How can people still take the Bible or other the religious texts literally?

[Treehugger]

I do care about about what is real and what is not real. It is incredibly important now as there are all kinds of  fake news, "fake news" and radicalization out there thanks to the internet. We need to be empowered to say: "No, that belief is incorrect and dangerous (and here's why). And no, you are not simply entitled to believe whatever the hell you want to believe. But I am willing to listen to you make an argument for your views." Instead, most of what I hear is that we are to respect others' beliefs no matter how crazy, no matter how objectively false. I also think there is also a tendency in academia to want to make an issue interesting, to have sophisticated conversations about a question and if a matter is to clear cut, no one is interested.

This is the opposite of what is happening now; as more academics refer to themselves as "activists", they shout down and "cancel" anyone who has a different view than theirs. Sophisticated conversations are considered to be "giving a platform to XXXists/XXXphobes", where XXX can be one of any number of things. They want to make it seem that the issue is clear cut, and that no one is interested, but it's only because most peole who disagree are cowed into silence.

Ok, I need to qualify that .... except when it comes to identity politics.

[marshwiggle]

I do care about about what is real and what is not real. It is incredibly important now as there are all kinds of  fake news, "fake news" and radicalization out there thanks to the internet. We need to be empowered to say: "No, that belief is incorrect and dangerous (and here's why). And no, you are not simply entitled to believe whatever the hell you want to believe. But I am willing to listen to you make an argument for your views." Instead, most of what I hear is that we are to respect others' beliefs no matter how crazy, no matter how objectively false. I also think there is also a tendency in academia to want to make an issue interesting, to have sophisticated conversations about a question and if a matter is to clear cut, no one is interested.

This is the opposite of what is happening now; as more academics refer to themselves as "activists", they shout down and "cancel" anyone who has a different view than theirs. Sophisticated conversations are considered to be "giving a platform to XXXists/XXXphobes", where XXX can be one of any number of things. They want to make it seem that the issue is clear cut, and that no one is interested, but it's only because most peole who disagree are cowed into silence.

Ok, I need to qualify that .... except when it comes to identity politics.

But that's exactly the problem; who gets to decide what discussions are about "facts" and what  aren't? Whoever has the power of determining what has already been decided and what is still open for debate is in an immensely powerful (and dangerous) position.

[apl68]

Now as regards actually proving anything in the Bible, or convincing anybody of its truth, there's only so much I can do.  The only "proof" I and other Christians can really offer is the effect God has had on our lives. 

....

Is that extraordinary enough to prove some extraordinary claims?  Well, I've seen some pretty extraordinary stuff.  I've seen lives completely turned around after they met Jesus.  The more we as Christians get to know God and understand God's Word, the more we start to understand that even the most terrible things that happen in our lives are really God's way of making our lives more extraordinary for him.  That understanding makes life a whole lot freer and more livable.

This sounds wonderful and I am happy for you, and I would never directly challenge someone's personal experience with faith, so please forgive me----this is not meant to be an attack on your personal beliefs...

...but you must be aware of Catholic abuse of children, Jim Jones' Peoples Temple, and the relationship between the church and Hitler, just as the most overt examples of faith gone badly wrong.

And as a recovering drug addict and alcoholic, I can attest to a number of experiences and steps which have had just exactly these sorts of changes in people's lives that are unrelated to any concept of deity.  In other words, its not just the Christian religion which inspires people to be better than they are.

Of course I'm aware of all these things.  But priests and ministers abusing children, cult leaders setting themselves up as gods who have the power of life and death over their followers, and church leaders cynically supporting dictators because they feel it's in their own best interests to do so don't have anything to do with following the teachings of Jesus.  Neither do things like fighting holy wars.  You can call yourself a Christian, but if you're doing things contrary to Jesus' teachings, you call whether you're actually a follower of Jesus into question.  Jesus himself said explicitly that not everybody who claims to be his follower really is.  I can't control what other people purport to do in Jesus' name, only what I do.

