Are Psychological Abnormalities a part of Christian Apologetics?

[Hieronymus]

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

Oh, you're 'oppressed'..
In what way?
People disagree with you?
Or do they try to prevent you from going outside?

 

[Hieronymus]

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

Every human does that unless they are true agnostics, but then still.
Everyone is convinced of what they're convinced of.

I think I rest my case.

But "case" is the important term here.
How strong is the case for what one is convinced of?
Even when you say one can not be convinced, how strong is the case for that conviction?

 

[gaara4158]

Oh, you're 'oppressed'..
In what way?
People disagree with you?
Or do they try to prevent you from going outside?

I already explained that in my very first response to this thread. Atheists are often unable to come out as atheists to their family and friends for fear of being ostracized. It’s nothing so dramatic as concentration camps, but that dismissive attitude of yours is exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to correct when we put our message out.

 

[Freodin]

You don't wanna know "my" religion...believe me...

Oh, I wouldn't say that. I quite like The Cure.

 

[Tone]

Oh, I wouldn't say that. I quite like The Cure.

My own abnormal religion...is irreligion...disguised...

 

[Freodin]

My own abnormal religion...is irreligion...disguised...

Well, I am the devout believer in the theologically different God... so, do you think abnormality can shock me?

 

[Tone]

Well, I am the devout believer in the theologically different God... so, do you think abnormality can shock me?

So, the answer to the OP is yes, because a complete apologetic should always include personal testimony...wouldn't you say this is true for any apologetic, Christian or not?

 

[Hieronymus]

I already explained that in my very first response to this thread. Atheists are often unable to come out as atheists to their family and friends for fear of being ostracized. It’s nothing so dramatic as concentration camps, but that dismissive attitude of yours is exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to correct when we put our message out.

I'm being dismissive of your victim status.
I respect you, regardless of your convictions.
You're a fellow human being.
We're basically all in the same boat on this weird planet, i.m.o.
But too often "your message" (the atheist message) is a mix of ignorance and arrogance.
So i often wonder: Why not just tell us what it is that bugs you about the Christian faith?
And why not just admit that the existence of God has a lot of explanatory power?
You don't HAVE to believe it, but acting as if it's ridiculous is in itself ridiculous.

...so, what was this topic about again...?

 

[Silmarien]

I already explained that in my very first response to this thread. Atheists are often unable to come out as atheists to their family and friends for fear of being ostracized. It’s nothing so dramatic as concentration camps, but that dismissive attitude of yours is exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to correct when we put our message out.

I think we throw around the word "oppression" too much in the West. What happens to religious minorities in some Middle Eastern countries, whether they're Copts, atheists, or Zoroastrians, legitimately fits under that definition. To the extent that the Christian right in this country wishes to use state power to harm minorities, then yes, what they want is also an oppressive state, but it's generally not the case that they have one yet.

Some degree of tension is normal, I think, and everyone, regardless of their beliefs, needs to deal with the fact that not only might people disagree with them, but that they might think the error entails a genuine moral problem. (This isn't one-sided either, since there are atheists who not only believe that theism is unwarranted, but that it is immoral.) People need to stop getting caught up in what everyone else thinks of their choices.

Ostracism strikes me as a different issue. I know a Mormon woman whose Jehovah Witness family refuses to have contact with her. You still hear about problems cropping up when people leave fundamentalist Protestantism for Catholicism or Orthodoxy. There are communities where you don't want to come out as rejecting specific doctrines (eternal hell, penal substitution), so the problem here seems a bit bigger than people not understanding what atheism is.

 

[Tone]

what everyone else thinks of their choices

Yah is my Judge.

 

[Freodin]

So, the answer to the OP is yes, because a complete apologetic should always include personal testimony...wouldn't you say this is true for any apologetic, Christian or not?

Would that mean that there are only individual apologetics, or that these are part of a greater, general apologetic?

 

[Freodin]

And why not just admit that the existence of God has a lot of explanatory power?

Because that would be false.

 

[gaara4158]

I'm being dismissive of your victim status.
I respect you, regardless of your convictions.
You're a fellow human being.
We're basically all in the same boat on this weird planet, i.m.o.
But too often "your message" (the atheist message) is a mix of ignorance and arrogance.
So i often wonder: Why not just tell us what it is that bugs you about the Christian faith?
And why not just admit that the existence of God has a lot of explanatory power?
You don't HAVE to believe it, but acting as if it's ridiculous is in itself ridiculous.

...so, what was this topic about again...?

