Rev. Sam Norton has responded to the questions I posed to moderate christians. Sam’s post is here. Sam's answers are in blue Italics. Original questions in green. Some of these questions will have seemed simple, maybe even naive. The point is to get down to some very simple questions and use the answers to build up a more informed idea of what the other side really thinks about some of the really basic things upon which a faith has been built. Is it as irrational as I think? Maybe, maybe not. Let's find out. Thank you Sam for providing me with some answers to work with. I have some follow up comments/questions. I think it is important to mention also that when I ask for evidence, I am in this case asking for any kind of evidence, including biblical justification.
1. Do you think the bible is the inerrant word of God? If not, why not?
No, simply because Jesus Christ is the inerrant word of God. Treating the Bible this way is a Protestant innovation, by and large.
The first sentence is possibly a little confusing and I think exploring it more might be quite interesting. “Jesus is the living word”. What does this mean? My first reaction to this statement (quite a while ago) was to assume it was just a poetic way of saying something like “Jesus lived perfectly according to God’s word” or “Jesus was the epitemy of godly living”. I have since come to wonder if some religious people mean something more literal when they say this. If that is so, what exactly does it mean?
Also, saying that the bible in not the inerrant word of God because Jesus is, is a little vague. Maybe the answer to this question would bring more clarity. Do you think that all the actions/saying/teachings/commands etc of God and Jesus in the bible are accurate and are indeed from God and Jesus. If not, how reliable would you say the bible is in terms of it’s describing historical events?
2. If you answered no to question 1, why do you think that a) it is reasonable to believe that a man wielded magical powers and b) rose from the dead and c) was a god and a man at the same time; I am assuming that you do not generally believe in these things. What is it about the Jesus case that is so compelling as to make believing the impossible reasonable?
a) I don't think Jesus did anything which isn't (in principle) available to the rest of us to do.
b) I think i) the historical evidence is robust, and ii) science doesn't have anything to say about it.
c) My understanding of God (and man!) is different to yours.
On a). Are you suggesting that we could all perform Jesus like miracles? Have you any evidence to believe this is true (of any kind, biblical etc.)
On b) If I told you I saw someone come back from the dead after three days you would not likely believe me. If 1000 people all attested that they saw it happen, you would most likely still be sceptical. A very poorly corroberated claim from an age where such a claim was hardly unique can surely not be said to be historically robust. Are there any particular pieces of historical evidence you find particularly compelling? Also, I think science can comfortably illustrate that a corpse cannot come back to life after 3 days.
On c) Presumeably you think Jesus has some attributes or some essesence which was different from and unatainable by a normal human (i.e. he was not a regular human). Do you think there is good evidence for this and if so what is the most compellnig evidence in your opinion?
3. Why does God command and condone evil acts in the bible (genocide, Rape, slavery etc.) if he is good?
i) God is beyond good and evil, so my basic answer is 'I don't know'
ii) Some of what is predicated of God is a projection of local culture
iii) Some of what is predicated of God is about obedience or something else (Abraham and Isaac)
On i) God is beyond good and evil, what evidence is there for this? He seems to expect people to be firmly on the good side. If God truly was beyond good and evil (not sure that actually makes any sense), why would he prefer one over the other?
On ii) Are you saying here that God did not actually commit these acts? If you are, how do you know?
On iii) Does the idea of God having to test someone seem a little inconsistent to you? I am thinking of Abraham and Isaac. Would God not already know whether or not Abraham would do it or not, why the need for the test?
4. Why is it not more reasonable to assume that God is evil given his rampage of destruction throughout the O.T?
It's all in how you read the OT. I read it as the story of a people discovering that YHWH wasn't the bloodthirsty tribal God that they thought he was.
I presume you mean by this that many of the old testement stories where the authors wrongly interpreting what they thought God was like. Many times in the O.T. God speaks to people. Were they just making it up? There are many stories in the O.T. which simply can’t be viewed in a positive light no matter how hard you try. God’s orders to utterly wipe out the Amalekites for example.
5. In what way would an evil God have acted differently and can you imagine a way in which God might have acted more morally at any point in the O.T.?
I have no view on the latter part, but on the former part - he would have resembled the Baals and the Molochs.
Are you referring to sacrifice? YHWH fancied a bit of that himself. If you are referring to something else, can you elaborate.
