The Dangers of Apologetics

33 Replies

"[I]f a Catechumen ask thee what the teachers have said, tell nothing to him that is without. For we deliver to thee a mystery, and a hope of the life to come. Guard the mystery for Him who gives the reward. Let none ever say to thee, What harm to thee, if I also know it? So too the sick ask for wine; but if it be given at a wrong time it causes delirium, and two evils arise; the sick man dies, and the physician is blamed. Thus is it also with the Catechumen, if he hear anything from the believer: both the Catechumen becomes delirious (for he understands not what he has heard, and finds fault with the thing, and scoffs at what is said), and the believer is condemned as a traitor. But thou art now standing on the border: take heed, pray, to tell nothing out; not that the things spoken are not worthy to be told, but because his ear is unworthy to receive. Thou wast once thyself a Catechumen, and I described not what lay before thee. When by experience thou hast learned how high are the matters of our teaching, then thou wilt know that the Catechumens are not worthy to hear them. "

– St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Prologue 12)

"Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you." – Matthew 7:6

33 thoughts on “The Dangers of Apologetics”

theomorph Friday, May 20, 2005 at 7:20 pm

“ It was an act of the will, a choice, to begin behaving as though what you had previously experienced subjectively was a false proposition.“

Would that you had been there to see the whole thing transpire. Perhaps it would alter your perspective (as my perspective of Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader has now been altered–sorry, Star Wars on the brain today!) and help you understand my own perspective a little better.

I have attempted this biographical sketch elsewhere, never to my complete satisfaction, as it is difficult to portray what was happening. My last few years in Christianity were marked by an incredible intensity and outpouring of service, evangelism, defense of the faith, biblical and theological study, church leadership, submission to altered life-plans (I was ready to train for full-time ministry), the works. I was the guy that friends came to when they had doubts, like I was some kind of guru or something (if you think that’s weird, imagine how I felt about it—and still do).

But by that time, my belief had been radically altered from its previous ways. Before then, my faith was about God coming to me. I lived, suffered, prayed, beseeched God to enter my life, tried to do all the right things, etc. At one point, I remember telling a close friend that I would go behind closed doors, get on my knees, lie on my face, whatever, and pray fervently, only to feel that my prayers were “bouncing off the ceiling.” (I think a lot of people have had that experience.) In other words, I just assumed that God was there, that he was going to come down to me when I wanted, and that not seeing God in everyday life was just because God didn’t want to be seen.

But then I had a kind of revelation, that God was not going to come to me–that would be selfish–but that I should become a conduit for God to reach the world. That submission became an act of will, and I began to reflect on life, the universe, and everything (as the inimitable Doug Adams put it), and to learn ways of “recognizing” God in the world, of helping other people to “see” this God as well. (Perhaps now it makes sense why I would have been drawn to full-time ministry.) I even went a little in the way of the mystics, balancing on that line between the immanence and transcendence of God, living in the unknown-ness and mystery of God. It became very much a paradoxical thing to me, and I finally felt that I was beginning to understand faith in a God who does not really “speak,” but whom everyone can “hear,” if only they quieted their own desires and “listened.” I embraced the God who does not “exist,” but who transcends existence and manifests himself to our limited human minds as “divine” mysteries such as the Incarnation and the Trinity.

But all the while, I had a growing sense of unease, because this Divine Mystery that I was “seeing,” well, when I wasn’t looking for it, it wasn’t there. I began to feel a terrible fear that, should I stop seeking God, stop looking for God, stop cultivating a God-directed mindset, God would disappear, and I didn’t like what that implied–that my previous experience of assuming that God was there, only to find him absent, was the more accurate perception. At the time, I still thought of atheism as the ultimate despair, of being trapped in that room with prayers “bouncing off the ceiling” forever. But I didn’t want God to feel like an illusion, either.

It was a strange feeling. I didn’t feel like I was doing “all the work” to “get to God”–rather, it was quite easy to “find” God, if only I looked for him–but I didn’t feel like God was coming to me, either. Finally, one morning, after I met with my seminary advisor to set up my first semester of classes, and told him I just couldn’t go through with it, that I felt dishonest, I went to a cafe, sat down, and contemplated my situation.

I knew that I doubted that God I could “find” so easily, and questioned whether anything I, as a limited human being, could find would truly be “God.” I had tried simply assuming that God was there, and calling out to him, and I had tried actively seeking God. There were faults to each “method.” The first was surely too selfish, which is easy for anyone to see, but the faults of the second are more difficult to detect. If I submit myself to God, if I choose to seek God in all things that I do, if I try to negate my own will, to accept the mysteries and paradoxes as evidence of Something Greater, what is this God I am seeking? If I am the one seeking and submitting, isn’t all of my seeking and submitting ultimately colored by my own perceptions? How can I be sure that the God I am seeing is truly God, the Only Wise God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth? Simply, I cannot. The only sure thing can be God himself, and only God can make himself known, only God can make himself real, only God can manifest himself, only God can reveal himself as God.

So I decided, just as I had put aside my former selfish pleading version of God, to put aside my subjective God, too, and allow God to be God, while I would be me, since there is nothing else and no one else that I can be. That is, I could neither conjure God–because God will not be conjured–nor could I be a conduit of God, because I am surely inadequate for such a task, so God may be God, regardless of my actions, and I shall not attempt to move him, nor to blaspheme him (even unwittingly) by letting my perceptions change him, nor those of others, as we are all humans and subject to the same frailties–including institutional ossification. So I took off the God Glasses, to make a perhaps trite sounding metaphor, and decided to look at the world the only way I could: through my own eyes. If God is there, then God sees me and I do not need to see him, just as those sparrows do not need to see him. If God is God, he has given me life and the ability to think and my own, special way of seeing the world, and it would be better that I enjoy those qualities of my individuality (since, if God is God, my being here is his gift to me).

In other words, my decision, my act of will, was to stop “believing” God was there, not to start “believing” that he wasn’t. Belief, because it can only be subjective, is a path to error. Beliefs that may begin with good intentions, that may seem correct, can become substitutes for reality, for the object of those beliefs. There is nothing that can be said of God that can always be true, because anything that can be said can be met with a counter proposition, but God, if he is truly God, cannot be countered, cannot be negated, cannot be touched.

So now I am an “atheist,” a label which is frustrating, misleading, destructive, nothing but trouble, and, unfortunately, the only word I know that approaches accuracy. As I have said before, if I could put aside the word (as I have tried to put aside belief), then I would.

What is the situation, then, when I accept the mantle of “atheist”? Here it gets pretty philosophical, and that suits me just fine, because reality does not conform to everyday language anymore than God does. We all relate to the ultimate, to existence, to whatever you want to call it. Some people relate to it via “theism”; I do not. When I say I do not believe in God, it does not mean that I deny the ultimate, or that I deny reality or existence, or that I deny what is undeniable (and, unfortunately, beyond articulation as well), but that I do not believe as believers do. Are there powers greater than I? Of course–life and death come to mind most immediately. The Christian God, in Jesus, is a story or a metaphor about life and death and our relation to them. But it is only a metaphor, only a story, and as such ultimately and fundamentally misleading. The Truth, because it is inherently beyond humanity, is also inherently comprehensible to humanity, even in paradoxes, mysteries, and metaphors and stories of the divine. So what would I rather do? Serve a story, or live a life?

I know it’s a fine line, and a difficult one for a lot of people to understand, which is perfectly okay with me, but my own experience leads me here and nowhere else.

So, as usual, you may believe what you prefer to believe and think as your mind thinks most naturally, but I shall do the same. Ultimately, however, we live in the same world and using those differences of thought as excuses for conflict, or assuming that everyone can and should think the same way, would be silly. But even though we can’t all think the same way, we must all live together. There is no way around this problem except to allow for our differences by governing our society not according to our different perspectives of reality, but according to our similar problems of existence. Putting a particular metaphysical perspective of ultimacy into the driver’s seat of government would be harmful to everyone, especially since government does not need a particular metaphysical perspective of ultimacy to function. Government needs only to moderate disputes between people, to help protect them from each other (not from themselves), to allow them to be ends in themselves instead of the means of others, not to instruct them how to think or believe about the ultimate nature of existence. Which is why I can’t really be anything but a libertarian. I know what it’s like to be different and an oddball in a society where most people are content to fit into groups of like-minded folk, and who feel safer when they can assume that everyone else thinks as they do, and I don’t want my individuality stripped away by people who want me either to think as they do, or behave in such a way as they are able to maintain the illusion for themselves that I think as they do.

