As I mentioned in my previous post, I was asked by a correspondent to read some material from the now-archived site Common Sense Atheism and give my opinions.
One motif I found that surprised me (though it shouldn't have surprised me) was this idea: To test your religious faith, you ought to try to describe it in derogatory terms and admit that this is an accurate description. See if your Christianity can "handle" making this admission.
Apparently Luke Muehlhauser was subjected to this "test" by some atheist when he was in his own crisis of faith. That crisis of faith resulted in his deconverting, and now he is using the same technique on others, since he thought it indicated so devastating a criticism of his own Christianity.
Here are a couple of versions of what we are allegedly supposed to admit is what we believe as Christians.
An atheist on the internet pointed out that I literally believed I had a magical invisible friend who could grant me wishes.
So what I ask of you is this: Try to rattle your own faith. Shake it up. Cause as much doubt as you can. Read what the best of the opposition has to say, and take it seriously. Describe your own faith in the most contentious terms possible (e.g., “an invisible friend who grants me wishes”) and recognize that this is, though not how you would put it, still literally true about what you believe.
Elsewhere he says this in a post on the necessity of being a good debater to engage William Lane Craig. (The post as a whole is making the point that most atheists are not actually qualified to debate Craig, either because they lack information or because they lack debating skill.)
Remember, Craig is defending the theory that an ancient Semitic sky god created the universe with his magical powers, let it evolve in violence and meaninglessness for billions of years, then intervened quite recently by sending a man-god to earth, who rose from the dead into a new body with superpowers and now talks to you and grants you wishes as your invisible friend. That is literally what he has to defend, so one would think that even without equal debating skills an atheist would stand a chance to defeat that theory.
It might fairly be asked why I would write a post on the silly things some dismissive Internet atheist says about Christianity. I might answer in strict truthfulness that I'm writing about this because it's what I happen to have on my mind right now, and I needed blog post material.
But I can do a little better than that: I think this business about "recognizing" that this is "literally what you believe" might very well be effective on some Christians who think that they are being hard-headed and investigating their faith, so I think it's just as well to hit it good and hard. (This is related to my previous posts about what evidentialism isn't. Among other things, evidentialism is not the position that, to test your faith, you need to go to Internet atheist sites and agree to their characterizations of Christianity!)
At the risk of being snarky, I have to say that "Jesus is a magical, invisible friend who grants you wishes" is true except for "magical," "invisible," "friend," and "grants you wishes." In other words, it's completely wrong.
The correction that Jesus is incarnate and hence not invisible is relatively trivial, and I won't dwell on it. There are after all Scripture verses in which Jesus says, "Lo, I am with you always" or "Wherever two or three are gathered, there am I in the midst of them." We can debate whether Jesus meant there to refer to the work of the Holy Spirit, but let that go.
Moving on to "magical": Even though of course Jesus has the power to do miracles, miracles are not magic. The word "magical" is wrong for two reasons. First, magic is literally an art practiced by adepts by which they attempt to manipulate the world, and that's not remotely what miracles are. A miracle is (to treat a big subject briefly) God's engaging in a special act of power to bring about a result that would not occur in the natural order. No doubt atheists find real miracles at least as objectionable as magic (if there were such a thing as magic). In fact, atheists might find miracles even more objectionable than magic. But the point is that the two are different. Second, and to my mind even more to the point, the word "magical" conveys arbitrariness, capriciousness, and triviality. Even if God does choose, in His wisdom, to do a supernatural mighty work (a miraculous healing, for example), such an act does not have those qualities.
That brings us to "friend." Here I have to admit that many, many Christian songs encourage us to view Jesus as our friend and even state that Jesus is our friend. But the combination "invisible friend" is, of course, a form of ridicule. The believer is meant to think of himself as being like a little child who imagines an invisible friend to whom he talks, for whom he saves seats and swings, and who talks back to him. The believer is meant to wince and be shaken by this infantilized view of himself.
Here I think that Christians themselves need to remind each other that we are not taught by Scripture either to expect Jesus to talk to us (though many Christians do look for such experiences) or to think of Jesus in the casual way that might be understood by the word "friend." One can, of course, give a deeper meaning to the term "friend," but we are gravely mistaken if we base our faith on our ability to get what seem to us to be personal, private answers from God the Father or from Jesus Christ to our questions. While I will not claim that all such experiences are non-veridical (that would be presumptuous), I will claim that they should not be treated as the norm in Christianity and should not be the basis of Christian faith. I love many Christian songs about how Jesus walks and talks with us, but I cannot stress too strongly the danger of taking them literally and requiring such experiences for Christianity.
There are plenty of deconversion stories out there (including Muehlhauser's own) of people who believed that Jesus was their friend who literally talked to them and who lost their faith in part because they came to worry that these apparent conversations were figments of their own imagination and thus came to despise themselves as gullible fools with an imaginary friend.
Don't be that Christian.
Which, finally, brings us to "grants me wishes" or "could grant me wishes." Again, here we see the interesting combination of mechanism and capriciousness that was evident in the rhetorical impact of the word "magical." A genie grants you wishes. You call up a genie out of a bottle, and he says, "Master, what do you wish?" Then he has to do what you tell him. Or perhaps the genie says, "You have three wishes," and then you have to choose your wishes carefully. The wishes can be whatever you select, and the genie is bound to honor your requests.
God is not like this, and even the addition of the word "could" to the phrase does not help. God's interaction with our requests is that of a wise and loving Father who decides what is best for us and who often refuses our requests. Most often, as far as we can tell, God does not perform any miracle to bring about that which we request, even when what we ask comes about by Providence and secondary causes. God is simply not in the business of "granting wishes." In fact, Christians are called upon to take up their crosses and follow Jesus. I don't know about you, but taking up a cross was never one of my wishes.
Again, here the saccharine version of Christianity that one sees too much of needs to be distinguished both from traditional and from biblical Christianity. This is not to say that God could not intervene miraculously to bring about some state of affairs or that God never does (after all, the Bible is full of miracles). It is rather to say that God's actions should not be thought of as "granting wishes," as though our feelings were primary and as though God is like an indulgent or capricious grandfather (or a genie) who gives us what we want just because we want it.