You called atheists victims, not me. I only explained why atheists feel the need to organize and educate the public on our position. It’s because we are a minority group that wants our voice heard. You wishing we’d just shut up and deal with it is the exact opposite of the solidarity we seek.

I cannot speak to the “arrogance” and “ignorance” you refer to, hopefully you’re not referring to anyone in this thread. Most atheists don’t deny that having a god would be very convenient for explaining all the mysteries surrounding our existence, but that doesn’t give us license to conclude he must exist.

I don’t have a problem with the Christian faith per se any more than I have a problem with Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. It’s when people try to justify any harmful actions against me solely by citing the text that it becomes a problem. And let’s not pretend that a literal interpretation of Genesis isn’t ridiculous.

 

[Tone]

Would that mean that there are only individual apologetics, or that these are part of a greater, general apologetic?

I don't get what you are asking...

 

[Freodin]

I don't get what you are asking...

Neither did I.

What is a "complete" apologetic? What is an "incomplete" apologetic?
Any "personal testimony" would, by definition, be personal. So any other apologetic that did not include this specific testimony would, by definition, have to be incomplete.
But because it is personal, every apologetic that is not held in a general form would have to be incomplete.

What the OP was asking was if Christian apologetic included psychological abnormalities.
If we are talking about specific, personal apologetics, then, yes, of course, this would be true. An apologetic doesn't need to be correct, normal or even sane.

But I was interpreting the OP in the sense that he talked about rationality-based apologetics that held at least a shread of aspirations to be correct and rationally understandable. And in that case: no, psychological abnormalities would have no place in apologetics.

 

[Tone]

Neither did I.

What is a "complete" apologetic? What is an "incomplete" apologetic?
Any "personal testimony" would, by definition, be personal. So any other apologetic that did not include this specific testimony would, by definition, have to be incomplete.
But because it is personal, every apologetic that is not held in a general form would have to be incomplete.

What the OP was asking was if Christian apologetic included psychological abnormalities.
If we are talking about specific, personal apologetics, then, yes, of course, this would be true. An apologetic doesn't need to be correct, normal or even sane.

But I was interpreting the OP in the sense that he talked about rationality-based apologetics that held at least a shread of aspirations to be correct and rationally understandable. And in that case: no, psychological abnormalities would have no place in apologetics.

Apologetics, like science, is a subjective endeavor from the start...it is dealing with communication between persons, all of whom experience some level of psychological abnormality...so, a complete apologetic is one that recognizes this and deals with it.

 

[Freodin]

Apologetics, like science, is a subjective endeavor from the start...it is dealing with communication between persons, all of whom experience some level of psychological abnormality...so, a complete apologetic is one that recognizes this and deals with it.

Hm. I would disgree with your understanding of apologetics. But seriously I can't see any point in debating this, so... if that is your view: fine.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

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.

...it would be surprising to me if Genetically Modified Skeptic [i.e. the guy in the OP video] really thought that his analogy carried as much parallel meaning and application as you seem to think he does. But, you could be correct in thinking that he does since it wouldn't be the first time we've since atheists run with an explanation about the nature of religion that is essentially a hackneyed use of terms in one field misapplied to another.

I guess since a lot of the New Atheists have been conditioned by viewing the world in only evolutionary terms, it may be easy for them to slip into a mode of thinking that only assesses something like the Christian faith in similar terms, even though the long history of World Religions like Christianity haven't been around anywhere near long enough for evolution to really be a fitting metaphor.

So...**sigh**...yet one more point for my friend, Silmarien!

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

Oh, I'm sorry to hear you have to go through that. Ugh! What a time killer!

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Hm? I think I said - and I quote:

So I don't know what you are trying to ask.

But it allows me to add a little thought that I might not have expressed correctly in the last post.
"Religious thought" is natural and normal. The "idea" of religion, of conscious agents beyond the observable sphere, of "powers" and "deities" and "spirits"... that is based on human nature. And because the vast majority of humans have that basic human nature... it is "normal".

Though... curiosity and skepticism, the quest for ever further, ever new answers is also based on human nature, and is something that the vast majority of humans share. So irreligiosity is also "natural" and "normal".

But, to go back to your question, that is about the foundation, not the specifics. Every specific "religion" is a human construct. It is based on human ideas, human perceptions, human inventions and human needs and wants. It is based on a "natural" foundation, but is in itself artificial.