As for eliminating “damn ignoramuses,” I have thought long an
theomorph Friday, May 20, 2005 at 7:22 pm

(Geez… raise the limit to 10,000 characters and I still go over…)

As for eliminating “damn ignoramuses,” I have thought long and hard on this problem, and still struggle with it. Here is the question that haunts me: What must be done with those who are either unwilling or incapable of thinking rationally? One can only “use your words, not your fists” (as I recently read on a classroom poster) for so long until it becomes apparent that some people simply will not or can not use words. This is why I think all good societies must have the ability to invert their ideals at their edges: your society may be the most internally tolerant and peaceful one around, but when outsiders are not willing to respect that, you must be willing to suspend your peace and tolerance when barbarians approach the city walls, so to speak. Difficult decision, and hard for a lot of folks to understand these days, especially on the Left.

Anyway, this has been long enough, and I have drunk three cups of coffee while writing it, so a particular biological exigency presents itself. 🙂
gbm3 Monday, May 16, 2005 at 3:54 pm

Actually, it’s not just the unbeliever that is objectively insulted:

1 Corr 1:17-31
For Christ did not send me [Paul] to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.
The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are **being saved** it is the power of God.
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the learning of the learned I will set aside.”
Where is the wise one? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?
For since in the wisdom of God the world did not come to know God through wisdom, it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation to save those who have faith.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Consider your own calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing, to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God.
It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,
so that, as it is written, “Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.”

Paul’s calling the Christian “the foolish”, “the weak”, “the lowly and despised of the world, those who count for nothing”.

What does this say about Christians? Should we be insulted? Certainly not. It’s simply the way it is.

Accept the Truth for what it reveals.

—
Steve Nicoloso Monday, May 16, 2005 at 6:31 am

Au contraire, Funky, I think the hornets’ nest is a very healthy place to be. Well, not really. But you can learn a lot (about yourself and others) from the rant… just as, I suppose, you get to know folks better when drinking, and best when drinking most!

Theo, you’re absolutely right: being compared to dogs and swine is insulting. It ought to be insulting, and it was originally intended to be insulting. And the theosophical hucksters who want to gloss over and explain away such verses because they’re ever so ever not-so-nice sounding? They’re full of crock, pure bovine excrement, and serve only as a poison for everything that Christianity stands for. For such “apologetic handlers” do the one thing which Christianity cannot survive intact: treat it as irrelevant.

This is based on the absurd assumption that “good people” can simply agree to disagree, and still think highly of each other. It’s a Christianized, baptized I’m okay-You’re okay-Aren’t we all so very just okay. Don’t get me wrong, in many cases this is true and ought to be true. I really shouldn’t go around thinking you’re an a$$hole for preferring Miller Lite to my Bud Light (iiiick to both… just an illustration). But are all such questions really so trivial? Do ideas have no real consequences? Modernity’s high priests of secularism (left, right, and everything in between) would have us believe: YES. All morality, ethics, intellectual pursuits, value, are all purely matters of taste. And secularism cannot abide, cannot coexist with, cannot tolerate (oddly enough) a “belief that there are goods that do not reduce to human desire.” [link]

In short, this militantly secularist impulse is at war with all ideas that matter–matter enough to yell about, matter enough to think poorly of another for contradicting, matter enough to (at some extreme) kill for, matter enough to ultimately die for. And you’re all upset about being called a dog? Tsk, tsk. Just be glad this isn’t the 13th century! Ideas matter, Theo, at least to those of us to whom ideas matter. I like you. You’re a way better dog than most of the dogs I know in my own faith tradition. For all I know, you’re a better dog than me. But let’s not play “nice” and pretend that none of this stuff matters. If you’re right, then it doesn’t. But if I’m right, it matters a helluva lot (pun intended). Now I wouldn’t touch a hair on your head if my life depended on it, but don’t expect me to say that I think your opinions on matters surrounding Christian faith are just as worthy or compelling as those of the Apostles and Fathers of the Church.

Now this bit:

I’m wondering why Christian belief all but requires you to question the worthiness or fitness or mental faculties of people who don’t believe, based simply on the fact that they don’t see what you see, presumably because your God has made them that way. Of course, no, you would have to be elitist, because the alternatives aren’t very attractive: (1) what you see is just as valid as what anyone else sees, meaning Christianity is not about some exclusive understanding of ultimate truth, or (2) what you see is not there and you are just deluding yourself by claiming to see it.

really gets at the heart of the matter. What you say here makes perfect (unassailable) sense iff the way to “see” what we claim to “see” is apprehended by intellectual faculties. It is not. This is why apologetics is dangerous and relatively useless. What we claim to see can only be apprehended through faith (the ol’ believing is seeing thing), and that is NOT (fundamentally NOT) an intellectual, rationalized endeavor. It is rather a function of will. I’ll say it till I’m blue in the face, people believe (or refuse to believe) what they want to believe (or refuse to believe). It is as simple as that. You’re asking the wrong questions. No, God didn’t make you (or anyone else) deficient, so that “his truth” was hidden from your eyes (and made so starkly “obvious” to ours). You have engaged in an (on-going) act of the will, as has Funky, as have I, as has any reader. So just keep being pissed off that God isn’t being the kind of god you would rationally expect him to be (i.e., a rational logical positivist slam dunk), for in being pissed about it, you’re getting a large part of it right.

My $0.02
theomorph Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 4:23 am

Dogs and swine, eh? Fine way to think of those who reject your religion.

Though I do recall quoting that verse once, just as you have, to point out the dog/swine metaphor, and being chastised for taking it out of context. So how does your taking it out of context make it better than my taking it out of context?
theomorph Saturday, May 21, 2005 at 1:06 am

How can anyone say “God is not there”?

The person who believes in God cannot say it, both because he believes God is there and because he can’t make factual declarations about God.

The person who does not believe in God cannot say it, both because he cannot make statements about something he doesn’t believe in, but also because he can’t make factual declarations about God, either.

As well, for similar reasons, no one can say “God is there.” So why bother talking about God when there are plenty of other things about which we can make factual and useful statements?
theomorph Thursday, May 26, 2005 at 8:39 am

I am an individual. I have always been an individual. For as long as I can remember (and before, according to my mother, who like all mothers has known me longer than anyone else), I have been an individual with bizarre, unique, and sometimes frightening perspectives on just about everything. To be such an individual and then have people try to hammer you into a religion where individuals are desecrated, degraded, and destroyed according to their pathological “communal” ideals is an excruciating experience. You can spend the rest of your life denying my point of view, calling it balderdash or “unadulterated protestantism” or “horse puckey” or whatever other insulting, degrading terms you can come up with, but the fact remains that my perspective is not, nor ever will be, the same as yours. I am willing to accept that some people, many people, perhaps most people are content with this “communal” religion, to drown their individuality and identity in some “greater” system, because throughout the history of our species, that’s precisely what most people have done. But I cannot, nor will I accept when others deny that my point of view is valid. How can my point of view be invalid when it is the only thing I know, except if I am somehow defective? But I am not defective, nor am I a fool, nor am I capable of denying what I am, much to the chagrin of many around me, as any of my friends or family will tell you. If you cannot accept that I am not lying, that I intend no deceit, that I am absolutely earnest and honest in my attempts at explicating what I see with this mind of mine, if you insist on telling me that I am somehow lying, or intentionally ignorant, or playing the fool, then what more can I say?

“Not even Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson could be accused of trying to get people to believe against their will.“

Try living at the other end of their mission and see how it feels. Try watching the World Trade Center collapse and feeling all the same emotion and outrage as everyone else, only to have people like these guys try to pin the blame for it on people like you. Whatever.

I have tried to be a conciliatory atheist, but clearly you don’t believe your Christianity has the ability or even the need to practice conciliation. Does not play well with others, your Christianity. So screw conciliation. If Christianity can’t tolerate people with other perspectives, then your Christianity deserves to be smeared and smashed and wiped from the face of the earth. Why? Because I am a person of another perspective, and I will not capitulate.

Oddly enough, however, there are plenty of other Christians who seem to think that people like me are acceptable, that our perspective is workable, and that we can live side by side without denying the viability or honesty of each other’s point of view. What are those people? Not Christians? Have they given up their core beliefs?

So you apparently don’t think the social contract is worthwhile. Is Christianity not subject to the laws? Are Christians not subject to the laws? Are you not subject to the laws? If you are going to put Christianity above our government, then you had best put your money where your mouth is and start overthrowing or taking over. Why bother staying within the rules? You say that beliefs are best manifested in actions, but your actions appear to be those of a person who believes in the social contract, who considers himself subject to the laws of his country, who practices his Christian beliefs within the parameters of his pluralistic society. Which will it be? Or could it be that your beliefs are not actually in conflict with the social contract, and it’s quite possible that the social contract does not require the subjugation of your religion? Which will it be? Where do you stand?

