Ask a Christian philosopher a question

[oi_antz]

Can you provide evidence proving that I was not abducted by aliens last night and returned to my home?

Nope. But I can tell that you aren't making this claim as a matter of fact.

 

[bhsmte]

Obviously God does not reveal Himself in an intrusive way. He seems to rather require us to trust Him, and approach Him humbly, as I gather so that we are not forced to obey Him but rather that we obey Him willingly.

You know what a "fact" is correct?

If religious beliefs were based on known facts, people wouldn't need faith to believe in them.

 

[bhsmte]

Nope. But I can tell that you aren't making this claim as a matter of fact.

I will make it now.

I was abducted by aliens last night and returned to my home safely. The experience was real and it has had a dramatic impact on my life.

Now, provide the evidence proving I was not abducted by aliens.

 

[Davian]

I am only asking whether you think it is possible or not. A yes no will do.

No, you are not "only" asking that. You are loading your questions with presuppositions that I do not hold, or wish to hold.

Like the question, how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, it is not a case of simply measuring the width of the pin, the width of the individual angels, and doing the math.

Plus some explanation why you answer that way.

I find it amusing. Others may find it amusing. You may clue in on how your questions are faulty, if you are not doing it intentionally.

Simple really.

Indeed.

I wish you would just do that!

You load your questions, and I'll unload them. Try bringing them unloaded, for a change.

 

[oi_antz]

You know what a "fact" is correct?

If religious beliefs were based on known facts, people wouldn't need faith to believe in them.

You seem to be suggesting that this should matter. Why?

I will make it now.

I was abducted by aliens last night and returned to my home safely. The experience was real and it has had a dramatic impact on my life.

Now, provide the evidence proving I was not abducted by aliens.

I still am not convinced that you are telling me something that you believe yourself.

 

[bhsmte]

You seem to be suggesting that this should matter. Why?

I still am not convinced that you are telling me something that you believe yourself.

That reality is, you can't prove that my claim is a myth, just as I or anyone else can't prove many other things are not myths.

I could tell you my evidence for being abducted was my personal experience and it was very real and it has dramatically impacted my life and I doubt you would accept that as good evidence, now would you?

And facts matter quite a bit, because facts are established as being true, with verification.

So, if religious people had facts to base their belief on, they wouldn't need faith.

 

[oi_antz]

That reality is, you can't prove that my claim is a myth, just as I or anyone else can't prove many other things are not myths.

I could tell you my evidence for being abducted was my personal experience and it was very real and it has dramatically impacted my life and I doubt you would accept that as good evidence, now would you?

And facts matter quite a bit, because facts are established as being true, with verification.

So, if religious people had facts to base their belief on, they wouldn't need faith.

Actually, I am quite interested to know how you would answer that question I asked.

As for your claim, sure I would believe that you were convinced of your experience, if you actually were.

Edit: I suppose you should feel that you have answered the question as you read it, and especially for you here now, I ought to be sorry for my quick response. This time, I actually can see that it was not fair to you.

But my question was meant to ask why does it matter that a religious person needs faith? What is it that you seem to think is bad or wrong about that? Surely you wouldn't go on to suggest that because faith is required, or that disbelief is made possible, it necessarily negates the truth of the claim that is being believed?

 

[oi_antz]

No, you are not "only" asking that. You are loading your questions with presuppositions that I do not hold, or wish to hold.

Like the question, how many angels can sit on the head of a pin, it is not a case of simply measuring the width of the pin, the width of the individual angels, and doing the math.

I find it amusing. Others may find it amusing. You may clue in on how your questions are faulty, if you are not doing it intentionally.

Indeed.

You load your questions, and I'll unload them. Try bringing them unloaded, for a change.

How about not reading it as a loaded question then. If you read this question: do you think it is possible that Adam did exist in the garden of Eden, and between that time and the time that the account was written in the form as we find in Genesis, the information was passed down the generations as the account in Genesis states? I don't see anything loaded about it. We know the account as written in Genesis exists, because we can read it. The question simply is "do you think it is possible that the information transpired from Adam to Moses"? It is not a question of whether it is likely, but only whether it is possible. Then if you think it is possible, or if you think it isn't possible, just tell me why you think so.

