The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

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Divine Insight
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The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #1

Post by Divine Insight »

The following complaint was filed by a theist as he leaves the forum asking to have his account deleted:
The debates have turned into debating facile caricatures of religious belief.
Just for the sake of clarity:

Facile - def., (especially of a theory or argument) appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the true complexities of an issue; superficial.

Caricatures - def., a picture, description, or imitation of a person or thing in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect.

Question for Debate:

Do you feel that the above description is an honest assessment of the debates in Christianity and Apologetics?

If possible please explain why you feel this is or isn't the case.
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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #11

Post by Zzyzx »

.
Elijah John wrote: Z, I disagree that the Theist in question's parting shot was merely a face-saving measure because he was not capable of holding his own on a level, debating playing field.
EJ, my comment regarding parting shots was general – not specific to any one departing individual. In fact, I do not know to whom the OP referred (and would appreciate someone sending a PM to enlighten me).
Elijah John wrote: That may apply to some departed Theists, but I think you paint with too broad a brush, my friend. And if the Theist is who I think it is (was), I don't think that characterization applies to him.
Perhaps we should await confirmation of identity. If that is provided I will research the matter as pertains to that departed individual.
Elijah John wrote: To suggest he couldn't hold his own and was just "trying to save face" is to invalidate some legitimate criticisms he did present.
Notice that I acknowledged some legitimacy in what was quoted.
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Post #12

Post by Divine Insight »

bjs wrote: As long as non-Christians insist that they know what Christians believe better than Christian do a “facile caricatures of religious belief� is all that will ever be debated.
I think you've nailed the problem right there. Seriously I believe you have.

A lot of so-called "Theists" who debate here are not "Theists" at all. At least not in the formal sense of taking theology seriously. They are simply 'believers" in a God that can do not wrong. They totally accept and embrace the ideology that "God works in mysterious ways". If there is anything we don't quite understand from the Bible we should just accept on pure faith that "God has his reasons". There must be rational answers for any concerns we have, we must simply place our faith in God that he has the answers.

That's a very "Well-Protected Belief" that is extremely difficult to argue with.

Non-theists, on the other hand, are actually interested in studying the actual "theism". In other words, they are prepared to seriously question the doctrine and dogma upon which the theism stands.

This is why I always try make it very clear as often as I can that my position is that the Bible cannot be true "as written".

When it comes to someone's "personal beliefs" concerning how they are quick to wave off the problems in the Biblical texts in the name of "God works in mysterious ways", or "We can't be expected to understand why God does the things he does", or "You simply need to accept on faith that God knows what he's doing, oh ye of little faith".

These are all faith-based acceptance designed specifically to ignore and wave-off problems associated with the actual Biblical stories and texts.

So I think the non-theists are actually addressing theology from a far more academic perspective than those who simply accept it on faith without questioning it in any real depth.

What individual "Christians" claim to "believe" is totally irrelevant to me.

What's important to me is whether or not the Bible can be defended or justified "as it is written".

That's all I care to debate.

I mean, gee whiz, I could just believe in an "ALL GOOD" God too based on "pure faith" and not ask any serious questions concerning the underlying doctrine and dogma.

But I personally see no value in that. In fact, I've said it many times on these forums, if I was going to accept a religion on pure faith it would have to be Buddhism, because at least Buddhism makes SENSE.

In fact, my question to any Abrahamic "believers" who believe on pure faith is this:

If we're going to believe in something on pure faith why not choose the least problematic of all religions? That certainly wouldn't be any of the Abrahamic religions.
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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #13

Post by Elijah John »

Zzyzx wrote: .
Elijah John wrote: Z, I disagree that the Theist in question's parting shot was merely a face-saving measure because he was not capable of holding his own on a level, debating playing field.
EJ, my comment regarding parting shots was general – not specific to any one departing individual. In fact, I do not know to whom the OP referred (and would appreciate someone sending a PM to enlighten me).
Elijah John wrote: That may apply to some departed Theists, but I think you paint with too broad a brush, my friend. And if the Theist is who I think it is (was), I don't think that characterization applies to him.
Perhaps we should await confirmation of identity. If that is provided I will research the matter as pertains to that departed individual.
Elijah John wrote: To suggest he couldn't hold his own and was just "trying to save face" is to invalidate some legitimate criticisms he did present.
Notice that I acknowledged some legitimacy in what was quoted.
Sorry I misunderstood your comment.. I thought you were saying DIs post/point had merit, did not read it to mean that you thought the quoted portion had some merit.