The approach of telling Christians that they should "try to shake up their faith" by "recognizing" that they "literally believe" a derogatory characterization is a form of bullying, not a form of argument. It has about as much relation to actual apologetic debate and careful discussion of the truth of Christianity as a Chick tract telling how the Pope enslaved everyone to a belief in a sacred cookie (yes, this is a real thing) has to serious Protestant-Catholic dialogue. Both are forms of ridicule rather than intellectual critique. Ridicule is surprisingly powerful, however, and can be mistaken for critique. Nobody likes to look ridiculous. Realizing that this is what someone else thinks about your religious beliefs, that this is how your beliefs look to the skeptic, may cause doubt by entirely non-intellectual mechanisms.
In general, I have found that deconversions are all too likely to happen when the inquiring Christian is unwilling to "graduate" from a simplistic or childish concept of God to a more complex, difficult, and deeper concept of God. It is rather like a person's deciding that all of science is bunk when he realizes, to his annoyance and dismay, that all physical phenomena cannot be accommodated by Newtonian physics.
I do not have any single antidote for such deconversions, but it would certainly help if we would challenge our young people to move beyond a shallow concept of friendship with Jesus and in particular not to be either emotionally or intellectually dependent upon religious experience.
Tough-mindedness is indispensable for those who are going to encounter a ridiculing world.
Comments (49)
Excellent post, Lydia.
I have many opportunities to talk with students who are discouraged because their feelings are not in line with what they profess to believe, or they aren't experiencing happy feelings all the time. What you say here is apropos for them, too.
To "challenge" Christians to go find ridicule of the faith and pretend it's real to see if their faith will hold up is just pathetic. I am one of those who already thought some of those ridiculous ideas, and when I realized they were ridiculous the door opened to faith. Sure, living in the world and being immersed in its way of thinking -- for me it can sometimes be hours in a day even teaching in a Christian college because of what I read to keep up at least some with the world I live in and the discipline I'm part of -- can sometimes bring those thoughts up: wow, could this fantastical stuff about God really be *real*? Sometimes I'll find myself reading authors who profess to be Christians and just nod my head along with them until I'm brought up short -- wait a minute, I was just agreeing with heresy! And I have to go back through the argument to find where it went wrong and why I went along with it. The desire to please people who have some kind of cachet in the world can be strong.
Random thoughts as I wrap up my evening. Thanks for the post!
Posted by Beth Impson | March 3, 2015 11:12 PM
There are several points you bring up that I think are really useful. First, Christians should spend some time every so often taking stock of what they believe (if not why). Second, training in how to deal with doubt would be a handy tool in the discipling process. The third thing is dealing with ridicule in scorn. In the practice of law, you become accustomed to ridicule and accusations in argument because they are rarely personal and when they are personal, you learn not to react. One problem with many modern atheists is that they believe ridicule is an acceptable tool in their arsenal of unbelief. Ridicule adds strong emotional content to other arguments which invites reaction rather than thoughtful consideration which is, of course, it's aim. If I could teach fellow believers one thing it might be how to react (or not react) to the personal sting of ridicule.
Posted by Nadine | March 4, 2015 12:02 AM
EXCELLENT!!!
Posted by TruthIsAbsolute | March 4, 2015 12:43 AM
Lydia,
Wonderful post. I think more of these caricatures of Christian beliefs need to be exposed. The effectiveness of the atheist making these kinds of charges lies in the straw man analogies and allusions made to things that most would find ridiculous to believe in.
Trying to intentionally shake one's faith to try to see if it holds is absurd to me. Being consistent and plain with one's objective evaluation of reality, both internal and external, is all that is needed to get the most fair and balanced view of what is contained within that reality.
Yes, Christians need to have thicker skins, but sadly, the reason why many do not is because they merely have an inner witness as a way to justify their beliefs. And I don't say "merely" to trivialize the internal conviction. This is not problematic for maintaining one's faith, but it is a strain when trying to justify one's faith to others who form such "arguments" of ridicule are the norm.
Posted by Arthur Khachatryan | March 4, 2015 2:10 AM
I'll relate my own wish-granting encounter. Over at Fr. Hollowell's blog, there is one anonymous guy who, with John 14:13 as his proof text ("And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do"), proceded to tell us that he prayed to Jesus not to be homosexual anymore and when that didn't happen, he concludes that God wants him to be gay. Likewise, when there was a ballot on same-sex "marriage" that passed, he said that since people on both sides were praying, God heard and answered the prayers of those wanting it passed. In short, instead of prayer being the lifting of heart and mind to God, God was instead a divine vending-machine into which one inserted prayer coins and it spit out whatever you wanted.
Posted by Scott W. | March 4, 2015 6:20 AM
I thought I recognized this particular Luke. He went through an entire debate with Vox Day about various Christian topics around 2009. Skimming some of the responses, it's interesting to see how much of the evidence that Vox Day brought up was ignored or misunderstood by Luke.
Posted by Mike T | March 4, 2015 8:55 AM
This is not much different from political cartoonists caricaturing politicians and current events. The cartoons might be funny, but few would then conclude that the event never happened or the politician never existed merely because someone presented a funny cartoon. It does not logically follow that because we laugh at a cartoon that misrepresents the real thing that, therefore, the real thing is false.
Posted by Kirk Durston | March 4, 2015 10:41 AM
The interesting thing which I want to acknowledge is that I had a very good experience being interviewed by Luke M. He sent me virtually all the questions he was going to ask ahead of time, and we had a long, in-depth conversation during most of which he just let me talk. There was no ridicule, and some of his followers even thought he treated me too nicely. The interview is still on-line and I think is proving of value to people, so God has used an atheist site to archive an apologetic presentation! Later on when a certain Richard C. appeared on his show and induced Luke M. to seem to agree that Tim and I were being "slippery" in our article on the resurrection, Luke apologized for having been led into agreeing with that. So all of my own interactions with him have been very good. I genuinely think that he believes this "Jesus is your invisible magic friend" and "William Lane Craig worships a semitic sky god" and all the rest are objective characterizations!
Posted by Lydia | March 4, 2015 1:31 PM
While there are many problems with this method of deconversion induction, perhaps the first one is the test, itself: "To test your religious faith, you ought to try to describe it in derogatory terms and admit that this is an accurate description. See if your Christianity can "handle" making this admission."
