Defending God

[quote=""Shernren]So YECs are hardly defenders of persecuted Christians by that measure. [/quote]

No probably not; like theistic evolutionists they seem more concerned with proving their interpretation of of life on Earth is 'right' rather than helping people in need. All the same, if a knew a person who actively helps defend persecuted Christians (or other oppressed groups) and he happened to be YEC, it wouldn't bother me.

Notedstrangeperson said:

No probably not; like theistic evolutionists they seem more concerned with proving their interpretation of of life on Earth is 'right' rather than helping people in need.

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Of course, one should not assume that what a person posts in an on-line forum constitutes their whole life. You have no way of knowing what each of us is doing relative to other concerns.

In point of fact, a good deal of my active Christian witness is advocating and encouraging others to advocate on behalf of oppressed peoples (Christians included, but not limited to Christians). It takes up far more of my time than this forum does. Most people who know me in person don't know about my on-line persona at all.

All the same, if a knew a person who actively helps defend persecuted Christians (or other oppressed groups) and he happened to be YEC, it wouldn't bother me.

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Same here.

In general, we agree. Any apparent disagreement seems to stem from the question being asked. Remember, this whole thread was about "to help Christianity, should we address the harm of YEC's, or ignore that and help Christianity by defending the theistic aspect of TE?"

Oh, so only a few christians are being persecuted. That's OK then.

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No, of course it's not OK. But remember, you said that persecution of Christians was worse for Christianity than the YECs in Christianity. I was just pointing out that the YECs seem to have a much worse effect on Christianity (the topic of this thread).

And even if your calculations are correct, you seem to be under the impression that people living as atheists is somehow much worse than people dying as Christians.

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Again, in the context of this thread, I was pointing out which is worse for Christianity. However, to directly address your point - it depends on your priorities. If one really thinks that non-Christians generally go to Hell, that Hell is real, and that Christians if killed go to Heaven, then it is clearly true that people living as atheists is much, much worse than people dying as Christians, out of compassion for those atheists. I personally think that Heaven's gates a bit wider than that, though.

As I mentioned to Gluadys, we shouldn't have to put up with persecution in the name of 'spiritual growth'. Using the argument that "persecution strengthens Christianity" would be like saying "sexism strengthens feminism" or "segregation strengthens Civil Rights". Strength comes not from being persecuted but from fighting persecution.

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Well, sure. Again, I was only pointing out that your statement that YECs cause less harm to Christianity than persecution doesn't fit with the data we have.

I did also emphasise that genuine persecution of Christians happens in places such as the Middle East rather than developed countries like the USA.

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Of course. It's an important fact that was central to why the numbers are so low for persecuted Christians. I only agreed with that.

Please forgive the sarcasm, but I think we have our priorities all wrong.

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Well, again, we all do a lot more than what you see here. I hope to reduce persecution of anyone on religious grounds. Don't forget that our own Christian publications often highlight perscution of Christians in places where Christians and Muslims are persecuting each other back and forth, and by so doing distort the situation.

A lot of it boils down to whether or not one really believe in Hell and other aspects of Christian doctrine. When you think through the implications of many of them, you'll see that they often give results that seem to go against one's heart. I'll leave that to you, as it is off topic, and I already stated which way I lean. Your priorities depend on what you believe.

Perhaps one of the reasons YECs fail to change is because they see evolutionists (theist or atheist) as arrogant

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In the same way that a medical doctor is arrogant for prescribing a medicine, as if he knew more about medicines than the patient.

- evidently teaching them about dinosaurs is of more importance than defending them from terrorists.

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As mentioned before, we do other things besides post on this forum, which is not about defending against terrorists. I have to admit, I've never seen a YEC on any forum complain that evolution is wrong because TE's don't defend against terrorists. I'm having a hard time making sense of your charge, actually. YEC's seem less focused on oppression and persecution than they are on trying to discredit science. If anything, it seems that moderate Christians like TEs do a lot more to help people in trouble, especially if you consider who helps people regardless of their religion the most. Has that not been your observation too?

Papias

papias said:

If one really thinks that non-Christians generally go to Hell, that Hell is real, and that Christians if killed go to Heaven, then it is clearly true that people living as atheists is much, much worse than people dying as Christians, out of compassion for those atheists.

