(no subject)

[nameandnature]

Stuff I found on the web, probably on andrewducker's del.icio.us feed or something.

Psychology Today on ex-Christian ex-ministers and on magical thinking

Psychology Today has a couple of interesting articles, one on ministers who lose their faith, and another on magical thinking. Quoteable quote:

"We tend to ignore how much cognitive effort is required to maintain extreme religious beliefs, which have no supporting evidence whatsoever," says the evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson. He likens the process to a cell trying to maintain its osmotic pressure. "You're trying to pump out the mainstream influences all the time. You're trying to maintain this wall, and keep your beliefs inside, and all these other beliefs outside. That's hard work." In some ways, then, at least for fundamentalists, "growing out of it is the easiest thing in the world."

That sounds sort of familiar. I'm not sure I'd consider myself an ex-fundamentalist, but I did find that giving up removed the constant pressure to keep baling.

The stuff about moral contagion in the magical thinking article reminded me of Haggai 2:10-14, where it's clear that cleanness (in the Bible's sense of moral and ceremonial acceptability, rather then lack of dirt) is less contagious than uncleanness. There's possibly a link here to the tendency of some religions to sharply divide the world into non-believers and believers, and to be careful about how much you expose yourself to the non-believing world (q.v. the unequally yoked teaching you get in the more extreme variants of a lot of religions).

Old interview with Philip Pullman

Third Way interviewed Pullman years ago. It's the origin of one of his statements on whether he's an agnostic or an atheist, which I rather like:

Can I elucidate my own position as far as atheism is concerned? I don’t know whether I’m an atheist or an agnostic. I’m both, depending on where the standpoint is.

The totality of what I know is no more than the tiniest pinprick of light in an enormous encircling darkness of all the things I don’t know – which includes the number of atoms in the Atlantic Ocean, the thoughts going through the mind of my next-door neighbour at this moment and what is happening two miles above the surface of the planet Mars. In this illimitable darkness there may be God and I don’t know, because I don’t know.

But if we look at this pinprick of light and come closer to it, like a camera zooming in, so that it gradually expands until here we are, sitting in this room, surrounded by all the things we do know – such as what the time is and how to drive to London and all the other things that we know, what we’ve read about history and what we can find out about science – nowhere in this knowledge that’s available to me do I see the slightest evidence for God.

So, within this tiny circle of light I’m a convinced atheist; but when I step back I can see that the totality of what I know is very small compared to the totality of what I don’t know. So, that’s my position.

This isn't really a surprising statement, but, like Ruth Gledhill's discovery that Richard Dawkins is a liberal Anglican, some people seem surprised that atheists aren't ruling out things which some people would regard as gods. The point is that there's no decent evidence that anyone has met one. Deism is a respectable position, I think (although I'm not sure why you'd bother with it), but religions which claim God has spoken to them are implausible because of God's inability to keep his story straight.

The walls have Google

The thing about blogging is that you never know who's reading. Someone called Voyou makes a post ending with an aside which is critical of A.C. Grayling's response to Terry Eagleton's review of The God Delusion. Grayling turns up in the comments to argue with them.

(I keep turning up more conversations about the Eagleton review: see my bookmarks for the best of them).

"Compact of hypocrisy and secret vice"

Yellow wonders whether or not he should sign the UCCF doctrinal basis in this post and the followup. Signs point to "not". Si Hollett reminds me of myself in my foolish youth.

Comments

[nameandnature]

Why do we deserve punishment? If it is because of our wrong choices, my argument applies. If it is because of someone else's (Adam's, say, although I thought you had abandoned creationism in Christianity 2.0), this is unjust.

Similarly, if God choses who to save and no-one is saved who God does not chose, by implication he choses who to damn (God's knowledge and power being absolute, so that there's no third position of people God just forgot about). Again, this is unjust.

I think we've discussed this previously. My position hasn't changed since then: evangelical Christianity portrays God as evil.

[ex-robhu.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether original sin is correct or not. In a sense it doesn't matter, because even without original sin we (well, *I*, I don't you whether you have made such choices) make bad choices.

If it is because of our wrong choices, my argument applies.
Your argument is wrong. You said "If, in the end, God's going to judge everyone, then what's the point of the ability to make free choices? Given how bad Hell is, it'd be better not to have been able to make those choices. "You have free choice, but I'll fry you if you chose something I don't like" limits my ability to chose, I think."

Let me break that down in to pieces:
If, in the end, God's going to judge everyone, then what's the point of the ability to make free choices?
There is of course speculation about whether love has to be volitional act, and so if free will is a prerequisite of having beings that can love (one another, and God). I'm quite sure there are lots of valuable things possible because of free will like that. By just focussing on judgement you're being a bit blinkered. One could similarly ask "If, in the end, a child is going to grow up and die, then what is the point of the ability to make a child?" - the question doesn't really state it's assumptions, which are, I think, flawed.

Given how bad Hell is, it'd be better not to have been able to make those choices.
IIRC there is someone in the Bible who says that (I *think* it's someone who is already in hell). It pushes the blame on to God though, whereas the whole point of a free choice is that you could have chosen the path that didn't lead to hell.

"You have free choice, but I'll fry you if you chose something I don't like" limits my ability to chose, I think."
I agree with mattghg - because there are consequences to your actions doesn't limit your ability to choose (in the sense that you are irresistibly compelled). It's obvious consequences don't that (that's pretty obvious just from looking at the world in the general case, and personally at one point I thought hell was real but decided to choose the path that led to hell which refutes the stronger example you made).

If you mean the consequence of hell is so severe that you would choose heaven out of fear of hell, then great - that's a good outcome. Hell is so bad that I hope everyone would know how bad it is, recognise how serious the offense must be to warrant it, repent, and be saved.