Preacher, why should anyone take your word for it?

I very much doubt every religious ‘preacher’ asks people to blindly accept religious teachings. Often, but not always, there is some intellectual content in terms of being careful about the questions you ask and your expectations.

That said, I get the idea of the kind of folks you’re expressing your view too. Should we listen? :)

Quoting jorndoe

in their right mind

That's the definitive piece, isn't it? (Matthew 7:15, John 18:37, Matthew 18:20, 2 Peter 2:1-2, 2 Timothy 3:5-7).

folks are often driven to their faith by terrible necessity. It's not always a frolic.

Reply to jorndoe

Preacher, why should anyone take your word for it?

Quoting jorndoe

Much like Socrates, I'd take any really important information from some super-being, from that super-being.

Do you take this really important information directly from Socrates?

Reply to Wayfarer As a pretty much lifelong atheist, I've recently come to see that in a much more sympathetic light. I always saw people, like my mother, who seem to believe in God just because the world would be too terrible a place to go on living in if there wasn't a God to put their faith in, as just intellectually weak, letting irrational fears shape their beliefs. But over the past year some kind of inexplicable existential horror has been hitting me for no discernible reason, and I've found myself at times desperately wishing I could believe in something comforting like that, even if it is false, just to make the emotional pain go away. But I can't believe in something that I can see to be false, even if I want to; belief just doesn't work that way.

Reply to Pfhorrest that is true. My background is more as the proverbial ‘truth-seeker’ - corny-sounding word but can’t think of another. My seeking started off with some of the Indian sages who published in the West and the commentators on them. The idea was ‘not to believe but to see’. I will acknowledge that hallucinogens played a part in that as they threw open perspectives that you didn’t know existed until you were suddenly in them. But then, like a lot of people in my generation (60’s), that lead to interest in mysticism, meditation and the idea of the spiritual path. That has lead me to appreciate the spiritual dimension of religion.

Now many believers aren’t particularly spiritual. I think that’s pretty much what the OP is addressing. Once the original insight is formularised and repeated for generations then it no longer has the original vitality, you just believe what you’re told. But even so I no longer believe that it’s just empty dogma. It can go wrong or congeal into some pretty awful thought-forms but at the end of the day, Christian principles of charity, self-abnegation and ethics are actually pretty solid. A lot of those trying to shoot it down don’t have anything to replace it with. So I suppose the difficult question is that of interpretation - if you don’t just believe it, but also don’t just reject it, then you have to come to terms with what it means.

Quoting jorndoe

Thus, why would anyone in their right mind take the preachers' words for it all?

You appear to be arguing for old Protestantism. You even referenced one of the old bits of Protestant dogma: that the papacy is Antichrist.

Did you become a Lutheran or something?

Quoting jorndoe

Thus, why would anyone in their right mind take the preachers' words for it all?

I think you could answer this question perfectly easily yourself.

Quoting jorndoe

Incoherence is reached much before having consulted half the indoctrinators-proselytizers; every adherent is outnumbered by detractors.

I take it that point of your example is that, as different religions all claim some privileged relationship with an absolute truth, and yet they all differ amongst themselves, then it’s not likely that any one of them might possess such a relationship. Is that the thrust of it?

One factor that this doesn’t take into account is that your motivation seems to be the discrediting of any such claim. So from the perspective of a non-believer, then the fact that they all disagree with each other is evidence that can be used against them. But the factor you’re lacking is that it doesn’t matter to you. And as a religious faith requires a subjective commitment, a declaration of what matters to you, then the argument is artificial - it is lacking the one thing which makes any such claims meaningful.

Reply to jorndoe

Same reason why we don't take your word for it that God doesn't exist!

Quoting jorndoe

Thus, why would anyone in their right mind take the preachers' words for it all?

Because the preachers, like "good" academics, cite their sources - holy books and so-called prophets. It's like have an original CD that you play on different players/preachers.

Quoting TheMadFool

cite their sources - holy books and so-called prophets

Which are still from humans saying something as if it is true.

Quoting I like sushi

I get the idea of the kind of folks you’re expressing your view too. Should we listen? :)

Reasoning about the peculiar situation, was the idea. Kinda' what the forums are for, yes?

