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Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W:68]

What exactly is the point of your post?

To call out nonsense. You made assertions about religion as a whole that applied only to a small regional sect of one world religion. It was nonsense and I usually call out nonsense when I see it.


Well...ok...maybe not "usually", but at least sometimes.
 
What is untenable is your position; you've made a conclusion that the Christian faith is groundless, yet no one can disprove that God exists.

Of course, it isn't the Christian God that exists. This whole divergence into the whole Jesus thing and 'Salvation' is displeasing to God.
 
A created Universe makes way more sense than a suppose randomly created one. it takes way more faith to believe in a randomly generated universe than a organized created one.
they are also finding out that the universe is not the chaotic random place but a well organized system that operates in a set of laws and guidelines.

not the random chaos that it that they think it is.

That is the mantra I keep on hearing. I don't see any evidence provided that this is more than unsupported claims that use emotionalism , rather than fact.

How can you show that to be true, rather than just a statement 'because I said so'?
 
I suspect that the reasons are rooted in human behavior and more specifically human desire to know, or as the case may be, to avoid coming to the conclusion that we in many cases don't know.

For some a bad explanation is better than no explanation at all.

Christianity offers answers to questions that for some need to be answered. Christianity offers an extremely attractive social network made of of like minded people who "witness" to one another and provide answers to questions that in many cases aren't know and in some cases, probably cant be known. Faith, especially deep devout faith among a large group of people leads to a powerful group mentality. To reject or even to seriously question a formally held religious belief is tantamount to social and spiritual suicide. To mentally tether yourself to an idea founded entirely on faith can be a terrible traumatic link to break. Many maintain the illusion simply to avoid the mental and social consequences that denial brings.

I don't condone religion, but I understand the social and physiological draw.

The irony, and I'm as guilty as anyone, is that the more we try to convince the devout believer that they are wrong, the more deeply they retreat into their belief system. After all, if they are wrong, why do we care so much? They conclude that our violent aversion must be because we fear they are right only re-enforcing the notion that they must be right.

In the end I suspect that LM's of this message board are few and far between, though their influence (in the big picture) is much greater than the number of people they represent. The weakness of mainstream everyday Christianity, the kind that accepts evolution, don't concern itself with the lives of homosexuals (on a purely religious basis) and isn't the least bit interested in having their ideas about god taught in schools has little or any grounds to stand on to reject the more radical forms of Christianity. After all, if you can concede something can be known by faith (without evidence), then anything can be known without evidence.

Can this cycle be broken? Can society value evidence and still hold religious ideals? I suspect the problem lay in the idea that spiritual is a religious term. People want to feel and identify with spiritual feelings but fear that letting go or religion means letting go of spirituality, I think this not be the case.

I'm devout. At least I think so. I believe in God and Jesus. I have as long as I remember and I always will. And there is not any amount of evidence that will convince me otherwise. BUT I value evidence. Just not where it regards my faith. I have no need of evidence there. I recognize my faith is not logical or based on reason.
 
I'm devout. At least I think so. I believe in God and Jesus. I have as long as I remember and I always will. And there is not any amount of evidence that will convince me otherwise. BUT I value evidence. Just not where it regards my faith. I have no need of evidence there. I recognize my faith is not logical or based on reason.

That gives you a leg up on the people who try to defend their faith with logic and reason. You at least know it is not based on logic and reason. As long as you don't use your faith to impose things on me, and society as a whole, I don't see anything wrong with that.
 
I'm devout. At least I think so. I believe in God and Jesus. I have as long as I remember and I always will. And there is not any amount of evidence that will convince me otherwise. BUT I value evidence. Just not where it regards my faith. I have no need of evidence there. I recognize my faith is not logical or based on reason.

How do you determine where faith ends and evidence begins?
 
Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

That gives you a leg up on the people who try to defend their faith with logic and reason. You at least know it is not based on logic and reason. As long as you don't use your faith to impose things on me, and society as a whole, I don't see anything wrong with that.

