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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:41:08 GMT -5
Adam 11/04/04
Thanks to all who have choosen to respond, please don't think your comments aren't appresiated or unimportant. Your comments can only open others eyes to what and why you believe and either confirm in yourself what you believe or show you to be mistaken.
So please do take the chance. This is a good discusion.
and No hard feelings when all is said.
Thanks Adam
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:42:05 GMT -5
Justin 11/04/04
As I under stand Christianity is the belief in Jesus Christ as one's savior and the promise he brought to mankind of the free gift of eternal life. Adam,
I hear what you're saying, but I would suggest that this definition is probably just a little too narrow to really do the trick effectively. In defining Christianity as just this, then you're excluding many important Christian thoughts and resources from the past couple of millennia. Some of these traditions and/or reactions to them have driven the faith to be the diverse collection that it is today. So it's very important to include them, or at least consider why they should not be included. For example, any number of historical and modern Christian traditions have choked on the idea of 'eternal life,' a term so loaded that even its most vocal proponents today feel the need to qualify it somehow--and therein lieth the problem. Since Christians obviously die just like everybody else, the eternal life of a believer is not experienced in the observable world, and is therefore not wholly explainable outside of a few faith claims. If you are saying that those faith claims (such as life after death, alternate planes of existence, the notion of a soul or spirit, etc.) are the central beliefs in Christianity, then you need to stipulate them instead of relying on higher order applications of them. And this is exactly the place where Christian traditions diverge. Jesus just didn't speak to some of these ideas at all, or if he did, it is often only through metaphor. Which is which, we cannot say conclusively. Secondly, the notion of 'savior' is equally loaded. While Jesus has always been the central figure in the faith(s), definitions of his exact role (be he man, God, or both) have divided Christians from the earliest days of the church. Again, I know where you're coming from. I know what you're wanting to do with saying what you say; it's a simple and attractive definition. But unfortunately, it loses a good deal of its surface clarity upon examination.
Your Christian Brother, -Justin
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:42:22 GMT -5
Ellen 11/04/04
This discussion is great! I have enjoyed reading everyone's part it the discussion, however, I do have one concern. That being, everyone seems to keep apologizing for their comments. This group has been friends for years and years, and know just about everything there is to know about the others. The good along with the bad. We all have gone through so pretty hairy times, in the past 30 years. We are all friends, it really doesn't matter whether we agree or not. That is the best part of being friends. Friendship is like love it is unconditional. So don't apologize for the way you feel, I think that everyone here listens to each other and respects each other's opinions. This is just an observation. I am old and crazy and not responsible for the content of this message. Ellen
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:42:43 GMT -5
Adam 11/05/04
True words, it's just these types of discussions on email or in person can get heated and it's good (I think) to remind each other, that it's not meant to be a personal attack though it could easily be considered as such. I know that the list of emails there are at least a few I don't reconize, much like Tina and her husband Jeff. I do feel now that if I where to finally me her we would be ok around each other. I just hope the others that haven't got to know me yet won't write me off as some nut who just wants to argue is all.
So here's to learning more about each other. Adam
PS: if you haven't figure it out yet, I always feel a need to put my two cents in.
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:43:06 GMT -5
Justin 11/05/04 Adam, In defining Christianity as just this, then you're excluding many important Christian thoughts and resources from the past couple of millennia. Please explain what thoughts and resources you speak of. Sorry for my ignorance. By thoughts I mean the great debates that have shaped the history of the church. From the earliest days, issues have come up which have made the church take this position or that. Some of these occured before gospels were ever canonized. For instance, Pagels describes an early church schism in leadership. Some Christians during the times immediately following the death of Jesus rejected the claims of the Twelve that they should be the rightful inheritors of Christ's authority. Some even prefered to follow Mary Magdalene. Now, wherever a modern Christian stands on certain issues today in some ways points out his or her tree of heritage. If a Christian says, "I believe X because my church believes X," then he or she must follow that particular belief down through the history of the church. Now, your ancestors of belief may be quite different from mine, but that doesn't necessarily make either one of us more or less Christian. It just means that the great debates that have shaped our faith(s) have produced different results at some point in time. I won't address the validity of any of these sister beliefs here, but suffice it to say that if put to the wall, any side may make the claim that they are the most legitimate. By resources I mean the body of Christian literature of whatever stripe. I know you're not saying that Roman Catholicism is an illegitimate Christian practice, but some one who does cuts himself or herself off from a wide array of Catholic materials, including the Catechism document, which is a fairly logical and well-reasoned statement of Christian belief, even if Protestants and other Christian believers (including those of alternate Catholic varieties) may disagree with it. The underlining theme of the bible is God bringing sinful mankind back to him through his son Jesus. As I've come to understand it and have read this concept in the bible over and over again. Thus if Christian churches could agree upon this one concept then the rest is just how you choose to worship. Yeah, good luck with that! That's been the problem ever since the beginning. People CAN'T necessarily agree on a single interpretation of the Bible, or even a single portion of it, or, to some extent, even what constitutes the Holy Christian Canonical Texts. And because of that, there are a million different ramifications which break down the overall consistency of Christian belief. For example, any number of historical and modern Christian traditions have choked on the idea of 'eternal life,' a term so loaded that even its most vocal proponents today feel the need to qualify it somehow--and therein lieth the problem. What are these vocal proponents saying. Honest I'm very interested as I'm not happy with being an ignorant person on such matters, it will help me understand better what opinions I'm up against. Thanks in advance. Simple. I'll say it again: "Since Christians obviously die just like everybody else, the eternal life of a believer is not experienced in the observable world, and is therefore not wholly explainable outside of a few faith claims." Every Christian who uses the words 'eternal life' has to at least aknowledge this fact. That's a qualification. This I can't dispute, true eternal life is not something that a person can see. There is the comfort and assurance knowing you have eternal life and that it is based on God's promise and power and not our own strengths. If you are saying that those faith claims (such as life after death, alternate planes of existence, the notion of a soul or spirit, etc.) are the central beliefs in Christianity, then you need to stipulate them instead of relying on higher order applications of them. And this is exactly the place where Christian traditions diverge. To see the divergeance, all you need to do is look around at different Christian traditions. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe that Christians will go to heaven upon death, only the 144,000 souls of the Elect, who are already there. Jehovah's people, they say, will inherit the earth in bodies risen from the grave. Furthermore, they say all living things ARE souls, and therefore do not have souls. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints believes that all humans will have eternal life in one of three Kingdoms, the Celestial, the Telestial, and the Terrestrial, and the petitioner (a term from D & D) will be eternally satisfied in whatever Kingdom they may earn a place. Some Catholics have a few extra planes, including Purgatory and Limbo. I've seen some TBN Baptists drawing diagrams of various hells, including the Lake of Fire and the Bottomless Pit, which they know to be quite separate. These are all churches that hold what they feel is a legitimate claim to Christendom, and they are of wildly varying belief in what the afterlife is all about. So as I understand your point Christianity should be broader to account for those who follow Jesus' teachings and not just his claim to Godhood and savior?? ... Then we have religions (man trying to get to God under his own power) instead of Christianity (God bringing man to him through his infinite power) Right, and that's what we have now! Or as Jeff so elequently put it, "There is no such thing as "The Christian thing to believe," because there is not now nor has there ever been such a thing as Christianity. Rather there have always only been Christianities, plural." Again, if put to the wall, most so-called Christians will make the claim that they are legitimately Christian and will probably have a leg to stand on. We can not dismiss such claims outright simply by stipulating one supposedly catch-all definition unless we have some sort of evidence and proof. It's all about proof in a logical exercise such as this, and the burden of proof is a tricky subject that's likely to come up over and over again in this discussion. In proposing a catch-all definition (a positive claim), the burden of proof is on you. I am just trying to demonstrate that you need to revise your definition somewhat in order to include either the whole of Christian belief or an agreed-upon representative sample, and not just one position, however mainstream it may seem at first blush. I