Quoting Serving Zion

That's the definitive piece, isn't it?

No.

[quote=Serving Zion](Matthew 7:15, John 18:37, Matthew 18:20, 2 Peter 2:1-2, 2 Timothy 3:5-7)[/quote]

Preaching, incidentally. :)

Quoting Noble Dust

Do you take this really important information directly from Socrates?

More tu quoque'ery? Nope, t'was just an analogous anecdote.

Quoting bert1

I think you could answer this question perfectly easily yourself.

Why thank ye. The intent was participatory inquiry, though.

Quoting Wayfarer

Is that the thrust of it?

Nope. It's fairly straight forward. The sales-people that come knocking on your door, children being subject to directed indoctrination, preachers/imams/pujas that never conclude a sermon with "oh, by the way, we don't know", ..., pretending to speak on behalf of various actual authorities.

Quoting 3017amen

Same reason why we don't take your word for it that God doesn't exist!

Well, that'd be you saying so, like "Shiva is a devil" maybe or something? Hasn't been mentioned prior in this thread, which was an inquiry into that peculiar situation.

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Which are still from humans saying something as if it is true.

(y) And, on others' behalf too, others that supposedly are universal, almighty, etc, yet silent, hidden, apparently indifferent, ...

Seems only @Wayfarer had much to add.

Typical responses could be religious perennialism of sorts, unassuming deism, non-descript panendeism, panpsychism (hi @bert1), "the god of the philosophers", something like that. Maybe the universe is a forgotten experiment, an abandoned petri-dish, "a headless blunder operating under the illusion of a master plan" (quoting Worth in "Cube" (1997)), a dream, The Matrix, Zhuangzi's butterfly, Bostrom's hypothesis, ...?

Well, the preaching indoctrinating proselytizing theists typically deny such like hands-down in favor of their own narratives. (Sometimes even launching threats, still on behalf of universal, silent super-beings.)

Or, is it all just human story-telling, testaments to human creativity and imagination? Well, whichever the case, how would we differentiate? "Whereof one cannot speak" and all that? Information-free (linguistic) constructs or whichever idealizations, immunized of any counter/evidence?

FYI, "the god of the philosophers" as per Donald H Wacome in a speech on Dec 1990 (embedded links mine):

[quote=http://home.nwciowa.edu/wacome/gbgp.htm]The God of the ancient philosophers is an abstract object; he has all the reality of the square root of 16. This so-called God is not alive. He is beyond time and change, not the Ancient of Days but the Eternal One. The God of the philosophers is passionless, incapable of being moved to hot anger and tears by the human condition. He is serene and untroubled. The God of the philosophers knows everything about the future; he can't interact with human beings as free creatures on whom the as yet open future in part depends. The God of the philosophers is simple; there is no depth or complexity in his personality. As an abstract object, he is captured in the nets of our philosophical theories. He has his prominent place in our neat and rationally explicable scheme of things. We know what he's like and he is basically predictable. The God of the philosophers, the God of much of the theological tradition, is a creature of the human mind and, as such, is ultimately in our control.[/quote]

(Maybe I should have added a poll, some voting options.)

Anyway, more importantly, what do you think is the deal with all the diverse opinionated preachers (indoctrinators proselytizers) out there, apparently pretending to speak on behalf of "otherworldly" super-beings?

Quoting jorndoe

And, on others' behalf too, others that supposedly are universal, almighty, etc, yet silent, hidden, apparently indifferent, ...

Yes, humans wrote it all up, having much better penmanship than 'God', I guess.

Quoting jorndoe

all the diverse opinionated preachers (indoctrinators proselytizers) out there,

TV Preachers

I was going through the channels and saw a Catholic priest saying and preaching “If you don’t believe in what we believe then you separate yourself from the holy body and blood and you know what that means. Well, we really don’t like to talk about the consequences of heresy but…”

That was crap.

Here’s a much better preaching idea:

For a good and better life, join the Weed Church:

The Church of the Weed

Weeds are the most energetic and alive things on the planet and therefore we can channel much of this vigor into our own selves. Costly vitamins and energy drinks are no longer needed, weeds being free and abundant. Trust me. Have faith. Weeds have the super power of nuclear energy without any of the explosive side effects.

