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Jiro comments on Talking Snakes: A Cautionary Tale - Less Wrong
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Sure, there is some embarrasment that others may not be particularly good at communicating, and thus saying something like that is just preaching to the choir, but won't reach the theist.
But, I do not find anything intellectually wrong with the argument, so what one is being called out on is being a bad propagandist, meme-generator or teacher of skepticism. If a theist makes that remark, then she's really saying "Your argument is not good enough to convince those of my tribe". It is not "Your argument is invalid, logically speaking", because that is simply false. Because, the argument, at its best, is saying that:
a) there is no evidence for talking snakes, so reject those beliefs
not
b) the idea of talking snakes is just so silly, because it is designated as silly by our customs, and not because of lack of evidence.
And, therefore, a berating comment from an intelligent theist should instead prompt a discussion of the merits of the case - highlighting the difference between "customarily silly" and "scientifically silly". And if the theist understand the difference, she is on her way to be an atheist, and then the question is really on how to make a better joke about how factually (or morally) silly religious belief is.
Like, adding to the joke with more factually incorrect absurdities. Or, maybe better, ask the theist to come up with a better meme. If they agree on the principle, that the bible is full of falsehoods, they should be allies in the struggle to get people to stop believing in any more falsehoods. Otherwise they should be made fun of for believing in talking snakes.
Why can't a theist say something that is false?
Of course theists can say false statements, I'm not claiming that. I'm trying to come with an explanation of why some theists don't accept a certain form of argument. My explanation is that the theists are embarrassed to join someone who only points out a weak argument that their beliefs are silly. They do not make the argument that the "Talking Snakes"-argument is invalid, only that it is not rhetorical.
The point of the original cautionary tale suggests that the argument "talking snakes cannot exist, thus Christianity is false" is as valid and as persuasive as the argument "monkeys cannot give birth to humans, thus evolution is false". In both cases, it's an argument strong enough to convince only those who are already convinced that the argument's conclusion is most likely correct; and in both cases, it shows that the arguer fundamentally misunderstands the position he is arguing against.
How do you misunderstand christianity if you say to people: "There is no evidence of any talking snakes, so it's best to reject any ideas that hinges on there existing talking snakes"?
Again, I'm not saying that this is usually a good argument. I'm saying that those who make it present a logically valid case (which is not the case with the monkey-birthing-human-argument) and that those who not accept it, but believe it to be correct, does so because they feel it isn't enough to convince others in their group that it is a good enough argument.
I'm also trying to make a distinction between "culturally silly" and "scientifically silly". Talking snakes are scientifically silly and sometimes culturally silly.
The misunderstanding is that Christianity doesn't hinge on the existence of talking snakes, any more than evolution hinges on monkeys giving birth to humans. The error in logic is the same in both arguments.
Why doesn't Christianity hinge on their being talking snakes? The snake is part of their origin story, a core element in their belief system. Without it, what happens to original sin? And you will also have to question if not everything else in the bible is also just stories. If it's not the revealed truth of God, why should any of the other stories be real - such as the ones about how Jesus was god's son?
And, if I am wrong in that Christianity doesn't need that particular story to be true, then there is still a weaker form of the argument. Namely that a large percentage of christians believe in this story, and two hundred years ago I'd guess almost every christian believed in it, but you cannot find any leading evolutionist who claims that monkeys gave birth to humans.
Ultimately, outsiders cannot define the content or centrality of parts of a belief system. If believers say it is a metaphor, then it is a metaphor. In other words, if believers retreat empirically to the point of invisible dragons, you can't stop them. Invisible dragons aren't incoherent, they are just boring.
That large sub-groups of Christians believe something empirically false does not disprove Christianity as a whole, especially since there is widespread disagreement as to who is a "true" Christian.
Citation needed. You sound overconfident here.
I would say CarlJ is right about general Christian belief in the past from Historical Theology by Gregg R. Allison
For how this would apply to the snake in the garden see this: Jamieson
And also correct that the doctrine is important to many Christians today from Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem
So I think a successful attack on this point would be significant.
But I think Eliezer is correct there isn't extra improbability in the snake than in other elements of the creation story. I don't think most people would find absurd the possibility that an engineer could build a snake like robot that you could use a radio link to speak through, so, given the creation of entire planets and all the plant and animal life, someone talking through a snake in not an additional stretch.
