Re: Irish Times saying that New Age rubbish is
awful and Christianity has better intellectual depth
The fact of the matter is that Christian thinkers found that the Bible wasn't
terribly helpful in matters of ethics and intellectual depth. The Summa of St
Thomas is not in the Bible. Newman said that the Bible was merely meant to give
the faith some historical basis but not great as a teaching tool for doctrine
and spirituality. For that you needed the wisdom of the Church. In reality what
you have is the discoveries made by clever thinkers who identify as Christians
that may or may not fit the real teaching of Jesus. They are put out there
enough to make the whole system look smart and coherent. But is it really? The
Bible makes terrible errors including offering horrendous evidence for the
resurrection of Christ.
Scientists are said to be content with not knowing things. But scientists think
that doubt is better than being certain about things that are in fact wrong.
Christianity is inherently and in practice against this principle for it puts
forward ideas that cannot be tested and it cannot make predictions about what to
expect if theories are true. Even if a theory is not science science
expects those who propose the theory to get fulfilled predictions out of it.
Theories are about predictions for they have to be testable.
“If people can have their needs met without religion, they often will.” I would
add that religion is a blockade to many who wish to openly live without it or
without one or more of its biggest restrictions. If people fall away from
religion and God easier and in bigger numbers the more their social and economic
needs are looked after that is scary. It is because unmet social and economic
needs can lead to aggression and war.
Secularism rejects faith in God and religion as political forces. Religion
usually affirms them and that is why they are so dangerous. A country with
secular voices is easier to run than one that is made up of religious voices.
Catholicism only got to be so powerful because of its past and current marriage
with politics. To become Catholic is to avail of that toxic relationship
and insult all who suffered from it.
Religious beliefs that seem to help a person cope may not be helping at all. The
content of the belief may do nothing but what you believe about it may help.
Also people can mistake things that are not religious or to do with God for God
so rather than lose faith they see more clearly
Helping a person to see through their faith respects them as a person who can
make the right decisions and learn. It treats them as an adult. Now they are
free from error and that is good for error leads to error in two ways. Error
As Lindsay puts it, “A stopped clock, they say is right twice a day, but a
correctly functioning clock set to the wrong time is never right.” Being wrong
for the right reasons is hugely superior to being right for the wrong reasons.
Also if that happens it is easier to get out of the errors.
Lindsay recommends like Peter Boghossian that if you know somebody is in error
with their faith you can ask them how they know what they claim to know for that
makes them open to revising those beliefs. I would add that it is important to
get them to see first that belief should be based on evidence and to ask them
what evidence they have for their belief and why they think the evidence
supports it. You could ask them to think of evidence that might uproot their
faith.