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PRmerger
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Can you cite your source, please?
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Leela
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Neither Abaddon nor I have set our selves up as authorities on what mainstream Christianity is. We are simply doubting the claims made by another. If I have time, I’ll try to find some data on beliefs of Christians, but if you have a different perspective, you might provide data for it to support your case.
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PRmerger
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The Catechism is a great compendium of our beliefs.
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Leela
Guest
The Catechism prescribes what is supposed to be believed, it does not describe what Christians generally actually believe.
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PRmerger
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Yes, you are right.
I am interested in seeing what you can find about what the majority of Christians in the US actually believe.
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Contarini
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I’m not sure why you think that a poll of self-professed members of a tradition is the best way to understand that tradition. To use this method when dealing with philosophical questions is inherently unfair, because most people don’t ask themselves questions like “is God just the one member of a class called ‘god’?” Most people don’t think these issues through. You wouldn’t like it if I asked the average person who claims to believe in evolution what they think evolutionary theory is all about, instead of asking actual scientists. The problem here is that you don’t grant the validity of theology as an intellectual discipline. Therefore, you are starting off with the prejudiced assumption that “theology” is just what people happen to believe who adhere to Christianity on some level or other but may not have thought much about their faith in a disciplined and educated way. This means that whatever conclusions you come to are bound to be unfair. But go ahead if you want to. You won’t do Christianity any harm–you’ll just show that prejudice and unthinking dismissal are not the sole prerogatives of Christians, which is good for folks to see!
Like any religious tradition (but more so than some, because Christianity depends so heavily on complex and paradoxical ideas, in contrast to Judaism or Islam for instance which are more about the details of ritual and ethical practice), there’s a tension in Christianity (a healthy one, I believe) between elite theology and popular belief. You have to take both into account to do justice to Christianity (or any religion). You want to ignore the theology, perhaps because it’s harder for you to refute than are the naive ideas held by people who aren’t theologically educated.
Edwin
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Contarini
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If someone makes claims about what a scientific tradition teaches, they are obligated to support their claims by citing eminent scientists. If you make claims about what Christian theology teaches, you need to follow the same method or else you reveal your ignorance and prejudice.
Edwin
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Contarini
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That’s not a reasonable use of the phrase “mainstream theology.” Most Americans have never even asked the question that is under debate between us.
Edwin
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Leela
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Yes, but it was you who was saying what they think “mainstream” Christianity is. I just said that what you were saying doesn’t sound right to me. I believe you when you say that it is “classical theology,” but I’m not so sure that what you are saying is “mainstream.”
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Contarini
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I said “mainstream theology.” That’s the distinction you keep missing. “Mainstream Christianity” can mean a lot of things. You seem to mean by it “whatever the majority of self-identified Christians in our culture tell poll-takers.” Fine. Have that definition if you like. But surely you know that most people don’t think very carefully about difficult and abstract subjects. Most Christians wouldn’t know what to do with the question “is God one of the gods”? If you put it that way, they would probably say “of course not” (hearing it as an equation of God with the “false gods” of paganism) bearing out my claim. But I’m sure you could find a way of wording it that would support your view of what Christians think. And that’s my point. Theology involves systematic thinking about how different Christian affirmations relate to each other. You are going on the fact that many American Christians have a pretty literalistic view of relating to the Bible. But that’s not actually the point we’re arguing. The point we’re arguing is whether God is the same kind of being as the pagan gods. Most Christians are definitely with me on that one. But you’re right that they haven’t necessarily thought through the implications, so if you ask them “well, doesn’t YHWH sound a lot like Zeus?” they won’t know what to do with it.
You are essentially usurping the right to do theology for the majority of theologically unsophisticated Christians. You are claiming that you have the right to interpret the implications of the fact that they think of the One True God in highly anthropomorphic terms. I deny that you have that right. You are patently committing injustice when you do this sort of thing.
Let’s either leave theologically uninformed people out of the discussion altogether, or let’s agree that someone who shares the basic affirmations of their faith is more likely to be right on what they would say if they thought through the implications of those affirmations.
Edwin
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TheAtheist
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And here Contarini shows his genius.
The tension between “elite theology and popular belief” as you so described is something that runs deep in any sort of social movement informed by a religious or a philosophical position.
Btw- Leela, not that i am any supreme authority on the matter, but the manner in which Contarini has described the conception of God is rather historically accurate.
The Early Christian Church identified the God of Abraham/Issac/Jacob and the Father aspect/section/member/whatever of the Trinity with the “God of the Philosophers” ~ which is to say a rather non-religious conception of an ultimate being.
In fact, if my Greek philosophy isn’t that rusty, the God of the Philosophers = Being.
The only problematic of course is as Contarini describes: Such weighty concerns are beyond the pale of those who utilize religion in a different matter. The classic Christian example that is always pointed out to me is Augustine of Hippo, one of the great philosophers of Western history and a saint of their church, and his mother (Monica?).
Augustine philosophized, Monica simply believed.
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TheAtheist
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I need to address this immediately. Leela - you remind me very much of another one of my atheist friends circa 10 years ago.
Everything you’ve just tried to compact in the above statement can be reduced down to two things:
1.) People are lazy and want a silver bullet to their problems.
2.) People want something beyond themselves.
And that, frankly, happens to be something that i can assert goes for a large chunk of humanity regardless of what philosophical, ideological, or political position you may hold dear.
The “beyond’ themselves” segment doesn’t even have to be supernatural in character - some just want a cause to believe in or fight for.
This is why i have to ultimately laugh at people who say that Religion, or say Communism, is pernicious in nature.
Ideas never hurt people - its people utilizing those ideas to assuage any possible guilt for action - they hurt people.
That’s why i’ve never understood why people argue, “If i get rid of _____ idea, our problems will be solved.”