But I think Yvain is getting at something additional here. The reason the snake in particular seems absurd is that talking animals pattern match to things like Kipling's Just So Stories and Aesop's Fables. But that connection is in the map, not the territory. Using that as your leading argument against Christianity makes it sound like you've used a lazy and flawed heuristic to dismiss the religion, rather than actually considered it rationally and found it wanting.
Thank you for the source! (I'd upvote but have a negative score.)
If you interpret the story as plausibly as possible, then sure, the talking snake isn't that much different from a technologically superior species that created a big bang, terraformed the earth, implanted it with different animals (and placed misleading signs of an earlier race of animals and plants genetically related to the ones existing), and then created humans in a specially placed area where the trees and animals were micromanaged to suit the humans needs. All within the realm of the possible.
But, the usual story isn't that it was created by technological means, but by supernatural means. God is supposed to have created the world from some magical ability. So, to criticize the christian story is to criticize it as being magical. And if one finds it difficult to believe one part of that story, then all parts should be equally contested.
Regarding Yvain's point - I think it is true that one could just associate "stories about talking animals" with "other stories about animals that everyone knows are patently false" and then not believe in the first story as well. But, it is not just in the mind's map of the world that this connection occurs, because the second story is connected to the world. That is, when one things about Aesop's Fables you know (though not always consciously) that these stories are false.
So, to trigger the mind to establish a connection between Eden and Aesop, the mind makes the connection that "Stories that people believe are false", but the mind has good arguments to not believe in Aesop's fables, because there aren't any talking animals, and if that idea is part of knocking down Eden, then it is a fully rational way to dismiss Christianity. Definitely not thorough, and, again, it's maybe not a reliable way of convincing others.
Believers can say "we've chosen to take it as a metaphor now".
But if the believers make statements referencing the past or other believers, they can't say that any more. And typically they do.
I believe you are making a charge (which I have heard made before) that the claim that some scriptural passages were intended as metaphors is a relatively recent innovation among believers to accommodate religion to modern scientific discoveries, and that it breaks with the traditional, literal interpretation of those passages. In fact, there is a long tradition among theologians to recognize that much of scripture should be interpreted metaphorically and/or allegorically rather than literally. Examples include Origen of Alexandria (late second - early third century CE) who took much of the Garden of Eden story to be allegorical, Augustine of Hippo who stated (in a work entitled The Literal Interpretation of Genesis from the early fifth century) that much of Genesis cannot and should not be interpreted literally, and Irenaeus of Lyons (second century CE) who interpreted the Garden of Eden story allegorically (in Against Heresies).
While it is certainly the case that some believers traditionally interpreted Genesis literally (and some still do), it is also the case that there is an ancient tradition of interpreting Genesis metaphorically/allegorically and so modern believers are by no means breaking with tradition if they interpret the serpent metaphorically.
I suspect that two hundred years ago, most scientists believed that human beings were not descended from monkeys. That does not make evolution denial a "core belief" of science, nor do the beliefs of Christians two hundred years ago automatically constitute the beliefs of Christians today.
I meant that the origin story is a core element in their belief system, which is evident from every major christian religion has some teachings on this story.
If believers actually retreated to the position of invisible dragons, they would actually have to think about the arguments against the normal "proofs" that there is a god: "The bible, an infallible book without contradiction, says so". And, if most christians came to say that their story is absolutely non-empirically testable, they would have to disown other parts: the miracles of jesus and god, the flood, the parting of the red sea, and anything else that is testable.
I didn't say it would disprove christianity - I said it was a weaker form of the argument: there is an asymmetry between the beliefs of christians and evolutionists. But, most christians seem to believe that there is magic in this world (thanks to god). Sure, if they didn't believe it, they could still call themselves christians, but that type of christianity would probably not get many followers.
A bit of googling on the Vatican website turned up this document, from which I quote:
So, the official position of the Vatican is that Genesis uses figurative language; that there was a temptation to disobey the strictures laid in place by God, and that such disobedience was freely chosen; but not that there was necessarily a literal talking snake.
In other words, the talking snake is gone, but there is still original sin.