Do you think God might have found a better way of dealing with sinners than wiping out all life on earth?
6. Why is Jesus’ character so different from the God of the O.T. if they are (inexplicably) the same person?
Technically that's Marcionism. The whole point of Christianity is that Jesus is NOT different to the God of the OT.
Do you think that the pacifist, ever merciful and forgiving character of Jesus is compatible with the jealous, violent, draconian YHWH?
7. It appears I can't count quite as well as I had formerly presumed. There was no question 7. :)
8. Is it conceivable to you that Christianity might not actually be true (in the sense that Jesus might just have been an irregular Joe.)?
Yes. It's perfectly conceivable that the resurrection didn't happen.
Willingness to accept even the possiblity that it may not be true (even if you believe it is true) is probably the single greatest distinction between the moderate and the fundamentalist. Glad to see you are in the moderate camp!
9. When considering the idea that there is no God, is your reaction one of distaste or disagreement and could you be happy living in a universe where there was no God?
More disagreement; specifically a sense that it was an incoherent perspective. I wouldn't know what to do with various things that I understand about the world (eg how to link together justice, integrity, knowledge and so on).
I would be interested to hear more about how your Christianity (or even just God belief) informs your views on justice, integrity etc.
10. Why do you think (assuming you do) that Mohammed was not in direct contact with God (Allah)? There is a holy book and many witnesses who profess he was. If you are willing to believe such things are possible, why do you not believe this?
Mohammed was a completely different character to Jesus. He was more like Napoleon.
Agreed. In fact, that may be doing Napoleon as disservice. But in what way does that make it less believable?
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b) I think i) the historical evidence is robust, and ii) science doesn't have anything to say about it.
Note that these two assertions are in contradiction. The statement, "The historical evidence for X is robust" is something science has to say about X.
To say that science doesn't have anything to say about X is to say that the evidence (historical or otherwise) has nothing to do with X.
For example, the historical evidence for the existence of Scarlett O'Hara and Tara has nothing whatsoever to do with the literary merit of Gone With the Wind.
Sam seems fond of trying to have his cake and eat it too.
Baby-Butchering Barefoot Bum,
for once I have to agree with You.
BB,
I disagree, I don't think the statements contradict at all. Unless of course you assume they directly relate.
All you're suggesting is that, because science cannot say anything about the "magical powers", the historical evidence is not robust.
Robust evidence in a court of law for example, is more often then not, "not" scientific.
Now I'm not one to believe in magic myself, I'm simply suggesting that there isn't anything wrong necessarily with the statements.
BB,
Let me spin it this way:
Most peoples in the ancient world believed the world to be flat. The proposition was true and bore itself our relative to experience at the time; there was no scientific evidence to say that it was otherwise. On the other hand, classic Greeks believed it to be round. Of course in this case we have no scientific evidence from them to support the claim they had, but as it turns out, they were right. By scientific evidence I mean a direct tie into a mathematical language that bore this out. They’re evidence was likely intuitive and empirical.
Today we can safely say from our perch in the future that the earth is in fact round, and that those who believed otherwise simply believed incorrectly. However, as truth is systemic in nature, we can only make that statement relative to ourselves and not in fact make a proof otherwise.
So the point is this, the evidence for Christ turning water into wine (for example) may be said to be robust empirically. However that does not mean that there exists the scientific evidence to bare that out. What we now consider to be true and false is not necessarily the final word on the matter; it is merely what we’ve laid to bare via proposition and scientific language. So just because science cannot speak to something doesn’t mean it isn’t true, but of course it doesn’t mean it IS true as either. The test is, what practical use does something have when there isn’t scientific evidence to back it up? What practical use was there to the Greeks in BELIEVING that the earth was round?
How do you know, BB, that you’re not believing incorrectly? Is it ok that “flat earther’s” believed incorrectly, just so long as it suited they’re purposes? Perhaps I’m suggesting that you may in fact be wrong, and all you’re really doing is saying, “my thinking suites ne (works for me) why think otherwise? To say that Christians are ultimately wrong would take more then science (as again it cannot bare it out) you have to also show that they’re thinking doesn’t “work”.
