Ep. 102: How can we not sin?

[Emery]

The answer? It appears to have something to do with Joseph Lieberman.

Our very own yjoeyh joins us this week to discuss Emery's atheism, which turns into a discussion of Emery's top issue with Christianity. Call it sin nature, call it depravity, call it a need for redemption--isn't that just another way of saying that God punishes us for being human? What is a human supposed to do?

Also, in addition to visiting stryper.com this week, check out Think Between the Lines, Joey's very own podcast.

Merry Christmas everyone, can you believe it's been almost 7 years? See you all in 2012!

[Dr Mundo]

The answer? It appears to have something to do with Joseph Lieberman.

Our very own yjoeyh joins us this week to discuss Emery's atheism, which turns into a discussion of Emery's top issue with Christianity. Call it sin nature, call it depravity, call it a need for redemption--isn't that just another way of saying that God punishes us for being human? What is a human supposed to do?

Also, in addition to visiting stryper.com this week, check out Think Between the Lines, Joey's very own podcast.

Merry Christmas everyone, can you believe it's been almost 7 years? See you all in 2012!

I had a problem with the term Atheist denominational-ism. Emery could you tell me what you think it means to be an Atheist. Because, to me its all about not accepting the claim that God does in fact exist. If they have other beliefs about the way to deal with religions and with other humans than those beliefs and the actions as a consequence of those beliefs are something entirely different. If you want to call someone who wants religion gone from the face of the earth that is his views based on anti-theism, not Atheism. Atheism to me is just not accepting that claim. Anti-theism is actively wanting the rid the world of religion. Does anyone feel I am being unreasonable in wanting to adopt these types of definitions? It just bothers me to hear stuff like what was being said on the podcast about atheist in general. The only thing you can and should get out of a claim that someone is an Atheist is that they don't believe a God exists. Anything else is informed by some belief that I don't think is atheism motivated. I cant stress this point enough, I know I have done so far more times than any of you would like, but I think its important.

[yjoeyh]

If you want to call someone who wants religion gone from the face of the earth that is his views based on anti-theism, not Atheism.

But wouldn't such a person still necessarily need to have an "atheistic" worldview? In kind of the same way, a Christian must hold a theistic worldview. So isn't it correct to consider such people a certain type of atheist?

[Dr Mundo]

If you want to call someone who wants religion gone from the face of the earth that is his views based on anti-theism, not Atheism.

But wouldn't such a person still necessarily need to have an "atheistic" worldview? In kind of the same way, a Christian must hold a theistic worldview. So isn't it correct to consider such people a certain type of atheist?

Yes that person COULD be atheistic as well. What if its someone who believes in a God, but not the Christian/Muslim God. A deist perhaps, hates religion and what it does to people. Do you see where my problem lies? ALL atheism is, Is just a person who doesn't believe someone when they say a God does exist. I will be more than Happy to talk about what world views people have and who just so happen to be atheistic.
There are just as many different world views for atheist as there are for Theist. But the biggest difference is no positive beliefs can possibly be derived from the lack of acceptance of someone else's beliefs. And so lets talk about Humanism. Lets talk about communism. Lets talk about Reasonism, but if you want to talk about what the Atheism concept entails that conversation is a short one, its the non acceptance of a God model of the universe. We can then move on to our positive beliefs. But now you have left the realm of Atheism. I wouldn't say that your disbelief in magical dragons means you don't like to eat peas. Because all your disbelief in magical dragons means, is that you don't believe in magical dragons, not that I can ascribe positive beliefs elsewhere in your world view.

Just an example, in case I am not being clear enough. If you want to talk about morals, and ethics. You have absolutely no need to reference my atheism. It has nothing to do with my moral or ethics what so ever. What shapes my morals is my compassion and empathy. Along with my ability to reason, in other words I think we shouldn't be looking in my Atheism bin to find my morals, but we should be searching through my Philosophy bin, I would be more than happy to direct you to what you need to find to have at least a satisfying answer to questions you have for me regarding those issues. I am after all the keeper of that bin, and I work and think in it on a daily basis.