Its a complete misdiagnosis, more often than not the things which irritate people have very little to do with an idea and moreso to deal with an individuals personal psychology.
And hence, what Contarini said: Popular Belief vs. Elite Theology (Or Ideology, or Philosophy).
You don’t really hear about Elite Theologians causing War Crimes or Crimes Against Humanity.
Give any validating idea to a mob however, and they will run with it - usually killing those Elite Theologians in the process
.To quote the old Roman phrase: “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” The Voice of the People are the Voice of God. IE: The Mob will get what it wants.
If the Mob feels that having a God is a good thing - the Mob will get its God, even if there’s no good reason to believe in it.
If the Mob feels that having a God is a bad thing - the Mob will disown God, even if such a being were to exist.
Keyword: “Feel”
Long drawn out proofs, the desire for understanding, the curiousity of mechanism, of nuance - do you honestly think that the vast majority of people care to that degree?
Of course not. That would require an allocation of time and resources that most will not want to commit to.
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Contarini
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If you don’t, you should. Because it happens. Or at least, theologians often have (to their shame) justified or condoned such crimes. For instance, see Aquinas’s justification for the execution of heretics (or for slavery, although he may be applying Aristotle’s definitions to serfdom, which was quite different and not as dehumanizing; still, he describes Aristotle’s concept of slavery without clearly condemning it, and that’s bad enough). Elite theology and popular piety influence each other and are interdependent. The problem I have with Leela’s argument is that she’s drawing her conclusions from what she sees as the implications of Biblical literalism, and then ascribing those conclusions to most Christians, even though they would be shocked (i.e., they don’t think that their literalism leads to the conclusion that God is just another god). She wants to ignore the tradition of Christian theology which wrestles with just this question.
Edwin
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Leela
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Ideas don’t hurt or help anyone directly, it takes someone who believes an idea to do that. Beliefs are habits of action. To believe something is to be prepared to act in certain ways in certain circumstances. Beliefs matter. Talking about getting rid of certain beliefs is talk about getting rid of certain habits of action.
But I agree that we shouldn’t think of all behavior as motivated by beliefs. Rationales are generally descriptions that people come up with after the fact to explain their own behavior. For example, if you hypnotize someone and get them to do something, upon waking them they will give you some rationale for their behavior. But people also do think about their actions ahead of time and act based on their thinking, so again, beliefs matter.
There is also the question of the possibility of changing people’s beliefs through rational argument. And I take what you’re saying as pesimism about that project. I agree with here as well. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind in any single conversation.
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tonyrey
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There is one significant omission in this definition of belief. Who or what is prepared to act?
If we disregard that omission the definition is still inadequate. Belief does not always entail being prepared to act in certain ways. or even to act at all. It is acceptance of an idea, proposition, theory, description or explanation. (I deliberately omit the full definition in order to discover how you would complete it
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Leela
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Obviously, it is a human being who holds a belief and in doing so is prepared to act upon it.
Holding one belief instead of another may mean that one would not act where another would, but that is still a consequence in lived experience for that belief. But you seem to be asking, what about beliefs that have no consequences in practice? This is where pragmatism is useful for clearing up metaphyisical disputes. If holding or not holding a given belief does not have anything to do with behavior, then discussing such beliefs is just idle talk. Any diference must MAKE a difference to matter. An example is believing in free will or not. I can’t imagine how one who does not believe in free will would behave any differently than one who does. This philosophical bugbear may just be idle talk.
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tonyrey
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We can imagine how we can behave if we don’t believe in freewill because we can imagine we are biological machines operating according to physical laws. We can imagine how it would be different from behaving as we did have free will because we can imagine, like fatalists, that we are not responsible for our choices. Belief in free will does have consequences in lived experience because if we believe we are free we make an effort. If we are convinced we can’t do something we don’t even try. We just let ourselves be carried along by the tide.
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Pragmatism is a form of logical utilitarianism which does not explain our moral obligation to seek the truth. Nor does it explain the coercive nature of truth which imposes itself on us whether we like it or not, regardless of the consequences. It is a futile attempt to evade the metaphysical principles on which reasoning and science are based. Its worst feature is its distortion of one’s attitude to reality by presenting this world and this life as if they constitute the whole of reality and exist in a void … Ironically your statement “Any difference must MAKE a difference to matter” can be taken as emphasis on matter at the expense of mind (which is your main priority)
.I’m glad you’ve left a loophole by using the word “may” rather than “is”.
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tonyrey
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A clearer statement would be:
“Any difference must MAKE a difference to matter” can be taken as emphasis on matter (which is your main priority) at the expense of mind.
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Leela
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You are correct that from the pragmatic perspective, the goal of inquiry is not the “the truth” but rather confirming our beliefs or assuaging our doubts. To hold “the truth” as the goal of inquiry is problematic since we could never know when we have goten closer to it if we didn’t already have it.
Pragmatism calls into question the idea of knowledge as a representation of reality. We pragmatists don’t want to hold up occular metaphors for knowledge as definitive. We see knowledge as a tool for coping with reality rather than for representing reality. Knowledge doesn’t need to represent reality to serve a purpose any moore than a hammer does.
Pragmatists recognize that reality causes us to have beliefs.
You are reading your view of what metaphysics must mean for pragmatists back onto pragmatists. No one thinks they exist in a void. Pragmatists just don’t think we need to come up with a single description of the way things are and call that description the world.
I guess if you want to twist my words enough you can take them to mean whatever you want. On the other hand, if you try to understand where I’m coming from, you’ll see that pragmatism makes many of the same critiques of materialism that you do.Ironically your statement “Any difference must MAKE a difference to matter” can be taken as emphasis on matter at the expense of mind (which is your main priority)
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