged or looked at as being indecisive or wishy-washy, it should be demanded! It should be a virtue!

Solving peoples problems requires looking at the details and following the evidence. It requires suspending the tendency to follow authority, tradition and personal bias and instead use logic and inference. We should depend less on authority, consensus and tradition and more on principle, inference and strong criteria for evidence.

In my mind, to Debunk Christianity, or Break the Spell, requires people to follow George Santanaya's advice and don't forget the lessons of the past. Learn about the past, learn about where we came from, find out where those Virtues first appeared, find out where that "let your light shine" came from, find out which god was the first to die and go to hell and come back and have a son, how most of the kings in antiquity were sons of gods or gods incarnate or somehow related to gods.

People need to take the principles they use in the practical application of living their lives and apply it to their religion. When this is done, it brings to light how silly eternal punishment is compared to rehabilitation or just scrapping everything and starting over. How silly it is punish other people for the 'sins' of another group. How silly a human sacrifice is, or just a sacrifice to appease a god is. How silly it is to depend on premises that have no precedent and then create a philosophy of life around it. Just try to plan and execute a project using premises without precedent, and see how successful you are.

Here are some hints to Debunk Christianity. Apply your practical principles to your religion. And do your homework. Find your heritage.

Look up syncretism, sumeria, mesopotamia, ancient egypt, indus valley, harrapas, the axial age, greece, minoans, phoenicians, canaanites, hittites, fertile crescent, hellenism, Byzantium, trade between the indus valley, sumeria and mesopotamia, and follow the water, and pay attention to ancient peoples whos culture and religion idealize life as a journey. Key word "Journey" as in spiritual and economic and trade. Learn about World History between 40,000 bce and 500 ce. Learn about what was important to those people. Learn about their religions.

You will find, the Devil is in the Details, but so is your solution.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lee, thanks for your keen observations. Sometime soon I'll write my overview after participating in these kinds of debates for several years now. But I think Christians are truly brainwashed for some of the reasons you mentioned. That's right, brainwashed. Most of them were brainwashed since childhood.

Christians and I reject all other religions. I simply reject their Christian religion with the same confidence they have when rejecting all other religions. The rejection of a religious viewpoint is the easy part. We all do it. And we're all confident when doing so. The hard part after the rejection is to affirm a religious viewpoint. And from what I see, many Christians are just as confident that they are right as that the others are wrong. But given the proliferation of religious viewpoints separated by geographical location around the globe, the fact that believers have a strong tendency to rationally support what they were taught to believe (before they had the knowledge or capability to properly evaluate it), along with the lack of compelling evidence to convince people who are outsiders to the Christian faith, it's just not reasonable to do this.

Anonymous said...

John,
I thank you for the opportunity to contribute.

You are right 100%.

And to add to that, I want to elaborate on your point that we have rejection of most religions in common and say that there is more in common between people than they will recognize. Its also the easy part to focus on the differences. In general we should all focus on our similarities, and realize that there are more similarities than differences.

In problem solving we look for what the commonalities are, we should do the same with each other.

Religion has historically been a way that groups of people actively distinguish themselves from each other. Evangelizing rather than accepting, Judging rather than accepting. Acceptance is the Ideal and ironically, in my view, Religions teach the philosophy of loving one another but they set conditions on it which makes unconditional acceptance unlikely. Their Gods get in the way.

Except where it conflicts with the principle of minimizing harm, I have few reasons that I can see not to unconditionally accept anyone.

Quixie said...

Fantastic post. Thank you.

Ó

Scott said...

I think the issue here what importance does one place on the details. Are they willing to ignore the details in exchange for personal comfort?

For example, I'm the kind of person who likes to know how things work. As such, when I look at the world around me, I'm surrounded by transparent things that exist in a concrete way. Details are an integral part of things in that their existence relies on them.

However, there are others who have little to no interest in details. In some cases, the details won't even appear on their radar unless some kind of external requirement is placed upon them. As such, the world is mostly filled with opaque things that simply 'are.' They are content with this and feel a strong intensive to stay at that level.

But what happens when we apply this view to the human condition, which consists of ego, fear, conciseness, free will, desires, etc? Do we see these things as opaque or transparent?

If you say that free will is merely a property that God applies to something, it is essentially opaque. The details are irrelevant because God says they were irrelevant.

In this way, I see the idea of God as an enabler for those who prefer to keep the world (or specific parts of it) opaque. He answers questions without actually answering questions. And that keeps people at the level of detail they are comfortable with. I think it also helps isolate people from the responsibility of making hard choices. Without details to conceder, the world is black and white. A world with details is filled with shades of grey.

I think we are, for the most part, good natured at our core. It's our view of the world that defines what options we have available and which options we should take. We have similar goals, but come to different conclusion on how to reach them based on how opaque or transparent our view of the world is.

The question becomes, how do you motivate someone to care about the very details which they find irrelevant or even uncomfortable? Epecially when atheism doesn't provide the comforting answers they have now and it's full of all those pesky details!

Rotten Arsenal said...

John W. Loftus:
Christians and I reject all other religions. I simply reject their Christian religion with the same confidence they have when rejecting all other religions.

I love this. It needs to be one of my email signatures!

Jim Holman said...

"Christianity depends on the Bible."

I think the Eastern and Catholic churches would say it's the other way around: the Bible depends on Christianity. They would remind you that the church existed for several centuries without a well-defined canon, and for most of that time, without even feeling much of a need for one.

Much in the liturgical churches cannot be found in the Bible. In particular I'm thinking of church hierarchy, the priesthood, many sacraments, the use of icons in worship, the liturgical calendar, church tradition, the writings of the church fathers, the liturgy itself, and the role of saints and the Virgin Mary.

Your observation that "Christianity depends on the Bible" is true, but only to the extent that you're talking about Protestant Christianity, that historically is a fairly recent development. But it is the version of Christianity that is most often discussed here, so I understand the basis of your comment.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jim,
remember the apostles creed? Why do you think that came about? and then remember the modification of the creed as a result of the disagreement between the churches on one of the tenets?

Where did the Tanakh come from? though it or the later book was canonized in the first century, the scripture pre-existed and served the purpose of defining terms.

They serve to consolidate and define what it is they were talking about.

thats not protestant churches.