Tricks New Atheists Play (Part 3)

[Tinker Grey]

You're resurrecting a thread that's been quiet for a year and half to respond to someone who hasn't been on for 5 months?

Is this "tricks Christians play"?

 

[Ophiolite]

Just like we don't trust our spouse the first time we meet them, so too Christian trust is in a person we grow to trust over time with much a priori and aposteriori evidence.

This is trivially disposed of. I certainly trusted my spouse the first time I met her. It was the subsequent thousands of meetings that gradually eroded the feeling.

The same is true for many apostate Christians.

 

[Uber Genius]

Also, it seems to me that I am not expert enough to be sure about who is really reliable as an authority, about various things. So, how am I supposed to be able to know who is really correct and who isn't? I suspect I would need to assume who to trust, being wishful, really.

And so, who can be truly objective, since none of us is perfect in how we use our faculties??

So this is a great question. The same way you know many of the things in your world. Since we are talking to atheists and theists, we want to include justification and evidence the way the apostles argued the gospel and Christian claims.

We can argue for the theist that the HS plays a role in helping us understand deeper truths and mature in our trust of Jesus through the ever-increasing evidence that accrues to those who trust him. But since this sort of trust (Faith is trust in the scriptures), via experience and communication with the HS seems lunacy to the non-believer, we should argue as they did, from the evidence that they themselves knew to be true, then from prophecy of books the Jews trusted to be true (specifically OT prophecy), and and inference that Jesus actually came to die for their sins, so this is through rational description of OT texts and some evidence and testimony or Jesus' own claims and teaching, and the evidence of the empty tomb and changed lives of the apostles.

So this is all available to you even if you choose not to spend time educating yourself on things like natural theology, which are rational arguments from premises even atheists take to be true arguing to the existence of a monotheistic God.

 

[Uber Genius]

This is trivially disposed of. I certainly trusted my spouse the first time I met her. It was the subsequent thousands of meetings that gradually eroded the feeling.

The same is true for many apostate Christians.

Think you misread my text.

"so too Christian trust is in a person we grow to trust over time." So the opposite of what you represented above.
Secondly it is not so trivial since when engaging my apostate Christian former brothers and asking about their experience of means of growth I get, "What the heck are you talking about?"

So it would be like you getting married, then never telling your spouse you loved them, never going on date-night, never demonstrating love in their own love language, never doing work to pay the bills, never doing chores around the house, and then sleeping around, and then after your spouse finally divorced you saying, "marriage doesn't work, it's a scam, after all I was married and see my wife divorced me."

It is not so straightforward and trivial as your post suggested.

You're resurrecting a thread that's been quiet for a year and half to respond to someone who hasn't been on for 5 months?

Is this "tricks Christians play"?

Your spending a lot of time commenting on non-sequiturs assuming that we are all tracking the same trivial data you are.

This seems like your MO (throwing peanuts from the peanut gallery). By all means join the conversation you certainly must have something more substantive to share.

 

[Ophiolite]

Think you misread my text.

Au contraire. I believe you misread mine. If you refer to the second item in my signature you will see that is my responsibility not yours.

I understand you to argue that trust with a loved one grows over time. If that is not what you meant then I did misread you. However, taking it to be the correct interpretation I noted the following - now rephrased for (hopefully) clarity.

Contrary to what you believe to be the case I trusted my wife from the outset. That was certainly true, though it contradicts your expectation. The trust eroded over time.

"so too Christian trust is in a person that we grow to trust over time." So the opposite of what you represented above.

I have inserted a "that" as this makes your sentence read more clearly for me. I understand that the this growing Christian trust is in Jesus. If that is not the case then I'm lost as to what you were aiming to say and I ask you to clarify.
However, if I do have your meaning correct then yes, that is the opposite of what I represented above, since I am disagreeing with you.

Secondly it is not so trivial since when engaging my apostate Christian former brothers and asking about their experience of means of growth I get, "What the heck are you talking about?

There are two completely disparate points to be made here:

1. When one says something is trivially disposed of this does not mean that the subject matter is necessarily trivial. It means that the argument that has been presented can be refuted in a straightforward, direct fashion. This is a common phrase within scientific discussions and I credit members participating in a science sub-forum with familiarity with such terms until the contrary is demonstrated.***
2. I think "What the heck are you talking about?" is a valid comment in those circumstances.

