You are typically gentlemanly, Tom. To be clear on my view of religion: I do not dislike it in principle, I don’t disdain its adherents on principle and I’m quite content that many people find their way to sharing some kind of ideological space with me through one form or other of Christian faith. What I object to on an intellectual level is those (and it is by no means all Christians, maybe relatively few but strident) who assert that it is impossible to be a conservative without being a Christian, or that I am somehow lacking in that I don’t profess any form of faith, Christian or otherwise. On a more practical level, I think conservatives would be mad to make adherence to Christianity a necessary part of their creed, because, on current projections, in the UK, that demographic is declining and it is declining fast. In many ways that may be regrettable but it is the statistical truth.
I am interested in what you say about the historical truth or proof of the Gospel stories (and other events, like the Assumption of the BVM). As an outsider, the idea that there must be proof has always struck me as odd: surely faith is an act of belief which doesn’t require proof. If the church (whichever one) says it is so, then it is so. That’s different, of course, from arguing against something because it doesn’t appear in Scripture (like purgatory), though, again, my Catholic sympathies and respect for tradition have always made me think that sola scriptura is a rather narrow and cramped approach to Christianity.
One thing I find *quite* inexplicable is the sort of non-believer who will say to Christians “But surely you don’t believe that [say] the miracle of the loaves and fishes actually happened?” It’s an extension of the demand for historicity; but I would have thought that if you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator, then you have a fairly broad view of what is possible and some malarkey with bread and fish is really not so big a stretch. But then, a lot of non-believers don’t really understand belief. They think it’s some kind of search for proofs and confirmation and corroboration, which I would have thought (again as an outsider) it simply isn’t. One isn’t argued or reasoned or “evidenced” into faith, I wouldn’t have thought.
A note on faith: it is not something empirically demonstrated (precious few things are), but it's also not a function of blind, irrational belief without any sort of grounding in reality. To quote the fellow who commented below you:
"Faith, understood rightly, isn't based on either rationalistic inquiry or emotion-driven prejudices. It is neither the result of philosophical study nor is it a non-reflective adherence to propositions, nor is it reducible to the desire for emotional or psychological consolation... it is intuitional (or properly "mystical"), shaped certainly within a given tradition and culture, but also through actual experiment; and understanding it – assuming one has some capacity to do so – presumes faith’s priority (again “faith seeks understanding” – it comes first)." (https://addisonhodgeshart.substack.com/p/getting-faith-wrong)
Superb.
You are typically gentlemanly, Tom. To be clear on my view of religion: I do not dislike it in principle, I don’t disdain its adherents on principle and I’m quite content that many people find their way to sharing some kind of ideological space with me through one form or other of Christian faith. What I object to on an intellectual level is those (and it is by no means all Christians, maybe relatively few but strident) who assert that it is impossible to be a conservative without being a Christian, or that I am somehow lacking in that I don’t profess any form of faith, Christian or otherwise. On a more practical level, I think conservatives would be mad to make adherence to Christianity a necessary part of their creed, because, on current projections, in the UK, that demographic is declining and it is declining fast. In many ways that may be regrettable but it is the statistical truth.
I am interested in what you say about the historical truth or proof of the Gospel stories (and other events, like the Assumption of the BVM). As an outsider, the idea that there must be proof has always struck me as odd: surely faith is an act of belief which doesn’t require proof. If the church (whichever one) says it is so, then it is so. That’s different, of course, from arguing against something because it doesn’t appear in Scripture (like purgatory), though, again, my Catholic sympathies and respect for tradition have always made me think that sola scriptura is a rather narrow and cramped approach to Christianity.
One thing I find *quite* inexplicable is the sort of non-believer who will say to Christians “But surely you don’t believe that [say] the miracle of the loaves and fishes actually happened?” It’s an extension of the demand for historicity; but I would have thought that if you believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent creator, then you have a fairly broad view of what is possible and some malarkey with bread and fish is really not so big a stretch. But then, a lot of non-believers don’t really understand belief. They think it’s some kind of search for proofs and confirmation and corroboration, which I would have thought (again as an outsider) it simply isn’t. One isn’t argued or reasoned or “evidenced” into faith, I wouldn’t have thought.
A note on faith: it is not something empirically demonstrated (precious few things are), but it's also not a function of blind, irrational belief without any sort of grounding in reality. To quote the fellow who commented below you:
"Faith, understood rightly, isn't based on either rationalistic inquiry or emotion-driven prejudices. It is neither the result of philosophical study nor is it a non-reflective adherence to propositions, nor is it reducible to the desire for emotional or psychological consolation... it is intuitional (or properly "mystical"), shaped certainly within a given tradition and culture, but also through actual experiment; and understanding it – assuming one has some capacity to do so – presumes faith’s priority (again “faith seeks understanding” – it comes first)." (https://addisonhodgeshart.substack.com/p/getting-faith-wrong)