I don't. As long as you don't use your lack or faith to mock or impose anything on me ;) we have freedom of religion. Not freedom from religion. Atheism is covered as a "religious" option. So I have freedom to be an atheist. Or to not be. But I don't have a right to not be exposed to you.
 
Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

How do you determine where faith ends and evidence begins?

Same as you. Faith is for religion. Evidence for everything else. Science and religion are not mutually exclusive ya know. I can be religious and accept science.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

First, if you are as you say, then I appreciate your honesty. Second, I believe that religious people can accept science. The problem comes where religion ends and science starts. What happens if life is discovered on another world? Does that conflict with Christian teaching? What if we were to figure out how to create life from non-life? Will it all just be explained away?

It just seems that when people claim that no amount of evidence will change their faith, then what do you do when matters of science conflict with religion?
 
Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

First, if you are as you say, then I appreciate your honesty. Second, I believe that religious people can accept science. The problem comes where religion ends and science starts. What happens if life is discovered on another world? Does that conflict with Christian teaching? What if we were to figure out how to create life from non-life? Will it all just be explained away?

It just seems that when people claim that no amount of evidence will change their faith, then what do you do when matters of science conflict with religion?

Unless you can find some kind of equation for God...I doubt it will matter. None of the conflicts with my faith. At all. I have faith in God. And nothing can change that. No person. No discovery. It is between me and god. It is my faith. And My faith is unbreakable.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

Unless you can find some kind of equation for God...I doubt it will matter. None of the conflicts with my faith. At all. I have faith in God. And nothing can change that. No person. No discovery. It is between me and god. It is my faith. And My faith is unbreakable.

Well then the obvious question is, at the risk of derailing what seems to have become a stake thread anyway, what is you're faith? What kinds of things does you're faith tell you that you can't learn from evidence alone?
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

First, if you are as you say, then I appreciate your honesty. Second, I believe that religious people can accept science. The problem comes where religion ends and science starts. What happens if life is discovered on another world? Does that conflict with Christian teaching? What if we were to figure out how to create life from non-life? Will it all just be explained away?

It just seems that when people claim that no amount of evidence will change their faith, then what do you do when matters of science conflict with religion?


How do you determine where faith ends and evidence begins?

We've been over this already. I'm not sure why you still don't get it. I'll try again in a different way.

Let us pretend that we live in the world you made up. The one where Christians have always claimed that the world was created in 6 days 3,000 years ago up until science proved otherwise. Such a world is fictional. We know from the historical record that this is not what happened and Christians have always viewed the creation account allegorically. But let us transport ourselves into that fictional world for a moment.

Most Christians, as with most people, are foundationalists. That is to say that they choose foundationalism, the belief that there are "self-evident" or "properly basic" beliefs that require no further epistemic justification, as the way out of the regress problem and Munchausen's Trilemma. This is the same belief you, and most others hold. Most people accept on faith alone: that their own perception is at least marginally reliable, that the world is rational (adheres to the rule of non-contradiction, etc.) (a belief now on the ropes thanks to quantum physics), that it is possible to know some things, etc... While atheists may have some properly basic beliefs that Christians do not (beliefs in scientism, evidentialism, positivism, etc.), Christians basically have one single belief that differentiates them from Atheists, a belief in God.

Everything else a Christian believes is a consequent belief (unless it is, again, another properly basic belief that they believe just like every non-Christian does). For example, a Christian holds the properly basic belief that there is a God, but the conception of who this God is and what he is like is not a basic belief, it is the result of applying the study of scriptures, history, reason, human intuition, etc.

