Are Psychological Abnormalities a part of Christian Apologetics?

[Freodin]

Whoops! My mistake. I misread that last line of yours, thinking you had said, "...atheists should not use the argument of "Religion is natural and normal".

I kind of "read into" your statement an extra letter, and it changed the whole meaning for me. My apologies.

No problem. Happens to the best of us.

Mmmm. I don't know. Where does the 'artificiality' end, then?

That is an interesting question. I am not sure. I don't think that there even is a distinct line between the two concepts... more of a vague, fuzzy transition.

I find that I have extreme problems to even describe it correctly. Perhaps we could use "music" as an analogy.

"Sound" is natural. It's just movement of air. Various types of sound are natural. Rhythms. Some tonal intervals seem to be "more natural" to us... based on proportions and similar ideas.
But the more you add to the idea of "sound" to turn it into "music", until you arrive at a classic symphony, a gregorian choral, a tibetian chant or a turkish pop-song... the more "artificial" you get.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

No problem. Happens to the best of us.


That is an interesting question. I am not sure. I don't think that there even is a distinct line between the two concepts... more of a vague, fuzzy transition.

I find that I have extreme problems to even describe it correctly. Perhaps we could use "music" as an analogy.

"Sound" is natural. It's just movement of air. Various types of sound are natural. Rhythms. Some tonal intervals seem to be "more natural" to us... based on proportions and similar ideas.
But the more you add to the idea of "sound" to turn it into "music", until you arrive at a classic symphony, a gregorian choral, a tibetian chant or a turkish pop-song... the more "artificial" you get.

That's an interesting analogy, and If you weren't an atheist, I'd almost think you're a Philosophical Hermeneuticist. Like me.

 

[Freodin]

That's an interesting analogy, and If you weren't an atheist, I'd almost think you're a Philosophical Hermeneuticist. Like me.

Thanks... I guess?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Thanks... I guess?

I'm simply saying that you, like me (or Kierkegaard or the modern Hermeneuticists and some Post-moderns), see an essential cognitive flow and conceptual integration between human perceptions that sometimes are purported to be either purely objective in their nature with others that are supposedly seen as being purely subjective in their nature, as we would tend to differentiate between these states of praxis when referring to the most common senses in which these terms are used.

Hence, we now have the newer way in which someone like Kierkegaard uses the term 'subjective,' it's isn't the old, common denotation he's referring to when he talks about how we each have our own Subjective part when playing within our communal attempts to work in the world together by way of supposedly 'purely' objective protocols.

And from this, we get forms of Existential thought; so on some level, it could be seen to be a natural thing to move to a Christian position as Kierkegaard would seem think, while at the same time, it would also be natural to have the more atheistic position of a Sartre or Camus.

But if I've misinterpreted the intended meaning of your analogy, please straighten me out here.

 

[Freodin]

I'm simply saying that you, like me (or Kierkegaard or the modern Hermeneuticists and some Post-moderns), see an essential cognitive flow and conceptual integration between human perceptions that sometimes are purported to be either purely objective in their nature with others that are supposedly seen as being purely subjective in their nature, as we would tend to differentiate between these states of praxis when referring to the most common senses in which these terms are used.

Hence, we now have the newer way in which someone like Kierkegaard uses the term 'subjective,' it's isn't the old, common denotation he's referring to when he talks about how we each have our own Subjective part when playing within our communal attempts to work in the world together by way of supposedly 'purely' objective protocols.

And from this, we get forms of Existential thought; so on some level, it could be seen to be a natural thing to move to a Christian position as Kierkegaard would seem think, while at the same time, it would also be natural to have the more atheistic position of a Sartre or Camus.

But if I've misinterpreted the intended meaning of your analogy, please straighten me out here.

I'm not quite certain if the previous paragraph was meant as an interpretation of my analogy. Can you clarify?

 

[gaara4158]

Oh, so atheists really don't care if we believe or not...

No, not particularly. Atheists just want to be accepted as decent, rational people despite not sharing a few dearly-held beliefs with everyone around them. They only care what you believe insofar as those beliefs animate you to limit their rights.

 

[Hieronymus]

The organization effect is more of an effort to provide a community for people who don’t believe in God but can’t tell their family or friends for fear of being ostracized. The effort to “spread the good news” is, in turn, to make it so atheists aren’t at such a risk of being so ostracized. Atheists would prefer not to need to organize at all.

Hmm, the atheist victim status then?
That's new to me.
I think it's rather the antipathy and anger towards religion and God that drives atheism.
And i mean Dawkins atheism, not relabeled agnosticism.
This is what we have been fed for decades now.
Sometimes for good or at least understandable reasons though.
But often for rather hammy reasons i.m.h.o.
But religious false teachings and rotten fruits are certainly also to blame.

 

[Tone]

So even if religion and religious thought is "normal" and "natural"... should me follow it? Should we promote it? And, what kind of "religion"?
Somehow, everyone seems to come to the, erm, "natural" reaction of: "Why, mine, of course!"

James 1
"26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

-True religion ^ is natural to man as he was created to be

-Man's religion (false religion), in his fallen state, is an unnatural religion

-Irreligion, if directed at true religion, is wicked (unnatural man)

-Irreligion, if directed at false religion, is a natural response

 

[Freodin]

James 1
"26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless. 27Pure and undefiled religion before our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

-True religion ^ is natural to man as he was created to be

-Man's religion (false religion), in his fallen state, is an unnatural religion

-Irreligion, if directed at true religion, is wicked (unnatural man)

-Irreligion, if directed at false religion, is a natural response

"Somehow, everyone seems to come to the, erm, "natural" reaction of: "Why, mine, of course!""