In what sense is one required to admit that something derogatory is, necessarily, true, a priori? It could be an unfair characterization (which is how Lydia correctly pegs the, "magical, invisible, friend," characterization); it could be a lie; it could commit any of a hundred logical fallacies. The problem is that there is no adequate definition of derogatory stated in the activity.
Another problem is that these methods are philosophically juvenile, ignoring the basic ideas of formal, final, efficient, and material causation, and many other philosophical ideas about the nature of stuff and non-stuff.
Another problem is that this method was exactly what St. Thomas Aquinas used in the Summa Theologica - he looked for the best counter-arguments known at his time and took them all on. These sort of atheists have a very simple understanding of theology and theological history.
Lydia wrote:
"I do not have any single antidote for such deconversions, but it would certainly help if we would challenge our young people to move beyond a shallow concept of friendship with Jesus and in particular not to be either emotionally or intellectually dependent upon religious experience."
Faith, as such, is a gift and cannot be brought about by the power of man, but it is possible for man to clear away the obstacles to faith by clearing up the misconceptions of what Vos calls, the preambles of Faith (for example, the existence of God is something amenable to reason and not Faith and Faith pre-supposes the existence of God as a preamble). These do not rely on imagination, but clear, cold, logic. Atheists like to think they are all about logic, but they really do not understand that atheism is a mere belief system as incapable of standing up to the truth as any system not based on the truth. Also, atheism has a hard time grappling with the reasons behind mercy and self-sacrificing love, which identify the follower of Christ.
This is an excellent article, Lydia. Many Christians are like babes-in-the-woods when arguing with atheists and this is because of a lack of training. Unfortunately, there are only a few places for the Sunday pew-sitter to go for really solid, in-depth treatments of these issues. Many Christians, unfortunately, are also giving into the progressive dumbing-down of the Faith. The Faith of most Catholics and Protestants, today, would never have lead to the Thirty Years War or anyone being burned at the stake or cries of, "Heretic!" Many Christians belong to the Church of Nice and are like deers in the headlights of atheists.
The Chicken
Posted by The Masked Chicken | March 4, 2015 2:37 PM
But Jesus IS my friend.
Or, rather, I am HIS friend. If I do what He commands.
For, it is not a natural friendship. God and man cannot be friends naturally, for there is no sufficiency of likeness between man's nature and God's. Then the only basis for friendship is the supernatural likeness formed by grace with the indwelling of God in the soul of the Christian, whereby it is Christ Jesus who works in him to will and to do. Thus the Christian who is the friend of Jesus carries out the will of God by God's own power in him causing him to will and to do, especially, above-the-natural acts such as having mercy on those who hate you. These are Godly acts, and the Christian who has that friendship shuns the ungodly acts which contradict His will. Friendship with Jesus is a high, hard, difficult road where you die to self and take up your cross. THAT kind of friendship does not look for a magic vending machine from Christ.
I have difficulty even imagining this as a way to go about considering your faith. This is to honest inspection what the Communist Russians were to honest diplomacy. Or what Othello was to honest love of wife. It's just boneheaded from the start, and it is appalling that he gets Christians to go along with him even for a minute. The right tactic in response would be something like this: Think you love your wife? Hah! Insult her repeatedly, drag her down in talking with her friends, sleep around with other women, and turn on pornography every time she enters the room - THEN see if you really still love her.
Posted by Tony | March 4, 2015 9:14 PM
He's essentially telling people to "test" their faith by first admitting that it is absurd. "Admit that I am right, and you will find yourself agreeing that I am right!" Well alright then, that's one way to "argue" the question, I suppose.
This is downright Orwellian, and it can only work by preying on the weak-willed, the insecure, and the ill-informed. He ought frankly to be ashamed of his tactic because it is specious nonsense root and branch.
Posted by Sage McLaughlin | March 4, 2015 10:35 PM
It's interesting that he uses the word "contentious" which I restate as "derogatory."
But what can that be but describing your faith in derogatory terms? What else can be meant by "contentious" when that is the example given? Yet when he says "recognize that this is...still literally true about what you believe," he means it. I try to think of an example where I would "describe what I believe in the most contentious terms possible" _without_ being inaccurate, and all I come up with is situations where one would be using tacit scare quotes: "Yes, that's right, I'm one of those bigot homophobes you leftists are always talking about." Meaning by that that I am what _they_ would call a "bigot homophobe," not that I really admit that I am a bigot or have a phobia. "Yeah, that's right, I'm one of those heartless capitalists." "Yep, I'm an arrogant Protestant; I put all my reliance in private judgement." And so forth. Any such example seems to have that property--if one would ever knowingly do anything "in the zone" of the challenge, one would be knowingly using hyperbole, being facetious, making a joke, or using tacit scare quotes. In other words, one would _not_ believe the characterization to be "literally true."
Posted by Lydia | March 4, 2015 10:59 PM
Exactly. The exercise at heart is really a demand that his opponents make his case for him. Do yer own dang homework. Also, I'd say it's a subtle ad hominem implying, "If you do this and still can't see how silly it all is, then I don't know what!"
Posted by Scott W. | March 5, 2015 6:40 AM
I agree that in practice his sense of "contentious" looks pretty much just like derogatory. However, regardless of whether "contentious" can be distinguished from "derogatory" in theory, the concept is still idiotic. It is still a formula for nonsense rather than sound and fruitful debate leading to a meeting of minds.
In a debate, there is an issue in contention. Person A thinks X is true, and person B thinks not-X is true. In this case, person A is convinced that B thinks not-X is true because he fails to distinguish X from Y, which has some similarity but is distinct, and they BOTH AGREE that not-Y is true. (Boiling a generic debate into simplest conceptual terms). Effectively, in A's perception B fails to see a distinction between X and Y that A sees. Luke's concept of debate is for A to assume that X is just like Y and admit this is true and go on from there.
Which is NOTHING LIKE an intelligible way of proceeding. It is NOTHING LIKE honest debate. It is not in the least related to a fair presentation of opposed ideas. It is, really, an outright DENIAL of the rationality of your opponent. It is effectively the same as shouting louder than the other until he stops trying to debate. It is the anti-reason version of disagreeing with someone. It is a form of intolerance. It is, frankly, bigoted.
