Tag: gullibility

Skepticism and Gullibility

Which side has them? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Recently on the Unbelievable Facebook group, there has been a discussion about skepticism and gullibility. The idea is some people are rational and thus skeptical of the fantastic stories in the Bible and God decides to give them Hell for this whereas as the gullible Christians believe everything they read and get rewarded. Some of you are already seeing problems with this.

At the start, it assumes that if someone believes the Bible they must be gullible. Now we could say if someone was skeptical of the Bible, they are a skeptic, but there is a rational skepticism and an irrational skepticism. It is also possible to be a Christian and also have a skeptical mindset. I would describe myself as one such person.

For an irrational skepticism, I was in a discussion not too long ago with someone on Facebook who was making statements about the invalidity of prayer, so I pointed him to Candy Gunther-Brown’s work. He insisted I didn’t know what peer-review was to which I gave a definition. He then wanted to know this work was peer-reviewed. I pointed out it was published by Harvard University Press which does peer-review and that wasn’t enough.

I then emailed the author who told me it went through a rigorous peer-review process since that is what Harvard has. I then had to take a screenshot of the email to show that it was real and that this had been done. Then the skeptic kept insisting I give parts of the book to them so they could see the claims. I was already getting tired of that and decided to move on. I consider this definitely an irrational skepticism.

One other sign of this is that it asks for unreasonable amounts of evidence. If you insist the only way you will believe in Jesus is if you have a personal experience, then there is really no point in debating. After all, you have already decided the evidence will be insufficient.

However, while it is the case that too many Christians can be gullible, atheists can also be gullible. How many buy into the idea that Jesus never even existed as if this is a hot debate in the field of scholarship? What is amusing is how many of these people go after young-Earth creationists.

I realize some of my readers are YECs and I think they would certainly admit that yes, their ideas on the history of Earth are not accepted within the academic community. So are they not outliers like mythicists are? Yes, but there are more PhDs in a relevant field who are YECs than there are in corresponding fields who are mythicists. Not only that, at least YECs can say that they base their arguments on the authority of God, which I can understand even if I disagree. Mythicists don’t have that.

There are other myths that are believed. What about accounts such as millions being killed in the Inquisition? What about the idea that the Middle Ages were a dark period where all science was banned? What about the idea that if you found one contradiction in Scripture that all of theism and Christianity would be disproved?

And where are many of these claims found? On the internet. Ideas that were tossed aside decades ago are given new life on the internet and treated like a big secret that is being covered up. These are conspiracy theories for atheists.

Someone could be a skeptic, read both sides, and decide Christianity has the better arguments. Remember, skepticism is for a purpose. It is to help keep you from believing false beliefs, but it is not to keep you from believing anything and too many Christians and atheists both are very prone to believing something that already agrees with them. (This also happens in politics.)

As for if God will reward someone for being gullible, such a person just goes in the right direction and God doesn’t cast them out because they have bad epistemology. A non-Christian will not be punished because they were skeptics per se. It will be for the sins that they committed. Christianity is a faith that tells us to examine all things and hold to what is true. We should still do that.

I encourage skepticism, especially in the age of the internet. Go out and read the best books as the best material will not be found on the internet, and I say that as one who regularly puts material on the internet. If you are skeptical, be an informed skeptic and not an irrational one.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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Your Facebook Isn’t Helping My Skepticism

Is what you’re sharing making it harder for someone to come to Christ? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Why should you be cautious about what you share on Facebook? Could it affect someone long-term? What would someone say to us if they could speak to us about this?

“Dear Christian,

I have been your friend for awhile and I see you post sometimes on Facebook. I like you posting pictures of your family and such and some of those funny videos. I understand you will also post from time to time on things that we disagree on and that reasonable people can disagree on. You can post on politics for instance and even if I don’t share your views, I understand that someone can be reasonable and still have them.

I also understand that you have a right to be skeptical of claims as well. If you’re skeptical of evolution, well I don’t share that, but I can understand it. Yet at the same time, I worry that you claim skepticism here, but when it comes to something that agrees with you, you’re not skeptical. I also do not see you as really investigating claims.

Why? Because when I see you post something on Facebook sometimes, it’s something that I not only know is false, but I can readily demonstrate it’s false. I can tell that it’s a story that has been made up and has no factual basis. I can understand getting caught from time to time. We all make mistakes. I am talking about regularly doing this kind of thing. Why should I trust you to be posting the truth when I can see that what you shared is false in just a couple of minutes of looking it up?

