A letter from Hannah — Burn on us…we guess
Hello,
I am writing as an evangelical Christian (not a creationist…there is a difference, and if you’d like further elaboration let me know) who is currently studying at Cambridge (all the way from England…I’m assuming you’re all American?) Anyway. I have a rather general question to pose. I do quite a lot of research on both sides of the equation- as in the Christian and Atheist sides, and I would like to humbly suggest that there is quite a lot of ignorance and hostility in both parties. One of the major problems I have with atheistic arguments is that a lot of them are based on a misunderstanding of Christianity. I confess that this is largely the fault of well-meaning (but not exactly intellectually gifted) Christians who do not understand or even know the nuances of their faith, but given that this website claims to be based on extensive research, the lack of input from someone who, for example, has a knowledge of ancient greek and hebrew is disappointing.
Sorry for the long introductory ramble- but here’s the question:
What response is there to have to academics (who, if you are sensible, will admit are far more intelligent than you or I will ever be) who devote their entire lives to the pursuit of truth and are Christian?
Whether you like it or not, many who are not under any social pressure and are clearly of demonstrable intellect comfortably defend a Christian faith without the use of sarcasm, petty bitterness or vitriol. Are they just deluded (unlikely) or do the arguments supporting Christianity work on a rational level?
My final point is on your understanding of Christianity. There seems to be a distinct lack of understanding on this website regarding doctrines such as the Holy Spirit and the role of the trinity in general. Many of the difficulties in interpreting the Bible would be cleared up if you knew the original text instead of cherry picking English translations to make a point. In other news, your website makes very interesting reading and I hope to hear back. Unfortunately it looks like your writers are all Americans who are disenfranchised with the control over politics that far-right Bible bashers have, and that has led to a lot of bitterness. I apologise for this. Love from England!
Hannah
There is no useful truth to be found in supernatural belief that cannot otherwise be found. There are many ways to pursue truth and people should certainly try as many as they can. Magic will consistently fall very short as a means to finding truth.
What a pointless letter. I am English too and I can only apologise for my fellow brit. I hate reading things from English people who come across all holier-than-thou (haha, literally in this case!).
I’m an Atheist and i too read this site and many other ones like it, and it’s well known (read the stats Hannah) that Atheists ‘in general’ have a much higher level of understanding of the religious texts than most religious people. I think a lot of religious people misunderstand what makes a lot of Atheists tick.
I am from the group of people who are skeptical about anything. I believe science and it’s methods are the best way we have of discerning ‘truths’ and I simply do not believe faith is a virtue and I will not just believe something because others do. I look into it. it’s called critical thinking and it’s a trait that is demonstrably lacking in many of those with faith, even the ones who claim to investigate ‘both-sides’ ™.
In my experience, Hannah by saying she is an Evangelical Christian is already saying there that she has accepted blind faith over reason and therefore ANYTHING else she has to say in the matter is null and void. She may be a good person, she may read atheist documents and try to look for the truth but the fact is, if she was REALLY looking for the ‘truth’ then she would not be a Christian or religious of any kind unless she had a hole in her life that something has to fit into.
I have no ‘hole’ in my life. I am not always happy, I’m not always sad. I don’t always stand in awe at beautiful things, nor do I ignore them. I am simply content with knowing that I am on the side of reason (not neccesarily ‘good’ per se) instead of the side which is desperately looking for answers in the wrong place.
I’ll keep it short.
The argument from authority…that’s your question? These people are smarter than you so there must be a god…and noit just a god, but the christian one. When we investigate facts, there is a convergence of ideas. But when we look at religion, there is a divergence, and a continuing one, of ideas. It would seem to me that as time goes on and we learn more about god we should converge on one form of the concept. Instead, as can be seen by the huge diversity of groups claiming christianity as their faith, we see that everyone is moving away from the initial belief. This is one of the things that solidifies my conclusion that There Is No God.
Peace, and remember TING.
TING! I like that!
Dear Hannah,
I am writing you as an atheist academic who was raised with one Christian academic parent who taught at a Christian university and an atheist parent who taught at a secular university. I have studied multiple languages including French, Spanish, Sanskrit, Latin and German, have a degree in English Literature and am presently working towards a Master’s degree that is heavy on linguistics courses. No, I haven’t studied Hebrew and Greek, at least not formally, but I do understand the point you are trying to make about the ideas and concepts of the original biblical texts being lost in translation as well as your question about Christian academics and intelligence. I have a bit of insight on both. I could be totally wrong and am willing to admit I am. As I said, it’s just insight.
So, three things.
Telling an atheist, at least a thinking one, that we don’t understand “the doctrines such as the Holy Spirit and the role of the trinity in general” because of our lack of understanding of the languages originally used to write them is a lot like telling us we don’t understand the significance of the fairy godmother, the two white pigeons, and the glass slipper in the Grimm Brother’s version of Cinderella because we didn’t read it in German. I cannot and will not claim I can speak for all atheists, but the ones I chat with agree with me that the bible and every other “holy” book out there belong in the same category as Aesop’s fables, the Grimm Brother’s fairy tales, 1,001 Arabian Nights, etc…fairy tales, some with morals, some without, many meant to teach moral lessons, almost all for purposes of entertainment, none solid enough to base an entire society’s governmental ethos upon or use as guidelines to pass mass legislation that affects believers and non-believers alike.