Posted by Tony | March 5, 2015 8:10 AM
When I was thinking about this challenge (and perhaps I should have put this in the main post) I was thinking about Hebrews where it says, "Faith is the evidence of things unseen." I have long held (taking a line from C.S. Lewis) that part of what is going on there is that we human beings sometimes get really nervous when we are believing in things that are not amenable to *direct* sensory verification, and this is not always rational. This leads to the situation where a lifelong Christian believer says to himself, "Do I really believe that I can talk to a God that I cannot see and that he hears me and cares about me?" One could have mountains of evidence and one would still occasionally feel that way, because we humans do tend to slip back towards the crudely empirical, even when that is not reasonable.
What this "invisible friend" characterization does is to treat that mere feeling of incredulity about what is unseen as per se a rational doubt. This is why I think that the evidentialist approach I favor is helpful here. One can give oneself a bracing response--"You know that you have plenty of reason to believe that God exists and hears you when you pray. Seeing and touching is not the only sort of evidence there is. Don't let yourself be bullied."
Posted by Lydia | March 5, 2015 8:47 AM
I was interviewed on Atheist Analysis last night and asked about the personal relationship view. It was said since I was in the South I was likely familiar with such a view and I think implied that I held to it. I must have shocked some people when I said the idea of a personal relationship with Jesus I just don't think is Biblical. Now in a sense, we all have a relationship with Him, but it's nothing like any other relationship out there and we lower it when we compare it to a friendship today. Jesus is not just a friend. He is my King and my Master. I am his servant. When I am with friends, I am one among many equals. When I am with Jesus, I am with a superior. When we look at something like the Four Spiritual Laws, they immediately start with talking about me. "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life." Well thanks, but I think too much about myself anyway already. I prefer to say "God is reigning through Christ the King right now and He's inviting you to join in on His reign."
And finally, with prayer, skeptics treat prayer like it's a Christmas list and you say what you want and if you were really good this year, Santa God will bring you everything you asked for. Part of prayer is requests, but it's also confession, praise, thanksgiving, and developing Christlike character. Also, many prayers are not answered immediately. When I make a prayer to be holy, it's not that God will zap me immediately and I'll be walking just like Jesus instantly. No. That is a process over time.
Posted by Nick Peters | March 5, 2015 11:10 AM
I wouldn't necessarily mind the "personal relationship with Jesus" language if it were sufficiently explained and enriched. For one thing, Christians do need to be praying regularly, even frequently, and I suppose that if someone concluded that the idea of a "personal relationship with Jesus" had _no_ meaning at all, he might stop praying and other important contemplative disciplines such as meditating on spiritual truth, reminding oneself of the reality of God's existence and presence, asking God to show us our sins and what we need to change, praise and thanksgiving, and the like. If we could translate "personal relationship" into _those_ things it would be less of a problem. But when it's, "I asked Jesus what to do about my lost keys, and he spoke and told me where to find them" or "God wrote this song for me," then I think we definitely have a potential problem.
Posted by Lydia | March 5, 2015 12:13 PM
Anybody who watches televangelists in action would find the statement "God is my friend who could grant arbitrary wishes" to be completely supported by the evidence. Just because I know you all are generally not fond of televangelists and tent revivals doesn't imply they are an insignificant aspect of the religious movement. By a similar token you all bring up many, many challenges made against other liberals who have different values and preferences than my own, so why should I disavow a contentious view of general religious practice based only on your experiences and beliefs? At most you can claim it would be dishonest or unfair to use this tactic against you since you don't share those beliefs or opinions, but to rule it entirely as an argument tactic against all forms of religious practice is unjustified.
Posted by Step2 | March 5, 2015 1:01 PM
Step2, I don't know what examples you have in mind, but I would not generally say, "Hey, everybody who calls himself a liberal, just admit that ______ is _literally_ what you believe and see if you can handle it" and then give some characterization that is highly pejorative. There is a big difference between saying that *I* believe that such-and-such is an accurate characterization of what many leftists believe on some particular subject (preferably offering arguments as to why that is an accurate characterization) and calling upon all leftists themselves to "test" their faith in liberalism by taking unto themselves that characterization.
Also, sometimes a negative characterization is accurate and sometimes it is not, so whether or not a statement "Such-and-such is what so-and-sos literally believe" is right or wrong depends a lot on what such-and-such is and who the so-and-sos are. For example, to say that those who support "abortion choice" for late-term abortions literally believe that it should be legal to dismember a moving, visible, thumb-sucking human infant is, in fact, accurate, and I am prepared to argue for it and to defend that characterization. To say that all liberals "literally" believe that the rich are better off dead and that killing them for their wealth is defensible is, obviously, not accurate. And so forth.
Posted by Lydia | March 5, 2015 1:13 PM
Also, sometimes a negative characterization is accurate and sometimes it is not, so whether or not a statement "Such-and-such is what so-and-sos literally believe" is right or wrong depends a lot on what such-and-such is and who the so-and-sos are.
Exactly, so why is it a problem for those who do literally believe those things to be challenged by an accurate description of their beliefs? Even though you have pointed out that some Christians do have these saccharine and/or simplistic views of God, you are saying that skeptics are supposed to keep quiet about challenging their incorrect beliefs. I don't have any idea where you are coming up with this supposition that incorrect beliefs should not be challenged.
Posted by Step2 | March 5, 2015 1:55 PM
Because Muehlhauser and co. don't say, "Some of you out there literally believe this and should be challenged by it _either_ to become atheists/agnostics or to get a more nuanced concept of God."
They are a) implying that this is what all orthodox Christians are obligated to believe and b) using it as an argument for atheism per se.
Isn't it obvious that that is why I am objecting?
There's a big difference between challenging simplistic concepts of God and using the fact that some people hold a simplistic concept of God as an evangelistic tactic for atheism.
Posted by Lydia | March 5, 2015 3:12 PM
Moreover, the confident claim (worded in the second person) that all Christians should "recognize" that this is "what you literally believe" is insulting, inasmuch as not all Christians do hold such a view, so why assume that they all do? He even applies it specifically to William Lane Craig, of all people, who is scarcely a stupid, simplistic, or sacchaine thinker, which shows that he is saying that this is Christianity per se, not just a particular saccharine version of Christianity which some Christians hold.
