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> I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong This is inside out. What evidence was pres

> I've thought very carefully on what kind of evidence could be presented to me to show that Christianity was wrong This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? I became an Atheist in large part because I took Latin my first year in high school and realized that the Roman's actually believed in their gods the same way that I believed in the Christian god. And I gradually realized that they had the same reason to believe that I did ... they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. > I'd be interested in what kind of evidence Dennet would accept to show him that his atheism was wrong. I can't speak for Dennet, but for me it would just be ANY evidence: a verifiable miracle, proof of life after death, or meeting an angel/demon.

knightoffaith 3y ago
>This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? I don't think this is really the right way to think about Christianity for many believers. C.S. Lewis says, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." It's not so much that Christianity is just another fact lying out there that we just happened to stumble upon, and now we use scientific tools to investigate whether it's true or false. No - it's a belief that shapes the very way we understand the world. It's a worldview. That's not to say that it's necessarily correct, but just that it's not a belief that we necessarily acquire in the same way we might acquire a belief about what 1+1 is or how many planets orbit the sun. It's much like how someone born and raised atheist doesn't hold their belief in atheism because of some evidence for that view. We can still argue about Christianity, atheism, or other religions, of course, that's fine - but it's not obvious that there's some inherent irrationality in asking "what could show Christianity to be false" instead of "what convinced me Christianity is true". >they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. This is true, but if the implication is that belief in Roman paganism is on just as firm intellectual ground as belief in Christianity, that seems unfair given the rich intellectual history spanning millennia of the latter to which the former isn't really comparable at all.
- Capricorn2481 3y ago
  I don't have evidence someone is a psychic, but I have common sense that if they're predictions could apply to anyone, they are probably scamming me. Just like if someone chalks up inconsistencies in the Bible to "God testing us" or the fact that the Bible has been edited repeatedly, picking whatever parts supported their authority at the time, that I'm probably being scammed. Now Christianity is so fragmented and personal in it's belief system that to say "what evidence do you have that it's not real" does feel backwards. I have equal evidence in any religion as I do in Christianity.
  - knightoffaith 3y ago
    Well, inconsistencies in the Bible are traditionally chalked up to flaws in our interpretation of it. Maybe that sounds like a cop-out to you, but that's fine. My point was not you, as an atheist, shouldn't ask "what evidence do you have that Christianity is true". Rather, my point was that a Christian, in thinking rationally, is not forced to ask "what evidence do I have for this belief?". You as a nonbeliever might see just as good evidence in other religions as Christianity, great, that's fine.
- edanm 3y ago
  > No - it's a belief that shapes the very way we understand the world. It's a worldview. For Christians. You kind of do have to grapple with the fact that billions of people do not have that worldview, and therefore you do have to compare the Christian worldview to the non-Christian worldview. > >they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. > This is true, but if the implication is that belief in Roman paganism is on just as firm intellectual ground as belief in Christianity, that seems unfair given the rich intellectual history spanning millennia of the latter to which the former isn't really comparable at all. Maybe that's the case with Roman mythology (though I don't have the dates), but what about Hinduism? Buddhism? Islam? Judaism? All of these have comparable histories.
  - knightoffaith 3y ago
    >therefore you do have to compare the Christian worldview to the non-Christian worldview. For the Christian, this is presumably part of asking "what would lead me to believe Christianity is false?". That is, asking whether other religions should lead one to conclude Christianity is not true. >Maybe that's the case with Roman mythology (though I don't have the dates) Well, more than just the dates, it's about the intellectual rigor of people thinking about the theology. There is no serious equivalent in Roman mythology to, for example, Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, which includes grappling with questions such as "Whether the existence of God is self-evident?", "Whether God is the supreme good?", and "Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument?". >but what about Hinduism? Buddhism? Islam? Judaism? These are all fine traditions! Far and above Roman mythology. You could replace "Christianity" with any of these in my original comment, and it would still apply. There's a world of difference between "a silly belief that people held when they were a child and continue to hold just because of inertia" and "a serious belief with a rich intellectual history, though one among several other such beliefs".
gwd 3y ago
> This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? It sounds like maybe some people are taking this as a challenge from me to atheists. I'm not really; just like Dennet is in TFA, I'm talking about general principles for someone trying to live as a rational creature: each of us should examine our own beliefs, and not only ask "What if I'm wrong?" but "How would I know if I were wrong"? That goes for Christians and Hindus and Muslims as much as for atheists. "Take the plank out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck out of your brother's eye" and all that. It's specifically because Dennet is such a deep thinker and effective communicator that I genuinely wonder how he'd answer that question. I'm not sure what evidence was provided to me as a child that the world was round; but I had relatives who lived in Germany and Thailand, and at the age of 12 I'd actually flown to Thailand and experienced jet-lag. The "world is round" hypothesis satisfactorily explained my experience (both first- and second-hand, through people I knew personally) in a way that the "flat earth" hypothesis doesn't. In the same way, the vast majority of evidence I had as a child to confirm what as taught about Christianity to me was experiential. But of course, all sorts of people from different faiths have religious experiences; how do I know that there's not some better explanation for my experiences -- either religious or reductive -- which will be more predictive (in the sense of getting better results more efficiently)? > I became an Atheist in large part because I took Latin my first year in high school and realized that the Roman's actually believed in their gods the same way that I believed in the Christian god. And I gradually realized that they had the same reason to believe that I did ... they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. This seems a bit strange to me... so the Romans believed in supernatural beings, and the Christians also believed in supernatural beings (and of course so did the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, and...); but instead of this being evidence that there were supernatural beings of some sort (with some people maybe being closer to the truth of the matter than the others), you decided this was evidence that there weren't supernatural beings? Isn't that like reading several different conflicting scientific theories, and then deciding that all science is bunk? Sorry I don't have the exact quote, but there's a place where C.S. Lewis points out that being a Christian, he's free to believe that people of other religions were partly right and partly wrong; but that when he was an atheist, he had to believe that the majority of humans were completely wrong about the most important questions in life. If the entire world were atheists except Christians, wouldn't that be far stronger evidence against the supernatural? The fact that the Romans believed in the supernatural and the afterlife is evidence -- weak evidence, I grant, but evidence nonetheless -- that the supernatural and the afterlife exist. > but for me it would just be ANY evidence: a verifiable miracle, proof of life after death, or meeting an angel/demon. What would satisfy your requirements for a "verifiable miracle"? It sounds like a lot of these might be very personal experiences. First of all, if you had a single experience of an angel, would that actually change your mind? Wouldn't you be inclined to believe you'd had some sort of hallucination (wondering perhaps if someone had slipped LSD into your drink or something like that)? Similarly, once you had that experience and became convinced, how would you convince anyone else? Supposing there were another person who was exactly like you -- the fact that you were convinced you'd seen an angel wouldn't have any effect on whether they were convinced that angels existed, would it? FWIW I know a lot of people who started out as atheists and became Christians, and although this sort of rational "apologetics" sometimes did factor into part of their decision, by far the biggest influence was personal experience: first with genuine Christians, then with with Jesus, through reading the Bible and worshipping him at church. I tend not to focus on that kind of thing in a venue like this, because it's the least logically sound reason; but if you're genuinely interested in having a personal experience to let you put Christianity to the test, that's what I'd look for. As for me, I've got what I consider to be more objectively sound reasons to believe; but "“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which however [this comment] is not large enough to contain.” Hopefully at some point I'll write it up in a way that's easy to link to.

