Alan Silverman, one of the few men on the Internet who uses a human name, writes:
Though I do not follow the dictates of Jesus, I do not hold Christianity or its scripture in contempt. I merely disagree with certain points.
Friend, I am glad you do not hold Jesus or His servants in contempt. However, I am also surprised, even shocked that you do not, and disappointed.
I do not mean to seem impolite, but my surprise is because there is simply no such thing as disagreeing with Christianity on certain points. The claims Christianity makes are too extreme and large for that. One is either a baptized Christian, and saved, or one is not, and damned.
We are either telling the one, holy, universal and supreme truth, or we are mad as hatters and evil as imps. Malign madness, like supremely holy truth, is not something with which it is possible to disagree on certain points.
Nor are you the one in whom I am disappointed. If you are not a Christian and yet regard Christians as reasonable people, we are doing something wrong.
We are not a political party or a philosophical movement.We are not making a claim someone can partly agree with and partly disagree with.
If you are not a Christian and do not hold Christianity in contempt, the outrageous nature of our love and our demands, our desire to change you and save you and make you a saint, should scandalize and offend you.
If you are a Jew, we are making the outrageous and blasphemous claim that God is three, and not one, and that the Messiah came, and that we recognize the Messiah, and you do not. We are making the outrageous and insulting claim that all the history of the Jews, and all the salvation promised you, has come instead to use due to your hardheartedness and stiffneckedness. How can you not be offended with that?
If you are a faithful Mohammedan, we are making the outrageous and blasphemous claim that Mohamed was a mountebank, a heretic, a divider and a deceiver, and that your holy book is a lie, and that the God to whom you pray five times daily, and in whose name you give alms, will condemn you to Jahannam for rejecting His will.
If you are a pagan, we are making the outrageous and blasphemous claim that your gods are devils and your ancestors are burning in Hell; and all the things you hold sacred, threads worn at the waist or at the shoulder, shrines to spirits and solemn festivals, dreams of cycles of reincarnations or dreams of self-extinction in the bliss of Nirvana, all are worthless and worse than worthless.
If you are a modern pagan, we are making the outrageous and blasphemous claim that man are not the same as women, the words have real meanings, and that logic is valid, that the sex act is not merely recreation, the unborn babies are people, that human life is sacred, and that your dreams of worldly utopia are vanity and folly; and, in short, we claim that everything you respect and revere and reverence, everything from recycling to multiculturalism to self-esteem building, it total and worthless shit.
If you are a modern secular man, we are making the outrageous and shocking claim that you are blind, because the world contains a spiritual dimension which governs and defines the play of flat shadows you call reality; and we claim that everything you respect and revere and reverence, from a strong military to honest living to hard work to a sound dollar to the Rights of Man to the rationality of the scientific method to the enlightenment and peace of the modern secular world, all are either pathetic and dying echoes of our achievements and our culture, or are childish and worthless security blankets against the reality of suffering, disease, insanity and death in a dark and infinitely empty abyss called the universe.
The things you respect will fail you when you are on your death bed, and you will be without comfort or help. Fame is fleeting and loved ones die, and all your victories turn to ash. Entropy wins. Entropy always wins.
No matter what you are, if you are not a Christian, you should be offended with us; but you should be offended most of all if you are a open minded man, one willing to leave and to let live.
We Christians should have respect for Jews and heretics and pagans, because they at least are on the road, even if have not reached the end or walk the wrong way on it; and respect even for the slumbering secular man who amuses himself with toys during the briefness called life; because he can be stirred from slumber by a shock.
It is the Laodiceans, the men who are neither hot nor cold, they sleep with their eyes open, and nothing can stir them. They are the one who think Christianity is merely one ‘spiritualism’ among others. These are they whom we should least respect, and also who should hate us most of all.
You see, all human beings are psychologically and spiritually prone to love their sins, to applaud in others sins like their own (but also, with perfect hypocrisy, to condemn sins like their own). This is why drunks like being around those who place no value on sobriety, why liars like those who do not love truth, sinners like non-judgmental and empty heads.This is why no one should like being around good Christians.
The good Christian is a pest who loves you and hates your sins the same way and for the same reason a doctor hates your diseases, because they kill you.The Saints are even more good than this: their love for you is like a blinding lightningstroke of flame from purist heaven, and their hate for your sins is hot as hellfire.
Now, that part of your mind that also hates your sins should jump up with a thrill of impossible hope upon hearing the rumor that there is some escape from the degrading slime and shit of sinfulness, and that part of you, the larger part, which adores and loves your sins (and is pathetically enslaved to them) should leap up with a roar of defiance, and fight with an hysteria born of self-preservation to object to every true thing and every impossible hope Christ offers.
The point of your sins is to make you think that any attack on them is an attack on you. People identify themselves with their sins, calling them their choices and their authentic inner self; some more egregious sins, like sodomy, get their victims to name themselves after them, so a man will not say “I commit X” but says “I am X.”
If we men who march beneath the bloodstained cross seem like reasonable people to you, either you are close to baptism and hanging back by those same fears which make a drunk unwilling to call Alcoholics Anonymous, or a virgin bride unwilling to enter the marriage bed; or the Christians you have met are not living their lives like saints.
Does it sound reasonable that we think a man in AD 33 sprang back to life from the dead, and grants us eternal life?
Does it sound reasonable that we think your death will not be followed by a restful and dreamless oblivion, but by hellfire, torment, pain, and anguish, and the worst anguish of all will be your undeniable knowledge (which only dead spirits know) that their unholiness and imperfection merits eternal pain?
I am telling you a perfectly just, loving, and benevolent super being can and will inflict a eternity of torture on you, and that you deserve it. How can you hear me say that without wanting to slap my face, or at least to roll your eyes?
I am telling you that this is the one and perfect truth, and all other claims of other religions are faithless, false, stupid, absurd, diabolical, and all other claims of philosophies and sects and ways of life, renunciations and meditations and social policies and self help book are worse than crap.
They are useless, leading to frustration and pain in this life, and eternal woe in the next. How can you hear such a claim without wanting to rabbit-punch me in the solar plexus, or at least tell me to sit down and shut up, since my claim in incompatible with the peace and good order of a tolerant and pluralistic society?
I am claiming to know, and with absolute and entire certainty, things no human being can possibly know, such as the origin and fate of the cosmos, the arrangement of the supernatural order, the secrets of eternal things and infinite beings, the destiny after death, the promises made and laws imposed by God.
Should not you be backing slowly away from me at this point, speaking in a soothing tone, while looking cautiously for a fire poker or large brass urn or stone paperweight to stun me with, should I turn violent?
What I am saying is not a matter of polite disagreement. I am not offering a philosophical theory open to discussion. I am saying there is a terrifying divine being who has an absolute claim on you and on your loyalty and love.
What I am saying is not only impossible, if you are a man with any pride at all, it should sound deeply offensive to you. I am telling you your are not your own man. You are a created being. You are a creature.
If you have even the slightest inclination to use your fellow man for your own good, or to destroy your fellow man through abortion or euthanasia for his own good, if you have any pragmatism about the value of human life at all, what I am saying should sound deeply offensive to you.
The stinking bum you just walked past in the street, and the screaming rioter overseas, and the inconvenient baby in the womb which is only one undivided cell, and the even more inconvenient vegetable on life support and the dangerous murderer on death row, I am saying is made in the image and likeness of God. I am saying that to destroy that image is worse than burning a flag or trampling a coin that bears the king’s face, because it insults Him who made that man, and you. I am saying life is infinitely precious.
If you are a modern man who absorbed Christian ideas and values, such as the idea that human life is precious, this last claim will not sound shocking to you, but only because you have not reflected on how absurd a claim it is to make. In a secular world view, there is no logical justification for it. So even if you believe it, you should be offended with me, because I am claiming your deeply held respect for human life is a belief that is illogical and, from secular foundations, insupportable.
Are you truly not offended with us? Someone has not been doing his job.
If no one else has said this to you, allow me:
I have the secret of eternal life and infinite happiness, something as wondrous as having the Holy Grail and the Lamp of Aladdin. Not just everything you desire but more than that I can get for you, if you cooperate.
You are dead, and my Grail can save you, you must drink of it voluntarily, for it contains the blood of a god, and all godly things are voluntary.
The cost is both nothing, since the free gift of God pays for all, and infinite, since you have to give up that self sense of selfishness you think of as yourself. It is not a scam since I am not asking for money; it is not a ‘meme’ since that word means nothing.
Either I am completely sincere, and insane, in which case you should flee to the hills screaming (or, if you are less theatrically inclined, sneering); or I am completely sincere, and sane, in which case the universe is a far stranger and more magical place, more full of hope and wonder, than even an imaginative man can imagine, and there are angels beyond the stars.
If no one else has invited you, allow me: come home. Return to your father. Come to the palace of the king, where you will be given a new white robe and sit with us at the feast of the Bridegroom, and raise goblets and drinking horns of ambrosia and the waters of everlasting life. You will be healed of all your infirmities, and flooded with joy beyond joy. And we will sing, and we will be a song, a symphony of golden notes ringing from the mouth of God.
Come home. Don’t die.
For the sake of both accuracy and practicality I will offer a correction to one point of the above:
“I am telling you a perfectly just, loving, and benevolent super being can and will inflict a eternity of torture on you, and that you deserve it.”
This is not quite the theology as I understand it. I would suggest rather:
“We” (as I horn in on this) “are telling you that there exists a perfectly just, loving and benevolent super being willing to welcome you into His embrace for all eternity no matter what your sins (as long as you repent them), and that He is at once so wonderful that rejecting Him will ultimately leave you in eternal solitude so miserable it is called Hell, yet simultaneously so helpless that He cannot welcome you thus without your free choice to repent. We are telling you, in other words, that the only thing standing between you and Heaven is your own stubborn refusal to believe or admit you have done something wrong, that all your Luciferian and Promethean raging against this fact is no more than a child’s sulkiness writ large, and that God Himself cannot save you from Hell if you decide you prefer being forever ‘right’ to being forever happy.”
I’ve come to believe that Hell is a state we put ourselves into, rather than God “inflicting” anything on us. Hell is a consequence, not a punishment.
This is also my understanding.
It is not so much as God will not allow the unrepentant into Heaven as much as the unrepentant could not bear being in Heaven. They would find it so repugnant they would only want to be with others of a “like mind” and would reject God as a result.
The state of rejection of God is ultimately the rejection of Love and ends in the rejection of all love. This is a state known as Hell.
This is obviously not intended as a perfect analogy.
While yours is more technically correct, it does not alter the outrageousness of the claim, since it is God, and no one else, who created the reality that eternal existence apart from Him rather than reincarnation or blissful oblivion was the alternative to union with Him, and He created us as we are, who cannot be content and happy outside him. Simpler to say “God condemns you to Hell” since the outcome is the same.
It can be said or formulated in unhelpful ways, though- as though Hell is a completely arbitrary thing God just makes for the heck of it (rim shot), and as though He really enjoys chucking people into a pit of Eternal Fire for not loving Him enough.
This is the understanding of Hell and God as believed by certain kinds of Calvinists and silly people like Richard Dawkins (actually in a weird way the New Atheists sort of depend on Fundamentalism and monstrous views of God in order to lend credence to their views).
It can be formulated in more or less unhelpful ways. It is not as if there are people whose reaction to the notion that the gates of Hell are locked from the inside is that a good God wouldn’t let people do that to themselves.
Exactly.
Could God have created a reality in which eternal separation from Him was not Hell? He certainly could not have created one in which oblivion was “blissful”, as that is logically contradictory to the definition of oblivion, and I can’t see that He could make His own nature such that losing Him is not losing everything.
The problem with “condemnation” as a description of this process is that it suggests an eternity of misery is just punishment for crimes that are tiny in comparison, a thesis both Christians and atheists rightly have problems with; it also implies wrongly that the choice is God’s, rather than ours. So while it may be a simpler term, I’d suggest it’s got too many counterproductive connotations to be a useful one.
Short answer: NO. It is a logical fallacy, such as “could God have created a rock too large for Him to lift?”
God is the source of all good things– a definitive separation from the source of all goodness is, by definition, suffering past anything in this world (which is a partial deprivation of some goodness). We have no source of goodness within ourselves to compensate. God is all good; no evil or defilement can remain in His presence. It is a logical impossibility for us to remain evil, yet still retain access to the torrents of goodness we have become accustomed to receiving in this world.
Just as a small thought exercise, imagine being unavoidably confronted with an eternal world, yet being completely without even a vestige of the virtue of patience. Can you see how you would suffer immeasurably simply because of the fact of existence, of what reality is? That there is no “torturer” causing this agony, but rather infinite torture is a simple description of how we will perceive reality?
God is all good; once touched by the divine, there is no going back– either unspeakable glory or unspeakable horror. The annihilation faced by the mere animals is not our fate, cannot be our fate any longer. God Himself has taken on our nature; we must either rise or fall.
The only surprising thing about Hell is that we all aren’t all of us there already.
I disagree heartily with your statement that sins serious enough to be “mortal” are minor things. Our enemies (who are sometimes ourselves) do their best to trivialize these things, but they lie. St. Thomas Aquinas held that, if we could but see things aright, we would know that the merest newborn baby, a moment after being baptized, had a glory past all the natural glories of the entire universe for all time– because his soul held a spark of the divine glory that superabounds above the mere physical universe. A soul-murder is therefore FAR worse than a mere physical murder (most definitely including soul-suicide).
We Catholics hold to Biblical teaching, namely, that not all sins are deadly (1 Jn 5:16) and that some of our failures may cause us loss but not spiritual death (1 Cor 3:15); that Jesus does not hate but rather pities our weakness and subjection to temptation (Heb 4:15), and He approves of our good actions even if we don’t realize it (Matt 25:34-40). It’s wrong to over-state the issue (such as Calvinists who claim that our sensation of temptation and weakness is proof that we remain depraved and disgusting to God). But what our society needs more now is a serious reminder that Hell is a real possibility for each of us, and we need to take the graces offered to us TODAY to avoid it.
Despite this, as far as I can recall, Christ and the Apostles and the Church Fathers, from which we get all our knowledge of these matters whatsoever, talk in such terms, of condemnation and punishment, not in terms of loss and separation. That they turn out the be the same thing in the end, I do not doubt.
But my whole point is that atheists rightly have a problem with this thesis. So it is productive for my purpose to emphasis the problem, not reword it in such a way that by mere verbal cleverness it seems not to be a problem. God could have, without contradiction, created a world where sinners go a limbo, or are reincarnated, or suffer oblivion or dreamless sleep, or one where the prayers of the saints could saved the damned. Christianity preaches this is not so. (This does not prevent me from praying for the damned, and hoping for universal salvation, however. I too have a very profound problem with this doctrine, and logically, my answer is the same as yours: Hell is voluntary, and for the unrepentant, inevitable.)
It depends, I suppose, on which Fathers that you read and how you interpret their words. Orthodox Christianity has pretty consistently understood both Heaven and Hell to be reactions to the presence of God. All of this is theologoumenon as, within Orthodox Christianity at any rate, there is no dogma of heaven or hell as Christianity is not intended to be a philosophy of carrots and sticks.
An interesting article that touches on this can be found here:
http://vassilios-papavassiliou.blogspot.com/2012/06/orthodox-eschatology.html
The Catechism of the Catholic Church would seem to indicate that both interpretations (hell as separation and hell as fire) are correct. I believe this is also the basic belief among the mainstream Protestants, and in the Churches of the East:
1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. … Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren….This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called “hell.”
1034 Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.[...]
1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.
[...]
1037 God predestines no one to go to hell
The mainstream opinion for Orthodox Christianity (but please net this is not dogma) is that Heaven and Hell are both reactions to the same thing — that being the presence of God. Fire is understood to be a metaphor not a literal fire. IOW, everyone has the same destination but some fnd that presence heavenly and others hellish.
This is what St. Macrina, the sister of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa taught: that God’s fiery love will burn up all that is evil in us, while all that is good in us, all that we have allowed God to make like Him, will burn with love and joy to be with Him. Those who are mostly evil will be burnt up; those who are mediocre good will suffer a little (similarly to the idea of purgatorial fire); those who are saints will live in joy from the beginning.
She also talks about automata as a proof of God the Creator, so it’s worth reading her little deathbed talk.
“Christ and the Apostles and the Church Fathers, from which we get all our knowledge of these matters whatsoever, talk in such terms, of condemnation and punishment, not in terms of loss and separation.”
A fair point; I have to admit I had always seen this as essentially Christ using the language that His audience was capable of grasping at the time — you don’t start teaching math by beginning with calculus, as it were. It’s also hard to really hammer home the reality of all our individual guilt using the “gentler” formulation, and preaching to a mostly Jewish population without involving guilt wouldn’t have held a lot of water either. (Begging the pardon of any Jewish readers for my gentle jab.)
I am reminded of C.S. Lewis’s essay “God in the Dock”, where he talks about the fact that modern man’s almost complete loss of a sense of sin or guilt changes the tack one has to take in effective preaching. I quote a key passage here for those who have not read it:
“The early Christian preachers could assume in their hearers, whether Jews…or Pagans, a sense of guilt. (That this was common among Pagans is shown by the fact that both Epicureanism and the Mystery Religions both claimed, though in different ways, to assuage it.) Thus the Christian message was in those days unmistakably the Evangelium, the Good News. It promised healing to those who knew they were sick. We have to convince our hearers of the unwelcome diagnosis before we can expect them to welcome the news of a remedy.
The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approached the judge. For the modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quite a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the god who permits war, poverty and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God in the Dock.”
That said, I do appreciate the point that is being made: The gulf of belief between Christian and non-Christian, if truly understood, really should be appreciated as being as severe a gulf as that between Muslim and non-Muslim. I will end my peanut-gallery kibitzing by asking, simply, if we should not rather be emphasizing the ease of crossing that gulf rather than its shocking depth, as we want to encourage people to move towards crossing it rather than away from it for fear of falling into it.
You may emphasize whatever you wish in your own writings. In my writing, if a man says he ‘agrees’ with Christ on all but a few minor points, I find that statement so shocking, and so unbelievable, that I think it my duty to point out to him, and to world, that it is impossible to have a lukewarm or nonchalant reaction to Christ as He is. One can only have a lukewarm reaction to a lukewarm and false picture of Christ, as if He were just a sage like Diogenes or Socrates or Confucius.
There is no way to encourage people to cross a gulf between Christian and infidel if big-hearted but lard-headed impulse makes us want to insist that Christians and pagans all mean the same thing in the end and the differences between us are minor. The differences are as absolute as the difference between paradise and perdition, life and death, guilty and innocent, salvation and damnation.
There is of course danger, if we lived in an era of fanaticism, of insisting on a too narrow partisanship. That is not the era in which we live. Indeed, the multicultural spirit of the age is so broad and so generous that our political and cultural leaders are programmed, as if by Asimov’s Three Laws, not to be able to recognize nor think about the possibility of an enemy bent on Holy War, violence to achieve fundamentally religious and spiritual aims. No political leader can see the War on Terror for what it is: the resumption of the ancient and eternal war between Islam and Christendom. There is no category in their mind, or the minds of the audience they expect to address, for the idea that civilizations have a religion, and that our civilization is Christian. Multiculturalism makes that idea meaningless and unmentionable and inarticulate. But the Jihad does not see us ad Multicultural and value-neutral. They see us as ‘Franks’.
Here’s an article by Simcha Fisher that makes the same basic point in regard to so-called pro-choice Catholics: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/simcha-fisher/pro-choice-catholics-worship-an-idiot-god
The theory of Limbo addressed this matter, in the case of the unbaptised and the virtuous pagans (not to mention theologians keeping themselves occupied by speculating where the patriarchs hung out while waiting for the Messiah).
Now, if baptism/faith are necessary for salvation (and not just optional extras in a universalist ‘just be a good person and all dogs go to heaven’ kind of way), and the natural virtues are not enough for salvation, then justice demands that those who die outside of God’s friendship do not merit Heaven.
Justice also demands that it be, well, just. So if it is unjust to punish those who incurred no personal guilt (so they do not deserve the pains of hell) yet cannot enter heaven, what happens to them?
As I learned it back in the dim and distant days when we were preparing for our First Communion in Sr. Michael’s class, Limbo is a state of “perfect natural felicity”. That is, there is no active punishment or pains of hell, and the dead enjoy all the natural happiness (no illness, grief, etc. as we on earth suffer) but they are deprived of the supernatural bliss of the Beatific Vision.
Therefore, though the souls in Limbo suffer no punishment or pain, yet Limbo is on the verges of Hell (so to speak) while those in Purgatory, though they may suffer pains in their intensity no less than those of Hell are the saved and have achieved Heaven.
Dante does it better in the “Divine Comedy” and C.S. Lewis, in his “The Pilgrim’s Regress”, also has a stab at portraying it.
The main difference between Limbo and Purgatory is hope. There is no hope in Limbo, so that is why Dante portrayed Limbo as characterised by:
“Here, as far as I could tell by listening,
was no lamentation other than the sighs
that kept the air forever trembling.
These came from grief without torment
borne by vast crowds
of men, and women, and little children.”
Likewise, Lewis (following Dante) describes his version of Limbo where the wise are condemned only to this: to live in desire without hope.
Now, there’s a lot more technical detail, and the Church does not hold Limbo as anything more than an acceptable theological conceit which you can accept or reject without incurring rejection of any doctrines (it was, as I said, taught in my day though it has fallen into disfavour and is not really mentioned anymore), so YMMV, as they say.
If a person commits a heinous crime, say murder in the 1st and he is caught literally red handed – video tape, dna, witnesses, etc. – when he stands before the judge, is it the judge who condemns him or his own actions?
And the sin we have commited is much more heinous than murder of our fellow man.
Would like to point out that we don’t actually believe that if you’re not baptized and a Christian that automatically means a one-way ticket to hell. Grace operates outside the boundaries of the visible Church.
Also we believe that truth can be found in other religions- so we’d accept the moral structures of Confucianism and its vague monotheism, as well as the Sikh’s view of God and even Islam’s insistence on monotheism (at which point in the conversation Ultra-Traditionalists will start frothing at the mouth). So we don’t treat non-Catholic stuff as worthless- Aristotle, anyone?
Also the idea that ‘The Jews’ rejected Christ and gentiles were plan B was one of those long-held ideas that basically ensured Vatican II was going to have to happen at some point. Certainly, Catholics don’t believe in a Dual-Covenant but the other view is way too simplistic.
Also, the guy above makes a good point about Hell. It was the great Augustine who taught that God didn’t “torture” anyone in Hell- them being in a state of separation from God was torture enough. This teaching has been re-iterated by Benedict XVI (I think) and a bunch of other people.
But apart from that, very well written.
We can hope that those who are not visibly united with the Church may yet be saved. To rely on it is against His explicit command.
Another correction, if I may: while your rhetoric is splendid, we are not actually “making the outrageous and blasphemous claim that God is three, and not one” but the claim that God is three and one: three Persons, one Nature. If it’s any comfort, however, this claim is still totally outrageous and blasphemous to Jews and Moslems, with the extra ingredient of appearing to contradict reason (thus winding up the soi-disant rationalists), so it’s an equal opportunity offender.
The mere fact that the Church took centuries to hammer out the nature of the trinity and the incarnation, and in the process we split apart into Nestorians and Monophysites, Arians and Semi-arnians, so much so that even to this day to mention the central mystery of the trinity is to invite a technical detail like unto your own is, of course, yet another source of scandal and scoffing and outrage to the non-believer.
Right. The standard charge is that if there were a God, He would be easy to understand like all real things; so there isn’t, and instead we believe in SCIENCE!!!, which is, of course, so simple and straightforward that a four-year-old child can easily grasp everything there is to know about it.
Like wave-particle duality.
Hehehehe, good one! ^______^
Us scientifically minded folk need a good reminder once in a while just how completely ridiculous our theories are sometimes. Only reason they stick around is because they actually work somehow.
Well, that and an internally consistent theory is somehow quite beautiful.
I need to print this, post it on my fridge next to Patrick Madrid’s “Fellowship of the Unashamed”, and read it at least once a week.
Wonderful! I also need to print out and read it over and over. I also need to send it to friends. I also agree that Stephen J, Owain and Lisieux’s points enhance the original. Two small typos: “They are the one who thing Christianity is merely one ‘spiritualism’ among others. ” “thing” should be “think” and “(but also, with perfect hypocrisy, to condemn sins like their own).” should be “unlike their own”.
Actually the second one is not a typo. It is hypocrisy to condemn sins like your own in others, but not to condemn unlike.
The first one is a typo, and I thank you.
“Purist” or purest?
“One is either a baptized Christian, and saved, or one is not, and damned”
It would be true only if “baptized” is taken in some larger sense.
I do not believe that baptism ensures salvation. There is no once saved, forever saved.
Non-baptized may be saved in other means, witness the story of Trojan Ripheus in Dante’s Paradiso.
Indeed, the question of virtous pagans was very much alive for Dante–his concern for Virgil and the point about a righteous man living by Ganges that had never heard of Christ. The question is not resolved philosophically-there is no criterion of virtue for a pagan that enables salvation. It is a gift that is given to whosover God wants to.
