5 ms·

Well for starters the Apostle Paul wrote the 2nd Thessalonian letter condemning this very attitude. Hence, in my experience, comments like this are generally o

by unit91 10y ago

Well for starters the Apostle Paul wrote the 2nd Thessalonian letter condemning this very attitude. Hence, in my experience, comments like this are generally offered by (1) nominal Christians who don't seem familiar with what Jesus and the apostles actually taught; or (2) atheists who use it as a straw-man argument against Christianity proper, instead of an admonishment to the nominals to actually know what they claim to believe.

betenoire 10y ago
Or 3) people whose every interaction with said group of people seems to confirm the bias. At what point am I allowed to criticize the culture as a whole?
- ch4s3 10y ago
  This sort of thing always seems to descend into some sort of odd "no true Scotsman" argument where people end up debate sincere vs insincere adherents of "X" belief. A lot of people are real pricks, may there is a correlation with belief system "X", but I've yet to see strong evidence that its causal. Now ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and global average temperature rise; thats a good causal relationship!
  - betenoire 10y ago
    Are you saying my observation isn't valid because it may descend into a non-sensical debate? If we are throwing around fallacies, I have one too then. My observation remains though. The Christians who literally follow the scriptures number far far fewer than those that don't. That is NOT a comment about "sincere" vs "insincere" christians. The "insincere" ones seem just as sincere to me.
    - ch4s3 10y ago
      > Are you saying my observation isn't valid No. I'm just saying that it's hard to have a constructive conversation about in this forum based on my previous experience. I might also make the argument that to "literally follow the scriptures" is fundamentalism, and isn't necessarily a mark of a "true" adherent of the faith in question. But that is a bit of a tangent, and none of this has much to do with ocean trash so I don't have a lot more to add.
- unit91 10y ago
  I'm not sure why you're being down-voted here. This a legitimate case of the problem of induction, "the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy" [1]. That said, it seems like the flaw in your reasoning (and ch4s3's) is the lack of an objective standard. Holding sincere beliefs and referring to oneself as a Christian don't in themselves make a person a Christian. For example, suppose you met a person who said "I'm a Christian. I don't believe in God and I think the Bible is fiction." Instead of "well ok, he's very sincere, he just doesn't follow the scriptures literally", I think we would rightly conclude "despite his sincere beliefs and identity claim, this person is not a Christian." That is, his identity claim is false. In order for a person's Christian identity claim to be true, he must hold and practice true (or approximately true) beliefs about the person, work, and teaching of Christ. So doesn't this deteriorate into a "no true Scotsman" argument? I don't think so. The hallmark of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy is its ad hocness [2]. Otherwise, no taxonomy of any kind would be possible. But surely it isn't ad hoc to say "Christians follow Christ's teachings, and non-Christians don't." So what are Christ's teachings? That can only be adjudicated by examining scripture to find out what Jesus said. Some statements (e.g. "you shall love your neighbor as yourself") are pretty straightforward. Some are less so. But we shouldn't take the fact that people disagree about some of the interpretations to mean that Jesus had no meaning, or that his meaning in unknowable. Rather, this should prompt us to ask "what are your reasons for thinking that's what Jesus meant?". Getting back to your question, we're inductive creatures, and to an extent I don't think you can (or should) avoid drawing generic conclusions about cultures as a whole, given a large enough sample. But make sure that you're sampling persons whom you believe to be actual Christians, and not merely nominal Christians. For comparison, here are a couple of Jesus's metrics: "by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" [3] and "if you love me, you will keep my commandments" [4]. Sources: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman 3. John 13:35 4. John 14:15
  - betenoire 10y ago
    Thanks for the response. Admittedly, my pool of christians is very skewed, but it's still the sample of christians that I have to work with. You said my flaw is a lack of objective standard. How is that _my_ flaw though? If a Christian doesn't want to wear the stereotypes of christianity, then ... they shouldn't call themselves christian? Either embrace the label, shun it, or change it. What I mean is, Christians don't even agree what the word means. (mormons call themselves christians, but baptists strongly disagree). I dunno, we have definitely derailed. Thanks again for the reply.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sbov 10y ago
  Just because someone is religious doesn't mean they wear it on their sleeve. There's probably more than 1 Christian on this forum - odds are you've interacted with them and you probably have no idea they're Christian. A lot of it probably has to do with where you live. Thinking rationally, the United States is a Christian majority country. If zero Christians believed in e.g. climate change or protecting the environment, it probably wouldn't be an issue that either party would pay attention to.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > At what point am I allowed to criticize the culture as a whole? At the point where you've made sufficient study of the culture as a whole to have a reasonably justified belief that the criticism is valid for the group covered by the label, or, alternatively, to correctly identify the subgroup to which it does apply and direct the criticism appropriately.
  - betenoire 10y ago
    lol, no. That's not even rational or feasible. How exactly do you make it through the day with that level of scrutiny?
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      Learning to use words like "some", "many", and "most" helps. But, yeah, unwarranted generalizations are easy mistakes to make; accepting that they are mistakes rather than defending them on the basis that you should be allowed to make unsupported negative characterization of broad groups is the appropriate response; the alternative is justifying bigotry with laziness.