Posted by Lydia | March 5, 2015 3:15 PM
Step2, don't you think there might be a difference between "challenging their incorrect beliefs" and using demeaning argument tactics that are inherently unlikely to help arrive at truth adhered to by way of the persuasive power of a truth AS TRUE rather than as "not made fun of to your face"?
Even if a fairly simplistic adult Christian believed rather much in a God who is like Santa, it is highly unlikely that he thinks of God exactly and explicitly like Santa. That is to say, many people who hold badly wrong opinions (opinions that are logically consistent with and lead ultimately to ridiculous conclusions) hold them without literally and consciously holding the ridiculous conclusions as well. They hold their wrong opinions without recognizing that they lead to ridiculous conclusions. (People are inconsistent.) If it were pointed out to them clearly that their wrong opinions lead directly and logically to ridiculous conclusions, they would stop holding the wrong opinions, and say "I never thought X implied Y, I never thought about Y at all." Hence, there is a perfectly valid sense in which they DO NOT HOLD those ridiculous conclusions. (Even though there is another sense in which they do.) In particular (at least at the beginning of the debate), they do not see in themselves any formal connection between what they believe and those ridiculous conclusions. Hence, telling them point blank (right from the start) something like "just admit it, you believe in Santa" (the ridiculous conclusion) is not a way of getting at what is really true here. It is, rather, a way of being demeaning and derogatory for the EMOTIONAL value of that demeaning and derogatory. It is to diminish the role of the mind in leading to truth, a way of trumping truth held because it is apprehended as true with instead so-called truth held because of emotional pressure to conform.
A debate in which you SHOW and LAY OUT step by step the logical chain from a statement that they believe and agree with (without emotional pressure applied) at the beginning, to a conclusion that they agree (from the beginning, without emotional pressure applied) is ridiculous, is quite a different affair. When you do that kind of "challenging their beliefs", I will applaud you all along the way. The latter is in keeping with the dignity of human beings. The former is a kind of oppression, of emotional abuse.
Posted by Tony | March 5, 2015 4:40 PM
Because Muehlhauser and co. don't say, "Some of you out there literally believe this and should be challenged by it _either_ to become atheists/agnostics or to get a more nuanced concept of God."
Do you ever say, "Some of you out there literally believe in choice devouring itself and should be challenged by it either to be opposed to choice or have a more nuanced concept of it"? It is understood you are mostly talking to your own side in those arguments, trying to reinforce their perceptions and tear down any opponents who hold those specific beliefs.
Isn't it obvious that that is why I am objecting?
So long as a significant portion of theists do have those beliefs it is sufficient to use the argument tactic. Anybody can imply whatever they want, whether it works as an argument depends on whether those implications are true for a particular case.
The former is a kind of oppression, of emotional abuse.
On the other hand, threatening eternal hellfire is not oppressive emotional abuse it is logic.
Posted by Step2 | March 5, 2015 7:55 PM
Oh, believe me, these chaps are _not_ chiefly talking to their own side, and that is _not_ understood. He really means it when he says that he is addressing this as a challenge to believers. It occurs in a post called "Open Letter to a Believing World." It's meant for purposes of conversion.
By the way, I _argue_ that choice devours itself. I don't issue a challenge to leftists: "Admit that this is what you believe and then see how you feel." I have never said anything remotely like that.
You're really straining here, Step2.
Posted by Lydia | March 5, 2015 8:47 PM
If low church, saccharine nonsense is going to be challenged, then so must all of the "low church atheists" who believe all sorts of things such as the crusades happened in a vacuum (and were TOTALLLY unjustified), the Spanish Inquisition was the precursor of the Holocaust and that Christianity has a record that is nearly 1:1 or worse than Islam in violence. Or rather that even though every Communist regime was officially atheist and enforced atheism roughly as forthrightly as any religious confessional regime, we cannot regard atheism as having been of any import in their crimes.
Now this is a serious question, Step2... what is served by people claiming to be intelligent, thinking people looking to discern truth spending their time sniping at these sorts of people? It may be easy, it may be amusing, but that's about the end of it.
Posted by Mike T | March 6, 2015 8:25 AM
I have been hearing that stupid canard for 2 decades now. It isn't any better now than it was then.
When I point out to my 10 year old that eating Drano will hurt like heck and destroy her innards, and might kill her, is that "threatening" her? It would be idiotic to call it a threat. That's an abuse of language. I am not threatening her.
If I say to my annoying brother "If you touch my book I will pound you black and blue", that's a threat. If I pretend and protest some silly nonsense like "no, it's a promise, not a threat" I am just misusing language. It's a threat.
Is there any difference? Something that distinguishes the two? Yeah, you bet there is. Everyone knows what they are different, too, even if they don't bother to sort out the differences and state them in so many words.
Here's one difference: In the case of the Drano, the ill effect comes about due to the action taken, without any imposition by me (i.e. by the one pointing out the evil). I am not in any sense a cause of the evils, I am elucidating on the way the universe works, things that will happen without my being the one to bring them about. I don't cause the evil. I don't intend the evil. It happens whether I want it to or not.
In the case of the beating, the evil will not come about BUT by my causing it. More: the evil comes about only by my willing it where I have complete freedom to will to do it or not. Thus the evil result predicted is, effectively, that I will intend to accomplish evil upon you.
Sometimes threats are due and appropriate: when the state makes a law that you have to "do X" and provides a punishment for when you don't, that's a threat. And that's good statecraft.
We don't need to get into whether God's act of warning that sinners go to hell is a THREAT or a prediction about what happens naturally to those who reject God. We could argue about that, but we don't need to, not here. When I tell my child about Hell as the place where unrepentant sinners will go, I am not the one who could, or might, bring it about. I don't will it. It happens whether I want it to or not. I am not threatening the child.
Posted by Tony | March 6, 2015 8:45 AM
I myself have never used the "threat" (read, prediction) of hell as an argument for anything except _perhaps_ at the meta-level: These things could have sufficiently grave consequences if it turns out that I'm right that I at least suggest you look into the matter seriously. And there is also a positive side to that: If I'm right there is a God who loves you and offers you eternal bliss, so at least you might as well look into this.