Some weeds have roots three feet long! Even one molecule left of a pulled weed can regenerate the entire plant. Weeds are of the unlimited power. The weed is the Theory of Everything. This is the greatest discovery of all time.

Our focus is on plain old weeds, but no denomination of weed is excluded, and so the incense smoke spread about would most likely be pot, but I can’t say that here, if it is. This stuff may slightly drain some energy at first, but then the munchies will take over to allow us much and even more ingestion of our special weed salad. However, if anyone turns into a stoned statue that’s really OK since it’s just perfect for a church setting. The social hour and the church hour are exactly the same thing, but we will occasionally say things in honor of weeds and will have all varieties of weed pictures on the wall.

There is a fairly new ‘mile-a-minute’ weed around New York, and so this will be the centerpiece of the altar. Even the pews and chairs will be made out of woven weeds, as a constant reminder of the glory of weeds. The floor will look like the average person’s lawn—mostly weeds and clover and hardly any grass.

The weed salad will be washed down with dandelion wine and will provide such great energy to us all that we will become much more alive and creative, perhaps even posting 20 times a day, never even repeating posts, for our creativity will become unbounded.

The church/social hour would then be the only time that we’d all just be sitting around, instead of, like all day long now for many of the unweeded. The rest of life would become a blur of activity, weeders jumping and sprouting about in all kinds of fun and accomplishments. No one would ever feel bored again.

The weed is the way and the light and the energy.

Weeds entwine all things.

Weeds are our friends.

I can’t just prove all this by words, but if you try hard to think that you know you’re getting energy from weeds, then it will come to you that you know for sure when you try them. Think it and then you will feel it, just like when one watches wrestling shows. Some placebo effects may occur as well.

The Holy Weed Commandments

Thou shalt not step on a weed.
All weeds are to be treated equally.
Thou shalt not kill weeds except to use as food.
Love thy neighbor a whole lot, unless they are a grouch,
But more if they are attractive and you are both single.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s weeds.

Activities and Outings

Rare and exotic weed expeditions.
Weed planting/harvesting parties.
Place-a-weed-on-every-doorstep program for publicity.
Feed-the-weed product sales for advancing weed growth.
Any questions or suggestions?

Just to add a bit more to the story, I know this fellow that has integrated Shaivist mysticism and a kind of radical pragmatism (mainly after Peirce). All fairly elaborate. In this case, there are mystics, well versed in Vedic texts, and those folk are then taken as authorities, only they can genuinely understand or "communicate" with Shiva. I listened to some of what they had to say. Different, interesting enough for what it is, yet still much the same.

[quote=Patricia Crone (commenting on Islam and the like)]It is a peculiar habit of God's that when he wishes to reveal himself to mankind, he will communicate only with a single person. The rest of mankind must learn the truth from that person and thus purchase their knowledge of the divine at the cost of subordination to another human being, who is eventually replaced by a human institution, so that the divine remains under other people's control.[/quote]

Preacher, why should anyone take your word for it?

Quoting PoeticUniverse

The Church of the Weed

:)

http://home.nwciowa.edu/wacome/gbgp.htm:The God of the ancient philosophers is an abstract object; he has all the reality of the square root of 16. This so-called God is not alive.

This 'so called God' is also not God. The arithmetical allusion is, I think, a reference to the Platonist intuition that mathematical necessity is a clue to the nature of necessary truths, which in turn betoken an originating intelligence. But the whole point about the religious conception of God is that God is a 'you' or a subject, in some sense.

Quoting jorndoe

Anyway, more importantly, what do you think is the deal with all the diverse opinionated preachers (indoctrinators proselytizers) out there, apparently pretending to speak on behalf of "otherworldly" super-beings?

They're not all 'indoctrinators'. There's a lot of discussion about religion on this board, but relatively little proselytizing (save for some self-described gnostics of late.)

Perhaps you would find this blog post of interest. It's a paraphrase by William Vallicella ('Maverick Philosopher') of some ideas from Josiah Royce (a representative of the 'golden age of American idealism'.) So, Vallicella is the 'I' in the following passage (slightly edited by me) about the meaning of religion.