[mitchellmckain]

Well the first topic in the podcast that I would like to address is concerning communication via the golden rule versus fighting fire with fire. It seems to me that the rules of communication, like those of manners and etiquette are greatly dominated by socially relative convensions. And thus to insist that everyone communicate by your rules does not seem very productive to me -- but rather culturally imperialistic to be frank. Thus it seems quite reasonable to me to go by whatever rules and standards the person I am talking to seems to follow. Obviously that is not going to work very well if everyone follows this in the strictest sense for that way suggests an anarchy of completely mannerless exchanges, but I don't think that is likely. Everyone including myself will follow a certain set of etiquettes by default, for we all live in a community in which there are standards by which we communicate everyday. Where this is really going to blow up in someones face is when they demand that other follow the rules they dictate but hypocritically feel free to disregard these rules themselves.

Regarding the motivation for a forum such as this, to Emery's statement about understanding each other, I would add something a little bit less relative which is to seek a greater understanding of the reasons and issues involved as well as what kind of arguments work and what kind do not. I certainly liked when Emery revises this near the end of the podcast to say that our ultimate goal is to get at the truth, and I really resonate with his assertion that he is not an atheist "a priori" but only because it seems the most accurate label to him at this time, because I think that I am a Christian in the same sense.

As for the middle ground, I cannot agree more as far as a refusal to accept the exaggerations and oversimplifications of the extremists. But this does not have to be mushy middle without motivation because one can also be a militant defender of the middle ground itself, which upholds the standards of tolerance and religious freedom in a free society. So, just because one is not willing to support the fanaticism of the extremists does not mean that one does not stand up for anything.


Now on to the meat of this podcast which was Emery's explanation of a central issue that he has had with "Christianity" in this idea of perfection. And I am afraid this is going to be an issue where I give my typical response that this has NOTHING to do with the Christianty that I believe in. This is indeed a misunderstanding of Jesus' words in Matt 5:48, which is more a refusal to accept hypocritical compromises with what is right than allowing no room for mistakes and learning from them. This is made clear by Jesus constant interactions with people where he repeatedly says "your sins are forgiven, so go and sin no more." The message there is clear at least to me, that the important thing is that you learn from your mistakes. This is again where mine and Emery's completely different backgrounds come into the picture, Emery judging the viability of the "christianity" in which he was raised in and me evaluating Christianity from the outside to see if there is anything of value to be found there. I could never have seriously considered an understanding of Christianity which made the mistakes by which we learn something that God would punish, any more than I could seriously considered the literalist understanding from Genesis contrary to the findings of science where humanity originated in the magic works of an ancient necromancer creating golems from dust and body parts.

I think that Glen misses the point big time when he shifts the discussion to that of motivation. The point was that equating sin to that of making mistakes leaves no room for humanity because it leaves no room for children who must learn from their mistakes. Glen comes much nearer the mark when he raises the issue of alcoholism because I think that is exactly where a workable definition of sin really has to be found, in bad habits which destroy the very process by which we learn from our mistakes. Consider when a drunk driver runs over some children, do you really even want to hear how he got drunk and drove with the best of intentions? I don't think so. On the other hand, if it is a question of whether this is the first time he has made such a mistake or it seems to be a chronic failure on his part to be responsible when it comes to drinking and driving, that seems very relevant to me. Thus I must think that the real nature of sin must be found in the FAILURE to learn from our mistakes and the habits such as excuses we make that interfere with the learning process.

So when Emery talks of our humanity being found in this struggle for improvement, I could not agree more, and I would even go one further to say that life itself is a process of learning from your mistakes, and if their there is no more mistakes and no more learning then there is no more life. Thus I could never think that the eternal LIFE which Jesus promises, could possibly represent a perfection that means an end to learning and self improvement. And then when I seek out the meaning of "sin" the fruit of which the Bible says is death, there seems no more obvious meaning to me than these habits which interfere with the learning process which is life itself.

