An Apology For Apologists

[chefranden]

Antlerman,

I see absolutely no comparison between the Pharisees and anybody here (if that's what you were getting at).

 

Are you being deliberately stupid, or naturally stupid? It is hard to tell

 

AM was comparing the Ranting Jesus to people here. I.e. it can be Christ like to rant especially against religious nut balls like your self.

 

Your persecutors are a type of Christ. You are the Pharisee, get it? No? Well probably the Pharisees didn't either.

[Alice]

Chef,

 

this is possibly an aisde (although it is also linked I guess) but I've just followed the link in your sig line - what a flippin' brilliant article. It articulated many of the feelings I have about how to appraoch people with strong beliefs.

 

I watched a TV programme last night featuring Richard Dawkins challenging people about evolution - he really needs to read this article, he just went in, showing people the 'evidence' and showing no understanding whatsoever as to why people were reluctant to beleve and at every opportunity he hucked in comments like 'well you are ridiculous' as if this was going to help rather than inflame the situation.

 

He had a golden opportunity but instead used it to entrench people in their beliefs by arousing their protective defensiveness rather than respectfully engaging them in debate and demonstrating gently that their 'survival' would not be compromised. You'd think he would 'get' the importance of 'survival'!

 

Joanna ~ this might be an article that helped you understand where apologists are coming from?

[Neon Genesis]

Pitchu,

 

As long as you choose to equate life with never ending struggle you will always be struggling and never achieve full humanity.

If you want to play it like that, as long as you're more obsessed with faith than with love, then you missed the point of Jesus' teachings entirely and will never be fully Christian. Since you're more concerned with faith than with the greatest commandment that is love, then you're not fully Christian. See? I can play this game, too.

[gradstu09]

A "Christian" is not fully human

 

I don't know that I've actually heard it admitted before. Refreshing, if depressing.

[Antlerman]

Antlerman,

 

I'm not sure why the "Pharisees" were brought into this (I can only assume that you think I am making comparison to ex-christians or aetheists, CERTAINLY NOT!).

No, if you go back and re-read my question in the context of you saying to Pitchu that you feel people here left the Christian system because they were hurt emotionally by other Chrisitians, it should make sense. Here's the link http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?s=&a...st&p=392485

 

In that context, I asked you how much like Jesus railing against the Pharisees you thought we might or might not be like. Not how much like the Pharisees we are. How much like JESUS we are. I'll explain more in a moment.

 

My understanding is that they were ancient christianity (ancient televangelists, scholars/pastors, etc.) that misled 'the people' to become "twice a child of hell" (Matthew 23:15) as they themselves were. John The Baptist and Jesus characterized/called them a "Brood of Vipers" because they did this.

Not exactly, but close. They weren't ancient Christianity, they were Jews. How they handled their approach to their beliefs depleted those who followed them, created hypocrites, arrogant liars, self-righteous pigs who were anything but spiritual. They are the ones Jesus called blind leaders of the blind, and white-washed tombs all clean on the outside but full of dead men's bones on the inside.

 

So as you seem to recognize that modern Christianity - in particular its Evangelical/Fundamentalist flavors is the modern-day equivalent of the Pharisees, where they are all about doctrinal "rightness", political "rightness", external trappings of "rightness", etc, etc, etc, then my question to you again is how much like or unlike Jesus are we who rejected this world of the self-righteous and spiritually dead?

 

My point in bringing this up is to illustrate there are many reasons way beyond getting hurt by other Christians that we left the religion for. For me it's simple. They not only failed to live up to the promises they made, they actually worked hard against anyone who was looking for a deeper, more fulfilled life. Again, how much like Jesus would we be then for rejecting a religious institution like that?

 

Isn't there a verse that says be careful how you judge? Here's an interesting view for you. Couldn't you say that ExChristian is very much the same thing as early Christians in that they were ExJew? In fact, I've argued that early Christianity was very much the same as atheists are today. They were essentially the atheists of that day.

 

By the grace of God, we escaped these teachings (Christianity is the modern day Pharisees) because we were 'stubborn and pigheaded' (the world mocks what it resents) and insisted on retrieving our full humanity.

