Friday, February 7, 2014
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Apologetics: A Displacement of Faith
The simplified presentation of a straight forward theist: "I have faith in God."
The simplified presentation of an apologetic theist: "I have faith in something else that makes God a necessity."
Examples of "something else" include, but aren't limited to:
Apologetics isn't so much a defense of faith, just a displacement of it.
The simplified presentation of an apologetic theist: "I have faith in something else that makes God a necessity."
Examples of "something else" include, but aren't limited to:
- A universe that could only be created by an external agency.
- Complex life that could only be intelligently designed.
- Objective and absolute moral values that exist in some way independent from those who value them.
- An external meaning for life/existence/them personally.
Apologetics isn't so much a defense of faith, just a displacement of it.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Faith vs. Force
Christians claim to have complete faith in the word of God, but generally don't even spend the time to learn the original languages in which the Bible was written. They read translations of translations, sure (or more commonly listen to someone else's interpretation once a week), but I don't find that convincing. Maybe they aren't so convinced. Maybe we aren't so different.
I was a Christian Scientist, a denomination that taught God's power and influence was more attainable then the average flavor of Christianity. If I lived by the values of Jesus I could, with complete faith, do as Christ did with God working through me. The analogue to Star Wars is very appropriate. Live like a Jedi and when you truly believe you can lift a rock with your mind, it will happen. JC's disciples were the Jedi of the Bible, healing folks long after the ascension.
I tried healing myself and others as a Christian Scientist. Surprise, surprise, it didn't work. The theological out for my failure was that I didn't have enough faith that it would work. I agreed there. More than that, I knew I was fundamentally incapable of complete faith in what I found unbelievable. So I embraced my disbelief and here I am.
Sometimes I think the vast majority of theists, if not all, are also incapable of complete faith in their supernatural stories. I would think an underlying skepticism in that which is contrary to experience is a feature of human nature. Surely there is selective pressure for it, evolutionarily speaking. The question is, how to get them to embrace their disbelief and move on?
Or maybe they just need to believe a little harder and start levitating rocks. ;-)
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Morality and the Definition Divide
Search “morality” in Merriam-Webster and the first definition you’ll see is “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior.” That’s beliefs, plural. This implies that what I believe is right and wrong isn’t the only belief out there, which should be obvious. Add the word “objective” in front of a word with a definition like this and the result is an oxymoron. Morality, by definition, is subjective. Case closed.
Well, of course the case isn’t closed. I can’t cite Merriam-Webster and expect millennia of philosophy to buckle. Honestly, it isn’t even justified. Merriam-Webster has four definitions for the word “morality,” and MW is hardly the only dictionary in circulation. Should I go with the terminology of Google? Wikipedia? Who is the linguistic authority here?
Few theists will deny the reality that different beliefs of right and wrong behavior exist, they just believe one in particular belief is true in an absolute and objective way, conveniently, it’s their own. Digging deeper we need argument on more definitions. What does right mean? What does wrong mean? According to the first entry of Merriam-Webster, right behavior is that which is morally or socially correct or acceptable. Apologists reject any definitions of right and wrong in terms of what is acceptable because those definitions are subjective. They say, “what if people find rape acceptable, then is rape right by this definition?” That is true, by this definition. Finding it distasteful doesn’t strike it from the vernacular. If it did, we likely wouldn’t have a word for “rape” to begin with. Still, they want another definition. Lucky for them, there are 15 other definitions in MW alone, some of which tell us little. Right behavior is defined as what is moral, what is moral is defined as good behavior, and good behavior is defined as right behavior. Thanks. Zero help.
Apologists also don’t like definitions that are relative. This means defining right behavior as that which benefits others or causes no harm is a no go. They don’t see morality as a social contract, they think it exits independent of those capable of moral choices. In other words, rape was wrong in some transcendent way even before living creatures existed to rape or be raped. Where does that leave us?
It leaves the majority of us using relative and/or subjective definitions while apologists demand words with meanings that are absolute and objective. Words like...okay there are no words like that. Language is a human invention that at some point paired concepts with arbitrary strings of letters. I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to understand how apologists arbitrarily paired their words.
I tried asking apologists to define “right” behavior. They did their best not to, but when pushed I received the following responses.
