Fundamental Arrogance in Christianity

[Redoubtable]

Isn't it amusing that reps of both major brands hear the same thing and think "oh, that's obviously the other guys"........

Yes it is and there's a reason for that. Fringe Protestant groups often operate in such a way that is similar to a cult in the serious sense of the word. And in my opinion the modern Catholic Church is the decrepit offspring of one of the most efficient cults in history, the medieval Catholic Church, which blows Scientology out of the water in terms of its ability to exercise control over its members. The CC today can by no means exercise the degree of control over its members that it used to, but it still has enough of the remnants of that power to manipulate its most invested believers. So essentially each side sees the other as potentially exhibiting the characteristics of false cults.

[SteveII]

1. I think you are misusing the word 'faith'. Faith is having confidence in something, and in this context, confidence that God is/will _____. So, how could a confidence in God be the rational basis for belief in God? Perhaps you mean someone's belief about God. But if that is the case, the sentence is circular: a persons belief in God is a rational basis for belief in God. I think most people have tangible reasons for their belief. 

I don't agree that faith is merely synonymous with "confidence", it has far too many additional connotations not the least of which is that faith is also characterized as a gift, a supernatural grace from God. In a more common sense I think of it as belief beyond the evidence, that at some point there is a break with proportioning belief with evidence and one takes a leap of faith and just assumes the truth of what is claimed despite not having proof.

The problem I have with this is that up until that point believers are fine with invoking the need for proof and proportionate evidence (especially when debating believers of rival religions), but then suddenly pull out the faith card once their reasoning fails them and they need some justification to accept belief in a reality they can't arrive at without invoking faith. So you'll see a Christian criticize the Qur'an for its contradictions, but when similar criticisms are made about the Bible, the "evidence mode" gets switched off in their minds and we're back to "faith mode" as there is no length a Christian will not go to in attempting to square the circle in claiming there is no contradiction, because regardless of the criticism (and the evidence supporting it), the conclusion has already been reached in advance thanks to faith based belief which precludes one from entertaining the possibility that they are wrong about the belief system that demands faith in the first place.

Even with all the additional connotations, faith never means belief in God with no evidence. Here are some of the main verses from the NT about faith. Faith does not come from God either. It is an action/attitude on our part. 

I find the evidence for the existence of God to be sufficient. I find the person of Christ to be compelling. I believe the authors of the NT and the events they describe. I believe that God can change lives and believe others that testify to their own changes. I believe that personal miracles still happen (not the big flashy ones of the NT) and believe people I have met that experienced them. I believe that people have a built-in propensity to believe in the supernatural. I also believe that Christianity is the most complete worldview that answers the big questions that people have (meaning, purpose, worth, morality, the future, etc.). Christians have reasons for believing as they do. To suggest the "evidence mode" gets switched off is simply wrong. You seem to think that there are questions/objections that haven't been addressed in literally thousands of books (for every topic) sometimes spanning almost 2000 years. There are not. There are no new objections to Christianity. 

2. If you believe Christianity to be true, that entails believing that Christianity is the only path to God. Following that train of logic, how does that equate to 'arrogance'?

It equates to arrogance when you de-mystify the religion and view it from the perspective of it not being true, but just a bunch of religious leaders (whether it be pastors, priests, whatever) imposing a myth-based worldview on children and others, having their entire position predicated on the presumption that the human race owes its adherence to their views without offering any reasons for belief proportionate to the extraordinary claims they make. This arrogance was taken so far that you were once considered unfit to live if you spoke against what were considered the correct religious views. Such people were tortured and executed as heretics under both Catholic and Protestant governments of the past.

Your original post said "To me the peculiar thing about this is that up until very recently Christianity was saturated in an arrogance that still exists, but is not nearly articulated as much as it used to be, and this arrogance is basically that it is not only reasonable to have faith in their religion, but that we have a moral obligation to have faith in their religion.

So, arrogance is an attitude that you attributed to a Christian simply for the fact that the Gospel message is necessarily exclusive and not a matter of opinion. So if one believes the Gospel, how can the belief that necessarily follows be considered arrogance? In your clarification, you seem to be pivoting to a criticism of men who have layered things on top of Christianity--which might very well be the case. But you should distinguish the root of the arrogance.