Those who were accused of being stubborn and pigheaded by Jesus were in fact the religious who thought they had it right, not those who rejected them. Christianity in its early day was simply one system to help people break away from the stifling world of the religious. But, as with any such reform movement, it succumbed to the masses turning it into a religion itself, and itself became the stifling world of a religion. So along comes other movements like Christianity had been, to save people from it, new ideas, new ways of looking at the world, new ways to understand the value and meaning of life.

 

Don't fool yourself into thinking that because people reject Christianity they are stiff-necked. On the contrary, it's my belief that most who reject it for these reasons will get to the proverbial heaven long before those who profess they are saved.

 

I see absolutely no comparison between the Pharisees and anybody here (if that's what you were getting at).

Neither do I. The comparison is between us rejecting Christianity, and Jesus rejecting the Pharisees. Do you see it now?

[Neon Genesis]

Isn't there a verse that says be careful how you judge? Here's an interesting view for you. Couldn't you say that ExChristian is very much the same thing as early Christians in that they were ExJew? In fact, I've argued that early Christianity was very much the same as atheists are today. They were essentially the atheists of that day.

It makes me wonder if Jesus would have been an atheist if he was born in our time. That reminds me of this article Richard Dawkins wrote, Atheists For Jesus: http://richarddawkins.net/article,20,Athei...Richard-Dawkins I don't always agree with everything Dawkins says, but I thought this was a pretty nice article from him.

[Alice]

Hey that was a timely article for me ~ I was in the midst of a Richard Dawkins grumble to the extent that I have just sent him an email about his wasted opprtunity on a TV programme that aired in the UK yesterday (in which I found his lack of empathy with people caught up in fundamentalism really depressing and his lack of insight into the impact of undermining the beliefs of children without thought as to where this will leave them in their communities really disconcerting)

 

and then he writes a mostly sensible article like that! (there are still points where his use of language would needlessly upset and exclude many people from being carried with the idea he is proposing)

 

You have to reach people where they are ...

[Antlerman]

Isn't there a verse that says be careful how you judge? Here's an interesting view for you. Couldn't you say that ExChristian is very much the same thing as early Christians in that they were ExJew? In fact, I've argued that early Christianity was very much the same as atheists are today. They were essentially the atheists of that day.

It makes me wonder if Jesus would have been an atheist if he was born in our time. That reminds me of this article Richard Dawkins wrote, Atheists For Jesus: http://richarddawkins.net/article,20,Athei...Richard-Dawkins I don't always agree with everything Dawkins says, but I thought this was a pretty nice article from him.

Interesting to see Dawkins talk like this as well, that he recognizes the aspect that Jesus was anti-religious institution, in a theistic context. I've said this for some time now. If you strip away the language in which he promotes his reforms against religion, if you look at what is said beneath the language of God, you see... here it comes.... Humanism! Jesus was an anti-establishment Hippie!

 

Now to Dawkins other points in that article, I'm impressed that he is allowing himself to recognize something beyond just the purely rational, and respect him trying to make it fit into the context of his world-view. If he keeps that up, he may not come across so damned anti-religious. I'm actually planning to crack open the lid into some of this in far greater depth over in my topic "Irrationalism" in the Spirituality Forum here. I just need some more time to focus on my newer thoughts, rather than just rehashing my old ones. I've been vacationing so it's hard to go deeper than this right now. Patience...

[Alice]

Antlerman,

 

you and your delicious trailers to up and coming posts ...

 

[Legion]

You have to reach people where they are ...

Alice

 

If Alice, Antlerman, and Neon liked this article then I'll have to read it.

[Antlerman]

Antlerman,

 

you and your delicious trailers to up and coming posts ...

 

It's just that I've been picking it up and setting it down over the last several days, and I know what I want to say but just can't get the focus time I need! It's new ground to some extent. Finally, going to talk about Ritual and why Protestant Christianity has become what it has; etc. So many thoughts, so many distractions keeping me from them.

[Alice]

Hey LR,

 

 

How ya' doin'?

 

(I wish I had read this article yesterday before I watched RD in action on the TV ~ If I'd been able to bring up an image of him smiling broadly in his 'atheists for Jesus' Tshirt, I might have been less irritated with him!)

 

More and more I see the 'problem' of society as fragmentation and the tendency for people to find social cohesion from seeing 'others' as the enemy. I'm toying with ways to bring people together - finding 'common ground' in any given situation and appreciating stretches of landscape that are alien or unfamiliar to us - rather than fearing what we don't understand.