Yes, you were speaking in general, but I thought you were over-generalizing. And the Theist in question, deserves, I think, an exemption from that generalization.
My theological positions:

-God created us in His image, not the other way around.
-The Bible is redeemed by it's good parts.
-Pure monotheism, simple repentance.
-YHVH is LORD
-The real Jesus is not God, the real YHVH is not a monster.
-Eternal life is a gift from the Living God.
-Keep the Commandments, keep your salvation.
-I have accepted YHVH as my Heavenly Father, LORD and Savior.

I am inspired by Jesus to worship none but YHVH, and to serve only Him.

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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #14

Post by Divine Insight »

Zzyzx wrote:
hoghead1 wrote: as there is a huge town-gown riff in theological studies. My goal is to try and bridge that gap as much as possible.
Major gaps between denominational teachings and between theologians / scholars vs. preachers / street-Christians seem impervious to bridging. Many seem to NEED exclusive claim to being 'the only way' – and therefore resist ecumenical / unifying efforts.
Back when I was a Christian that was my "Goal" too. Or I should say it was both my "hope" and my expectation. I expected the Bible to make sense. And then I could help others clear up their misunderstandings. Especially disagreeing Christian denominations. Getting the Christians all on the same page should be done before even attempting to reach out to non-believers.

I was also quite naive at the time. I was introverted and because of this I didn't have a "big picture" of the world. In the early going all I saw were what seemed to be fairly minor disagreements between pastors of a single protestant denomination. Disagreements that appeared to be potentially easy to clear up once I found the "TRUTH". Of course I never even found any concrete solutions to those minor disagreements.

It quickly became apparent to me that the problem was far worse than I had first believed. I discovered that there actually exist countless disagreeing denominations of Christians that have very serious disagreements. And that's just within Protestantism. Then I realized that Catholicism is a whole different beast. And then there's Judaism, and we can't ignore Islam either since it's all based on the same original source of folklore.

I finally realized that this is truly an "impossible task". The goal of trying to bridge the gap even between disagreeing Protestants is an unrealistic goal. Never mind trying to bridge gaps between Protestantism, Catholicism, Judaism, and Islam.

And at this point why even think about non-theists? We're already "Dead in the water" with the theists alone in terms of ever clearing anything up. Trying to explain anything to a non-theist can only be the most futile dream ever.

Sure an evangelist or religious proselytizer may be able to convince someone to become a "Believer", but in truth that's not likely to be done using serious theological arguments. Most converted believers are driven by emotions, or some other motivational pressures, not by logical arguments that a particular theology is more logically sound than another.

So the goal of bringing theists together on the same intellectual page is pretty slim.
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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #15

Post by Zzyzx »

.
Elijah John wrote: And the Theist in question, deserves, I think, an exemption from that generalization.
With the person identified, I am neutral regarding whether his comments on the way out were 'a face saving parting shot by one who did not fare well in debate'.

Perhaps some of his difficulty was due to an apparent attitude that Forum Rules did not apply to him and that he was free to say whatever he wished however he wished to whoever he wished.
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Post #16

Post by Derrrpp »

I have only been reading posts here for a short time but also agreed with the OP because if we were here reading peer reviewed articles then certain working assumptions of scientific disciplines would be honored by all participants and the evidence/conclusions train can be followed to debate. But here when the underlying contextual implications are up for debate and the evidence and the conclusions then it is no wonder we dont agree and sometimes the degrees to which a poster has ignored certain other 'educational' or influential data in the Word is ridiculous sometimes even failing to see how the problem has application to the real world. How can you read the Bible and miss the significance of why Jesus was important? To me it is basically spelled out but look God couldnt just snap his fingers and 12 disciples 'get it'...they had to be trained and you have to read the whole thing to understand why those assumptions are made and included. So when you dont drink the koolaid or acknowledge that you havent and recognize the bias that that introduces because you miss important inferences that are completely contextual like the divinity of God, it becomes like a botanist critiquing a paper from a geologist about plate tectonics The form rules, lack of peer review and minimal education, and the nature of the topic allow it....it is a problem of the credibility of posters ....but I want to participate without feeling like I need a PhD in something so please keep the doors open. If a topic is bothersome like killing children then it should be on the OP to substantiate his/her position by clearly bringing the Canaanites, Sodom, Gomorrah, The Flood etc all together as a suite(of child death) to question and understand justice and divine perspective over men rather than just rippin' off an antagonizing, biased judgement against The Word to see who's biting.( fishing metaphor works the other side too)