But as an argument *for Christianity*, using either hell or heaven would be question-begging. Obviously. Which I don't think any contributor here has done.
Sometimes I wonder if Step2 has even read what we write. What he says here makes me think at least that he has read it with some incredibly colored glasses.
Posted by Lydia | March 6, 2015 9:05 AM
Excellent article, Lydia. This is the first I read about you but I guess I am going to become a follower of your blog.
I was raised as a Christian and then I became an atheist. A few years ago, I became Christian again, but I think that I lack understanding. Your post touched a nerve with me. It's not that I have a completely childish concept of God, but I don't think my concept is as deep as it gets.
Do you know any book that explains with more detail what you mention in this post? That is, the one who helps me to "graduate" from a simplistic or childish concept of God to a more complex, difficult, and deeper concept of God. As I said, I don't think I'm there yet. I think I am half-way and I would like to get there. Do you know a book I can read?
Posted by imnobody00 | March 6, 2015 8:06 PM
Lydia,
By the way, I _argue_ that choice devours itself. I don't issue a challenge to leftists: "Admit that this is what you believe and then see how you feel." I have never said anything remotely like that.
First, Luke M. does point towards reading and understanding other atheistic arguments as a precondition, so he isn't completely leaning on one argument tactic. Second, his argument isn't asking theists to opine about their feelings it is asking them if it is an accurate description of their beliefs, in which case those beliefs are wrong.
Sometimes I wonder if Step2 has even read what we write. What he says here makes me think at least that he has read it with some incredibly colored glasses.
Okay, so what part of "televangelists and tent revivals" are you strangely thinking applies to you, your arguments, or your religious practice?
Tony,
I do not believe there is an afterlife, much less that it conforms to orthodox Christian beliefs. Therefore the statement cannot be an objective "natural consequence" divorced from the intentions of the speaker.
Mike T,
You are the only one who seems to understand the limited nature of what I'm claiming, so congrats. I'm not always opposed to sniping at those on my side of the fence, so if you want to go after "low church atheists" I might join in some of the time.
Now this is a serious question, Step2... what is served by people claiming to be intelligent, thinking people looking to discern truth spending their time sniping at these sorts of people?
As a method of conversion I think it is rather poor, even in the cases where it is effective. Like I suggested to Lydia it seems to be mostly an in-group tactic to reinforce perceptions about the out-group.
Posted by Step2 | March 6, 2015 9:09 PM
I cannot bring myself to address a commentator as "I'm Nobody" under any circumstances. It seems disrespectful. I'll address myself to "IN."
IN:
I suggest you browse the articles in your areas of interest in the "popular" section of William Lane Craig's website, Reasonable Faith. That portal is here:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/popular-articles
I say this despite some disagreements with Craig. For example, I think God is timeless, and Craig thinks God is in time. But Craig's work has done much to bring a richer theology and a deeper appreciation of apologetics and many other important topics to laymen, and I have great respect for him and his work.
Posted by Lydia | March 6, 2015 10:08 PM
Hi Lydia.
Your post hit me pretty directly in the section you address the "friend" aspect. When I was a teen, I truly believe I heard the Spirit say to me "I'm your friend." Now, I was a Christian before and since, that was never my basis, but I certainly have questioned the experience since then as it has not happened again. (But there have been occasions I would like to attribute to God's intervention, even if through rather mundane means.) I strongly believe that God is visibly at work in our world (for example, events described in Craig Keener's work), but that we should not expect Him to be a magical genie. My faith has matured since those teen days, however it still feels weak. I pray for grace and faith. (I am OCD and have been devouring much of Ed Feser's blog (and several others) as of late.) Shallow assertions such as the subject of today's blog have always seemed to cause me at least a minor negative stir, but at least I'm learning how to intelligently respond.
Thank you for your thoughts.
Posted by Meek | March 6, 2015 10:16 PM
Step2, I think that you are being completely biased when you say,
First, this challenge is not an argument. There is not a single argumentative move anywhere in it. Ridicule is not argument. Second, no, he does not _ask_ anyone if this is an accurate description of that person's beliefs. He states that it _is_ the belief of anyone who is a Christian. And as I pointed out (which you have ignored), he attributes the same absurd beliefs to a Christian who clearly doesn't hold an infantile version of Christianity.
What you are ignoring is the fact (which is pretty obvious) that Luke M. doesn't just believe that *some* Christians have a silly version of Christianity. He believes that Christianity is inherently silly. This challenge is just a way to try to get all Christians to ridicule their belief by characterizing it in this way. What he _ought_ to realize is that, *as a characterization of Christianity per se* it is manifestly unfair and inaccurate. Yet he is using it *as a characterization of Christianity per se*.
Posted by Lydia | March 6, 2015 10:21 PM
Meek, thanks. Yes, this does sort of skirt the whole "continuationist vs. cessationist" issue. I realize that. And I have also argued in another thread (not in a main post) that we can be justified when we already _have_ grounds for believing in God in thanking God for all sorts of things even if we do not have _independent_ evidence strong enough for concluding that they were miracles or for treating them as independent evidence for God's action. We know that God can bring things about through secondary causes, through the actions of human beings, and so forth, and we also know that sometimes there is simply not sufficient evidence to judge whether something was God's direction action (miracle) or not, as in the case of a very surprising healing that nonetheless could have been due to natural causes. This is why Christians thank God all the time without trying to separate all that out. The events for which we thank God are not the foundation of our faith evidentially, but nonetheless we are called upon in Scripture to be thankful for the good gifts of God.
I think it's easy to get that switched around psychologically. For example, one is tempted to think, "Well, if my child recovers, I will give God thanks for it, so that means that if my child does _not_ recover I should be angry at God and blame him for not healing her." But that actually doesn't follow and isn't required by consistency.
I noticed in a different post on Luke M.'s site, about the problem of evil, he said that Christians believe that God miraculously brought about good weather for Pastor Jones's daughter's wedding, yet Christians don't consider God remiss for not stopping horrendous evil. But, without getting into the entire answer to the problem of evil, it just isn't true that Christians must believe that God miraculously brought about the good weather, even if we thank God for the good weather. We can be thanking him for the weather even if it came about through natural means.
