Ten Questions for Intelligent Christians

I came across this video. I decided to use it here because it addresses some of the issues I have been discussing in another post. Take the time to watch and think about it. It is thought-provoking.

People Who Want To Share Their Religious Views

I saw the following on another website.  It’s worth repeating.

People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

Does Fundamentalism Induce Moral Idiocy? Or, Does It Attract it?

I am an atheist, although I sometimes waver between atheism and agnosticism.  I can entertain the notion of a god.  It is possible, after all, that there is more to the universe than what can be detected through observation and measurement and what can be deduced from those observations.  However, I see no point in trying to know God insofar as I don’t believe he/she/it is real.  If God were real I don’t think he/she/it would care if I made the effort.  I also believe that if God were real he/she/it would be put off by people who worship some simplistic and misguided notion of him/her/it.

I was raised as a Catholic, and most of my family is still quite religious.  I also have a number of friends who are religious.  I don’t have a beef with religion the way someone like Richard Dawkins does.  He’s quite militant in his atheism.  I, on the other hand, can tolerate it well enough if people don’t try to push it on me.  When my mom visits, I even attend mass with her, mostly to keep her company, but also to think about where I have been and where I am going.  Just because I don’t believe in God doesn’t mean I’m not on some sort of spiritual journey.

Where I do find my tolerance has a limit is with dogmatism and a literal reading of any holy books.  I really have a problem with people foregoing their own reasoning for what some authority tells them they should think or believe.  In my last post I set out to show how a literal reading of the bible is intellectually indefensible.  I quoted a passage from Leviticus where God ostensibly instructed the Israelites on who they could keep as slaves.  I then invited a number of people to respond to some questions I asked regarding the passage.  I specifically invited people who are active in the blogosphere who I perceive to probably believe a literal reading is the correct reading.

I could see from my page hits that the people I invited were probably having a look.  But no one was responding.  I should have expected that since the passage I quoted and the questions I asked were meant to put them between a rock and a hard place.  DavidC99 was game enough to play.  I figured someone would try to defend a literal reading of the bible.  But, I was hoping that people would be willing to agree that slavery was morally indefensible.

DavidC99, or David, decided to give a defense of a literal reading of the bible.  He answered my questions by stating that slavery is justifiable because God said so in the bible.  Even though I was expecting someone to defend a literal reading of the bible, I was dumbstruck by how upfront he was about this.  I expected that potential responders would be torn between believing in their god, and admitting that the passage in the bible has their god condoning something evil.  Not Dave.  By his reasoning, his god cannot condone evil, so anything his god said or did in the bible is therefore not evil!

I actually wanted to verify this further, because I figured I might be misinterpreting how he defended slavery.  After all, he wasn’t providing much in the way of reasoning.  He basically said it was OK because God condoned it in the bible.  So I quoted a passage from Deuteronomy where God ostensibly told the Israelites to kill all of the Amorites.  The Israelites then obliged their god, who led them into battle.  The Israelites destroyed 60 cities and killed every man, woman, and child.  David said this murder and genocide was again moral because God said so!

What I found irritating about his responses were that his answers seemed defensive.  David wasn’t saying much in answering my questions besides “yes” and “no”.  I was hoping to engage him in a more lively debate.  But, our dialogue seemed to be rather dead.  Then it dawned on me that perhaps the lack of a debate was the result of the lack of reasoning behind his positions.  And it got me wondering whether there might be a correlation between religious fundamentalism and a lack of moral reasoning.  In fact, is it possible that beyond a correlation there might be an actual causation?  In other words, is it possible that religious fundamentalism causes a stunted faculty for moral reasoning? Or perhaps religious fundamentalism is a magnet for people who suffer some sort of moral retardation?

