Apostates and the Trust Factor
I've written about the fear factor earlier. Christians and atheists fear for the future if one side dominates the landscape. Now let me write about the trust factor. We don't trust each other to be truthful and objective with the evidence. Red flags go up whenever the other side makes an argument because we don't trust each other's research nor their authors. On each side of the fence we think the other side distorts its facts to fit their preconceived conclusions.
That’s why Ed Babinski has argued that if we do a great deal of reading we will eventually read an author just a little to the left of us, perhaps in college as part of a research project. While this author may be outside our comfort zone he’s not so far out there that we can't give him some kind of benefit of the doubt. Then if he convinces us we’ll read a book he recommends which might be to the left of him. This process takes place slowly if at all. That’s the process by which I learned to reject my Christian faith. It wasn’t because I read the atheist literature, although I read a few of their books, it was because I continued to read book after book by Christian authors who were more theologically liberal than the previous one. It was Christian scholarship that eventually caused the downfall of my faith. And their books were books that didn’t throw up the red flags because they were only a step to the left of me rather than being way over on the other side of the intellectual universe.
When it comes to the trust factor there is one type of person who stands in the gap between atheists and Christians. It's the apostate; whether it’s a former Christian who became an atheist, or a former atheist who became a Christian. The impact of their apostasy has more of an effect when we personally know them, but it does have a general impact on the other side anyway, especially the more well-known the person is.
These apostates are usually not liked by the side they left because they are an embarrassment to them. Since apostates have some kind of credibility the opposing side tries to discredit them. That’s probably one of the reasons why the team members here at DC are personally attacked so much. The attempt is to discredit us in one way or another so believers can write us off. It makes them feel better. It lets them sleep at night. It reassures them that the problem wasn’t with the faith at all, but rather that the problem was us.
Okay, I guess.
My view is that people just change their minds from time to time, that’s all. We do this about a myriad of issues throughout our lives. Why should it be different with regard to religious or non-religious beliefs? We don’t ever need to attack the apostate who leaves our side for the other side. I don't do this. People are people and they believe for different reasons, that’s all.
That’s why Ed Babinski has argued that if we do a great deal of reading we will eventually read an author just a little to the left of us, perhaps in college as part of a research project. While this author may be outside our comfort zone he’s not so far out there that we can't give him some kind of benefit of the doubt. Then if he convinces us we’ll read a book he recommends which might be to the left of him. This process takes place slowly if at all. That’s the process by which I learned to reject my Christian faith. It wasn’t because I read the atheist literature, although I read a few of their books, it was because I continued to read book after book by Christian authors who were more theologically liberal than the previous one. It was Christian scholarship that eventually caused the downfall of my faith. And their books were books that didn’t throw up the red flags because they were only a step to the left of me rather than being way over on the other side of the intellectual universe.
When it comes to the trust factor there is one type of person who stands in the gap between atheists and Christians. It's the apostate; whether it’s a former Christian who became an atheist, or a former atheist who became a Christian. The impact of their apostasy has more of an effect when we personally know them, but it does have a general impact on the other side anyway, especially the more well-known the person is.
These apostates are usually not liked by the side they left because they are an embarrassment to them. Since apostates have some kind of credibility the opposing side tries to discredit them. That’s probably one of the reasons why the team members here at DC are personally attacked so much. The attempt is to discredit us in one way or another so believers can write us off. It makes them feel better. It lets them sleep at night. It reassures them that the problem wasn’t with the faith at all, but rather that the problem was us.
Okay, I guess.
My view is that people just change their minds from time to time, that’s all. We do this about a myriad of issues throughout our lives. Why should it be different with regard to religious or non-religious beliefs? We don’t ever need to attack the apostate who leaves our side for the other side. I don't do this. People are people and they believe for different reasons, that’s all.
13 comments:
The objective is to be objective.
But who actually is? Can be?
Nothing like a couple of ad homs first thing in the morning, eh?
I think Mr. Loftus is right about this. I'm not going to pay much attention to what a fundamentalist has to say about the afterlife, and they're not too likely to listen to me, either.
It's people just this far outside our comfort zone that are more likely to expand our horizons or lead us in a different direction.
Maybe that's why apostasy is such a big deal in certain quarters. Hmmm . . . I do enjoy new thoughts first thing on a Friday.
I really like this discussion about trust because it truly is the heart of the issue. Whom do we trust? Whose opinions or interpretation of facts do we trust? What evidences do we trust? Even if we can all agree to "follow the evidence wherever it may lead," as many philosophers have proposed and lived by (a la Antony Flew), we are still faced with the fact that we interpret and either accept or reject evidence based on our own assumptions and presuppositions.
