Evangelical Indoctrination of Children

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Are you able to demonstrate how theology is derived and guided by experimentation, as opposed to belonging to your mind rather than to a god or god(s)?

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I have not claimed that theology is empirical, so why do you ask me if I can demonstrate that it is?You again seem to be claiming that "empirical" is the opposite of "subjective." Perhaps you misread my post in Message 206 where I presented evidence to the contrary.

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Where do you perceive any claims within my query k-bert?

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Message 204 was only meant to offer reasoned argumentation.

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I was referring to cavediver's claim in Message 199, which was echoed by Coyote in Message 205. Sorry for any confusion.

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One fundamental thing you are overlooking. There is actual physical evidence to support a theory. Who decides what evangelism means is subjective. That makes all the difference in the world.

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In Message 201 I was not speaking of "evangelism" but "theology."

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Science has none of these things, so one could argue that the problem is more acute in science than in theology.

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Uh, no, it's called "peer-review," a concept lost on most creationists.

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Scholarly journals each have their own peer-review process. This is true of theology journals as well as science journals.

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Dear god, surely you are not so naive to think that theology is NOT subjective?

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No. Rather, I am well enough educated in theology to know that it is not "exceptionally subjective" as you have claimed.Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theology each rest on objective holy texts. Each of these religions tries to objectively determine what the holy texts mean. Each one explains this in an objective set of creeds and doctrinal statements.

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If it is not, then after 2000 years, I guess that we have a concensus amongst the theologians of all major denominations of Christianity,

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Yes, we do have such a consensus on many fundamental issues (e.g. the Trinity, the dual nature of Christ).

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that also agree broadly with the theologians of Judaism as far as the OT is concerned? Do we?

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Yes, on some issues (e.g. historical issues, OT Jewish worship). But we differ on many other issues because Christianity accepts an additional set of objective data (the NT) which influences our interpretation of the OT.

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As Heinlein noted,

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Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything

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Cute rhetoric, but all it demonstrates is that Heinlein was ignorant of theology.

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Who arbitrates such things in science?

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Nobody. Or, if you look at it another way, everybody.

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You are looking for authority in science and there simply isn't any. Things are true despite what anybody says, not because of it. We don't listen to Einstein simply because he's Einstein. It's that he can show his work such that you can do the same thing to see if it works for you.

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The only "authority" in science is whether or not the system works. It doesn't matter who said it. The only thing that matters is if the model works.

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Exactly. This is the point I was trying to make to Hyroglyphx. He was troubled that there is no "arbiter" of "true Christianity," and I was trying to make that point that science operates the same way (and even more so than theology).

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All you need to do to show Heinlein was incorrect is provide empirical evidence of one or more deities.

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If you can't, then theology has nothing but an elaborate and ancient fantasy as its source of study, and Heinlein was correct.

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False logic. What I am or am not able to show does not affect reality.Further, you seem to imply that all truth can be shown empirically. Do you really believe this?

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If no evidence can be provided for deities, then theology is analogous to literary criticism

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There is a lot of similarity between theology and literary criticism. But in neither field can a scholar "persuade themselves of anything" as Heinlein charged.

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I think you are confusing literary and historical analysis with theistic evidence.

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No; perhaps you have misunderstood my posts? I was taking issue with the claim of cavediver (echoed by Coyote) that theology is "extremely subjective."

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The same processes you are referring to with regard to the Torah, the New Testament, and the Koran have been applied to the Iliad and the Odyssey.

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Exactly. The study of these works should not be called "extremely subjective" either, since it rests on an objective text and objective techniques of literary analysis.

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You stated that 'empiricism and objectivity are different concepts' and while that may be true ...

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It doesn't seem to suggest why the field of theology isn't subjective?

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I addressed this in Message 227.

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Add: but this is all off topic,

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Agreed.

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so I won't be posting on this subject again here.

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I was not trying to start an off-topic subthread. I was trying to flag the incorrect (and off-topic) characterization of theology in this thread. It is very easy for those who have no training in a scholarly discipline to make derogatory, dismissive comments about it.

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Start a new thread?

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I am interested in scholarly discussions of theology or science or both, with those who are knowledgeable in these fields. I am not so interested in arguing the scholarliness of either field with dismissive skeptics.

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I mean, were any of the early christian denominations - if even Luthers (ie. On the Jews and Their Lies, On War against the Turk, etc.), established without the use of inquisitional methodologies, and then, subsidized by a lack of indoctrination of those occurences?

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I would propose the anabaptists (Grebel, Hubmaier, Simons, etc.) as such a group, and the denominations that sprang from them. These "radical reformers" were pacifists who made a wider break from Catholicism than the other Reformation groups.Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.

