Labels:
"Christian Scholars"
Mr. Loftus does not even tackle the Bibles very prediction of this phenomenon in Romans 10:14-17. The apostle Paul states that faith comes from hearing, and hearing from preaching. Consequently one would suspect little Christian faith in a country where it is illegal to preach Christianity. Such is what we find at the moment giving rise to geographically placed Christianity specifically.
Mr. Loftus argues from the general to the particular. However there is no discussion about comparative religion and cultural heritage....For Mr Loftus’ argument to carry the weight he will need to define what one considers as part of the culture and what ones considers as a legitimate religion. Of course this will only weaken Mr Loftus’ case as it will become evidently clear that many of the examples given under the guise or religion are actually just cultural throw backs to antiquity,
if Mr Loftus wants the Christian to take ‘The Outside Test of Faith’ then surely he must ask the Christian to take the 'Insider Test of Atheism', or ITA. Meaning, showing why atheism makes sense and why people should not adopt skepticism towards atheism as appose to Christianity. Such a test would include proving miracles do not exists, beyond a shadow of a doubt; a naturalistic explanation for the origin of the universe, and the undeniable reasons why all religions (not just Christianity) should be disregarded. Indeed ITA would prove rather interesting placed alongside OTF, something Mr. Loftus fails to do in his book and on his blog.An edited version of the Outsider Test for Faith (OTF) can be found here, and my additional defense of it can be found here.
I'm really not sure how to respond. John Loftus and I have been friends for many years, ever since we were in seminary together in the 1970s. I respect his work and his particular brand of atheism. I think his book is an important contribution to the current intellectual defense of unbelief and appreciate it for the seriousness with which it takes faith and the intellectual case to be made for it. Also, as one who comes from a ministerial background and has suffered at the hands of the church in many of the same ways John has, I have a great deal of sympathy for the non-cognitive dimensions of his journey to unbelief that lie barely concealed between the lines and behind the pages of his book.
I have doubts. I think I know too much for it to be otherwise. And I think I'm far too honest with myself about the best that unbelief has to offer. I have not mastered the blissful ignorance or self-deception that so many conservative or evangelical Christians manage to shelter themselves with. I don't mean that to sound perjorative, but the fact of the matter is that I find it very difficult to convince very many "Bible believing" Christians that the case for unbelief has a single shred of intellectual strength, and that really bothers me.
Nonetheless, I do not consider myself to be on a road to unbelief, or in danger of "abandoning the faith" anytime soon -- or ever, for that matter. I decided a long time ago that the issue really comes down to which set of bothersome, unanswerable questions you're more at peace with -- those you're left with when you believe, or those you're left with when you don't. (One of my gripes about unbelievers is that they so often give the impression that the choice is between belief and lots of stubborn, unanswerable questions, or unbelief and full intellectual satisfaction.) Always I have been of the opinion that the unanswered questions of belief are much easier to live with than those of unbelief. For example (and this is a huge one for me), if I choose naturalism (which I see to be the only real alternative to theism), then I must accept that somewhere, at some time, something came into existence out of absolutely nothing. (For all the efforts of contemporary atheists to escape what Frank Hoyle saw clearly as the implications of big bang cosmology, this consequence still stands undefeated.) And this is a claim I don't even know how to begin to get my mind around. The perplexities (and they are many) of the problem of evil pale into nothing by comparison. Which is harder to conceive, that one powerful enough to create a universe might have plans too complex for us to fathom that somehow make some kind of sense out of the state we find the world in, or that everything from quarks to DNA to dwarf stars to the whole of the cosmos came out of absolutely, positively, indefinable emptiness??? Sometimes, when my doubts are raging, this is the only place my faith has to stand. But, even at those times, it is enough.
I do have to say that my faith has evolved in recent years to something that most conservatives or evangelicals might not consider "true Christianity." That's okay, though. I long ago stopped worrying about what anybody else thinks of my faith. I have withdrawn from most forms of church leadership -- I am honestly tired of the hassle, tired of the crap, and just plain tired. Furthermore, I find it harder and harder to sanction the bigotry and hard-heartedness that so often goes under the guise of redemptive behavior. Also, I'm much more inclined to a broadly inclusivistic respect for and even openness to other religious traditions, to the point that I am not ready to express anything like the quasi-exclusivistic "There is no other name" xenophobia that most conservative Christians insist on as a sine qua non of the faith.
When you add all of this together with the fact that several years ago I was divorced and remarried, I do tend to fall well outside most circles that many Christians are comfortable with. But, like I said, I long ago stopped worrying what anybody else thinks of me. It's a very serene way to live. I'm very happy, I'm very much at peace. Like Tillich, I meditate; unlike Tillich, I also pray. I've learned a great deal lately from the Pali Canon and the Tao te Ching. I've also gotten to know Jesus perhaps better than ever. I still know that the intellectual case for faith is good, but not overwhelming. But I'm becoming more and more convinced that the existential case for faith can be -- for those who seek it -- downright irresistible.