It is very difficult to define religion, in the sense of setting forth necessary and sufficient conditions for the correct application of the term, but I agree with Royce's view that an essential characteristic of anything worth calling religion is a concern for the salvation of man. Religious objects are those that help show the way to salvation. The central postulate of religion is that "man needs to be saved." Saved from what? ". . . from some vast and universal burden, of imperfection, of unreasonableness, of evil, of misery, of fate, of unworthiness, or of sin." In an earlier post on Simone Weil I spoke of generic wretchedness. It is that which we need salvation from.

2. The Need for Salvation. "Man is an infinitely needy creature." But the need for salvation, for those who feel it, is paramount among human needs. The need for salvation depends on two simpler ideas:

a) There is a paramount end or aim of human life relative to which other aims are vain.
b) Man as he now is, or naturally is, is in danger of missing his highest aim, his highest good.

To hold that man needs salvation is to hold both of (a) and (b). I would put it like this. The religious person perceives our present life, or our natural life, as radically deficient, deficient from the root (radix) up, as fundamentally unsatisfactory; he feels it to be, not a mere condition, but a predicament; it strikes him as vain or empty if taken as an end in itself; he sees himself as homo viator, as a wayfarer (!) or pilgrim treading a via dolorosa through a vale that cannot possibly be a final and fitting resting place; he senses or glimpses from time to time the possibility of a Higher Life; he feels himself in danger of missing out on this Higher Life of true happiness.

If this doesn't strike a chord in you, then I suggest you do not have a religious disposition. Some people don't, and it cannot be helped. One cannot discuss religion with them, for it cannot be real to them. It is not, for them, what William James in "The Will to Believe" calls a "living option," let alone a "forced" or "momentous" one.

Note well: 'some people don't and it cannot be helped'.

Taking that into account, the various 'preachers' are those who claim to represent the or a way to this 'Higher Life'. The fact that it's a very difficult thing to understand or fathom is why there is such diversity of views, which dovetails with the oft-told 'parable of the elephant'. But that doesn't mean there isn't an underlying truth to them. Of course, for those who only want to see the differences, they are there aplenty, but there is also an enormous amount of common ground, particularly amongst the mystics of the higher religions.

Patricia Crone (commenting on Islam and the like):It is a peculiar habit of God's that when he wishes to reveal himself to mankind, he will communicate only with a single person.

Have you by any chance ever encountered R. M. Bucke's book, Cosmic Consciousness? (It's not new, originally published in 1901.) But it does have what I consider to be a plausible theory about this.

Quoting frank

You appear to be arguing for old Protestantism. You even referenced one of the old bits of Protestant dogma: that the papacy is Antichrist.

Did you become a Lutheran or something?

The quote wasn't me, just some folk I spoke with some time ago. Your comment reminded me of The Devil's Dictionary:

  RELIGION, n.  A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the

  nature of the Unknowable.

      "What is your religion my son?" inquired the Archbishop of Rheims.

      "Pardon, monseigneur," replied Rochebriant; "I am ashamed of it."

      "Then why do you not become an atheist?"

      "Impossible!  I should be ashamed of atheism."

      "In that case, monsieur, you should join the Protestants."

:)

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Which are still from humans saying something as if it is true.

Correct but the original sources (prophets and books) are supposedly verified through miracles which people seem to accept as true. The next generation of preachers rely on these primary sources for their own authenticity. Right?

Quoting Wayfarer

but there is also an enormous amount of common ground, particularly amongst the mystics of the higher religions

Sure, except the majority reject such perennialism.

Quoting Wayfarer

Note well: 'some people don't and it cannot be helped'.

The old "spiritual blindness" thing?

We have people claiming a personal relationship with Jesus (the fellow that died ages ago, not this or this); others claiming to communicate with Shiva; Muhammad allegedly had personal sessions with Gabriel (on Allah's behalf) in a cave when by himself; for that matter, some claim to speak with extraterrestrial aliens; ...

They're all equally sincere apparently, and claim to have important messages from others, except those others, the supposed real authorities, remain suspiciously silent.

The peculiar situation goes further still. There are scores of professional apologists, making a living from crafting arguments to promote their particular stories and faiths. (I think Craig might be one of the more popular ones per se.) Deities neither evident nor necessary, just humans.

