Why the religious will never admit you won the argument (and why they don't care)

[SteveII]

Religious people don't actually believe for the reasons they give in defence of their faith. 


Here are the top 5 reasons why I think they really hold on to their beliefs:

1) IDENTITY - 
2) COMMUNITY - 
3) TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCE - 
4) FEAR OF DEATH -
5) INDOCTRINATED FEAR OF HELL – 

If there are any I have missed please feel free to post them in the comments below.

For religious people who hold their beliefs for these reasons, they may feel justified on an emotional level to ignore the intellectual defeat of the ideas and apologetics they give in defence of their religion, as they were never what they were defending in the first place. They don’t care about TAG or Kalam – they care about managing their personal fear of death and damnation, about protecting their identify and self image, about being a valued member of a community, and about validating the most transcendent experiences of their lives. This is why they use 'faith' to insulate these core values against intellectual scrutiny.

After all, as evolved primates we are still hard wired to have our conscious thinking overridden by instinct to avoid a perceived threat - the "indelible stamp of our lowly origin' as Darwin so rightly put it.

Despite this, I still believe that in the end, the truth will win out.

I think you have overstated #5, but I can see why you would think that.

I think you forgot a pretty big one, actually the biggest one...People believe the truth claims of the religion. Since you are obviously talking about Christianity, that would mean that one would believe the contents of the NT are true. This actually supports your thesis that people don't believe in Christianity because of natural theology arguments. However it brings up another problem to add to your list of problems:

1. Your list dealt with emotional/psychological reasons and as such are easily dismissed. Now with the NT thing, you will have to deal with a belief in real people and real events. 
2. I am curious why you think Christianity in particular needs an adherent to "ignore the intellectual defeat"? 
3. Your belief that Christians use "faith to insulate these core values against intellectual scrutiny" is quite a bold statement. What scrutiny can you bring to the table that I cannot go and find 500 books on written over the last 2000 years? You seem to operating under the mistaken assumption that you can bring up objections that cannot be answered. 
4. You also seem to be positing faith as a product of evolution and..."in the end, the truth will win out.". Your message is not getting out. There are more Christians in the world every day than there were the day before.

[SteveII]

---

Or to be more exhaustive:
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Kalam

As for half of the objections in your link, see this link: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/obj...de-them-up

[The Grand Nudger]

Perhaps there wouldn't be if you'd leave the children alone?  I doubt anyone needs to explain to you that your religion is on the decline, and pretending that it isn't is droll.

[RoadRunner79]

Fair enough - did you read the link at the bottom to Iron Chariots wiki page detailing the Kalam and why it doesn't hold up?

If you think there is a way of presenting it that does hold up are welcome to put it forward here. So far I don't find it convincing. It's cleaver, but on closer inspection it is ultimately flawed.

I did miss the link, thanks for bringing it to my attention. 

I do see a number of issues, and I think that some of them show that the author and their citation are either not familiar with the arguments, ignorant concerning them, or choose to ignore them.  A number of the arguments seem to take a simple version of the Kalam, and make wild assumptions, which they then tear down.   One of the first sub-headings cites Dan Barker, and I would say that this falls under this category.  I would recommend that you listen to some of the debates by Dr. Craig himself  or look to some good apologetic websites in favor of the Kalam to get a better understanding. 

The following seems to give a good description and addresses many complaints.
http://evolutiondismantled.com/kalam

If you have a specific argument that you would like to discuss, then I would be happy to oblige.

[madog]

 People believe the truth claims of the religion.  

I think this is where religion really fails .... People are indoctrinated to believe before they can weigh the facts for themselves .... Religion, and belief in Father Christmas are similar, but the Father Christmas claims can easily be dismissed as Woo as there is no loss of eternal reward or punishment attached to questioning the fallacy ....

It would be interesting to see how many Christians  would still be Christians if no child was indoctrinated through out childhood .... Oh wait that experiment has been run in non Christian households such as Hindu's, Muslims, etc. etc .... does that not tell you something empirical?

[SteveII]

 People believe the truth claims of the religion.  