It is not so straightforward and trivial as your post suggested.

My post was intended to do two things:
1. Provide some light relief. (For the record I have learned those behaviours in which she is not to be trusted and have learned to accomodate those. I daresay she has done the same with me.)
2. Provide an analogy for the emergence of apostasy among some Christians. Your argument appears to be that they never worked at becoming good Christians. My argument is that they came to see weaknesses in the religion that gradually became insurmountable.

It is not so straightforward and trivial as your post suggested

As noted, I am not saying it is trivial. I went into as much detail as your simplified statement merited. If you make an unsubstantiated assertion, I have no compunction in responding in kind. Present a detailed, evidentially supported argument and I'll match it.

*** I almost never post in this sub-forum. 90% of my posts are in the science forums, which is where I thought this one was. Hence my use of trivial, in its scientific usage, outside of that setting was presumptuous and I apologise for that.

 

[Theo Barnsley]

A Manual for Creating Atheist Propaganda - First look at Peter Boghossian's book, "A Manual for Creating Atheists."

"A Manual for Creating Atheists offers the first-ever guide not for talking people into faith--but for talking them out of it. Peter Boghossian draws on the tools he has developed and used for more than twenty years as a philosopher and educator to teach how to engage the faithful in conversations that will help them value reason and rationality, cast doubt on their religious beliefs, mistrust their faith, abandon superstition and irrationality, and ultimately embrace reason."

We will examine what passes for, "reason," and, "rationality," and if Peter's approach passes muster, or just is another new atheist philosophically vapid work filled with rhetorical tricks. Unfortunately I didn't get to far before the "tricks," kicked in.

Peter sets the table with the following paragraph:

"Faith is not a virtue. It is absolutely not a virtue. It is an unreliable epistemology and part of the problem is that people think that holding a belief tenaciously, being a person of faith, makes you a good person. Being a person of faith does not make you a good person. It just means that you have a process of thinking about the world that is less likely to lead you to the truth. Once we make that shift from faith as a morality to faith as an epistemology, I think the house of cards will crumble and everything that is built upon the house – religion, everything – will fall with it."

So firstly, we must ask, "Has the good professor accurately represented how theists represent the definition of the term, "Faith?"

When the Apostle Peter new of his death at the hands of Nero he wrote,

"15And I will make every effort to ensure that after my departure, you will be able to recall these things at all times.
16 For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty." (2 Peter 1:15-16)

We have that eyewitness record today. Does Begosian want to eliminate witnesses testimony in cases of law? What about in gathering historical facts? And yet he paints religious faith in a way n knowledgeable Christian apologist would. In a way completely different then how it is presented in scripture.

Faith is not an epistemological category. It is not a way of knowing something. Faith is a way of trusting something. Faith is trusting in that which you have reason to believe is true. These beliefs are formed due to eyewitness testimony, fulfilled prophecy, a priori (conceptual) arguments and a posteriori (experiential) arguments.

In the way I trust he evidence for the beginning of the universe is best explained by the hot Big Bang inflationary model of cosmogony due to over 40 different lines of evidence so too I find the evidence for theism to be even more sound due to my rich experience of God as a person. In both cases I trust the evidence and my beliefs, being justified, become knowledge that I trust.

Here Begosian is off to a bad start.

Why redefine faith as fideism? True, there have been those types (some argue Soren Kierkegaard is one, I'm not that convinced) but a quick read of the Gospels, Acts, or the Epistles and one see evidence marshalled in defense of Truth claims.

1 Peter 3:15 (Pun intended) says,

"always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you;"

Oops.

"Reasons"

"Defense"

So a simple investigation into Christian Faith would have eliminated his straw man version a a way of pretending to know something.

In fact the scriptures pay no attention whatsoever to whether one believe in God or not.

As James says, "The demons believe in God and shutter." But the demons spoken about in scripture don't have faith."

The root meaning of the Greek pistis, ‘faith’, is ‘trust’

Again Begosian goes out of his way to create a straw man theism. This is nothing but a cheap rhetorical trick, and being a professor of philosophy he knows it. But he has faith that most of the population, will be as ignorant of the facts above as his freshmen students at Portland are. And on that point, I must agree with his assumptions as I continually run into "philosophy majors," who haven't the slightest idea about, ontology, the difference between doxastic claims and epistemic ones , logical fallacies or that philosophy is predicated on proper definitions and distinctions rather than the "lack" there of (A.K.A equivocation and conflation).

