Killing Faith: Deconstructionist Christians

Coming back to the original subject: It seems to me that Christianity redefined "faith" to give it a more superstitious meaning and that this was an ominous step for what came after.

Faith is defined in Hebrews 11 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" - This is not the same as a secular dictionary definition such as "complete trust or confidence in someone or something"

The Christian definition of faith led to both a demand in and violent enforcement of dogma, doctrine and tradition, that was only weakened by the Reformation. In "Fundamentalism", American Protestant Christianity demonstrates that despite its tirades against Rome for the most part its belief structure is essentially pre-Reformation and indeed "Creedal" using the Orthodox/Catholic creeds.

From this comes a conflict between religiously defined faith, and the dictionary definition - and common sense and experience - which demands that trust be based on knowledge, experience and rational judgement. You choose carefully who you have faith in to mind your child

The attempted resolution of this dilemma to "find" evidence of what one believes through Christian faith. The end effect is ridiculous

As Reich said:

"the conclusion is always there ready-made before the thinking process; the thinking does not serve, as in the rational realm, to arrive at a correct conclusion; rather, it serves to confirm an already existing irrational conclusion and to rationalize it"

Phi, Sydney
February 28, 2011 2:28pm

I think that the religious and the atheist are both missing the point when they think of religion as dogma or magic or a literal interpretation of documents which were never intended to be literal or historical. Most 'religious' people are just tribalists; parroting the right sounds and never once considering the context or import; what it's all *about*. A real religious experience of transcendence, a communion with greater reality or a dissolving of the ego; the finding of symbols cast in an alternate world by which we can understand and resolve quandries in our own life - that is what religion is.
All of this 'faith' is just irrelevant magical thinking that people too dull to think on their own adopt; the same is true of politics. Not one in two million political pundits has the slightest idea of economics or history; he is just regurgitating the party line.

What I am saying is, don't confuse religion with the ignorance, magical thinking and vulgarity of religious people. It's not unique to them.

Ka Ne Lay-Lay Paw, USA
March 14, 2011 5:08pm

The problem is "Ka", that in Judaism, Islam, and most especially Christianity, the documents ARE intended to be historical, and the Churches punished people severely for suggesting they were not

It is now generally accepted that a number of letters attributed to Paul in the Bible are, in terms of that attribution, forgeries. The same could certainly be legitimately argued where a Gospel is attributed to an "eye witness" of the events it describes. We have abundant conclusive evidence that "pseudo-Christian" documents, including supposed Gospels were falsely attributed to give them greater apparent validity

In Islam one is liable to be killed for questioning source documents.

It is not "the Atheist" that is responsible for this situation. An Atheist would claim a document to be effectively "wrong" whatever its claimed status. The dispute is first and foremost internal to the religions themselves. For the outsider the historical invalidity of documents is just so much icing on the cake.

From the day they sit beside their toddlers bed and tell them the Christmas story as real history, Christians are part of a pattern of passing on lies. I found as I grew up that the greatest contradiction of all was that the Christian honesty they taught me demanded I walk away from their lies.

I still scratch my head about this madness. Never made a blind bit of sense - tell someone they must be honest and the tell them lies. In our house the budgie made more sense!

Ding!

Phi, Sydney
March 14, 2011 7:14pm

"What I am saying is, don't confuse religion with the ignorance, magical thinking and vulgarity of religious people. It's not unique to them."

Ka, you've confused our argument--you believe we're saying "X is part of Y, therefore Y is X" when in fact all we're saying is "X is part of Y". Specifically, what's not being said is that only religion makes people stupid. What IS being said is that religion, and faith in particular, cause one to shut down one's critical faculties, making one stupid. There are ample examples of secular stupidity, they're just beyond the scope of this conversation.

Also, you're disagreeing with about 4,000 years of theologians in regard to the nature of religion. All atheists do is take theists at their word--and it's enough to crush the theist arguments. For reference, look up Augustus and the popes involved in the Crusades, the Islamic theologians of the past and today, etc.

