Agnosticism, Atheism, Bible Study, Christianity, Culture, Faith, God, Religion

Frustration

Nate

Sigh…

So here’s what’s been going on lately. Most of you who read this blog already know that when my wife and I left Christianity, it wrecked most of our family relationships. My wife’s parents and siblings, as well as my own, felt that they could no longer interact with us socially after our deconversion. We were no longer invited to any family functions, and our communication with them all but disappeared. We would speak if it was about religious issues, or if there were logistic issues that needed to be worked out in letting them see our kids, etc.

Over the years, things have gotten a little better, especially with my wife’s parents. Things are by no means back to normal, but at least our infrequent interactions have become more civil and more comfortable. A few weeks ago, I even had a phone conversation with my father that lasted about half an hour and had no references to religion whatsoever. It was nice.

Nevertheless, the awkwardness is still there, just under the surface. And we’re still blacklisted from all the family functions.

Throughout this time, I’ve occasionally reached out to my side of the family with phone calls, letters, facebook messages, etc, in an effort to discuss the issues that divide us. I don’t get much response. I’ve always been puzzled by that, since I know they think I’m completely wrong. If their position is right, why aren’t they willing to discuss it?

In the last five years, I’ve also been sent books and articles and even been asked to speak to certain individuals, and I’ve complied with every request. Why not? How could more information hurt? But when I’ve suggested certain books to them, or written letters, they aren’t read. When I finally realized that my problems with Christianity weren’t going to be resolved, I wrote a 57-page paper to my family and close friends, explaining why I could no longer call myself a Christian. As far as I know, none of them ever read the whole thing. And sure, 57 pages is quite a commitment. But they say this is the most important subject in their lives…

This past week, the topic has started to come back around. A local church kicked off a new series on Monday entitled “Can We Believe the Bible?” It’s being led by an evangelist/professor/apologist that was kind enough to take time to correspond with me for several weeks in the summer of 2010. I’ve never met him in person, but a mutual friend connected us, since he was someone who was knowledgeable about the kinds of questions I was asking. Obviously, we didn’t wind up on the same page.

can we trust the bible?

My wife’s parents invited us to attend the series, but it happens to be at a time that I’m coaching my oldest daughter’s soccer team. So unless we get rained out at some point, there’s no way we can attend. However, we did tell them that if practice is ever cancelled, we’ll go. I also contacted the church and asked if the sermons (if that’s the right word?) will be recorded, and they said that they should be.

Monday night, the weather was fine, so we weren’t able to attend. And so far, the recording isn’t available on their website. However, they do have a recording of Sunday night’s service available, which is entitled “Question & Answer Night.” I just finished listening to it, and that’s where the bulk of my frustration comes from.

It’s essentially a prep for the series that kicked off Monday night. They’re discussing why such a study is important, as well as the kinds of things they plan to cover. What’s so frustrating to me is that I don’t understand the mindset of evangelists like this. I mean, they’ve studied enough to know what the major objections to fundamentalist Christianity are, yet they continue on as if there’s no problem. And when they do talk about atheists and skeptics, they misrepresent our position. I can’t tell if they honestly believe the version they’re peddling, or if they’re purposefully creating straw men.

A couple of times, they mentioned that one of the main reasons people reject the Bible comes down to a preconception that miracles are impossible. “And if you start from that position, then you’ll naturally reject the Bible.” But that’s a load of crap. Most atheists were once theists, so their starting position was one that believed in miracles.

They also mentioned that so many of these secular articles and documentaries “only show one side.” I thought my head was going to explode.

And they referred to the common complaints against the Bible as “the same tired old arguments that have been answered long ago.” It’s just so infuriating. If the congregants had any knowledge of the details of these “tired old arguments,” I doubt they’d unanimously find the “answers” satisfactory. But the danger with a series like this is that it almost works like a vaccination. The members of the congregation are sitting in a safe environment, listening to trusted “experts,” and they’re injected with a watered down strain of an argument. And it’s that watered down version that’s eradicated by the preacher’s message. So whenever the individual encounters the real thing, they think it’s already been dealt with, and the main point of the argument is completely lost on them.