Lawrence Kohlberg was a psychologist who developed a theory about the development of moral reasoning in human beings.  He expanded on some theories originally laid out by Piaget.  Piaget divided moral reasoning in human beings into two stages.  Children younger than 10 or 11 years think about moral dilemmas one way; older children consider them differently. Kohlberg built on Piaget’s theory.  But, Kohlberg broke the development of moral reasoning into six stages.  I would encourage you to read the article to get a better idea of his theory.  What follows are some pertinent quotes from the article by W. C. Crain:

Stage 1. Obedience and Punishment Orientation. Kohlberg’s stage 1 is similar to Piaget’s first stage of moral thought. The child assumes that powerful authorities hand down a fixed set of rules which he or she must unquestioningly obey.  …When asked to elaborate, the child usually responds in terms of the consequences involved, explaining that stealing is bad “because you’ll get punished” (Kohlberg, 1958b)…

Stage 2. Individualism and Exchange. At this stage children recognize that there is not just one right view that is handed down by the authorities. Different individuals have different viewpoints. … Since everything is relative, each person is free to pursue his or her individual interests….

…You might have noticed that children at both stages 1 and 2 talk about punishment. However, they perceive it differently. At stage 1 punishment is tied up in the child’s mind with wrongness; punishment “proves” that disobedience is wrong. At stage 2, in contrast, punishment is simply a risk that one naturally wants to avoid.

…Respondents at stage 2 are still said to reason at the preconventional level because they speak as isolated individuals rather than as members of society. They see individuals exchanging favors, but there is still no identification with the values of the family or community.

Level II. Conventional Morality

Stage 3. Good Interpersonal Relationships. At this stage children–who are by now usually entering their teens–see morality as more than simple deals. They believe that people should live up to the expectations of the family and community and behave in “good” ways. Good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, trust, and concern for others….

Stage 4. Maintaining the Social Order. Stage 3 reasoning works best in two-person relationships with family members or close friends, where one can make a real effort to get to know the other’s feelings and needs and try to help. At stage 4, in contrast, the respondent becomes more broadly concerned with society as a whole. Now the emphasis is on obeying laws, respecting authority, and performing one’s duties so that the social order is maintained….

Because stage 4, subjects make moral decisions from the perspective of society as a whole, they think from a full-fledged member-of-society perspective (Colby and Kohlberg, 1983, p. 27)….

Level III. Postconventional Morality

Stage 5. Social Contract and Individual Rights. At stage 4, people want to keep society functioning. However, a smoothly functioning society is not necessarily a good one. A totalitarian society might be well-organized, but it is hardly the moral ideal. At stage 5, people begin to ask, “What makes for a good society?” They begin to think about society in a very theoretical way, stepping back from their own society and considering the rights and values that a society ought to uphold. They then evaluate existing societies in terms of these prior considerations. They are said to take a “prior-to-society” perspective (Colby and Kohlberg, 1983, p. 22)….

Stage 6: Universal Principles. Stage 5 respondents are working toward a conception of the good society. They suggest that we need to (a) protect certain individual rights and (b) settle disputes through democratic processes. However, democratic processes alone do not always result in outcomes that we intuitively sense are just. A majority, for example, may vote for a law that hinders a minority. Thus, Kohlberg believes that there must be a higher stage–stage 6–which defines the principles by which we achieve justice….

My reason for quoting at length from the article about Kohlberg’s theory is that I wanted to place some of my observations in the context of that theory.  What I observed was that David seemed to be reasoning at a stage 1 level.  This it the earliest stage of moral reasoning exhibited by very young children.

“The child assumes that powerful authorities hand down a fixed set of rules which he or she must unquestioningly obey.”  David assumes that God, a powerful authority indeed, hands down fixed rules which he must unquestioningly obey.

I asked:

Is slavery justifiable now?  If not, when did it stop being justifiable?  Was it ever justified by the book of Leviticus?  If so, how so?

David responded:

1) Is slavery justifiable now? Yes.
2) If not, when did it stop being justifiable? N/A; see previous answer.
3) Was it ever justified by the book of Leviticus? Yes.
4) If so, how so? See Leviticus 25:44-46; God said so.

I asked: “Were the Isrealites justified in killing every man, woman, and child?”

David responded: “Yes.”

I replied, “Murder and genocide are not defensible under any circumstances, even in warfare. …”

David responded,

First of all, murder is never usually defined as being any type of killing. It does not include sanctioned killings.