Gregory, Alabama
March 23, 2011 1:39pm

If the Holy Trinity had been conceived after the foundation of the motor industry it would probably have had four members - "The Holy Quartet"

The motor industry quickly discovered that three wheeled vehicles were unstable - although they persisted in England into the sixties as untaxed wagons for the disabled. They still fell over at lower speeds however.

Maybe deconstructionist Christians should be a little more creative and add the BV Mary to the Godhead formally so that the old crock runs a bit better

God TF would have to have a casting vote - The advantage of three was that it was always possible to get a majority - unless one of them, HG perhaps - not being sure from which or both he proceedeth (filioque) - abstained

Just trying to help with a little theology and the scientific mind.

Phi, Sydney
March 26, 2011 4:51pm

i haven't checked here in awhile, but its interesting to see my claim on this episode's logic has gone uncontested. not surprising, as logical consistency and rationality are at a premium by the majority of frequenters to the skeptoid comment sections.

cam - i love that you think i was ever "hiding" my God-based morality, that you can't think outsided the confines of labels is pretty indicitive of your inability to be truly open minded. there are plenty of athiests who believe in objective morality and will defend it, btw, dan dennet and louise antony for example, and i imagine the list is much longer than the list of moral relativists.

phi - there is absolutely no incompatibility for the biblical definition of faith and the dictionary definition of faith. to not be able to see that is to make very transparent your prejudice, which prevents you from ratinally considering any view other than your own in this realm.

but if anyone really wants to stay on topic, i welcome criticism to my claim on this episode, outlined in great detail in my conversation with jon above.

charlie elliott, pasco, wa
April 20, 2011 9:35am

Bearing in mind that dictionaries are based on the use of a word in context one is bound to find one of the definitions will fit the religious view. Dictionaries do not so much define what words are but what they are used to represent. The longer Oxford dictionary will quote you what it sees as significant uses and dates them.

Faith therefore in the religious view is more about loyalty than reality - the connection runs "faith - fide - fidelity" much in the same way that the word "true" can also mean "loyal" and is derived from the German meaning "loyalty" instead of from "Wahrheit" which perhaps comes closer to meaning "truth."

So it is quite correct to say that the Christian meaning of faith - as defined in "Hebrews" is a specific and not a "universal" meaning

Christianity first opposed sensible reason in the story of Thomas who had the sense to check if a fraud was being perpetrated and was admonished for it. The consequences of this story are disastrous and tragic, and deeply embedded in the western psyche and history. Nazism was a faith based doctrine not a rational one. The mind had been set up for it through two thousand years of Christian "faith" that taught people lies become truths when one is loyal to them.

(bit like psychology)

phi, Sydney
April 21, 2011 5:18pm

Phi, was your father or grandfather a preacher ??

vesey, washington
May 12, 2011 6:01pm

"(bit like psychology)"
Except the methods of psychology are under the same controls and standards as any other science.

Your own dogma is a better example Phi. You give us only your "experience" (read fables and stories) as evidence, with no supporting evidence other than your ideology or personal taste, resorting to idealised charicatures of those you criticise (those would be your "false idols" and "paragons"). Take for example the way you try to portray the Cognitive Sciences: Philosophy, Psychology and the likes are protrayed not as objective fields of study but as oppossing views to your own, with morality and ethos imposed upon them to fit your world view, while a happier fantasy of Organic Farming is pushed as perfect, ignoring the practical failings of the real world, with your opinion that the food is better (a personal taste to anybody else) being cited as evidence of their nutritional superiority (with out bothering to prove they are nutritionally different, that organic pesticides are less poisonous than other kinds, etc.

As much as you dislike Christian philosophy, you can not deny you have a Philosophy of your own, that shares the same flaws as the world views you refuse to tolerate.

Tolerance of others, by the way, being one of the things most philosophies tend to agree on as moral.

Tom H, Kent
May 13, 2011 9:59am

My faith is in God, and not in the Bible!
Proving the Bible by these means you have mentioned is pointless and silly, IMO.

Debby, Auckland New Zealand
April 28, 2012 8:25pm