I have read Clayton's essay, "Why Am I A Christian?" three times all the way through. There are some things in it with which I agree, a lot of things with which I don't agree, and a few things that almost made me angry. At the very least, I felt a fire ignite inside me, and all I could think was, "he can't actually believe this." The section of Clayton's essay that raised my ire more than any other is the section titled, "Controlling Definitions Means Controlling The Debate." I'll post the first part of it here (sans the parts I left out due to length and relevance), followed by my response:
Controlling Definitions Means Controlling The Debate
Part of the frustration of the theism debate is how wrapped up it is in agenda. The Science vs. Christianity issue is tired, and honestly I think, mostly the result of reactionary Christians in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Somewhere along the lines people on both sides started using their own definitions for things, and this is incredibly frustrating. Christians are guilty of it, sometimes even without realizing it, and non-theists are guilty of it as well.
If you can control the definition of a word, then you can largely decide a debate about it from the beginning. This is classic rhetoric or debate strategy. Unfortunately, it isn't very helpful in discovering the truth of a given matter. I want to take a bit of space to define some key terms for the discussion. I am not pulling from any authoritative source for these definitions, they are what I mean by them (or what authors I have read mean by them). One of the words that needs to be defined is Religion.
There are a lot of available definitions for Religion. It is interesting to me that most of them contain a word like 'supernatural' in them. I think that this is a misunderstanding of the idea itself that has been creeping into philosophy since the Enlightenment. If I accept religion as requiring a supernatural component, then I can adhere to a set of beliefs that inform what I believe is right or wrong, my self-worth, etc. while still attacking religion as long as my personal beliefs have nothing to do with the supernatural.
Incidentally, I don't like the word supernatural (except as it relates to one of my favorite TV shows). This is a matter of worldview. If the Christian God is real, then His interacting with the world around us is naturally part of the world around us. In other words, if God is within the realm of things that exist, then His actions are in that way natural. If there is such a thing as the spiritual, then it seems that it would be part of what we would consider natural. Supernatural is only useful as a word if you do not believe in God, and want a word to quantify His supposed attributes, activities or agents. The word itself implies that what we are talking about is less, or at least differently, real than the parts of the world that we can see, taste, touch, and measure.
A good definition for religion is this, "It is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing." I use this definition mostly because I acknowledge that there are religions with no supernatural component. I was an active Martial Artist for two decades. In that time I met a lot of people who considered Martial Arts to be their religion, whether they acknowledged it verbally or not. Darwinism is another philosophy, or worldview, that I believe firmly functions as a religion. Philosophical Darwinism isn't the same thing as evolution, it's a worldview which has lead to schools of thought such as 'Evolutionary Psychology', which I will discuss briefly later.
Christianity is that religion whose adherents have faith in an uncreated God; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who created the universe from nothing, has interacted with mankind in history, sent His Son in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ, who was crucified and resurrected, to begin the process of reconciling His fallen creation to Himself.
And that is where the definition of Christianity ends. In fact, that is where the definition of Christianity must end, because there are so many differences in the beliefs of its adherents from there on. The most well known type of Christianity in the United States today is Protestant Christianity. There are more Protestant Christians in this country than any other kind, and it is Protestants anyway who tend to be noisiest about their beliefs.
Most people whom I have spoken to who have rejected Christianity have done it for reasons outside of the definition I proposed. Again, my experience is by no means comprehensive, but those who have left the faith have usually drifted away, or have been hurt and disillusioned by Christians, or have fixated on one particular belief of a particular church and have found it implausible...
... I want to clarify that whether or not you like, or find pleasant, the ideas within Christianity, has absolutely no bearing on whether or not Christianity is true. In other words, a person who says, 'I couldn't believe in a God who would send people to hell', aside from having a dramatic misunderstanding of hell, is asking the wrong question. The question that is key to Christianity is whether or not the historical event of the resurrection took place. If so, then Christianity is true. If not, then we really don't need to bother with it at all.
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I sat down meaning to address Clayton's definition of faith, but found myself needing to first address his definition of religion. The next installment will be on the meaning of faith. I'm trying to break up his essay into manageable chunks. There are parts of this excerpt I left out to make space, or because it's not relevant to the discussion. I omitted the argument for Christianity Clayton borrowed from Timothy Keller for both those reasons, and additionally because it's such a bad argument it makes my head hurt and I really don't want to deal with it. Moving on...
Clayton laments how much the debate is wrapped up in agenda, and how "people on both sides started using their own definitions for things." But then Clayton does that exact thing in the very next paragraph. Clayton, wanting to define the "key terms," wrote: "I am not pulling from any authoritative source for these definitions, they are what I mean by them."
Clayton then proceeds to offer his own definition for the word: "[Religion] is a set of beliefs that explain what life is all about, who we are, and the most important things that human beings should spend their time doing." Clayton thinks this is a "good definition for religion." I think it's a load of tripe; what's worse, I think his definition is the result of his own agenda to not make Christianity look ridiculous.
Even if we have a difficult time defining "religion" precisely, it's a lot like the difference between art and porn: you know it when you see it. Consider the following:
Christianity
libertarianism
Islam
Culinary Arts
Communism
Hinduism
Anarchism
If I took this list out into the world and asked people to point out which of these are religions, which would most people choose? More importantly, why? The reason is, whether one can explain it discursively or not, there are elements of religion that are well known.
"Religion" as defined by Dictionary.com is:
- a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
- a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
- the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions.
- the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion.
- the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.
- any formal or institutionalized expression of such belief: the Christian religion
- something of overwhelming importance to a person: football is his religion.
The last definition is closer to what Clayton is saying about religion, even though it's still way off, but consider that hypothetical sports fanatic: glued to the TV, watching his favorite team play his favorite sport. He wears their jersey, he cheers over beers when his team scores, and wipes tears away with Cheeto-stained fingers when the other team scores. Indeed, we can say his favorite sport is this person's religion, but only because we first understand (at least intuitively) what a religion is and how a religious person behaves, and then we draw the comparison between the religious devotee and this avid sports fan.
Why settle for making up our own definitions and meanings when we have a world of knowledge at our fingertips? Is it really so hard to go to Google or Wikipedia and read up on what religion actually is?
Does the idea that there might be knowledge frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon on Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you frighten you?- Tim Minchin, "Storm"
But let's not lose sight of the big picture: Clayton first attempts to define religion in such a way as to put everyone in the same boat. Next he defines faith (which I'll address next time), and employs the same tactic. This is an often-used strategy in a Christian apologist's arsenal. If we're all in the same boat intellectually, emotionally and ecclesiastically, then Christianity shouldn't look too unreasonable by comparison. It's a weak attempt to give Christian theism credibility.
Dead-Logic.com