[Antlerman]

More and more I see the 'problem' of society as fragmentation and the tendency for people to find social cohesion from seeing 'others' as the enemy. I'm toying with ways to bring people together - finding 'common ground' in any given situation and appreciating stretches of landscape that are alien or unfamiliar to us - rather than fearing what we don't understand.

Here's something interesting I came across last night on Youtube of John Dominic Crossan talking about Literalism and Fundamentalism (he's a very liberal Christian and one of the founders of the Jesus Seminar). What I liked is how he breaks down fundamentalism into 3 areas: Ideological, Rhetorical, and Physical fundamentalism. Why it pertains here is that it doesn't matter whether it's religious in nature. It seems to me that views, when held too tightly moves people towards dehumanizing others. That's the problem I have with religious talk, whether it's theistic or atheistic in nature.

[Legion]

How ya' doin'?

I’m doing just fine Alice. Thanks for asking. I hope you are doing well too.

 

More and more I see the 'problem' of society as fragmentation and the tendency for people to find social cohesion from seeing 'others' as the enemy. I'm toying with ways to bring people together - finding 'common ground' in any given situation and appreciating stretches of landscape that are alien or unfamiliar to us - rather than fearing what we don't understand.

I think this is astute and I agree that our current problem is as you describe it. I can’t pretend to understand social dynamics, but at least here in the States things seem to be cyclical in nature. I think we just happen to be in a time of maximum Yang, too little Yin. Things seem to be out of balance and I suspect that some few profit from having a fragmented society.

 

But I also suspect that balance always returns. And if you are looking for ways to bring people together then I think your task is a catalytic one. I think people may feel this fragmentation acutely. I know I do at times. We’ve erected all these means to separate ourselves from one another, and perhaps forgotten that at the end of the day we each share our humanity.

 

This is what I’ve always admired about you, Antlerman, Hans and others here. By and large you seem to be bridge builders. And I admire that.

[gradstu09]

More and more I see the 'problem' of society as fragmentation and the tendency for people to find social cohesion from seeing 'others' as the enemy. I'm toying with ways to bring people together - finding 'common ground' in any given situation and appreciating stretches of landscape that are alien or unfamiliar to us - rather than fearing what we don't understand.

 

It's great you mention this. I have read various opinions on whether the internet is bringing people together (helping ex-c's find each other for support, for example) or taking them apart (keeping people from interacting with their real life neighbors). Likewise the effects of suburbs/exurbs vs. small towns and city downtowns. How are we interacting with each other and what are the true consequences?

[Alice]

Thanks Antlerman ~ wow, that is really good to listen to ~ I like the distinction between literalism and fundamentalism.

 

I think literalism is something one can ascribe to that is horribly close to fundamentalism but that it takes an extra step to fall into fundamentalism. Raised as a literalist and surrounded by findamentalists I can remember struggling with that step because I was aware of how this would dehumanise peple and despite my crazy beliefs, the disconnect that stepping into fundamentalism big time would have involved was something I continually struggled against.

 

I have this worry that people on the brink of fundamentalism are driven in the wrong direction by negative experiences of being ridiculed and excluded by others. If I was still a christian I would say I have 'a heart for those in these situations'. I see the same kind of thing with people who are socially excluded for other reasons, who feel threatened and cornered and their world perspective and ensuring this becoes the prevailing system suddenly becomes all important ...

[Alice]

Hey LR,

 

I am fine ~ just had a really interesting few days on leave ~ went off to a Hippy retreat and spent time with 'professional story teller', fulfilling some of my appetite for stories and examining the power of narrative ...

 

And if you are looking for ways to bring people together then I think your task is a catalytic one. I think people may feel this fragmentation acutely. I know I do at times. We’ve erected all these means to separate ourselves from one another, and perhaps forgotten that at the end of the day we each share our humanity.

 

This is what I’ve always admired about you, Antlerman, Hans and others here. By and large you seem to be bridge builders. And I admire that.

 

that is really nice to hear. I had a birthday party at the weekend and decided to mainly invite people who did not know each other ~ one of my friends thought I was mad to do this, but it turned out really well and was a great experience seeing people from all kinds of different backgrounds meet in my home ... the best gift was that afterwards several people commented that they had had prejudices challenged, as if 'I'd always been a bit hesitant about x or y types but he/she was really great/really interesting'

 

Some people who met for the first time even arranged to meet up again without me!