So your point about “ancestors burning in hell” is similarly simplistic. You do not know who is saved or not.
Yes, as with all things, there are certain technicalities and nuances I did not mention, because my point was — and I frankly surprised anyone would dispute this point with me — my point was that anyone raised in a Christianized culture (whether himself a Christian or not) fails to remember how outrageous the big picture is, what an outrageous claim is being made.
The basic claim is that your pagan ancestors are burning in hell. A nuanced theologian might point out that certain virtuous pagans, if sanctified by a baptism of desire, may indeed through the mysterious operation of Christ’s passion be brought to salvation, and that no one know for sure who is saved and who is damned and so on and so forth — and the theologian would be technically correct. But his is studying the tree and not seeing the forest.
But the Church does not preach universal salvation, which would be a message much more suited for this diverse, multilcultural age, and indeed it would have been a message more suited to the diverse, polyglot Roman Empire.
Let us not make hasten so quickly to make corrections and clarifications on trivial points, lest we be in danger of overlooking the main point: Even with the exceptions for virtuous pagans and baptisms of desire identified, nonetheless the claim made by the Church is outrageous, and should be, and shocking, and should be, and it is a slap in the face to the world and to the powers that rule this world of darkness, and should be.
I think you’re missing the point. Yes, yes, Christians claim this, that, and the next thing about spirits and the afterlife and whatnot, which certainly are rather insulting taken on their face. Then again, the really salient point about all that is that it’s made up. If you go about getting annoyed at everyone who makes up annoying insults, you will have heartburn, ulcers, and a short life. Moreover, the make-believe Christian stuff is, at any rate, about things that have no effect on actual actions. In politics people make up stuff that’s not just insulting but actively dangerous. I have a limited amount of outrage in me; I would rather spend it on lies about the economy, which affect my life, rather than lies about the afterlife, which doesn’t actually exist.
Certainly Christianity is worth a roll of the eyes, as is Scientology. But to take actual umbrage is already to buy into the fantasy. Your demand that I should be annoyed is the obverse of your hope that I will believe: It’s just another way in which your expectations are bound up with your fantasy, whose fundamental quality is that of being made up.
You are like the man on a street corner, screaming that the elves control the government and we are all blind idiots, blind. In some sense this is certainly insulting, but there are surely better ways of spending one’s time than to take any notice. Then, if you were to find out that his prescription for dealing with the elves is to stop borrowing so much money and balance the dang budget, you might well say that you agree with him on certain points. To the extent that Christians have prescriptions for the real world, those prescriptions may be dealt with on their merits, and one may agree with some and disagree with others. To the extent that they have delusions, insulting or otherwise, about their fantasy world, oh well. This is the sort of thing that one learns at an early age to politely ignore, lest all one’s time be spent in unproductive argument.
But Dawkins et al get all excited adnd outraged precisely because this Christian stuff DOES has effect on actual life, including politics –Christians propose restrictions on various things.
Quite so, but those are not the claims that our host says are outrageous. Look again at his list; it is all spiritual, to do with the afterlife and sins and what people deserve. Nowhere does he mention any political conclusions he draws from these imaginary facts. When he does, then it is reasonable to become annoyed, or at least engaged. But to debate who is invited to an imaginary friend’s tea party, well; in some sense it is insulting to be left out, but it should be possible to retain one’s calm in the face of such a snub. When the one starts saying that he shouldn’t pay taxes on the money he used to hold the party, then we enter the realm of what adults might argue about.
Mr A: you think that Mr Wright is missing the point? What on earth has your post got to do with anything he has said in this thread?
I suspect that Dr. Andreassen’s point is that a non-believer need not necessarily be scandalized by or offended with what he takes to be imaginary consequences. Said non-believer might think that there is much to admire in Christanity while still thinking that it rests on a set of myths, man made tales, and poor reasoning skills.
Mr Wright said, at some length, that Christianity ought to offend me. I explained why it doesn’t.
I suggest that Dr A is even more offended than normal by the claim of Christianity. Such is his contempt of the claim, he would refuse to give it even the dignity of being worthy of adult conversation; and so, to show this alleged indifference, he troubles himself to pen a denunciation mocking it.
He fails to notice that what is being discussed is the outrageousness of the claim, not the truth of it, and so he (with no awareness of the irony) argues that the claim is not outrageous because it is so outrageous that is it unbelievable.
This hostile yet childish knee-jerk reaction on his part, he implies (again, with no sense of the irony) to be one of lofty indifference and one of deep, mature reflection.
No one can honestly think that politics is serious if philosophy is not. It would be like saying math is frivolous compared to a serious topic like physics. As if physics did not rest on math, or politics on philosophy. As if the crown of a tower could be positioned well if the foundation is positioned badly.
His statement is a pose, a gesture, a flourish; as purely symbolic as saluting a flag or blowing a trumpet. He is saying his Pledge of Allegiance to Atheism, and he wants us to overhear, and be surprised at his defiant Promethean audacity.
I yawn with surprise, remembering my own atheist days.
So Aquinas and Augustine were just girls playing pretend at tea party, eh? And a sober thinker believes what, instead? That he can feel the skull-atoms of his thoughts in motion as they fly around his desk, that the rules of geometry are learned by trial and error, and that he can measure (and has measured!) things like the width of the line of demarcation of the horizon at sea and the duration of the concept of checkmate? Past conversations did not display Dr A as a man with a very strong grasp on the whole “real versus unreal” thing.
The man is not serious. Maybe this is all a game to him. Don’t bother.
Well then, you should be pleased: You’ve got your druthers! That’s what you claimed to want.
No, that’s not what I said. I said that because it’s false, it’s not any more outrageous than the next piece of fiction. I did not reason from outrageousness to falsehood, as you would have me do; that is a straw man of your own invention. I started with the falsehood, and went from there to a lack of outrage.
In a word, yes. I cannot help it if grown men have wasted enormous amounts of time producing learned dissertations about imaginary subjects. The shrewdness or otherwise of the reasoning cannot matter if the axioms are false.
And how the devil else are you going to learn them? Let’s see you produce a geometer who never saw how light behaves in approximately flat space, and show that his intuitions match yours.
I told you how to measure them. You have not offered any objection to the procedure that did not involve the word “imagine”, as in “we can imagine the line…” Yes, we certainly can! We can imagine all kinds of things. That doesn’t make them real.
No, what is being discussed is the proper response to that outrageousness, which is stipulated. You want me to be outraged. I decline. You want me to choose your particular fantasy, as opposed to the Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, and various pagan fantasies, and be outraged by your particular outrageous claims and not theirs. You demand, in other words, special epistemic status for your own made-up stories, while offering no shred of evidence that cannot also be offered for the others. This is the fallacy of special pleading.
You want me to reach into the vast sea of fiction and pick out your special little snowflake to evaluate and be outraged by; but you offer no reason why I should do so. Is your story more outrageous than that of the others? Perhaps you haven’t paid attention to what the Scientologists and Mormons say. But in any case, if mere outrageousness is to be the standard, why shouldn’t I add some additional details to your story, thus increasing its total offensiveness, and demand that you start paying special attention to the new version?
And what status do you demand for the fantasies you have been sewing for the last couple of years?
Ironies abound.
Not just ironies, but stupidities. No claim is being made of any special epistemic status. All that is claimed is that the claim of Christianity is so outre that it cannot be partly true. Either it is divine truth or a hellish lie. Either it is superhuman wisdom or subhuman folly.
Since the lying-ass Dr Andreassen goes out of his way to tell us he thinks Christianity is subhuman folly, he does not realize (because sin makes you stupid) that in his eagerness to denounce Christ, he confirms the point I was trying to make. The claims of Christ are so outrageous that Dr A cannot discuss them in a reasonable or temperate way: he has to demean them as childish make-believe.
But because of his hatred of Christ, he cannot even bring himself to admit his foe is honorable, numerous, ancient, sober, clever or even worthy of his hatred. And so he pretends (not very convincingly) that his hatred is merely a mild contempt. That this confirms my point about the outrageousness of the claim escapes his distracted intellect.
I think you might find your old resolution helpful, before this gets any nastier. http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/05/the-vinegar-decision/
I am grateful of the reminder.
I am happy to present the evidence and argument that convinced me, if only we could get past the jeer of “Meat robot!” that silences all serious discussion of the point.
I have followed the 2+ year ongoing argument you have had with Mr. Wright and a few others. To attribute it as never getting past the unserious stage of jeering “meat robot!” is a little disingenuous on your part to say the least. Not after the pages upon pages upon pages of argument from both sides.
You can attribute my reaction as “meat robot!” That is fair. And I am fair enough to warn I would not be as fair as the others here have been. It is a construct I do not care to invest any time in.
I agree with Dr. A to some degree. I find the claims of the Mormons, Scientologists, and Muslims incredible. I am not otherwise emotionally moved by them. I do believe the men at the origins of these movements were venal and self-interested. The audacity required to put forth one’s own spiritual schema as revealed truth, even as the puported words of God; I find that offensive. But my horror, astonishment and scorn are reserved for the knowingly deceptive founders, not the everyday adherents, many of whom are acting in good faith and may be better men than I.
The claims of Christ I believe are true. They are outrageous. Partial acceptance of them is not a stable state. Our God is a jealous God. Either your limited agreement with the Gospel of Christ, to which you grant a tiny toe-hold in your soul, allows Him to enter in and come to possess you utterly, to your great benefit and salvation, or you will come to disavow those beliefs you once held.
Ah, but I was not talking about an emotional reaction to an outrageous claim. It never occurred to me in my Houyhnhnm-like purity of thought that emotionalism was being discussed. The discussion was whether, due to the outrageous nature of the claim, a lukewarm mix of partial agreement and partial disagreement is possible. It is not.
I would also agree that the claims of the Mormons, Scientologists and Muslims are outrageous, on the grounds that if they are true, a radical revision of one’s worldview is required to believe them. Of course, where we overlap the heterodox and the orthodox agree, and so in that way, I suppose partial agreement and partial disagreement is possible.
On second thought, I suppose again, if one interpreted Christianity to be no more than an exhortation to be kind to strangers and help the poor, this overlaps with what every other major religion, or, for that matter, every other major ethical writing religious or not, has always said and always will say. This is a matter common to all mankind, and Christians are still men.
I completely agree that partial acceptance of Christ’s claims is not a stable state. That is well put, and I wish I had said it this way. My point might have been clearer.
I see I misunderstood what you were saying. Your ‘outrageous’ was intended to mean “unlikely, preposterous, having a very low prior probability” rather than “producing outrage”. Fair enough: In that sense, yes, your claim is outrageous. My point that one fiction does not produce more outrage than another is therefore irrelevant, as it does not contradict your claim that one fiction may be more unlikely than another. I apologise for the misunderstanding.
Yes, I mean the Christian claim was preposterous, as preposterous as the claim that the Continents move. (And before the theory of plate tectonics, the theory of Pangaea was as unbelievable as any Velikovsky-style theory of recent near-misses between Earth, Venus and Mars).
My proposition is that preposterous claims, by being preposterous, exclude a middle ground of agreeing in part and disagreeing in part. Either the continents move or they don’t. There is no point in saying Australia moves but Africa never did.
Wow. I go on a camping trip with my family, and when I return, I find this. My apologies for the delayed response, but I was a hundred miles from my computer during that time.
It appears to me that your post is composed essentially of two points. The first is stating how the Christian view of the world is radically different from that of all other religions. The latter is an apologetic plea that includes more description of Christian theology.
I will address the latter point first. I appreciate your concern. I may have alluded to it before, but my wife is a Christian, and we do attend church as a family (not to mention that I grew up attending a Christian church), so I am rather familiar with Christian theology and doctrine–possibly more so than many Christians, since I have to be aware of it to know what it is I specifically disagree with.
Still, I have no great desire to argue the truth of Christianity with you, which is why I haven’t commented on such of your posts in the past. I shan’t go down that line of discussion; though I suppose if you wished to pray to your god, I can do nothing to stop you.
As to your second point: I find it interesting that you think my reaction to these claims should be offense. That is not, in general, my reaction to such claims.
Though the analogy may not be very good, consider a child who comes to you claiming that Santa Claus will visit on Christmas. Would you be offended that they believe in something that you know does not exist–or that it causes them to be better people?
The analogy breakdown is, of course, that you know Santa Claus does not exist, while none of us non-Christians can truly know that Christianity is false.
You suggest that the gods and goddesses of the classical pagan are but demons; why should I be offended at that? I believe it is wrong; should I be offended when people disagree with me on things that are not universally provable in the same sense that mathematics is? We are not talking about whether or not two plus two equals four–no one in their sane mind would deny that (even those tricky people who claim that it’s 10 in base four are making a semantic argument, and not denying the underlying truth). We are talking about claims about the numinous–claims of things that distinctly cannot be measured by science, and things that cannot be deduced from axioms like mathematics.
Why should I be offended? What would you rather my reaction be–to call for your head because I disagree with you?
That’s silly, and gets us no closer as a civilization to colonizing Alpha Centauri.
So yes, I disagree with certain things in Christianity. And yes, I realize passing them off as “mere” disagreements is a bit of an understatement, because Christianity does make some very large claims about the universe. But offended because it causes people to spend time with the widow and to feed the hungry?
Again, that’s silly.
I do hold contempt for Christians who make that claim but do little to act as Christians–but to those people, Christian or non, who work tirelessly to give water to the thirsty, to love their neighbor, to be good people, I find it difficult to hold contempt. I respect those who work to make the world a better place, and at times am shamed by them, because I do not do enough.
There is no need to apologize for a delayed response. The internet is timeless. These words shall remain for so long I pay my provider.
Perhaps the apology should come from me: I have a friendly coworker who insists Christ’s message and ministry was nothing more than ‘be nice to folks’ and I have told him (perhaps with less than perfect courtesy) how remarkably shallow his point is. In hindsight, I wonder if my vehement rhetoric was prompted by my contempt for my coworker’s remarkable statement than anything you said. If so, I used your comment merely as an invitation or excuse to fly off to another topic I wanted to discuss anyway, in which case I have not been courteous to you. So, forgive me.
In any case, I was not here arguing the truth of the Christian position. To be blunt, I don’t think the point is amenable to any argument but a defensive one. Reason can be used to show that Christian theology is not unreasonable, but not to show that it is true. I was not talked into Christianity myself, I was brought in by miracle, so I do not think it my role to talk anyone into the feast.
Being an atheist for 35 years, I also find myself in the odd position of knowing more about Christianity than the average Christian. So, I sympathize.
To clarify my point, I am not suggesting that you should be offended on an emotional level by Christianity. I am not talking on an emotional level. I am suggesting that the radical nature of the Christian claim taken just as a philosophical or intellectual claim is more radical than an agnostic or atheist born and raised in a Christian environment is prone to notice.
I am saying that a partial agreement with Christ is not possible, or not possible over the long run. It is like being partly pregnant.
That is well said, and it is a contempt we Christians, and Our Master, no doubt shares. We call such people Pharisees. Unfortunately, the truly good Christians, following explicit orders, hide their charitable works from the praise of men, so I am not sure how someone not the recipient of such work would be aware of it.
I don’t wish to lure you into a discussion of no interest to you, but I am curious as to where and on what points you find yourself in agreement with Christ? I wonder now if I mistook the whole point of your comment.
Naturally, you need not answer if the topic is less than fascinating to you. I mean not to impose.
I should probably have stated it that my disagreement with Christianity is at the theological level. However, I am in accord with the things that such theology generally encourages people to do, fundamentally summed up as “love your neighbor”.
And I do agree that being immersed in a culture heavily influenced by Christianity (a “cultural Christian”, I have heard it called) makes one blind to how different Christian theology is compared to many other religions. Most religions have relied on a “cycle of sacrifice”, wherein you do something to appease god(s)–generally a sacrifice at an altar–and they do something for you, at which point you do something to issue thanks (or if they do not, apology), and so on and so forth. Christianity states that this altar does not exist; that the relationship with the divine is not fundamentally like a business transaction. It is, I admit, a very appealing idea; but it is one that I disagree with.
My experience is that even people who do not trumpet their charitable works have a certain disposition in life that is, to my mind, admirable. The Christian idea of the “Fruits of the Spirit” are in that line–that fundamentally if you live your life a certain way, then you become a certain kind of person. Tautologically, people who are nice are nice people.
In short, the things about Christianity I disagree with are the existence of just one god (even a triune one), the divinity of Jesus, the historicity of the resurrection, and the nature of sin (along with probably a few other theological points along the way that don’t spring to mind immediately).
Where I agree is in its encouragement for people to be good people, its understanding of the universe as an ordered and (relatively) predictable place, the understanding that morality is more than just what society “decides it to be”. There are a handful of other things related to how Christianity has helped civilization advance, but that’s getting into needless details.
I may be somewhat like your coworker, in that what I get out of Christianity is how you are supposed to treat people; but I do understand that there is a lot of theology and a lot of history behind how Christianity got that way and refined its ideas. But I do not think that theology is true.
But in the grand scheme of getting to Alpha Centauri (a reasonable metric, I think, for whether something is for the good of humanity), I think Christian theology is far less an “enemy” as I do other theologies that seek to actively destroy civilization, e.g. radical Islam, eco-terrorism. And besides, since Christians believe in the numinous, they are at least one step closer to believing in multiple deities (as I do) than atheists are–much the same reason you have given for Christians tolerating other religions, because it makes them easier to convert. And for that, I cannot fully disagree with it; if nothing else, Christianity also seeks to build civilization.
Hmph. I wonder if I need to retract my comment. Anyone who lists eco-terrorists as an enemy is a friend of mine, and I would hate to scandalize my friends by emphasizing the outrageousness of my beliefs.
And, to be sure, a polytheist and a friend of civilization has a lot more in common with Christianity than an atheist, jihadist, or an enemy of civilization.
On the other hand, if you had never met a Christian before, and you suddenly came across a bloke who believed only in one god, despising or ignoring all the others as either creatures, or demons, or fictions, and he moreover alleged the one god to be the creator of all things (that is, not like Uranus arising from a primal chaos, or Brahma in a dream) and then said the god incarnated himself into a carpenter’s son in a backwater province of the Roman Empire and died a slave’s death, this would be even odder — I am tempted to use the word “outrageous” again — than believing in the charioteer of Arjuna was an incarnate god who instructed the hero in the secrets of the soul, and died by accident when a hunter mistook his slippers for the ears of a doe.
On the third hand, I suspect I merely misunderstood the point of your original comment. When you said you believe in part in Christianity, you were saying you admired some of the side effects of an institution you judge to be basically benevolent, not that you believed in part in Christ or had a partial communion with Him. A “partial union” with Christ is like being partly married — which was not what you meant or said. So I think I just made a boneheaded error when reading your words.
I will ask one follow up theological question, if you will permit. If you believe in a multiplicity of gods and spirits, do you believe that conflict between them is inevitable? Or can they despite their multitude follow one common principle, rule, law, hierarchy or moral order? If so, what is the origin and justification of that moral order?
I am wondering who or what arbitrates disagreements, or what cosmic influence prevents disagreement from arising.
That would be accurate, yes.
Yes, I suppose conflicts between my gods is inevitable, though I don’t think it inevitable that they will always be in conflict with one another.
As to the arbitration of their disagreements, they either work it out between themselves through whatever means they use, or they deal with the consequences of their meddling in the physical world. It is, admittedly, a topic I don’t think about too much. I mostly just pray and make my sacrifices, and thank them when they show me favor, and ask for forgiveness when I spurn them. The exact mechanics of their spiritual realm isn’t generally discussed.
I assume if two spirits contradict each other, both cannot be right. What does one do if one of the gods or spirits is in the wrong?
I am not entirely sure what you mean. Perhaps you could give a more concrete example?
I cannot use a real example since I do not know who your gods are.
In the Trojan War, Jove and Juno were on opposite sides of the conflict, and in the Aeneid the founder of the Roman race was cursed by Juno, even though he carried the genius of Rome. How does a pious man decide between the king and the queen of the gods? Or, again, Kali commands the death by strangling of her victims, but the Enlightened One, the Buddha, commands ahimsa, respect for all life.
Now, if neither of us are atheists, we will not accept the idea that there is no intelligence, no spirit, no principle governing and guiding the universe. Only atheists think the universe has no ruler.
But in the case where spirits of middle heaven war, or even disagree, if there is no higher spirit in a higher heaven, those spirits are, in effect, atheists, because they live in a universe without a ruler.
It seems to me we are left with only three possibilities. First, the universe has laws but no lawmaker, and a war or disagreement between spirits or principles is settled by that law. This is the secular scientific view.
Second, there is fate, which not even the gods can defy, which established what will and will not happen. This is the classical pagan view, or typical of oriental theology.
Third, there is a supreme being who is utterly simple and incapable of conflicts within himself. This is the classical monotheistic view.
There is also the stance of Confucianism or Taoism which studiously dismisses such questions as unprofitable or unknowable. Strictly speaking such agnosticism is not a view but an attempt not to have a view.
Does that make my question clearer? If Jove tells the faithful Helene to smite Troy and Juno tells him not to, to which law or principle or higher god or decree of fate does he apply to make a faithful decision which god to obey and which to offend?
(The question does not come up in a monotheistic background, because monotheists classically hold that Providence cannot contradict himself, or issue two contradictory commands.)
If I am working on a project for a client team, and Alice of the client team tells me to make the bar red, and Bob of the client team tells me to make the bar blue, and for all intents and purposes, Alice and Bob are equals in authority and stature, do I do what Alice wants or what Bob wants?
As with my given situation, if the gods give conflicting advice, then you must decide whose to follow. That decision would be based both some on politics (if a god has shown you more favor, you may be more likely to follow his advice), and on a personal moral judgement–or in my example above, a personal aesthetic judgement.
Indeed, traditional monotheism doesn’t have this situation, if you hold that the god does not change, and that if two peoples are opposed to each other and each claims to have the god on their side, that one of them is wrong.
Interesting. So your answer is political and pragmatic rather than theological?
It sounds like there are only three possibilities: 1. You either decide without the gods, based on personal preference; 2. Or you side with the stronger god, based on base pragmatic considerations; 3. Or you side with the god who (strong or weak) deserves your love and loyalty according to some objective standard of honor or truth, perhaps out of loyalty to past graces given, or because he is the ancestor of your tribe.
This would seem to leave you with no theological principle to follow when deciding what is right and wrong. The first option is modern moral relativism where whatever you decide is right by definition is right; the second is Machiavellian; the third is an honorable patriotism, as we might see among the Norse warriors found worthy to fight and die at the side of Odin in the Last Battle.
Now, myself, I can answer that I would (if God gave me the gift of the strength of character) like those Norsemen of old defy the giants and fallen angels and spirits of the middle heavens no matter their strength. To defy the supernatural foes of mankind for the sake of honor and gratitude of the god who has protected my household and ancestors, and shown great works in times past is a pious and holy thing.
I say it were better to be the last man alive at the Twilight of the Gods, with all my hopes and brothers dead around me, notched weapon in hand and standing back to back (or back to knee, as the case may be) with one-eyed Odin or one-handed Tyr, even as the ravening jaws of the all-powerful wolf of chaos reached from sea-bottom to sky-zenith, and swept all divine things away, and my little life with it, because I would not care to live without honor, in the world-ruin ruled by bellowing giants, after the world-tree burns, and the wolf eats sun and moon.
I take this as a standard that a man should do what is pious and holy no matter what the spirits and giants and fallen angels command, no matter how powerful. I assume all men of good will say likewise, monotheist or not.
And even after the Twilight of the Gods falls, I submit that it was right to follow the good and noble gods, even into defeat, and into a death without resurrection, and into an oblivion that forgets all deeds. Or does the standard of how an honest should act go out when the sun goes out?
So, then, let me ask you the same question Socrates asked Euthyphro: whether what is pious or holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods?
(Once again, if these questions are too wearisome or too personal, merely say the word, and I will trouble you with them no longer.)
One-eyed Thor? Did you mean one-eyed Odin or is there a tradition where Thor had one eye?
Whoops. No. That is just a mistake. Let me correct it.
It appears that we are reaching the threshold of comment depth, and I am growing weary of this topic.
The place where I think you are leading me is to admit the existence of some universal that my gods must adhere to, and then, likely to point to that as being the Christian god. At least, that is how a similar argument I once had went.
Fundamentally, I do not think that even if there were an existence of honor or morality at some universal level that even my gods must adhere to, that does not imply the existence of a supreme being that created such morality. The specifics of such an argument are not such that I wish to get into here, as noted.
That was not the argument I was going to make, but I also do not want to question you impertinently, so we can let the matter rest.
Good witness.
JCW: “[Dr. A.] argues that the claim is not outrageous because it is so outrageous that is it unbelievable.”
Dr.A.: “No, that’s not what I said. I said that because it’s false, it’s not any more outrageous than the next piece of fiction. …[W]hat is being discussed is the proper response to that outrageousness, which is stipulated. You want me to be outraged. I decline.”
I can’t help but wonder if there’s a Vizzini-style “I do not think that word means what you think it means” conversation gap going on here. The word has several meanings, as per the definitions from dictionary.com:
out·ra·geous [out-rey-juhs]
1. of the nature of or involving gross injury or wrong: an outrageous slander.
