- Oct 28, 2006
- 21,223
- 9,981
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Others
[NOTE: The following apologetic OP thread has been inspired by something that my friend, Silmarien, has recently (and very kindly and with her usual professional comportment) addressed in regard to my peculiar behavior as I attempt to interlocute with various other significant people on this apologetics forum. What I say to her here isn't intended to be a rebuke; it's a discussion piece for all who wish to read it and by which to perhaps think more about what it is for a Christian (any Christian) to attempt to do apologetics from his or her own personal and subjective existence and point of view. It also attends to the misconceptions that skeptics may have about some basic logical and ideological structures of thought that are at play in how we engage Christianity.
Thank you.]
I'll just lay this out in simple form for everyone since, as you've kindly attempted to address, there is a peculiarity to the idiosyncrasy of the way I often communicate. Forgive me if it comes across as abrupt, but here it goes:
1) I'm a married man with a full time job. Since I'm not single, I don't have the same amount of leisure time to spare as would the typical single person; actually, I have a little less (....and when I start going back to church in 2020, that'll pretty much knock out Sundays as a time during which to write responses. ) This means I often feel "rushed" to write things out.
2) I also refuse to spell things out for anyone who doesn't show at least some genuine interest in my point of view, especially when I sense resentment and utter resistance on their part. Moreover, I can instantly think of a million other things I'd rather do than waste either my time or the time of my interlocutor. I'm really here to help folks who 'want' to find a way to have faith in Christ, but if someone dismisses out of hand what I have to offer as if I had just served them up a large plate of steaming boiled spinach, especially when they seem to have feigned an authentic inquiry, I'll be darned if I'm going to play the fool and waste my time spelling things out for for him. (And I say this last bit because this is what I've learned-- now --by experience over these past few years while on CF, and because I'm slightly under the influence at the moment: that is, I've been imbibing Myron Penner's critique on modern Christian Apologetics and rethinking it all ...)
3) Last but least, in my mind, the whole endeavor to demonstrate a perceptual quality called "clarity" over and upon some religious issue is fraught with a 100 car train load of epistemic and psycho-social complexities. Then too, I may be biased because I've NEVER in my life been convinced by any set of short-order cook deductions or by brief summaries on a topic or problems, especially when those conceptual entities relate to mass religion. No, I make my mind up by reading at least whole chapters of multiple books and often from at least more than one angle.
So, maybe I'm not the best one to try to present 'apologetics' since I don't really believe in the power of 'concise' critical arguments, and while I could be wrong about all of this, I don't think ANYONE should believe something based on short order logic either, no matter how valid and sound the argument may "seem." [Just take a listen to Craig's opening, slap-dash deductive argument he attempts to give in the first few minutes of the OP podcase-----he's only offering a valid argument, and he thinks it's sound, but it's not sound, it's only valid.]
And this is why I refuse to make the effort to lay things out by concise logic. As far as I'm concerned, all that goes into Christianity (or into any religion for that matter) can't be lain out in short order.
As another example of what I'm getting at, here are two relatively short videos that (in short order)---together---hint at what I'm getting at :
(Summary: 1st video is by Greg Ganssle and is approx. 6 minutes long. In it, he discusses how deductive thought, in relation to asserting truth about God, is not complex enough to handle conclusion about religion/God, despite what some folks, whether Christian or Skeptic, might think.)
(Summary: 2nd video features Robert Kuhn in discussion with Philip Clayton. They explore the concept of Emergence and the theoretical complexities we might all need to consider as we wrestle with the apparent epistemic contrast between the nature of religious thought and that of scientific thought. It's about 13 minutes long.)
Thank you.]
The only thing you in particular do that I'd rather you didn't is talk in a somewhat self-referential manner. I never know what precisely you have in mind when you alude to biblical hermeunetics or mention that you agree with a specific scholar I've never heard of before. I wouldn't mind a bit more clarity when you talk about some of this stuff, since I'd actually love to understand your point of view a bit better!
I'll just lay this out in simple form for everyone since, as you've kindly attempted to address, there is a peculiarity to the idiosyncrasy of the way I often communicate. Forgive me if it comes across as abrupt, but here it goes:
1) I'm a married man with a full time job. Since I'm not single, I don't have the same amount of leisure time to spare as would the typical single person; actually, I have a little less (....and when I start going back to church in 2020, that'll pretty much knock out Sundays as a time during which to write responses. ) This means I often feel "rushed" to write things out.
2) I also refuse to spell things out for anyone who doesn't show at least some genuine interest in my point of view, especially when I sense resentment and utter resistance on their part. Moreover, I can instantly think of a million other things I'd rather do than waste either my time or the time of my interlocutor. I'm really here to help folks who 'want' to find a way to have faith in Christ, but if someone dismisses out of hand what I have to offer as if I had just served them up a large plate of steaming boiled spinach, especially when they seem to have feigned an authentic inquiry, I'll be darned if I'm going to play the fool and waste my time spelling things out for for him. (And I say this last bit because this is what I've learned-- now --by experience over these past few years while on CF, and because I'm slightly under the influence at the moment: that is, I've been imbibing Myron Penner's critique on modern Christian Apologetics and rethinking it all ...)
3) Last but least, in my mind, the whole endeavor to demonstrate a perceptual quality called "clarity" over and upon some religious issue is fraught with a 100 car train load of epistemic and psycho-social complexities. Then too, I may be biased because I've NEVER in my life been convinced by any set of short-order cook deductions or by brief summaries on a topic or problems, especially when those conceptual entities relate to mass religion. No, I make my mind up by reading at least whole chapters of multiple books and often from at least more than one angle.
So, maybe I'm not the best one to try to present 'apologetics' since I don't really believe in the power of 'concise' critical arguments, and while I could be wrong about all of this, I don't think ANYONE should believe something based on short order logic either, no matter how valid and sound the argument may "seem." [Just take a listen to Craig's opening, slap-dash deductive argument he attempts to give in the first few minutes of the OP podcase-----he's only offering a valid argument, and he thinks it's sound, but it's not sound, it's only valid.]
And this is why I refuse to make the effort to lay things out by concise logic. As far as I'm concerned, all that goes into Christianity (or into any religion for that matter) can't be lain out in short order.
As another example of what I'm getting at, here are two relatively short videos that (in short order)---together---hint at what I'm getting at :
(Summary: 1st video is by Greg Ganssle and is approx. 6 minutes long. In it, he discusses how deductive thought, in relation to asserting truth about God, is not complex enough to handle conclusion about religion/God, despite what some folks, whether Christian or Skeptic, might think.)
(Summary: 2nd video features Robert Kuhn in discussion with Philip Clayton. They explore the concept of Emergence and the theoretical complexities we might all need to consider as we wrestle with the apparent epistemic contrast between the nature of religious thought and that of scientific thought. It's about 13 minutes long.)
Last edited: