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In https://meaningness.com/finding-god-in-a-casino https://meaningness.com/finding-god-in-a-casino, he says explains religion as an addiction to warm fuzzies, k

In https://meaningness.com/finding-god-in-a-casino https://meaningness.com/finding-god-in-a-casino, he says explains religion as an addiction to warm fuzzies, kept alive by the brain's ability to everywhere find patterns. I agree that such can describe many people, but orthodox Christianity doesn't prescribe wishful thinking or worse, blind faith. If you read the Bible, it is very much an evidence-based religion. A good summary is More Than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell (192 pages).

danharaj 10y ago
It also definitely does not explain at all the material relations of society that have been grounded in religious rituals and practices throughout history. In a materialist analysis of religion, it is the role religion plays in mediating relations of economic activity and power that determine the structure of religion. There's something compelling about such an argument: It explains why religion's prominence in a society fades as it becomes less entwined with economy and politics. This idealism as opposed to materialism seems to be prominent throughout what I've skimmed of this site.
- clock_tower 10y ago
  I'd add that you can be a religious believer, but still use and recognize materialist analyses of religion -- including your own religion. As an obvious and non-controversial example, any religion that finds itself widely believed in a world without central authorities is going to be pressed into service as an enforcer of oaths -- even if its founder's opinion of oaths was somewhere between jaded and openly hostile. Are you familiar with Marvin Harris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Harris)? I think he draws his causal arrow backwards -- it's not that a society develops ways of thinking because they'd be adaptive, it's that societies that happen to develop adaptive ways of thinking flourish -- but it's fascinating to watch his style of analysis in action, and he makes more good points than bad ones... at least if you ask me.
lastofus 10y ago
It's difficult to believe that orthodox Christianity is completely evidenced based and requires zero faith, blind or otherwise. If it did, I would imagine it would end up falling into the realm of science, and not religion.
tyingq 10y ago
Does thinking that Christianity is "evidence based" require assuming that parts of the bible are not meant to be taken literally? Without going into a litany of examples, surely even devout Christians understand that large portions of the Bible are difficult to match to reality/science/etc.
- smhost 10y ago
  I think it requires stretching the definition of "literally". For example, "seven days" might not necessarily mean "seven human days" but rather it might be some kind of magical God-time unit. An "ark" may not be a literal ship; or maybe it is, and the "popular" version of the evolutionary tree is misguided. And so on.
  - cousin_it 10y ago
    The most fun crackpot text I've ever read, Ilya Shkrob's "In the Beginning" [1], says that the seven days account describes seven different highly improbable events in Earth's history that were mainly responsible for the existence of intelligent life, and each of those events indeed could fit in a day. [1] https://sites.google.com/site/shkrobius/inthebeginning... https://sites.google.com/site/shkrobius/inthebeginning....
  - tyingq 10y ago
    > For example, "seven days" might not necessarily mean "seven human days" I really didn't want to get into a point-for-point thing, but the "day" is just one issue. Birds and whales (great sea monsters) precede reptiles and insects, grass precedes light, etc. The Ark, and other stories, have similar issues that are hard to wave away.
    - combatentropy 10y ago
      > Birds and whales (great sea monsters) precede reptiles and insects What's the problem? > grass precedes light verse 3: And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. verse 11: Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation . . . "
samirillian 10y ago
It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based. To paraphrase the apostle Paul himself: Greeks look for reason and Jews look for miracles, but I preach the power of Christ (viz., Neither a reasonable nor an evidence-based faith). And elsewhere paul undermines the "wisdom of the wise". Moreover, to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive, since he is most clearly not Orthodox by any commonly-held definition, but only according to a fundamentalist's believe that a "true Christian" is more Catholic than Roman Catholics more Orthodox than the eastern Orthodox and more Jewish than the Jews.
- combatentropy 10y ago
  > It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based Everyone lives by faith. How can you be sure --- I mean really sure --- that the chair will not collapse beneath you, this time? I guess you don't know, 100%. But nevertheless, you sit in it. Faith != Blind Faith. Blind faith is a particular kind of faith, which has no reason for its being --- in fact has reason against its being. Faith, by itself, is just to go on believing something that you have been given enough evidence for, in spite of irrational fear or self-centered temptation to disavow. There is a reason that sexual loyalty is also called "faithfulness." The Bible is evidence-based because: in the Old Testament God said, believe that I am the one true God because of this or that miracle that I just did; in the New Testament, it keeps talking about testifying, "I bear witness," "believe on the testimony of these witnesses," citing them by name. Here someone will say, but how do we know any of that really happened, just because it's written in a book? That's where manuscript evidence comes into play, whether the people who say they wrote this or that really wrote this or that, and that's where I point you to a book like Josh McDowell's, which will talk about how the Bible has tons more manuscript evidence than any other book on the face of the earth. We know that John wrote John far more than that we know that Homer wrote The Odyssey. There are other books too, like The Case for Faith. I just generally pick Josh McDowell because it is the shortest, and I know your time is valuable, and your patience for contradictory opinions is limited. Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie? > to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive lowercase o orthodox: "conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted" Besides, what in More Than a Carpenter would a Greek Orthodox believer disagree with?
clock_tower 10y ago
How do you reconcile this with the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and love? And don't say that Catholics don't count as Christian: St. Paul himself names these three virtues as the three abiding things, in that passage that everyone reads at weddings.