If you don't see anything questionable here, if you abandon critical inquiry, then I'm not quite sure how to explicate.

And where's Jesus? :)

Quoting jorndoe

The old "spiritual blindness" thing?

No, the old 'why bother?' thing.

Quoting TheMadFool

The next generation of preachers rely on these primary sources for their own authenticity. Right?

Can't trust humans, period.

Some humans there at the time didn't go for human Divinity; other humans there at the time did go for human Divinity.

Can't trust humans even if the majority there at the time went against Divinity, no matter if that is one's favored argument.

Three hundred years later, Christianity really caught on. Can't trust humans even if later many went for Divinity, no matter if that is one's favored argument.

Quoting Wayfarer

the proverbial ‘truth-seeker’

(y)

Quoting PoeticUniverse

Can't trust humans, period.

That's the point actually. Thus the need for evidence and prophets provide it through miraculous feats.

Quoting TheMadFool

Correct but the original sources (prophets and books) are supposedly verified through miracles which people seem to accept as true. The next generation of preachers rely on these primary sources for their own authenticity. Right?

Well, no.

The prophet of Islam did not perform one single miracle, besides providing us with a copy of the Quran.

Sunni scholar Muhammad Asad summary on the matter. In many places the Qur'an stresses the fact that the Prophet Muhammad, despite his being the last and greatest of God's apostles, was not empowered to perform miracles similar to those with which the earlier prophets are said to have reinforced their verbal messages. His only miracle was and is the Qur'an itself - a message perfect in its lucidity and ethical comprehensiveness, destined for all times and all stages of human development, addressed not merely to the feelings but also to the minds of men, open to everyone, whatever his race or social environment, and bound to remain unchanged forever…

So, no, religion does not need miracles. That is simply a very false impression.

Quoting jorndoe

Thus, why would anyone in their right mind take the preachers' words for it all?

Well, most preachers suggest practices, especially since you list contains deities that are parts of religions that focus on experiences via practices. IOW it is a given that you must engage in practices and have experiences of dieties and altered states and develop a connection to the deity directly. And sure, some preachers don't emphasize this, and the West tend to focus on faith and beliefs (as ideas) but even in these 'churches' there are practices, ways to try to directly experience, development of relationships, etc.

Quoting alcontali

The prophet of Islam did not perform one single miracle, besides providing us with a copy of the Quran.

They say the Quran is the miracle of Muhammad. Why? What's so miraculous about the Quran?

Quoting TheMadFool

They say the Quran is the miracle of Muhammad. Why? What's so miraculous about the Quran?

The mental faculty of reason is not capable of explaining, but also not of producing, the basic beliefs of a system. These basic beliefs, i.e. system-wide premises are the output of other, unknown mental faculties. This is true for all systems, not just religious ones.

Say that reason is a predicate function that accepts three inputs (premises, conclusion, argument) and produces a yes or a no, as to whether these three inputs successfully pass the verification test, which is: we can confirm that according to the argument, the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises. We carry out this verification procedure by checking if each step necessarily follows from the previous one.

Now, can reason provide a missing argument/proof? No, we have a beautiful example in the Riemann hypothesis. We know the conclusion. We also know the basic beliefs of the construction logic of number theory. Nobody has been able to find counterexamples for this hypothesis either. Still, nobody has been able to find the path between the construction logic of number theory and the Riemann hypothesis either. If reason alone could produce the argument/proof, then we would have it already, but we don't. Reason cannot solve the following expression:

isReasonable(premises,conclusion,unknown)

It is obvious that the argument/proof is function of premises and conclusion, because it represents a path between premises and conclusion. So, can reason tell us what the underlying premises are for a particular set of existing premises?

isReasonable(underlying premises, existing premises, unknown)

No, impossible, because we had already established that reason alone cannot provide the unknown argument/proof. Therefore, not only the argument/proof is the output product of other, unknown mental faculties, but so are also the premises.

Hence, the basic beliefs, i.e. system-wide premises, of any system, including religious ones, is the output of unknown, other mental faculties, and not of the faculty of reason.

So, what exactly is there exceptional in providing system-wide premises for a religion? Well, the fact that it cannot be unexplained from anything we know. Therefore, in religious lingo, these system-wide premises are considered to be the transmission of a transcendental message from another world. Can this be further explained? No, obviously also not. We are already "reasoning" about system-wide premises, while, as argued above, reason does not play any role in providing them.

