From: starpath@bard.mit.edu (David E. Hollingsworth)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: God does exist! (Was Re: Non-Religious Practice)
Date: 10 Oct 92 06:25:19 GMT
Reply-To: starpath@bard.mit.edu
Organization: Massachvsetts Institvte of Technology

(My use of the word argument below indicates 'a set of statements intented  
to pursuade', not 'a set of harsh words'.)

> These are things that I've just got a couple days ago:
> - God does not exist simply because man believe in His existence,
>   and He will never become non-existence simply because we do not 
>   believe in His existence.
> - The existence of God is not a result of human's discussion,
>   but the existence of God is the cause, is the reason that human
>   discuss about His existence.
[...]

"Just got"???  You sound as if 'oh, look, I heard some REALLY GOOD  
ARGUMENTS for the existence of God this week; just listen'.  While I  
certainly would not want to suggest that communication of ideas is bad, I  
do have a couple of problems with this attitude:
	1)  It turns Christian life into a 'warehouse of arguments'.   
Christianity is not _about_ oratory; it is not _about_ clever arguments.   
Trying to 'prove' the existence of God by providing 'evidence' is  
misguided, because you can't even 'prove' your own.  (Yeah, but...)  Look,  
there are enough arguments for an atheist to hang his hat on that you  
can't convince him by 'proof'.  Try something more Christian-life  
oriented.
	2)  After a few communication generations, arguments have lost  
their power, because of small differences in memory.  Unfortunately, weak  
positions are worse than none at all, because this reenforces the ideas  
that 'Christians don't think' and 'It's just a self-deceiving culture'.
	3)  Very often, the person who 'just got this' got it from a  
person they admire; a person they would listen to, even if 'proof' wasn't  
given.  Many people have a hard time separating their feelings for the  
person from those about the argument.  If they misquote the concept, when  
their listener begins to critisize it, *they often take it personally*.   
This portrays the Christian as weak, easy to frustrate or anger, and,  
again, not even understanding his own arguments.
	4)  When it becomes obvious that formal arguments aren't working  
very well, many switch to personal experience.  Very dangerous things can  
result from this; it is quite common to hear people say things like,  
"Well, if you were a father, wouldn't you _____", and then try to use our  
understanding of human social relationships, and try to apply that to our  
relationship with God.  The reason such reasoning is dangerous is that it  
ignores details about differences between the analogy and the real  
situation.
	5)  Another popular rhetorical device is the anecdote.  Jesus did  
use these, as well as experiential analogies; Jesus was also divine.  Many  
human-generated anecdotes appeal to emotions, not spirituality, and  
usually offend the intellect, because people try to apply them as proofs.

	If what you try to sell to atheists is good arguments, then  
they'll just try to get you to produce more; if what you're trying to sell  
is Christianity, then ease up on the rhetoric, and show them what it means  
to _you_.

--
David Hollingsworth starpath@bard.mit.edu Send me NeXTMail or kill me
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