would like this discussion to be of the absolute best quality we can muster. And to do this, we have to make one big stipulation: If you have a position you must back it up with sound reasoning. Remember, I said that I thought your initial definition of Christianity was a little too narrow to take into account the whole of Christian traditions. Well, I only wrote that because I felt we were already overstating a point on what constitutes Christianity. And "off board," as they say, I told Jeff that I felt he overstated his position on sexual orientation. I am not trying to pick on either of you, of course, but I think taking these things down to their barest forms and most fundamental levels will increase the overall quality of the debate by strengthening the arguments presented. Incidentally, I know where I stand on this issue, and most of you do, too. So I'll probably not join in unless I feel something is missing from arguments on either side or unless someone asks me a direct question. So, fight on, you crazy guys, fight on! But let's keep it clean and fair, and let's make the arguments as strong as we can. Also, if anyone chooses to respond to this, can you Reply All, since I've added my home address to the list? Thanks. Moreover, I have problems with the Word documents, since I have a Mac at home and I don't have MS Office for Macs. Can you just copy your finished Word documents back to your email program? I do that quite often, since programs like Outlook Express are hardly the best word processors. Later! -Justin
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:43:34 GMT -5
Jeff 11/05/04 My inbox is overflowing! So, I thought we might move this conversation to a discussion board. I have never used this particular board before, so I don't know if it will be any good. But it was free, so let's try it. I will try to post all the messages so far to the board this afternoon. I named it "Christian Politics," because that is really what we are trying to figure out: Which policies are the most consistent with basic Christian morality. As Justin's last email rightly points out, this is a very tough nut to crack. To join in (or just to read) use your web browser to go to: www.quicktopic.com/28/H/92ckXjvaiaGy4You don't have to register or sign in, and you can choose to receive email for newly posted messages -- just click the Subscribe button when you get there, but again it won't be fully operational till this afternoon. Finally, AFAIC you can invite whomever you like to read and participate(!) in the discussion. Jeff PS I haven't given your email addresses to anyone. I did this invite list myself.
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:44:00 GMT -5
Adam 11/05/04 Thanks Justin for the info, I know I will have many questions about it and if your OK with it I'll email you on those quetions that don't pertain to the God and Sex or Chirstian Politics discussion??
Here is my lastist response just to let everyone know I'm not going into this discussion blindly or with any false hopes.
I have to agree with you I will probably be the one 99.9% of the time trying to prove my reasoning for my comments. I know this is the worst position to put myself in, because it forces me to try to prove what the Bible says is true and that it is God’s perfect word.
This of course is not the job of a believe to prove God’s written word to non-believers/the world in general, but to share the good news Gospel and leave the rest up to the Holy Spirit and God.
The believer’s second job is to take new believers and teach them what the bible has to offer and aid them in developing their discipleship/relationship with God. As believers we Gather together to study the Word and worship then we separate/scatter back into the world to witness either verbally or through our actions of how we live our lives.
But since I’m the way I am, I have to speak up and try to prove the Bible to others. In which case I stand a strong chance of being ridiculed or proven that I have to base too much off of faith instead of what the rest of the world has decide as reasonable and what is reality/truth. So here I am doing that which I’m not suppose to do and doing it anyway, maybe it is my own selfish pride or my desire for others to enjoy the freedom that I’ve finally come to understand and has allowed me to enjoy my relationship with God instead of living in fear of my God, because I can’t keep all of his rules.
Either way those who know me know I won’t go down with out a fight (not that I consider this a fight), I just hope I can present my case in the manner you have describe (keep it clean and fair, and let's make the arguments as strong as we can) so you hear what I am saying and not just write me off.
As Ellen has pointed out already, we know each other well enough not to have to keep apologizing after each comment. So for the last time in this discussion I will say I’m sorry and that nothing I say is meant to be hurt full and I will in turn take nothing personal that is thrown at me.
Thanks all
PS: Justin an Jeff have shown the greatest knowledge thus far so I will probably email them on separate issues during this discussion about question I have as to why or what sources I should look at so as to be more informed or in turn generate more questions that don’t follow this particular topic so as to getting of the subject.
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:44:18 GMT -5
Adam 11/05/04
I just wanted to let you know I've signed up for the discussion board, also I just noticed your new email, is this one you wish to receive emails to other wise I restrict myself to just your hotmail??
Hope all is well Adam
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:44:33 GMT -5
Amanda 11/05/04
"But since I'm the way I am, I have to speak up and try to prove the Bible to others. In which case I stand a strong chance of being ridiculed or proven that I have to base too much off of faith instead of what the rest of the world has decide as reasonable and what is reality/truth."
Adam,
Would you be accepting of evidence (scientific, academic, etc.) presented that is contrary to scripture or would you always choose the Bible?
Just curious, Amanda
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:44:55 GMT -5
Jeff 11/05/04
Three things tonight:
1. I should have the board set up by this evening. Under the heading of "Original Posts" you will be able to find everything we've exchanged so far, including this letter. It’s about 25 single spaced pages of text.