Sorry to spam, but one last note. An atheist might say that we should never believe in anything that isn't true, or hasn't been proven to be true. But as science goes it's always proven to be nothing more then an approximation. We use it, believe it, because when we apply it it works for whatever purpose we're using it for... That doesn't mean it's absolute.
So how more non-sensical then, is religious talk from scientific talk in appliaction?
andrew,
Truth is not a relative concept. The earth is round (spherical). I won't rush to critisise someone who thought it wasn't before we had the knowledge and technology to figure out the truth of the matter. Someone who believes today that the earth is flat in spite of the evidence that it is round is simply wrong. Nobody's opinion matters. That person indeed would be a fool.
Science can clearly demonstrate that a corpse cannot come back to life after three days. You can be presented with mountains of evidence which will explain exactly why it can't. If you wish to believe something currently known to be impossible, (barring you being a complete idiot) you must be presuming that some unique circumstances, in this case divine intervention, are present. The historical evidence would have to be overwhelming before believing such to be the case even approaches reasonable. The historical evidence is horribly insufficient to justify the claim. I cannot see how such a belief could be considered reasonable. It is a belief not based on evidence and sound judgement but instead one based on wishful thinking and entirely emotional motivation.
Sam's suggestion that science doesn't have anything to say about it quite simply ignores what we do know in favour of what we don't know. Is it concievable that God exists and intervened to resurrect himself (Jesus). Note this is not even consistant within the narrative. He killed himself to appease himself and then resurrected himself? Leaving that aside though, it is concievable. That is a state of affairs in the universe which is concievable. It is not however, reasonable. If Christianity were the only religion making such outlandish claims, the only religion period, it would still be highly dubious and still irrational to believe it. When in fact, these claims are just one set in amounst hundreds of such outlandish and mutually exclusive claims we can be sure that most of them are false. This only makes it more unreasonable to believe.
I think also that BB was saying that if there is historical evidence then that is science saying something about it. In fairness to Sam though, I presumed he meant that science cannot say anything about the resurrection because it is an event caused or taking place in a realm beyond the reach of science. To believe that though is to presuppose that the events are true. Willingness to hold such beliefs leaves you in the unfortunate position of having to entertain any tale no matter how ridiculous as you have admitted that there are events which cannot by their nature be investigated and falsified. You are subscribing to the notion that even if science proves something false or impossible, it still might be possible in some magical, otherworldly way. This is not a reasonable position.
First off, I don't generally believe the Christ account to be true in the objective sense. I'm simply making an argument about truth.
(I'd like to pick at one statement though)
you state:
"Truth is not a relative concept."
You seem to be suggesting that truth is absolute. If that is you're suggestion, what proof do you have of that?
Just because it isn't a relative concept, doesn't mean it isn't relative.
That came out sort of Sye TenB'ish, sorry about that.
andrew,
That came out sort of Sye TenB'ish, sorry about that.
That was pretty funny. Good ole sye. :)
Truth in an objective sense I take to mean the actual state of affairs.
The world is round. This is true because the world is round.
The world is flat. This is false. It may at one point in history have been regarded as true but it was objectively always false.
Truth statements about subjective concepts ("brocolli tastes good") is not a statement involving any kind of objective truth. It is entirely subjective opinion. This kind of statement can be "true" for one person but "false" for another.
The death and subsequent ressurection of Jesus is a truth claim. Christians claim these events actually happened. They either did or they did not. It is not a statement of opinion in the sense that it cannot be true for Christians and untrue for others.
Are you suggesting that factual occurences are a nothing more than subjective opinion? Can the world in fact be flat?
CC (I miss Sye)
I'm suggesting perhaps that, truth is what works by way of belief and/or that, truth is systemic.
I'm sure if we were able to query the individuals who thought the world was flat eons ago and asked them what they meant, they would appeal to they're experience. We may find out that what they mean is a matter of experience, a figure of speech. In this way what they say is true to form.
Once it was thought that angels pushed that planets around, now we know it's gravity. But what's different about these two concepts? I would maintain that the difference is linguistic. Newtonian physics is a way of talking about experience, it is not experience itself, and there is nothing absolute about it. We talk about the world using language that's immaterial; when we're wrong about something related to what we consider truth, we're not wrong about our experience, we're wrong relative to the way we're using language. In other words, our experience is never wrong and neither is reality, it is what it is. (graviton particles are just as much ghosts as angels pushing planets around. The point of both is simply to relate an idea about your experience, not to say anything about the world as it is in itself - we can never know that)
So my question isn't so much, was there a man named Christ who turned water into wine, but, what does it mean to say that? I maintain that religion is a language, and the key is not validating it objectively, but determining the meaning.
