The Other Michael

In <a href="http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/3330494.html" target="_blank">this article</a> religious pollster George Barna makes the closing statement:
I find this curious, that he'd have people make a decision in whether to believe first, and then leave it up to the individual to determine if what they are believing has a factual basis.

I know that "faith" is supposed to be belief in the absence of evidence, but it just looks like putting the cart before the horse to me.

But that's probably why I'm an atheist.

cheers,
Michael

Perchance

Hi Michael,

I've talked with religious people lately (one of whom keeps sending me Bible verses) who don't seem to understand an atheist's need to be convinced of things like the existence of God before they believe. The conversation goes something like this:

Believer: "But don't you want [to escape Hell/to go to Heaven/to have the peace of Jesus in your life/whatever the believer thinks is best about Christianity]?"

Me: "But I don't believe that God exists. So I don't believe in Heaven or Hell yet, or Jesus, or any of that other stuff. Convince me of that first."

Believer: "But you will [go to Hell if you don't believe/not go to Heaven/miss out on Jesus/something else]."

It streams right past them.

Not that I have an explanation, just to let people know that this does exist.

-Perchance.

echidna

Actually there are a lot of Christian agnostics who use the Christ image as a moral ideal. I think this is what Barna is getting at. The literalism of the NT as such is really irrelevant to its central message. Personally I find such ideals useful concepts on occasion & providing actions can be tempered with pragmatism, I think there is still a place for such idealism.

sighhswolf

Just out of curiosity, how do you define the central message of the NT gospels?
Wolf

The Other Michael

Hi Perchance,

Isn't there an appropriate bible verse about "none so blind as those that will not see", or something like that?

I can see a bit of selective perception - most anyone will try to ignore, to a degree, things they don't want to perceive. But racheting that up several notches to what seems like someone writing on a mental chalkboard while erasing that writing with the other hand is just weird.

cheers,
Michael

Jamie_L

Well, I've noticed just from Christians who come to this board that a common theme is:

In order to be able to see the evidence for god's existence, one must first open oneself to god.

I.E., first believe, then you will see the reason to believe. Also implicit (and stated explictly by many in separate conversations) is that the "evidence" for god is really personal revelation. You don't get that revelation for nothing. First you have to open yourself to god.

This has some important effects. First, it's an end-run around skeptics for believers. They don't need to provide proof. If they feel "the presence of god", then they have their evidence. Second, this defends the religion from us silly skeptics. There IS evidence, says the pastor to his flock, but the skeptics can't see it because they refuse to look for it.

There is a strong smell here of a self-preservation mechanism for religion. Everyone who believes knows, deep down, that the evidence we skeptics demand DOES NOT EXIST. This "cart-before-the-horse" solves that delimma for those who want to believe. It also lets religion persecute us non-believers with a clear conscience. Because, it's not that we are honestly mistaken, it's that we turn a blind eye and refuse to take the first step.

Lastly, this fits very nicely within the authoritarin nature of most religion: it's true because I say so. Do what I say, and you'll understand too.

Blech!

Jamie

Non-praying Mantis

This is my favorite line of that piece:

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How right he is about Christianity!

NPM

Mediancat

I strongly suspect that Mr. Barna actually considers the question settled, so that that's "not the real question." He's effectively preaching to the converted.

Rob aka Mediancat

Tom Sawyer

I actually have a lot of respect for this guy. He seems to be willing to look at facts and deal with them, instead of just blindly saying that everything is OK as long as you believe. He seems to be unwilling to accept the whole God is fake thing, but that's a big one for most people to deal with.

I disagree with his agenda and hope he fails miserably at moving the church forward and getting more people to put Christ first in their lives, as opposed to forgetting him as an irrelevant fairy-tale. That being said, though, he seems to be willing to accept some hard truths about what faith actually does for people, instead of what it's supposed to do, and is working on concrete ways to improve the situation based on solid data.

I disagree with the goal he's aiming towards, but I have a lot of respect for the way he's going about it.

Perchance

Yeah, I've tried with a few verses to get the Christians in question to understand- even pulling a few from Proverbs on reason and understanding and how those are good things according to that book- but it always leads back to "Truth is more important and Jesus Christ is the truth, blah blah blah."

I think it's because the idea that someone really and truly doesn't believe in or doesn't care about God- as opposed to not knowing about the Bible, or deliberately closing his or her eyes- scares them so badly they'll do anything rather than acknowledge it.

Admittedly, that might be my own rather selective perception coming into play .

-Perchance.