I think I rest my case.

And don't bother to respond. I don't want to pollute you and keep you from caring for all these orphans and widows.

 

[gaara4158]

Hmm, the atheist victim status then?
That's new to me.
I think it's rather the antipathy and anger towards religion and God that drives atheism.
And i mean Dawkins atheism, not relabeled agnosticism.
This is what we have been fed for decades now.
Sometimes for good or at least understandable reasons though.
But often for rather hammy reasons i.m.h.o.
But religious false teachings and rotten fruits are certainly also to blame.

I can understand why you’d think that, but you might empathize better if you imagined that you, as a Christian, were stuck in a Muslim-majority country. How would you feel?

 

[Silmarien]

Thanks Silmarien! I enjoyed the guy's little 'reverse-sermonette' he offered to fellow atheists. Some of what he said also could be useful for Christians to hear. I'm with you in thinking that his evolution rhetoric might not be the best way to analogize how some religious doctrines and practices have undergone derivative, micro-permutations during the centuries. But in the case of long-lived religions like Christianity and Hinduism, among others, its not like he's making things up out of whole cloth. I mean, one doesn't need to read, for instance, John Henry Cardinal Newman's book, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, to know that there have been some interesting interpolations later made from the earliest Christian articulations.

No, I don't think he's making things up. There has obviously been development, and you can definitely see strong cultural elements in many variations of Christianity, but I don't think it's entirely appropriate to import biological concepts like natural selection. You can't say, "Well, I think eyesight was an unjustified evolutionary development, so I will return to photosynthesis." You very much can take that approach to theology, though.

And yes, we've noticed that you've been aloof lately. How dare you be a reasonable, responsible person with a good work ethic who just leaves everyone hanging around here on CF!

Less "good work ethic," more "long commute," I'm afraid.

 

[Silmarien]

I think that Christians (particularly the... well, just most of them) would do well to accept that irreligion is just as "natural" as religion, and not per se evil, depraved, reprobate, sinful, disgusting, rebellious, criminal, immoral... you get my point?

Irreligion can be as natural as religion and still sinful, though. Christian theology generally doesn't equate naturalness with goodness--it says that the world is fallen. Sin is a very specific theological concept, and I don't know how a Christian could deny that disbelief was in some sense sinful without abandoning Christian theology altogether.

Keep in mind, under the more strongly Augustinian flavored anthropologies, sin and rebellion are pervasive problems, and the Christian is in no sense free of them either. The old Pauline idea that one is the worst of all sinners ought to rule out judgment, abuse, and exclusion, certainly, but the secular world doesn't get to redefine what is meant by the word "sin."

 

[Hieronymus]

I can understand why you’d think that, but you might empathize better if you imagined that you, as a Christian, were stuck in a Muslim-majority country. How would you feel?

I am stuck in an oblivious, new agey, humanistoid, agnostic, uninterested, biassed country.
So i know how it feels to be alone in my beliefs.

 

[gaara4158]

I am stuck in an oblivious, new agey, humanistoid, agnostic, uninterested, biassed country.
So i know how it feels to be alone in my beliefs.

Then you understand the atheist’s situation without having to invent motives of rebellion and anger.

 

[Hieronymus]

Then you understand the atheist’s situation without having to invent motives of rebellion and anger.

Invent?
They're offered to everyone freely.
All under the guise of 'reason', of course...
For the rest it's human nature and our modern day culture to be against authority, especially God.

 

[Freodin]

Irreligion can be as natural as religion and still sinful, though. Christian theology generally doesn't equate naturalness with goodness--it says that the world is fallen. Sin is a very specific theological concept, and I don't know how a Christian could deny that disbelief was in some sense sinful without abandoning Christian theology altogether.

Keep in mind, under the more strongly Augustinian flavored anthropologies, sin and rebellion are pervasive problems, and the Christian is in no sense free of them either. The old Pauline idea that one is the worst of all sinners ought to rule out judgment, abuse, and exclusion, certainly, but the secular world doesn't get to redefine what is meant by the word "sin."

Yes, I would agree with all you wrote here.
But that was not the point I was trying to make.
Basically, I was trying to demonstrate that basing a discussion on the demand / suggestion that your opposite denies some fundamental parts of their own position is not a good way to have a discussion at all.

Yes, I know that holding up the mirror to someone who is absolutly convinced to be right just doesn't work. I still can't stop doing it. In that regard, I am a hopeless optimist.

 

[Hieronymus]

Then you understand the atheist’s situation without having to invent motives of rebellion and anger.

On second thought, it makes little sense when you choose to become a member on a Christian Forum then.

 

[gaara4158]

Invent?
They're offered to everyone freely.
All under the guise of 'reason', of course...
For the rest it's human nature and our modern day culture to be against authority, especially God.

If you’re ascribing different motives to them than the ones they themselves have offered, you’re either inventing them yourself or you have to explain your reasoning further.

 

[Tone]

"Somehow, everyone seems to come to the, erm, "natural" reaction of: "Why, mine, of course!""

You don't wanna know "my" religion...believe me...and I don't want to know yours. But His religion...the true religion is Most Natural...and by "natural" I mean, what it is created to be, which is Tov Meod (Very Good).

*So your quote is not true...

 

[gaara4158]

On second thought, it makes little sense when you choose to become a member on a Christian Forum then.

You don’t think atheists are justified in their desire to debate proponents of the philosophy that oppresses them?