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Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Christian Delusion: Chapter Four--The Outsider Test for Faith Revisited

Today, I continue my review of The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails (ed. John Loftus). In chapter four, John Loftus, a former evangelical preacher and apologist, describes his Outsider Test for Faith (OTF). John first explained this test in Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity.
Loftus opens the chapter by saying: The most important question of all when it comes to assessing the truth claims of Christian theism (or religion in general) is whether we should approach the available evidence through the eyes of faith or with skepticism (p. 81). He lays out his rationale for employing skepticim based on the following:
1) Rational people in distinct geographical locations around the globe overwhelmingly adopt and defend a wide diversity of religious faiths due to their upbringing and cultural heritage.. . .
2) Consequently, it seems very likely that adopting one's religious faith is not merely a matter of independent rational judgment but is causally dependent on cultural conditions to an overwhelming degree. . . .
3) Hence the odds are highly likely that any given adopted religious faith is false.
4)So the best way to test one's adopted religious faith is from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism used to evaluate other religious faiths.
(p. 82)
What John is calling for in the OTF is for a person to step outside of his particular religious belief system and attempt to honestly evaluate it as he would any other belief system. In other words, one must pretend that he is not a Christian, that the Bible is not the inspired Word of God, and that Jesus is not the Son of God. Given those premises, then the individual should examine the Christian faith to see if it is a reasonable thing to believe.

One way to do this is to be willing to read critiques of the Christian faith by skeptics and nonbelievers (p. 86) This will force one to look at his faith as outsiders do. Another way is to do as Julia Sweeney of SNL fame did, put on No God Glasses and try looking at the world as if there were no God (p. 88). See if the world looks the same without God as it does with God. If it does, then consider the possiblity that there just might not be a God.

I had a Pastor once who said something to his congregation that caused me to think in these terms. He asked: What if there were no God, would our worship service look any different than it does today ? He didn't say it to cause people to doubt their belief in God; he said it because to him most Christians lived as practical atheists, i.e., they lived as if there were no God. He was trying to get his congregation to "practice the presence of God." However, it had a different effect upon me. As I pondered the question, I had to admit that the church service would be no different whether God existed or not.

In the last half of the chapter, Loftus deals with objections to his OTF. I will mention a couple of these objections. One put forward by Norm Geisler in his review of John's first book (WIBA) is that skepticism is self-defeating. Geisler maintains that if one takes the position of skepticism, then one would have to be skeptical about their skepticism and could never be certain that its the right approach. To me, Geisler's objection is misguided because he is playing word games. Of course by definition, a skeptic is not going to be certain. But is certainty the goal? There are precious few things, if any, in life that we are certain of. The goal is not certainty but it is a belief that can be justified. Skepticism should be the default position, if learning is to take place. Science is based on skepticism. One needs to test as objectively as possible the data to arrive at a reasonably certain conclusion.

Another objection put forward by Alvin Plantinga is that one cannot really transcend his culture in order to objectively evalutate it. Plantinga is correct. Total objectivity is never possible. People cannot totally divorce themselves from their prior experiences and knowledge. However, even though total objectivity is not acheivable, one can strive for it. One can honestly attempt to look at things as an outsider would and apply the same investigative criteria as one would to a different belief system. All Loftus is calling for is an honest attempt.

I agree with Loftus that people typically do not believe in their religious system for rational reasons. They were born into it, or adopted it because it was the dominant view in their culture, or some emotional event in their life forced them to seek shelter in a faith system. If people are willing, and unfortunately most are not, to honestly examine their religious beliefs, they will most likely conclude that they have been deluded. As one author said: When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours (Stephen Roberts).

9 comments:

  1. In my own efforts to formulate an apologetic for Christianity, I adopted an outsider's approach as well, arguing from the wonder of the universe for the existence of God, arguing from humankind's personality that God the Creator must be personal, arguing from humankind's violent nature and past that people needed reconciliation with God, and that God met that need through Jesus -- "God with us."

    Even though I have deconverted, that apologetic progression still appeals to me.

    I strongly felt that an outsider's approach was the only proper approach to Christian apologetics. There is a very moving Biblical passage in support of this apologetical approach at Acts 17:26-28:

    "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'"

    But my outsider's apologetic approach failed, because it broke down at Christianity's most essential point: the Atonement. That our sins were worthy of death and hell, and punishment had to be meted for them, and that's why Christ died. I could never construct an "outsider's" apologetic that could bridge this theological gap.

    I also couldn't very well reconcile the thought that God actually wanted many people to seek God in this non-dogmatically-constrained way (Acts 17:26-28) but then insisted that everyone exposed to Christian dogma accept it without questioning. I began to wish that I was one of those inhabitants who had "never heard," so that I could have had the freedom to seek God in that way, instead of simply being chained to a text.

    So ironically, my very apologetic effort constributed to my deconversion.

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  2. It is also useful to consider a sort of "Insider's" test for faith: the moral sensibilities that Christians say make pagans accountable for their errors.

    I thought about what it must have been like to live in a child-sacrificing pagan culture. Why didn't mothers and fathers in those cultures have the moral sensibility to reject a theology that demanded that they sacrifice their own children?

    But the more I meditated on the Bible, the more disturbed I felt about its absence of moral sensibility in, for example, God commanding the slaughter of Amalekite children and infants. God even told Abraham to sacrifice his own son, and he was willing and ready to do it -- Abraham was not about to refuse God's command. And Christianity celebrates that as faith.

    It turns out that evangelicals have no more moral sensibility than pagans in child-sacrificing cultures. So how then, can evangelicals press a moral argument against believers of competing faiths? They can't.

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  3. Good comments. It's amazing what people will do for God-what lengths they will go to-even sacrificing their own children. Scary stuff.

    I think it shows the power religion can have on your mind-where even your morals can be set aside.

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  4. Ken,

    I think you mentioned how most Christians WON'T delve into things too intensely or read a book by an outsider. I think they secretly know it might all fall apart, and who wants that? Better to cover your ears, sing loudly, and go on being in a happy protected world. Can you blame them?

    Christians get warned against reading the wrong books. And as some of us who are readers and have read those books know, they frequently DO lead to loss of faith.

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  5. John Loftus,

    Borders was sold out of your book when I went to get it today. I was impressed. They've replaced an order. I wanted mine sooner so they are shipping it free of charge to me.

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  6. Emet, thanks but it may not mean much that it sold out. Any given Borders store only receives 1-3 copies in the first place. Thanks for making them re-order them though. I appreciate it.

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  7. As I was explaining to a friend of mine who's very into the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses: If you look at the greek myth of the Sun as 'Apollo riding a chariot across the sky', you'd smile and see it as a myth; if you look at the story of Muhammad riding a flying mule, you'd say it's just a tale. But when you read in the Bible that Elijah went to heaven in a chariot, why do you believe it?. Why don't you just place yourself outside of the belief and see it as another myth?. He said, after a second of pondering: "I would rather not think about it"...and that was the end of the conversation.

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  8. "I agree with Loftus that people typically do not believe in their religious system for rational reasons. They were born into it, or adopted it because it was the dominant view in their culture, or some emotional event in their life forced them to seek shelter in a faith system."

    And I would agree with the both of you.

    "Skepticism should be the default position, if learning is to take place. Science is based on skepticism. One needs to test as objectively as possible the data to arrive at a reasonably certain conclusion."

    I see a bit of a problem there. I agree that one needs to test as objectively as possible. That is precisely why I'd say agnosticism or null should be the default position.

    As an example, let's say someone proposes a new particle in physics. Should skepticism be the default position? I'd say no.

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  9. @Lynn: "I think you mentioned how most Christians WON'T delve into things too intensely or read a book by an outsider. I think they secretly know it might all fall apart, and who wants that? Better to cover your ears, sing loudly, and go on being in a happy protected world. Can you blame them?"

    YES, we can. It's a failure of responsibility on their part. If a religious person, when presented with the evidence for the evils caused by blind faith and for the falsity of religion, shuts their ears and their brains because it may hurt their precious feelings, then I submit this is immoral and childish behavior, unfit for an adult member of a democratic society. They become enablers, and should be called out as such.

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