[Mister Agenda]

I'm not sure it's fundamental. Demographics with a large majority tend to be arrogant and take their cultural supremacy for granted. I expect Christians will become much better behaved once they're in the minority.

[Neo-Scholastic]

If you want proof learn to seek God on His terms, and hold on to something.

So the only way to come to understand the truth of your religion is by assuming it is true in the first place; then proceed to act and think accordingly? I don't see how this is persuasive in any respect. Islam makes the same exact demand, as do other religions and cults so why should I invest my faith in your Christian denomination versus any other, or Christianity versus any other religion?

Not exactly. I think the claim of atheists that there are so many different gods is simply wrong. With respect to the Divine Attributes that come from general revelation, I cannot find any substantial differences between the De Fide of the Catholic Church and the Westminster Confession of the Reformed Church. The statements of faith of most mainline churches, despite minor doctrinal differences, read the same with respect to the attributes of God

I am not an expert on Islam. I get the sense that it is almost all dependent on special revelation and from my limited exposure their list of divine attributes have notable differences. At the same time I have read some Sufi commentaries that seem to conform with the divine attributes advocated by Christians. The same is true for Hinduism. There pantheon is bound by a single Ground of Being that seems remarkably similar to the Christian God of general revelation and the God of the Philosophers known to the ancient pagans.

[The Grand Nudger]

Not exactly. I think the claim of atheists that there are so many different gods is simply wrong.

lol...."the claim of atheists"?

There are lots of stories about gods.  That's "the claim of atheists".

With respect to the Divine Attributes that come from general revelation, I cannot find any substantial differences between the De Fide of the Catholic Church and the Westminster Confession of the Reformed Church. The statements of faith of most mainline churches, despite minor doctrinal differences, read the same with respect to the attributes of God

The defining difference between sects is christology...for a religion called "christianity"....that seems significant.  

I am not an expert on Islam. I get the sense that it is almost all dependent on special revelation and from my limited exposure their list of divine attributes have notable differences. At the same time I have read some Sufi commentaries that seem to conform with the divine attributes advocated by Christians. The same is true for Hinduism. There pantheon is bound by a single Ground of Being that seems remarkably similar to the Christian God of general revelation and the God of the Philosophers known to the ancient pagans.

Cultural appropriation. I bet you think everybody is talking abut your god. Not even the jews or muslims are talking about your god...there's that one -massive- bit of disagreement...you know, christ.

[Mr Greene]

I'm not sure it's fundamental. Demographics with a large majority tend to be arrogant and take their cultural supremacy for granted. I expect Christians will become much better behaved once they're in the minority.

Alas no, or at least not yet. British christians still assume that the bulk of the population should be subjected to their culture regardless of their disconnection with the population at large.

[Redoubtable]

Even with all the additional connotations, faith never means belief in God with no evidence.

My criticisms are not about belief in a god, but about Christianity in particular. Deists don't claim you will burn in hell for not believing in a deity, Christians do claim you risk hell for not believing in the gospel. I never said faith means belief without evidence, I said faith means belief beyond the evidence; meaning that even if there is some limited foundation to make an argument (some evidence rather than none), the supporting evidence does not necessarily imply the conclusion. For example, Christians have faith that the resurrection occurred based on the empty tomb and the rest of the events described in the gospel accounts. Well, from my point of view if we are wondering whether a certain man came back from the dead, does the fact that these particular accounts of uncertain authorship and veracity say it happened serve as sufficient evidence to convince me? No, it's not sufficient to me, and yet under Christianity, the fact that I'm not convinced of this is reckoned as a moral failure on my part. That because I'm not convinced of this story and reject it I deserve to suffer forever in the afterlife? It's ludicrous to me, and I find it silly that a god depicted as kind and merciful would be so arbitrary in judging the children he allegedly loves based on this.