There is indeed an unbridgeable gap between the finite creature that man is and the infinite being that God is -- and there always will be. That cannot be what Matthew 5:48 is talking about and I don't think that any Christian in history ever thought it did. This unbridgeable gap means that our relationship with God is a parent child relationship that can never end. There will be no end to what God can give us, teach us and make of us in our relationship with Him. Excluding the Momons naturally, no Christian has thought otherwise. When we see ourselves being remade in the image of Christ, we mean the human image that God took upon Himself in which He made it clear that He was constantly following the lead of His Father in Heaven. He certainly represents man as God intended us to be, which is not someone who is never a child (for Jesus certainly was a child the same as any of us) and never having to learn, but rather someone who does learn from his mistakes by taking responsibility for his errors without excuses, pretentions and blaming everyone and everything else for them.

If Glen really wants to call Emery out on his thinking, he needs to focus more pointedly on whether it really is the case that this image Emery draws of people making honest mistakes is really the sum of the human condition. That represents a rather typical liberalist failure to understand human problems, commonly insisting that education is the cure all -- because that just ain't so. People do not live up to their own ideals and that is not because of honest mistakes, but because they will do things that they know is wrong and do so repeatedly even when the consequences are rather obviously destructive of both themselves and others. There is also evil in the world and it is epidemic.


The last issue on which I would like to comment is on the issue of diversity in Christianity, because on this I completely disagree with all the participants in the podcast. And perhaps the following analogy would be a good means to illustrate my disagreement. Consider a first grade class when they talk about the nature of matter. Now from my perspective most teachers of such classes have very little better understanding of the topic than the students do, and indeed it may be the case that many such teachers would be happy if everyone one in the class being settled on some simple minded understanding of the subject. But now consider how a teacher with a more accurate understanding of matter might see things. He is likely to realize that a really accurate understanding of the subject is simply beyond the ability of any of his students and might therefore see in a situation where his students have differing, confusing and even contradictory views, something that as a whole is far closer to reality than any simple minded explanation. Thus I most certainly DISAGREE that the diversity in Christianity is ANY kind of "black mark" in this case, but VERY much see this as an intentional work of God Himself, who is a lot like the teacher I just described.

[humanguy]

It's hard to pin down exactly what it is he's trying to say, but it seems to me that he's saying that atheists can be just as bad as Christians.

I liked the Garden of Eden example, Emory. It's just a shame that you weren't talking with someone who could understand you.

Here is the quote of the podcast:

"God killed that guy but we don't know what the eternal state of that guy is."

[yjoeyh]

Yes that person COULD be atheistic as well. What if its someone who believes in a God, but not the Christian/Muslim God. A deist perhaps, hates religion and what it does to people. Do you see where my problem lies? ALL atheism is, Is just a person who doesn't believe someone when they say a God does exist. I will be more than Happy to talk about what world views people have and who just so happen to be atheistic.
There are just as many different world views for atheist as there are for Theist. But the biggest difference is no positive beliefs can possibly be derived from the lack of acceptance of someone else's beliefs. And so lets talk about Humanism. Lets talk about communism. Lets talk about Reasonism, but if you want to talk about what the Atheism concept entails that conversation is a short one, its the non acceptance of a God model of the universe. We can then move on to our positive beliefs. But now you have left the realm of Atheism.

This is kind of the direction I was going with the questions, and something I think we need to talk about more. I don't think we can ever really leave the realm of Atheism, or Theism for that matter. We can only add more qualifications, or 'positive beliefs' on top of those foundations, and that's when things start going in different directions for all, and getting less polarized. But actually, it seems even at the most basic level of the discussion, there are certain etymological assumptions being made. Specifically, I think that the word "atheism" can be understood in two basic ways.
If theism = God belief, then:
1. atheism = "without - God belief" (the typical Atheist understanding)
2. atheism = "without God - belief" (the typical Theist understanding)
It's a subtle difference but as the conversation grows, the distinction seems to become clearer. Now being a theist myself, I tend favor the 2nd definition, but I understand that a lot of atheists don't seem to see it that way. My reasoning is pretty much subjective, but I think it's pretty good reasoning. I'm not really talking about "strong atheism" vs "weak atheism" or "agnostic atheism" vs "gnostic atheism." I think that this is the case even for the "agnostic" or "weak" atheistic positions as well. Basically there seems to be more brought to the table with atheism than just the absence of a belief in God. It would be difficult to even discuss it as a real 'thing' otherwise. You're next point is one example of why I see it this way:

I wouldn't say that your disbelief in magical dragons means you don't like to eat peas. Because all your disbelief in magical dragons means, is that you don't believe in magical dragons, not that I can ascribe positive beliefs elsewhere in your world view.