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This thread's premise is that fire and brimstone scare tactics cause children to grow into adults with an irrational antagonism toward any knowledge that threatens their beliefs. While this seems a realistic possibility, no real evidence supporting this premise was offered beyond anecdotal stories.

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I think that there is a connection between "fire and brimstone scare tactics" and "adults with an irrational antagonism toward any knowledge that threatens their beliefs," but I'm not convinced that the former is the cause of the latter. Rather, I believe that the cause of both is an over-emphasis on emotion and an under-emphasis on the intellect. This unhealthy emphasis is characteristic of charismatic and Pentecostal groups (see Message 5 and Message 38). The OP describes such a group, as does the documentary Jesus Camp.My reasons for saying this are partly theological and partly experiential. Theologically, Christian conversion and Christian living involves man's intellect, emotions and will. These three elements need to be balanced; over-emphasis on one and/or under-emphasis on another leads to an unbalanced perspective of Christianity and to theological error. This can be demonstrated in church history and in contemporary Christian groups. I have seen it confirmed many times among friends and acquaintances.Here is my anecdotal story. I was raised in an Evangelical family and church. I attended Evangelical after-school clubs (led by my mother) throughout grade school, and attended Evangelical summer camps throughout Jr. High and High School.I don't believe I was raised with an over-emphasis on emotion. I would occasionally hear preachers/teachers who used "fire and brimstone scare tactics," but this was not the norm. My parents were careful not to do this, because they realized how easy it is to emotionally manipulate children, and they realized that such an emotional over-emphasis would not produce true Christian conviction.I was also not raised with an under-emphasis on the intellect. The church that we attended emphasized Bible teaching, so tried to engage the intellect. My parents were well-educated and certainly did not exhibit "irrational antagonism toward any knowledge that threatens their beliefs." They were always open to studying and learning.

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Upon further reflection I think the reasons for the peculiar creationist way of looking at the world must be as varied as the individuals themselves, plus my personal acquaintance with adult converts to evangelicalism testifies that there must be other causes beyond a fire and brimstone upbringing.

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Yes, I agree that there are other causes. I don't believe that "fire and brimstone upbringing" per se is a cause of "the peculiar creationist way of looking at the world." I believe "the peculiar creationist way of looking at the world" is a complex mixture of factors, some of which are common to all of Evangelicalism and some of which are peculiar to YECs.

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I was taking issue with the claim of cavediver (echoed by Coyote) that theology is "extremely subjective."

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And it is. That's why I responded as I did.

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Not by any normal definitions of "extremely" or "objective," for the reasons I have already presented.Regarding the study of mythology, I stated that "The study of these works should not be called "extremely subjective" either since it rests on an objective text and objective techniques of literary analysis."

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From a theological perspective? Of course they are. You're confusing literary and historical analysis for theological significance.

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No, you are the one confusing things by introducing "theological significance." I am not discussing "theological significance" at all. I am only discussing the scholarly study of these works.

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So why do we get to say that Zeus and Poseidon are fictions why Jehovah, Christ, and Allah aren't? What is this "objective analysis" that you have that results in different outcomes?

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Irrelevant to my argument. This is unrelated to whether or not the scholarly study of these works is objective or subjective.Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.

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Objective research methods give the same answers to anyone using them. Since theological answers are highly dependent upon who's giving them, since they vary from person to person (the definition of subjectivity), theology and its research methods are subjective.
When you have a method that gives the same answer to everyone everywhere, then you'll have an objective method.

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By this logic, scholarly disagreements in science constitute evidence that science and its research methods are also subjective?

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Science has an ever growing body of natural phenomena about which there is objective agreement because it has an established method for gathering evidence and objectively establishing the way nature behaves, the scientific method.

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Science has many areas of disagreement, as you know. The areas of disagreement are where science is most interesting, because either the data or its analysis are in question. The disagreements don't mean that science is done in an "extremely subjective" fashion, but rather that there are some unsolved puzzles. Neither do disagreements in other scholarly pursuits (e.g. theology, humanities) mean that these fields are "extremely subjective."

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But even when you bring the strength of the scientific method to bear on evidence and phenomenon that are subjective (or don't exist), such as ESP or God, you never reach agreement. What you're lacking is objective evidence, not objective methods, and that's why theology is subjective. When you get the Hindus and the Buddhists and the Jews and the Moslems to agree with you about God and Jesus you let us know because then we'll know you're on to something.

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Perhaps there is a confusion between two different concepts, as Ochaye said:
1) the scholarly study of the documents to determine what they mean
2) the question of whether or not the message is actually trueI have only been referring to the first concept (theology) as non-subjective in this thread. I claim that theology is a relatively objective endeavor, and certainly not an "extremely subjective" one. I have been careful not to make such claims about personal faith (the second concept above).