Defending The Christian Faith With Apologetics

[Amergin]

Belief in magic and idiotic mythology is one sign of the economic decline of America. 40% of Americans are incapable of rational thinking, critical analysis, and scepticism. At Liberty University which is not a real university where diverse views are presented. It is a brainwashing institution to substitute rubbish for knowledge in America’s young.

Creationism is belief in magical instantaneous creation, the first pair of humans created by a god conjuring them into existence by magic words. They think the Earth is only 6000 to 10,000 years old. They also think the idiotic idea that Earth was made before the Sun yet they had day and night. Many of them still think the world is flat and supported on 4 giant pillars. They believe the irrational idea that two humans could give rise to the great diversity of ethnic types in a mere 6000 years.

Science is seen as a threat to the major incentive of Christians to believe in scriptural rubbish, the Delusion of Immortality. Mankind fears death despite its inevitability, so they invented the fully imaginary concept of invisible spirits that move everything and even controls each human body. The Brain is just a lump of tissue to fill in the otherwise empty cranial cavity. This is like a terminal disease for America. Rome abandoned Greek Science and banned it as heresy. Romans were forced to believe the most irrational story ever told. Now America is doing the same thing.

The struggle is far from over, but half of Americans believe in Christian Cult mythology. Perhaps only 40% accept scientific knowledge. We are way behind Europe, Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Canada, and Australia. That means our decline from First World straight to Third World status, skipping the Second World level. More of American science is furnished by immigrant Ph.D. scientists, immigrant science graduate student, immigrants accepted in our Medical Schools with immigrant Medical Professors.

Amergin

[Amergin]

Originally Posted by MarcyWatson

There are several ways of defending the christian faith. First, it is very important to read the Bible regularly, both the New and the Old Testament. Understand how they fit together.

The mechanism you are describing is meme repetition. Reading the Bible repeatedly to mental exhaustion is the classical meme complex alteration of brain circuits. When the idea is irrational as Christianity most certainly is irrational, our rational-sceptical programme circuits rejects it. That resistence is overcome by parents and pastors forcing children to listen to bible stories on a daily basis. Later they are forced to read many chapters of the Bible endlessly and sometimes punished for expressing doubt.

This weakens the rational circuits and impairs the sceptical screening filter so that irrational Christianity is no longer recognised as crazy. The bad part is that it impairs many Christians in dealing with other non-religious ideas because of their weakened ratinality and leaky sceptical filter. I will explain more from my previous essay.

Amergin

[Amergin]

Memes criteria are:

All complex ideas acquired by the brain are memes
Complex ideas/information that physically alter brain circuits
Complex ideas that extend existing circuits with new axons and synapses
Complex ideas that divert and reduce extent of other circuits
Circuits so altered cause changes in cognitive behaviour.
Beneficial memes induce beneficial behaviour
Harmful memes block beneficial behaviour or induce negative behaviour.


The more entrenched (rehearsed and more firmly induced in circuitry) the more likely a certain behaviour is intensified.

Rational, sceptical, mathematical, and organisational memes intensify logical, analytical, sceptical, and organised thinking and behaviour.

Irrational memes damage rational, analytical, and sceptical circuits making the person gullible, weak in critical thinking, and lacking in sceptical filtering of myth and superstition including UFO's, Bigfoot, and Ghosts. Such people accept irrational religious beliefs without question.

Musical Memes such as learning to play violin, enhance right hemisphere circuits making it easier to learn other musical instruments, understanding music, and reaction emotionally to music.

Skilled motor memes such as carpentry intensify motor association and basal ganglia circuits making acquisition of new manual skills easy.

Many memes interconnect with affective circuits. The personal importance of the meme will often evoke strong emotions. Those who are educated in Science, Math, or Engineering are highly logical, rational, and sceptical, yet they experience positive emotional "thrills" at the Aurora Borealis, the structure of a fractal, or the discovery of the gene that causes a lethal disease. That same medical scientist/physician (me) can shed tears many times while working in East Africa in 1992-95, seeing mass deaths, starvation, brutality, and diseases. I don't think my emotions then and still to this day were irrational.

But the religious meme is introduced into most children long before the child has a real sense of mortality. Many small children cannot even conceive of death, let alone immortality. They must process the irrational religious meme first.

They are fed the following irrational concepts first. God made the Earth with magic words. He made Eve from a man's rib. He was just in ordering capital punishment for eating a fruit (of inquiry.) Noah's Impossible Flood is intuitively immoral with its killing millions of babies and trillions of non-human animals. Why? It was because some adults sinned. God impregnated a girl to produce a God-man hybrid for the explicit purpose of DYING for other people's sins. God-man goes to Hell for some absurd reason and then he resurrects. It does not make sense if you look closely.

All of those ideas defy common sense. When the child is coerced into incorporating those memes, he/she must force them to bypass the rational, analytical, and sceptical circuits. It may be a suppression of the rational circuits. This leads to disuse of those circuits.

He/she is not told that they are fantasy, but that they are absolutely true. The bypassed rational-sceptical circuits are underused. They get "leaky." Then new complex ideas, even irrational ones, are given a free pass by the Sceptical Filter. The "Infected" person then readily accepts miracles, Jesus in cloud formations, and UFO abductions.