Now, let's put ourselves back into that fantasy world for a moment. Let us pretend that science came along and disproved the 6 day creation narrative Christians used to believe. Seeing as creation is not a foundational belief, but a consequent one, Christians who react rationally should determine that their belief in a 6 day creation was incorrect. Given the new evidence, they should accept the new narrative and re-evaluate those things that led them to the flawed conclusion. This may lead them to re-evaluate the way they read or interpret the bible, what they believe about what the bible is, etc. They should also re-evaluate all consequent beliefs that relied on that belief in 6 day creation which they now know to be wrong (taking a second look at "original sin" for example).

That is the rational and proper way to react to new evidence. Yet, you seem to have a problem with it. You seem to want Christians to abandon their properly basic belief whenever any consequent belief is proven wrong. This would be akin to demanding that scientists cease believing in science because a conclusion scientists had come to was incorrect. That's not a rational response. A rational response is to go back and figure out what went wrong and adjust your consequent beliefs accordingly, not to discard your basic beliefs. You don't just go "well, the Bohr model of the atom was proven wrong, so let's go ahead and discard our belief in rationality which led us to this wrong conclusion". That's just ridiculous.

It seems that what you see as a problem (Christians adjusting their world view given new evidence) is not a problem at all, but rather the most rational way to shape your world view, and one which we all (except, apparently, you) accept as the most reasonable.
 
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Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

We've been over this already. I'm not sure why you still don't get it. I'll try again in a different way.

Let us pretend that we live in the world you made up. The one where Christians have always claimed that the world was created in 6 days 3,000 years ago up until science proved otherwise. Such a world is fictional. We know from the historical record that this is not what happened and Christians have always viewed the creation account allegorically. But let us transport ourselves into that fictional world for a moment.

Most Christians, as with most people, are foundationalists. That is to say that they choose foundationalism, the belief that there are "self-evident" or "properly basic" beliefs that require no further epistemic justification, as the way out of the regress problem and Munchausen's Trilemma. This is the same belief you, and most others hold. Most people accept on faith alone: that their own perception is at least marginally reliable, that the world is rational (adheres to the rule of non-contradiction, etc.) (a belief now on the ropes thanks to quantum physics), that it is possible to know some things, etc... While atheists may have some properly basic beliefs that Christians do not (beliefs in scientism, evidentialism, positivism, etc.), Christians basically have one single belief that differentiates them from Atheists, a belief in God.

Everything else a Christian believes is a consequent belief (unless it is, again, another properly basic belief that they believe just like every non-Christian does). For example, a Christian holds the properly basic belief that there is a God, but the conception of who this God is and what he is like is not a basic belief, it is the result of applying the study of scriptures, history, reason, human intuition, etc.

Now, let's put ourselves back into that fantasy world for a moment. Let us pretend that science came along and disproved the 6 day creation narrative Christians used to believe. Seeing as creation is not a foundational belief, but a consequent one, Christians who react rationally should determine that their belief in a 6 day creation was incorrect. Given the new evidence, they should accept the new narrative and re-evaluate those things that led them to the flawed conclusion. This may lead them to re-evaluate the way they read or interpret the bible, what they believe about what the bible is, etc. They should also re-evaluate all consequent beliefs that relied on that belief in 6 day creation which they now know to be wrong (taking a second look at "original sin" for example).

That is the rational and proper way to react to new evidence. Yet, you seem to have a problem with it. You seem to want Christians to abandon their properly basic belief whenever any consequent belief is proven wrong. This would be akin to demanding that scientists cease believing in science because a conclusion scientists had come to was incorrect. That's not a rational response. A rational response is to go back and figure out what went wrong and adjust your consequent beliefs accordingly, not to discard your basic beliefs. You don't just go "well, the Bohr model of the atom was proven wrong, so let's go ahead and discard our belief in rationality which led us to this wrong conclusion". That's just ridiculous.

It seems that what you see as a problem (Christians adjusting their world view given new evidence) is not a problem at all, but rather the most rational way to shape your world view, and one which we all (except, apparently, you) accept as the most reasonable.