The problem I see is that my lack of belief in magical dragons is not much of an issue. I'm fine with being wrong about that and if that's the case, the rest of my life is pretty much the same and I don't really have to change much in way of my thinking or behavior in order to accomodate the reality of magical dragon's existence. Next, I don't really identify on any level as someone who doesn't believe in magical dragons. It's just a singular fact. There's not even a word to describe such a non-belief. I have no interest in reading books or going on forums that talk about not believing in magical dragons. None of these are really true for anyone who considers themselves an Atheist though. Maybe not necessarily the last one, but anyone who is reading this pretty much puts themselves in this category as well.

[humanguy]

Joey, what point were you trying to make about atheist denominationalism? Why should a Christian care what the atheists are up to in the first place?

[Dr Mundo]

Next, I don't really identify on any level as someone who doesn't believe in magical dragons. It's just a singular fact.

Same way i feel about atheism. It is just a singular label that describes my stance on the belief in the existence of a God, and that stance on that belief is I don't have one. If you want to identify me as an Atheist with a bunch of other people, you are going to run into the problem of the different things that we will believe. You can for what ever reason you wish to, lump me in with a label. I just don't think it will get you anywhere. You might as well lump me in with people who have black hair. It will only describe one issue.

[NH Baritone]

Good grief, was I disappointed in this podcast!

Emery almost never leaves me wishing for a more articulate atheist, but this time, I found him lost in a muddle of his own making ... although Joey and Glenn gave him the material to create it.

Emery's best argument against Christianity is the total depravity dogma? Really? Really?!? Really?!?!?

Perhaps the nonsense of that idea opened the door to questioning his religious faith, but at this point in life, is that his best argument that theism is hogwash?

Emery was willing to cede his position on the existence of God, the divinity of Jesus, the potential for divine judgment (absent a total depravity argument), the resurrection, an afterlife, etc., etc., etc., but what really has your knickers in a twist is that Christians preach that human beings haven't reached/cannot reach their full potential? (In essence that was Joey's reframing of the argument. Ray Comfort couldn't have been more smarmy.)

The amount of ground given before this discussion even began meant that none of the discussion was even relevant to an atheist. Emery allowed Joey and Glenn to set the agenda without even questioning the assumptions that they walked in with. For example, the "atheist denominationalism" is one of the most obvious attempts to plug a square peg into a round hole that I have heard. The parallels with "atheism is just another religion" are all too familiar. Those guys were even insisting that atheists have to have some sort of higher power. Emery, how could you let them get away with that dump truck load of stinking bull crap?!?)

The rollerblader's half-pipe analogy assumes that a Christian and an atheist who is not vehement sits together in the well of the pipe. That isn't even close to an accurate analogy. Christians and atheists aren't even skating in the same park, much less the same half-pipe.

Joey presumed that if someone was willing to have a live-and-let-live attitude, then they were theologically kindred. On the contrary, just because an atheist doesn't want to see Christianity extricated from society, it does not follow that they don't consider their beliefs to be superstitious claptrap. Some battles are not worth the cost. And good manners are not indications of either theological or epistemologic similarity.

I have been a loyal listener to this podcast for years. C&A and Reasonable Doubts are the only podcasts that I recommend when people ask me about resources regarding atheist/Christian dialogues. But I won't recommend this episode ... not in a million years.

[Emery]

Geez NH, am I getting that soft? Thanks for your observations, they are always insightful. Doh, soft again. What I meant to say was, WHAT THE HELL, NH?

Dr. Mundo, I think your definition of atheism is technically correct. However, atheism has become its own loaded term, and can be useful as such. I agree, however, that atheism does not represent a moral system. I would identify myself most closely with humanism, and I should probably use that term more in my podcasts.

[yjoeyh]

Joey, what point were you trying to make about atheist denominationalism? Why should a Christian care what the atheists are up to in the first place?