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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #17

Post by alexxcJRO »

[Replying to post 1 by Divine Insight]

This may well be a form of distraction, manipulation, attention seeking, very extreme form of cognitive dissonance.

Instead of accepting responsibility for their actions and face the reality of their impotent arguments and maybe poor debate skills they play the victim role, the martyr role in order to gain some sort of emotional response; being dramatically passive-aggressive about not getting their way.

How boring and childish.

Yet this is not a surprise.
I have seen this done here on the forum on a regular basis.
I have seen prevailing a very specific psychological profile, that of a "drama queen" and that of a "professional victim". 8-)
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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #18

Post by hoghead1 »

[Replying to Zzyzx]

There is laity and there is laity. Many can be very open, but then again, many do need to feel their approach is the only right one and should not be questioned in any way. For any one of a number of reasons, they get easily overwhelmed, fall into a state of spiritual confusion, when confronted with a variety of options. I have often said that education alienates. Theology and theological debates are not for everyone. Also, n0 one church is going to work for everyone. Hence, all the different denominations. Historically, in Christendom, there have been three major foundations of authority. There is church-type Christianity, where the church is the ultimate authority, your conscience. There is sect-type Christianity, were the Bible is th3eultimate authority. There is mystical-type Christianity, where the individual's own experiences are ultimate authority. For me, I would never be happy in anything but the third option. However, I know of many persons who have opted for church-type Christianity because, as they explained, they don't want o take on the responsibility of thinking g it all out for themselves, need to rely on authority and a lot more given structure. Many fine Christians I know are extremely anti-intellectual. They will tell you they just don't have the time or the inclination or maybe even the abilities to sit down and read through volumes of "dry' theology and then fight the publish-or-perish battle. It all depends on the individual. Different strokes for different folks.

As for non-theists being less anti-intellectual here, I don't know about that. I found too many posts where more than one non-theist was in fact stereotyping and caricaturizing theists. Sagan and other scientists have warned that we live in a dangerous society, where people seem to depend more and more an science and yet know less and less about it. There are probably just as many unreflective atheists out there as there are unreflective believers.

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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #19

Post by hoghead1 »

[Replying to post 14 by Divine Insight]

I am inclined to agree. I think we will always have disagreements, largely because no one theology or church is going to be able to meet everyone's needs. My immediate concern, however, about this site and several others I have been on is a bit different. What I am concerned about is the basic information base persons are working from. Too often, the posts, especially the vicious ones that flame away, appeared based on a major information black hole the poster was in regarding such-and-such an issue. Too many laity think they are experts simply because they have read a book or an article somewhere or heard something in their Sunday-school class. My goal is to try and fill in the missing information so that they have a better perspective. If they still want to disagree, they can, but at least they are better informed and hopefully ore compassionate toward one another. God gave me the talent and the educational opportunities. It's my responsibility to use them and offer them to others. If they aren't interested in what I have to say and want to dump on me, well, that's their problem. At least, I'm honoring my calling, and, after all, in the end, I have to answer to God, not them.

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Re: The Facile Caricatures of Religious Belief

Post #20

Post by Divine Insight »

hoghead1 wrote: My goal is to try and fill in the missing information so that they have a better perspective.
What makes you think that your perspective is correct to the point where you are in a position to provide "missing information" to others? :-k

For example, you say the following:
hoghead1 wrote: If they still want to disagree, they can, but at least they are better informed and hopefully more compassionate toward one another. God gave me the talent and the educational opportunities. It's my responsibility to use them and offer them to others. If they aren't interested in what I have to say and want to dump on me, well, that's their problem. At least, I'm honoring my calling, and, after all, in the end, I have to answer to God, not them.
But how do you know that there even exists any God to "answer" to? :-k

That is already a faith-based belief that cannot be demonstrated by any compelling objective evidence.