I don’t want to destroy your right to think freely or believe freely; I don’t want to take away your right to be a Christian; I don’t want to homogenize our pluralistic society. That is, I don’t want the world to conform to my will, but neither am I going to conform to anyone else’s will; I merely want the freedom to disbelieve just as surely as you have the freedom to believe. But if your Christianity can’t exist without its viral aspect (as you imply above), then your Christianity shouldn’t exist. Go to your church, pray to your God, believe in your doctrines, but don’t delude yourself into thinking that your religion is the communal one, or that the rest of us are going to “submit in community to that community’s God.” I submit to no one’s god, and only grudgingly to the authorities of my own society. If you have a problem with that, that’s too bad, because not everyone is like you, not everyone thinks beliefs need to be communal, or that people need beliefs at all. Call it “pure unadulterated protestantism” if you want, but putting me into your own little pigeonhole is what you think, not what I think.

I can’t play along with any religion, communal or otherwise. I can barely play along with other irreligious people. I disagree with almost everyone. (And there are other people like me.) But if I was going to make agreement necessary to living peacefully, I wouldn’t be able to live with anyone. Maybe you don’t understand that because you’re not like me. Maybe you’re good at agreeing and submitting and following along with communal whatever. But I know what it’s like to be in a state of nearly constant disagreement with almost everyone, so I know that to maintain civilization in the midst of disagreement, there needs to be some kind of ground rules that can accommodate disagreement. But your Christianity clearly does not allow for ground rules that can accommodate disagreement. (Hence your Christianity’s long history of condemning heretics, excommunication, executions, and all manner of oppression when people don’t agree, and all the stories of your God who demands purity and agreement and homogeneity, or death.) For someone who can’t stop himself from questioning and disagreeing and criticizing, that kind of world is unlivable. If Christianity can’t allow someone like me, then expect me to do everything within my power to keep Christianity from exerting its influence over me or anyone else for whom it is unwelcome.

Now we’ve come full circle, and it’s quite clear that you really do think people who disagree with your religion are like swine and dogs. I’ll have none of it. Count me out. I’ve nothing more to say that hasn’t already been said.
theomorph Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 7:02 am

I can’t remember when I used that verse… and I’m lazy (and Blogger doesn’t provide a very good way of searching blogs)… and it really doesn’t matter anyway, because it’s still an incredibly offensive verse.

How is your quotation of Matthew 7:6 out of context? The context is the seventh chapter of Matthew. Presented without that context, the verse is out of context.

By point is not that being “out of context” is necessarily a bad thing. You can take something out of context and still portray it correctly, or by taking it out of context you can twist the words to mean something else. But when I used that verse, I was chastised not because Matthew 7:6 doesn’t compare people who reject the gospel with dogs and swine, but simply because I had pulled the verse “out of context.” Now you have pulled it out of context, too. But the problem is not whether it’s in context or not, because either way, it still says the same thing, because it’s stuck in a chapter full of standalone sayings and proverbs allegedly from the mouth of Jesus.

My point is that the Bible compares people who reject its gospel with swine and dogs, and calls us fools (you know, because I have somehow “said in my heart”–whatever that means–that there “is no God,” I am a fool). You can’t just edge around this stuff. It says it clear as day, right there. Any oaf can pick up a Bible and read it. So why should this oaf want to have anything to do with a religion whose God compares me to a dog or a swine (a very “unclean” creature indeed, according to the Bible)?

Your context here is the problem of apologetics, and introducing or drawing people into the faith, or into a “relationship” with Jesus, or however you want to define it, and the one verse from the Bible you quote is one that resorts to name-calling. So I should want to be a Christian because otherwise your God thinks I’m no better than swine or canine? That’s completely antithetical to the process of seducing people into belief.

As for the math analogy, that’s a poor one. St. Cyril, right there, in black and white, says that the Catechumen can’t be told all the matters of your teaching because he is “not worthy to hear them.” What is this “not worthy” crap? You save calculus for later in education because fourth graders aren’t “worthy”; you save it for later because that’s the way we have traditionally taught math. Personally, however, I think the educational process of mathematics has more to do with staying in a historical rut than anything else. Have you heard of anyone who has tried to teach calculus to kids? Until you have heard of people trying to teach calculus to kids and failing because the kids are incapable of understanding it, then you might have at least a decent analogy. (But don’t get me started on mathematics education…) Until then, your analogy is very poor indeed.

But back to Cyril and his idea of “worthiness.” What makes a person “worthy” of knowing the truth of the Gospel? I don’t remember Jesus withholding his “truth” from people for lack of worthiness. If your “truth” requires people to adopt a particular attitude or mindset or perspective or “spiritual” state of being, what the hell kind of truth is it? Truth is truth is truth and it’s there where you like it or not.

Incidentally, this post plays perfectly into the stuff I was ranting about last weekend–to which you replied by, uh, conspicuously not replying at all: “I can certainly sympathize with the second half”–indicating that you read both halves of the post, but would not comment on the half that pertained to you. Then you show up a few days later with this “not worthy” and “swine” and “dogs” bit, as if to reinforce everything I said about Christians having an elitist attitude about this truth they claim to possess or know or connect with or apprehend or recognize or whatever.

I’m not saying don’t believe; I’m wondering why Christian belief all but requires you to question the worthiness or fitness or mental faculties of people who don’t believe, based simply on the fact that they don’t see what you see, presumably because your God has made them that way. Of course, no, you would have to be elitist, because the alternatives aren’t very attractive: (1) what you see is just as valid as what anyone else sees, meaning Christianity is not about some exclusive understanding of ultimate truth, or (2) what you see is not there and you are just deluding yourself by claiming to see it. Sure, between those three choices, what self-respecting person would not love choosing the one that makes him better than everyone else who doesn’t agree with him? Humans love to think that people who don’t agree with them are simply not as good as they are. I like thinking it, too. But if I decide that’s a bad idea, I can work on it and change it. You, meanwhile, have your own savior codified in your own scriptures calling people like me no better than dogs or swine. Kinda hard to back outta that one. Nevertheless, theologians have been trying to back out of it, well, since it showed up in the first place. “No, you’re really not swine! You’re not a dog!” Whatever. It’s right there. Matthew 7:6. And of all the verses in the Bible, you picked that one. Of course, even if you hadn’t picked it, it would still be there, like all those other Bible bits that everybody ignores.

I’m just tired of Christians saying such insulting things about non-Christians, and I’m especially annoyed that their “holy” scriptures are filled with this stuff. What kind of god requires people to believe in his existence while refusing to behave as an entity that actually exists? Don’t give me any of that “free will” malarky, either, because people aren’t “free” to deny the existence of anything else that really exists. People who deny that other people exist, or who deny that they themselves exist, or who deny that elephants exist are defective, not exercising their free will. Things that are real, things that exist, things that can’t be denied simply can’t be denied. Even the beloved Thomas Aquinas could admit as much:

“The existence of God and other like truths about God, which can be known by natural reason, are not articles of faith, but are preambles to the articles; for faith presupposes natural knowledge, even as grace presupposes nature, and perfection supposes something that can be perfected. Nevertheless, there is nothing to prevent a man, who cannot grasp a proof, accepting, as a matter of faith, something which in itself is capable of being scientifically known and demonstrated.” (link)

Yeah, that’s nice, Tommy, but the “existence of God” sure isn’t known to my “natural reason,” so your God must have made me defective so that I am incapable of seeing something that’s clearly right there in front of me. All the more reason not to worship him anyway, then. That free will stuff was about people being free to be disobedient to a god that they all knew existed, not about their free will to not recognize God’s existence.

It would be nice if Christians could just say “We believe thus; it’s what we see and what we like. You may believe otherwise, if that is what you see and what you like. Meanwhile, we shall all live together and not call each other fools or swine or dogs, simply because we, as individuals, perceive life in our own, individualized ways.” But that’s not gonna happen. Not with junk like Matthew 7:6 in the Bible.

Anyway… it’s late and I’m tired and I have a headache and my throat is swollen or something and I’m just in an altogether bad mood, so that will have to be enough. (I’ve really tried to be angry at ideas and not at individual people, forgive me if I’ve come off personally insulting or anything like that. I’m just tired of being rolled over by people who should be secure enough that they don’t need to roll over people like me.)
Funky Dung Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 2:26 pm

I didn’t respond to the first half of your post and I won’t respond to the bulk of this comment because you’re ranting, not discussing. I know better than to disturb a hornet nest.

Theo, have I ever rolled over you? Have I ever treated you with anything less than respect or dignity? If I have in any way failed you those areas, if I have not been compassionate to you, if I have ever been insensitive or cruel to you, I wholeheartedly apologize.
Steve N Monday, May 23, 2005 at 5:14 pm

I don’t think I would equate “myth” with “just a story” in general. I suppose if the myth is irrelevant, then one might perceive it as “just a story.” But why would a myth be thought to be irrelevant? At least two reasons: 1) it is a false account, and/or 2) it contains no ordering or life-altering principles.