2. You said, "I know this is the worst position to put myself in, because it forces me to try to prove what the Bible says is true and that it is God’s perfect word." You don't have to prove this to me, provided you understand "true" and "perfect" very loosely. My position is that there never has been produced a greater spiritual work than the Bible. It is the best mankind has done so far. It's most serious competitors, in my mind, are the Bhagavad-gita, the Upanishads, The Dhammapada, The Cloud of Unknowing, and The collected works of Meister Eckhard. (Actually, this list fluctuates for me on an almost daily basis, but that is what I'd say today.) At any rate, I am not interested in proving the Bible is a worthy authority for religious truth. I accept this fact. I am interested in questioning what it means to accept a work as spiritually authoritative.
As has been said already, we all know how we feel about this issue, and similar ones which we all expect to arise. My concerns are with the way Christian beliefs have influenced and are influencing public policy in this country. At this point, it appears that Fundamentalists/Pentecostals/Evangelicals/Literalists have either 1) fundamentally misunderstood the Bible, hence voted mistakenly for a hate-monger like Bush, or 2) understood the Bible, but chose to disregard it when they voted for Bush. (my guess is that the first option is true.) To my mind, there doesn't seem to be any possibility that God wants us to ignore Her claims about social justice so we can persecute people who were born with a different sexual orientation than our own. This view is one of two or three key issues that America (not just us) must face today. Another is abortion, which I think we should discuss next—after we have the basic structure of all of these religious arguments worked out. Bush is likely to appoint two or three very conservative judges to the Supreme Court in the next four years. Expect challenges to Roe v. Wade; they are coming. We need to be ahead of the game on all these issues. Let's work out our arguments now.
On the other hand, if we can't win these arguments, then we need to abandon the field on things like gay rights and abortion. I don’t mean this as a simple democratic strategy to win back a few seats of congress or even the Whitehouse—though Don Whetsell has suggested that abandoning these planks is what the Dems will do now. I am suggesting something more radical: If we can't win on these issues in a fair fight (the one Adam is so graciously allowing us to conduct) and we know it, then we are simply morally wrong and should change our views to conform with the facts. I am willing to commit to this; you guys decide what you want to do.
3. “I stand a strong chance of being ridiculed or proven that I have to base too much off of faith instead of what the rest of the world has decide as reasonable and what is reality/truth.” Well, it just happens to be the case that moral principles, by their nature must be communicable. “Ineffable Principle” is an oxymoron. This means that every moral truth must pass through both language and logic. These are the medium through which truth is communicated, if it can be communicated at all. (And God help us if it can’t, because then we should all just shut up and wait for the world to end.)
But, Adam, I solemnly swear to ridicule no one in this discussion except President Bush and the Religious Right. I can’t stop ridiculing them, for they are trying to destroy our country and possibly the world with their tenuous grasp of reality, their fragile moral principles, and their blind machismo which propels them onward despite ineffective policies framed to secure impossible goals with the blood of others. They are truly wicked. OR… I am flatly wrong. Prove me wrong, Adam.
Jeff
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:50:42 GMT -5
Justin McBride 2 11-05-2004 09:00 PM ET (US) Jeff, Congrats on getting this mutha posted! It takes my computer a couple of minutes to load it. Seriously though, thanks for all the work you put into compiling it and getting the board up and running. Let's hope we can follow through with this. As you all know, we do have a tendency to peter out on things we
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:51:17 GMT -5
David Redcorn 3 11-06-2004 12:50 AM ET (US) Edited by author 11-06-2004 12:54 AM I just wanted to thank you Jeff for actually including me in this discussion. Other than a couple of responses and the mass email Jeff sent to me about the existance of this message board, this is the first time I've read most of these emails. Trying to keep one of the biggest heathens in the group out of the loop huh? A pox on all ya'lls! >P
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:51:43 GMT -5
Adam Hull 4 11-06-2004 12:23 PM ET (US) My response to Amanda's question
"But since I'm the way I am, I have to speak up and try to prove the Bible to others. In which case I stand a strong chance of being ridiculed or proven that I have to base too much off of faith instead of what the rest of the world has decide as reasonable and what is reality/truth."
Adam,
Would you be accepting of evidence (scientific, academic, etc.) presented that is contrary to scripture or would you always choose the Bible?
