Are "Emotional" Reasons to Leave the Faith Legitimate Reasons?

Yes, if these reasons are relevant to the question of the truth. So says one Christian Blogger named Joshua, who answers the accusation against me that I left the Christian fold merely for "emotional" reasons. He gets it!!
There is plenty of theology floating around that indicates that the church and people with God’s spirit “inside” of them will have certain features, and that the church will not be merely nominal in nature. So bad experiences are more epistemically relevant than you and many others might like to think. After all, doesn’t this approach what Jesus suggests when he says that people will know his disciples by their love? Indeed, only if we could rely solely on esoteric argumentation, and not our lives, to be a witness and sustainer of faith. Link.

9 comments:

BJ said...

I think leaving for emotional reasons can only take one so far. It can open the door to doubt, and then further investigation into the relationship between Christianity and objective reality will close the door behind you.

If Jesus suggests that people will know his disciples by their love, and you are not being loved, then doesn't that just say those people aren't Jesus' disciples? I'm not sure you can infer from this argument that Christianity is false and worth leaving the faith over.

I've read a few atheist books that say we can't judge whether something is true simply by an experience, since there's no way to validate that concept against reality. (I read "Why I Became An Atheist," but I can't say for certain how that book addresses this topic without the [awesome] book in front of me.) Similarly, I think this means we can't judge the falsity of a statement based on experience.

JDB said...

Amy,

When I (the author of the comment) wrote that, I wasn't trying to suggest that these "emotional" reasons constituted knock-down arguments against the Christian religion. I just think that, due to the significant and life-changing promises within the Christian religion, someone is not being wholly irrational in finding reasons for disbelief of this sort.

Yes, the statement of Jesus to which I refer does just say that our love should identify us as his followers. On this basis I would prefer to doubt the veracity of someone's self-understanding as a follower of Jesus. But it's not wholly unjustified to reason in Loftus's way - assuming these people are the best candidates for being followers of Jesus, it would seem that the apparent lack of God's spirit in them is indicative of something broader.

I would add however that even if all Christians were wholly wicked, Jesus could still be beautiful and the revelation could still be true - but I would count this as a hard lesson, and not a mere logical allowance.

Richard said...

It depends on the reason for joining in the first place.

If someone used emotion to justify joining their faith, then emotion justifies leaving it.

If someone reasoned themselves into a position, then they should reason their way out of it.

And, since so much of modern religion seems to depend on intuition and feeling, I'd expect that most people who leave will do it because of emotion.

edson said...

Yes, they are legitimate.

People convert to Christianity primarily for emotional reasons and only examine its truth claims later if they wish to and often they do not and we call them legitimate Christians. Why cant it be the other way round?

So this is basically a wake up call for Christians. To let our lives reflect Christ and preach that way. Actions speak louder than words.

But there are some emotional aspects that are not legitimate, in either case. You cannot opt to be a Christian to make money out of it and be a legitimate Christian and similarly you can fall out with your Pastor because he rebuked you of adultery and say your deconversion was legitimate.

This is not to chastise John. I have not even read his book and I have no clue what reasons deconverted him. I'm just speaking in the general sense.

___________________________ said...

Yeah, well, it is sort of funny as the basis of religion is fideism. Emotional reasons are often considered to be an ickiness. Intellectual reasons are considered a lack of faith or true understanding.

The only way that religion makes sense is if one recognizes that it is meant to be a belief that one just clings to dogmatically. This isn't to say that there are no intelligent theists, or ones that respond to intellectual concerns, but this generally belief isn't maintained in any manner similar to belief in other fields, and to a certain extent, it cannot be.

Rob R said...

I agree with this post. But while a human epistemology must be emotionally informed, obviously emotions can lead us astray. And in fact anything and everything can lead us astray. Logic itself can lead us astray as we are all limited in our ability to reason (though some of us are better than others) and our logic is dependent on our premises. Experience can lead us astray since experience must be interpreted. A robust epistemology must include it all for balance.

Gandolf said...

Hi Joshua Blanchard you said..."But it's not wholly unjustified to reason in Loftus's way - assuming these people are the best candidates for being followers of Jesus, it would seem that the apparent lack of God's spirit in them is indicative of something broader."

I agree.

"I just think that, due to the significant and life-changing promises within the Christian religion, someone is not being wholly irrational in finding reasons for disbelief of this sort."

Yeah and is this type of test/examination really so purely emotional?.

For instance before new medications are deemed to be beneficial.We do test runs and people observe any benefits etc and then weigh them up against any bad effects etc.