Posted by Lydia | March 6, 2015 10:28 PM
Thank you, Lydia, for your kind email. I will check the "Reasonable faith" website and I agree with you that God is timeless. Thanks.
The imnobody nickname (which I have used for more than 10 years) is a bit of a joke (based on the Odissey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outis) and a bit serious too. In part, a defense against ad-hominem attacks (kind of "look at my arguments and discuss them. I'm not important"). In a deeper sense, it's a way for me to remember than, compared to God, I am nothing ("ashes to ashes"), my understanding is so limited and that I have to curb my huge intellectual pride.
Thank you, Lydia. I will keep reading you.
Posted by imnobody00 | March 6, 2015 11:35 PM
I do not believe there is an afterlife
OMG, Step2.
Posted by William Luse | March 7, 2015 4:08 AM
Step2, you are mixing categories here. The "I do not believe" is perfectly clear and satisfactory, and can be used in a debate in order to identify agreed premises (or which ones are not agreed). The second one is a jump to a completely different order: it attributes to what you believe about the world that it is objective fact about the world. That's out of order.
Read the "unrepentant sinners will go to hell" prediction of the Christian to someone who is already a Christian in the proper light. It is not a claim for WHY to believe either in Christianity or hell. Read it rather as a statement with a presumed (unstated) conditional, "If there is an objective hell, which I believe there is,...the natural consequence is that unrepentant sinners go to hell." The person who is a Christian and believes that hell is part of the created order cannot object to the statement as making a claim that makes no sense regarding the "objective" natural consequences of hell. But so too for the person who DOES NOT: it is still true that if hell is part of the created order, it has natural consequences. When the latter is arguing with the former, he cannot presume that his view of hell not existing determines the issue of whether sinners go to hell IN THIS DEBATE, because the thesis "hell does not exist" is one of the disputed issues. It's non-existence cannot be claimed as an "objective fact" in this context.
Posted by Tony | March 7, 2015 7:09 AM
"Do you know any book that explains with more detail what you mention in this post? That is, the one who helps me to "graduate" from a simplistic or childish concept of God to a more complex, difficult, and deeper concept of God. As I said, I don't think I'm there yet. I think I am half-way and I would like to get there. Do you know a book I can read?"
Oh, these are deep waters, my friend, deep waters. Many a saint has not had a complex understanding of God, but they have had a true understanding of God, whereas many philosophers have argued themselves, falsely, into the belief that God does not exist. In Scripture, Christ said,
"At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." [Matt: 11: 25]
"In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight." [Luke: 10: 21]
What has been hidden? Jesus is in the middle of castigating various towns for not believing and following him based on what they have seen: "Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not:" [Matt:11: 20]. What has been hidden is the understanding that Jesus is God, among other things.
There is nothing wrong and all to the good to want to have a deeper knowledge of God (since one can only love what one knows), but God can be known in two ways: by reason and by faith and the two ways are not contradictory. Who knew Jesus the most intimately? His mother. She of all God's creatures, possesses wisdom, the knowing of God, to the highest degree and, yet, she could not discuss many aspects of Jesus's divinity as well as a modern first-year theology student, because, while she held the mystery by faith, time had not, yet, allowed reason to penetrate as far. Indeed, some things can be known about God by reason, but some things must be revealed by revelation. Those things that can be known of God by reason are called the preambles of Faith. Those that can only be known by Faith are called the elements of Faith, proper. The existence of God can be known by reason, for example, but not the fact that He is a Trinity of persons. That had to be revealed.
One can read about the preambles of Faith in the small, but important book:
Arvin Vos,
Aquinas, Calvin, & Contemporary Protestant Thought: A Critique of Protestant Views on the Thought of Thomas Aquinas. Christian University Press (Eerdmans), 1985. 178 pages. ISBN 0-8028-00602
Lydia pointed you to William Lane Craig's site and I would like to point you to some older writings on the Catholic side. Bear in mind that while Catholics and Protestants share many things in common, there are differences on some crucial points, so it is good to see both perspectives. One standard starting point for Christology in the Catholic approach is the Medieval Scholastic theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas. He has several works on-line and unlike Dun Scotus's works (he ain't called the Subtle Doctor for nothing!), they are easily approachable. Might I suggest, for starters, his Compendium of Theology? It was written for the laymen and has about 250 articles on God, the Trinity, and Jesus.
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/Compendium.htm
His master work was the Summa Theologica:
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/
It summarizes much of the theology of the day and has not been superseded for its clarity.
In response to the Moslems (and atheists of today), he wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles, which attempts to demonstrate the truths of Christianity by reason:
http://dhspriory.org/thomas/ContraGentiles.htm
There are many other useful resources on both the Catholic and Protestant sides and many of them are available, on-line. A good review of the history of philosophy, also, couldn't hurt.
All that being said, no matter how much knowledge of God one has acquired by reading, one will remain a pigmy without one essential thing: prayer. Prayer, properly done (and how often it is not!) is the surest, safest way to gain a deep knowledge of God. As St. Teresa of Avila puts it in chapter 28 of The Way of Perfection:
Fro Chapter 34 of her autobiography:
The Chicken
Posted by The Masked Chicken | March 7, 2015 11:04 AM
Lydia,
My comment got held for review. It was a comment for imnobody00. It is somewhat long. I hope it does not get lost.
The Chicken
Posted by The Masked Chicken | March 7, 2015 11:07 AM
Honestly, I have never been persuaded or moved by stories of conversion from theism to atheism; I always felt something was flat about the story and reasons why - just wasn't convincing. What I have been impressed about are stories from atheism to theism.
Posted by GRA | March 7, 2015 7:19 PM
Off-topic, I’ve got some investment advice for Meek since I’ve read he will be coming into an astounding inheritance.
Lydia,
Ridicule is not argument.
It is a rhetorical tactic instead of a structured proof; but if the intent of an argument is to change or defend an opinion or belief, ridicule certainly acts like an argument. Seriously, if you read Dr. Feser’s blog for just a few days you’ll see how often and quickly it is used as a tactic.
Second, no, he does not _ask_ anyone if this is an accurate description of that person's beliefs.
The context of his entire challenge is a request. Pedantic quote “So what I ask of you is this...” Even if you dismiss it is an unfair, rude, or absurd request, that is the literal context.
