This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think most of them, heart of heart don’t actually believe but don’t want to admit it to themselves. They like the trappings, the music, the friends they see at church, and the idea of helping their fellow man. It just boggles the imagination that someone could legitimately believe that the God who created the heavens and the earth says that something is wrong and you given the equivalent of a “yeah, but i want it to be okay so it is okay.” Ideals, especially ideals that you hold dear always have consequences. And to me, the absolute hallmark of a person believing a given set of propositions is whether they change their behavior in light of that.
Most people really use religion as a security blanket or insurance policy.
Many Christians, including some of the more conservative ones, do not believe that every single word of the Bible is the literal word of God. On the contrary, the letters of Paul (for example) are the word of Paul — some of which Paul himself believes to have come from God, and some of which is explicitly given as “I didn’t get this from God but it seems like common sense.”
55% of American adults believe that the bible is inerrant, so that is the most common belief, and is usually taken as pretty important—Protestants tend to have a high view of scripture, and Catholics also affirm that the scriptures are infallible, I belief. (Officially speaking, of course. That doesn't mean every layman knows every thing.)
Ah, you're referring to 1 Corinthians 7:12.
Here's the passage:
I've seen some take this as talking about Jesus' own teachings on divorce, and still affirm that Paul is infallible. Some others think that Paul is fallible in that passages, since he recognizes it as from himself, even if he's infallible in general. In any case, Paul goes on to say at the end of the same chapter:
This reads to me as that it might be defending or affirming his authority, in some sense, at least. He does so more strongly in other places. Paul says in the same book (1 Cor 14:37),
In 2 Peter, it says
So there, at least, Paul's writings were considered to be scripture.
But 55% is barely better than half. And for those who consider it to have errors, I think you’d have to figure out what they don’t buy for the thing to make sense. 63% of Americans call themselves Christians, and 55% of Americans hold the Bible as inerrant. Which gives almost 10% who don’t. But “has errors can mean anything from very minor typographical errors to “oops we have the wrong books”.
I personally think the Jesus of history is best reflected by the Ebionites’ tradition, which would be a fairly strong “yes there are errors” thing. But then again, I don’t think anyone else would call Ebionites Christian in the modern sense.
More options
Context Copy link
Thank you for your explanation of 1 Corinthians 7. I’d probably respect it more if it did make a distinction between inspiration and personal best judgment, but I can see how the text supports your interpretation. Agnostically speaking, I probably shouldn’t hold it against Paul in the event that he either truly always speaks with inspiration or honestly believes that he does.
I’m having trouble squaring some of the statistics in your link with broader statistics in the USA. In particular, their survey would have it that 71% of Americans, in 2021, believed that the Bible was the inspired word of God in some sense (even if it might contain errors). But in 2021, only 63% of Americans said they were Christian.
So is the discrepancy all made up of Jews and Muslims? Are there “unaffiliated” people who nevertheless believe the Bible to be inspired by God? It would be helpful to know how the responses in the American Bible Society survey split up by stated religious affiliation, honestly.
In any case, this certainly supports the idea that a large percentage of Christians think the Bible “has no errors” (even if many say some of it is “symbolic and not literal.”) Still, as an outsider, I think I’m still most inclined to define “Christian” to mean people who believe in the divinity of Christ. I don’t think that someone who believes that Paul believed in an imminent apocalypse and writes with reference to that view is somehow “not Christian” if they still think that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead and will someday return to judge us all, for example.
To be clear, I gave two differing interpretations of 1 Corinthians 7 that could be consistent with asserting the infallibility of Paul in his letters.
As to the surveys, that's a good point. Here's another poll with a number higher than 63%, which is odd as well: https://news.gallup.com/poll/394262/fewer-bible-literal-word-god.aspx
It's less clear in the options than the American Bible Society survey, but it does have a number higher.
I wonder if these have different sampling mechanisms, and ones unrepresentative of the general public?
Pew research appears to be depending on data from here: https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/religious-projections-appendix-a/ Gallup appears to be using telephone calls: https://news.gallup.com/file/poll/394616/220706ViewsofBible.pdf
American bible society also had theirs from online surveys, but its number was higher than Pew's, so it's not just surveys vs. telephone.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I disagree that most churchgoers don't believe in a way that would be hard to admit to themselves.
There are so many degrees of belief, especially about confusing things on which one is not an expert, that it only takes a small amount of rationalization to deal with any discrepancy. All you have to do is consider doctrinal disputes to be above your pay grade and defer to the theological experts, who assure you there is a complicated answer.
E.g. you might believe in quantum physics, without being bothered by the fact that different physicists subscribe to different interpretations of superposition.
I don’t think we’re talking about an obscure concept here. What the Bible says is more or less “gays, among others cannot inherit the Kingdom.” That’s not “well I’m not an expert so…” it’s plain text, and plainer if you read Leviticus.
But even so, if a person says they believe something and try to wiggle away when the rubber meets the road, I don’t think it’s a belief they hold that strongly. If I thought that quantum theory allowed for faster computers, I might well invest in a company trying to build one. If I thought there were martians on Mars, I’d send a signal if I could. If I think history is a process then I’d be looking to find patterns that allow me to predict the future in the past.
I'm no Bible expert, but I claim that even if it's relatively starkly written, that's still not a real problem for most people. Again I think quantum mechanics is a good analogy, with all sorts of intuitively-wrong-sounding claims made by supposed experts with tons of social proof.
I agree that if you start looking for patterns on your own it's pretty clear, but I think most people are (mostly rightly) in a state of learned epistemic helplessness on most topics.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link