A Pedantic Definition Of Knowing

First off, any mention of patchouli clearly amuses the heck out of everybody. Next: Birkenstocks and David Foster Wallace novels.

Second, everybody who commented to say they had read the Bible through, also left it.

Granted, this was a survey sampled from smart people who behave decently. Kudos to for having read it cover-to-cover the largest number of times: three. That's hardcore. That's like programming in assembly with paper punchcards, punched by a robot which is controlled by patch cables, which are moved around by another robot which you program directly on its hard disk platter with a refrigerator magnet. And just as painful.

The last comment, by , inspired me to post some more. Drew employs that hoary technique, a pedantic definition of "knowing":

"We don't *know* that the Christian description of reality is wrong. It is *probably* wrong based on what we know about the physical world."

1. OK, metaphysics are so hard to say anything about that pretending to know them for sure and making a big deal about them is absolutism. Agreed. If you had said "the supernatural description of reality" you'd have a point. This is why I'm agnostic about the origin of the universe.
2. Next on the scale comes forensic science. I'm not agnostic about a God-concept that denies evolution; I am as atheist about that as I am about Thor and Zeus. The universal skeptic will argue that biology and archeology are weaker evidences than first-hand experiences. Sure they are. This is why so few people take science seriously when it disproves scriptural claims, even if they watch CSI. (By the way, this goes to the point of why religious apologetics is so sneaky. They keep all the evidences for their claims off into the distant past and unverifiable future, with no reference to what we should expect to experience here and now.)
3. After science, and on the opposite end of the scale from metaphysics, is first-hand experiences. It is not absolutist to claim to "know" the furniture around you exists. Most of you on board with me with that so far? I expect so. It is not absolutist to say I "know" (in the furniture sense) the Christian description of reality is wrong.

If you don't know how specific the Bible is in its falsifiable claims about what believers are supposed to experience, that indicates you haven't read it. So that particular patchouli-scented hand can go down, please. Let's give just one example.

"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

There is no reasonable interpretation of 2 Corinthians 5:17 which holds up under the scrutiny of anyone who is paying attention. This has nothing to do with "Christians were mean to me so I don't want to be in their group." It has to do with the things you expect to happen to your own heart through the supernatural influence of God. After someone has been around a massive number of Christians from around the world, such as the gathering at PCC, it cannot escape their notice that they are not "new creatures". Behold, all things have not become new. They're just people. Not heroes, not monsters, just people. People are people.

Sure, we hear stories occasionally of a life turning around in a dramatic fashion, at least for a while. But the "any man" and "all things" parts of the verse were poor word choices, if the author wanted to keep credible deniability. Most of the Bible has a slippery Clintonian "no, what I said didn't really mean what you thought it meant". That accounts for its undying popularity; you can always come up with an excuse when it doesn't come true. But this verse? Not so much. Defending it requires a hermeneutical desperation which I have learned to smell a mile away, from when I used to listen to preachers struggle to find a Biblical justification for prohibiting rock music.

This is no problem for liberal Christians, who feel inspired by many things from scripture, but are comfortable ignoring it when it comes to furniture or forensic science. It is a serious problem for literalists. Possibly the most serious problem. Historical and scientific errors are abstract, long ago and far away, so they're easy to dismiss. It's tough to dismiss when God's promises don't come true in your own life or the lives of those around you. Forget evolution, textual criticism. The Christian life collapses itself with no help from them.

Like Scientology, it doesn't work on you as advertised, and like Scientology, you get blamed when the product fails.

This point must be reiterated: This has nothing to do with "Christians were mean to me so I don't want to be in their group." It has to do with the things you expect to happen to your own heart through the supernatural influence of God.

Throughout my history in churches, saved people constantly went to the altar and got re-saved. Why do you think that happens so much? It happens because they take the Bible's promises more seriously than the liberal Christian. They expect it to be usefully true, and are wondering why it's not working.

Comments

trav13369 on Oct. 5, 2007 11:38 AM — sorry...

re-saved? These people are like Word Documents? LOL That's like in our gaming group, when we kill undead, we consider them "re-dead" LOL

And yes, Co$ IS like that, which is dumb, because if you need help, and you go to them, the last thing I'd think you'd want is someone telling you you aren't doing it right or aren't good enough to use the "tech". Wouldn't that be counterproductive to you getting better?

dbvanhorn on Oct. 5, 2007 12:30 PM — Re: sorry...