You see, you make this claim that to me is incredibly bizarre. You claim that God lived among us as a man 2,000 years ago and died on a cross and rose from the dead. I’m sure you’d agree with me that that’s a strong claim. You say that you base your entire life on this claim. You say that this is the most important belief that you hold.

The problem is that this isn’t a belief that I can as easily check. I will have to do a lot of reading and study on the topic and decide what to believe. Yet when you share readily stories that are false that I know to be bogus or can easily show to be bogus, why should I trust you on the matters that I cannot reasonably check so easily? How do I know that you aren’t just as gullible when it comes to religion as you are when it comes to a story you read on the internet?

You see, I want to know that you check all the claims you make to the best of your ability. If you’re not, then maybe you’re not with this claim, and there are plenty of Christians out there I meet who give me no reason to believe their story beyond what they feel and their personal testimony. They have no idea whatsoever about historical research. Maybe you’re just like them.

In fact, I can tell you’re being objective if there’s an argument that would help your conclusion and you reject it because the argument just doesn’t work, even if you agree with the conclusion. It shows me you’re interested in more than just a goal. Truth is what matters to you.

If truth does matter to you, please show it. Take the time to look up a story before sharing it. If I cannot trust you with the stories that I can check, why should I trust you with the stories that are much harder to check?

Your skeptical friend.”

 

 

To be fair, there are far too many skeptics who will fall into this boat as well and many skeptics are just like Christians when it comes to this. My main problem is with Christians doing this since we are supposed to say that we are people of truth and committed to the truth. Many skeptics will not be as reasonable as the person that I have role-played and it is a rare exception when I meet one who is willing to read the literature.

I have said it many times but it often needs to be said. Please check on what you share Christian. Every time you share something easily shown to be false, you destroy your credibility in the eyes of unbelievers out there. Why should they trust you on the major things when they can’t trust you on the minor things?

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Resurrections on the Internet

What happens to bad ideas when the internet comes around? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Christian Vision For Men (CVM) has a video up today on the idea that Jesus is copied from dying and rising gods of the time. The concept isn’t taken seriously by scholars, but you go on the internet and you will find this touted around like it’s an obvious fact. I just did a quick search in fact and didn’t take long to find an example of an image that goes around with this.

Copycat Jesus

This is just one of many.

Will you find scholarly support for this idea? Nope. Well not unless you redefine scholar to mean something like anyone who can write a blog and put forward an argument. If you’re talking about people in the field with actual Ph.D.’s, good luck. I’ve in fact done a show on this topic interviewing Joe Mulvihill. Of course, right along with this goes the idea that Jesus never existed. Frankly, if any atheist wants to say young-earth creationism should be rejected because it goes so against the grain of the scientific community (And I am not a YEC), then they have no grounds for using the Christ Myth theory because it goes even more against the grain of scholarship in the field.

All this goes to demonstrate is that resurrection is certainly a reality on the internet, because ideas that have no basis in reality come up time and time again and they are believed and embraced because, hey, they argue against Christianity.

It’s really hard to take internet atheism seriously when I see the same canards thrown out time and time again.

“The church was anti-science in the Dark Ages!”

“Christians used to believe the Earth was flat!”

“There are X number of denominations out there!” (X has to be used because the number changes in range from 22,000 to 42,000)

“Look at all these writers of the time who never mentioned Jesus!”

“The New Testament was formed at the Council of Nicea!”

These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure many more could be added. Even sadder is the idea that every time statements like this are made up, it’s as if no Christian has ever thought about them before and we’ve never heard of them. At this rate, we could easily make an internet atheist drinking game.

Now let’s be fair also. Christians can be just as gullible sadly. I’ve written on this before with internet quotes and such. I hate to do that because most of my Facebook friends are Christians and sadly, they’re the ones that I usually see spreading misinformation. My own wife could tell you that if she reads something on the internet that I haven’t heard, the first reply I always give is “Source?” Most of us don’t bother to check because the claim goes with what we already believe so surely it must be true.

Debates will be going on and on until the return of Christ I am sure, but we can all seek to do what we can to improve the quality of the debates. One such way is by checking the claims that we come across. If we are not sure of a claim, we dare not share it as fact. This is especially so for Christians who are called to be people of the truth. After all, if people cannot trust us with the mundane things they can easily check, why should they believe us on grander claims, like the resurrection?

In Christ,
Nick Peters