So, how do we know that such system-wide premises are truly the transmission of a transcendental message from another world? As argued above, this question is out of scope for the mental faculty of reason. Therefore, here again, you will have to use other, unknown mental faculties to determine this.

Other, unknown mental faculties generally play a much more important role in the nature of systems (which are themselves reasonable) than reason itself. That is why the average reasonable person, no matter how reasonable he may be, cannot produce something like Einstein's 1905 Nobel-prize winning publication. It is simply not a matter of reason.

This also explains why some people seem to be able to listen into transmissions of transcendental messages, while everybody else, no matter how reasonable, does not have that mental faculty. These other people still somehow seem to be able to verify that the transcendental message is sound and valid. From there on, these other people will believe the message transmitter.

In fact, most of us actually know that reason does not explain quite a bit of otherwise successful behaviour. A successful football player will carry out a spectacular manoeuvre, but in fact not be able to rationally explain why he knew how to do that. You simply cannot train professional football players by making them read lots of books on football. It simply does not work that way, and people actually know that.

Quoting alcontali

The mental faculty of reason is not capable of explaining, but also not of producing, the basic beliefs of a system. These basic beliefs, i.e. system-wide premises are the output of other, unknown mental faculties. This is true for all systems, not just religious ones.

Isn't this just another way of saying the Quran is miraculous - the faculty of reason being incapable of producing the Quran?

So, doesn't that prove my point that some form of miracle is necessary if to be a prophet? This is a digression from the OP's issue as to why people should trust preachers. I personally don't accept miracles as evidence for the simple reason that advanced knowledge masquerades as miracles.

Quoting TheMadFool

Isn't this just another way of saying the Quran is miraculous - the faculty of reason being incapable of producing the Quran?

The terms "miracle" and "miraculous" are loaded with all kinds of connotations that sometimes sound questionable. I prefer the phrase: "the output of other, unknown mental faculties".

Look, it is not possible to come up with the 9 unexplained, speculative beliefs of number theory, just like that, just "by reasoning". You will simply never get there by reason alone. Same for the 14 speculative beliefs that construct the system of propositional logic, or of the 10 arbitrary beliefs at the basis of set theory. I do not know what their true origin is, and nobody else does either. Otherwise they would not be axioms.

In other words, all our mathematical beliefs go back to seemingly arbitrary, speculative, basic beliefs. Why would anybody right in his mind believe that our religious systems would be any different? On what grounds?

We simply do not have any knowledge at all that is not of seemingly arbitrary, speculative nature. Our own heads are replete with mental faculties that we do not understand and that we cannot reasonably explain.

Quoting TheMadFool

So, doesn't that prove my point that some form of miracle is necessary if to be a prophet?

Depending on how you define the term "miracle", yes. The prophet of Islam is widely believed to have listened into a stream of transcendental messages of which the origin was not of this world. People generally do not know how to do that because otherwise, they would be doing that all the time ...

Quoting TheMadFool

I personally don't accept miracles as evidence for the simple reason that advanced knowledge masquerades as miracles.

Evidence is the argument/proof element in the three-tuple (premises, conclusion, argument). It is even tautological that you cannot swap these elements around. You have to find a way to discover premises. You also have to find a way to discover a conclusion, and most of all, you need to find a way to connect them. None of these activities are rational processes. The main characteristic of the greatest mathematicians and the greatest scientists was not rationality, because the process of knowledge discovery is not rational at all.

Furthermore, as I already argued, swapping around premises and argument in the three-tuple (premises, conclusion, argument) does indeed not make sense. However, it is you, yourself who are trying to do that. You want to solve the problem of (underlying premises, existing premises, unknown). As I argued previously, your request is itself not rational at all; and it is even trivial to rationally argue that.

Quoting jorndoe

panpsychism (hi bert1)

Big shout from the rock massif

Reply to jorndoe :lol:

Evidently, any such deity either has no messages of utmost importance for all mankind, or is not real.

(Which, by the way, also is justified by how these faiths spread, and their places and times of emergence.)

Would parsimony be of any use here?