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People have used this argument before as an excuse not to help those in need - basically by saying "God has already saved their souls; therefore they do not need our help." (I'll see if I can find a quote on this, I can't remember any of the top of my head.) If this was the case then Jesus wouldn't have dedicated so much of his time to helping to poor and sick.

Your arguement reminds me of one of the flaws of the pro-life crowd: their primary concern in to prevent the foetus being aborted, but once it is actually born they seem to lose interest. Similarly, your argument gives the impression that our primary concern should be converting people to Christianity, and whatever happens to them afterwards isn't that important.

papias said:

I was only pointing out that your statement that YECs cause less harm to Christianity than persecution doesn't fit with the data we have.
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Again, I was only pointing out that your statement that YECs cause less harm to Christianity than persecution doesn't fit with the data we have.
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It's an important fact that was central to why the numbers are so low for persecuted Christians. I only agreed with that.

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I don't think it's entirely sensible to base your argument on data. We're too concerned with our 'image', with getting as many people on 'our side' as possible and outweighing the competition - we're treating Christianity as a business rather than a religion. Having the maximum number of followers doesn't make us a good religion. Christianity was a good religion back when we the minority during the Roman era. I'd much rather have 500 true Christians than 3 million 'cultural Christians'.

papias said:

I have to admit, I've never seen a YEC on any forum complain that evolution is wrong because TE's don't defend against terrorists. I'm having a hard time making sense of your charge, actually. YEC's seem less focused on oppression and persecution than they are on trying to discredit science. If anything, it seems that moderate Christians like TEs do a lot more to help people in trouble, especially if you consider who helps people regardless of their religion the most. Has that not been your observation too?

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Actually, and this is only a guess, I would think that a significant amount of people who defend Christians are creationists of some sort. My reason for this is:

1. Most Christians who defend other Christians from persecution are themselves from the Middle East. Let's face it, not a great deal of us Western Christians have the nerve to go over there and help. I don't.
2. Again, this is only a guess but I suspect the Middle East doesn't have the world's best education system ...

In other words they are most likely creationists of some sort because they lack knowledge, but their main focus is on defending their religion.

Notedstrangeperson said:

Actually, and this is only a guess, I would think that a significant amount of people who defend Christians are creationists of some sort.

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Only in the sense that ALL Christians are creationists (including evolutionary creationists aka theistic evolutionists). For example, I know personally many strong supporters of Christian Peacemakers including some active team members who have worked in the Middle East at great personal risk to themselves. Many have suffered violence; some have been kidnapped and tortured. At least one has been murdered.

I'm not sure I know exactly what to think over defending Christians from persecution. On the one hand, it is certainly noble and proper to fight for the right to religious freedom. It is resonant with the Biblical appeals to uphold justice and freedom for all people as well as to help other members of the body of Christ. And, while there is a question of which comes first, it is generally true that religious freedom and with it an increasing acceptance of Christianity would come with an increased standard of living for people in poorer Muslim countries.

But then there is a strong thread running through the New Testament of the subversive response to persecution: that it is there to be persevered through. Look at Paul, for example. The list of sufferings he endures for the sake of the Gospel becomes a boast of the things God has allowed him to partake of as a mark of apostolic authenticity - see e.g. 2 Corinthians 11:22-30. He speaks in Colossians 1:24 even of "filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions" (ESV), that is (at least in my readings), the sufferings of an evangelist and itinerant apostle which Christ Himself could not have suffered for fear of diverting His mission but which are necessary for the spreading of the Gospel. And why should we be surprised? Christ Himself was persecuted and ultimately martyred. Both He and His apostles emphasized that nobody who is persecuted should be surprised that they are facing such persecution - no student is greater than his master.

Of course, Paul is not a sadomasochist - he does not see suffering as having redemptive value in and of itself, but he does often see it as a powerful sign of Christ at work in the world. He is not reckless in charging into danger, as seen when he asks for prayer to be delivered from wicked and evil men (2 Thess 3:1-2) and for the courage to proclaim the gospel boldly (Ephesians 6:19-20). The latter prayer request presupposes that his head is still talking and attached to his neck! The key, however, is that he does not see living comfortably, or even living, as having redemptive value in and of itself either. He expresses his ambivalence famously in Philippians 1:21-26, that he (initially) does not know whether it is better for him to be dead or alive! But he has "full courage now as always that Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death." By the time 2 Timothy was written, Paul is straining steadily heavenward: he looks back on his life in the past perfect tense and knows that his time of departure has come.