I would also argue that EVERYTHING is a personal experience. What we call objective seems to be nothing more then what we agree to relative to language. We agree to speak in such and such a way because it works. is your green my green, who knows?
But all this is just my current thinking. I'm open to any of it being wrong.
P.S.
right now you, I, Sam and BB might all disagree. But it's not necessaraly because our experience of things is different per se'; it's because the way we talk about that experience is different, and we don't understand eachothers language.
Andrew,
I don't agree that truth is systemic. You are confusing yourself with Sam-like adherence to imagined difficulties presented by language. If I state that the world is round, we both know what I mean, we both know it is true. This is an absolute. If language were to break down and all systems of measurement were to mysteriously be forgotten tomorrow, the world would still be round in the sense that I expressed it and in the same sense that you understood that. The world does not change with an arbitrarily constructed system. It remains round. If we assign the label "wober" to describe the shape of the earth then it is true to say that the earth is wober. Someone else might not understand what the term means but the earth never-the-less is wober. If a human being at any point expressed the view that the earth was flat, they are wrong and that statement was untrue. You can get wittgenstein's knickers in a twist all day about it but that won't alter the untruth of the statement. We have assigned to truth the meaning of correctness regarding the condition of things. The shape of the earth is not subjective.
You are absolutely right to suggest that everything is a personal experience but this don't really change anything. If for instance in your mind the word flat actually related to physically round things, you would be speaking the truth to say the world is flat. It would be a true statement. The language is completely besides the point in determining truth. What you imagined in your head, the essence of what you meant was correct regarding the shape of the earth.
It may be scientifically possible to determine if what you see as green is in fact exactly what I see as green but that probably would be a waste of time. In the case of colours, we are both seeing the same wavelenght of light. If "green" means your perception of that wavelenght then green is indeed a subjective term. If "green" means the particular wavelenght of light, then it is not subjective and would be either true of false. You suggest that Newtonian phsyics are not absolute but you are only taking about the language used to express what we know Newton was talking about. What he was talking about is absolute. Gravity will not be suspended if nobody knows what the word means. To say that Newtonian physics is not absolute is just a semantic quibble. What Newton was talking about is absolute, the fact that the language used to espress it is not, is entirely irrelevant to the truth of what he expressed.
When we look at these concepts from a religious perspective, they really aren't much different. Jesus Christ either did magically transmute water into wine or he did not. It is not a subjective issue. You might argue that whether or not he actually did is not of the utmost relevence to christianity but you cannot argue that for christians he did and non-christians he didn't. He did or he did not. He definately did not do both turn water into wine and not turn water into wine at the same time.
You suggest that religion is just a language and that discovering why something is expressed and what it means to express it is what is actually important. That may be the case for you and a few others but we both know that when the majority of religious people speak about Jesus turning water into wine, they are not imagining some vague expression of the insubstanial, they mean he literally turned water(H2O) into wine(fermented grape juice).
It is at this point that a little rational honesty is required from the religious. That honesty is admitting that we both know what water is, we both know what wine is, that these concepts are the same to both of us, and that it is impossible to convert one to the other with a wave of a hand. The religious person may suggest that he had divine power and that is fair enough, maybe he did but lets not fall at the first hurdle and try to excuse the impossible by appealling to meaning or some entirely constucted vagueness that absolutely was not intended in the literature.
I agree completely that you, me, Sam and BB do share a common experience of the world. You and Sam want to see some other dimention to things which is not evident. BB and I are content to accept the universe the way it is. There may even be some value in what you want to express in religious terms but when it ventures into making truth claims about the state of the world, those claims need to be examined to see if they are true or false. They most certainly are either true or false. They cannot be both.
CC, (I think you misunderstand me, and I lack some explanitory skills here perhaps.)
if truth is absolute, and truth exists void of propositions, then perhaps you can tell me something that is true void of a proposition?
For something to be absolute, I would suggest it falls into the following, by definition:
1.) Exist Independently
2.) Exist not in relation to other things
3.) Exist not relative to other things
4.) Be true for every possible circumstance
Name one truth that fits this criteria. I'm not being contentious here, I'd simply like to test my thinking.