We look for evidence that they truly work for starters and then maybe decisions of benefits of their continued use often depends on which way the majorities help predict things will most likely work out.

Personally in my opinion the study of people claiming to be christian specially some having said that they supposedly (have had) some personal relationship with jesus the son of god etc (received the god injection/pill),must surely be very valid in a scientific like study to some extent?.

Specially when the trial has lasted over thousands of years!.How much time is needed for it to be considered thorough?

And as i look around can i say that the (majority) of christians, show any majority positive effect?.

In my opinion very far from it.And ill even go as far as to say that even with the most of those very few that i find that at first give me some feelings that maybe they just might actually have been honestly positively effected,soon enough forget and soon drop the theatrical dress code they wear like face paint.And prove to me in my opinion just how totally mere human they honestly only are.And i feel i see the difference only actually honestly lies on the surface,the depth really being honestly no thicker than the thickness of the cover of the particular religious book they choose to read.

I also look for evidence of any sign of this supposed supernatural being with his supposed intelligent design etc being at work and helping folks along.

For instance when some supposed christians are also involved with others in placing a cute anti Loftus song on youtube strangely choosing to use somebody who obviously cant sing for shit, maybe because they were very gleeful and even a little bent on personal revenge so being in such a hurried rush.

Im thinking hmmmm so why didnt this supposed god quickly have a little wee quiet personal word of advice in somebodies ear?.Im thinking so wheres the evidence of any supernatural intelligent design being involved in any of it?

Im thinking so then how personally honest and perfect are all these guys who seem to be so very worried about the personal perfection and honesty etc of others?.

So what do others think ,is it really just purely emotion thats driving me when i partly observe things in this manner?

Jeffrey Amos said...

While it's extremely hard to do this in a dispassionate way, perhaps the most important test for the truth of Christianity is if it appears to be true in the here and now. Not natural theology, not bible contradictions, not resurrection apologetics - the here and now.

Does prayer work? Do Christians seem to have an actual Holy Spirit guiding them? Do correct beliefs help lead to correct actions? Does suffering in the world seem to lead to a higher goal that makes it worth it?

Whenever the answer is no, a great deal of emotion is always attached. These emotions are not valid reasons to disbelieve. However, beneath the emotional pull is an actual logical argument.

The reason this is so important in persuading people is that the input data is available to all. I have never directly encountered a piece of data that proves the Holocaust happened or that the Roman Empire existed - not that I doubt it, I just don't run into it in my normal life.

By contrast, I have run into data that suggests the Holy Spirit isn't guiding Christians' interpretation of Scripture, he isn't guiding their decisions, and he isn't helping them be better people.

It's even harder to be objective about things like this than, say, biblical criticism, but it makes for an extremely valuable sanity check.

Gandolf said...

I observe there is certain faithful folks even on this blog who show signs of seeming to purposely avoid having absolutely anything to do with me (nasty non believer i am see).Im quietly thinking to myself holy cow!you can tell for sure just how wonderfully close the relationship they so often keep telling us they really have with Jesus, really is!.

Im so very impressed!, that sometimes for awhile it even leaves me feeling a little speechless.

Its so obvious they know nearly every word of the book from cover to cover and from their dedicated outlook, one could almost be sure they likely visit church at least once a week and read the good book 3times a day.
If i went along with them to their church most likely people there would all be very happily pleasant being all hyped up together in a type of spiritually glorified manner.Partly because whenever appropriate the tables would likely be full of food etc and their combined capital allows them to share many more things together, that singular families not in groups just dont often get to share in the same way they do.

It would be kinda nice and maybe might even be kinda helpful if the idea that the community at large could be pushed more as "the" group, to hopefully help bring more and more people together, who over time as years go by seem so far to have only fallen further and further apart.Having been subdivided into many little separatists circles of specialist brethren,naturally faiths having been such a great role model in our world for so long and having already shown us how they all stay together!it would be wrong to consider they might have had anything to do with this problem.



Being that folks often warn us that we need to be so beware of not allowing ourselves to be led to much by emotion,then naturally of course being led by emotional conversion surely cant have had that much to do with these faithful followers.Can it??

Its primely logic they first use as they first decide to go and follow these godly leaders and faiths.Which can be proved through their willingness to often follow prophets who seem despise and ignore certain people,just like Jesus did.

And it would only be emotional of me to ever go questioning it!.Could not really be thought common sense or trying to think logical.

Such a terrible thing this emotion very wicked and evil it is, and we all need to be ever so very bloody vigilant in denying it too much existence.