The wiping out of the people of the land of Canaan was ordered by God, because of the people’s wickedness. They had ample time to repent, and they did not heed the call. An exception to this was Rahab, who actually did repent, and not surprisingly, was spared. …

David concluded with:

1) I am supporting these things because I believe God supports them, all in context.
2) You are condemning these things because you think they should be condemned based on some unknown standard of morality that you hold.

My standard of morality might be unknown to David because it is based on reasoning, and a concern for the well-being of all human beings.  I don’t accept unquestioningly the statements and directives of any authority figure.  I certainly don’t accept what people or books say to me about the thoughts and motives of some imaginary authority figure that I can’t detect, but which they say is all around me.

I don’t think David is reasoning even at Kohlberg’s level 2.

At this stage children recognize that there is not just one right view that is handed down by the authorities. Different individuals have different viewpoints…

According to David, there isn’t anyone’s view except God’s.

He’s certainly not reasoning at level 3:

Good behavior means having good motives and interpersonal feelings such as love, empathy, trust, and concern for others….

But, when confronted with the wholesale butchery of the Amorites, including even children down to infants, he exhibited no interpersonal feelings.  He seemed incapable of feeling empathy.  He only showed a fear of the almighty.

Dave is definitely not at level 4:  “At stage 4, in contrast, the respondent becomes more broadly concerned with society as a whole.”  It’s hard to argue that anyone condoning genocide is concerned with society in any way.

It’s impossible that he is reasoning at level 5:

A totalitarian society might be well-organized, but it is hardly the moral ideal. At stage 5, people begin to ask, “What makes for a good society?” They begin to think about society in a very theoretical way, stepping back from their own society and considering the rights and values that a society ought to uphold.

Believe me, the concept of rights and values hasn’t yet entered into an orbit around Dave’s head, let alone penetrated his skull.

Level 6 reasoning?  Please…

Kohlberg’s conception of justice follows that of the philosophers Kant and Rawls, as well as great moral leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King. According to these people, the principles of justice require us to treat the claims of all parties in an impartial manner, respecting the basic dignity, of all people as individuals. The principles of justice are therefore universal; they apply to all. Thus, for example, we would not vote for a law that aids some people but hurts others. The principles of justice guide us toward decisions based on an equal respect for all.

There are no principles of justice in his reasoning.

Is it possible that David is not reasoning beyond Kohlberg’s level 1 because his faith never challenges him to do so?

In describing how moral reasoning develops, Crain says:

The stages emerge… from our own thinking about moral problems. Social experiences do promote development, but they do so by stimulating our mental processes. As we get into discussions and debates with others, we find our views questioned and challenged and are therefore motivated to come up with new, more comprehensive positions. New stages reflect these broader viewpoints (Kohlberg et al., 1975).

We might imagine, for example, a young man and woman discussing a new law. The man says that everyone should obey it, like it or not, because laws are vital to social organization (stage 4). The woman notes, however, that some well-organized societies, such as Nazi Germany, were not particularly moral. The man therefore sees that some evidence contradicts his view. He experiences some cognitive conflict and is motivated to think about the matter more fully, perhaps moving a bit toward stage 5.

Perhaps, sitting in church and hearing the pastor quote the bible, “God says this, and God says that”, David is never challenged to think about moral dilemmas.  And so his viewpoint doesn’t even acknowledge them.  It’s God’s way, or the highway to hell.

Or, is it possible that David, being cognitively helpless, is drawn to church because it provides simplistic explanations that his mind can grasp?

This is a matter for science.  But, if I were to wager, I would suggest that a fundamentalist viewpoint has a way of numbing the faculties.  Ultimately, both factors might be in play.

Now, to be fair to David, I have to acknowledge that he was sporting enough to come to my blog and respond, knowing that I would try to beat him up.  He might say that I am not reasoning with him, but just slamming him and insinuating that he is some sort of moral retard.  And, to be honest, I am insinuating that in a good-natured way while also trying to reason with him.  I am also hoping that I have misjudged David.  I hope that he is willing to think for himself.  I really hope that by doing so he might come to accept that slavery, murder, genocide, along with rape, incest and a host of other despicable behaviors are unacceptable, even if God supposedly “sanctioned” them.