I guess I would see Joseph Smith’s myth about being visited by the Angel Moroni and, thence, transcribing the Book of Mormon verbatim as “just a story”–I think it is likely a false account, AND it has little or no transcendent meaning to me.

But what of the Adam and Eve story? I think it is likely a fictionalized account, but find it to be replete with meaning, as exposed and expounded by the traditions of my (spiritual) ancestors as well as my own understanding. Is it “just a story”? Not to me.

Seems then that the equation: “myth” = “just a story” really requires both tests to be true. The actuality test may be applied with varying degress of rigor. At the bottom, we’re left only with greater or lesser doubt, but surely some degree of agnosticism.

But the transcendent meaning test just gets us back to “act of the will” question. It is pure question begging to say a myth is “only a story” because it has no transcendent meaning to me. The real question is why a particular myth contains no transcendant meaning for a person? And the answer would surely almost always be that I have simply chosen to live my life as though that myth is irrelevant.

We all have our myths about “That’s What It’s All About” (with thanks to the Hokey-Pokey), but I don’t agree that their are “myriad versions” of it. Every “world view” (I really hate that term, but it suffices here), that I can think of right now, can be distilled down to: “There is a problem and here’s how to fix it.” The “problem” is almost always that the cosmos (universally, personally, or both) is not as it should be, or as I want it to be. The proposed fix is usually the major point of disagreement… Sometimes people can live together peaceably with opposing reparative propositions. Sometimes they cannot.

So, back to one of the topics at hand, if we are to live peacefully in “Everything” despite our different understandings of what it is “Really About,” then the way we organize our relations cannot be built on any ideas of what it is “Really About.”

Now it is not that I’ve no wish to live peaceably, but doesn’t this statement tacitly assume that “living peacefully in Everything” really is “What It Is All About”? Sure, if that assumption is correct, i.e., that social contract is the one true best way to order society, the greatest and highest “good,” then I suppose we can’t bring our ideas about “what it is really about” into the contract… But then we’ve already sacrificed such ideas to the bigger one about “living peacefully in everything” as the highest ordering principle. This is the fatal flaw of social contract thinking: it pretends it is purely rationalistic and not an ideology, but it really is not merely an ideology, but the ideology that will crush (ban from the realm of involuntary relations, i.e., the public sphere) all others. I’d rather have a world of men “with chests” than one “at peace in everything.” It’d be nice if I could get both, but I’m not optimistic.

Cheers!
sibert Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 12:24 am

I must say that Jesus put it in a tighter nutshell, to be sure. While what He says is not as specific, it surely carries better into our time. The level of specificity He provided also gives room for Holy Spirit to apply individually a universal truth (incidentally, one that applies to a much broader range of people than just students or seekers, as I take Catechumen to mean).
Jerry Nora Friday, May 13, 2005 at 2:57 pm

Interesting. The greatest danger for apologists that I’ve noted (and I no way seek to trump Cyril of Jerusalem’s experience, though I will note that the catechumenate back then were coming from pagan homes or synagogues) is for argument to replace a genuine relationship with Jesus. Chronic defensiveness in all aspects of the faith seemed to be the greatest threat of modern defenders of the faith.

I can understand how you can’t just lay on everything to someone while expalaining the faith, though. It just would be the first “danger” of being an apologist that I’d think of.
theomorph Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 9:59 pm

It’s “only” a story in two ways.

One, on the boring, demystified plane of history as practiced without a vested interest in whether the story is true (i.e., in the terms of source documents), there is not a single truly primary document from the life of Jesus. There are what may be eyewitness accounts written long after the fact, but if that’s the best we have, it sure isn’t very good.

Two, on the more interesting, mystical plane of Narrative, any time you string together events and give them purpose, direction, or meaning, you are creating a myth, which is “just a story.”

Anyway, all my experience points toward the conclusion that different people are simply “wired up” in different ways for experiencing Reality, the Divine, or whatever you want to call that objective stuff out there. As well that proposition is difficult to deny, considering the myriad versions of what Everything is Really About. So, back to one of the topics at hand, if we are to live peacefully in “Everything” despite our different understandings of what it is “Really About,” then the way we organize our relations cannot be built on any ideas of what it is “Really About.”
theomorph Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 6:26 am

My point is that all myths are “just” stories, even the “true” ones. This perspective comes out of my studies in history and historical method, in which the task of finding historical data and stringing them into a coherent narrative (even if it’s just a dry, academic paper) is always a matter of deception, tacit or otherwise. The same principle applies to the task of simply living, in which we accumulate data then string them together into personal stories, histories, and identities. In a sense, all of us are Living Lies, which is not to say we are all dishonest or untruthful, but that (oh, geez, Star Wars still on the brain…) many of the “truths” we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. (But now I’m digressing into a different area.)

I think your distillation of all “world views” (yeah, I hate that one, too) oversimplifies the matter in a deceptively subtle way. As I’ve mentioned before (I think), saying that there’s a “problem” loads the situation with a particular negative value. You load the human condition with baggage that turns it into something very Western—a problem that demands a possible solution, a tension that can be relieved, a dissonance that can be resolved. While this can-do Western “world view” has certainly been extraordinarily successful in many ways (most notably in science and technology), I think it does a disservice to the existential condition of humankind by, if not converting us into means for an end, then very nearly commanding or expecting us to see ourselves existential problem-solvers instead of existential dwellers. Conceiving our lives as problems to be solved, or questions to be answered (as one annoying Jesus bumper sticker seems to imply), we lock ourselves into a dialectic that seems to be, for many people at least, insoluble and psychologically damaging. (Hence all the traditional Western hullaballoo about “the meaning of life,” and the “nonsensical” answers British humourists have presented, e.g., 42 or “something to do with fish.”) Even Christianity, our central and dominant mythology and “world view” has never managed to own up to this problem satisfactorily. There are hints here and there, such as the answer to the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy him forever.) and a few mystics or fringy existentialist theologians, but, by and large, Christianity has consistently presented itself as a solution to a problem, which Christianity itself causes or raises, as many have pointed out (by which I don’t mean that Christianity has created the existential condition of humanity, but that Christianity has put forth a faulty mental toolkit for understanding and living within that existential condition). The condition of humanity is not necessarily a “problem,” nor is it something that has a “solution,” and thinking about it in those terms blocks out any other possibilities.

As for the social contract stuff, I really don’t see that on the same plane as this other stuff. We can all address our existential condition as individuals, since individuals are the only ones who can truly address their own situations, but when we’re finding shelter, or buying groceries, or getting around to perform the tasks of survival, or just trying to have a good time, we need rules to keep us from constantly stepping on each other’s toes and precipitating greater conflicts. I don’t think there is any kind of metaphysical understanding or contemplation that needs to be sacrificed to live within a social contract that’s intended to promote communal harmony (or at least ward off communal discord). If your metaphysical understanding or contemplation requires you to push it on other people, passively, aggressively, legislatively, annoyingly, or otherwise, well, sorry, then your metaphysics have been turned into everyday hand- and footwork and are subject to defense or offense within the community where other individuals don’t want to be told what to think, how to behave in private, which people they can fall in love with, which lines of scientific inquiry are appropriate, and whatnot.

For instance, if your religious beliefs require you to strap bombs to your body and detonate them in public, the problem, so far as the social contract is concerned, is not what you believe, but that you are harming others. That’s an extreme example, but if you scale it down, the same logic applies. If your religious beliefs require you to sit in a seat of authority and promote or impose your religion upon people who may not share your views, then problem is not what you believe, but that you are infringing on the rights of others to believe as they see fit. It’s a subtlety of the social contract that, unfortunately, almost everyone in our decadent and degenerate culture fails to understand.

The problem, I think, is that some religions—most notably Islam and Christianity—have attached to their core beliefs a kind of viral spreading mechanism. The problem is not what Christians and Muslims believe, but how so many of them go about spreading that belief. But how should submission to Jesus or to Allah be at all compromised by the removal of that viral aspect of the religion? Your beliefs are yours; only you can submit to your God.
theomorph Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 6:27 pm

No one said Christians can’t participate in the government. But when Christians use the government to further their own religion, they are out of line. This principle goes back to the earliest days of our nation (when, I should add, the argument was between different kinds of Christians, not between Christians and non-Christians as it is today).
gbm3 Friday, May 27, 2005 at 2:36 am

No one said Christians can’t participate in the government. But when Christians use the government to further their own religion, they are out of line. This principle goes back to the earliest days of our nation (when, I should add, the argument was between different kinds of Christians, not between Christians and non-Christians as it is today).