Just curious, Amanda
To answer your question as honestly as I can, Yes I would have to choose the Bible over these other evidence. For me at least to do other wise would mean that the bible is a lie (the greatist lie ever told) or that it was in fact written by man (inperfect/fallable man). If it is proven to have been written by man and not by divine insperation, then man is the authority and God plays no part at all other than to just watch us little ants run around making fools of our selves as we claim how smart we are. I don't think any of this evidence that you mentioned was ever put together with the intent to prove the bible, but to disprove it because 1) religious leaders tryed to use the bible to force their own agenda (like the spanish inqusition or that science is from the devil and mankind knew something was wrong so he rebelled, if only the leaders had loved their fellow man) and/or 2)The teaching of the Bible made people so uncomfortable, that they had to find fault in it or create new ways to interpet it (thus making them, mankind the authority). I believe it was a mix of the two and number 1 really encouraged number 2.
So if enough evidence is submitted, there is a chance it could cause me to doubte my faith in the bible, could the oppisite be said of you and if so how do you think it would change your views??
Maybe this is something for another discussion later?
Thanks for the question. Adam
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:52:09 GMT -5
Justin McBride 5 11-06-2004 02:22 PM ET (US) Gee,
I'm really just not sure where we can go with this now. I'd hate to see a project failed after only a day, but I cannot see how this can possibly progress any further. We have to be able to use our heads as something other than hat racks. We DO have senses. We CAN observe. We CAN draw conclusions from our observations. If we are already saying that direct observation is of no real consequence, then I'm just very confused about what we can actually discuss.
Obviously these words I'm typing were not written in the Bible. And if anyone out there can observe them, and derive any meaning whatsoever, then it just goes to show that reason is possible outside of Biblical constraints. Bad form, Justin.... No one would dispute that. God never said the Bible encompassed the whole of human observation. So, below is a clear case where the Bible and ALL modern understanding (which is derived from simple sensory observation) appear to be in direct conflict:
37 Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods. 38 He set the rods that he had peeled in front of the flocks in the troughs, that is, the watering places, where the flocks came to drink. And since they bred when they came to drink, 39 the flocks bred in front of the rods, and so the flocks produced young that were striped, speckled, and spotted. 40 Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and the completely black animals in the flock of Laban; and he put his own droves apart, and did not put them with Laban's flock.
Um, this is not possible. You can't make striped sheep just by allowing them to look at striped objects. No one on earth, not you or me, would dispute this. Now some might say that this is one of the Bible's many miracles. Well, this isn't coming from a particularly miraculous section of Genesis at all (although there are plenty of apparent miracles in this amazingly great book). In fact, as a footnote under the passage in our study Bible, it just says that there was a common belief among early pastoral societies that putting striped rods around mating flocks would produce striped offspring. This wasn't regarded as miraculous at all. Ever. I would love to extend the challenge to all to try and reproduce these results with their home flocks.
Okay, but all this is just silliness, just a smokescreen. I'm not really saying anything about animal husbandry.
I have faith in the Bible. It's an important part of my Christian life. It shapes so many of my Christian thoughts. Yes, I am a Christian; I worship Christ through prayer and service and church fellowship. Nevertheless, spinning our wheels on this or that matter of faith-lawyering only prevents us from doing God's work.
Let's go back to the two big commandments: Love God. Love Others (which implies loving self). Adam wisely said (and I whole-heartedly agree), "The truth of the bible is through love you can full fill the whole of the Law. Example would be with love you don?t steal, murder, commit adultery, abuse your spouse or treat others as second class citizens and so on." To my way of thinking, that's the exact consequence of the laws we're talking about.
So, if arguing the authenticity or veracity of the bible is over-rational, then let's just kick it back up to where the rubber meets the road: PRACTICE. According to this belief, which supposedly represents the whole of Christendom, we cannot use the Bible to treat others poorly. I completely agree! And yet that's what's being done here.
Incidentally, I think Tina addressed these and other points in her second email. I feel like we're already walking on stale ground. Maybe I'm the only one doing so.
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:52:33 GMT -5
Jessica McBride 6 11-06-2004 10:19 PM ET (US) Edited by author 11-06-2004 10:20 PM Finally!! I was invited. I have been reading to catch up on all that has been said for the past hour and 1/2. I have to admit I feel super strongly about this topic. God a politics. Just to lay it on the line. I am a very liberal Democrat AND a Christian.