As to the question of disagreement between the discoveries of science and the word of scripture, I found a document dated 1893 from which I will quote:
It's only fair to compare like with like. I'm sure that I can find some people, who profess both a belief that evolution is correct and that monkeys gave birth to humans; and yes, I am aware that this mean they have a badly flawed idea of what evolution is.
So, in fairness, if you're going to be considering only leading evolutionists in defense of evolution, it makes sense to consider only leading theologians in the question of whether Genesis is literal or figurative.
That text is actually quite misleading. It never says that it's the snake that should be thought of as figuratively, maybe it's the Tree or eating a certain fruit that is figurative.
But, let us suppose that it is the snake they refer to - it doesn't disappear entirely. Because, a little further up in the catechism they mention this event again:
The devil is a being of "pure spirit" and the catholics believe that he was an angel that disobeyed god. Now, this fallen angel somehow tempts the first parents, who are in a garden (378). It could presumably only be done in one or two ways: Satan talks directly to Adam and Eve, or he talks through some medium. This medium doesn't have to be a snake, it could have been a salad.
So, they have an overall story of the Fall which they say they believe is literal, but they believe certain aspects of it (possibly the snake part) isn't necessarily true. Now, Maher's joke would still make sense in either of these two cases. It would just have to change a little bit:
"...but when all is said and done, they're adults who believe in a talking salad."
"...but when all is said and done, they're adults who believe in spirits that try to make you do bad stuff."
So, even if they say that they don't believe in every aspect of the story, it smacks of disingenuousness. It's like saying that I don't believe the story of Cinderella getting a dress from a witch, but that there were some sort of other-wordly character that made her those nice shining shoes.
But, they don't even say that the snake isn't real.
I don't see what your second quote shows about my argument that if they don't believe in the snake, what keeps them from saying that anything else is also figuratively (such as the existence of God).
I agree there is probably someone who says that evolution is true and that people evolved from monkeys. But, to compare likes with likes here, you would have to find a leading evolutionists that said this, to compare with these leading christians that believe the snake was real:
Shouldn’t the Woman (Eve) Have Been Shocked that a Serpent Spoke? | Answers in Genesis
Who was the Serpent? | creation.com
Maybe it is wrong to label these writers as leading christians (the latter quoted is a theologian, though). So, let's say they are at least popularizer, if that seems fair to you? If so, can you find any popularizer of evolutionary theory that says that man evolved from monkeys?
(Apologies - accidentally double posted)
True - any part of the described incident (more likely, all of it) could be figurative.
Not necessarily. Communication does not need to be verbal. The temptation could have appeared in terms of, say, the manipulation of coincidence. Or, as you put it, a spirit that tries to make people do bad stuff.
But yes, there is definitely a Tempter there; some sort of malign intelligence that tries to persuade people to do Bad Stuff. That is a fairly well-known part of Catholic theology, commonly known as the devil.
The Vatican tends to be very, very, very, very cautious about definite statements of any sort. As in, they prefer not to make them if there is any possibility at all that they might be wrong.
And hey, small though the probability appears, maybe there was a talking snake...
Would I need to find leading evolutionists, or merely someone who claims to be a leading evolutionist? The second is probably a lot easier than the first.
My googling is defeated by creationists using the claim as a strawman.
...to be fair, I didn't really look all that hard.
Does Wikipedia count?
Because if you replace the talking snake with, say, a monkey which gave Eve the apple and indicated by gestures that Eve should eat it, nothing much would change in Christianity. Maybe St.George would now be rampant over a gorilla instead of a dragon...
True, there would only be some superficial changes, from a non-believing standpoint. But if you believe that the Bible is literal, then to point this out is to cast doubt on anything else in the book that is magical (or something which could be produced by a more sophisticated race of aliens or such). That is, the probability that this books represents a true story of magical (or much technologically superior) beings gets lower, and the probability that it is a pre-modern fairy tale increases.
And that is what the joke is trying to point out, that these things didn't really happen, they are fictional.
If you actually believe that the Bible represents a true story about a magical being or beings then the obvious retort is that there is no problem at all with talking snakes. A talking snake is a very minor matter compared with, say, creating the world. Why wouldn't there be one? Just because you find the idea ridiculous? But it is NOT ridiculous conditional on the existence of sufficiently strong magic.