There is something interesting about each of these apologetic definitions. “Ought” implies obligation. Ought to according to whom? The answer is, of course, God. The second answer explicitly mentions God as part of the definition. It’s clear from this that many religious apologists frame their understanding of morality with God as a fundamental prerequisite. Given this understanding, they are completely correct to say morality requires God, but not by logic or deduction, rather by definition. The perceived validity of the moral argument for God then is a product of indoctrination. Any outsider with a secular understanding of the terms, should see the moral argument for God as entirely circular. The conclusion, that God is required for morality, is assumed from the start.
Well, of course the case isn’t closed. I can’t cite Merriam-Webster and expect millennia of philosophy to buckle. Honestly, it isn’t even justified. Merriam-Webster has four definitions for the word “morality,” and MW is hardly the only dictionary in circulation. Should I go with the terminology of Google? Wikipedia? Who is the linguistic authority here?
Few theists will deny the reality that different beliefs of right and wrong behavior exist, they just believe one in particular belief is true in an absolute and objective way, conveniently, it’s their own. Digging deeper we need argument on more definitions. What does right mean? What does wrong mean? According to the first entry of Merriam-Webster, right behavior is that which is morally or socially correct or acceptable. Apologists reject any definitions of right and wrong in terms of what is acceptable because those definitions are subjective. They say, “what if people find rape acceptable, then is rape right by this definition?” That is true, by this definition. Finding it distasteful doesn’t strike it from the vernacular. If it did, we likely wouldn’t have a word for “rape” to begin with. Still, they want another definition. Lucky for them, there are 15 other definitions in MW alone, some of which tell us little. Right behavior is defined as what is moral, what is moral is defined as good behavior, and good behavior is defined as right behavior. Thanks. Zero help.
Apologists also don’t like definitions that are relative. This means defining right behavior as that which benefits others or causes no harm is a no go. They don’t see morality as a social contract, they think it exits independent of those capable of moral choices. In other words, rape was wrong in some transcendent way even before living creatures existed to rape or be raped. Where does that leave us?
It leaves the majority of us using relative and/or subjective definitions while apologists demand words with meanings that are absolute and objective. Words like...okay there are no words like that. Language is a human invention that at some point paired concepts with arbitrary strings of letters. I’ve spent the last couple weeks trying to understand how apologists arbitrarily paired their words.
I tried asking apologists to define “right” behavior. They did their best not to, but when pushed I received the following responses.
- “The right thing is what we ought to do.”
- “The right thing is part of God’s nature.”
There is something interesting about each of these apologetic definitions. “Ought” implies obligation. Ought to according to whom? The answer is, of course, God. The second answer explicitly mentions God as part of the definition. It’s clear from this that many religious apologists frame their understanding of morality with God as a fundamental prerequisite. Given this understanding, they are completely correct to say morality requires God, but not by logic or deduction, rather by definition. The perceived validity of the moral argument for God then is a product of indoctrination. Any outsider with a secular understanding of the terms, should see the moral argument for God as entirely circular. The conclusion, that God is required for morality, is assumed from the start.
Monday, January 20, 2014
Short-form Thoughts
SFT #1: On Mental Illness & Climate Change.
I find a less recognized way in which religion harms society is in how it encourages many theists to deny the negative effects of mental illness and climate change. Because the existence of these things imply that, if there is an agency behind everything, that agency doesn't have our best interests in mind, they refuse to consider that they are real. This denial delays or thwarts the prospect of working on and potentially fixing issues that inhibit individuals' well-being and threaten our lives.
SFT #2: Disbelief in Magic
Theists often misunderstand why I disbelieve the bible. Let me be clear--it's because of the talking animals, duplicating seafood, parting seas, magic plagues, transforming matter, and resurrections. There are other valid reasons to be skeptical, but reasons 1 thru 100 are all the violations of common experience and observation that are not naturally possible. The same reasons that theists, hopefully, would doubt a tagline like "based on a true story" for Lord of the Rings.
SFT #3: Seeing Through Most Any Apologetic Argument
How I see religious apologetic arguments:
Formation 1.
Make an assumption that can only be true if God is real.
Use that assumption to say God is real.
Formation 2.