For example, most Christians would be bothered to find out that the texts of the Bible are not as reliable as were always led to believe. Even a beloved story like the woman caught in adultery, where Jesus writes on the ground, we’ve discovered that it was not originally part of the gospel of John. It’s a later addition from some unknown author. To a Christian who’s never heard that before, it’s unthinkable! But if they’ve gone through classes where they’ve been told that skeptics exaggerate the textual issues in the Bible, and that the few changes or uncertainties deal with only very minor things, and that none of the changes affect any doctrinal points about the gospel, then it’s suddenly easier for them to swallow “minor” issues like the insertion of an entire story into the gospel narrative.

Sigh…

I’m going to either attend these sessions, or I’ll watch/listen to them once they’re available online. I may need to keep some blood pressure medication handy, though.

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Published by Nate

1,060 thoughts on “Frustration”

  4. Lots of interesting comments. My intuition tells me that trusting my intuition is a bad idea. What does that tell you?

    I always thought that supernatural referred to the involvement of invisible agents (Gods, Angels, Ghosts and such). The way Brandon is using the word makes it sound as if all unexplained phenomena should be considered supernatural.

    Why is Saul/Paul being considered as witness testimony for the claimed resurrection? He wasn’t even there. If we don’t have first hand testimony for a supposed miracle we can’t really perform any witness profiling.

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  5. Well brethren pray for us; it looks like Nate and I will be attending one of the meetings that inspired this post. Hopefully I won’t spontaneously combust when I darken those church doors. 😉

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  9. Yeah, I plan to wear a hardhat, unkleE. 😉

    We’ll chime in later and let you guys know how it goes. And if I could type better on a phone, I would even live blog it!

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  13. @Unklee

    Thanks for the links!

    I’ve browsed through them – not really reading them in-depth and they are similar to what I’ve read so far: Intuition good for decision making, not exactly finding out what is true or not.

    Hence, at least at current juncture, I believe my original assertion that intuition is good for decision while “truth” finding – e.g. asserting that say a property of certain matter, is best left via analytical methods.

    Who knows, maybe my conclusion will change after a second read of all the links you’ve given me.

    Thank you once again!

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  14. Dave’s comment was almost entirely what I was going to write. Thanks for doing the work for me Dave. 🙂

    @Josh – good to see you, hope you’re doing well.

    @Matt and Nate: have fun at the meeting. Hopefully the comradery will ease the frustration level for you.

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  15. “Intuition good for decision making, not exactly finding out what is true or not.”

    On my (admittedly limited) reading, that is broadly true, but there are two factors this doesn’t account for.

    1. Analytic thinking is good for finding out truth when there are clear definitions of truth and clear ways of verifying or falsifying that truth – e.g. in science and maths. But it isn’t so good when the truth is still truth, but is fuzzier and harder to determine (e.g. in personal relations or the initial stages of a new science), because analytic thinking wants to simplify down into known methods and that isn’t always possible. So (I think) in questions about God, analytic thinking is better for analysing philosophical arguments but intuitive thinking is better for pulling everything together to make an overall assessment. That is why everyone agrees we need both types of thinking. And criticising christians who use only intuitive thinking without seeing the problems in atheists who value only analytic thinking is short-sighted. And vice versa.

    2. If Jonathan Haidt is right, we all arrive at decisions about God intuitively, and then try to justify them analytically – which is even worse for atheism because atheists are even less understanding their actual decision processes than christians who value faith (which is closer to intuitive thinking). I don’t know how well accepted Haidt’s ideas are, but I think they are fairly mainstream. I recommend you, and others, read some of his stuff.

    Happy reading!

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  16. Hi Nate, thanks for replying, it’s really helpful because sometimes I don’t realize how I sound and can’t even express my own thoughts. 🙂

    “I feel like the bulk of your comment was only intended to muddy the waters.”
    It was not my intention, but I understand how it appears that way. My main intention was to start to delineate a conception of the supernatural then tie this into the resurrection, not as an argument but as. . . well I’ll try to explain in a second because it’s complicated. It’s overly-complicated.