Not exactly. I think the claim of atheists that there are so many different gods is simply wrong. With respect to the Divine Attributes that come from general revelation, I cannot find any substantial differences between the De Fide of the Catholic Church and the Westminster Confession of the Reformed Church. The statements of faith of most mainline churches, despite minor doctrinal differences, read the same with respect to the attributes of God

I completely agree, which is why I think the argument that centers around equating disbelief in the God of classical theism with gods Thor or Zeus a bad argument because Thor and Zeus aren't gods in the sense classical theists use the word. These gods of ancient myth are basically superheroes, they're just really powerful versions of humans and don't really have anything in common with the god of classical theism other than the three letter title. My criticisms in this thread aren't aimed at the existence of a god, in fact you can presuppose a god exists (in fact I'm inclined to believe in one even if I don't claim to know for certain) in my criticisms of these religions. My criticism is aimed at the religions specifically and in this case Christianity.

And in regards to what you quoted from me, I was responding to what is a common evangelization tactic, and that is where believers tell you that things will only start to make sense to you when you allow yourself to believe and act as if their religion is true from the start. If you don't believe it's because you don't understand, and the only way to understand is to just go ahead and believe. So in order to become convinced and take that leap of faith you have to presuppose the truth of that which you are considering in the first place; it's awfully convenient that this is the way believers supposedly make sense of their faith.

I am not an expert on Islam. I get the sense that it is almost all dependent on special revelation and from my limited exposure their list of divine attributes have notable differences. At the same time I have read some Sufi commentaries that seem to conform with the divine attributes advocated by Christians. The same is true for Hinduism. There pantheon is bound by a single Ground of Being that seems remarkably similar to the Christian God of general revelation and the God of the Philosophers known to the ancient pagans.

So when I brought up the case of Islam, I was merely trying to illustrate that another religion besides Christianity demands you have faith in it, and uses faith as a basis for belief. Both Islam and Christianity hold that people have a moral obligation to embrace their faith, that's the essential point. So when you have two competing belief systems (Islam and Christianity) that both demand you have faith in it, and that faith serve as a basis for belief, how are you supposed to determine which (if any) is true?

You can't responsibly agree to believe in the first one your encounter just because they tell you that you must have faith, that's incredibly gullible. You have to evaluate them critically and determine if any of them seems credible enough to believe based on the evidence. Christians are awfully good at this when it comes to critiquing other denominations or other religions, but when it comes to self-critique along the same lines in Christianity no such thing is possible to me. I say it is not possible because for the believing Christian the conclusion has been reached in advance, before the research or the critique have even started. Due to the foundation of faith, no matter what you find, even if it appears to flat out disprove your religion, will cause you to reassess the authenticity of your religion because faith, once embraced and directed towards a particular belief system, causes one to ignore counter-evidence.

[SteveII]

Even with all the additional connotations, faith never means belief in God with no evidence.

My criticisms are not about belief in a god, but about Christianity in particular. Deists don't claim you will burn in hell for not believing in a deity, Christians do claim you risk hell for not believing in the gospel. I never said faith means belief without evidence, I said faith means belief beyond the evidence; meaning that even if there is some limited foundation to make an argument (some evidence rather than none), the supporting evidence does not necessarily imply the conclusion. For example, Christians have faith that the resurrection occurred based on the empty tomb and the rest of the events described in the gospel accounts. Well, from my point of view if we are wondering whether a certain man came back from the dead, does the fact that these particular accounts of uncertain authorship and veracity say it happened serve as sufficient evidence to convince me? No, it's not sufficient to me, and yet under Christianity, the fact that I'm not convinced of this is reckoned as a moral failure on my part. That because I'm not convinced of this story and reject it I deserve to suffer forever in the afterlife? It's ludicrous to me, and I find it silly that a god depicted as kind and merciful would be so arbitrary in judging the children he allegedly loves based on this.

You keep equating the term "moral failure" with disbelief. They are not the same. If you disbelieve, the "church" and other Christian just think you are wrong--not a moral failure.  Perhaps you think using the term adds weight to your objection. A person deserves to be eternally separated from God for rejecting him when given the opportunity.  Rejecting an eternal God has eternal consequences for an immortal soul--I don't think that is as big of a philosophical leap as you think.

[Whateverist]

If you want proof learn to seek God on His terms, and hold on to something.

I think I have the hang of it. Am I doing it right?

[Neo-Scholastic]

…My criticisms are not about belief in a god, but about Christianity in particular. Deists don't claim you will burn in hell for not believing in a deity, Christians do claim you risk hell for not believing in the gospel…Christians have faith that the resurrection occurred based on the empty tomb and the rest of the events described in the gospel accounts… it's not sufficient to me, and yet under Christianity, the fact that I'm not convinced of this is reckoned as a moral failure on my part. That because I'm not convinced of this story and reject it I deserve to suffer forever in the afterlife.