I think this is where religion really fails .... People are indoctrinated to believe before they can weigh the facts for themselves .... Religion, and belief in Father Christmas are similar, but the Father Christmas claims can easily be dismissed as Woo as there is no loss of eternal reward or punishment attached to questioning the fallacy ....

It would be interesting to see how many Christians  would still be Christians if no child was indoctrinated through out childhood .... Oh wait that experiment has been run in non Christian households such as Hindu's, Muslims, etc. etc .... does that not tell you something empirical?

I posted this a couple of months ago in another thread:

Okay, say we take the US statistic of 85% of Christians were born into a Christian home. You are claiming that these people only stay because of the "brainwashing" they received as children. The 15% adult conversions are exceptions...or (319 million US population x 70.6% Christians = 225 million x 85% born into Christian homes) = 191 million people. And this is in the wealthiest country with vast amounts of information available to anyone with access to a computer (to say nothing about the education system's attempt to undermine faith). 

I don't think the numbers support your conclusion.

[The Grand Nudger]

The indoctrination of a populace with regards to the  traditional religious beliefs of the culture hardly ceases at adulthood.....and adult conversions don't happen in a vacuum.  You seem to think that mentioning the minority demographic has some ameliorative effect on his conclusion when -at least- some portion of even that demographic received the very same childhood indoctrination...if not the entire demographic.

The internet is great, but it's littered with jesus/allah/vishnu shit.....so I'm not sure why you chose to include that either.

[madog]

I think this is where religion really fails .... People are indoctrinated to believe before they can weigh the facts for themselves .... Religion, and belief in Father Christmas are similar, but the Father Christmas claims can easily be dismissed as Woo as there is no loss of eternal reward or punishment attached to questioning the fallacy ....

It would be interesting to see how many Christians  would still be Christians if no child was indoctrinated through out childhood .... Oh wait that experiment has been run in non Christian households such as Hindu's, Muslims, etc. etc .... does that not tell you something empirical?

I posted this a couple of months ago in another thread:

Okay, say we take the US statistic of 85% of Christians were born into a Christian home. You are claiming that these people only stay because of the "brainwashing" they received as children. The 15% adult conversions are exceptions...or (319 million US population x 70.6% Christians = 225 million x 85% born into Christian homes) = 191 million people. And this is in the wealthiest country with vast amounts of information available to anyone with access to a computer (to say nothing about the education system's attempt to undermine faith). 

I don't think the numbers support your conclusion.

? you have posted figures that support my proposition .... 85% are born into Christian homes and 15% try to fit in with their community ...

What are the rate of Christian Conversions in a non Christian country?

[Veritas_Vincit]

Religious people don't actually believe for the reasons they give in defence of their faith. 


Here are the top 5 reasons why I think they really hold on to their beliefs:

1) IDENTITY - 
2) COMMUNITY - 
3) TRANSCENDENT EXPERIENCE - 
4) FEAR OF DEATH -
5) INDOCTRINATED FEAR OF HELL – 

If there are any I have missed please feel free to post them in the comments below.

For religious people who hold their beliefs for these reasons, they may feel justified on an emotional level to ignore the intellectual defeat of the ideas and apologetics they give in defence of their religion, as they were never what they were defending in the first place. They don’t care about TAG or Kalam – they care about managing their personal fear of death and damnation, about protecting their identify and self image, about being a valued member of a community, and about validating the most transcendent experiences of their lives. This is why they use 'faith' to insulate these core values against intellectual scrutiny.

After all, as evolved primates we are still hard wired to have our conscious thinking overridden by instinct to avoid a perceived threat - the "indelible stamp of our lowly origin' as Darwin so rightly put it.

Despite this, I still believe that in the end, the truth will win out.

I think you have overstated #5, but I can see why you would think that.