knightoffaith 3y ago

>This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? I don't think this is really the right way to think about Christianity for many believers. C.S. Lewis says, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else." It's not so much that Christianity is just another fact lying out there that we just happened to stumble upon, and now we use scientific tools to investigate whether it's true or false. No - it's a belief that shapes the very way we understand the world. It's a worldview. That's not to say that it's necessarily correct, but just that it's not a belief that we necessarily acquire in the same way we might acquire a belief about what 1+1 is or how many planets orbit the sun. It's much like how someone born and raised atheist doesn't hold their belief in atheism because of some evidence for that view. We can still argue about Christianity, atheism, or other religions, of course, that's fine - but it's not obvious that there's some inherent irrationality in asking "what could show Christianity to be false" instead of "what convinced me Christianity is true". >they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. This is true, but if the implication is that belief in Roman paganism is on just as firm intellectual ground as belief in Christianity, that seems unfair given the rich intellectual history spanning millennia of the latter to which the former isn't really comparable at all.

Capricorn2481 3y ago
I don't have evidence someone is a psychic, but I have common sense that if they're predictions could apply to anyone, they are probably scamming me. Just like if someone chalks up inconsistencies in the Bible to "God testing us" or the fact that the Bible has been edited repeatedly, picking whatever parts supported their authority at the time, that I'm probably being scammed. Now Christianity is so fragmented and personal in it's belief system that to say "what evidence do you have that it's not real" does feel backwards. I have equal evidence in any religion as I do in Christianity.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  Well, inconsistencies in the Bible are traditionally chalked up to flaws in our interpretation of it. Maybe that sounds like a cop-out to you, but that's fine. My point was not you, as an atheist, shouldn't ask "what evidence do you have that Christianity is true". Rather, my point was that a Christian, in thinking rationally, is not forced to ask "what evidence do I have for this belief?". You as a nonbeliever might see just as good evidence in other religions as Christianity, great, that's fine.
edanm 3y ago
> No - it's a belief that shapes the very way we understand the world. It's a worldview. For Christians. You kind of do have to grapple with the fact that billions of people do not have that worldview, and therefore you do have to compare the Christian worldview to the non-Christian worldview. > >they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. > This is true, but if the implication is that belief in Roman paganism is on just as firm intellectual ground as belief in Christianity, that seems unfair given the rich intellectual history spanning millennia of the latter to which the former isn't really comparable at all. Maybe that's the case with Roman mythology (though I don't have the dates), but what about Hinduism? Buddhism? Islam? Judaism? All of these have comparable histories.
- knightoffaith 3y ago
  >therefore you do have to compare the Christian worldview to the non-Christian worldview. For the Christian, this is presumably part of asking "what would lead me to believe Christianity is false?". That is, asking whether other religions should lead one to conclude Christianity is not true. >Maybe that's the case with Roman mythology (though I don't have the dates) Well, more than just the dates, it's about the intellectual rigor of people thinking about the theology. There is no serious equivalent in Roman mythology to, for example, Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, which includes grappling with questions such as "Whether the existence of God is self-evident?", "Whether God is the supreme good?", and "Whether sacred doctrine is a matter of argument?". >but what about Hinduism? Buddhism? Islam? Judaism? These are all fine traditions! Far and above Roman mythology. You could replace "Christianity" with any of these in my original comment, and it would still apply. There's a world of difference between "a silly belief that people held when they were a child and continue to hold just because of inertia" and "a serious belief with a rich intellectual history, though one among several other such beliefs".