James F. Sennett
Labels:
"Christian Scholars"
Gradually, scepticism of the claims made by one religion was joined by scepticism of all such claims. Incredulity that anybody thought an archangel dictated a book to Mohammed produced a strange contradiction. I found myself still clinging to belief in Christianity. I was trying to believe — though rarely arguing — ‘Well, your guy didn’t hear voices: but I know a man who did.’ This last, shortest and sharpest, phase pulled down the whole thing. In the end Mohammed made me an atheist.
...the idea that there is any book ‘wherein is no doubt’ is insulting as well demonstrably untrue.HT Agnosis.
Mr. Loftus’ book is a thorough and comprehensive critical look at Christianity. It’s better than the books by the Atheist Four Horsemen, because he deals with what Christians actually believe, having been one himself. It’s hard core and will force you to justify your belief system.I'll add that to the other recommendations of my book, so thanks.
First, it would be good if the argument could be formulated with premises and a conclusion. Exactly what is he arguing for, and what is the basis for his argument.Okay, here it 'tis:
1. Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage. This is the religious diversity thesis.People in distinct geographical locations around the globe adopt and defend the religion of their upbringing and culture. This is an undeniable sociological fact. Anthropology shows us that human beings are locked inside their own cultures and cannot, without the greatest of difficulty, transcend their culturally adopted beliefs. Psychology shows us that human beings do not examine their beliefs dispassionately but rather seek to confirm that which they already believe. And unlike scientific, political and moral beliefs there are no mutually agreed upon tests to determine which religious faith is true. Therefore it seems reasonable to conclude that the religion a person adopts and defends is overwhelmingly dependent upon the “accidents of birth” rather than on a rational assessment of the case based upon the available evidence. Since this is so we should be just as skeptical of our own religious upbringing as we are with the other religious faiths we reject. The odds are that we’re wrong. We should be skeptical of our religiously inherited faih with the same amount of skepticism as we use to judge the other religious faiths that we reject. Here we have the notion of being “outsiders” to the religious faith in question, and as such it’s called “The Outsider Test for Faith.”
2. Consequently, it seems highly likely that adopting one’s religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. This is the religious dependency thesis.
3. Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.
4. So the best way to test one’s adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths. This ex-presses the OTF.
Second, it would be cheating to have a test and just mark our religious beliefs as the beliefs to be tested. Keith Parsons once asked, "Tell me, do you really think that, had you been born Vijay instead of Victor, and if you were from Bangalore rather than Phoenix, AZ, that you would not now be as devoted to Brahma as you are to God?" And the answer is I don't know. If Keith had grown up in the United Methodist church that I did, and had he discovered Plantinga or Lewis before leaving the fold, as opposed to converting briefly to West Rome Baptist Church and hearing weekly hellfire threats as an undergraduate, would he now be a Christian philosopher instead of an atheist? The "what if" game is far harder than it looks to play.I don’t mean to single out religious beliefs here, although that is indeed my focus. They are just more assuredly determined by one’s cultural upbringing than anything else we can predict. Some things would surely be hard to predict if events had turned out differently. I admit that we are all strongly influenced by the people and circumstances around us. This is what psychological studies show us. With different influences Keith Parsons could've ended up as a Christian philosopher, yes. That’s indeed how malleable the human mind is, his, mine, and Reppert's too. With different influences Reppert could've been an atheist philosopher! This is who we are as human beings. What we think and believe is molded and shaped by all of our experiences and influences, including everyone we talk to or study with, and everything we have ever read or witnessed. We know this even if we may not be able to predict what would’ve happened had something different taken place in someone’s life. I do know that had something different taken place then a particular person would be different in some ways, depending on the event and the impact that event had on him or her. But there are some things that are easier to predict, and one thing seems clearly to be the case that if we were born in different culture and with a different upbringing we would adopt the faith of our upbringing.
But I happen to know something about Vijay. Keith and I agree that there is an independently existing physical world. Vijay does not. If either of us had been born Vijay, we would think of the world of experience as maya, or illusion, and we would not see it as ultimately real. So it looks as if external world realism fails the outsider test. Yet I see no reason to be accept external world skepticism because if I had been born in India, I might have been brought up to reject external world realism.In this case Vijay would have to subject his own religious upbringing to the same kind of skepticism he uses to evaluate Christianity, the most materialistic of religions, as C.S. Lewis claimed. I think if Vijay did this he would end up being a skeptic about his prior held belief that the world is an illusion, or maya, which is a belief of his that goes against all the available evidence. Again, Vijay needs to subject that culturally adopted religious belief to skepticism. And in this regard Reppert is missing the point. Vijay’s views would not represent skepticism at all. His Eastern views are based in his religious faith, and as such I’m asking him to be skeptical of them. With regard to Reppert I'm not asking him to subject his knowledge that there is a real world with the religious faith of a Vijay that the world is an illusion. If Reppert wants to instead talk about some kind of extreme type of Cartesian skepticism which might lead someone to solipsism then he’s attributing to me a kind of skepticism of which I do not embrace at all, which no one can be that skeptical anyway. The OTF does not ask for complete and utter skepticism. It merely asks us to be as skeptical of our own culturally adopted religious faith as we are of the others we reject.