I can speak for myself as a Christian who votes that I use my vote to do what I believe is best for my nation as a whole. Yes, I use Christian beliefs as my source and guide, but I don’t use them to push my religion.

So when I say abortion, legalized same-sex marriage, euthanasia, unjust war, embryonic stem cell research, murder, … and prostitution are wrong, I vote to uphold what I believe is best for my country.

Others may disagree with my view, but they can vote to uphold theirs.

Actually, without us Christians, there would be no concept of rights. Usually the way it worked in the past was that those who were in power took it and left any leftover scraps for the rest of the bunch.

—
Steve Nicoloso Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 11:54 pm

Not much time for a full fisking here, I’ve gotta run… home.

Theo, you claim that my reduction of “world views” to the essence of there’s a problem and here’s how to fix it is peculiar to Western Thought. I couldn’t disagree more. Hinduism presents paths to (lacking a better term) “salvation”. The solution is thus to attain what we do not possess (or I suppose in the more advanced forms, attaining the knowledge that we already possessed what we needed… or whatever). Buddhism is really just a heretical deviation of Hinduism, wherein the “problem” to be “fixed” is desire. Animistic religions are all founded (rather haphazardly) on some sort of appeasement of natural gods–again a “problem” with a “solution”. Various pagan religions tend to center on preserving cultural (later, “statist”) identity–the obvious “problem” being that there may be threats to said identity and our rituals here offer a “solution”. I don’t think the notion of a problem is peculiarly Western at all. I think the notion of a problem is common to nearly all cultures, and the exceptions (I can’t think of any right off) would only prove the rule.

You keep getting hung up on belief. Substitute, in place of the word “belief”, “actions” instead, and recompute. Sure, the guy strapping bombs on himself to kill himself and others is a problem because he “believes” his “beliefs”. He is a problem only because we don’t “believe” people should “believe” that way. Our “beliefs” are different, and in this case diametrically opposed. “Christians shouldn’t use the government to advance their religion.” You keep coming back to the higher principle of the social contract. But that is because, to you, it is a higher principle. But what you’re really saying is that no one should “use the government” to do anything unless their highest ordering principle is that all (other) principles can be rationally reduced to negotiated human desire or interest. I don’t see how one can argue that this is anything other than ideological discrimination.

Gotta run!
Cheers!
Steve Nicoloso Wednesday, May 25, 2005 at 8:07 pm

Oh, and in all the sound and fury I completely forgot about this bit:

If your religious beliefs require you to sit in a seat of authority and promote or impose your religion upon people who may not share your views, then problem is not what you believe, but that you are infringing on the rights of others to believe as they see fit. It’s a subtlety of the social contract that, unfortunately, almost everyone in our decadent and degenerate culture fails to understand.

The problem, I think, is that some religionsÃ‚â€”most notably Islam and ChristianityÃ‚â€”have attached to their core beliefs a kind of viral spreading mechanism. The problem is not what Christians and Muslims believe, but how so many of them go about spreading that belief. But how should submission to Jesus or to Allah be at all compromised by the removal of that viral aspect of the religion? Your beliefs are yours; only you can submit to your God.

… till now! This supposed “infringing on the rights of others to believe as they see fit” is abject horse puckey. Not even Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, or James Dobson could be accused of trying to get people to believe against their will. What is at stake is getting to people to behave in ways that may not be in accordance with their will–which is precisely what any law does, regardless of who is writing it and why. Laws govern (and can only govern) behavior. Beliefs are beyond the direct reach of any governmental power. This is subtlety of the social contract that even Theo apparently fails to understand.

Of course laws (just like customs, rituals, etc.) do influence beliefs. The 200 year hegemony of the liberal democratic state has quite profoundly influenced what people believe (so much so that it is quite difficult to get people to even admit that it has). But this has not been through direct application of laws pointed at belief.

Irrespective of how the “viral spreading mechanism” got attached to the core beliefs of Islam and Christianity, it is in fact a core belief. You seem to be arguing that the core beliefs would be just fine if we simply changed the core beliefs. C’mon folks, let me tinker with your core beliefs. It won’t compromise them one bit, but merely make you easier to get along with. Arrggghhh… I’ll assume this is not ignorance typing, and therefore conclude it must be arrogance. The world would just be so much better if it would conform to your will. But you’re the one with no ideology. Pffphhtt.

Oh, and then this bit about “Your beliefs are yours; only you can submit to your God.” This is just pure, unadulterated protestantism taken to its natural end: the inviolable supremacy and autonomy of self, the complete subjugation of all thought to the actualizing, private self. Pure balderdash. Christianity, as originally conceived and as practiced almost exclusively for its first 1500 years is definitively, fundamentally a communal system. Islam is also very much this way and has (to its credit) managed to avoid, by and large, the modern deformations that have plagued Christianity. It may come as news to you, Theo (the Perfect Protestant), that it is quite possible, nay normative to share one’s “beliefs” in community, and submit in community to that community’s God. This was precisely the model laid out for the monotheistic family of religions in OT Judaism, and served as the model for the Christian church.

Off my soapbox… cheers!
gbm3 Saturday, May 21, 2005 at 3:28 am

So why bother talking about God when there are plenty of other things about which we can make factual and useful statements?

To start with:

So they may ‘see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.’

(Hopefully to be con’t later)
theomorph Monday, May 16, 2005 at 9:26 pm

Sorry I disappeared for a couple days. Been fighting off strep throat. The antibiotics should kick in soon, I hope. I never cease to be amazed by the power a few little bacteria can have over my relatively enormous body.

Not sure where you’re coming from with the bit about ideas having consequences, Steve. Of course ideas have consequences; one of the consequences of The Christian Idea is that there can be no peace unless everyone accedes to The Christian Idea. Elsewhere, people have The Islamic Idea, the main consequence of which is that there can be no peace unless everyone surrenders to Allah. But I am not a Christian or a Muslim, nor do I perceive the world in the terms of Christianity or Islam. I do not see/sense/apprehend/feel/infer/experience God, not of any flavor, be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or pantheist.

How is it an act of will to not s/s/a/f/i/e God? I have only what I have, am only what I am, and can be only what I can be. I have only ever known God as the result of an act of will, and the cessation of that act resulted in the cessation of God’s appearance. What is the reality of God if it can only be apprehended by an act of will? I make no act of will to know that the computer on my lap exists, to know that there are socks on my feet, or to know that the wind is blowing outside. To not experience God is no more an act of will than to recognize that you are not sitting here in my living room.

But God only ever becomes “real” to me when I make an act of will to make him so, and when I do, I can will into him whatever characteristics seem useful at the moment. Do I want a benevolent, accepting, loving God? Done. How about a sympathetic, wish-granting God? No problem. Maybe tomorrow a harsh, drill-sergeant God to keep me in line? Surely. That God must be willed into existence for me to experience him, and that I can will any kind of God into existence is the greatest evidence I have ever seen that God is either nonexistent or unconcerned with what I think about him.

But to empty the world of God takes no act of will at all. It is simply to live and acknowledge those things that cannot be ignored or erased by an act of will. I cannot, by act of will, erase from my experience the music I hear, the computer I use, the chair upon which I sit, or the air I breathe. Nor can I create, by will alone, music, appliances, furniture, or air where none was before. That is how I know these things exist, and why acknowledging their existence does not require an act of will.

This is what I mean when I say that what you “see” is not the same as what I see. I am perfectly willing to take at face value your (or anyone else’s) claim to experience God. But if I do not experience God, or if your experience of God is not the same as your neighbor’s experience God, what are we left to do? Is it right that I should stand up, declare that neither your nor your neighbor’s Gods exist, and call you fools for believing? Is it right that you should stand up, declare that your God exists, and that your God is the only True God, and call your neighbor and I fools for believing in the wrong God and not believing at all, respectively?

If any God exists who has created all of us, as you claim, then that God has also created I who do not see him, and your neighbor who sees a different God. Are we here, then, that you may show your allegiance by stirring up strife and calling us swine or dogs, or that you may demonstrate your devotion by accepting us despite our differences? (Or, perhaps most cynically, are we merely here so that you can favorably compare your own faith against our lack?) What does your God desire? What does your neighbor’s God desire? What do I desire? What do you desire?

While I cannot speak for you, or for believers in other Gods, I can speak for myself, and tell you what I desire: The chance at a peaceful existence with other people who can recognize that while we live in the same world that is populated by the same undeniable, objective facts, we are also different people who sometimes see something else beyond those facts, or different ways of arranging those facts, or different constellations of concern among them? I desire happiness, peace, beauty, and many perspectives from many people, who can share and express those perspectives without denying facts or logic, and without insulting people who see things differently. The consequence of that idea, I would hope, is its own fulfillment.