I'm also well aware of people who've made positive changes in their lives without invoking Jesus.  Good for them, I suppose.  I know that I and a lot of others I know don't have it in us to do things like that without his help.  Nietzsche wasn't wrong when he characterized Christianity as a religion for weaklings and losers.  That is indeed what we tend to be.

[Wahoo Redux]

Okay apl68, I understand.  I've heard that argument before.  But (and again, I am just asking and debating and do not mean to attack you personally) aren't you cherry-picking what you term "following Jesus"? 

I wouldn't argue that Jim Jones was a true follower (or that he believed in anything really) but at some point he convinced himself and a number of other people that he was God incarnate.  His effect was as powerful on his followers as your beliefs are on you, maybe even more so. 

Can we argue that following Jesus is really the power of God when people also do some of the most terrible things in His name?  If we invoke the good that Christianity does, shouldn't we also acknowledge the evil?

[Treehugger]

I do care about about what is real and what is not real. It is incredibly important now as there are all kinds of  fake news, "fake news" and radicalization out there thanks to the internet. We need to be empowered to say: "No, that belief is incorrect and dangerous (and here's why). And no, you are not simply entitled to believe whatever the hell you want to believe. But I am willing to listen to you make an argument for your views." Instead, most of what I hear is that we are to respect others' beliefs no matter how crazy, no matter how objectively false. I also think there is also a tendency in academia to want to make an issue interesting, to have sophisticated conversations about a question and if a matter is to clear cut, no one is interested.

This is the opposite of what is happening now; as more academics refer to themselves as "activists", they shout down and "cancel" anyone who has a different view than theirs. Sophisticated conversations are considered to be "giving a platform to XXXists/XXXphobes", where XXX can be one of any number of things. They want to make it seem that the issue is clear cut, and that no one is interested, but it's only because most peole who disagree are cowed into silence.

Ok, I need to qualify that .... except when it comes to identity politics.

But that's exactly the problem; who gets to decide what discussions are about "facts" and what  aren't? Whoever has the power of determining what has already been decided and what is still open for debate is in an immensely powerful (and dangerous) position.

But no one "decides" what reality is. It just is. No one can ever know all of reality.... But they can know some of it and move towards more of it. We can be on the way ... or we can just throw up our hands and say since no single group can always say what is a fact and what is not and since knowledge can never be completely separated from power ("who gets to decide?"), then it's best just not to go there. Just because something can't be done perfectly, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Do you think that the 9/11 terrorists are up there in heaven with their 100 virgins or whatever the number of virgins was? Is someone's opinion on this matter just as good as someone else's? Or can we use what we know of science, psychology and humanity's great capacity for self-deception and wishful thinking to say, we are 99.9999% sure that those hijackers are not actually screwing a bunch of virgins in the great beyond. And 99.9999% sure is good enough.

How could this be done? Well, how about really teaching critical thinking in the humanities in public schools AND in Sunday schools. You can think critically and still experience awe, oneness with the universe, connectedness with your fellow human beings and everything else that is typically associated with the religious experience.

A little while back, I was reading Doris Lessing's Prisons We Choose to Live Inside and she asks why doesn't education include teaching children how to recognize and resist techniques of persuasion, deception, brain washing etc.? Teaching people how to think critically is not just a matter of finding good sources, using logic and constructing good arguments, there is a whole emotional component to it as well. We have to be suspicious of that which we want to believe (for a whole host of reasons) and teach our children this self-suspicion as well.

[apl68]

Okay apl68, I understand.  I've heard that argument before.  But (and again, I am just asking and debating and do not mean to attack you personally) aren't you cherry-picking what you term "following Jesus"? 

I wouldn't argue that Jim Jones was a true follower (or that he believed in anything really) but at some point he convinced himself and a number of other people that he was God incarnate.  His effect was as powerful on his followers as your beliefs are on you, maybe even more so. 

Can we argue that following Jesus is really the power of God when people also do some of the most terrible things in His name?  If we invoke the good that Christianity does, shouldn't we also acknowledge the evil?