You don't speak for all Christians. While you might not take the bible as the literal, word-for-word truth, most American Christians do.
Most Americans take Bible stories literally - Washington Times

I know that you wish this weren't the case, but it unfortunately is. Why don't we try to think of some solutions together as neither of us like seeing that level of ignorance.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

You don't speak for all Christians. While you might not take the bible as the literal, word-for-word truth, most American Christians do.
Most Americans take Bible stories literally - Washington Times

I know that you wish this weren't the case, but it unfortunately is. Why don't we try to think of some solutions together as neither of us like seeing that level of ignorance.
I would say most Christians haven't read the bible. They just go along with what they are told by people that know better.

Nobody could possibly believe it word for word. It contradicts itself in many instances.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

I would say most Christians haven't read the bible. They just go along with what they are told by people that know better.

Nobody could possibly believe it word for word. It contradicts itself in many instances.

You really underestimate the (dis)ability of some people.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

You really underestimate the (dis)ability of some people.

There is the ability to ignore reality and pretend that contradictory literature is 100% accurate, but the ability to make it accurate doesn't.

It's like the knobs that think the world is 6000 years old, it's all either Satan manipulating reality or its individuals manipulating reality. Either way, some smoke and mirrors is necessary to buy this stuff.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

There is the ability to ignore reality and pretend that contradictory literature is 100% accurate, but the ability to make it accurate doesn't.

It's like the knobs that think the world is 6000 years old, it's all either Satan manipulating reality or its individuals manipulating reality. Either way, some smoke and mirrors is necessary to buy this stuff.

Man's capacity for self delusion is almost limitless
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

Man's capacity for self delusion is almost limitless

Yep, sadly we delude ourselves with stupid **** verses something that can make a difference.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

Well then the obvious question is, at the risk of derailing what seems to have become a stake thread anyway, what is you're faith? What kinds of things does you're faith tell you that you can't learn from evidence alone?

Hard question to answer. I mean my faith that God exists? Yes. Always have and always will. I believe in Jesus. I believe in his teachings. I believe that the Bible is the word of God as interpreted by man, which means it contradicts itself and is not "perfect" but only because we as mankind do not understand. That I believe discussion and learning are a part of faith. And that doing what is right is important, but I will fail. I will sin. And that is ok.

So what does my faith tell me that evidence doesn't? That I am loved. That there is more to life than just living and dying. That I have a purpose.

I still don't feel like that is an answer. I can't really explain my faith. It is mine. It makes sense to me. It doesn't need to make sense to anyone else.
 
Re: Why is is so difficult to convince devout Christians the value of evidence?[W...

You don't speak for all Christians. While you might not take the bible as the literal, word-for-word truth, most American Christians do.
Most Americans take Bible stories literally - Washington Times

I know that you wish this weren't the case, but it unfortunately is. Why don't we try to think of some solutions together as neither of us like seeing that level of ignorance.

First of all, your link is about American Christians. Most Christians do not live in the US.

Secondly, one had to question what this survey considers Christian. Are these people Christians based on their having said so? In which case you would be including the vast majority of people who don't study or practice religion at all but who consider themselves Christian? Or are these practicing Christians who at least attend church regularly (as a bare minimum)? This is important because there is a big difference between what actual practicing Christians believe and what people who merely call themselves that believe. For example, when someone dies it is typical to hear "Christians" say things like "he's an angel now" despite the fact that no major branch of Christianity teaches that. Do Christians believe people become Angels after death? No, no major branch of Christianity teaches that. Do people proclaiming to be Christians believe that? Yes it's a common belief among people claiming Christianity but not actually studying or practicing it.

Secondly, although I don't see the actual questions anywhere so I can evaluate them, the article paints the question as an either-or scenario where the only two options are "literally true" or "meant to impart a lesson". Those are not the only two options and I would find it difficult to answer a question that makes such an assumption. In fact, if faced with a survey that phrased things in that way I would likely conclude its not worth my time and simply walk away at that point.
 
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