I guess the 'point' was to start thinking about where the conversation begins. I've noticed that many Christians on the forum lately (like myself) have been having to overcome certain prejudices toward our particular positions based on the position of other Christians who think differently than we do. (current show topics mentioning the term "enable" come to mind) At the very least we have to spend a lot of time clarifying how our positions are different. I wanted to talk about how Atheists are likewise subject to similar prejudices and can be expected to answer for the actions of other Atheists they don't particularly agree with. It helps to get a sense of the other person's position first if we are going to have an interesting or otherwise worthwhile conversation about it.

[yjoeyh]

Same way i feel about atheism. It is just a singular label that describes my stance on the belief in the existence of a God, and that stance on that belief is I don't have one. If you want to identify me as an Atheist with a bunch of other people, you are going to run into the problem of the different things that we will believe. You can for what ever reason you wish to, lump me in with a label. I just don't think it will get you anywhere. You might as well lump me in with people who have black hair. It will only describe one issue.

Yeah that's the problem with labels sometimes. It's similar to the reason I don't want to be called a "creationist." Sure I believe that God created the universe, but there's more baggage associated with the term than just that. If someone doesn't want to wear the "Atheist" hat to a conversation about the existence of God, you're right there's not much point in trying to talk about the issue with them. But if they do, then I think it meaningful to ask for more detail about it or why they hold that particular position. Such a person has invited those kinds of questions and isn't really coming in with no bias whatsoever.

[Brad]

I wrote in another thread that I’d not be posting for a while due to crazy schedule but had a chance to listen to this podcast just now while taking a break from work in an airplane seat on the way back from Japan.
Quick comments I’d like to share once back on the ground:

Emery,
This time I can offer a little criticism on your work. I hope it might be of some use.
Me thinks you and Scott can get away with fairly ad hoc podcast conversations and make them interesting because you’ve talked enough to really know and appreciate each other – your conversations are between “a Christian and an atheist” not “a Christian versus an atheist.” (Also, it helps that both of you are very sincere, generally articulate, funny, and easy-going guys.) Conversely, to be blunt I found almost the entire conversation here tedious and fairly devoid of substance.

With new theist guests, perhaps you should outline more substantive topics and prepare for them more carefully in advance? (And there was a suggestion along this line for a future episode with these two individuals.)
That way, both you and your guests might do a lot less hemming and hawing and chortling (the latter was them, mostly) and cover some real ground.

You’d also be a lot less likely, I think, to let highly questionable assertions and innuendos go unexplored and/or unchallenged. There were many such moments in this podcast, and you also made one or two remarks yourself that were pretty off-the-wall. For me, the most egregious examples were letting the bits about “atheist denominationalism” and the need for a person who is simply a non-believer to possess “a core dogma” go by, and your blooper about atheism per se being “fractious.”
Lawd have mercy, so to speak!

In brief, I think the best way for you to improve your podcast performance, to the extent that might be necessary in a case like this, would be for you to listen to yourself again and to rethink how different responses and different preparation might have made the podcast more interesting for all.

Needless to say, given current work and family obligations I’m sure you have lots of leisure time to do this. And given all the extra sleep you’re surely getting these days with the twins in the house, I’ll bet your discernment and insight have never been sharper!
In other words, if you re-listen to this podcast, don’t beat yourself up over it.

Last, just speaking for myself, of course, I have to say that it’s very unlikely that I’d listen to another podcast with this fellow Glen, whose speaking style (content entirely aside) annoys me very greatly. It’s clear he’s adopted an amalgam of vocal patterns from talk radio, gas bag preachers, and advertising pitch men. I hope for his sake he doesn’t speak to family and friends in this manner. In any event, there are lots of quieter, more articulate, and well, more balanced, speakers on the web. I’d simply rather spend the time I have listening to them.

And by the way, I don’t think I’ve EVER heard any atheist / freethinker / secular humanist speak with this sales-pitch style, and I think the reason for that is probably that one can’t SELL evidence and reason, while on the other hand anyone can simply talk about those things honestly and sincerely.

[OzAnt]

Hi Emery,

Just thought I'd mention that I wholeheartedly echo Brad's sentiments on this one (great, thoughtful post there, Brad! Thanks for taking the time to post).

Ant.