Those who have read Begosian's book, please point out the good points as I grew tired of his antics before I finished the first ten pages, being a Christian for a good portion of my life and not recognizing his definitions of same. In fact Begosian has created a straw man factory.

But if someone has sme valid arguments from him I am genuinely interested.

The best way to turn a christian into an atheist is to get them to actually read the bible. It worked for me!

 

[gaara4158]

The best way to turn a christian into an atheist is to get them to actually read the bible. It worked for me!

I remember telling the full story of Samson to a room full of my Catholic in-laws. They were shocked and floored at how absurd it all was.

 

[Uber Genius]

The best way to turn a christian into an atheist is to get them to actually read the bible. It worked for me!

Now that is an interesting discussion indeed.
I have taught the Bible for almost 40 years now with a focus on a deep understanding of the authors, their culture, the other accounts they borrowed and modified to correct the record, historical examinations, and examinations of prophecies that were fulfilled. I find the cultural strange as I find any read of 3500 year old cultures but have not seen my students experience a loss of trust in God as a result of reading the Bible.

I would be interested in a deeper understanding of what is troubling beyond generalities.

 

[Theo Barnsley]

Now that is an interesting discussion indeed.
I have taught the Bible for almost 40 years now with a focus on a deep understanding of the authors, their culture, the other accounts they borrowed and modified to correct the record, historical examinations, and examinations of prophecies that were fulfilled. I find the cultural strange as I find any read of 3500 year old cultures but have not seen my students experience a loss of trust in God as a result of reading the Bible.

I would be interested in a deeper understanding of what is troubling beyond generalities.

If you actually read the bible (& not just the hand picked bits the church teaches in bible study) & really think deeply about it, you begin to realise the absurdity of the whole belief.

You also realise all the contradictions that are in it. If you were reading the same stories about anybody else, you would never believe it to be true, but because from a young age we are taught that there is a god who can work magic, & that its rude to disrespect religion, & because so many other people believe it, for some of us we somehow think its true, even though it makes no rational sense at all that it IS true.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

You're resurrecting a thread that's been quiet for a year and half to respond to someone who hasn't been on for 5 months?

Is this "tricks Christians play"?

Hey, sometimes it takes a while for the genius to kick in...

 

[2PhiloVoid]

If you actually read the bible (& not just the hand picked bits the church teaches in bible study) & really think deeply about it, you begin to realise the absurdity of the whole belief.

You also realise all the contradictions that are in it. If you were reading the same stories about anybody else, you would never believe it to be true, but because from a young age we are taught that there is a god who can work magic, & that its rude to disrespect religion, & because so many other people believe it, for some of us we somehow think its true, even though it makes no rational sense at all that it IS true.

I was never taught from a young age that "God will work magic." And if there was anything I did learn while growing up, it was that if there was a God, He seemed vastly interested in seeing if I could learn to endure....

 

[Theo Barnsley]

I was never taught from a young age that "God will work magic." And if there was anything I did learn while growing up, it was that if there was a God, He seemed vastly interested in seeing if I could learn to endure....

learn to endure what?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

learn to endure what?

...the fact that my mother was clinically schizophrenic and put my family through emotional hell. Nothing major.

 

[Theo Barnsley]

...the fact that my mother was clinically schizophrenic and put my family through emotional hell. Nothing major.

sorry to hear that happened to you, but what makes you think god was interested in you enduring that?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

what makes you think god was interested in you enduring that?

I was being tongue-in-cheek in describing my religious context, such as it was---and it wasn't much---while I was growing up. My parents would take us occasionally to the local liberal Presbyterian church, but we scarcely went, and we rarely if ever talked about God or the Bible in our household.

Obviously, what little 'belief' I had as a young child going into my teenage years was mostly put into the furnace of social isolation, extreme loneliness, frustration, and futility. So, that's why I've alluded to the interpretation that God must have wanted me to learn to endure. Now, whether I'll actually spiritually weather this life on the whole remains to be seen, but I can at least safely say that I wasn't one of those young children who was coddled in emotional pie-in-the-sky along with Christian indoctrination.

Do you have another interpretation of all that?