    “I’ve never heard anyone give the definition of supernatural that you’re using.”
    I can see how this part would be confusing because colloquial usage of supernatural refers to imaginary or fictional things (vampires, werewolves, magic, dragons, etc.). Or Dave’s conception was that of invisible or immaterial. On the other hand, at least when I’ve heard it used, the philosophical notion of supernatural is simply that which transcends the natural, however this is defined and understood. We could also call it ‘unnatural’, or when it relates to existence, ‘metaphysical’. Whatever we label it, the important thing is that it differs from a colloquial meaning of supernatural because it is not automatically fictional. Even atheist philosophers contend with metaphysical issues and do not chalk them up to fiction.

    Gary was saying that besides the New Testament, we only have this inferior category of evidence he called “supernatural evidence”. I was suggesting, even though it was poorly communicated, that this notion is misled and that the metaphysical CAN be evidence in favor of Jesus’ resurrection. Think about it this way. If you claimed your brother rose from the dead and you are an eyewitness, I would investigate with a very high degree of suspicion and likely end up not trusting you. People have made these sorts of radical claims throughout history. Part of what makes Jesus different from this example is that he is connected to serious theistic philosophy. I need to elaborate more. . .

    So Gary wants to say that this connection to theistic philosophy (Jewish creational monotheism) carries no weight at all, it is “supernatural evidence” that we can dismiss. Let me give two reasons not to do this. First, I reconverted to Christianity because of the resurrection. So, I know that a centrally important issue was Jesus connection to a serious contending worldview of theism. It’s not just that Jesus was raised, it’s that this carries high theological significance in a background of what was already a seriously contending worldview to me at the time. The second reason is that what Gary referred to as “supernatural evidence” consists also of metaphysical problems that are also recognized by atheist philosophers. So, Gary is asking us to do what is impossible to do, to completely divorce consideration of testimony with that of theology, and what might even be irrational to do if we are to have an integrated worldview. Even an integrated naturalist worldview would consider the metaphysical questions and other data points.

    For instance, I cannot tell you to just suspend your consideration of textual problems with the New Testament and the problem of evil (or other significant issues to you) and make a judgment about the testimony for the resurrection. Not only is that probably impossible, but like I said in some sense irrational because it would put your worldview at risk of incoherence. I hope this is beginning to make sense.

    But, instead of cementing these ideas, I dabbled into other areas like philosophy of mind and then my interest in Gary’s thoughts on Paul. I was scatterbrained.

    “. . . there are certainly a number of indications that make it reasonable to conclude that the mind is the sum of brain activity.”
    I didn’t mean to argue against this notion. I think Christian theism is perfectly compatible with this up to a point. We don’t have to accept Descartes’s substance dualism to be Christians. One thing I did try to mention was there are metaphysical questions that do not comport well with the full on naturalist picture of the mind-brain.

    “I think the substance of [Gary’s] points were pretty good. While the religious experiences vary across religions, it would be hard to argue that Christian experiences are unique.”
    I agree they are good points, but I think they have only so much mileage. . .

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  17. @ Unklee,

    I would largely agree with you on both points. If one go by intuitive methods it is easy to believe in the existence of God.

    I guess my issue is I simply don’t trust my own intuition. Which is what set me off in my journey which land me in where I am today. I don’t trust my own intuition because I see so many other religious people trusting their intuition when it is clear from a Christian pov that they are misguided. Furthermore, the bible teaches that there are those whose ears are itching to hear what they want to hear, while the heart is deceitful. Hence, it seems to me that even the bible is against using intuition for discernment, or at least not just using intuition only.

    Since my disbelief, I’ve been reading much more on how the brain works, how illusion works and all the brain shortcuts that give us our senses – and how street magicians and even sales people exploit them to their advantage. All these lead me to go further against the use of intuition.

    Oh well, I guess we are simply on different camps with regards to this matter. Maybe my conclusion will change after more reading.

    Thank you!

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  18. Tonight was, well…frustrating for lack of better words. The speaker didn’t seem to be giving it much of a go and lacked any original material. Some of his ‘facts’ were misleading, some were flat wrong. Nate took notes he should have much more to say. I did learn a few things by my own googling during his sermon though, so there was a positive outcome from my perspective and it was great to hang out with an old friend.