Alright. In attempting to clarify what I may have perceived or misperceived about the ways in which your views may coalesce with my own, I think I see now that this is both some similarity and some difference. On the side of similarity, we can both affirm that religion, like most human cognitions, express some kind of human mental constructs also predicated upon human wants, needs, desires, etc. With that, we're similar on a very general scale, so far so good.

However, more in line with some of the things @Silmarien said above, I'm going to have to say that the term "natural," as you are attempting to use it, is slightly bigger and may contain too many distinctions that those like me could make in denoting Subjectivity from Objectivity, and from full Artificiality from realistically drawn and conceived essences within our (shared?) Reality. This would mean that there may also be a continuum on which the disposition and acting out of "irreligiousity" becomes something that isn't necessarily "natural." Sometimes, it may be; sometimes it might instead be an abnormal expression depending on exactly what relative angle of viewing we look at it. I guess in this regard, we could take Judas as an example of unnatural religion---the guy should have know, but just couldn't find it in himself to follow through; although Saul (before he became Paul) could be seen as a kind of more "natural" irreligious response. Thank God Jesus knocked him on his natural keester before he could do any real damage to Christianity .............. !

 

[Freodin]

Alright. In attempting to clarify what I may have perceived or misperceived about the ways in which your views may coalesce with my own, I think I see now that this is both some similarity and some difference. On the side of similarity, we can both affirm that religion, like most human cognitions, express some kind of human mental constructs also predicated upon human wants, needs, desires, etc. With that, we're similar on a very general scale, so far so good.

However, more in line with some of the things @Silmarien said above, I'm going to have to say that the term "natural," as you are attempting to use it, is slightly bigger and may contain too many distinctions that those like me could make in denoting Subjectivity from Objectivity, and from full Artificiality from realistically drawn and conceived essences within our (shared?) Reality. This would mean that there may also be a continuum on which the disposition and acting out of "irreligiousity" becomes something that isn't necessarily "natural."

I fear I have to disagree with almost everything here. Sorry.

Perhaps I am wrong or unjustified, but I would make the distinction between "natural" and "artificial" on quite the opposite side of what you seem to suggest. If I got you right... I'm not quite sure about that.

"Natural", in my view, is just the way things work. In that case, it is the way the human brain works.
I'd say you are aware of that: our brain, the subconscious as well as the conscious parts, but especially the subconscious, work sometimes (often? always?) quite differently from what we "want, need, desire". It takes direct and persistent conscious effort to shift these ways... but even then, the ability of the brain to retrain itself, at least partially, is "natural"... the way it works.

The wants, needs and desires... these are what drive the "artificial" part. This is how we take "what is" (natural) and try to turn it into "what ought to be" (artificial).

As I see it, both the search for patterns, the search for agenda, the search for a narrative and the search for answers... these are all part of this "natural" way our brain works. It is what makes us humans. And it is what drives both religiosity and irreligiosity. It is just a question of how far the quest goes and what path it takes.

But the pattern that we "identify" (or, make up), the agenda, the story, the specific answers... these are based on the "artificial" parts.

So the "disposition" is always natural. There is no fundamental difference between the "religious" and the "irreligious" side... they both employ the same mechanisms. But the "acting out" is always "artificial"... and both the involved mechanisms as well as the results can differ widely.

Sometimes, it may be; sometimes it might instead be an abnormal expression depending on exactly what relative angle of viewing we look at it. I guess in this regard, we could take Judas as an example of unnatural religion---the guy should have know, but just couldn't find it in himself to follow through; although Saul (before he became Paul) could be seen as a kind of more "natural" irreligious response. Thank God Jesus knocked him on his natural keester before he could do any real damage to Christianity .............. !

Hm again.
I don't know what I would make of the Judas character. In some (non canonical) stories, he's the hero, doing what needs to be done, even if it means his downfall. His role in the canonical gospels is... vague.
The problem that I have with most of these characters is that I cannot see them as real people... the whole set of the disciples seems, for the most part, more of a staffage than characters. Something for Jesus to act upon. Props. So it's quite difficult to do a character analysis on them.
Personally, I would place Judas in the "irreligious" side: the one who believed, and was disapointed to the point of disbelief. He became the betrayer because he felt betrayed. His chosen deity had turned out to disappoint him.

In a similar way, I would put Paul/Saul on the "religious" side. If the narrative is to be trusted, he was personally interested in the persecution of this new Christian group... and there is simply no "irreligious" motive for that. On that other hand, the defense of an existing religious belief against a potentially dangerous enemy is a strong religious motive, even a natural one. Even using my definition.