danharaj 10y ago

It also definitely does not explain at all the material relations of society that have been grounded in religious rituals and practices throughout history. In a materialist analysis of religion, it is the role religion plays in mediating relations of economic activity and power that determine the structure of religion. There's something compelling about such an argument: It explains why religion's prominence in a society fades as it becomes less entwined with economy and politics. This idealism as opposed to materialism seems to be prominent throughout what I've skimmed of this site.

clock_tower 10y ago
I'd add that you can be a religious believer, but still use and recognize materialist analyses of religion -- including your own religion. As an obvious and non-controversial example, any religion that finds itself widely believed in a world without central authorities is going to be pressed into service as an enforcer of oaths -- even if its founder's opinion of oaths was somewhere between jaded and openly hostile. Are you familiar with Marvin Harris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Harris https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Harris)? I think he draws his causal arrow backwards -- it's not that a society develops ways of thinking because they'd be adaptive, it's that societies that happen to develop adaptive ways of thinking flourish -- but it's fascinating to watch his style of analysis in action, and he makes more good points than bad ones... at least if you ask me.

lastofus 10y ago

It's difficult to believe that orthodox Christianity is completely evidenced based and requires zero faith, blind or otherwise. If it did, I would imagine it would end up falling into the realm of science, and not religion.

tyingq 10y ago

Does thinking that Christianity is "evidence based" require assuming that parts of the bible are not meant to be taken literally? Without going into a litany of examples, surely even devout Christians understand that large portions of the Bible are difficult to match to reality/science/etc.

smhost 10y ago
I think it requires stretching the definition of "literally". For example, "seven days" might not necessarily mean "seven human days" but rather it might be some kind of magical God-time unit. An "ark" may not be a literal ship; or maybe it is, and the "popular" version of the evolutionary tree is misguided. And so on.
- cousin_it 10y ago
  The most fun crackpot text I've ever read, Ilya Shkrob's "In the Beginning" [1], says that the seven days account describes seven different highly improbable events in Earth's history that were mainly responsible for the existence of intelligent life, and each of those events indeed could fit in a day. [1] https://sites.google.com/site/shkrobius/inthebeginning... https://sites.google.com/site/shkrobius/inthebeginning....
- tyingq 10y ago
  > For example, "seven days" might not necessarily mean "seven human days" I really didn't want to get into a point-for-point thing, but the "day" is just one issue. Birds and whales (great sea monsters) precede reptiles and insects, grass precedes light, etc. The Ark, and other stories, have similar issues that are hard to wave away.
  - combatentropy 10y ago
    > Birds and whales (great sea monsters) precede reptiles and insects What's the problem? > grass precedes light verse 3: And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. verse 11: Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation . . . "

samirillian 10y ago

It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based. To paraphrase the apostle Paul himself: Greeks look for reason and Jews look for miracles, but I preach the power of Christ (viz., Neither a reasonable nor an evidence-based faith). And elsewhere paul undermines the "wisdom of the wise". Moreover, to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive, since he is most clearly not Orthodox by any commonly-held definition, but only according to a fundamentalist's believe that a "true Christian" is more Catholic than Roman Catholics more Orthodox than the eastern Orthodox and more Jewish than the Jews.

combatentropy 10y ago
> It would seem categorically incorrect to claim that faith is evidence based Everyone lives by faith. How can you be sure --- I mean really sure --- that the chair will not collapse beneath you, this time? I guess you don't know, 100%. But nevertheless, you sit in it. Faith != Blind Faith. Blind faith is a particular kind of faith, which has no reason for its being --- in fact has reason against its being. Faith, by itself, is just to go on believing something that you have been given enough evidence for, in spite of irrational fear or self-centered temptation to disavow. There is a reason that sexual loyalty is also called "faithfulness." The Bible is evidence-based because: in the Old Testament God said, believe that I am the one true God because of this or that miracle that I just did; in the New Testament, it keeps talking about testifying, "I bear witness," "believe on the testimony of these witnesses," citing them by name. Here someone will say, but how do we know any of that really happened, just because it's written in a book? That's where manuscript evidence comes into play, whether the people who say they wrote this or that really wrote this or that, and that's where I point you to a book like Josh McDowell's, which will talk about how the Bible has tons more manuscript evidence than any other book on the face of the earth. We know that John wrote John far more than that we know that Homer wrote The Odyssey. There are other books too, like The Case for Faith. I just generally pick Josh McDowell because it is the shortest, and I know your time is valuable, and your patience for contradictory opinions is limited. Here again someone will say, but just because I know John really wrote the book of John doesn't mean that John wasn't lying. That's where McDowell --- and the other books --- will talk about logic and human nature. Most of the disciples were martyred, terribly. Who would die for something they knew to be a lie? > to call Josh McDowell an expositor of Orthodox Christianity is a bit offensive lowercase o orthodox: "conforming to what is generally or traditionally accepted" Besides, what in More Than a Carpenter would a Greek Orthodox believer disagree with?

clock_tower 10y ago

How do you reconcile this with the three theological virtues, faith, hope, and love? And don't say that Catholics don't count as Christian: St. Paul himself names these three virtues as the three abiding things, in that passage that everyone reads at weddings.