It depends on what we're talking about when we talk about "Christianity."  If we're talking about institutions and groups of people called "Christian," then certainly, there's a lot of evil that has come from those.  Human beings and human institutions have a powerful natural bent toward evil.  Wherever one has humanity, one has evil.  We humans have messed up all kinds of essentially or potentially good things.  It's something we're naturally adept at doing.

I understand "Christianity" in the truest, most meaningful sense to be living a life of drawing closer to Jesus and God by practicing the teachings of Jesus, which have to do with love and selflessness.  Doing terrible things in Jesus' name is not practicing the teachings of Jesus.  It is acting under false pretenses and dishonoring Jesus' name. 

Neither I nor anybody else I've ever met has done a perfect job of following Jesus.  This is because being conformed to the image of Jesus is a lifelong process.  And it will only truly be complete after this life is over.

[fast_and_bulbous]

What is 'evil' anyway? Sounds like superstitious nonsense.

Maybe some people are just supreme dickheads. Maybe they were born that way. Maybe their brains were wired wrong. Maybe they learned it from someone.

Physics doesn't care about people. Faith is personal and utterly irrelevant to causality in life.

Most modern day Christians would tar and feather and fake news the actual son of God should He appear from the clouds in his bearded thirtysomething year old self.

To answer the question posed in this thread, it's quite simple, really, and you don't even have to think about it very hard. People believe what they want to believe and what makes them feel good, full stop. Why do you think conspiracies like chemtrails, Q-Anon, Pizzagate, and '5G towers cause coronoavirus' exist? In America where I live, we LOOOOOVE our fantasyland horse-hockey. It defines us. And we're really religious.

[Wahoo Redux]

It depends on what we're talking about when we talk about "Christianity." 

Well, I think the question is actually how we believe what we believe. 

One cannot debate that some people have done some wonderful things in the name of Christianity while others have done some absolutely terrible things.  And, if one excludes a number of events and ideas in the Bible (such as the treatment of slaves, homosexuals, righteous plagues and floods, or the psalms about shattering the teeth of one's enemies) it is a book of love.  We can believe that it is a literal record of the past if we ignore the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Deucalion myth, or any of the other myriad flood myths---most especially the Gilgamesh flood myth---and the sheer unlikeliness of many of its events.

But that doesn't answer the problem of why we believe.  I don't want to come off as someone out to tear down someone else's beliefs (which one really can't do discursively) but you seem very convinced of the presence of a divine power based on some pretty subjective evidence that is repeated by a great many other things that are not Christianity.

How do you know you haven't just convinced yourself of what you want to believe?  And, as always, apologies for asking this.

[marshwiggle]

But that's exactly the problem; who gets to decide what discussions are about "facts" and what  aren't? Whoever has the power of determining what has already been decided and what is still open for debate is in an immensely powerful (and dangerous) position.

But no one "decides" what reality is. It just is. No one can ever know all of reality.... But they can know some of it and move towards more of it. We can be on the way ... or we can just throw up our hands and say since no single group can always say what is a fact and what is not and since knowledge can never be completely separated from power ("who gets to decide?"), then it's best just not to go there. Just because something can't be done perfectly, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

This isn't so clear cut. For instance, there's lots of research about gender disphoria which shows that the vast majority of kids grow out of it, however trans activists reject all of that. How can society objectively establish what scientific claims are sufficiently well-established? There will always be powerful and/or vocals interests lobbying for certain claims to be accepted and others to be rejected. I don't see any safe, reliable way of doing that without the potential for it to be horribly abused.

Well, how about really teaching critical thinking in the humanities in public schools AND in Sunday schools. You can think critically and still experience awe, oneness with the universe, connectedness with your fellow human beings and everything else that is typically associated with the religious experience.

A little while back, I was reading Doris Lessing's Prisons We Choose to Live Inside and she asks why doesn't education include teaching children how to recognize and resist techniques of persuasion, deception, brain washing etc.? Teaching people how to think critically is not just a matter of finding good sources, using logic and constructing good arguments, there is a whole emotional component to it as well. We have to be suspicious of that which we want to believe (for a whole host of reasons) and teach our children this self-suspicion as well.

