What's the most important thing about Skeptoid? Killing Faith: Deconstructionist ChristiansSkeptoid #12 |
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Today we're going to take a leap of faith into a soft cushion, to see what happens when proven knowledge makes faith irrelevant.
There is a profound contradiction rising in the world of religion. Proponents of various religious dogma such as Creationism, Noah's Flood, and Revelations have taken a disturbing turn. They are crippling their own religion by attempting to do scientific research in an effort to prove their religious claims, thus directly attacking their religion's central pillar: faith.
Abraham is regarded as the father of faith among most of the world's people, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews. He earned this title through demonstrating the mightiest act of all: being willing to sacrifice his own son Isaac, indeed with the dagger poised above his head ready to fall. Isaac was saved when God sent an angel at the last second to put a stop to it, who told Abraham that he'd proven his faith. It was an act that very few among us could have duplicated; I certainly wouldn't have done it. For this reason, Abraham is rightly exalted. It was truly an act of heroic faith.
Consider this question: If Abraham had known that God would intervene at the last second to spare Isaac, would his act have been as heroic?
Theological tradition tells us no, it would not have. The reason the Abraham story is important is that it's the supreme demonstration of faith. Abraham raised his dagger fully intending to kill his beloved Isaac, all for his faith in God. He felt every ounce of the unimaginable anguish. Could you have brought the dagger down and plunged it into your own child? Achieving this level of faith is the essential goal of all Christians, and for that matter, it is for Muslims and Jews as well. Faith is the absolute pillar of religion.
Now let's turn the clock forward a few thousand years and see where the faithful are today. Surprisingly, I see a lot of them doing the equivalent of asking questions before raising the dagger. Questions like "Can you please prove to me that the angel's going to intervene?" Can you show me the scientific evidence that proves Intelligent Design? Can you please prove to me that Moses parted the Red Sea?
The Associates for Biblical Research (abr.christiananswers.net) publishes a quarterly PDF document called "Bible & Spade". It's all about archaeological projects throughout the middle east that they say supports the Biblical record. The current issue offers evidence from Egypt on the location of the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea. They have an exhaustive mission statement page, in which they state and restate their belief that the Bible is absolutely and literally a correct and true historical document. It is "infallible, inerrant and authoritative". Their purpose also includes "Edifying the Christian Church by encouraging a deeper knowledge of, greater appreciation for, and stronger faith in the Bible through knowledge and correct interpretation of the findings from archaeology and science." In short, they are all about proving the Bible is true through archaeology. They call this "encouraging stronger faith in the Bible". Encouraging faith through proof. They want to force us to believe it.
Maybe my dictionary is out of date, but faith and proof are oil and water. Faith needs no proof, and in the presence of proof, faith becomes irrelevant. Faith means to believe without proof; indeed, it means to believe in spite of evidence to the contrary. Where is the heroic faith in believing in something that's proven right before your eyes? That's hardly a demonstration worthy of Abraham. To seek to marginalize the element of faith by showing supporting evidence, is to seek to undermine the whole basis of the religion.
We see the same thing happening in any of the numerous groups seeking to find Noah's Ark on Mt. Ararat in Turkey. On some of their web sites you'll find tremendous amounts of information about how a wooden ark could have survived 6000 odd years, how it could get so high on the mountain when there's not enough water on the planet to do it, exactly where it's located in the satellite photographs, exactly how two of every animal could fit on one ark, what its dimensions are and where and how it was built, and so forth. But nowhere did I find an explanation of why it's important that it be found. To my way of thinking, even if you're of the mindset that Noah's flood was simply a literal account of an incident and not a meaningful allegory, then allowing it to be found, thus proving the story, would be more likely to be on Satan's agenda than on God's. Why would God want to marginalize faith? I can think of every reason why Satan would want to do this, but not God.
Is proving the Bible really doing the work of God?
Abraham's faith did not need the crutch of supporting scientific evidence that God is real, nor would he have made much of an impression upon God if he'd had such. I challenge Christians who are true believers to stick with their faith, and to hold their faith to be (if I may borrow the terms) "infallible, inerrant, and authoritative". Or, if you want to use what science tells us instead, then admit that you're no longer keeping your faith in the infallibity of the Bible. You cannot do both. A true Christian must question their fellow believers who attempt to erode faith through the application of science to scripture. If faith is not enough to support religion on its own, then faith has already been killed.
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Discuss!
5 most recent comments | Show all 177 comments
Remember, you should always read with skepticism the comments of anyone too lame to put their real name & city.