I am optimistic that David will develop to the level of his peers.  After all, he has come to the internet to share his views and be challenged.

Cain says this about developing moral reasoning:

Whatever the interactions are specifically like, they work best, Kohlberg says, when they are open and democratic. The less children feel pressured simply to conform to authority, the freer they are to settle their own differences and formulate their own ideas. We will discuss Kohlberg’s efforts to induce developmental change in the section on implications for education.

The internet is a very democratic place.  And, by and large, there is little if any pressure here to conform to authority.  David will be free to settle his differences with other bloggers and formulate his own ideas.  I think the prognosis for David is quite good.

The Bible Cannot Be Interpreted Literally

There are a number of Christians who believe that the bible is the literal Word of God.  Some can be found here.  I would like to demonstrate that anyone accepting the bible as the ultimate source of truth will wind up in hot water.  It can be done in a number of ways.  I will choose just one argument today.

Question — Is slavery ever justifiable morally?

According to the bible, it is.  I am using the New International version of the Student Bible.  Leviticus 25:44 – 25:46 says,

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.  You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.  You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Some questions for Christians who accept the bible as literal truth:  Is slavery justifiable now?  If not, when did it stop being justifiable?  Was it ever justified by the book of Leviticus?  If so, how so?

I contend that the only way to stand on moral ground is to stop interpreting the bible literally, and even to condemn those portions of the bible that are objectionable to human beings on moral grounds.

Evolution — your thoughts?

In Daniel Dennett’s book, Breaking the Spell — Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, he says, “According to a recent survey, only about a quarter of the United States understands that evolution is about as well established as the fact that water is H20.”  (p. 60)

I am interested in what you believe.

Fascination with Facts

I am reading Breaking the Spell, by Daniel C. Dennett.  I’m about half way through the book and it has been a good read so far.  Dennett is a philosopher.  The philosophy of science is one of his specialties.   The book deals with the origins of religion as a natural phenomenon.

I wanted to take a moment to share a fact that came up early in the book that I find especially fascinating.  Dennett quotes some research, stating, “Your body is composed of perhaps a hundred trillion cells, and nine out of ten of them are not human cells!”  p. 86.

The research he quotes is from Hooper, Lora V., Lynn Bry, Per G. Falk, and Jeffrey I. Gordon, 1998, “Host-Microbial Symbiosis in the Mammalian Intestine: Exploring an Internal Ecosystem.”  Bio Essays, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 336-43.

Bible Contradicts Christian Theology

A central tenet of Christian theology is that everyone is a sinner.  Romans 3:23 says, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.  Romans then says in 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  So, in a nutshell, since we are all sinners we are all going to die.  But, the believers will enjoy eternal life.

Against this we have the stories of Enoch and Elijah.  Enoch was the son of Cain, the grandson of Adam.  Enoch did not die.  Genesis 5:24 tells us that “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”  Elijah was a prophet.  He, too, did not die.  Second Kings 2:11 tells us that while Elijah was walking with Elisha, “…suddenly a chariot of  fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind.”  So both Enoch and Elijah were spared death because they found favor with God.

Were Enoch and Elijah sinners?  If so, then we have two men who sinned and did not die, contradicting Romans 6:23.  Therefore, Christ is not the only path to heaven.  Or, is it possible that one or both of these men were without sin?  That would clearly contradict Romans 3:23.

How do we square the accounts of these two men with the book of Romans?  We can’t.  Either Christian theology is wrong, or the book on which it is based is flawed.  There are no two ways about it.

The United States is not the Land of the Free

I came across a story today stating that one in every thirty-one adults in the U.S. is in the corrections system.  This is the highest rate in the world.  This makes a lie of the often heard claim that the United States is the most free country in the world.  If we are so free, why are so many of us locked up?