gwd 3y ago

> This is inside out. What evidence was presented to you that made you believe Christianity was right? It sounds like maybe some people are taking this as a challenge from me to atheists. I'm not really; just like Dennet is in TFA, I'm talking about general principles for someone trying to live as a rational creature: each of us should examine our own beliefs, and not only ask "What if I'm wrong?" but "How would I know if I were wrong"? That goes for Christians and Hindus and Muslims as much as for atheists. "Take the plank out of your own eye before you try to remove the speck out of your brother's eye" and all that. It's specifically because Dennet is such a deep thinker and effective communicator that I genuinely wonder how he'd answer that question. I'm not sure what evidence was provided to me as a child that the world was round; but I had relatives who lived in Germany and Thailand, and at the age of 12 I'd actually flown to Thailand and experienced jet-lag. The "world is round" hypothesis satisfactorily explained my experience (both first- and second-hand, through people I knew personally) in a way that the "flat earth" hypothesis doesn't. In the same way, the vast majority of evidence I had as a child to confirm what as taught about Christianity to me was experiential. But of course, all sorts of people from different faiths have religious experiences; how do I know that there's not some better explanation for my experiences -- either religious or reductive -- which will be more predictive (in the sense of getting better results more efficiently)? > I became an Atheist in large part because I took Latin my first year in high school and realized that the Roman's actually believed in their gods the same way that I believed in the Christian god. And I gradually realized that they had the same reason to believe that I did ... they were told from a young age that this was real and just kept believing as they grew up. This seems a bit strange to me... so the Romans believed in supernatural beings, and the Christians also believed in supernatural beings (and of course so did the Greeks, and the Persians, and the Babylonians, and the Egyptians, and...); but instead of this being evidence that there were supernatural beings of some sort (with some people maybe being closer to the truth of the matter than the others), you decided this was evidence that there weren't supernatural beings? Isn't that like reading several different conflicting scientific theories, and then deciding that all science is bunk? Sorry I don't have the exact quote, but there's a place where C.S. Lewis points out that being a Christian, he's free to believe that people of other religions were partly right and partly wrong; but that when he was an atheist, he had to believe that the majority of humans were completely wrong about the most important questions in life. If the entire world were atheists except Christians, wouldn't that be far stronger evidence against the supernatural? The fact that the Romans believed in the supernatural and the afterlife is evidence -- weak evidence, I grant, but evidence nonetheless -- that the supernatural and the afterlife exist. > but for me it would just be ANY evidence: a verifiable miracle, proof of life after death, or meeting an angel/demon. What would satisfy your requirements for a "verifiable miracle"? It sounds like a lot of these might be very personal experiences. First of all, if you had a single experience of an angel, would that actually change your mind? Wouldn't you be inclined to believe you'd had some sort of hallucination (wondering perhaps if someone had slipped LSD into your drink or something like that)? Similarly, once you had that experience and became convinced, how would you convince anyone else? Supposing there were another person who was exactly like you -- the fact that you were convinced you'd seen an angel wouldn't have any effect on whether they were convinced that angels existed, would it? FWIW I know a lot of people who started out as atheists and became Christians, and although this sort of rational "apologetics" sometimes did factor into part of their decision, by far the biggest influence was personal experience: first with genuine Christians, then with with Jesus, through reading the Bible and worshipping him at church. I tend not to focus on that kind of thing in a venue like this, because it's the least logically sound reason; but if you're genuinely interested in having a personal experience to let you put Christianity to the test, that's what I'd look for. As for me, I've got what I consider to be more objectively sound reasons to believe; but "“I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which however [this comment] is not large enough to contain.” Hopefully at some point I'll write it up in a way that's easy to link to.