Seriously man, I just do not get why you won't do that. It either is possible or it isn't. Do you perceive a trap or something?

 

[Hoghead1]

I don't think Moses wrote the Pentateuch. That idea went out the window 150 years or so age with the birth of modern literary studies of the Bible. Indeed, the Bible itself never claimed that Moses wrote any of it. Biblical books originally contained no titles, sot that the title "Books of Moses" is purely the work of later translators. I think it also important to realize that Genesis gives tow highly contradictory accounts of creation. In Gen. 1, first animals are created, then man and woman together. In Gen. 2, this order is reversed, so that man is created first, then animals, then woman. These accounts were written centuries apart from one another, with 2 way earlier than 1.

 

[oi_antz]

In Gen. 1, first animals are created, then man and woman together. In Gen. 2, this order is reversed, so that man is created first, then animals, then woman. These accounts were written centuries apart from one another, with 2 way earlier than 1.

What do you think of this: http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=6&article=643

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Do you suggest that when Jesus refers to the story of Jonah, He is regarding him as mythical?

He probably didn't consider that sort of category. A famous biblical scholar once said that if one were to go back in time to the first century and speak to certain Palestinian Jews about, for example, the law of excluded middle or the law of non-contradiction one would have encountered nothing more than a curious smile. Jesus likely didn't know that Jonah was mythological, nor did he consider it simply history, people at the time tended to approach their scriptures as oracles portraying their own time or as timeless truths expressing the will of their gods.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

The question that I meant to ask, is how did the myth arrive in Israel's society and come to be believed as fact.

Plenty of myths become believed as fact for whatever reasons... Most people alive today consider the medieval period to be a "dark age", this has been entirely deconstructed by medievalist historians who consider those times much differently.

Even more recently, very many nations have constructed a sense of mythology surrounding their military history, America is a prime example of this. Independence day is something of a national myth of liberation - certainly the history itself is far more messy than this considering the life of minorities during this period. Australians regard Anzac Day as a day somewhat akin to Good Friday, the mythology of sacrifice and the story of the "diggers" finding mateship and companionship in the trenches of Gallipoli. This is pure myth: it's engrained onto national consciousness and it informed the particular palingenetic structure of nationalism. Even more, and not altogether a negative myth, but Stonewall has become something of a powerful symbolic myth for the LGBT community, a myth of solidarity, of strength and of exciting possibilities. Since then many gay activists have attempted to draw their legitimacy from being present then in those trenches. Mythology is something of the way that we construct much of the world we interact with.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

I don't think Moses wrote the Pentateuch. That idea went out the window 150 years or so age with the birth of modern literary studies of the Bible. Indeed, the Bible itself never claimed that Moses wrote any of it. Biblical books originally contained no titles, sot that the title "Books of Moses" is purely the work of later translators. I think it also important to realize that Genesis gives tow highly contradictory accounts of creation. In Gen. 1, first animals are created, then man and woman together. In Gen. 2, this order is reversed, so that man is created first, then animals, then woman. These accounts were written centuries apart from one another, with 2 way earlier than 1.

You're not wrong. No biblical scholar worth her or his salt would argue that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, however what has arisen as the alternative explanation, the Wellhausian documentary hypothesis and the subsequent tradition historicism of Noll and von Rad is not without its own pitfalls. The ideological basis for the source critical method developed by Julius Wellhausen is deeply rooted within the idealism and romanticist German philosophical assumptions in assuming a pristine pure original religion devoid of its subsequent falls into the ritualism of "Judaismus", this was "J" and "E" for documentarians. It persisted with this neo-Kantian myth of the pure original and whilst many contemporary biblical scholars are inclined to drop the associated implications of this, Lester Grabbe has all but deconstructed the supposed opposition between "prophet" and "priest", for example, the literary theory itself still curiously persists in most biblical scholarship (except amongst my minimalist friends).

