From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: The delusional nature of sincere belief (was Luke, Derrida, etc.)
Date: 21 Dec 92 18:54:50 -0400
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada


Steve Adams writes:

Re: Elaine Pagels

> The `Pesher' texts, and Qumran?  My impression is that she's way out
> The 'Pesher' texts?  About Qumran?  My understanding is that she's way out
> in left field, with some provably inaccurate understandings of the Essenes

I was actually thinking of her book "The Gnostic Gospels." I don't know
what she thinks about Qumran, etc.  The book I'm thinking about
doesn't mention the Essenes. I've been quoting her on the Gnostics
for a while now, and nobody's trashed me yet...and her comments on
Gnosticism have checked out with other sources I've looked at. 
Veh. What is truth?

Now that I think of it, it sounds like you're talking about Barbara Thierling.
She has a recent book out on the things you describe which is getting
panned by the scholarly world, I hear. Sound right?
 
>>>>Hey...I accepted Jesus into my heart and I do the best I can to 
>>>>live according to the Gospel message as I understand it.  
>>> That is pretty much all that one can do...faith, not works, eh?
>>Well...as I said below, the accepting part is pretty meaningless to me,
>>because it was pretty clear that I was just saying things I didn't believe.
>
>>I guess, technically, I've done my part. :) 
>
> You have to confess with your mind and your heart that Jesus is Lord...

Whoa...!  Really?

Think about that for a second. A person cannot control what the impulses
of their "heart" are, by definition. You've just asserted that the act
of _accepting salvation_ is 100% out of the hands of the individual.
In effect, that only the "elect" (those whose hearts run that way) will
be saved. So much for free will, etc. etc. Booom whoosh crunch...geez did
the whole edifice of Paulist Xianity collapse again?  It's fun kicking
the knees out from under Xianity the first ten or twenty times, but
even I'm getting bored with it...geez...must be getting old...

>>But the next question is: Who's Yahweh?  I think JC was speaking in metaphoric
>>terms for an aspect of life that could go by many other names. 
>>Jewish tradition personifies this aspect. This has its ups and downs.
>>One one hand, it's a good metaphor, but on the other, it is easily
>>misunderstood and taken as a literal term instead of a metaphoric term.
> So Jacob (Israel) was wrestling with the metaphor...ie, struggling with the
> concept of God?? ;-)

Heck, I forget the details of that story...it's been years. But I would
read that more as Jacob wrestling with God. Next question: from what we know
about Yahweh, and what he is a metaphor for, what does it mean to wrestle
with Yahweh? See what we're doing?  We're reading these things as myths, which
is what they were originally, I'm sure. I'm sure they were never intended as
history, any more, than say, the Arthurian cycles were. 

> [About Revelation & metaphors]
> 
>>Of course, if you're living in your imagination, then you're denying the 
>>natural world -- in other words, the stars fall from the sky.
>>
>>Now that's poetry!  Just a tiny taste of what Revelation is about,
>>courtesy of R.W. Emerson...someday I'll work the whole thing out!
>
> Hmm..interesting thought...I'm just not as attuned to poetry...
 
Sure you are -- the only difference between you and Shakespeare is that
Shakespeare never took his poetry seriously. 

> [About 'belief' vs. 'unknowing belief']

>>Because it is impossible to _know_, it is meaningless to believe. 
>>To believe is to think that you know, although you may not know why
>>you know.  Since we cannot know, sincere belief is delusion. This is a 
>>very tricky point...but there is no getting away from it. 
>>This does not eliminate insincere belief -- that is to say, recognizing
>>that you don't know, and can never know, but still operating
>>as if God exists, because it pleases you to do so. After all, he might!
>
> I don't see the difference here...and how is this insincere?  If I
> acknowledge that I can't really know, yet I still sincerely 'think' that
> God exists????  I'm SOOO confused by what you're getting at here...

Sorry if I'm being confusing. This is a subtle point, and I may not be 
explaining it very well. In fact, there are levels and levels to this, but
I'll try to stick to the relevant point as much as I can.

 You see, God is not a directly apprehendable thing, the way these characters
on your screen are. God is a matter of interpretation -- God is only seen in
his works, never directly. So, in order for you to sincerely think that
he exists, you must regard your interpretation as correct, and in fact
there is no way to know if this is the case. There is no way to even
measure likelihoods of one interpretation's correctness vs. those of others.
There are an infinite number of possible hypothesis to explain any given
phenomenon -- this means that sincere belief is ALWAYS based on a totally
unsupportable conclusion.  

Now, my personal bias is to say that God does NOT exist. In fact, it seems
pretty clear to me that he doesn't, at least not the God of the Bible.
However, if I indulge in regarding my tentative conclusion as being
accurate, I am deluding myself, because there are an infinite number
of other hypotheses that explain life as I experience it besides the
scientific materialist one that appeals to me so.  In other words --
yes, I really think there is no God, but no, I don't trust what I 
think for a minute. That is to say, I believe, but I don't believe
in my beliefs.  

There's more to things than this, but this is enough for now, I think.

>>In other words, you have a set of ideas about life which do not seem to 
>>adequately account for life as you experience it. So 
>>you have questions. You have found that one way to deal with this
>>problem is to adopt another set of ideas which satisfies your
>>desire to have the universe make sense. 
>
> Likely so.  'God' explains quite a few things that otherwise I wouldn't
> have an acceptable explanation for...

Fair enough. But consider the points above -- there are an infinite
number of possible hypotheses that can explain the phenomena you
are thinking of. People believe in God because the notion appeals to them
on a non-rational level -- there can be no rational ground for any belief.
What are these non-rational attractions?  We have to save _something_
for next time. :)

> -Steve

Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca

Even if I had a .sig, this wouldn't be it.