What about moral beliefs? I think that rape is wrong. If I had been brought up in a certain culture, I'm told, I would believe that rape is OK if you do it in the evening, because a woman's place is at home under her husband's protection, and if she is gone she's asking for it. So my belief that rape is wrong flunks the outsider test. This gives me no basis whatsoever for doubting that rape is wrong.There is a difference between moral and religious beliefs, although they are indeed intertwined in many religions. The OTF is a test to examine religious faiths, not moral or political beliefs. When I refer to religious faith, I’m referring to beliefs that are essential for a member to be accepted in a particular religious community of faith who worship together and/or accept the same divinely inspired prophetic/revelations and/or those beliefs whereby one’s position in the afterlife depends. The reason for this definition is clear, since the outsider test is primarily a challenge about the religious faith of communities of people. It also applies secondarily in lesser degrees to individual philosophers espousing metaphysical, political, and/or ethical viewpoints who are not guided primarily by communal religious experiences but who are still influenced by the cultural milieu in which they live. Hence the OTF will have a much greater degree of force against religious faiths of religious communities than on individual philosophers not involved in a religious community.
The amount of skepticism warranted depends on the number of rational people who disagree, whether the people who disagree are separated into distinct geographical locations, the nature of those beliefs, how they originated, how they were personally adopted in the first place, and the kinds of evidence that can possibly be used to decide between them. My claim is that when it comes to religious beliefs a high degree of skepticism is warranted because of these factors.That’s what I said, and so in this instance as with many other moral beliefs they do not suffer the same consequences from applying the OTF. Beliefs like the acceptability of rape are based on religious beliefs anyway, so they are subject to the outsider test precisely because of the nature and origin of those beliefs, as I said. I know of no non-believer who would ever want to defend the morality of rape, for instance, unlike believers in the past and present who do because of some so-called inspired text. We know rape is wrong, and we also know that this kind of behavior is sanctioned by religious beliefs, as is honor killing. The religious person who thinks rape is morally acceptable should subject that belief to skepticism as an outsider. And when he does this he will begin to doubt his previously held religious/moral beliefs, as I’ve argued. When it comes to Reppert, I think his moral belief that rape is wrong will survive his own skepticism, for there is evidence that as a father of a daughter he would want to help maintain a free society where she can go about her business free from being accosted. If Reppert wants to provide an argument where he can defend the morality of rape I’d like to see this. I would find it very strange if in order to escape the OTF Reppert must defend the morality of rape. That seems too high of a price to pay, but if that’s what he wants to do, then I’m all ears. [Speaking of morality, let me remind the reader that I’ve argued elsewhere that morality has evolved].
What about political beliefs? I think that representative democracy is a better form of government than monarchy. If I lived in 16th Century Europe, or in other parts of the globe, I probably would not believe that. So my belief in democratic government flunks the outsider test. However, this gives me no reason to have the least doubt that democracy is better than monarchy.The same things can be said about political beliefs as I said about moral beliefs. Listen, there are a great many political and moral beliefs which we think are essential to a human society but which are not necessary at all. Democracy is one of them. People have done fine without democracy from the beginning when a dominant male lion or ape ruled the others and had free reign with a harem of females. That being said I think there is evidence that supports the fact that as rational animals we are happier when we have a say in how a country is run. And we have also found ways to include minority thinking too, with some proper checks and balances. And when people around the world vote with their feet they sail, fly and run to a democratic government. Further evidence for this is the crumbling of dictatorial socialist communist governments. But once again, I would find it very strange if in order to escape the OTF Reppert must deny that democracy is a better form of government than a monarchy or dictatorship. That seems too high of a price to pay, but if that’s what he wants to do, then I’m all ears.