And now my bacterial invaders have got me exhausted and ready for a nap.
gbm3 Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 3:13 pm

The point about isolated people is an interesting one.

I As an individual of a Judeo-Christian faith, this condition brings to mind a very popular story: that of Noah and the flood.

For a lengthy period of time, the world was doing it’s own thing and going down the tube without the explicit revelation of God. Then, as if suddenly, God decided to do something about it. You probably know the rest.

II It also brings this Bible story to mind (Luke 16:19-31):

“There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day.
And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores,
who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.
When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried,
and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.’
Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’
He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house,
for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’
But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’
He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'”

III If the children were isolated, wouldn’t they eventually ask where they came from and why they were born? What would the parents/elders say? Keep them in the dark?

This condition has been in place before. From where have the ancient ideas of Rome & Greece, India (Hindu), and Japan (Shinto) come? Parts of their beliefs are based in Truth, but mostly in their imaginations. However, it takes revelation to transmit the Truth in full.

——–

The problem for the apologist from the beginning of time is that the catechist must be open to the message. As a Christian, I also believe the Holy Spirit (that the Risen one said he would leave with us) must be at work to convert the heart.

—
Steve Nicoloso Wednesday, May 25, 2005 at 5:23 am

The public road and private houses analogy only works as long people refrain from making claims about the nature and/or rules of the roads and attempt to enforce them. Once that happens, you’re sunk. In your system, “freedom of the roads” is the highest principle. All other supposedly “higher principles” must keep off, which is tantamount to saying they’re not really higher principles… Oh, that’s right. You don’t have ideology. Shame on me. Dern. I guess I must be wrong, then.

On the Eastern-Western thing, please note I expressly said I didn’t have enough time at the time to thoroughly respond. Though after reading what you originally said in more depth, I can’t say I have much to add. Christianity does purport to solve a problem, as do most other “thought systems”. I agree. The (single) problem is we’re broken (fallen, out of fellowship with God, whatever you want to call it), and so, thereby, is every human invention, institution. You claim this is dehumanizing, psychological damaging, etc. I don’t see it. Sure it might be, but so what? I reject the notion that man is naturally alright to begin with. So the fact that this process of dealing with one’s “fallen-ness” might lead to a condition that modern medicine might see as “abnormal” doesn’t bother me a bit. Now the fact is you claim not to see it this way (i.e., that the world has, or pieces of it have, a problem), but your actions deny this claim. Your mission in life (at least the one that people are allowed to see on the internet, which admittedly may not be truly who you are or what you’re really about) is filled primarily with spotting “problems”, and suggesting “solutions”. Just read your own masthead. Oh, I keep forgetting… you don’t have an ideology (“beliefs”). But I say: your actions betray you.

You’re absolutely right that beliefs are not actions, and I’ve made no such assertion that people cannot have private beliefs (that they might not or might not even be able to live by). What I’m saying is that the beliefs that actually matter are the ones that people act on. I don’t see how I’m chipping away at the meaning of any particular word. I’m pointing out what should be obvious to anyone, and what I’d thought you’d be happy to agree to: viz., ideas count for very little, but instead actions that really count. Theo, you yourself have on many occasions denigrated, nay, lampooned the supposed “beliefs” of one group or another by pointing out that they don’t (or perhaps cannot possibly) live by such beliefs. I’m not conflating “belief” and “action”, but merely pointing out that actions are a lot better indicator of actual “belief” than mere words. You say you “believe” that chair will support your weight? Sit down in it! This is degrading?!?!?!! You’ve gotta get out more! I would’ve thought removing the debate from the realm of admittedly meaningless (subjective, private) “belief,” and into the realm of positive, objective action would be just fine by you. You never cease to surprise me. So you really wanna go back and talk about what people merely think, but utterly fail to act on? Where’s the fun in that?!?

Cheers!
theomorph Wednesday, May 25, 2005 at 4:32 am

The social contract isn’t my “higher principle.” It’s a pragmatic way to keep others out of my way and me out of theirs, so that we can pursue higher principles as we see fit, without interference. To make an analogy, the social contract is the road, and people occupy the space off the roads (or between the roads). Where you live, what you do while you’re there, and which destinations you choose while using the road are your higher principles. The road is just a way to keep people from cutting across each other’s territory. People don’t live on the roads, and the roads are not a destination.

And regardless of whether non-Western cultures see life as a “problem” to be “solved,” to be quite honest, I don’t care what you, what Western culture, or what people of any other culture think about life, because that just isn’t the way I see it, nor do I think anyone else can or should force me to subordinate my understanding of my own existence to their mental framework. And if they try, I will come out fighting. Meanwhile, you have completely ignored all the rest of what I said and fixated solely on the “Western” aspect. Delete the “Western” bit from it and read the rest, then comment.

Beliefs are not actions. Again you are playing the game of conversion by definition by rubbing away at the words until they are vague, blurry and all but meaningless. If you can conflate actions with beliefs, and then belief with non-belief, then you can imagine that everyone, despite saying and doing different things, is actually in complete agreement—a semantic destruction which degrades us all. We differentiate between beliefs and actions for a reason: because what we think and what we do are often very different. If you are going to reduce the contents of a person’s mind to what can be divined from their actions, then you have denied that person’s ability to have private thoughts, which is bizarre and frightening.
Steve Nicoloso Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 6:24 am

Theo says:

one of the consequences of The Christian Idea is that there can be no peace unless everyone accedes to The Christian Idea.

Malarky. Cheap shot really. A consequence of the Christian Idea is that there may or may not not be peace. So much as it possible for us to do so, we’re supposed to live at peace. Sometimes it is not possible. Usually it is. All I was saying above is that peace is not (in my view) the single highest good. You would seem to equate War being a last ditch option with War being necessarily inevitable. They’re not the same thing.

Now in your post you make an error, I think, in quickly conflating “apprehending God” by act of will with “making God exist” by act of will. These are very different things. One, the former, is (more or less) what I was saying. The latter is simply absurd. And by conflating (or equating) it with the former, makes the former seem absurd by false proximity.

An “act of the will” is behaving as though the thing you believe to be true is, in fact, true. You behave as though your laptop exists on your lap, that there are no socks on your feet, that the wind is blowing outside. And if you didn’t, you would be rightly considered nuts, because these things are objective facts. You have no reason to disbelieve them, though I suspect with sufficient disciplined effort, one probably could convince themselves that such things were not true somehow… But why would we? That’s silly.

At any rate, the real question is: what reason is there to believe only objective facts? You, yourself, have said you behave as though god (or gods) does (do) not exist. This is an act of the will. You behave this way because this is the way you want to behave. It could be because you want to believe only things that have an objective basis… it could be for any number of other reasons. My point is that you want to (in this case) not believe (where, in the language I’m using here, “not believing X” is precisely equal to “behaving as though proposition X is false”), and must want to for some reason, just as I want to do otherwise for some other reason.

Now, Theo, when you say:

I can speak for myself, and tell you what I desire: The chance at a peaceful existence with other people who can recognize that while we live in the same world that is populated by the same undeniable, objective facts, we are also different people who sometimes see something else beyond those facts, or different ways of arranging those facts, or different constellations of concern among them? I desire happiness, peace, beauty, and many perspectives from many people, who can share and express those perspectives without denying facts or logic, and without insulting people who see things differently. The consequence of that idea, I would hope, is its own fulfillment.

you seem to be admitting that the peaceful existence you seek cannot occur between folks who don’t want what you want or at least those who want the opposite of what you want. It seems you want a society where public behavior and policy is governed by the axioms of logical positivism, and where the subjective baggage is left at home, at church, or in some other private (voluntary) sphere. It sounds all very good until we pause to consider that some folks’ private baggage might constrain them to take it everywhere they go. This puts the enlightenment rationalist in the position of having to say: “I’m right and you’re wrong. And if you don’t keep that baggage tucked away, I’m going to eventually have to do something about it.” Of course, the nice liberal enlightenment rationalist has a very difficult time bringing himself to say such things because he realizes (if he’s particularly savy) that by doing so he is setting his view up as superior to that of his subjectivist neighbor. And this is painfully elitist and un-egalitarian. Parenthetically, this is why liberal democracy is doomed. But the point here is that I could easily make the accusation that the Agnostic Secularist Ideal is that there can be no peace until everyone accedes to the Agnostic Secularist Ideal. I could. But I won’t.

Best wishes on crushing the microbial invasion!

Cheers!
gbm3 Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 5:34 pm

This discussion has certainly broadened out from whence it came. Part of the introductory statement:

Ã‚â€œFor we deliver to thee a mystery, and a hope of the life to come.Ã‚â€

This Ã‚â€œgood newsÃ‚â€ or Ã‚â€œgospelÃ‚â€ is what lies at the heart of Christianity, the basis for this blog.