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  19. Hi unklee

    apart from endorsing the comment from powellpowers, I would question whether Jonathan Haidt is correct. I was listening to some talks by Hector Avalos yesterday. He started as a Pentecostal Minister and wanted to learn more about his faith so started to study the Bible seriously. It was the study that caused him to conclude his faith was misguided. His path is quite common among people who have left Christianity, they had intuitively believed, but analytics eventually persuaded them that their intuitive feeling was wrong.

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  20. Hi Gary

    In regard to visions I used to puzzle why it was Catholics had visions of Mary whilst Protestants had visions of Jesus. Seemed to me God was acting in unexpected ways, perhaps aligning with the people’s understanding? Though as I reflect I wonder is this is a pointer to the visions being internally produced based on the subjects expectations.

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  22. Gary, I hope you don’t mind if I refer you to what I replied to Nate. I’m not trying to divert any issues. I am criticizing your separation of “supernatural evidence” from “nonsupernatural evidence”.

    Second, I agree we need to debate from within a common framework or as you say “reality”. Sure we ultimately have a different interpretation of reality, but that doesn’t mean we cannot have a debate within our common framework.

    Third, I don’t think anyone disputes your notion of evidence. What you are not seeing eye to eye with me on is that when someone commits to a Christian worldview, it is not simply a standalone consideration of “I feel this way” or “Because it says so”, rather it is based on a range of evidence and drives including philosophical, historical, experiential, social, psychological. It’s certainly not as simple as your cartoon of it.

    “The more educated people in western civilization are abandoning a worldview. . .”
    Pew (the research firm) just came out with a projection of the demographics of religion. Over the long run the “none’s” tend to stabilize as a percentage because their rates of conversion to religions, growth rate, birth rate, and death rate. Christianity and Islam will have major global gains over the next 50 years. I’m willing to bet the effect of education also has a limit and is nuanced if closely studied. Past studies of practicing scientists in the US show about 50% religious rate and most accomplished scientists claim 15% theism and 85% other. The causal relationship between education and religiosity is not well understood, and there are plenty of competing explanations for the facts at hand.

    On Paul. . .

    Your point one A. Even though Paul refers to his encounter as a “heavenly vision” this does not mean we can equate this with what we think of as a “vision” or visionary experience which is like a dream. If you are really willing to grant Acts as a credible source, you will have to deal with the fact that the author records Paul’s encounter three times and each time Paul’s companions have a physical experience of something happening. This means it could not have been all in his head as a dream. It had to be in reality.

    Point one B. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul recounts an early creed which lists certain witnesses and Paul places himself at the end of the list indicating that whatever they experienced, he also experienced. We know that hallucinations cannot be shared by many people if they are of the same content, so if these encounters really were of the same content, then it had to be in external reality. It could not be a hallucination or a dream.

    Point two. Again, Paul did not necessarily have what you think of as a “vision” all in his head. Consider also that Paul refers to himself with a special status as an apostle which literally means one sent by Christ but not close companions like Timothy. Paul states that Jesus sent him to preach the gospel in 1 Corinthians 1:17. Being “sent” like the other apostles implies an experience of a phenomenon in which someone actually sent him.

    Point three. True weird conversions happen. The significance of his conversion is that it is highly radical and not likely without some radical impetus. He was driven to terrorism meaning he must have vehemently disagreed with Christian faith and mission making the kind of conversion he had – devoting his life to being a missionary in spite of harsh persecution and trials – very unlikely. It’s like Osama bin Laden turning into Martin Luther King Jr. The question you must ask yourself is, what would cause him to do this? What hypothesis can you provide?

    Point four. If we take Acts seriously, Paul was appointed by Jesus. Otherwise, we know that whatever Paul said to Peter and the other apostles they seemed to have accepted him. Also, Paul seems to have felt a certain burden for the Gentiles, but this does not give him some sort of official title of being the one and only apostle to the Gentiles. Peter actually claimed to be an apostle to the Gentiles in Acts as well.

    Point five. I’m not sure what you are referring to about Paul being accused of lying so often. From New Testament studies we know there were many early “Christianities”. Not just one monolithic group. So, there were plenty of disputes about certain issues. Even Peter seems to have sided with the circumcision faction for a time until Paul rebuked him. And, there was an initial wave of Jesus missionaries from before the resurrection such as Apollos who had incomplete knowledge of the gospel. The picture we get is variegated and with many challenges as the world was enriched with religious ideas that are foreign to us today.