Before I go too deep, I would like to pose some questions that I believe are a base of the issues at hand.
"Does God change Her mind?"
"Is the Bible TRUE history, or a huge metaphorical comparison containing real-life scenarios?"
Let's see where that takes us. I have my answers, but I am curious to see yours.
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:52:56 GMT -5
Jeff McBride 7 11-06-2004 10:47 PM ET (US) "If it is proven to have been written by man and not by divine inspiration, then man is the authority and God plays no part at all other than to just watch us little ants run around making fools of our selves as we claim how smart we are."
Two things:
1. Unfalsifiability: If you have a theory that cannot be tested, then that is a devastating blow to the theory. It means the theory really has no empirical consequences. Let me give you an example to explain this, one that Amanda may not like since she is a psychologist. (Sorry, Amanda!)
Suppose a boy falls in the river while his father watches from the bank. For some reason, dad cannot jump in the river and save the child. Why? Sigmund Freud might say, “This man suffers from repression, specifically repression of some components of an Oedipal Complex. He still fears his father, and thus fears the father in himself that he feels so intensely at this very moment. Had he achieved sublimination, he might have been effective in this terrible situation.” But how would Alfred Adler have explained things? Adler advanced the theory of the inferiority complex and so might have said, “He suffers from inferiority arising from his need to prove something about himself to himself. This terrible situation affords him the perfect opportunity to test himself in a relevant way, because he will not be held responsible for the outcome. Had the father not felt inferior, he would never have had the need to prove to himself that he is capable of committing this awful crime.”
Now ask yourself how we are able to choose between these two theories. Is there any behavioral evidence that could distinguish one from the other? No. You could explain all human behavior in either Freudian or Adlerian (or Ericksonian, etc…) terms. But it is precisely this fact, that a theory cannot be disproved, that proves the theory is inadequate. The apparent strength is really weakness. Can I write that again? It is a point I think we’ll be coming back to again and again.
Much apparent strength is weakness. And there’s a corollary: Much apparent weakness is strength. But this is nothing new, as we’ve known since the Sermon on the Mount…
Now, you write: “If it is proven to have been written by man…” Apart from the fact that the Bible was written by man, a fact most Christians I know accept, my main worry is that you are advancing an unfalsifiable hypothesis. Amanda’s question is what evidence would count against the Bible, and you say that you’d always pick the Bible. But this means that no evidence would ever count against it, which is really just another way of saying that you don’t know whether it is a lie or not and you refuse to find out. This is devastating evidence against the literal interpretation of the Bible.
2. False Dichotomy: I have already addressed this fallacy in an earlier email where I talked about Choice or Genes. There are lots of possibilities in between or even outside of the two choices that you give. It’s like when someone says, “My way or the highway.” This is a mere assertion of will, because certainly lots of other possibilities exist.
Now you say, “If it is proven to have been written by man and not by divine inspiration, then man is the authority and God plays no part at all…” This is a false dichotomy. There are lots of different kinds of faiths [sic] out there, and just because folks don’t believe like you do, doesn’t mean that they don’t have any faith..