And to ANDREW: You are not being helpful or insightful at all. You are an embarrassment to me, a Christian, in the way you are treating John. What you are posting is a matter for a private discussion, not a public dialog.
Trust? Well, maybe the lack of trust is EARNED. Take the attempts to creep religion into the schools. They lost at 'creationism' so they changed it to 'inteligent design'. They claim irreducible complexity of the eye, yet that has been disproven and they still use it as tho no one ever disproved it. They ignore the evidence and keep spouting the same old lies. They lost at school prayer so they water it down to 'moment of silence'. They claim to be peace loving and yet, the minute they want to support Bush in a war, they can pull war-supporting verses out of their bloody violent Bible. They use a bizarre rule in the Old Testment to justify mistreatment of gays. Their sacred book contains to much scary stuff that could be taken literally to harm most anyone they WANT to harm for whatever reason. I won't ever trust Christians because they are not trustworthy, as they continue to prove.
goprairie, is it really true that all Christians can be described as you say? If so, then would it also be true to say that all atheists could be described in one specific way? Isn't that an old ad hominem that atheists claim to reject?
I like these thoughts here. The whole one-step-at-a-time process seems to be somewhat common, although my personal process was a little different. This sort of implies, however, that it's conceivable it could go the other way - reading authors a little to the right of oneself. But I'm not sure how common that really is...it seems like there is more of a substantial "initial investment" when entering Christianity. Once you're "in", it's easier to lose bits and pieces gradually...
The other thing I wanted to bring up is that you see apostates as the "middle ground". One could also see liberal Christians as sort of a middle ground as well. I think I might have mentioned it before, but I recently read David Myers' "A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists", and I'd highly recommend it. It's not a polemical tirade about evil atheists, but it's a gentle reminder that the mainline, moderate/liberal Christians are not public enemy #1. He makes a good case for the moderate religious person, and I found it refreshing to read after spending so much time reading the anti-religion and anti-atheism books. Like I said, I highly recommend it. (And it's cheap, too!)
Kenn,
As they say, knowing is half the battle.
When you know the ways in which we may lack objectivity, then you're on the look out for them. You can cross reference. You can get multiple opinions. You can look for underlying motivations., You can sleep on it. Etc.
Unfortunately, many people are unaware of these processes and the impact goes far beyond religion.
Theists who acknowledge these processes appear to think they can avoid them completely as divine revelation is the fast-track to truth, or they have some magical, immaterial aspect that is impervious to them.
In the end, attempting to be mindful, informed and aware is the best we can do. In fact, i'd say it's our responsibility to ourselves and others.
If God is omniscient, he knows every single way we can be unbiased. Would he present himself in such a way that must exploit them or require us to fail pray to them in order to believe he exists?
This would not be the behavior I'd expect from a perfect being.
Onthis I tend to agree, though never udnerstood why peopel feel threatened by peopel who disagree, even if form the same background.
I never felt threatendd by Ex Christians, though I do tire of bad arguments which I hear from many. (Not to say all Christians who offer arguments offer god ones, but that is not going to be explored here.)
I think perhaps this is true.
I went through this process but came to a different conclusion. It had come to the point, where it felt I had with the help of these authors taken apart most of my belief structure (and for a while hung with the Unitarians because of this). But then after that, I went through a process of reconstruction (folks like the Niebuhr brothers, etc) of trying to put together a plausible Christian faith. The result is liberal, it's protestant (my sister thinks I'm still going to hell), but it's a way of thinking and living out a religion that makes sense within the mainline. I suppose the continium I'm thinking of is from Dorthee Soelle who writes about the faith of the village, the dispensing with faith in the secular city, and then going back...but not really. A sort of post-naive faith, one that has tried to take the lessons gained in reformulating a responsible faith (intellectually, morally and otherwise). That's one route some folks go in what I take to be a similar process as described here.
Scott,
Seems to me religion begins with the conclusion, then sets out to prove it. That, among other things, convinced me that there is nothing supernatural.
I wrote: If God is omniscient, he knows every single way we can be unbiased. Would he present himself in such a way that must exploit them or require us to fail pray to them in order to believe he exists?
While one can probably figure out what I meant here, I wanted to correct what are obvious errors.
Should have said...
If God is omniscient, he knows every single way we can be biased. Would he present himself in such a way that must exploit [our biases] or require us to fall pray to [our biases] in order to believe he exists?
A bit of further correction:
fall pray should be fall prey.
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