by unit91 10y ago

betenoire 10y ago

Or 3) people whose every interaction with said group of people seems to confirm the bias. At what point am I allowed to criticize the culture as a whole?

ch4s3 10y ago
This sort of thing always seems to descend into some sort of odd "no true Scotsman" argument where people end up debate sincere vs insincere adherents of "X" belief. A lot of people are real pricks, may there is a correlation with belief system "X", but I've yet to see strong evidence that its causal. Now ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and global average temperature rise; thats a good causal relationship!
- betenoire 10y ago
  Are you saying my observation isn't valid because it may descend into a non-sensical debate? If we are throwing around fallacies, I have one too then. My observation remains though. The Christians who literally follow the scriptures number far far fewer than those that don't. That is NOT a comment about "sincere" vs "insincere" christians. The "insincere" ones seem just as sincere to me.
  - ch4s3 10y ago
    > Are you saying my observation isn't valid No. I'm just saying that it's hard to have a constructive conversation about in this forum based on my previous experience. I might also make the argument that to "literally follow the scriptures" is fundamentalism, and isn't necessarily a mark of a "true" adherent of the faith in question. But that is a bit of a tangent, and none of this has much to do with ocean trash so I don't have a lot more to add.
unit91 10y ago
I'm not sure why you're being down-voted here. This a legitimate case of the problem of induction, "the glory of science and the scandal of philosophy" [1]. That said, it seems like the flaw in your reasoning (and ch4s3's) is the lack of an objective standard. Holding sincere beliefs and referring to oneself as a Christian don't in themselves make a person a Christian. For example, suppose you met a person who said "I'm a Christian. I don't believe in God and I think the Bible is fiction." Instead of "well ok, he's very sincere, he just doesn't follow the scriptures literally", I think we would rightly conclude "despite his sincere beliefs and identity claim, this person is not a Christian." That is, his identity claim is false. In order for a person's Christian identity claim to be true, he must hold and practice true (or approximately true) beliefs about the person, work, and teaching of Christ. So doesn't this deteriorate into a "no true Scotsman" argument? I don't think so. The hallmark of the "no true Scotsman" fallacy is its ad hocness [2]. Otherwise, no taxonomy of any kind would be possible. But surely it isn't ad hoc to say "Christians follow Christ's teachings, and non-Christians don't." So what are Christ's teachings? That can only be adjudicated by examining scripture to find out what Jesus said. Some statements (e.g. "you shall love your neighbor as yourself") are pretty straightforward. Some are less so. But we shouldn't take the fact that people disagree about some of the interpretations to mean that Jesus had no meaning, or that his meaning in unknowable. Rather, this should prompt us to ask "what are your reasons for thinking that's what Jesus meant?". Getting back to your question, we're inductive creatures, and to an extent I don't think you can (or should) avoid drawing generic conclusions about cultures as a whole, given a large enough sample. But make sure that you're sampling persons whom you believe to be actual Christians, and not merely nominal Christians. For comparison, here are a couple of Jesus's metrics: "by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" [3] and "if you love me, you will keep my commandments" [4]. Sources: 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman 3. John 13:35 4. John 14:15
- betenoire 10y ago
  Thanks for the response. Admittedly, my pool of christians is very skewed, but it's still the sample of christians that I have to work with. You said my flaw is a lack of objective standard. How is that _my_ flaw though? If a Christian doesn't want to wear the stereotypes of christianity, then ... they shouldn't call themselves christian? Either embrace the label, shun it, or change it. What I mean is, Christians don't even agree what the word means. (mormons call themselves christians, but baptists strongly disagree). I dunno, we have definitely derailed. Thanks again for the reply.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sbov 10y ago
Just because someone is religious doesn't mean they wear it on their sleeve. There's probably more than 1 Christian on this forum - odds are you've interacted with them and you probably have no idea they're Christian. A lot of it probably has to do with where you live. Thinking rationally, the United States is a Christian majority country. If zero Christians believed in e.g. climate change or protecting the environment, it probably wouldn't be an issue that either party would pay attention to.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> At what point am I allowed to criticize the culture as a whole? At the point where you've made sufficient study of the culture as a whole to have a reasonably justified belief that the criticism is valid for the group covered by the label, or, alternatively, to correctly identify the subgroup to which it does apply and direct the criticism appropriately.
- betenoire 10y ago
  lol, no. That's not even rational or feasible. How exactly do you make it through the day with that level of scrutiny?
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    Learning to use words like "some", "many", and "most" helps. But, yeah, unwarranted generalizations are easy mistakes to make; accepting that they are mistakes rather than defending them on the basis that you should be allowed to make unsupported negative characterization of broad groups is the appropriate response; the alternative is justifying bigotry with laziness.