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The following is from Chapter 2: The Fall on page 37.
Quote:
...every Christian has a particular hierarchy of doctrines and practices, and most Christians arrange their hierarchy in roughly the same manner. The existence of God is at the top, the deity of Jesus just below that, and so on down to the bottom of the list, where you find issues like whether women should wear jewelry or makeup in church. What distinguishes many brands of Christianity is where they draw the line between what is essential and what is not. Extreme fundamentalists draw the line way down at the bottom of the list, making all doctrines above it equally necessary. Moderates draw the line somewhere up in the middle of the list. Liberals draw the line way up at the top, not caring if the Bible is inerrant or if Jesus existed historically, but holding on to the existence of God, however he or she is defined, maintaining the general usefulness of religion, and valuing rituals to give structure or meaning to life.
Dan Barker misses an opportunity in this book to include some diagrams and illustrations to help explain some key concepts. I envision some sort of pyramid as a great way of illustrating his above concept with God at the very top.
Dan explains, "As I traveled across the spectrum, I kept drawing my line higher and higher."
I love this analogy so much that I am a little frustrated I didn't come up with it myself. And now I want to see an artist draw something to help people interested in this topic understand how us atheists slowly start to discard more and more of the religious doctrines and dogma we've been taught.
Ahh...here is an idea. Imagine a pyramid, as described above, that is slowly sinking into the sea like a volcanic island. More and more of the lesser doctrines and practices, or wide base of the pyramid, get slowly swallowed up by the....drum roll please..."Sea of Reason." Oh, I know. This is good stuff. Finally, the entire pyramid slips beneath the surface and the believer is left swimming in desperation until he realizes he can stop swimming because the Sea of Reason is very salty and....oh, shaddup and leave me alone.
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Another fantastic opportunity to incorporate some drawings or illustrations was lost on page 40 when he said...
Quote:
Beliefs that used to be so precious were melting away, one by one. It was like peeling back the layers of an onion, eliminating the nonessential doctrines to see what was at the core, and I just kept peeling and peeling until there was nothing left.
I'm not bitching. I'm obviously impressed with his descriptions. I've just never read this stuff and I think Dan could have had some cartoon illustrations thrown into the book that would have ended up being published all over the web, thus giving him and his concepts more publicity.
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The longer passage you quoted gives a way to look at Christian belief comprehensively; it's excellent. As a formerly committed Christian, Barker knows that these important gradations exist. My complaint sometimes is that people arguing against Christianity or religion do not know that subject, so they make errors of generalization. If Barker avoids this pitfall, as the passage suggests, his book would be really worth reading (and I should).
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Just started this book this morning and read chapter 1 and 2. I am not from an evangelical background and have never really understood it. The belief that you can 'save' someone by having them accept Jesus as their savior after a few hours of discussion or listening to preaching seems ludicrous. What are they accepting? Do they even know and understand what they are professing to accept? How can something supposedly so momentous and profoud happen without any understanding or education? How can you suddenly become a Christian?
Also interesting is the comments made to Dan after his preaching during his inner-athiest phase where he was still going through the motion of his ministry, how the listeners 'felt' the spirit through him and how much he moved them. Just like any stage actor, politician, or leader of any kind, you can see that charisma is what makes a person successful, plus that added stimulus of a large group of people gathered together. I think that women have fainted at rock concerts, so in awe and moved by the power of that singing god on the stage and exhilaration of a huge crowd.
Another thing Dan commented on was the fact that he could still summon that wonderful feeling he used to associate with his personal relationship with God, even when he no longer believed, discovering himself that these emotional responses were something different than what he had always believed them to be.
I also liked his analogy of drawing that line higher and higher as he slowly discarded many beliefs. His inner turmoil during this time must have been very difficult as he continued in his life feeling more and more like he was living a lie.
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DWill: "My complaint sometimes is that people arguing against Christianity or religion do not know that subject, so they make errors of generalization."
One look at the real world would tell anyone that generalizing in this fashion is unreasonable. My mother is a completely different creature than my grandmother with regards to religion. Understanding this and moving past, my problem is that the pyramid has people on all levels. It's an inevitable consequence of the written bibles that there will always be people on the bottom of the pyramid. Debating against religion isn't an attack against people, it's an attack against the pyramid and the bibles that support it.
It seems the misunderstanding sometimes is that religious people point to the top of the pyramid to show the goodness of belief, and atheists point to the bottom to show the bad. The true culprit is that this hypothetical pyramid exists at all, not the people at the top or at the bottom.
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Interbane wrote:
It seems the misunderstanding sometimes is that religious people point to the top of the pyramid to show the goodness of belief, and atheists point to the bottom to show the bad. The true culprit is that this hypothetical pyramid exists at all, not the people at the top or at the bottom.
I don't really understand what you are getting at here. My understanding of this hypothetical pyramid used in this analogy is that it is not about people being on different levels of a set pyramid, but about a belief system of which the models may be similar, or roughly the same, but vary from group to group. The levels are where individuals draw the line to what is important in a Christian life. Therefore a line near the top would be the most liberal christian, I believe in God, but not much else of the bible, and farther down adding more and more absolutes for a christian life of gradually less importance than the level above.
I don't think that the 'culprit' is in this hypothetical model. Even unreligious people have a pyramid of values with perhaps honesty or integrity on top, down to excercising every day, phoning their mother once a week. The book they would follow is the values they have learned growing up, the acceptance of the particular group of society they have aligned themselves with, inner emotions, and maybe logic.