Again, things by themselves are not true or false, it would sound silly to say, "car is true." It's only what we say about things (propositions) that are either true or false. When we agree to a propositional truth as in (the car is red", we say that this something is objectively true. But it isn't true in and of itself, it's true of our experience.
Another question I ask myself from Kant is:
1.) Does logic apply to things in and of themselves?
2.) Or, does logic apply to our experience of things only?
I'd suggest that #1 is not provable. Science does not discover the way the world operates by itselt, it discovers the way it operates relative to our experience of it. Our knowledge of things is limited by our capacity to sense and experience. Therefore this is one argument for truth being relative. It is relative to a method of resolution, a system of proof, the need for mind and language to make propositions.
Your idea of truth seems to be transcendental, as if things are just true without mind. In this way Truth is your God. You’re believing in something you can’t prove and taking it on faith. Hows that different then believing in God.
Don’t take me the wrong way here, CC, again, I’m simply trying to challenge my thinking on this. In order for me to be wrong in one sense, you have to prove that truth is absolute, and I don’t see how that is possible.
Andrew,
Why must truth be absolute? Absolute seems like the wrong concept to be applying here.
Why must truth
1.) Exist Independently
2.) Exist not in relation to other things
3.) Exist not relative to other things
4.) Be true for every possible circumstance
you are correct in saying that truth in propositions, but truth is unchanging. Truth is the actual nature of something. I am male. This is true and cannot be untrue. You are trying to attach all kinds of requirements to truth which are not nessesary.
Truth being independant of everything is meanless as truth is always about something. Truth is not absolute (why should it be) it is objective. What I mean is this (I'm not the best as explaining myslef either :))
When the proposition is made, when we have expressed what it is we are making a truth statement about, the truth is decided.
My car is red.
This statement makes it pretty clear what the truth is or is not. The truth of the statement refers to your car's colour. If what you call red happens to look green to me, you were telling the truth. This is due to your/my subjective experience of red. When we both look at a red thing and agree that it is red, I am now in a position to judge your subjective assesment of the redness of your car. We both know what you mean when you say your car is red. We can both decide that green is actually red if we want to. The car's colour meanwhile does not change. We can label it whatever we want but nothing about our experience alters the cars colour. The car has an actual colour. Lets say light is reflected off of you car at wavelength A.
We decide to call wavelenght A, Red.
You say "my car is red". This is true. you also say, "light reflects off of my car at wavelength A". This is true.
Tomorrow we decide that from now on we are going to call wavelenght A green.
You say "My car is green". This is true. You say "Light reflects off of my car at wavelenght A" Again true. You are using two different labels to say the same thing.
You cannot say "Light reflects off of my car at wavelength B" This is false. You can say it in french if you like, it will still be false. When we are dead and buried, there will still be only one truth as to what wavelenght light reflects off of your car. The point is that there is a definate, absolute if you like, state of things in the universe. The state can change, you might paint your car for example but at any given moment, there is a definate state.
The earth is a sphere. We can call it flat if we want but it's shape remains the same. Truth is our accurate depiction of its actual state, no matter how we choose to define the terms. If every living being on earth died tomorrow and an alien tuned up here. By looking at our symbols and languages, that alien could determine what we meant when we said sphere. He could then examine the earth and make the statement
"dfjh gdf gfdgdf gdf gf gdfg f"
Loosly translated.
"True, the earth is a sphere"
He might have known the earth was a sphere becuase he could sense a unitformity in its gravity well or by someother means, strange to us.
It does not matter how he perseves the universe, so long as he can desipher what we were conveying and compare that to how things are.
CC,
we're on two ccompletely different pages here, and I'm doing a poor job of it. That being the case, perhaps Robert Pirsig will do a better job of saying what I'm trying to.
I have a cut of dialogue from ZMM HERE
If you haven't read this, it's a great book.
CC,
I'll leave the conversation here after this post. I have to think over what you've stated, and what I'm thinking. I've read over your comments, but my thinking is in it's own little world at this point.
Back to what I was originally saying before I botched it all up.
(regarding my post just above). The context of thought that the ancient people had is completely different from the scientific western mindset that we have today.