It provides (not exhaustive in any means):
1. Some answers to the ultimate questions. These questions are not problems to be solved but a longing in the human heart.
2. Direction for this life. Our telos determines our present.

From this mystery that is believed, practical consequences are derived.

To address part of theomorphÃ‚â€™s dilemma regarding imposition of (here) Judeo-Christian beliefs on others:

1. Christians and others with the same Ã‚â€œworld viewÃ‚â€ believe that a particular course of action or establishment is required for the good of all.
2. Mentioned group petitions government to impose 1.
3. 1. (may) becomes law.

1-3 comes about because the group(s) involved decide(s) to act and get enacted certain laws. This may influence how some people think, however, those opposed can (and do) petition to overturn laws and establishments.

Most groups act for what they believe is best. Yes, political maneuvering and corruption enter into play. This is what will eventually kill democracy (as in antiquity).

Christian beliefs are ours. Submission to our God is our prerogative.

The good of society is all of our concern. Christians have a right to address the issues at hand. It happens that a majority of people in this county come from the Christian tradition, so many of our beliefs are perpetuated into the public arena.

—
gbm3 Friday, May 20, 2005 at 9:12 pm

This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.’
Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says: ‘You shall indeed hear but not understand you shall indeed look but never see.
Gross is the heart of this people, they will hardly hear with their ears, they have closed their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and be converted, and I heal them.’
“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.
Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

Matthew 13:13-17

I am very sorry to hear about your loss (I believe it was there). Many people think they have to physically or mentally (as Moses) hear God to know that He is there and exists. Only some people have had this privilege. (I believe) Even Jesus said ‘many prophets and righteous people’ have longed to hear (and see) him in their time in this world.

I respect your position in life in relation to God. Please just don’t let yourself believe that because you didn’t hear Him that He’s not there.

(I can hear my wife in my head correcting me that I shouldn’t tell someone how to think or feel. I do it because I care.)

—
gbm3 Tuesday, May 17, 2005 at 6:25 pm

Ultimately, belief (as Funky mentioned somewhere) partly comes from trusting the conduit of information.

Religions coming from the seed of Abraham claim to be based on historical events: a covenant with the same Abraham, the revelation of the Koran from the Angel to Mohammad, and the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. One must take on faith that one is true and the others are not (or have no faith in one or another).

As I recall, this is different than many religions of antiquity. Hinduism, Greek and Roman Mythology, and Buddhism (enlightened to nirvana?) do not claim to be based in historical truth, but chiefly on human creativity.

Due to our human condition, one can only be enlightened by the light of faith.

For this fact, each of us must respect (ie, understand in humility) each others’ faith or lack thereof.

However, we cannot ignore the relationship of people outside our faith to ourselves. If we believe that what we know is Truth, someone who does not have that same belief is lacking essential data for interacting internally and externally. Quite often, they can be seen as less than whole. Hence “dogs” and “swine”. Phrases such as this and others can be seen as insulting, but it is the authors way of relaying a contrasting condition or relationship.

—
Steve Nicoloso Friday, May 27, 2005 at 6:48 am

Well, Theo, I’m quite sorry that you’ll have nothing more to say here primarily because the last things you have said so bad mischaracterize what I’ve said. I haven’t a clue where you suspect me of accusing you of deceit or willfull ignorance. I certainly intended no such accusation. I accused you of arrogance, but I thought that would be taken as a compliment. 🙂

Now, on this apparently quite divisive subject of individuality, you say:

To be such an individual and then have people try to hammer you into a religion where individuals are desecrated, degraded, and destroyed according to their pathological “communal” ideals is an excruciating experience.

Desecrated?!?!!! But wait a minute! Someone (whom we both respect) just recently said “Is nothing sacred? No! Nothing is sacred! (And we’re better for it.)” So how, praytell, could an individual be “desecrated”? Now, of course, I do not agree that nothing is sacred. And I think it quite telling that apparently neither do you–more telling yet is what you find to be sacred: The Self.

I do think you overstate the case a bit. The argument could be made from nature alone that we are communal creatures, and surely our moral development as a species makes sense only primarily in the context of communities. As to whether “conformity” (whether such truly reaches the level of desecration, degradation, or destruction I sincerely doubt) is “excruciating” is I think irrelevant, until we have made a prior judgement about whether “being conformed” is a higher good. If it is of no higher good, then conformity to the external isn’t worth it even if it was quite pleasant. But if it proves to be of ultimate good, then I s’pect it’d be worth any number of crosses.

But I cannot, nor will I accept when others deny that my point of view is valid. How can my point of view be invalid when it is the only thing I know, except if I am somehow defective? But I am not defective, nor am I a fool, nor am I capable of denying what I am…

I found this to be a very interesting statement coming from you. Surely you would agree that not all points of view are equally valid. A perspective (“point of view”) would, I think, be judged by how accurately (perhaps how broadly or deeply) it describes reality. Validity of a perspective would presumably be proportional to its accuracy. Yet here you seem to assume that a persons “point of view” is inherently valid. Surely no one knows the heart of man except that man himself (and God if you go for that sort of thing), so I suppose that a person’s perspective of their inner thoughts and motivations are valid as far as they go. But once their perspective is communicated to others, it may very well be judged to be more or less valid. I rarely think your perspective is invalid. I find rather that I merely disagree (when I occasionally disagree) with your conclusions derived from your perspective. On a side note, I do think you are defective, just as I think all humans are defective. You’re less defective than most, or I wouldn’t spend valuable time responding. You’re definitely not a fool. But I would say that you are and everyone else is capable of “denying” (in the sense of turning away from) what they are. This, in fact, I see as the first step toward recovery.

I don’t see how you came to the conclusion that “my” Christianity has no ability or need for conciliation. Just as I fail to see how you conclude I don’t think the social contract is worthwhile or that Christians need not be subject to laws. All of this is a complete non sequitur. It is one thing to be conciliatory, to benefit or even contribute to the social contract, but quite another to believe such to be highest goods. I “believe in” the social contract in the way I “believe in” modern medicine. I contribute to it, avail myself of it, thank God for its existence. But if our doctor says we should consider abortion because the genetic test on our baby reveals Downs or worse, then we reject “modern medicine” for a higher principle. In fact, we reject the medicine in advance by not having such tests (against ob-gyn “advice”) in the first place. Christians are, as you well know, obligated by their Scriptures to obey laws unless they conflict with the higher ones.

I’ll let the standard boilerplate about Christianity’s supposed brutality and oppression go unremarked, save for noting that I’m not remarking on it.

Cheers!
Steve Nicoloso Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 8:04 pm

Well, Theo, prior to your suggestion of the Beaver Literati, I had previously been unwittingly behaving as though no such consortium existed. Now, however, I have seen the light, and am proud to say that I, fully conscious of my agnosticism, behave as though no such consortium exists. Yes, of course, one unwittingly behaves as though a virtually infinite number of propositions may be true or false. Many such propositions may be proved to be either true or false, and many others may be proved to be very likely or unlikely. Ergo, I usually behave in accordance with such propositions that are deemed proven or extremely likely, and behave as those the propositions deemed unlikely or impossible are false. Thus, I have little fear of getting on a plane (contra the proposition that the physics of lift might change), eating dinner (contra the proposition it could be poisoned), or any number of normal everyday things.

But there are other propositions that may become known to us that are neither proven or disproven, possibly neither provable nor disprovable, and further that provide little or no way to assess their probability. In fact, some propositions are practically unavoidable, such as those that purport answer why is there something rather than nothing? does free will exist? what is the nature of morality? &c. Moveover, some such propositions have a big impact on how we would live if we decided to live as though such propositions are either true or false. The Jesus (is the Savior of the World) Hypothesis is one of these. The Vishnu Hypothesis is another. I live as though the first is true and the second false. In fact I live as though all propositions competing with the first are false. You live as though they are both false, and furthermore endeavor (I think) to live as though all propositions that cannot be proven or objectively deemed likely are false.

Why do I behave as though the Jesus Proposition is true? Because the proposition is beautiful. It answers questions of existence and transcendance that I think are important. It gives meaning to life, universally and personally. In short, for aesthetic reasons. Is the Jesus Proposition provable? No. Is it unlikely? We have no way of knowing. It is neither likely nor unlikely that God exists… decent evidence both ways on this one. Is the Jesus Proposition more likely than others if God does in fact exist. I think so. But I’m biased because I think it is “beautiful”–more “beautiful” than the Vishnu or Mohammed or New Age propositions.