Jeff
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:53:25 GMT -5
Jeff McBride 8 11-06-2004 11:06 PM ET (US) Edited by author 11-06-2004 11:07 PM This is my last email on this issue. All my further comments and responses will be on our discussion board: www.quicktopic.com/28/H/92ckXjvaiaGy4Sketch for a paper. What do you think? The Argument from Social Justice. I. Assuming that one is a person of faith, there are three basic views one might adopt on the religious experience of other people. 1. Inclusivism: People who hold other religious views, really hold yours, but they just don't know it. This view says that your view actually includes all other valid expressions of religious experience. It's the view the early Christians pushed on the Gaul and the Americans pushed on the Native Americans. "Your Great Spirit is really our YHWH, and we can tell you a few more things about Him." 2. Exclusivism: People who hold other religious views are simply wrong. There is no valid expression of religious experience other than the one sanctioned view. Fundamentalists of all stripes hold this view, Christian and Islamic, alike. 3. Pluralism: People who hold other religious views are expressing themselves in ways that are equally valid. "There are many paths, but there is but one mountain." This seems to be the view of Unitarian/Universalists. These Christians allow the expressions of other religions in their worship services. The Bahá'í (http://www.bahai.org/article-1-2-0-1.html) faith also is on the pluralist side of things, though not completely so. II. There are many possible relationships between reason and faith, so I can’t detail them all. But here is one: Whenever an apparent conflict between faith and reason arises, faith always wins. This view would aim to make faith as strong as it could be while still defending a core of rational truths. It would not amount to Fideism, which embraces skepticism, but it would also not allow scientists to trump clerics. Let’s call this view “Faith-Wins.” III. I think many Christians who voted on moral values on Tuesday accept both exclusivism and Faith-Wins. I further think that this combination of views is inherently destructive. Ministers who do not warn their congregations of this danger may be nurturing great evil. The relationship between reason and faith is complex. Whatever view you take, it will not only have to have a way to deal with unbelief but also alternative belief. If you cannot use reason at all to rank the value of varieties of religious expression, then their ranking is entirely arbitrary from any point of view outside the system. Politically, this makes exclusivism dangerous. It refuses to be critiqued (Faith-Wins), and it assumes that it alone is the right view (exclusivism). What happens when you have two or more groups who adopt this combination? In some ways this is what we have when we consider Christian Fundamentalism and Islamic Fundamentalism. The Islamic terrorists are hitting targets all over the world now: US, Netherlands, Spain, Russia, Indonesia, etc… And the Christian Fundamentals just proved to be THE vital group in the reelection of President Bush, who is now gearing up for a fresh assault on Fallujah and the shedding of more civilian blood. There is no one on either side asking for dialogue, and, truthfully, dialogue would probably be useless because both sides are convinced of their own exclusive sanctity. IV. You might think that adopting inclusivism or pluralism could save Faith-Wins. While it is true, that inclusivism and pluralism allow their adherents additional resources to define their faith, however broad that definition turns out to be, there might still be (and probably are) hidden prejudices within the view. In the end, the problem (discussed in III) will arise, no matter how many books you want to include in the list of sanctioned ones. This doesn’t mean that exclusivism is on a par with inclusivism or pluralism. If political consequences are the issue, then exclusivism allows for many more chances of unprincipled disagreement than either of the other two views, since it embraces a narrower range of moral principles. This disagreement will frequently take the form of denials of social justice, as evidenced in the those passages in the worlds religious texts which serve to promote the status quo. If denying social justice is immorality, then exlusivism is an immoral view however many religious people embrace it. The consequences (in III.) indicate that Faith-Wins is also an immoral view, again on the assumption that denials of social equality are immoral. In fact, this view is at the heart of the problem. It is too simple; whatever the relationship between reason and faith is, Faith-Wins cannot be right. We might do well to remember the words of A. N. Whitehead who said, “Seek simplicity, and distrust it.” Some alternative must be found for religious folk who embrace some holy book and some form of social justice.
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:53:52 GMT -5
Jeff McBride 9 11-06-2004 11:14 PM ET (US) Could this be the next Disjunction?
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:54:08 GMT -5
Jeff McBride 10 11-06-2004 11:22 PM ET (US) Last thing tonight: An interesting news story about one of our issues, "Bush victory puts gay activists on defensive:" www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6421767/Here is the money quote for us: "There was never any attempt to counter the minority, right-wing religious morality that Bush was preaching with morality about equality and being in a country that welcomes and embraces diversity and is based on freedom of religion and freedom of beliefs."
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Post by Jeff on Dec 13, 2005 2:54:36 GMT -5
David Redcorn 11 11-07-2004 11:46 PM ET (US) I don't want to turn the discussion away from it's current course, because I think Adam as A Lot to respond to. But I was just wondering Jeff, it does sound like you're saying a more relativist view (Inclusivism/Pluralism) is preferable in the Social Justice argument.
As a side note, one of the major problems with this debate is that, right off the bat its assuming Christianity is not only a good thing, but one of if not the greatest spiritual ideal ever. If it's already acknowledged that Christianity includes a major intolerance, then doesn't that discount it as great? It could be said that its better than anything around currently, but isn't that just settling? Shouldn't we, as people in search of the greatest good, refuse to lower our standards? Wouldn't we need to come up with our own system of God & our connection to Her? The bible may have plenty of cool stories and be very inspirational, but that could apply to amazing works of literature in general.
Basically, why would someone who is a victim of the bibles intolerance ever want to worship it? If its the guide to salvation for humanity as its touted to be, shouldn't it be able to speak to everyone?
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