So I think the (entirely legitimate) fight against persecution of Christians needs to be tempered with Biblical considerations on the value of suffering for Christ. That is, we should not just pray that the oppressed church will be delivered, but we should pray that in her oppression she will reflect Christ and yet bring souls to the Kingdom, even while under the yoke of oppression. We need to be careful that our struggle against persecution isn't just a projection of the desire to enjoy worldly comforts.

Also, we must bear in mind that the secular value of freedom of religion - which many Christian organizations fight under the banner of - must be freedom for all religions, not just Christianity. The idea of Christians fighting to free Christians from religious persecution is hypocritical unless these Christians are equally willing to free all people from religious persecution. Coming from a Muslim country myself I think this aspect of international Christian ministry has caused me some discomfort - Muslims take offense (legitimately, I think) to Western Christians trying to defend Christians in Muslim countries, while at the same time they are so afraid of Muslims even building a mosque in a Western community. Furthermore, Muslim thought does include a strain of realized eschatology in the form of encouraging supremacism and political dominance over non-Muslims in this present world; when they see Christians standing up for Christians, with the backing of the economically and technologically powerful West, they tend to see that as the infidel equivalent of their holy call to rule the world, which then leads to the Clash of Civilizations and all those other strident West-Islam conflicts.

shernren said:

So I think the (entirely legitimate) fight against persecution of Christians needs to be tempered with Biblical considerations on the value of suffering for Christ.

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I guess this leads us to a different question to the one OP started with: "How does suffering make us better people?"

My idea was that fighting oppression, rather than simply being oppressed, is what gave us strength - but as you pointed out Jesus didn't fight even when he knew he was about to be executed.

Shernren said:

The idea of Christians fighting to free Christians from religious persecution is hypocritical unless these Christians are equally willing to free all people from religious persecution. Coming from a Muslim country myself I think this aspect of international Christian ministry has caused me some discomfort - Muslims take offense (legitimately, I think) to Western Christians trying to defend Christians in Muslim countries, while at the same time they are so afraid of Muslims even building a mosque in a Western community.

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Yes, that's yet another problem. There's been a great fuss in Britian for several years over 'political correctness' towards Muslims, with pretty disasterous results. All the Muslims responsible behind the 7/7 London bombs for example were born and raised in Britain, so we can't exactly say they were living under a tyrannical government. Perhaps if Western Muslims were as critical towards Islamic terrorists as Christian TEs are towards YEC things would be better. My point is I think it's a sign of weakness - cowardice even - to avoid helping Christians because we're worried about offending other religions.

But I digress.

Strange wrote:

Your arguement reminds me of one of the flaws of the pro-life crowd: their primary concern in to prevent the foetus being aborted, but once it is actually born they seem to lose interest. Similarly, your argument gives the impression that our primary concern should be converting people to Christianity, and whatever happens to them afterwards isn't that important.

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I agree with you. As I stated in post #23, I only mentioned that argument in the context of the OP. I don't argue that myself, and only used it to show that things are different if is asking about "what's best for Christianity" as opposed to "what's best for all people". Remember that we all do a lot more than just post here (I hope).

I don't think it's entirely sensible to base your argument on data.

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I hope you don't mean that as it sounded to me. It is nearly always entirely sensible to base one's argument on data - that's a lot better than denying the evidence from the real world. But somehow I don't think that's what you meant, so perhaps clarify, I don't mean to offend.

I know these are only guesses, so some thoughts on them:

1. Most Christians who defend other Christians from persecution are themselves from the Middle East. Let's face it, not a great deal of us Western Christians have the nerve to go over there and help. I don't.

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It depends on what you mean by "defend". I think the main lines of defense are simple order and the threat of international and US retaliation. (I don't think local people have as much protective impact as those). If that's the case, then the main "defenders" are the international communty and the US government, both of which have only a minority of creationists.

2. Again, this is only a guess but I suspect the Middle East doesn't have the world's best education system ...

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I agree with this point, but it's not relevant due to point #1.

Anyway, not terribly on topic anyway.

