gjm comments on Avoiding Your Belief's Real Weak Points - Less Wrong

49 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 05 October 2007 01:59AM

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Comment author: gjm 07 April 2015 11:18:48PM *  6 points [-]

I am an evangelic Christian and within my belief the gospels override everything else [...]

I take it "evangelic", as you're using it, is not identical to the fairly common term "evangelical" despite its obvious shared etymology? Evangelicalism as generally understood is hard to reconcile with calling the OT "old rubbish". I guess you're using it to mean something like "centred on the gospels".

I'd have a pretty good idea of your likely position on lots of things if you were an evangelical in the usual sense (inerrancy of scripture or something close to it, salvation sola fide, strongly substitutionary theory of the atonement, relatively more stress on personal faith and relationship-with-God rather than more corporate things, inclined to skepticism about anything that could be labelled "tradition" or "ritual", etc., etc., etc., etc.) but unfortunately what you've said here isn't terribly indicative.

your answers do not impress me

They weren't answers, they were (as I said in so many words) brief gestures in the direction of possible answers. If you think I would think half a dozen words would convince you of anything, then I think you must think I think you're either much cleverer or much stupider than is at all plausible.

you seem to fail to understand important things about christianity

I honestly do not know how you could possibly be justified in leaping to such a conclusion from what I have written here. I wonder whether you have perhaps misunderstood the nature of my response.

Perhaps it is necessary to say some of the following things explicitly. 1. Christianity -- like any religion -- is not simply a body of propositions; it is also a community, a way of life, a set of attitudes, allegedly a personal and/or corporate communion with God, a rich stream of traditions of many kinds, etc., etc., etc. My comments are addressing some of the propositions because that is what you appeared to be interested in (e.g., talking about "arguments for God") but that doesn't mean I am unaware of the other things. 2. To any simple argument, whether good or bad, there is generally an almost-as-simple counterargument, to which in turn there is generally a counter-counter-argument one notch less simple again, etc. Of course when I say e.g. "argument from evil" I am not suggesting that on hearing the words "argument from evil" a Christian should deconvert on the spot. I am suggesting that there are lines of argument, briefly alluded to by that term, for which at any given level of sophistication the atheist has the better case. I have not actually made any such argument here, and of course I do not expect anyone to be convinced by the mere mention of a family of arguments. Similarly for all the other things I mentioned. 3. I am well aware that there are varieties of Christian thinking that attempt to sidestep some of the arguments I mention -- e.g., denying that introducing God into your understanding of the world makes it more complex, because by definition God is supremely simple. For each such, though, (a) there are other varieties that don't attempt the sidestep, and further (b) disagreeing with something is not the same as failing to understand it.

Or perhaps none of that helps. Who knows? Anyway, I would be interested to know a few examples of things you believe I fail to understand about Christianity. I think it would be more productive to tell me here out in the open, but if you prefer to PM me then feel free.

(I was a Christian for -- depending on exactly how you count -- at least twenty years. I have held (minor) leadership roles in Christian organizations. I have a few shelves of theology books, maybe 90% of which I have read. My wife is still an active Christian. It is of course possibly that I completely fail to understand fundamental things about the religion that was central to my life for decades (either because I never did, or because abandoning the faith exposed me to some kind of demonic possession, or whatever) but I would suggest that you consider the possibilities (1) that you have arrived at your conclusion prematurely and/or (2) that you would consider that, say, 80% or more of serious Christians fail to understand important things about Christianity. Which, of course, might be true.)

[EDITED to clarify a sentence in which I inadvertently used the word "common" with two quite different meanings.]

Comment author: [deleted] 08 April 2015 10:50:46AM *  -1 points [-]

I take it "evangelic", as you're using it, is not identical to the fairly common term "evangelical" despite its obvious shared etymology? Evangelicalism as generally understood is hard to reconcile with calling the OT "old rubbish". I guess you're using it to mean something like "centred on the gospels".

Wikipedia Yes, it may be confusing but I tend to use words in their original meaning. It is good to check anyway, since english is not my native language.

I honestly do not know how you could possibly be justified in leaping to such a conclusion from what I have written here. I wonder whether you have perhaps misunderstood the nature of my response.

Perhaps I arrived prematurely at the conclusion, but as I said, I think you might have misunderstood, I didn´t say you actually had. If I mean to say that you are wrong, I say that you are wrong. Okey, so you only hint at stuff. Well that don´t help me, is that a more political azccurate term?

Anyway, I would be interested to know a few examples of things you believe I fail to understand about Christianity. I think it would be more productive to tell me here out in the open, but if you prefer to PM me then feel free.

Okey, I will point out the hings I saw as weird. 1. "Hardcore inerrantist fundamentalism: internal inconsistencies in the Bible." Why would a christian need to be a hardcore fundamentalist and interpret the whole Bible literal? You don´t interpret science fiction literal. I guess you mean that this only apply to SOME christians. 2. "the fact that Christians are not spectacularly better morally than everyone else." Well, this seems like an ambitious statement in my eyes. Compare all the countries with a cross in their flag with countries that don´t have it. Compare BNP and corruption, crime rate and wellfare etc etc. Now think about this: Why WOULD christians need to have higher moral? Where do you find that premise in the NT? It seems to me like that isn´t based in christian theology at all, but if you have 20 years experience as an active christian maybe you know something I don´t. 3. "Highly sophistimacated apophatic theology that refuses to say anything definite about God." Hah! Like we have been very successful at definitely defining the universe for hundreds of years of scientific struggle. Anyhow, here are something to consider; * The holy trinity * Jesus saying: I am the way and the life * The statement that Jesus is the son of God and God and all his teachings showing what he valued and who he was and how he acted, which is kind of the whole point of christianity. * First Epistle to the Corinthians, verse (?) 13

Now if we compare this with other religious teachings, I think we will find that we can see differences between the deities.

Comment author: gjm 08 April 2015 10:29:29PM 0 points [-]

Just a note: I see your comments in this thread are getting downvoted, but it's not by me.

Comment author: [deleted] 09 April 2015 05:57:57PM 0 points [-]

I know.

Comment author: gjm 09 April 2015 10:02:00PM 1 point [-]

Just out of curiosity: How? Has someone else been boasting of doing it?