What does he deserve? — frank
So, now your turn - Do you have an answer for your own question? I kind of doubt you have an answer. What does that suggest? — Banno
What does he deserve? — frank
What? Is there a purpose to this digression? — Banno
But there’s also the question of what he gets — if he genuinely seeks forgiveness from God, he’ll get it. — Srap Tasmaner
The argument here is that religious belief is more make-believe than factual belief.
factual beliefs are practical setting independent, cognitively govern other attitudes, and are evidentially vulnerable. By way of contrast, religious credences have perceived normative orientation, are susceptible to free elaboration, and are vulnerable to special authority. This theory provides a framework for future research in the epistemology and psychology of religious credence — Banno
Can I ask why? Why would you search for existential meaning? Why there? The book opens with a vengeful God putting babies to the sword, advocating the stoning to death of just about anyone who has sex without his say so, demanding sacrifices etc. — Isaac
Can I ask why? Why would you search for existential meaning? Why there? The book opens with a vengeful God putting babies to the sword, advocating the stoning to death of just about anyone who has sex without his say so, demanding sacrifices etc. What is it, after reading all that, that makes you think "I bet there'll be some great existential nuggets in here, if only I can get past all the blatant misogyny and homophobia and see the bigger picture"?
There's a great 'big picture' message in the Lord of the Rings too, but very few babies being put to the sword by the main protagonist - and it's got fight scenes. — Isaac
Or he might hang out in Purgatory until his relatives pay the priest an indulgence. — frank
Taking that back to the OP, the upshot is that religious belief is categorically distinct from factual belief. The result is that belief in eternal damnation is not a factual belief so much as an imaginative act. As such belief in hell does not appeal or respond to truth or evidence. — Banno
religious belief is categorically distinct from factual belief. — Banno
Christian doctrine has no particular urgency for me, but how real Christians live does — they’re people, after all, and fellow citizens, and quite likely my political enemies. I think that might explain why I’ve approached this discussion as I have. — Srap Tasmaner
Why is the former more likely? — Seppo
parsimony again, if I can explain their behaviour with beliefs we could share, rather than incommensurable ones, I'll do so — Isaac
It strikes me as equally plausible that either they accept the doctrine that one is justified by faith (and so belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ is sufficient for salvation regardless of what evils one has engaged in, including child abuse) and so they don't believe they are risking eternal punishment by engaging in child abuse/rape — Seppo
...or that their decision to engage in child abuse simply isn't a rational one involving any calculation of the relevant risks (either of legal repercussions, or eternal punishment) at all. — Seppo
there certainly appear to be plenty of Christians who do behave as if they genuinely believe that unbelief can/will result in eternal punishment, going to great lengths to try to convert friends and loved ones and displaying apparently genuine concern over the fate of non-believer's eternal souls. — Seppo
What role do you think cognitive dissonance plays in all this? I think maybe you've missed a fourth option that the expressed beliefs are put by the wayside contextually, no matter how hard one's current conduct contradicts the suppressed belief. I don't think there's anything about belief that requires such a contradiction to be felt without also feeling the connection between one's horrible actions and one's noble beliefs - suppressing the connection between the two seems precisely a form of dissonance. — fdrake
This theory explains why religious belief is inured to rational discourse.