    Point six. Why should Paul recount the stories of Jesus’ life in his letters? Scroll space was limited and he was addressing very specific issues in his letters.

    Last point. There just isn’t any good evidence that Paul had any sort of mental illness. People have tried and it just doesn’t work. And, to say that he lied that whole time, he gave his whole life suffering stoning, beatings, shipwrecked, traveling the Roman Empire, poor, imprisoned many times, fighting false teachers, all for something he knew was false all along? That’s way low on the list of possibilities. If anything, we have good evidence that Paul sincerely believed what he said.

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  23. …and it was great to hang out with an old friend.

    Yes, it was! Thanks again for coming with me. 🙂 Made a huge difference. I’ve decided to write up a new post about how things went tonight. Should have it up soon…

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  24. Oh man,

    I’m getting envious of the bromance between Nate and Matt.

    Incidentally both my best mates (my best man for my wedding and the other my master of ceremonies) are Christians now, and it was actually me evangelizing to them during our early twenties. Funnily one of them attribute his first manifestation of holy spirit to me cuz he was totally vibrating when I laid my hands on him while praying (yes we were charismatic).

    I think the chance is slim but it will be great if we could hang out and chill like last time without mentioning religion. I’ve protested before – saying that I am interested in my friends’ lives and not their religion, only to be retorted that religion is their lives now. Fair enough I guess, and it is strange seeing them so pious. My hope is that their seriousness will eventually bring them to the same journey as I did, but I’m not holding my breath for it.

    Well, a guy can dream can’t he?

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  25. Thanks for all the elaboration, Brandon. I’m not going to address everything you’ve laid out tonight — I just don’t have time, I’m afraid. Hopefully I can get back to it soon.

    But Paul is someone I’ve thought about a lot, and I do have a few thoughts.

    As to his conversion, the accounts in Acts aren’t really related by Paul, but by the writer of Acts. That’s not news to you, I know. But it’s possible that the author of Acts is telling a version Paul wouldn’t agree with. After all, Paul’s version in Galatians 1 is sparse on details, he says that his immediate response was not to consult with any human being. This doesn’t necessarily contradict Acts 9 where it talks about Paul and Ananias… but it might. It’s hard to say. Paul’s epistles don’t relay the story of his conversion in any way that helps us verify the accounts in Acts. So it’s hard to say for sure that other people were witness to his vision, or whatever it was. And as Gary mentioned, Paul repeatedly insists he’s not lying about various things. This indicates that he either is lying, or that other people were telling false stories about him. Perhaps his conversion experience was one of them?

    As to what could cause him to change so abruptly and completely, I think it probably was some kind of conversion experience. I do think Paul was very sincere in his belief, and I don’t think he was crazy. He strikes me as someone who was very troubled by the spiritually lost. He was extremely zealous, so he obviously took his beliefs seriously. No doubt he was very angry at these Christians who were leaving the “truth” of Judaism for their blasphemy.

    But Paul also knew a number of Gentiles and was a Roman himself. And his epistles show how concerned he was with the “us vs. them” aspect of Judaism. When you personally know Greeks who are just as good and moral as the Jews you know, why does God view them differently?

    Whether he experienced heat stroke, exhaustion, or something else entirely, he came to think that this Jesus (whose followers he had been so focused on) appeared to him in a vision and had a mission for him. Paul was able to see that Christianity had the power to make his ideal of “neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free” a reality. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. It made sense to start viewing the Messiah, not as an earthly king, but as the head of a spiritual kingdom. And his death actually fit very well the symbol of sacrifice, and even called to mind the story of Abraham and Isaac.

    Anyway, to cut to the chase, I can see why Christianity would have become attractive to Paul. He was obviously a deep thinker and had lots of time to think about Christianity and how it related to Judaism and the surrounding Greek culture while he pursued them.

    Is that really how it all happened? I have no idea. But I find it more likely than believing that Jesus literally came back from the dead. Not that I think miracles are impossible, but it would take really good evidence to make me think the miraculous explanation is best.

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