RE: Credible/Honest Apologetics?
July 14, 2022 at 6:04 pm
(This post was last modified: July 14, 2022 at 6:28 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(July 14, 2022 at 1:48 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I assume that people would need standards of judgment -- i.e. principles they believe in -- in order to reject something that hasn't been falsified.
Not an issue for any of mans gods - all of which are long disproven, nor is it an issue for pure belief which is either off or on with no particular rational requirement. Hence the attempted rhetorical retreat into a "ground of being", or a god-in-assertion only of pure possibilities ala many worlds and the modal hook.
For the most part, and I'd point to comments in this very thread to drive this home, the religious really want to assert that their -religion- is true, but rather than do that, they doom themselves to arguments about superstitions they also happen to hold. Their religious experiences as evidence..for gods, somehow. The immediate trouble for superstition there is that people who don't believe in gods also report religious experiences. God's aren't a requirement of religion, or a religious experience - nor do they explain anything about either phenomena. The irony of gods, conceptually, is that they fail the only task we've assigned them. Whether people believe that some fairy or another exists doesn't unite anyone into a moral whole - not even the people who believe in the same fairies are united in this way.
Honest or credible apologetics for a religion are very poorly served by the assertion of superstition. Take vicarious redemption, my go to objection to christianity. If a person wanted to make the case -for- vicarious redemption they wouldn't need to mention christ a single time. Any random joe would suffice (and, as historicists have it, that's exactly what happened). It either is or isn't abhorrent no matter how many fairies or types of fairies exist or people believe in. End of the day, if people can't think of any reason (for loose and novel use of the term reason) that their religion is true or relevant outside of their gods merte (asserted) existence - then we can go ahead and mark down the time of death for this religion and it's gods - as it's on it's way to the same place as all the rest.
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