Also, what are you calling "God"? What "God" do you think you need to answer to? The God described by the Hebrew Bible? Do you hold that Jesus is the virgin-born Son of God?

These are all things that are claimed in ancient stories. The question most non-theists and ex-theists have is, "Why do you believe those stories?"

And that is the foundation of the debate.

You seem to have placed yourself "outside" the whole shebang acting as some sort of "referrer" or mentor who has far more than just talent and education but you apparently believe that you have enough understanding and insight to be able to help everyone else be able to see more clearly, both theists and non-theists alike.

From my perspective I would suggest that it's you who is missing they KEY understanding here in terms of these social disagreements between theists themselves, and between theists and non-theists.

I keep repeating, my core position is very clear. I hold that the Bible cannot be true as written (and this applies to every version of it I have ever scene or heard of). In fact, I hold that for a Bible to be non-self-contradictory it would need to be radically different from the standard stories that are told in the Bible.

That's my 'perspective' on the Bible.

Now let's look at the various perspectives of "theists".

You mentioned in your post #18 three perspectives:

1. There is church-type Christianity, where the church is the ultimate authority, your conscience.

That's fine and dandy, my focus in this case would be on the church leaders why they think the Bible can stand as a rational basis for their church. I may not even be interested in speaking with their "flock" since the followers of this church have apparently give over all serious theological study to the church clergy. So there would be no point in even trying to debate with the sheep of a church like this. Only the clergy would be in a position to actually debate.

2. There is sect-type Christianity, were the Bible is the ultimate authority.

Those are the people who would then need to debate why they think the Bible is dependable and not self-contradictory.

3. There is mystical-type Christianity, where the individual's own experiences are ultimate authority.

And there isn't much point in debating those people concerning what the Bible might have to say is there? They may as well claim to believe in fairies.

~~~~~~~

I think what you need to also realize is WHY most non-theists even bother to debate with theists.

Their MAIN question is that theists claim there is a God that we must OBEY or answer to in some way. Clearly you already believe that you will need to answer to some God since you've already stated that this is the ONLY entity you truly need to answer to.

So many theists are trying to put legislation in place that reflects their beliefs of what this God expect them to do. This including teaching the Bible and Creationism in schools, demanding that marriage be between just one man and one woman, no polygamy permitted, and no same-sex marriages permitted either. Abortion at any stage is "murder" because God had created that life, etc. You can't use stem cells for research or medical cures because its an abomination to God. Euthanasia should be considered murder because only God can take a life, etc.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget, "If you don't believe in OUR GOD then there's clearly something wrong with you, you are rejecting God in some way and therefore cannot be considered to be a moral decent person.

So the non-theists have a very simple question for the theists, "How do you know that any of this is true?" All these claims come from the Hebrew Bible which is filled with self-contradictions and obvious human ignorance. Where is there any evidence that there is any "God" behind this dogma?

That's the question the non-theists are asking.

So how you are you going "fill in missing information" for these non-theists so that they can have a "better perspective"?


The only information the non-theists are interested in is HOW you know that the Bible is TRUE. Unless you can provide that "missing information" then you have nothing to offer the non-theists at all.

Also, given the three categories of theists that you have provided I don't see what "missing information" you could provide them either.

The sheep who leave it all up to their church clergy are just blind followers and they aren't interested in any "missing information". They'll just tell you to take that up with their clergy.

The sects that demand the Bible is the ultimate source of truth, can't even agree with each other because they all claim that the Bible is saying something different based on the "specific interpretations" their sect pushes onto the Bible. So they aren't going to listen to anything you have to say, as far as they are concerned you are the one who is "missing information".

And the people who believe they have had personal spiritual experiences don't need any "missing information" that you might have to offer because they already have all they need, "A Personal Spiritual Experience".

So who could you help with your imagined "missing information"?

You seem to be taking the position of the sects who claim that only their views are correct. They too believe that they are the ones in possession of "missing information" that if others could finally see it they would simply open their eyes and "Get it".
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