Author Archives: Bruce Nielson

Do Non-Literal Believers Believe Falsehood is Better Than Truth?

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Case for GodHaving considered in my past posts all my concerns with Armstrong’s book, The Case for God, I wish to now address the most important subject of them all: Where do Armstrong and other non-literal believers stand on the issue of whether or not falsehoods are (or at least can be) better than truth?

This may seem like a strange question. To help explain why this question is so important, I need to point you to an excellent post done by AndrewS a while back entitled “Why New Atheists are the Dullest People in the World“. [1] (See here for original post from Leah.)

Non-Literal Theists vs. Miliant Atheists

In this post, AndrewS tells the story of Leah and her realization that despite being a non-literal believer she was still a “Raging Religion-oholic.” Another poster named brillientk89 — a new atheist (i.e. militant atheist) — took issue with her non-literal theists views. AndrewS, who is also an atheist, defended her views. His key point is that brillientk89’s stance is so militantly in favor of ‘truth’ that he makes no room for even fiction. (Thus the reference to being ‘dull.’) [2]

Here is a key part of the ‘exchange’ between Leah (the non-literal theist) and brillentk89 (the militant atheist): Continue reading →

Karen Armstrong’s Dim View of Christianity

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Case for GodIn a post near the beginning of this series I summarized Armstong’s views of Jesus Christ and Christianity. Go back and read that post if you need to. In this post I’m going to touch about my concerns with her presentation here.

One Sided Unknowning is Actually A Special Case of Knowing

First, I note that for someone whose whole religious practice is built on “unknowing” that there doesn’t seem to be the slightest bit of “unknowing” when it comes to Jesus Christ. She is completely certain that He only taught that he was a non-unique son of God in the same sense that we all are. She is completely certain that He was not ‘bodily resurrected’ but that rather people just saw visions of Him. She is completely certain that He would have been in favor of self-emptying and her apophatic method. No other possibility is considered or discussed at all.

This ‘certainty’ that Armstrong easily asserts when necessary brings up a larger issues: Theological Liberals of the Armstrong variety seem to only believe in their beliefs when it’s convenient. Unknowing is only exalted right up to the point that it encourages their own beliefs. If it ever doesn’t, then ‘certainty’ becomes okay after all. Likewise, ‘not having the final word about God’ is only true if you mean everyone else but Armstrong-like Liberals. They really do have the final word on several subjects, namely all the ones they care about and that their religious beliefs are anchored on. So in this sense, they aren’t really different from their ‘conservative’ counterparts. Armstrong really does act as if she believes she gets the ‘final say’ when it comes to Jesus Christ. Continue reading →

Our Epistemology So Far

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EinsteinThis is a reprint of the summary of my Wheat and Tares posts on epistemology. Just reprinting it here to make it easier to link to locally here and to add to the overall discussion. Personally, I feel this is my best posts.

Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground in past posts. The problem with this ‘Reason as a Guide to Reality’ series of posts is that they build on concepts from past posts. It’s easy to get lost in all the concepts. So let’s do a quick review of past ideas and build up the principles of finding truth/knowledge (i.e. Epistemology) that we’ve determined so far.

First, everything we thought we knew about science turned out to be false. Namely, science is not specifically about prediction, nor reductionism, nor holism, nor observation, nor falsification. All of those ideas are important to science, but they do not delineate a boundary for science.

 

Second, science is not justified by inductive thinking. The past does not determine the future. Instead, science (and all knowledge actually) is justified based on being our best explanations so far. No other justification is necessary and no other justification is possible. Continue reading →

The Case Against Karen Armstrong: In What Sense is God “Inexpressible”?

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Case for GodIn my recent posts I’ve addressed many of the problems I find in Karen Armstrong’s analysis of ‘the modern God’ which I believe is really just a cherry picked interpretation at odds with fact.

One idea I have not addressed is her idea that God is ‘inexpressible’ or ‘ineffable.’

Now I don’t really know any religionists that would argue this point at an abstract level. Certainly God – even the supposed ‘modern God’ — is generally thought of as ‘inexpressible’ or ‘ineffable’ in some way. Even the literally minded Mormons would tend to agree.

What I want to explore is if Armstrong is being precise enough when she presents this idea. Is there only one sense in which God is ‘inexpressible’? What does ‘inexpressible’ even mean? Continue reading →

The Case Against Karen Armstrong: Was the Ancient God Non-Literal?

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Case for GodIn my last few posts (here, here, and here), I looked at how Karen Armstrong freely takes quotes of some of her sources out of context to make her case that the literal ‘modern God’ was recent and at odds with the original ancient view of God.

In this post I’m going to explore some of the other reasons I find this view suspect.

The Non-Literal Garden of Eden

One case she makes several times (so many it started to hurt) is that the Garden of Eden account in the Bible was not intended to be taken literally. She presents Origen as an ancient example of this. Continue reading →