[Alice]

More and more I see the 'problem' of society as fragmentation and the tendency for people to find social cohesion from seeing 'others' as the enemy. I'm toying with ways to bring people together - finding 'common ground' in any given situation and appreciating stretches of landscape that are alien or unfamiliar to us - rather than fearing what we don't understand.

 

It's great you mention this. I have read various opinions on whether the internet is bringing people together (helping ex-c's find each other for support, for example) or taking them apart (keeping people from interacting with their real life neighbors). Likewise the effects of suburbs/exurbs vs. small towns and city downtowns. How are we interacting with each other and what are the true consequences?

 

I think this is another one of balance,

 

I know I have to remind myself to get off the net from time to time and communicate with people I can physically touch!

 

I do not know how I would have coped without the net 'though, during my deconversion ~ I feel like the net has enabled me to go on journeys that usually involve lots of travel ~ the net can be horizon widening if one os open to what is out there and persepctive narrowing if that is what someone is looking for.

 

A town that contained the variety of insight and knowledge and experience of the members of this site would be quite a place to live!

[Alice]

just another link to an article about Richard Dawkins, that I've found to be agood read and sort of softenedmy view a little. I guess there is a lesson here about forming views based on small snap shots ...

 

I feel like he is improving the more I find out about him ... isn't that so often the case ..

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2003/feb/1...ighereducation1

[RevOxley_501]

Been There Done That -- As one who is also interested in translations and linguistics, I would say that your posts remind me of a well-intentioned tourist, who, with guide book in hand, goes to a foreign country, stands on the corner of a busy thoroughfare, and immediately begins to read their page of set phrases at the locals. When they shrug and scratch their heads at the tourist's attempts to speak their language, the tourist decides to try another approach, and speaks LOUDER, with EMPHASIS.

 

 

i nominate this for best analogy ever

[chefranden]

You'd think he would 'get' the importance of 'survival'!

 

Yes you would think so. The flaw I see in Dawkins is the assumption that logical reasoning is the primary brain/thinking function. If it were there would be no need to study critical thinking and logic in school. People would more or less know how to do it, and use it first for decision making.

 

After a couple of months in Vietnam, I often found myself prepared for battle without knowing what set me on that course. I secured my weapon and took cover without conscious thought that I should do so, and so did my comrades. My brain didn't take time to decide that this or that sound, movement or smell was bad or good. My brain just assumed that it was bad and acted accordingly. A good many of these alerts were false alarms, but my brain had learned that it was best get ready and then think about it.

 

I think that reasoning is a sub-function of thinking that is almost always a secondary response. I say almost always because people can be trained to use it first, but only below a certain emotional threshold. When it comes to a fight between strong emotion and logic, emotion wins every time. That is just the way the brain works.

[Guest end3]

Antlerman,

 

you and your delicious trailers to up and coming posts ...

 

It's just that I've been picking it up and setting it down over the last several days, and I know what I want to say but just can't get the focus time I need! It's new ground to some extent. Finally, going to talk about Ritual and why Protestant Christianity has become what it has; etc. So many thoughts, so many distractions keeping me from them.

 

 

AM,

 

If you need help with the sentence structure, I am here for you.

[been there done that]

Hello Antlerman,

Sorry for not responding earlier, very often it takes me time to reply because of work.

 

I don't understand how it came across that I believe or feel that "people here left the Christian system because they were hurt emotionally by other Chrisitians". I was under the impression that it was very clear that I realize the reason people left christianity is that their heart was not satisfied by a simple 'allegiance' based on gestures and protocol (conforming in thought and deed, PARTISAN).

 

God does wish that we reject the world system and find it's ways grevious (be sad, "poor in spirit", Matthew 5:3, present heaven) to us,...but the "christian" system/teaching makes it virtually impossible for anyone to care about God's LIKES AND DISLIKES. Caring about "likes and dislikes" instead of recieving everything God says as 'commands' is what love is made of. That's why mammon christianity doesn't have the ability to understand that the world system should be rejected (because they don't care about God's likes and dislikes, only "commands").