So what did it mean to say that Jesus turned water into wine? In todays modern world, this doesn't make sense, we say that (literally) it's impossible, so what do we make of it? The problem arises when we apply our way of thinking onto they're way of thinking.
For the people that may or may not have witnessed such a thing, what they saw was miraculous, but perhaps by todays standards it was not at all the case. The point is however, not the literal truth of the matter (I think) but the message that that event conveyed in the minds of people. It's perhaps the subjective validity of it. In other words, it doesn't make much sense for me to believe in these things in some literal way (or better put, by todays standards), but to seek the meaning of them. The problem with christianity is it has become so dogmatic it's hard to look at it any other way. To put it another way, the laguage of the bible has remained the same, but our way of talking about the world continually changes. Which is why I have a fondness for buddhism as it rejects dogma. But I think both are paths to enlightenment which science does not address.
In this way, back to the original point from the first post, what can science say about it? I don't think it can say much of anything with meaning.
CC,
I'll leave the conversation here. I have to think over what you've
Andrew,
You suggest that ancient people had a mindset that was completely different, I’m not so sure that’s true. They were doing their best with extremely limited information. We have more information now and it would be foolish to disregard or devalue what we have learned. It seems to me sometimes that we are on the cusp of an anti-enlightenment. Science hasn’t made people happier so lets throw away our advances. Science is cold and unfeeling, what it says makes me uncomfortable so it must be wrong on some level. Science has something to say about everything but people often don’t like what it has to say. Pirsig’s spiel about gravity not existing before Newton must have been too subtle for me. I don’t get what he was saying. I’m assuming he was not being moronic enough to actually suggest that gravity really didn’t exist before Newton. He did seem to make a few pointless claims too. The law of gravity didn’t exist before people. True. It is a human name given to a natural phenomenon. There is no independent entity called the law of gravity. Yeah, thanks Pirsig, we know. Gravity though most certainly did exist before people; there was just no one around to name it. This is a retarded point revolving around nothing more than an arbitrary label and some sceptical nonsense. We can either admit that the universe operates independently of people’s minds or we can adopt the sceptic’s position and simply sit around confident that learning is pointless, as we can never really know anything. A comparison of self-evident scientific facts like gravity to ghosts is utterly absurd.
I have never been overly impressed with the Zen philosophy and that snippet has not endeared it to me any further.
Zen: The art of being smugly clever and utterly pointless.
If he was saying something more sophisticated, I’m going to need it explained to me very slowly. The point about the wine is bordering on vexing. Ancient people knew full well that turning water into wine was not a natural act. If they didn’t know this, they would not have called it a miracle. The bible is portraying this as a factual event. The people are amazed precisely because they did know it was impossible for water to just become wine. Modern theists have a habit of patting ancient people on the head like they are some kind of endearing simpletons. They were every bit as capable of rational thought as we are. They did not have the benefit of the knowledge we have now though. There is no great meaning in the act. It most likely never occurred but if it did, it was nothing more than a parlour trick that convinced some uneducated people of some wildly improbable things. Human history has been a progression from ignorance to knowledge. God belief and worse the belief in specific religious stories is another form of ignorance. Much like believing in witches or leprechauns. If you have to start waffling about different kinds of truth of redefining truth, that should serve as a pretty loud warning that you are leaving reality behind. What is this great enlightenment you think Buddhism or Christianity can lead you to? Have you ever met an enlightened person? How were they different from anyone else? Why are they not giving public speeches?
Enlightenment by some manner of cathartic revelation is pure pie in the sky. A magical understanding that will make sense of things. It seems to me the search for an answer to an imaginary question. We can make sense of things to a fair degree through education but most of us just don’t like the kind of sense reality makes.
Speaking of grammar /language, I excreted a blog entry on art history whose title I picked purely to piss you off.
http://midnightreflection.net/
*runs away giggling*
CC,
one comment. Pirsig's book is not about Zen, and it's not about motor cycle maintenance. I think you'd probably enjoy it as a classical logical thinker. it also has nothing to do with religion.
YOU CAN READ IT HERE is you're interested....
PIRSIG ON WIKI
andrew,
Thanks for the link, I'll give it a gander.
the aliens are here and they love christ!!! plus: 'Conversation with Jesus!! search 'aliens', 'jesus'
You have been tagged with a blog meme.
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