What about scientific beliefs? If I had been born in the Islamic world, or in some Christian churches, I would have been taught to reject the theory of evolution in its entirety. So it looks like the theory of evolution fails the outsider test. Nevertheless, this in itself is insufficient grounds for the slightest doubt about evolution.Here it becomes obvious that Reppert does not know what the OTF is about. Scientific thinking is in a different category altogether from religious faiths (see the specific criteria mentioned above). We do not learn about science merely from our parents, although hopefully we do. We can personally do the experiments ourselves. So scientific testing is independent of what someone tells us to believe and so it does not require the same level of skepticism about its conclusions. There are mathematical and experimental results that are independently verified time and again. But when it comes to religious faiths there are no mutually agreed upon reliable tests to decide between them, and this makes all of the difference in the world. With regard to Reppert’s example, the OTF requires religious believers to subject their creationist theories to the skepticism of the scientist, theories which were learned on their Mama’s knee and tenaciously defended because some ancient superstitious pre-scientific set of writings say so. Science and scientific thinking is the best and probably only antidote to these creationist religious myths, myths which other religions differ about.
Finally, a certain natural conservatism with respect to changing our minds about matters of world-view, or any other issue for that matter, is both natural and rational. I thought the lesson of things like Cartesian foundationalism is that if you throw out all sort of beliefs as unjustified and load the burden of proof onto those beliefs, it's hard to stop and have anything left. Most people thought that Descartes had to cheat to get his world back. If we have to be skeptics about all of our sociologically conditioned beliefs, I am afraid we are going to be skeptics about a lot more than just religion.Well, it’s certainly the case that conservatism is natural with respect to people not wanting to change their beliefs. It’s so natural to us that we as human beings will go to some extreme lengths to defend what we want to believe. So I see nothing about this conservatism which is justified, otherwise, at some extreme level we’d still believe in Santa Claus, or that our fathers can do anything, or patriots would still defend America “whether right or wrong” in their later years. This also undercuts the whole notion that such conservatism is rational as well. The rational thing to do, which we humans are not too good at, is to grow and learn and think and investigate and follow the arguments and evidence wherever they lead. That's the rational thing to do despite wanting to hold on to beliefs which cannot be reasonably justified.
Labels:
"Victor Reppert"
This might be the cover of BAR's next issue if we all vote for it.Do you think they know something? I doubt very much that they do, but if they do then let's give it a simple DNA test to see if there are traces of female DNA in it! LOL Why do we have to put up with this shit? Why does this stuff persist? Christians claim to have heard the howls of hell down through oil digs, too. What a sham this all is, and waste of time, space, effort, and intelligence. I think Hector Avalos is right. Biblical studies as we know it should end.
According to the best interpretations of the archaeological evidence, Jericho was destroyed around 1550 B.C.E. and was not settled again until after 1000 B.C.E. But the emergence of Israel dates to around 1200 B.C.E., right in the middle of this 500-year gap. If Joshua and his troops had surrounded Jericho, there would have been nobody home.Then Hendel goes on to try to salvage some kind of historicity to the story itself involving mythical giants in the land, whom it was believed were sired from the sons of god mating with women (Genesis 6). But one myth cannot be used to lend credibility to another one. He may be correct about what the Israelites believed, but I see no reason to accept any of this as historical at all. Apparently there were a number of these giants in the land--even Goliath was one of them. Where are the archaeological digs revealing any of the skeletal remains of even one of these giants? Again, there are none.
How much knowledge of the natural universe do you have? What is the percentage? Give me an estimate. I would like to know.The import of such a question is reflected in the title to this post. Some believers think, perhaps Harvey does too, that in order for me to claim a god doesn't exist I need to know all things. Really? This is so laughable I hardly know where to start, but here we go...
I don't bother with them much. They're in a world of their own. One simply cannot presuppose the truths of disputable historical events prior to investigating whether or not those events actually took place and keep a straight face.
Many people say they have experienced the supernatural - receiving a miracle, hearing God speak to them, etc. Pastors such as Mark Driscoll write about their experience with prophetic dreams, seeing demonic attacks, etc. (His book "Confessions of a Reformission Rev detail these things). I have a friend who goes to a Christian school, and tells of the time they prayed for a girl with a broken foot - the next day, it was healed. She didn't have to wear her cast anymore, she was walking fine, etc.In part here is my response:
It would be easiest to say that they are lying, making these stories up - but I know my friend, and have no reason to think he would make up a story like that (He's not charismatic, and has never claimed to have seen any other "miracles"). Additionally, I have verified this story of the "healed foot" - everyone claims it really happened. Still, it's tough for me to fully trust this, as I have never personally seen this kind of supernatural event take place.
Obviously, people from other religions claim to experience this too - it doesn't seem to be limited to Christianity, although the large majority of miraculous stories/healings are found in the Christian faith. Would you tend to believe that most/all of these experiences are fictional?
Honestly, at this point in my journey, I just want to know the truth - which is what drew me to you, as I know you are after truth as well. I'm sure you have thought about the claims of supernatural experience, so if you could offer any insight into this area, I would greatly appreciate it.
DC receives pennies on the dollar no matter what you buy at no extra cost and helps keep me Blogging. There are other ways to donate too. Thank you all so very much!