What you are ignoring is the fact (which is pretty obvious) that Luke M. doesn't just believe that *some* Christians have a silly version of Christianity. He believes that Christianity is inherently silly.
He is a self-proclaimed atheist, it is sort of expected he would have that opinion. I'm not clear on how he should issue the challenge to *only* those who hold a silly version of Christianity. It isn't as though people consciously go around thinking, "My version of Christianity is overly simple and saccharine."
What he _ought_ to realize is that, *as a characterization of Christianity per se* it is manifestly unfair and inaccurate. Yet he is using it *as a characterization of Christianity per se*.
Maybe since he realized it was an accurate characterization of his religious beliefs he incorrectly assumed it was an accurate characterization of the religious beliefs of most other theists. Nobody ever assumes anything like that, right?
Tony,
It's non-existence cannot be claimed as an "objective fact" in this context.
Nice try but I'll decline your advice about what counts as objective fact.
Posted by Step2 | March 7, 2015 9:59 PM
Not valid. There are lots of opinions that are false that are not SILLY. Just for example, most of the opinions of doctors of 50 years ago that have in the past 50 years been proven wrong, are not silly. Is it possible that Luke M is over-reacting to "I used to think that - how stupid of me" when it wasn't really stupid, he is letting an emotional response cloud his thinking?
Yes, well (considering the other likely possibility) if Luke's version was overly simple and saccharine, that might explain why he gave it up. That doesn't explain why he refuses to do due diligence and examine what are the leading reasons actually used to put forward that there is a God, or that Christianity is true. As an example, Ed Feser has repeatedly shown that there are no significant philosophers who put forward an argument for God's existence that starts "everything has a cause...". So it is just plain bad faith to misrepresent "the argument for God's existence" as if it starts with that premise. I have never run into someone who thinks "I believe there is a God because He gives me the worldly presents I ask for."
Well, of course you will choose to do just as you wish, but it's pretty hard to see any worthwhile debate proceeding that goes "I believe there is no afterlife and you believe there is but I am going to argue using the premise that there is no afterlife as an objective fact and argue something or other based on that..." That argument, whatever else it will do, will satisfy the minds only of those who already accept the premises you start with. If a debate is supposed to CHANGE someone's mind, that's a pretty limiting way to attempt to change the theist's mind.
Posted by Tony | March 8, 2015 6:29 AM
If you're going to write a blog that claims to give an intellectual approach to the whole issue, you ought to do much, much better than that. Especially when it comes to stating that a highly intelligent Christian debater and philosopher who has written reams on the nature of God "literally" believes in a "semitic sky God who [etc., etc.] now talks to you and grants you wishes."
That just is not a responsible way to approach the entire question, and to characterize one's approach in that context as rational while the Christians are all unreasonable is pretty darned ironic.
Posted by Lydia | March 8, 2015 9:11 AM
I have never run into someone who thinks "I believe there is a God because He gives me the worldly presents I ask for."
Prosperity theology is unorthodox but it still has a large suburban following.
If a debate is supposed to CHANGE someone's mind, that's a pretty limiting way to attempt to change the theist's mind.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan - “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.”
Since it is supposed to be an objective fact there should be some method of verification that reasonable people can agree upon. Instead, we have this smorgasbord of mythological opinion and places converted by legend:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehenna
Posted by Step2 | March 8, 2015 3:05 PM
People who believe in prosperity theology do not propose that the reason they believe in God is that He gives them the worldly goods they ask for. They propose it as a reason to OBEY God, or something like that. Belief in God and Christianity is presupposed beforehand.
"Reasonable" people sometimes agree on criteria for verifying miracles, and then when something satisfies the criteria, they withdraw their agreement. Is that reasonable?
There is no verification system that satisfies everyone, including those with a pre-set bias against evidence of miracles and other supernatural reality. Nor is there a verification system that satisfies everyone about scientific claims - there are always deniers. Doesn't mean that denying is reasonable. There have been many highly intelligent, careful thinkers who thought the evidence was reasonable that there are miracles and that prophets' claims of speaking for God are reasonable.
Posted by Tony | March 8, 2015 5:56 PM
Hey, Step2, keep hope alive:
Before that 18 month old baby was rescued from an overturned car in a Utah river, the responders heard a voice saying "Help me." It was not the voice of an 18 month old. More than one guy heard it. 'Splain that if you will.
Posted by William Luse | March 9, 2015 6:29 PM
If I am to describe either the Christian faith, in general, or my faith, in particular, I will do it in the truest terms possible, not in artificially derogatory terms. Poses, fakes, and empty verbal exercises are of little interest to me in finding out the truth about things. If sloppy language makes sloppy thought possible, then I'm not interested in applying sloppily derogatory language to my thoughts about Christianity.
Posted by Michael Bauman | March 12, 2015 11:00 PM
In other words the correct part is "Jesus is." Yup, that's what I believe. Next question?
;-)
Posted by John S. | March 19, 2015 2:46 PM
This, I think, was simply a cheap attack on Christianity. It has nothing of real philosophical or, really, any intellectual worth at all. He asked us to view Christianity in a certain way, and I can agree! The type of belief he outlined does sound absurd but, the thing is, that is not ACTUAL Christianity. That was simply a harsh characterization of a childish belief.
How about Atheism? The religion that states; All is meaningless, we are all doomed for the grave. Nothing you do or say has any greater meaning than the smallest pebble or most insignificant grain of sand. We live, we die, and during our struggle to survive for a mere second more, the universe stares back at us with pitiless indifference (Dawkins) as it watches us perish, never to return. Human life is like crashing waves, here now, and a thousand more on their way, until one day, the sea drys up.
Atheists often claim to be moral people, i simply ask; Why?
Is that a harsh enough characterization of Atheism? I mean come on, if they entered the debating ring, all you would have to ask them is; Do you believe life is meaningless? If the answer is "No" just tell them what Atheism is. This is a horrible debating tactic, because it isn't even an argument, but it sure does put the pressure on the opponent. Just like the guy who was trying to put pressure on Christianity by simply creating a harsh and unrealistic characterization of it. Great post by the way. I feel like I basically summarized what you said, but in a less coherent way.
Posted by Joel Falla | August 20, 2016 11:19 AM