But COS isn't about you getting better. It's about transferring funds reasonably efficiently. What's worse is that if you don't get the right end phenomenon on the second go-round, then you'll need some special auditing ($$$) and a "security check" ($$$) and then you can pay to do it AGAIN. ($$$) Pretty soon, you learn to claim the appropriate "big win" and you get the feeling that you're the only one whose lying to get through, which keeps you vulnerable. And the "big wins" are used to sucker more people into the courses. Hubbard was a lunatic, but he was a relatively smart lunatic.

I was going to bring up COS in my reply till I read far enough to see that Matt already had it.

When the football team wins, it's "all praise to god", but when they loose, it's all their fault.

dbvanhorn on Oct. 5, 2007 12:33 PM — A different sort of religion

http://www.soundstage.com/revequip/crystalcable_ultra_pc_followup.htm

Same basis though.. and of course if you can't hear the amazing improvement, then you need to get your hearing checked.

It's no wonder we haven't got the flying cars and been to jupiter yet.
Collectively, we're morons... :-P

atropis on Oct. 5, 2007 3:38 PM

if the author wanted to keep credible deniability.

or rather, the translator. the stuff seems to read better when translated by personal-hobby-language-scholar types. the little i've seen of that is pretty enjoyable.

zifferent on (None)

zifferent on Oct. 5, 2007 3:54 PM

Defending it requires a hermeneutical desperation which I have learned to smell a mile away, from when I used to listen to preachers struggle to find a Biblical justification for prohibiting rock music.

hermeneutical, nice word! I had to look it up.

And the whole rock-and-roll thing originally was a thinly veiled bit of racism, (That evil, african beat.) but now that that's no longer PC even in most Christianist groups and it has changed to anti-paganism (that evil, pagan beat.) or like anything conservitive Christians don't understand "a tool of the devil."

Of I find this funny on another level because gospel and slow organ music haven't been around forever. There were no organs two millennia ago. Somehow I get a picture of Jesus in a Dr. Tooth style getup jamming it up on a Hammond and Judas (the vain one) pulling vocals, Peter drums (the cornerstone of a good band) and Matthew on guitar (I don't have a justification for that. It just sounded right.)

I'd bet money that if there was music at Jesus' gathering it was the folk music flavour of the day (like rock-and-roll) but there is no way of verifying that so it's sort of a moot point.

matt-arnold on Oct. 5, 2007 4:39 PM

That is totally true. I remember an audio presentation I once listened to by GLAD The Accapella Project which demonstrated how many of the great hymns of the faith got their melodies from tavern songs.

avt-tor on Oct. 6, 2007 3:31 AM

What's wrong with Thor and Zeus? ;)

users on Oct. 6, 2007 11:53 PM

Drew employs that hoary technique, a pedantic definition of "knowing"

That's a bit disingenuous. Claiming "you're just using pedantic language" is no less obtuse when its done by atheists than theists. The fact is... we don't KNOW, under any definition of the word know, pedantic or otherwise.

We know that many elements of the Bible are not literal truth. That is what we know.

matt-arnold on Oct. 7, 2007 12:08 AM

What don't we know? You were not specific. I was referring to Drew's words, "the Christian description of reality." I certainly don't know where else to turn than Christ to find out what Christianity is, and I'm certainly not going to look in the idiosyncratic brain of any individual Christian. If the Bible is not the Christian description of reality, then of course no progress can be made until you identify what is. Until that time, since I think A is synonymous with B, when A is false, B is false. You should just be aware that is what is going on in my mind when I make an argument like this.

users on Oct. 7, 2007 12:12 AM

So a better way to phrase it is that you KNOW that YOUR interpretation of the Bible and Christianity is demonstrably wrong. At least a more accurate one. There are numerous flavors of Christian with numerous beliefs... and while I don't believe Christianity is correct, I also don't believe that I can *KNOW* it's wrong given the current level of evidence.

matt-arnold on (None)

matt-arnold on Oct. 7, 2007 12:30 AM

There is a good reason to reject the label Christianity as a monolithic unity when it isn't one. It is impossible to pin it down; therefore, when somebody says "you don't know Christianity is true or false" and I say "OK", this means to them that I don't know whether my interpretation is true or false.

Sparing the baby in the bathwater is not worth that outcome to me. If you want to make nice with, let's say for instance, Agape; OK. But they can promote their forked distro of Jesus 9.5.6 beta release just fine with zero support from me. If they fail in the noble part of their intentions because of too much public discredit to the word "Christian", well, that's just not on my list of priorities.

users on Oct. 7, 2007 12:36 AM

That avoids the discussion altogether, Matt. You were told that we don't *KNOW* Christianity is false. You countered that the argument is needlessly pedantic, and support that position by indicating that it's not your job to support Christianity.

I'm not sure I follow the logic.

Anonymous on (None)