My mother is a highly intelligent woman who firmly believes that her prayers brought my husband to me. Do I doubt her intelligence? No. Do I mourn the fact that such a great brain is stymied by dogmatic, narrow, and what I consider, detrimental religious indoctrination that prevents her from consuming and assimilating any information that might shake her religious faith? Yes. I consider it a waste. I wanted to learn why so I did some reading. What I learned is that intelligence rarely has anything to do with what we believe. As you noted, there are many less than intelligent christians and atheists out there. Check the bell curve. That’s normal. What I see as the primary barometer for measuring the acceptance of religious dogma is the basic human need for cognitive closure. I am a person with a low need for closure. I see everything as an open ended question that, regardless of how much I learn, will only provide more open ended questions. I’m fine with that. It keeps me going. From what I’ve gathered, I’m on the opposite end of the continuum than most. The vast majority of humans have a strong need for cognitive closure. The open and unknown are a great source of fear. Religion fills this need regardless of, as I stated before, level of intelligence. Check out Michael Shermer’s The Believing Brain and Why People Believe Weird Things for more on this.
I finally became a complete atheist after years of study, searching and doubt that began in Sunday school as a little kid when I was unable to reconcile anything that I was told and any time I asked a question they couldn’t answer, which was pretty much every week driving several of them to go ask my father what was wrong with me (he said, “Nothing.”) they told me I just had to have faith which did not wash but I lived in such a heavily religious culture (middle of the American bible belt where it’s not do you go to church but where) and I was overly sensitive, born without intellectual boundaries, and was, and sometimes still am, plagued by self doubt so I doubted my own instinct for years until one night. After a decade of pretty heavy trauma, I had a bit of a meltdown. My doctor recommended I attend a support group for bipolar, depression, schizophrenia, etc…I found one close by and attended weekly for about a month until we were all talking one night and the topic, for the first time, turned to religion. One woman who looked like she’d taken more than one fist to the face spoke up for the first time since I’d started attending. She said that she was afraid to take her medication because if she did, god would stop talking to her. All of a sudden, the rest of the room erupted with similar stories. The friend I was attending with said her sister had said the same. LIke a bolt of lightning it hit me that mental disorders like the ones I was surrounded by weren’t a new creation. They had existed as long as people have. And, at the time, being in the throes of PTSD myself that was manifesting much like bipolar disorder with insomnia, anorexia, manias, and auditory hallucinations, as well as having taken hallucinogens more than once in my life, I knew what tricks a person’s brain can play on them and how very real these things can seem. Modern science can back these concepts up thanks to the fMRI and many studies being done by scientists like Michael Shermer and Helen Fisher. Odd, most people find god when they were in a broken mental condition like I was. I lost him completely that night and haven’t looked back. It’s been eight years and I’ve rebuilt what was broken, and I have to tell you, much of it was wrong with me was a result of severe inner conflict due to religious indoctrination. So, maybe that’s why some of us seem a bit vitriolic. Imagine England being taken over by Sharia law and you may have some kind of a clue as to why women like me are enraged by draconian laws passed by politicians riding the high church horse that negate any and all progress in our quest for our rights as equal humans and all that entails, such as power over our own reproductive systems or whether or not our tax dollars are channeled into the accounts of churches and religious organizations or private schools who don’t pay taxes due to their status as tax free religious organizations when our public sector is in shambles. For me, religion negates the inner drive for autonomy and the concept of personal accountability and I can’t think of a greater recipe for social disaster than a culture that contains nothing but people who can’t, won’t, and don’t think for themselves, people who are willing to take and carry out orders without question from others willing to give them and people who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions because their invisible friend told them it is his will.
I hope you will continue your intellectual quest and look into the areas of social psychology, neuropsychology, mental illnesses that manifest hallucinations and delusional behavior, personality disorders including psychopathology and its preponderance in religious figures, basic logic, the scientific method, and falsifiability as well as take a comparative look at the rest of the religions of the world and not just consider atheism as the opposite of Christianity. We don’t believe in any gods, not just the one predominant in Western culture.
Take care and good luck,
Paula
Hello Hannah:
I’m going to cherry-pick some of this to respond to:
I’m assuming you’re all American?
This is the internet, and so this is probably not a reasonable assumption. Daz’ response is evidence enough of that.
One of the major problems I have with atheistic arguments is that a lot of them are based on a misunderstanding of Christianity.
Not the good ones. One doesn’t need to understand Christianity to come up with very good reasons for rejecting supernatural explanations for anything. Present a coherent definition of what god is, so that one could say that god exists without torturing the meaning of the word “existence”. Then we’ll talk, about your particular god and the evidence for its existence.
Now to your question:
What response is there to have to academics (who, if you are sensible, will admit are far more intelligent than you or I will ever be) who devote their entire lives to the pursuit of truth and are Christian?