2. grossly offensive to the sense of right or decency: outrageous behavior; an outrageous remark.
3. passing reasonable bounds; intolerable or shocking: an outrageous price.
4. violent in action or temper.
5. highly unusual or unconventional; extravagant; remarkable: a child of the most outrageous precocity; a fancy dive performed with outrageous ease.
It seems to me that Dr. A. is reacting as if Christianity’s claims are being called “outrageous” in the sense of items 1 or 2, and claiming that if you start from the position that the claims are self-refuting by definition, then they cannot involve gross injuries or gross offenses because they are self-evidently untrue, in the same sense that you cannot call Dr. Hannibal Lecter “a sinful man” because he is an imaginary construct and not a man, or in the same sense you cannot be truly “outraged by his crimes” because his crimes never actually happened. Dr. A. seems to be assuming that the intent of the essay is to provoke anger and hostility in readers by insulting their beliefs, in the same way insulting a man’s family or nation would normally produce such things, and stating that because he feels no anger or hostility due to his dismissal of the claims as ludicrous (in the same way I would dismiss an insult to my mother from a man calling her a Martian, while I might be tempted to flatten a man calling her a slattern) the claims are therefore not “outrageous” in this sense. This is a purely practical definition: that which does not produce outrage is not outrageous.
Mr. Wright’s thesis, on the other hand, makes more sense to me if the primary meaning of “outrageous” being used is item #3, and to a lesser degree #5, where if anger or hostility is produced, it is only as a byproduct of the confrontation involved in the basic assertion that Christianity’s claims, if one wishes to be philosophically honest, can only be either wholly, joyfully embraced or wholly, violently rejected — that the attempt to take a “middle ground” stance of (selectively) respecting its moral principles while maintaining agnostic neutrality about the metaphysical claims which justify them is muddleheaded at best and consciously disingenuous at worst; an attempt to eat the cake and have it too. The outrage here is the shocking, and in this day and age highly unconventional, extravagant and remarkable, position that there is no third way, no compromise, no synthesis between this thesis and its antithesis; that the refusal to choose will be counted, in the end, as the wrong choice, that we are offered no best-of-both-worlds option, that we truly either are with Christ or with the damned and must pay one price or the other. This is a principled definition: it is outrageous because the scope of its claims so far exceeds what even most of its believers normally proclaim.
It must be noted that in all fairness Dr. A. has never claimed membership in this lukewarm group of third-wayers: he has always rejected Christianity root and branch, and so cannot be accused of philosophical dishonesty in that sense, nor does he seem to me to be part of the primary audience for thie essay. It must also be acknowledged that as with all posts attempting to understand another by paraphrasing them, I may have gotten this all completely wrong, and have no wish to put words in anyone else’s mouth, so verbal smackdowns are entirely welcome where merited. But if I am not entirely off base here, perhaps this may clarify the understanding gap.
I quite agree that the claims of Christianity deserve to be accepted or rejected in their entirety.
But what I do not accept is that the rejection needs be “Violent”.
There are billions of my fellow humans who accept that the universe is under the sway of warring supernatural beings. I would have no less trouble accepting that I live in such a universe than I would accepting that I live in a universe where addition is not commutative. Nevertheless, I bear those believers no animosity and provided that my unbelief is left unmolested by state or society, I have no reason to oppose belief in any arena other than that of cordial discussion.
Perhaps I should have said “vigorously” or “vehemently” rather than “violently”; I did not mean to suggest that actual physical force must be used, but rather that the issues cannot be treated lightly or as if they were irrelevant either way.
(That said, the difficulty in attempting to “morally evaluate” Christianity’s claims is that so much of what we morally believe, even now, comes from the very tradition we are trying to critically examine — like trying to use a microscope to look at itself. Even the thesis that it is better to allow someone to choose not to be Christian than to use physical violence to coerce conversion is itself a Christian principle; you cannot even argue for someone’s right not to be Christian without drawing on Christian morality.)
so much of what we morally believe, even now, comes from the very tradition we are trying to critically examine
Quite correct, and I’d be a fool to think that as a non-believer, my views are not more respected in societies where Christians or Jews are in the majority than in societies where other beliefs dominate. (For the last ~three hundred years at least)
So I find myself accepting the utility of Christianity while being unable to accept its truth. Am I trying to have the cake and eat it too??
“Am I trying to have the cake and eat it too?”
To a certain extent, yes, in principle (though you may not yet have chosen to do so in specific fact). Let it be acknowledged right now that any moral criticism involved here applies equally to myself as to you or anyone else; I have enough beams in my own eye that I will not speak to the specifics of anyone else’s particular motes.
That said, the problem with adopting a moral system on the basis of utility rather than truth is that it can no longer really be called “moral”. The definition of a moral principle is that it is something we consider it better to suffer, or even die, than violate; if we consider ourselves exempted from our morals once the cost of upholding them exceeds some designated threshold, they are not really “morals” at all, but merely situational ethics or contextual contracts. Ultimately, much of post-Christian relativistic agnosticism is the attempt to gain the practical benefits of Christian morality without having to comply with the practical costs of Christian belief, and that is the essence of “eating one’s cake and having it too”.
It is a basic and universal human urge — we all want to maximize payoff and minimize or externalize cost — but it contains an inherent tendency towards entropic breakdown if not countered with an absolute metaphysical imperative.
I can confirm this. My essay uses the word ‘outrageous’ in the sense of definition #3, as you correctly point out. Obviously I was not arguing for the truth of the proposition, but only for the shocking nature of the claim being made.
If I said that world was flat or that your mother were a Martian, this is an outrageous claim. I am not concerned with the emotional reaction of the hearer to the claim, nor am I attempting to provoke anger. If it were true that your mother was a Martian and the world was flat, to apprehend that truth would involve a change in your worldview which is radical and shocking, i.e., outrageous.
That one of my readers is not angered by the claim and does not believe the world is flat is not the point. The point is that one cannot agree in part and disagree in part with a claim that the world is flat. It is too radical a claim to be treated with anything but wholehearted agreement or wholehearted disagreement.
And, if his past and recent behavior is any guide, you are giving the wretched Dr A far too much credit. He understood the point being made. There was no innocent misunderstanding of terms. He was not voicing a sober objection, he was just making a belching noise.
I regret to say that you are the one giving me too much credit. As I said above, I thought you were talking about an emotional response.
Even so, upon still further thought, I wonder if you are not exaggerating the unity, rather than the outrageousness (in the sense of being unlikely) of Christian belief. Might one not say, for example, that the Mormons accept part of the Christian claim, but not all of it? Specifically, if I understand their theology rightly, they claim that Hell is not eternal.
A heresy by definition agrees in part and disagrees in part with the orthodoxy it seeks to supplant. The reason why such “odium theologicum” accompanies disputes between orthodox and heterodox is because irenic reconciliation is not logically possible.
Theologians argue with the bitterness of couples going through a divorce and not like scientists defending disputed theories because we are going through a divorce.
To put it another way, the points of intellectual agreement between Mormon and Catholic is insufficient to allow a corporate reconciliation or reunion of the two Churches. Either the Mormons would have to reject Joseph Smith, recant, and cleave to us and become Catholic, or we would have to reject the deposit of faith (including all Ecumenical Councils and ante-Nicene Fathers) and cleave to them, and become Mormons.
So in the one sense of the term, yes, we agree in part, in that we are both Monotheists who hold Christ to be a divine being. We both read the Bible and the Testaments and both celebrated Christmas.
In the sense being discussed in the original post, however, we agree at no part, because Mormon and Catholic cannot be in communion with each other. The Church is not a debating society or a political faction, or not just that. The Church is a marriage. The Mormons are excommunicated with us; they do not partake of the sacraments; they are not of our mystical body. In other words, divorced.
We are talking about two different senses of the term. One is purely intellectual. Christians and Atheist both agree the world is round and the fire burns and water wets. These points of agreement are not the basis for a communion. Some Catholics believe the Assumption of Mary was before her death, and some after. This disagreement is insufficient to break our communion. However, those Catholics who after the First Council of Nicaea rejected the doctrine of the Trinity were excommunicate, even if that had been a matter for the discretion of the private conscience before that. That disagreement had been, before Arius, insufficient to break communion, and afterward sufficient.