Your mooted paedophilic priest (as if that would ever happen) keeps his religious beliefs and his beliefs about little boys in different boxes in his mind. — Banno
This is one of those things that you can’t understand without having done it or being around those who encourage you to do so. — Ennui Elucidator
It is sort of like your description of the book; within one sentence you get the contents of the book entirely wrong — Ennui Elucidator
Maybe if the people summing up the book said things to you like, “It is a text with which our fathers and our fathers’ fathers and our fathers’ fathers’ fathers have engaged with for generations in order to make sense of their existence and their meaning/role in the world. Within its pages, countless people, learned, wise, and daft alike, have found wisdom. Sit awhile and read. Consider what others have written and said about it. See the ways in which our people are both great and detestable, the ways in which individuals and communities act to create a place in the world even as they are fallible. What matters in these stories is not whether they happened, but that those who came before you thought them worthy of attention and passing on to the next generation.” you would be more sympathetic to those who engage with it. — Ennui Elucidator
We can take any book and use it as our material for meaning making. Perhaps you prefer book Z over book X. Will they both have you think about the same things in the same ways? Probably not. Is there some categorical way to say that X is better than Z for purpose W? Probably not. — Ennui Elucidator
It is dissimilar from other books of the same length precisely because it is not a single narrative or a single authorial voice. — Ennui Elucidator
Furthermore, the book explicitly engages with the sorts of questions that we generally consider have existential import - how to live the good life, how to make community, why we are born and why we die. — Ennui Elucidator
if you want to talk about it or the people that use it in their meaning making, I suggest that you try a bit more charity and little less cynicism. — Ennui Elucidator
Initially, let's disabuse ourselves of the notion that ancient religion typically stoned people, at least not for the past 2000 years. If you want to use the biblical accounts as evidence that the stoning actually occurred, you would be taking a literalist approach to the OT and would be accepting is historicity. To prove the actual existence of stoning, you need a real historical source, not the OT. — Hanover
my initial question back to you would be why do you seek meaning in my behavior unless you're assuming meaning matters. — Hanover
I look to the bible for meaning because there is a rich tradition over the millennia of scholars using it as a means to derive meaning and purpose. — Hanover
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the book opens with God putting babies to the sword. That's not how it opens. — Hanover
In any event, you are not limited to using the Bible to search for meaning. — Hanover
When I was a kid, we used to pray for the souls in purgatory. Have they brought back indulgences? — Srap Tasmaner
I quoted directly from the book. It's in English, right? — Isaac
I quoted directly from the book. It's in English, right? — Isaac
No you didn’t and it’s not in English, but translation will suffice. — Ennui Elucidator
Read the first story and show me the babies put to the sword. — Ennui Elucidator
Or the second or the third or the fourth or the…. You get my point. — Ennui Elucidator
Why? Or more accurately, why specifically? Do you think your responses are being charitable to those here who believe Christianity is a misogynist, homophobic crock of shit? I don't think so (nor do I particularly expect them to). It's more of the special pleading we saw earlier - Christianity ought to be properly understood before engaging with it. I'm a psychologist (academic, not clinical). I have theories about things like beliefs, perception and the role of social narratives (my general fields). Should I demand the same from anyone engaging in those areas on these threads? That they should all thoroughly read my papers and books before engaging (and when doing so read all my critics and supporters analysis to make sure they've understood it right)? That, further, they should all attend a few of my lectures, really engage in my belief system, perhaps work for a while in my research team, get a feel for what it's like to believe what I believe about the role of social narratives in belief formation. Then, and only then, can they comment on what I say I believe about it? — Isaac
Taking that back to the OP, the upshot is that religious belief is categorically distinct from factual belief. The result is that belief in eternal damnation is not a factual belief so much as an imaginative act. As such belief in hell does not appeal or respond to truth or evidence. — Banno
But one narrative among many, yes? — Isaac
When people want to feel part of a group, want to find some meaning to the whole charity, forgiveness, compassion thing...do we want them reaching for Christianity as their story (the one with all the misogyny, homophobia and abuse in it too), or would we rather they reach for something a little less fraught? — Isaac
The book opens with a vengeful God putting babies to the sword, advocating the stoning to death of just about anyone who has sex without his say so, demanding sacrifices etc. — Isaac
It was a rhetorical device, I just mean it's quite early on in the book, Hosea I believe. — Isaac
I'm no bible scholar. If my quotes are inaccurate I'm happy to be corrected. — Isaac
Not really, no. These things are in the bible - or at east the version I'm looking at — Isaac
If I'm asking anything of Christians it's that they take part in the usual social game of post hoc rationalisation that everyone else plays. — Isaac
Christians, or anyone else, have to justify themselves to whatever extent the situation requires. If you put up a sign and say, "I only admire people that don't admire an evil god," and a Christian walks over to your table and says, "I want you to admire me, but I worship an evil god," then the Christian is obliged to justify themselves as qualifying under your criteria. — Ennui Elucidator
People operate in a social sphere and are subject to all of the same conditions as anyone else. When discussing social interactions and the negotiation of power, justification is a basic means by which one person attempts to accomplish their purpose. You can't just exempt yourself from justification to another because you think some claim of yours is sacrosanct - the other person dictates the rules for what is required for them to cooperate.
Discussing your own personal conduct (which is what both Lewis and Banno do) is not the same as establishing what governments can or should do. A "human right" to religion is a claim made against states, not individuals.
You are capable of acting and making moral judgments independent of the state and in opposition to that state, be it secular or not.
It would be great if you could talk about your judgment rather than hypothesizing about the judgment of some nondescript moral agent cum state actor.
Maybe that second question is somewhat out of the scope here. But to me, the answer is exactly what Lewis is driving at, because I'd hazard the answer would be "well that's obviously allegorical because if it wasn't, it'd be awful" — Isaac
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