Of course, not everyone involved in the corrections system is locked up.  Many are on parole or on probation.  However, according to the Department of Justice, the “United States has the highest incarceration rate and the biggest prison population of any country in the world.”

Consider that for a moment.  Americans often believe China to be less free than the U.S.  It is communist, after all.  But, if China has  four times as many people as we do, but we have more people in our jails than they do, we aren’t exactly a free country.

Some might claim that these statistics don’t show us to be less free.  They might argue that we have a larger criminal element in our society.  I don’t buy that.   That would imply that Americans are grossly less ethical or less moral than the rest of the world by a large factor.  It would be difficult to accept given our large immigrant population.  Do people immigrate here to embark on a life of crime?

The statistics also show that “[t]he numbers are also concentrated among groups, with a little more than 9 percent of black adults in prisons or jails or on probation or parole, as opposed to some 4 percent of Hispanics and 2 percent of whites.”   The population of the U.S. by race is the reverse order of that figure.  Whites make up the largest share of the American population, followed by Hispanics and then blacks.  I find it hard to believe that justice is color-blind, much less blind.

The gist of the article is about the cost of imprisoning so many Americans.  It argues that probation and parole are less costly for non-violent criminals.  And I would agree.  But, the article never questions the basic methods of the U.S. justice system.  And that would be to make so many things illegal.

I would argue that many of the non-violent offenders in the corrections system are there because of drugs.  Instead of making soft drugs, like marijuana, illegal they should be legal but regulated.  We need to stop punishing people for victimless crimes and let people be the victims of their own decisions, instead.  It is a lot less costly, and much easier to manage.

It is often said that with freedom comes responsibility.  The implication is that people who are less responsible will eventually become less free.  But, is it not possible that if we are less free then we eventually become less responsible?

Can Anyone Explain the Holy Trinity?

The christian concept of God as a holy trinity has me baffled.  I get that Jesus can be distinguished from God the Father in that God the Father somehow spawned Jesus, and later was rejoined by Jesus in Heaven just as a computer process can fork another process and later join on it.  But, what distinguishes God the Father from the Holy Spirit?  Can anyone explain that to me?  And I’m not being entirely facetious, either.

In order for there to be a trinity, the Father and the Spirit must be different somehow.  But, what is it that distinguishes them?  What can the Father do that the Spirit cannot, and vica versa?  Does this not mean that they are one and the same?  Maybe the christian god is not a trinity, but a duality.  And if the Father has some ability that the Spirit does not, or if the Spirit has some power that the Father does not, then isn’t one of them less than all-powerful?  Or maybe both of them?

Is it possible that the Christians have misinterpreted their own god?

Why is Belief in Christ Necessary? (part 3)

After my last post, R. Eric Sawyer and Jeremiah both left a number of comments.  In some of the comments they try to attack my conviction that belief in Christ is not necessary by comparing salvation to receiving a million dollars.  They claim that if someone is willing to deposit a million bucks into your bank account you have to allow the person to do so.  Similarly, salvation isn’t just given away to everyone.  They claim you must first acknowledge Christ in order to receive it.

I would counter that if someone wanted to give me a million dollars they would tell me directly.  They might send a registered letter, or at least make a phone call.  They wouldn’t write a cryptic message in a book, hope that I would read it, and ask me to believe that I will eventually receive a million dollars.  If they were sincere and the money was a gift and nothing more they would contact me to make the offer.

In a similar vein, if Christ really was God and needed our belief in order to save us, and if he so loved us that he were willing to die for each and every one of us, then he would make it painfully obvious that his story was true.  He wouldn’t couch his story in a book full of errors and contradictions, accumulated from oral traditions over the course of centuries.  His offer of salvation would come in a manner that could not be disputed.

The fact is, if Christ really were God, and offered salvation in the manner in which Christians claim, then God would be irresponsible.  How many sincere people have died without hearing his message through no fault of their own?  What becomes of these people?  If they go to hell, then they did so needlessly because God could have reached them.  But, if they don’t go to hell, then belief in Christ is not necessary as evidenced by their salvation.