How are you? What do you mean “are far more intelligent”? I am an academic, and I have no reason to believe that I am far more intelligent than you are, Hannah. Academics are wrong about academic matters* all the time. That’s why we have journal to discuss our findings and changing beliefs about the way that the world really is. One can study the life of Jesus, the history of canonical literature, the development of modern Christianity, etc. as academic pursuits. However, the divinity of Jesus is beyond logical or empirical assessment. No one has any more knowledge about that than you do.
I choose to disbelieve any idea that is logically incoherent, because I don’t even know what it means to believe in such a thing. You haven’t made that decision, apparently. That is what needs to be discussed.
*Which are be subject to empirical and logical scrutiny.
Whether you like it or not, many who are not under any social pressure and are clearly of demonstrable intellect comfortably defend a Christian faith without the use of sarcasm, petty bitterness or vitriol. Are they just deluded (unlikely) or do the arguments supporting Christianity work on a rational level?
The tone/demeanor of the proponent has no bearing on the truth of the proposition. I have never heard a rational argument in support of Christianity, but I am all ears if you have one.
My final point is on your understanding of Christianity. There seems to be a distinct lack of understanding on this website regarding doctrines such as the Holy Spirit and the role of the trinity in general. Many of the difficulties in interpreting the Bible would be cleared up if you knew the original text instead of cherry picking English translations to make a point.
If you have a copy of the original texts, you should probably share them with someone. The earliest written manuscripts that exist date to 40 or more years after the death of Yeshua, are partial and clearly highly redacted. Many scholars who know the history of the bible, and are literate in Aramaic, Koine Greek, and Hebrew (see esp. Bart Ehrman, J.D. Crossan, Thomas Sheehan, and the Jesus Seminar), reject the divinity of Jesus. They aren’t cherry picking quotes from English translations.
If you want to make an argument, go ahead. But just writing that we are a bunch of disenfranchised Americans that don’t understand Christianity is hardly an argument, but simply an assertion. And probably a grossly incorrect assertion at that.
PS…Paula Duerkson kinda nailed the dismount while I was writing this. My comment is superfluous, but I posted it anyway.
Hannah,
How do you say “I am not the author of confusion” in Hebrew and Greek?
I do not have to understand every religious text, its context, its original language etc to understand that there is no god. Did you read all other religious texts in all of their religious languages before you decided that there was a god, and it was the specific god you followed? Did you believe in that god already and does that bias you on your scholarly approach to truth?
You have great points there, so I always check your site, it looks like you are an expert in this field. keep up the good work, My friend recommends your blog.
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Hello there.
Feel I should clarify some things.
1. I meant that the writing team on here is American.
2. I was mainly responding to the bible study on here and general sarcasm about Christians. It seems to be based on a lack of understanding on how to read the Bible and about what Christians actually believe. If these things were clarified, then at least there would be some concession that Christianity has internal logic, even if you think it’s only a logical fairytale.
3. I wasn’t appealing to authority- more questioning the age-old ‘Christians are morons’ approach on websites like this. If Christians like myself make the effort to read Dawkins, Hitchins and Grayling then atheists could at least try to live up to their ‘informed’ title by reading C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller- for a start!
Paula- I myself have struggled with depression. It will reassure you to know that I don’t hear God’s voice- that is schizophrenia. Talking to God, however, and reading the Bible, is not a sign of mental illness.
P.S. Civility is a fine thing. I ask that some might attempt to employ it.
Peace,
Hannah (the annoying English evangelical)
This article has a distinct “how dare you have an opinion” feel to it. I fail to see how my opinion on what biblical readings I have done are less valid, simply because I cannot translate Latin or Hebrew back to English. With the power of the Internet I can locate and read any number of biblical translations and stumble upon the same contradictions, ambiguity, and logical paradoxes as any other person might.
Is there one way to read the bible? If so, why are there so many different faiths, often times with polar opposite views on subjects ranging from the holy trinity (which was a big deal in the evangelical church I went to) to what role, if any, free will plays an individuals salvation?
I’ve always considered the bible study on this website to simply be our opinion on the subject matter.
hello there..
I’m french, so I apologise in advance for the orthographic & grammatical errors that might occure… now to answer about “intelligent people still believe in god” well, very clever people also believed that Staline was a democrate, that war would bring peace & democraty to the whole planet, U can go on & on & on… a lot of intelligent, highly educated people believes in stupides things… & they use they’re big brain & knowledge to defend the system they feel comfortable with. but this has nothing to do with they’re intelligence. this has to do with their fear of death & ego. they need answers to questions. desperatly. even the most unlogical ones. “am I really just the result of natural selection & random ? no, that’s impossible, I’m special, I’m unique, I can’t die, I won’t die, there U see ? god choose to create me, I’m his creation, therefore I’m special & unique & he promessed that I will live forever… I need that, so, okay there must be a god”
so now he will use all artgument he can find to justify his mental construction. this is neurosis. nothing more. believers are people who need answers, atheists people who don’t buy it.
Hi Hannah, everyone
It is wrong and unfair, I think, to talk of sweeping descriptions of theists and atheists. I guess the proper way to go on with the Dialogue is to talk about the issues point by point. Thanks.