The problem with this is that schools are in the business of persuasion, brain washing, etc. All of the well-meaning efforts to promote harmony and acceptance now typically include a lot of ideological indoctrination, specifically related to identity politics. To use the trans situation as an example, schools are focussed on making all children feel accepted. With the trans activists' assertion that children ought to be allowed to transition, if schools were to support honest scientific inquiry then they would get labelled "transphobic" for doing so.  There is only a very limited scope for that sort of instruction in the course of compulsory education. At the point that education becomes optional, it becomes a more viable possibility.

[Hegemony]

I'm sorta amazed at how everybody is throwing these arguments forth as if none of this has ever been discussed before. It's like a bunch of five-year-olds opining on why the sky is blue. Every single one of these ideas, even the terrible ones, has a mountain of learned literature behind them. There's really no need to reinvent the wheel, and badly to boot. Except that I do believe that many people actively relish issuing statements with as much power to offend as possible, and getting into big arguments where each person shouts past the others.

[marshwiggle]

I'm sorta amazed at how everybody is throwing these arguments forth as if none of this has ever been discussed before. It's like a bunch of five-year-olds opining on why the sky is blue. Every single one of these ideas, even the terrible ones, has a mountain of learned literature behind them. There's really no need to reinvent the wheel, and badly to boot. Except that I do believe that many people actively relish issuing statements with as much power to offend as possible, and getting into big arguments where each person shouts past the others.

I agree that these issues have been discussed before, (for millenia, in the case of religion), but that doesn't preclude people here discussing them.

As far as "power to offend" and people thrying to "shout past the others", I haven't felt that anyone has done that to me. Strong opinions expressed fairly bluntly do not constitute "violence", to use the preferred claim today. Even though I'm unlikely to change anyone's mind, I find these discussions helpful to refine my own thinking.

[Treehugger]

I'm sorta amazed at how everybody is throwing these arguments forth as if none of this has ever been discussed before. It's like a bunch of five-year-olds opining on why the sky is blue. Every single one of these ideas, even the terrible ones, has a mountain of learned literature behind them. There's really no need to reinvent the wheel, and badly to boot. Except that I do believe that many people actively relish issuing statements with as much power to offend as possible, and getting into big arguments where each person shouts past the others.

I don't get the impression that people are shouting on this thread.

Also, there is very little "new" on this forum or other forums for that matter. Favorite snacks and breakfasts? If people really wanted to know about snacks they can just go research it themselves. No need to have a thread about it.

But people do have threads like this because the point isn't the content (or only the content). It is about having relationships through the content. Discussing issues with someone even though the issues have already been written about for centuries is one way of having a relationship with others (while also learning and clarifying one's own ideas).

Some people like to talk about their favorite snacks. Some people like to give emotional support to others. Some people like to debate. Most people like doing all of the above at different times.

[Ruralguy]

So, what was the point of this thread?  Was it just so you could announce :"God doesn't exist. Discuss among yourselves. Go!"  and then watch to see what happens?   I don't get it, but I'm 55 and kind of sick of  arguing well worn topics on which folks have very fixed opinions, and justified ones (even if everyone doesn't see it that way). Then again, for those who really really want to know
why a very intelligent person can believe in God, follow a religion, and also, say, believe in  both miracles and science at the same time, well, at least one person explained that pretty well (from their own perspective, not that of a sociologist or psychologist), so perhaps  that was beneficial.

[Treehugger]

So, what was the point of this thread?  Was it just so you could announce :"God doesn't exist. Discuss among yourselves. Go!"  and then watch to see what happens?   I don't get it, but I'm 55 and kind of sick of  arguing well worn topics on which folks have very fixed opinions, and justified ones (even if everyone doesn't see it that way). Then again, for those who really really want to know
why a very intelligent person can believe in God, follow a religion, and also, say, believe in  both miracles and science at the same time, well, at least one person explained that pretty well (from their own perspective, not that of a sociologist or psychologist), so perhaps  that was beneficial.

If I am not mistaken, the thread evolved away from that precise topic. I think I explained what really interested me and it wasn't miracles.

[Ruralguy]

OK