But then the "irrational meme infected" person rejects highly rational and proven scientific facts (plate tectonics, 4.5 billion year Earth, Evolution, and biological Neurocognition) because their complexity escapes analysis. They also conflict with the entrenched meme....and also threaten the secondary irrational meme of immortality with its emotional baggage.

Amergin
PS It is my opinion that the power of irrational people based on Christianity and lack of scepticism is a major factor in America's decline to Third World Status. A majority of Americans are woefully ignorant of science.

[radarmark]

While I agree with your analysis of Fundamentalist/Evangelical Christianity, I believe you are painting with too broad a brush. See, most of the problems with Christianity have no bearing on Traditional Christianity. There are plenty of Orthodox and Catholic and Protestant scientists.

The real problem is not Christianity, but Christian Churches that have no history or ties to tradition. The Churches which "poped up" to fight Modernity (applyting science to scripture and theology).

So focus your attention on them, not on Christianity in general. Talk, vote, campaign like the (not the only example, just the one I am most familiar with) Friends Committee on National Legislation.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt!

[Thomas]

Originally Posted by Amergin

The mechanism you are describing is meme repetition.

So are yours for the made-up 'facts' that suit your narrative ...

Originally Posted by Amergin

When the idea is irrational as Christianity most certainly is irrational...

I love the 'rationality' of people who declare themselves to be the infallible benchmark of what is rational, reasonable, logical, intelligible, etc.

God bless

Thomas

[Dream]

Originally Posted by Scout

Do the Old and New Testaments even "fit together" when you examine each one separately on its own? They are collections of texts written by a variety of different authors. We do not even know who most of them were. They are not all consistent with one another either. For example, the modern concept of Hell doesn't get introduced until the New Testament.

Contemporary conceptions of hell weren't introduced until well after the New Testament, I think. Fire is symbolic for purification throughout the Bible, so the NT can mention it without inventing anything.

For those who wish to attempt to defend the Christian faith through apologetics: Yes its parts do fit together with some minor adjustment, and there supposedly many what are called 'Undesigned Coincidences'. If you really want to look into it, J.J. Blunt's book Undesigned Coincidences... from 1851 is available for free in PDF from here. I've not read it yet. Another one I've heard of is Harmony of the Gospels, the book as well as the Harmony of the Gospels page on blueletterbible.com. http://www.blueletterbible.org/study/harmony/index.cfm

[Dream]

I'll add that there are some difficulties with a sola scriptura approach. That's true. In the first place while the NT does fit in a way with the Bible, it cannot establish itself. You cannot pick it up, read it and then understand what you are reading. You're missing too much information. You can do studies like J.J. Blunt's; and you can layer interpretations of what you think everything might mean. You can eliminate some red herrings, but you might find new ones. Such an approach can be beneficial but by itself is theoretical.

[Etu Malku]

Originally Posted by Scout

Do the Old and New Testaments even "fit together" when you examine each one separately on its own? They are collections of texts written by a variety of different authors. We do not even know who most of them were. They are not all consistent with one another either. For example, the modern concept of Hell doesn't get introduced until the New Testament.

Heck, none of he gospels really fit together, that's why Constantine and the Council edited and abridged them into one.

[radarmark]

Printed Books = John Mill - Novum Testamentum - CSNTM is the source for a page by page comparison of textual NT differences as of 1707 and is a good place to supplement this work.

It is a matter of interpretation as to whether or not the "modern concept of Hell" appears in the NT. One can read the text as a continuation of Gehenna (except Matt 25:46, where "everlasting" may be a scibal addition). The torment is the torment of separation from G!d and like Christ, souls do not get punished forever.

Pax et amore omnia vincunt

[Dream]

Sola Scriptura is better than minesweeper but has some similarities.

[IowaGuy]

Originally Posted by Dream

while the NT ... it cannot establish itself. You cannot pick it up, read it and then understand what you are reading. You're missing too much information.

The same can be said for the OT, can it not?

[Thomas]

Hence the necessity of Tradition.

God bless,

Thomas

[IowaGuy]

Originally Posted by Thomas

Hence the necessity of Tradition.

Or a good history book in addition to the Bible.

The advantage of a history book compared to Tradition is that one wouldn't get all the "extras" such as purgatory, infant baptisms, celibate priests, and bans on birth control; which aren't supported by anything BUT tradition.

[A Cup Of Tea]

The advantage of Tradition is wisdom.

[IowaGuy]

I will agree that Tradition has its pro's and con's, just like a path of non-Tradition has pro's and con's. It's up to each of us to decide for ourselves if the advantages of Tradition outweigh the disadvantages, or vice-versa. I think this can also depend what stage of life's journey that we're on.

I really appreciate Thomas' input on this forum, and have learned a lot from reading his posts; but his view of following Tradition is much stricter than many others' on this forum.

I personally like Buddha's analogy that a boat is no longer needed once it gets you across the river. Sometimes it's easy to get so enamored with the boat that you try to carry it with you always, in which case it can become a burden. YMMV.