 

A wise man once said...Ecclesiastes 2:17

"So, I hated life, because what is done under the sun is grevious to me"

 

John 12:25

"he who hates his life in this world..."

 

I don't believe that anyone who left/escaped christianity is shallow enough to have been inspired by the "hurt" caused by a person, but was inspired to leave because the feeble "world system" could not compare to the dream in their heart. By God's "varied grace" (1 Peter 4:10), you had the wisdom to leave/reject the world system/666/modern day Pharisees.

------------------------------------------------------

 

 

It is thought by some here that I should "RESPECTFULLY debate" (meaning that I should RETURN all of the respect that I get from name calling, etc.). Where is the logic?

 

Poetic justice means that 'as you do unto others, you are also doing unto yourself" (meaning that...at the same time that you are disrespecting other people, your conscience knows that you are being unjust, self imposed shame). This is when a person will see their natural face in the "mirror"...James 1:23.

 

So, of course, most people would like to blame ME for not treating them like a primadonna and "respectfully" debating and replying to being called "jackass", etc., but in civilization, it is completely unreasonable to expect anyone to be accommodating after being addressed in such a manner.

[Dhampir]

You'd think he would 'get' the importance of 'survival'!

 

Yes you would think so. The flaw I see in Dawkins is the assumption that logical reasoning is the primary brain/thinking function. If it were there would be no need to study critical thinking and logic in school. People would more or less know how to do it, and use it first for decision making.

 

After a couple of months in Vietnam, I often found myself prepared for battle without knowing what set me on that course. I secured my weapon and took cover without conscious thought that I should do so, and so did my comrades. My brain didn't take time to decide that this or that sound, movement or smell was bad or good. My brain just assumed that it was bad and acted accordingly. A good many of these alerts were false alarms, but my brain had learned that it was best get ready and then think about it.

 

I think that reasoning is a sub-function of thinking that is almost always a secondary response. I say almost always because people can be trained to use it first, but only below a certain emotional threshold. When it comes to a fight between strong emotion and logic, emotion wins every time. That is just the way the brain works.

Yes, I've long thought that humans are just as ruled by instinct as other animals.

[Antlerman]

Hello Antlerman,

Sorry for not responding earlier, very often it takes me time to reply because of work.

 

I don't understand how it came across that I believe or feel that "people here left the Christian system because they were hurt emotionally by other Chrisitians". I was under the impression that it was very clear that I realize the reason people left christianity is that their heart was not satisfied by a simple 'allegiance' based on gestures and protocol (conforming in thought and deed, PARTISAN).

I appear to have made the mistake. I recall now when you first came here you praised us for leaving the Christian system. So my comparison I brought up, though not intentionally, was appropriate. You in fact do see us as Jesus rejecting the Pharisees.

 

The point I had hoped to get to before with you before you angered one of our mods and he handed you a short break, was to ask if you can see it as possible that what you call God is in fact being served by those who reject that name? In other words, the fruits are what is important to "God", not that humans stroke "Him" with praise and adulation? If so, then shouldn't the emphasis being on people living a good life, good to themselves and others, and not get hung up on issues of "right ways of believing"?

 

It is thought by some here that I should "RESPECTFULLY debate" (meaning that I should RETURN all of the respect that I get from name calling, etc.). Where is the logic?

 

Poetic justice means that 'as you do unto others, you are also doing unto yourself" (meaning that...at the same time that you are disrespecting other people, your conscience knows that you are being unjust, self imposed shame). This is when a person will see their natural face in the "mirror"...James 1:23.

 

So, of course, most people would like to blame ME for not treating them like a primadonna and "respectfully" debating and replying to being called "jackass", etc., but in civilization, it is completely unreasonable to expect anyone to be accommodating after being addressed in such a manner.

Doing "unto others as you would have them do unto you", is exactly the advice I offered you before and hope you hear now. I can find plenty of Biblical verses to support the idea of "turning the other cheek", when you feel you've been wronged. "A soft word turns away wrath", etc. What I said before is that even if someone wrongly attacks you, how YOU respond is entirely your responsibility, and the consequences of that response are at this least partially yours too. Not everyone will understand your intentions, and it's up to you to not escalate things further. When you call someone a "dog" because you've been upset by them, that is NOT going to help. These are Biblical principles if it helps you internalize them.