As far as I can tell from the canonical texts, other options are still on the table. I believe Scripture is indeterminate about the afterlife – eternal conscious torment, annihilation, and universalism. I have read major theologians, all of whom I respect, that disagree on our ultimate fate. They do, however, all agree that torment and anguish are the consequences of sin, not just in the hereafter, but in the here and now.

As an analogy, fish are made to live happily in the water, but if some rebellious fish jumps onto the dock, his suffocation and flailing are direct consequences of his actions. Likewise, suppose a man pursues a life contrary to the moral grain of creation and commits himself to it even though it hurts him and those around him. Is it right or proper to blame the Creator when the man rejects the feast of permitted pleasures that Creator set before him?

The question I would ask you, and all nominal believers, is this: has the work of the Redeemer prompted you to repentance leading to regeneration – not later but today, right now. Has your current suffering ceased to be meaningless? The gospel isn’t just about a paradise you can only enjoy later. It is about the joy you can have now by participating in His mission even if that means involves trials, temptations, and tribulations. So I would say, stop worrying about a dire future and focus on your life as it is today and ask yourself if your life would be better off for embracing the Gospel.

Now many people think not, especially those raised in repressive churches. In that environment, the rules and demands and judgments and guilt are immediately apparent. Those churches have crushed the life out of the Gospel. I’m not going to try to sell you on the superiority of a life led in obedience to Christ. That’s up to you. As for me, I only have to watch a couple of Judge Judy episodes to witness all the unnecessary and pointless strife people get themselves into. Wouldn’t their lives be so much easier if they controlled their impulses for easy gain and illicit pleasures? Now of course they could conceivably do so without the guidance of divine principles (a whole nuther issue). But what about when they are innocent and on the receiving end? Where can they turn when the justice of the world has failed them?
There is a good case to be made that intellectual assent to the existence of God and the truth of the Gospels isn’t enough. As the cliché says, even Satan and his demons believe in God. Faith isn’t an intellectual belief that some philosophical claim is valid. Faith is about living the truth in which you believe. Orthodoxy is important but orthopraxy is critical.

Not exactly. I think the claim of atheists that there are so many different gods is simply wrong. With respect to the Divine Attributes that come from general revelation, I cannot find any substantial differences between the De Fide of the Catholic Church and the Westminster Confession of the Reformed Church. The statements of faith of most mainline churches, despite minor doctrinal differences, read the same with respect to the attributes of God

I completely agree, which is why I think the argument that centers around equating disbelief in the God of classical theism with gods Thor or Zeus a bad argument because Thor and Zeus aren't gods in the sense classical theists use the word. These gods of ancient myth are basically superheroes, they're just really powerful versions of humans and don't really have anything in common with the god of classical theism other than the three letter title.

Please, please, could you try to get that point across to some other AF members. They are really making asses out of themselves by comparing God to Thor, unicorns or the tooth fairy.

…believers tell you that things will only start to make sense to you when you allow yourself to believe and act as if their religion is true from the start…when I brought up the case of Islam, I was merely trying to illustrate that another religion besides Christianity demands you have faith in it, and uses faith as a basis for belief. Both Islam and Christianity hold that people have a moral obligation to embrace their faith, that's the essential point. So when you have two competing belief systems (Islam and Christianity) that both demand you have faith in it, and that faith serve as a basis for belief, how are you supposed to determine which (if any) is true

Indeed that has been what I have been advocating above. To answer the question, I say you must look at what each religion promises. Both teach a kind of obedience but there appear to be important differences (again I am not an expert). Islam teaches obedience to God through specific and seemingly culture specific rules. Christianity teaches obedience to the person of Jesus Christ by means of His example. Unlike Christianity, Islam does not appear to have a means to redeem our suffering. There seem to be other differences. That said, people overwhelmingly select the dominant religion of their culture. Personally, I am very ecumenical. I am not so quick to dismiss the positive role Islam (or Hinduism or Bhai or any other religion) may have in the lives of its adherents. I believe God meets us where we are and in the end responds to what we ask of Him.