I think you forgot a pretty big one, actually the biggest one...People believe the truth claims of the religion. Since you are obviously talking about Christianity, that would mean that one would believe the contents of the NT are true. This actually supports your thesis that people don't believe in Christianity because of natural theology arguments. However it brings up another problem to add to your list of problems:

1. Your list dealt with emotional/psychological reasons and as such are easily dismissed. Now with the NT thing, you will have to deal with a belief in real people and real events. 
2. I am curious why you think Christianity in particular needs an adherent to "ignore the intellectual defeat"? 
3. Your belief that Christians use "faith to insulate these core values against intellectual scrutiny" is quite a bold statement. What scrutiny can you bring to the table that I cannot go and find 500 books on written over the last 2000 years? You seem to operating under the mistaken assumption that you can bring up objections that cannot be answered. 
4. You also seem to be positing faith as a product of evolution and..."in the end, the truth will win out.". Your message is not getting out. There are more Christians in the world every day than there were the day before.

Thanks for your reply

Firstly I would concede that of the underlying emotional reasons for people holding their beliefs, 5 is probably the least common. 

I agree that on the face of it, most people do in fact believe much of their religious teachings - be it the Bible or Koran etc or other teachings through their religious community. The fact that they can believe these teachings, many of which are to a greater or lesser extend obviously untrue, is down to a number of factors. Number one, they have probably never really questioned their beliefs. Number two - they don't have a good understanding of critical thinking, the scientific method, logical reasoning and empiricism. They probably have a very narrow view of science. And number three, they are fed misinformation about science by their religion. Also, number four would be that there is a lot of social taboo against questioning the faith, with the threats against apostates etc. 

However, once a person like that gets into a discussion with a well informed atheist who can point out the logical fallacies in their arguments and ask them questions they had never considered before, once their religious world view comes under fired and they start to come to ways of thinking in which their belief system breaks down, it is the emotional reasons I listed that prevent them from accepting the information being presented and expanding their world view. For example, if I'm talking to someone who was brought up without any understanding of how life on earth came about, and I started telling them about how we have discovered evolution, they might be amazed - but if they've been brought up as a creationist, they will have been conditioned to actively resist the ideas. And it's because these new ideas threaten their identity and community etc. 

Yes, there are more Christians in the world than ever before, but the fasted growing group is those who have no belief, and with the rise in popularity of people like Hitchens and Harris and Dawkins, the Atheist Experience, events like Skepticon and the Reason Rally etc I have some reason to hope for a more enlightened future. 

When I'm talking about Christians 'ignoring intellectual defeat' the first thing that comes to mind is that it is far less common to find a religious debate with a Muslim than it is with a Christian. There seems to be a difference in the tone of the conversation with Muslims who are inherently far more resistant to and defensive against any form of criticism of their religion. With Christians the conversation has been going on for centuries, so there is a more established discourse around apologetics. 

As for the ignoring part... as I have said, I haven't seen a debate or discussion on the topic of religion where the religious advocate/apologist was able to successfully make their case and have it stand. And I find it frustrating because I can see the majority of my species are being held hostage by these regressive, backward traditions that are responsible for so much of the suffering and disharmony happening in the world today, and it's all due to failures in thinking, to ignorance, and often willful ignorance.

---

Fair enough - did you read the link at the bottom to Iron Chariots wiki page detailing the Kalam and why it doesn't hold up?

If you think there is a way of presenting it that does hold up are welcome to put it forward here. So far I don't find it convincing. It's cleaver, but on closer inspection it is ultimately flawed.

I did miss the link, thanks for bringing it to my attention. 

I do see a number of issues, and I think that some of them show that the author and their citation are either not familiar with the arguments, ignorant concerning them, or choose to ignore them.  A number of the arguments seem to take a simple version of the Kalam, and make wild assumptions, which they then tear down.   One of the first sub-headings cites Dan Barker, and I would say that this falls under this category.  I would recommend that you listen to some of the debates by Dr. Craig himself  or look to some good apologetic websites in favor of the Kalam to get a better understanding. 

The following seems to give a good description and addresses many complaints.
http://evolutiondismantled.com/kalam

If you have a specific argument that you would like to discuss, then I would be happy to oblige.

Ok so the first thing I can see that's wrong with this is where they lay out the basic premises and it states "...in order for this argument to be sound, both premises must be true – or at least more probably true than false. If they are true then the conclusion necessarily and inescapably follows as true." 

"More probably true that false"? That would not lead to a true conclusion, failure in logic 101.