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realiz: "don't think that the 'culprit' is in this hypothetical model."
The problem is that the people at the top by being liberal are an expression of the good of monotheistic belief. Rather than reigning in the extremists, their position does more to allow extremism than to limit it due to the effect they have on the perception of their monotheism. This causal tie is debatable, yet has truth to some degree. The acceptance of liberalist monotheism influences the acceptance of extremism, though the acceptance is at a lesser degree. It's the spectrum of monotheistic belief, the 'pyramid' that allows this.
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This causal tie is debatable, yet has truth to some degree.
I'd say very debatable. Because a person believes in God they are condoning all actions made by all others in the name of God? This reminds me more of arguments from the other side, if we let this one doctrine slide, all hell will break lose.
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realiz: "Because a person believes in God they are condoning all actions made by all others in the name of God?"
Of course not condoning, most likely in extreme cases they are even vehemently opposed. Yet, the perception of liberals does much to mellow down the perception of extremists within the same religion. When extremism is examined, it must be examined within the context of religion, which includes the liberals.
realiz: "This reminds me more of arguments from the other side, if we let this one doctrine slide, all hell will break lose."
What arguments, and what other side?
Is DWill in the house? I think he'd have a problem with what I'm saying also. Although I think his point was that liberals temper actions rather than perception.
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Interbane:
Quote:
What arguments, and what other side?
The extreme religious right: Example, if we allow ourselves to turn on one light on the sabbath, before you know it we'll be working all day long treating this day just like any other one.
If we accept any belief whatsoever in God, then we are sanctioning all interpretations of religious life.
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realiz: "If we accept any belief whatsoever in God, then we are sanctioning all interpretations of religious life."
Is that against what you believe? Would you rather restrict the way people interpret the bible? Do you claim the archimedian point? For each perspective, there is a tolerance they logically have for those a bit higher and a bit lower on the pyramid. This extends through the variance of monotheistic belief until you reach extremism on one end, and liberalists on the other. Even for those far different in belief, they share the common thread of monotheism which is a belief system that naturally manifests 'in-group' behavior.
The legal system, and in some cases, shame, are two large limiting factors for what doctrines aren't allowed. Witch hunts no longer end up with people burning at the stake. The matter of what is 'allowed to slide' depends on who and how many are willing to jump on the bandwagon, as long as they aren't limited legally. When was the last time you scorned someone into not drawing their line a touch lower on the pyramid, especially when they firmly believed in it?
The population is lopsided from fringe to fringe, with extremists representing the minority. Pure assumption, but it makes sense that there would be more liberals now than in centuries past. That shift is a good thing. Extremism will remain as long as there are monotheisms based on bibles.
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Extremism will remain as long as there are monotheisms based on bibles.
Extremism does not result from bible. Extremism exists in every group, every society, whether or not religion is involved at all. Look at communism. Extremism is a manifestation of human behavior that causes groups of people to follow leaders until things get so far to one extreme that a new generation begins to see the folly for what it is. But, then gradually the extremism will begin to build in another direction and cause a whole new set of problems.
Quote:
realiz: "If we accept any belief whatsoever in God, then we are sanctioning all interpretations of religious life."
Interbane
Quote:
Is that against what you believe? Would you rather restrict the way people interpret the bible?
Is that against what I believe? Yes, it is. Would I rather restrict the way people interpret the bible? No, absolutely not, though their activities do need to be restricted if they are breaking the law.
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DB: Beliefs that used to be so precious were melting away, one by one. It was like peeling back the layers of an onion, eliminating the nonessential doctrines to see what was at the core, and I just kept peeling and peeling until there was nothing left.
Perhaps this is because at core what is at stake is not an essential doctrine, but something else. That particular something else is notoriously difficult to pin down and slippery to grab hold of. "God" is one of the best words we have for it, and it barely scratches the surface of what it attempts to describes. And what a word we have in God! Few others elicit more fear, admiration, terror, hope, confusion, illumination, rage, peace, befuddlement, insight, delusion and delight. What is the "something else" that is not reduced to doctrine, dogma, logic or empirical data, nor safely contained by any name or word...but manages to inspire and enflame like nothing else can?
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realiz: "Extremism does not result from bible."
Not to cherry pick an argument, but religious extremism results from how those people interpret the bible. Extremism in general exists with regards to any belief. When it is an exclusive belief, like racism, religion, or nationalism, then we have a problem.
realiz: "Is that against what I believe? Yes, it is. Would I rather restrict the way people interpret the bible? No, absolutely not, though their activities do need to be restricted if they are breaking the law."
What would you do about an incident halfway between where you draw the line and where religious extremists at the bottom draw the line? At what point on the pyramid would you actively step in and say, "enough is enough!" Would you wait until their religious beliefs are a reasonable distance removed from your own? Would you not step in at all, even in the case of the WBC showing up at funerals of dead soldiers from Iraq?
realiz: "But, then gradually the extremism will begin to build in another direction and cause a whole new set of problems."
As long as we have a reason to exclude people, extremism will bring out the worst in people. Gradually shifting away from the three monotheisms and working toward a world government will go a long way. That's another thread, within the context of the pyramid or Barker's line drawing we were talking about religious extremism. I'm not sure if there will ever be a way to eliminate racism... perhaps when we're all a shade of grey in 1,000 years.
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Finally, the entire pyramid slips beneath the surface and the believer is left swimming in desperation until he realizes he can stop swimming because the Sea of Reason is very salty and....oh, shaddup and leave me alone.