These statements seem to contradict each other; or at any rate, the first one is too strong. If the Council of Nicaea had the authority to decide what was or wasn’t a matter for the private conscience, then the opposite conclusion cannot have involved a logical contradiction. Presumably the Councillors had the authority to decide either way; in fact I seem to recall that the majority for the Trinity was the smallest possible. But if the decision could have gone either way, no contradiction can be involved in either position; it is not logic that distinguishes the Trinity from the Assumption, but the authority of the Council.
On further thought, though, perhaps the contradiction you refer to is that a Mormon is someone who accepts Smith’s authority, a Catholic is someone who accepts the Council’s authority, and one cannot do both because they contradict. If so, fair enough.
Quoting John Wright:
- irenic reconciliation is not logically possible.
- That disagreement [over the Trinity] had been, before Arius, insufficient to break communion, and afterward sufficient.
Dr. Andreassen’s comment:
These statements seem to contradict each other; or at any rate, the first one is too strong.
If the Council of Nicaea had the authority to decide what was or wasn’t a matter for the private conscience, then the opposite conclusion cannot have involved a logical contradiction. Presumably the Councillors had the authority to decide either way; …
Councils and Popes have the power to “decide” what is binding only if it is sufficiently understood to be declared true with certainty. This is what we call with John H. Newman the “development of doctrine”.
The doctrine of the Trinity was not binding before it was officially settled not because it was nonexistent in Revelation, but because it was not sufficiently understood to be proposed as binding on conscience.
Once a doctrine is settled, there is no irenic reconciliation possible. Either the heterodox renounce their heterodoxy and stay in the truth, and in the Church, or they cling to their error and go schismatic, which adds a still bigger error to the original one and puts their salvation at great risk.
Mr. Wright, I was going to post my comments on your article using as a starting point my position as one of those who, in Pascal’s phrase, is “so made that I cannot believe” and go on to compare and contrast your position with C.S. Lewis’s “trilemma”. The typical dry, mildly witty, sympathetic-but-firmly-agnostic chunk of prose.
Then it occurred to me that yes, you have raised a banner which should not be
responded to with benign indifference. But you have raised it in an arena – the
internet – where readers are given the opportunity to do just that. Hundreds of non-
believers may have read your words, muttered a variant of “I’ve heard that all before”
and gone on with their day’s activities.
What I would like to ask you is this. Do you continually confront non-Christians,
using the same phrasing and sense of urgency in this article, in your face-to-face
encounters with them? (and I do not think “confront” too strong a term…it is not
intended as a pejorative)
I would imagine that as an SF writer you probably encounter non-believers of many
flavors (from occasionally-sympathetic agnostics such as myself, to snarky
Pastafarians and Discordians, to the fervid disciples of Dawkins) in much greater
numbers than do many of your apologetic colleagues.
Do you often explain to your seat mates on the panel at a con (or better yet,
the audience!!) how they are living in “the degrading slime and shit of sinfulness”?
If appearing at a book signing, do you make it a point to remind those in line at the
table that “a perfectly just, loving, and benevolent super being can and will inflict
a eternity of torture on you, and that you deserve it”???
If you can unhesitatingly answer “yes”, then my hat’s off to you. You have truly
taken the argument made in your post with the deadly seriousness it deserves.
Well, at the last science fiction convention I was at, I gave away the money in my wallet to a weeping beggar. I hope that kind of charity speaks louder than words about the seriousness of the topic. I certainly never did anything like that in my atheist days.
But that was not quite your question, was it? My answer is here: http://www.scifiwright.com/2012/10/do-outrageous-claims-demand-outrageous-acts/
Hello, John–I came across your site as a result of our having both contributed to the sfsignal MindMeld. You may be tempted to read the following as a taunt or a jibe, but it is utterly sincere. I am always one for a lively theological debate, and this statement caught my eye. “[T]here is simply no such thing as disagreeing with Christianity on certain points.”
This curious statement fascinated me, because it raises the question, “Which Christianity are you talking about?” Are you speaking about Roman Catholic Christianity (transubstantiation, etc.), or Protestant Christianity, or Coptic, or Russian Orthodox? Or perhaps you’re speaking of something akin to C.S. Lewis’s “mere” Christianity, which has all the rough doctrinal edges shaved off. I’m sure I don’t have to point out that there are wild doctrinal differences among Christian denominations, theological disputes for which people were once put to the sword.
It would be lovely if there were some kind of universal hermeneutic, but there clearly isn’t; and that’s what makes your claim so interesting. Even if we dispense with all but the Jesus of the Gospels and Paul’s letters (we’ll even assume that Paul wrote all of them), there are serious difficulties, both internally, and in interpretation. For instance, do you interpret Jesus’s statement that he has fulfilled the Law to mean that Christians are exempt from it, or are you a “jot and tittle” type, who believes that the Law remains in effect? I’ll give you a pass on Leviticus, since most all Christians these days have taken the “fulfilled” road, and lucky for them. (Although I find it deeply intellectually dishonest of some of them to quote precepts from the Pentateuch when it serves their cause, and ignore it otherwise.) Is Jesus, for instance, God? Or the son of God? Or the “logos” of God (whatever that means)? He appears to imply that he both is and is not God (“You have but one father and He is in heaven”) versus (“He that hath seen me hath seen the father”). Theologians have been bending over backwards to harmonize this stuff ever since it was written down, but you must admit that at face value, it’s a blatant contradiction. And if we can’t take the Bible at face value, then what good is it? Why would God be so careless as to write a book that requires legions of very smart people to make sense of? (Unless God is himself a theologian, and it’s a professional courtesy?)
Which verses do you gloss over in 1 Corinthians? Do you turn a blind eye when a woman defies Paul’s instructions and speaks in church? Do you believe it improper for a woman to pray with her head uncovered? Do you speak in tongues? You might think I’m nitpicking, but these are absolutely serious questions if you insist that you don’t get to pick and choose. Ultimately, all Christians are “cafeteria Christians” because you only get to interpret your theology one way. Of course, you can argue that all interpretations other than your own are simply wrong (as the Russian Orthodox do), but it seems at some point you simply have to relent, or else back yourself into a doctrinal corner so narrow that you’re living in a Byzantine bubble (as the Russian Orthodox do).
I appreciate the seriousness with which religious folks take their religion, but it strikes me as very strange that an intelligent 21st century person can still manage to take it seriously. After spending a great deal of time investigating the Bible, studying theology, and praying, I ultimately came to the realization that the only way any of it made sense to me was if none of it were true.
I’m with you–you can’t say that Jesus was a “just a nice guy” with “some good ideas.” If he is not God, then he’s anything but a nice guy (nice guys don’t tell people to hate their families without a very compelling reason). Lewis offers the choices of Liar, Lunatic, or Lord. But he misses two options: Misguided, and Misquoted. If you’re willing to accept that God made the Universe in six days and put the starlight on course toward us to make sure it looked as though the Universe were actually billions of years old, no one can stop you. But if you don’t believe that, then you’re practicing sophistry on a slippery slope that ends up at the feet of John Dominic Crossan, who apologeticked himself (and me, ultimately) out of believing anything whatsoever.
If you can walk a path through all that without going deaf from the cognitive dissonance then you’re a better man than I; I ultimately was unable to reconcile the absurdity of it all. I’d love to know how you manage it.
If you actually wanted to impress me with your sincerity, you would have excluded this shallow and remarkably insincere remark. Since I did not solicit your uninformed opinion of my intelligence, I am a little puzzled on what grounds you feel free to volunteer it.
Obviously my intelligence is the same before and after I was an atheist. And as for it being the 21st century, what does that have to do with anything? Should we be supposing that truths became untrue sometime about the mid 1800?
Or are you merely saying that Christianity is no longer fashionable? Christianity has never been fashionable. The comment betrays an embarrassing temporal parochialism on your part.
I was an atheist for 35 years. I know how to argue the position. There are certain strategies and tactics that are useful. Assuming that a Roman Catholic is a biblical literalist and a young earth creationist is not one of them. It makes you look like you learned your knowledge of Christian theology from reading Philip Pullman novels. It also makes your protestation that you ‘studied theology’ suspect.
Illogical. “If we cannot take Euclid at face value, what good is it?” Arguing that reality is confusing therefore Christianity is false is not even an argument, it is an expression of immature emotion.
Likewise, saying that because heresies exist ergo orthodoxy is false is akin to saying that disputes over the Big Bang versus Steady State prove that no one should take astronomy seriously, or to saying that since Aristotle and Plato disagree, all philosophy is bunk.
If you want to have a sober discussion with me, ask me questions like a man, not like a child, and I will answer them. But don’t send me boilerplate sophomoric rubbish like this.
I did not make the statement you put in quotes in the Mind Meld you referenced.