Find something with an incomplete explanation.
Substitute with a complete explanation based on the assumption that only God can be responsible.
Use that assumption to say God is real.
(In both cases, it would burn less calories to just assume God is real.)
I find a less recognized way in which religion harms society is in how it encourages many theists to deny the negative effects of mental illness and climate change. Because the existence of these things imply that, if there is an agency behind everything, that agency doesn't have our best interests in mind, they refuse to consider that they are real. This denial delays or thwarts the prospect of working on and potentially fixing issues that inhibit individuals' well-being and threaten our lives.
SFT #2: Disbelief in Magic
Theists often misunderstand why I disbelieve the bible. Let me be clear--it's because of the talking animals, duplicating seafood, parting seas, magic plagues, transforming matter, and resurrections. There are other valid reasons to be skeptical, but reasons 1 thru 100 are all the violations of common experience and observation that are not naturally possible. The same reasons that theists, hopefully, would doubt a tagline like "based on a true story" for Lord of the Rings.
SFT #3: Seeing Through Most Any Apologetic Argument
How I see religious apologetic arguments:
Formation 1.
Make an assumption that can only be true if God is real.
Use that assumption to say God is real.
Formation 2.
Find something with an incomplete explanation.
Substitute with a complete explanation based on the assumption that only God can be responsible.
Use that assumption to say God is real.
(In both cases, it would burn less calories to just assume God is real.)
Friday, January 17, 2014
Gods that Thwart Traditional Arguments for God
It's possible that religious apologists could be wrong about their arguments even if a handful of supernatural beings exist. Here are a few examples (that are obviously just me having a bit of fun, I'm not actually arguing any are real.)
Lacsap is a hipster God who ironically only grants those who don’t believe eternal life. Inversely, Lacsapians and all other religious types are met with an afterlife of everlasting The Nanny reruns, thus reversing Pascal’s Wager. Why would you risk believing if there was any chance an eternal Fran Dreser could be your fate?
The Great Nothing gives new meaning to the theist straw man that atheists must accept that everything came from Nothing. Indeed, Nothing created the heavens and the earth in not six, but three days...and he was drunk on the third...which explains a lot.
Bob the programmer coded our universe to test different structures of space/time. Bob’s universe is likewise coded by a programmer named Ted, who was programmed by Kim. This seeming infinite regress is made possible by a universe in which time has no beginning in which some hypothetical programmer resides.
Loki, if that is his name, is a trickster god who planted various memories, miracles and holy books into our past to mess with humanity. How can anyone be sure of their revelations if everything could be based on lies from a being who can manipulate reality?
Lacsap is a hipster God who ironically only grants those who don’t believe eternal life. Inversely, Lacsapians and all other religious types are met with an afterlife of everlasting The Nanny reruns, thus reversing Pascal’s Wager. Why would you risk believing if there was any chance an eternal Fran Dreser could be your fate?
The Great Nothing gives new meaning to the theist straw man that atheists must accept that everything came from Nothing. Indeed, Nothing created the heavens and the earth in not six, but three days...and he was drunk on the third...which explains a lot.
Bob the programmer coded our universe to test different structures of space/time. Bob’s universe is likewise coded by a programmer named Ted, who was programmed by Kim. This seeming infinite regress is made possible by a universe in which time has no beginning in which some hypothetical programmer resides.
Loki, if that is his name, is a trickster god who planted various memories, miracles and holy books into our past to mess with humanity. How can anyone be sure of their revelations if everything could be based on lies from a being who can manipulate reality?
Monday, January 13, 2014
"How can you judge something as immoral without a divine moral foundation?"
Some theists claim that when atheists judge the character of God in the Bible as immoral, they show that they have a sense of objective morality which could only be present if God is a foundation for morality.
By claiming this they are implying that the atheist's judgement is objectively correct. These theists either must agree that God is objectively immoral or admit that the atheist's judgement isn't objectively true thereby discounting their claim that the atheist's judgement shows that we have a sense of objective morality.
By claiming this they are implying that the atheist's judgement is objectively correct. These theists either must agree that God is objectively immoral or admit that the atheist's judgement isn't objectively true thereby discounting their claim that the atheist's judgement shows that we have a sense of objective morality.
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