Neil, Cardiff, said:
Joseph, can you point me to the exact place where Jesus "rants like a crazy person"?
I'd appreciate it."
Open your bible to John 3:9-21. You know that stuff around John 3:16 that all Christians should know and love. He verbally assaults Nicodemus for asking a question. He tells him that "you should know, but do not really because no man knows. Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness because God loves us and he sent his only son to die for out sins. Anyone that does not know this will be casted out into hell and burn for all eternity. Good Day to you, sir!"
I am paraphrasing here, but that screed does not really make any logical sense. He compares god to Moses and people to serpents, yet he is supposed to redeem the things he hates.
Now look at Matthew 12 in its entirety. He got pissed off that he was mad fun of by the priests. He spouted off more nonsense, comparing them to an evil garden, vipers, and only evil people would say such things. He also mentioned that he was not going to get them, but God will. He says other things there too, but he was not rational in those statements either.
He wrongly thought the end of the world was going to be in his disciples lifetime.
Please not that this is not out of context. I read the bible in its entirety and I made my conclusions based on the stuff around the quotes the Christians love to quote all the time.
Joseph Furguson, Brawley Ca
December 08, 2008 3:23pm
Hey - my first comment is that you are all lost and confused....you have all gotten lost in detail and debate..and you are no longer seeing the big picture..
Secondly...Brian, how do you know where everyone really lives and what their names really are? and why is that your very first comment? do you have a GPI locator?
Obviously...by your map of everyone who has been on your site. And Why?
Communism..no..of course not. there is no bigger picture, right?
You had me but you lost me somewhere along the way, bud, I though your insight and your scientiic explanations were amazing.......then.....you lost me with some comment..i'll get back to you on that.
Thirdly....Neil,
Wow ,how many philosophy courses did you take in university and how much did it scrample your scientific brain? You are not looking for answers, you are looking for a good debate, and you have come to you own conclusions..Althouth I appreciate your intelligence and perseverence, talking in circles doesn't make you more knowledgeable than others. MY Guess is that there is a "conspiracy theorist" or a "faithist" or someone or something else that you have labelled that simply drove the living fear into you.(I can relate to that)......bye for now
kat Meagan, Nunavut, Nwt
December 27, 2008 4:12am
lets go to some critical thinking here, some of the guys that posted comments lost the issue completely, the main issue of the article is deconstructionism, which leads to the attempt to make faith an evidentiary tool to justify or adapt the new meaning of faith that some people in these times are trying to do.
in this post-modernist era it was expected that faith was going to be subjectively interpreted from its own basis of interpretation, faith as the article argues is based purely on its own meaning and is completely subjective to the individual, without facts to support it. any attempt to convert it, to meddle it into science, or to simply try to convert it into a 100% factual objective matter automatically converts it into something else not related to the actual original concept of faith. it converts it perhaps into exactly what the article states as the "wrong turn", and religion, the organized system that evidences and regulates faith for some stops and becomes just another parody of some crooks that use the ignorance of others to further their contradiction that faith can be evidenced and/or factual.
alexin007, california
January 05, 2009 12:08am
Kat.
Afraid? Me?
A number of people in my time have enquired about "what will happen to me when I die?"
I explain that my intellect/science tells me what I am made of and how that stuff breaks up when I stop ... ummm ... entropying; v-a-v increasing the disorder of this place.
I watched [2 days ago] the expression change, on the face of a muslim girl I teach, when I explained we will all turn to pulp in the ground, broken into molecules - that's it.
I'm happy with that TRUTH.
As sad as it sounds...
But, then, entropy means "we can't live forever!"
Unless you accept the irrational plurp from faithers...?
neil griffiths, Cardiff uk
January 06, 2009 12:12pm
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Well he does curse a fig tree.
Must have looked at him funny.
He also tells you to hate your parents. And he discusses slavery quite casually without questioning it.
Kind of a prick, that Jesus fellow.
"Think not that I am come to send peace: I came not to send peace but a sword." - Matthew 10:34
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." -Luke 22:36
"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." - Luke 19:27
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." - Luke 14:26
"I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." - Matthew 10:35-36
"And that servant [slave], which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes." - Luke 12:47
He irrationally cursed a fig tree for being fruitless out of season (Matthew 21:18-19, and Mark 11:13-14). He broke the law by stealing corn on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23), and he encouraged his disciples to take a horse without asking permission (Matthew 21).
Read more: http://ffrf.org/nontracts/jesus.php
Eshto, Madison
December 08, 2008 12:07pm