Have a blessed day-

Papias

papias said:

It is nearly always entirely sensible to base one's argument on data - that's a lot better than denying the evidence from the real world. But somehow I don't think that's what you meant, so perhaps clarify, I don't mean to offend.

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What I meant was it wasn't sensible to give people priority based solely on how many of them there are. This is how a business works, not a religion. Besides, if people are leaving Christianity because of YEC they don't sound like they would make particularly good Christians anyway.

Strange wrote:

What I meant was it wasn't sensible to give people priority based solely on how many of them there are. This is how a business works, not a religion.

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Right, I think we agree here. Especially if you say "how a religion SHOULD work.". Many religions (including some Christian ones)probably do work like a business in that sense.

Besides, if people are leaving Christianity because of YEC they don't sound like they would make particularly good Christians anyway.

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??
I've personally seen many a caring, intelligent, thoughtful person leave Christianity because to them, all the YECs made it look like Christianity is mainly about denying reality, insisting on a literal interpretation, and clinging to a tiny, bronze age, human-like god. Wouldn't those caring, intelligent, thoughtful people have been the kind of Christians we'd like to see more of?

Papias

Notedstrangeperson said:

Besides, if people are leaving Christianity because of YEC they don't sound like they would make particularly good Christians anyway.

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Really? Well equally if people are Christians because of Creationism then they weren't very good atheists in the first place were they. What bizarre reasoning.

papias said:

??
I've personally seen many a caring, intelligent, thoughtful person leave Christianity because to them, all the YECs made it look like Christianity is mainly about denying reality, insisting on a literal interpretation, and clinging to a tiny, bronze age, human-like god. Wouldn't those caring, intelligent, thoughtful people have been the kind of Christians we'd like to see more of?

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No, not really. There's no point leaving a certain group because they happen to have their share of extremists - every group has it's share of extremists. Leaving Christianity because of YEC would be like abondoning feminism because of bigots like Mary Daly ,or forgetting about civil rights because of the NBPP (New Black Panther Party), or ignoring animal welfare because of PETA. Any sensible person should realise they are just an off-shoot that shouldn't be taken seriously.

Strange wrote:

No, not really. There's no point leaving a certain group because they happen to have their share of extremists - every group has it's share of extremists.

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First, in their perception, it wasn't a small offshoot of extremists. It began to look more and more like the extremists (the creationists) made up the majority of Christians to many of those who left. Whether or not that's true doesn't matter, because it came down to their perception that Christian pretty much meant "reality denier".

Secondly, you don't have to convince me that Christianity is not the same as creationism. I agree with you that every group has some extremists, it's just that so many sincere and pious people didn't find that to be a good enough excuse for both the many creationists and worse for the continued mollycoddling they saw them get from mainline Christians. Imagine if a moderate of any group saw other moderate in that group refuse to address the problem of extremists by saying "oh, every group has it's share of extremists, we won't speak out to correct them."

Papias

papias said:

First, in their perception, it wasn't a small offshoot of extremists. It began to look more and more like the extremists (the creationists) made up the majority of Christians to many of those who left. Whether or not that's true doesn't matter, because it came down to their perception that Christian pretty much meant "reality denier".

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That's their problem. Like most extremists YECs are the loud minority, they get all the controversy and attention TEs don't. Besides as many of us have pointed out, the majority of Christians believe in evolution, and we spend much of our time proving YEC is wrong (so we do spend alot of time correcting them). Most atheists know this.


In my experience most people become atheists because:

1. They have a personal problem with religion.
2. They are confused about the strange and seemingly incompatible mix of violence and peace (such as the OT versus the NT).
3. Lack of evidence in the supernatural.

Ahem! Excuse me but most Christians are some kind of a Young Earth Creationist:


It's not some fringe group of radical fanatics, in fact, the theistic evolutionist concept is the modernist view that has only appeared recently. Now back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

is that poll worldwide or just the USA?

Melethiel said:

is that poll worldwide or just the USA?

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You mean the USA isn't synonymous with the world?

Mallon said:

You mean the USA isn't synonymous with the world?

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Thankfully No it isn't.

That's for the USA. In the USA, creationists are not just a minority of Christians, whether they are vocal or not.

While nearly all (95+%) of scientists, including Christians who are scientists, support evolution and reject creationism, the views of the general public are quite different, as Mark has pointed out.

Papias