Now as to the idea of how we cannot get something from nothing - the reason this seems compelling is because a vital distinction is being left out. Anything that begins to exist *within the universe* must have a cause. Matter/energy cannot simply appear or disappear, it has to come from some other pre-existing matter and energy. 

HOWEVER... this does not necessarily apply to the Universe itself. The appearance of the universe would be an entirely different order of event, so cause and effect would not work the same way. 

Kalam is a cleaver attempt to avoid the infinite regress from the standard cosmological argument, but it still comes down to special pleading. What you end up describing is incoherent - a "timeless, immaterial, personal being" as Craig says... these are just abstract human concepts being applied to a big black nothingness. It makes no sense, and there is no way to actually demonstrate it. You can make up the concept of a causeless cause, but if anything can exist without a cause, SO CAN THE UNIVERSE! 

Science doesn't have all the answers, yet, and may never have - but to claim that this makes Kalam/Christianity correct by default is to commit the 'argument from ignorance' fallacy. The claim has to stand in its own right, and I am not convinced that it does. 



Aside from all that, the idea that Kalam is the best proof for God there is, the best Christianity can do... is pitiful. That's enough to make me an atheist right there! You're telling me about a God who created a universe, performed all sorts of miracles, yet the best evidence for his existence is this philosophical thought experiment? Come on! Turn some water into wine! Magic heal someone!

[SteveII]

I posted this a couple of months ago in another thread:

Okay, say we take the US statistic of 85% of Christians were born into a Christian home. You are claiming that these people only stay because of the "brainwashing" they received as children. The 15% adult conversions are exceptions...or (319 million US population x 70.6% Christians = 225 million x 85% born into Christian homes) = 191 million people. And this is in the wealthiest country with vast amounts of information available to anyone with access to a computer (to say nothing about the education system's attempt to undermine faith). 

I don't think the numbers support your conclusion.

? you have posted figures that support my proposition .... 85% are born into Christian homes and 15% try to fit in with their community ...

What are the rate of Christian Conversions in a non Christian country?

How can you say "15% try to fit in with their community"? You have just ascribed a reason to a person's conversion that you have no way of knowing. 

According to Wikipedia (note the countries that would not support your conclusion for "fitting in" or being "born into it):

• According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, World Christian Encyclopedia also cited that Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion.[9]
  
  
• Studies estimate significantly more people have converted from Islam to Christianity in the 21st century than at any other point in Islamic history.[10] Conversion into Christianity have also been well documented, and reports estimate that hundreds of thousands of Muslims convert to Christianity annually, significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity can be found in Afghanistan, Albania,[11] Azerbaijan,[12][13] Algeria,[14] Belgium,[15] Bulgaria,[16][17] France,[18] Germany,[19] Indonesia,[20]Iran,[21][22][23][24] Kazakhstan,[25] Kyrgyzstan,[26] Malaysia,[27] Morocco,[28][29] Netherlands,[30] Russia,[31] Saudi Arabia,[32] Tunisia,[33] Turkey,[34][35][36][37] Kosovo,[38] TheUnited States[39] and Central Asia etc.[40][41] Many of the Muslims who converts to Christianity faces social rejection or imprisonment and sometimes murder or penalty, for becoming Christians.[42]
  
  
• Data from the Pew Research Center that as of 2013, about 1.6 million adult American Jews identify themselves as Christians, most are Protestant.[43][44][45] According to same data most of the Jews who identify themselves as some sort of Christian (1.6 million) were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry.[44] Data from 2013, show that 64,000 Argentine Jews identify themselves as Christians.[46] According to 2012 study 17% of Jews in Russia identify themselves as Christians.[47][48]
  
  
• It's been also reported that conversion into Christianity is significantly increasing among Korean,[49] Chinese,[50] and Japanese in the United States.[51] By 2012 percentage of Christians on mentioned communities was 71%, more than 30% and 37%,[52]
  
  
• Due to conversion, the number of Chinese Christians has increased significantly; from 4 million before 1949 to 67 million in 2010.[53][54]
  
  
• Due to conversion, Christianity has grown in South Korea, from 2.0% in 1945[55] to 29.3% in 2010.[53]