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Not without evidence that it is. The reason for this, is the tone of language of the writers, they reveal no hint of deceit.

There is obviously no hint of deceit. Why would someone writing mythology be trying to deceive anyone? Does the Enuma Elish ring of deceit? What about Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

Sure, some people really need to believe it and most will admit, they believe it on faith, not because of objective evidence.

I think that we can take mythology a bit more seriously than that. The predominant school of religious studies today is the myth-ritual school, myth is understood to inform/form ritual as does ritual myth. These in turn shape community identities deeply.

 

[oi_antz]

He probably didn't consider that sort of category. A famous biblical scholar once said that if one were to go back in time to the first century and speak to certain Palestinian Jews about, for example, the law of excluded middle or the law of non-contradiction one would have encountered nothing more than a curious smile. Jesus likely didn't know that Jonah was mythological, nor did he consider it simply history, people at the time tended to approach their scriptures as oracles portraying their own time or as timeless truths expressing the will of their gods.

Whoah. Thanks.

 

[oi_antz]

There is obviously no hint of deceit. Why would someone writing mythology be trying to deceive anyone? Does the Enuma Elish ring of deceit? What about Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?

If it is mythology, then it begins with deceit. Yet the Enuma Elish does ring with conviction of someone who believes it. I will try to identify what makes it blatantly myth whereas Genesis doesn't have the same characteristic. There is definitely something different about them. Maybe it is a lack of genealogies, whereas Genesis is obviously designed to not be regarded as myth but rather to be read seriously as the origin of a race, traced accurately to the beginning of time.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

If it is mythology, then it begins with deceit. Yet the Enuma Elish does ring with conviction of someone who believes it. I will try to identify what makes it blatantly myth whereas Genesis doesn't have the same characteristic. There is definitely something different about them. Maybe it is a lack of genealogies, whereas Genesis is obviously designed to not be regarded as myth but rather to be read seriously as the origin of a race, traced accurately to the beginning of time.

I'd say that that is a hermeneutical lens rather than anything which flows naturally from the text. Genesis is much more alien than you may care to think... Hell, Judges, Joshua and Samuel are much more alien and mythical and legendary.

Mythical texts tend to portray deities playing around doing stuff, interacting with humans at times and granting favours to humans at times. How is that not Genesis or even Exodus and Numbers?

 

[oi_antz]

I'd say that that is a hermeneutical lens rather than anything which flows naturally from the text. Genesis is much more alien than you may care to think... Hell, Judges, Joshua and Samuel are much more alien and mythical and legendary.

Mythical texts tend to portray deities playing around doing stuff, interacting with humans at times and granting favours to humans at times. How is that not Genesis or even Exodus and Numbers?

I did become aware of that though, but there is definitely something more to it. Consider what this piece here really does to set the two works apart:

Maybe it is a lack of genealogies, whereas Genesis is obviously designed to not be regarded as myth but rather to be read seriously as the origin of a race, traced accurately to the beginning of time.

.. Plus Enuma Elish delivers lots of descriptive overview of events, without any sort of timeline, yet Genesis accounts make extremely deliberate attempts to be a historical record tracing the origins of a race from the beginning of time. In this sense, the two works are produced for much different purposes, although it is true that if someone is to view Genesis with the same hermeneutic lens as they would Enuma Elish, they might tolerate the reading of Genealogies and lifespans in a non-literal way.

 

[Aelred of Rievaulx]

although it is true that if someone is to view Genesis with the same hermeneutic lens as they would Enuma Elish, they might tolerate the reading of Genealogies and lifespans in a non-literal way.

Good, good... come over to the dark side of academia...
(/joke)

The genealogies don't necessarily indicate historicity and certainly don't eliminate the notion of the mythical structure of the text. Remember my suggestions surrounding Independence Day, Anzac, the Dark Ages and Stonewall - these are contemporary mythical structures which constitute reality for many people. Furthermore, one can look at the Epic of Gilgamesh to find analogous longevity.