So why do others choose to behave as though all propositions not provable or not objectively known to be likely are false. I don’t know. There are probably many reasons, but one reason is surely NOT that it is the most reasonable approach. It is neither more or less reasonable than other approaches. Surely there exist propositions that are true that cannot be proven and surely there are propositions that are likely that cannot be shown to be likely. There is no rational reason to believe only proposititions that are proven or objectively likely are true, and all other propositions false. It is therefore an “aesthetic” preference to thus behave–to disbelieve equally all God Propositions, just as it is an “aesthetic” preference to behave as though (i.e., believe) one of them is true. (It is of course evidence of poor cognitive function to behave as though all such propositions are true.)

You claim, Theo, that you “have experienced no God” and that you “have never encountered this God of [mine]”. To say you have never objectively experienced or encountered such an entity would be more correct I think. As far as I know, you spent at least half your life thinking that you were in fact subjectively experiencing such an entity. It was an act of the will, a choice, to begin behaving as though what you had previously experienced subjectively was a false proposition. Since it is neither more nor less rational to behave either way, I have to assume that it was a simple act of will, deemed to be more beautiful, more satisfying, or some other sort of improvement.

As to Theomorph’s Societal Ideal, I don’t care what we call it. Do you not admit that your ideal will only be realized when all believe as you do, i.e., in the privatization of belief? I’m not saying that I disagree with much of this vision… I’m merely saying you and I may have to fight for it–i.e., achieve peace though non-peaceful means. We may even have to “eliminate” those who stoutly refuse (damn ignoramuses) to go along.

Cheers!
theomorph Wednesday, May 18, 2005 at 2:31 am

What reason is there to believe only objective facts? I gave that reason already. Because non-objective “facts” can be anything. I could, by an act of will, believe in whatever strikes my fancy. But that isn’t reality. Reality is what comes to me, pushes me around, and smacks me on the head, not the other way around.

You can argue that some non-objective “facts” might more probable than others, but once you decide to believe in things that can’t be proven, how can you calculate probability anyway? You can’t rationalize the irrational, you can’t prove the unprovable, you can’t present the unpresentable, you can’t visualize the invisible, you can’t touch the untouchable, etc.

You seem to be really hung up on this “behave as if God/s does not exist” thing. It’s not an act of will to behave as if God does not exist anymore than it’s an act of will to behave as if Vishnu doesn’t exist. Nor does it take an act of will to behave as though there are no major league baseball teams in Fresno, or to behave as though the Raiders are based in Denver. When proof or evidence or the sheer reality of a fact does not present itself, acting as though it hasn’t does not take an act of will. Here’s a question:

Do you believe there is a consortium of beaver literati that lives underground and write novels under the pen name of Martin Martinson?

No, I didn’t think so. Okay, you don’t believe in that, which means you also behave as if there is no consortium of beaver literati that lives underground and writes novels. Do you do this by an act of will? Or because you have never experienced any evidence that such a thing has or could occur?

Or consider it from another angle. Think of a time when you learned something new that you never knew before. Until that moment, you had behaved as if that new fact did not exist. Did you do so by an act of will? But how could you will yourself to disbelieve a fact you had not yet encountered?

When a pedestrian walks into traffic and is hit by a car, is that because the pedestrian is willing himself into believing that there are no cars about to smash him? Or could it be that the pedestrian is behaving as if there are no cars because he has in fact not seen them? Furthermore, in the moment during which he is decisively behaving as if there are no cars (the moment when he steps into the street), how can he know that he is willing himself into this disbelief if he has not had an actual experience of the cars (by sight, sound, or otherwise)? That is, he can only deny what he has previously experienced, but he cannot deny what he does not yet know he can choose to deny.

I have experienced no God, so I am living. But it only makes sense to say I am living “as if there is no God” in the context of other people who do believe in a God. Consider another thought experiment: several couples agree to live in a remote colony (if you like sci-fi, let’s say they’re living off-world) and they will raise their children without ever mentioning anything about God, in order to see if children who are not presented with any preconceived ideas about God will nevertheless experience him in their own ways. Let’s say they don’t. And they keep living, doing their thing. I suppose, from your perspective, they are “behaving as if” there is no God. But not from their perspective. Is their living without God an act of will? How is my living without God any different from theirs, except I have people all around me telling me that there is this God somewhere that I have still never encountered? But then, how is that any different from living around New Age weirdos who keep telling me that there are spirits all around me that I have never encountered? Or how is it any different from living around people who keep telling me that there are invisible pink unicorns hovering above every city intersection, even though I have never encountered them?

Why should I believe you? Because a long time ago, other people like you decided to write this stuff down, and still other people like you, in every generation, have preserved it, and continued writing more themselves, and keep saying that it must be true because it was written down–despite the fact that I have never encountered this God of yours? Why should I believe that? Why should anyone believe it, especially when there are all kinds of social, psychological, economic, and political reasons for why all these people might want to preserve this bizarre belief, regardless of whether it is true? When the institution of the belief is arguably more important than the belief itself, what does that say about both of them?

“I could easily make the accusation that the Agnostic Secularist Ideal is that there can be no peace until everyone accedes to the Agnostic Secularist Ideal.“

You could, but then you would be making a straw man. This “Agnostic Secularist Ideal” is not what I’m talking about. Rather, I’m saying “There can be no peace until people allow their neighbors to think and speak as they see fit, without harming or hindering others.” Recall that the earliest battles over religious freedom in this country were between groups of different beliefs, not groups with no beliefs. Baptists and Puritans and Quakers and Catholics and all the others did not want any of the other groups getting the upper hand. It doesn’t require “agnosticism” or “secularism” to see why privatized belief is better for civic relations.
Jerry Friday, May 13, 2005 at 5:28 pm

Where are you getting these sources, anyway? Is there a book you could recommend?
Steve Nicoloso Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 8:43 pm

Wow, Theo, I’ve been slow in digesting all that. Thanks for that bit of personal testimony. This is very good stuff. Hopefully more than just you, me, and gbm are still reading…

First off I don’t think you’ve said anything here that alters my perspective of how things might have transpired for you. Perhaps, I didn’t express it well, but the bits and pieces I’ve gathered in the past fit well with your more comprehensive treatment here.

Now you say,

In other words, my decision, my act of will, was to stop “believing” God was there, not to start “believing” that he wasn’t. Belief, because it can only be subjective, is a path to error. Beliefs that may begin with good intentions, that may seem correct, can become substitutes for reality, for the object of those beliefs.

Remember I’m coming at this in terms of “behavior” not “belief”. I suppose “belief” (as you’re using it here) might possibly be only subjective and therefore subject to error. But let us forget such a thing (i.e., intellectual assent) exists for the moment. What I’m talking about is “behaving as though” some proposition is true. Behavior is objective. I’m not talking about a substitute for reality, but the reality itself. Your whole testimony here is quite focussed on the subjective experience–a subjective experience which ultimately could not (would never) be rationalized with a God having properties as you understood them. Now I’m wondering whether perhaps the subjective experience isn’t (and never was) the most important thing. Perhaps the subjective was entirely irrelevant. Perhaps all that was relevant (praiseworthy, faithful) was the external, the “behaving as though”.

All I’m saying is that there appear to me to be two possible ways out of the rationalistic trap, neither of which has anything to do with intellectual assent type of “belief”. One is to deny faith (live as though the proposition is false): Be or Affirm One’s Self. The other is to practice charity (live as though the proposition is true): Die to or Deny One’s Self.

Now this bit:

The Christian God, in Jesus, is a story or a metaphor about life and death and our relation to them. But it is only a metaphor, only a story, and as such ultimately and fundamentally misleading. The Truth, because it is inherently beyond humanity, is also inherently comprehensible to humanity, even in paradoxes, mysteries, and metaphors and stories of the divine. So what would I rather do? Serve a story, or live a life?

If “the Truth” is inherently beyond (and I think you mean here “incomprehensible to”) humanity, then how the heck can one be so sure that the Jesus bit is only a metaphor–a mere story of the Divine? In one or two sentences you go from abject ignorance to absolute (-sounding) knowledge! Strange.

What would I rather do? Serve a story that is precisely tantamount to living life… Jesus is purported to have said, “Unless you eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have not life in you.” So that’s life to me–the only kind of life I want to understand. Weird, huh?

Cheers!
Funky Dung Saturday, May 14, 2005 at 4:52 am

You’ll have to refresh my memory. I dimly recall that, but the details are long gone. Also, explain how I’ve taken it out of context? The gist is that wisdom should not be dispersed like fertilize. Rather, prepare someone to receive the wisdom first. Would you teach calculus to an average child in elementary school? No. There are logical progressions of passing on knowledge. Don’t give someone more than they can chew – they might spit it back out at you.

(Sorry about all the mixed metaphors. Guiness and good writing don’t mix. 😉 )

Ales Rarus

A Rare Bird, A Strange Duck, One Funky Blog

The Dangers of Apologetics

33 thoughts on “The Dangers of Apologetics”

Leave a Reply