Perhaps I should have used the phrase, 'Belief system', i.e. what tradition do we choose to live and breathe and have our being? I do not choose to believe the earth goes round the sun, but I do choose to remain within the Christian fold rather than, say, becoming a Sikh, an equally valid choice.
If I became a Sikh it would be because I had become convinced that the truth claims of Sikhism were more true than those of other religions. I couldn't choose to believe those claims.
Choice just doesn't come into it. I originally became Christian because for various reasons its truth claims seemed to be true. Now I'm not so sure so by definition my faith is weaker. I don't choose what my beliefs are or how strong they are - it's all about how likely a given claim appears to be true.
Many years ago a thought experiment came into my head. If I could press a button and something weird would be done inside my head that would give me cast iron near as dammit 100% belief in God would I press it?
I decided I wouldn't. If I'm to have that sort of cast iron belief it has to be because it really is true and I have ways of knowing it really is true, not because I've made a decision to make myself believe it whether it's true or not.
And I agree with that absolutely. Before coming to the Ship, I thought everybody felt that way. It was a surprise to learn some people choose their beliefs.
Hang on ... we back to the free will debate. Sure, 'You did not choose me, but I chose you ...'
Although the old song runs, 'Wise men say / Only fools rush in / ... / But I can't help falling in love with you.'
I think we do choose to fall in love with people.
Any how, I must be wired differently because whilst I often wonder whether my faith is true or real etc, I'm not particularly exercised about finding proof positive.
Sure, if a body were dug up tomorrow that could be unequivocally identified as that of Jesus of Nazareth then I'd have to make major adjustments.
Sometimes the whole thing feels very, very real. At other times as if I'm kidding myself.
...
Choice just doesn't come into it. I originally became Christian because for various reasons its truth claims seemed to be true. Now I'm not so sure so by definition my faith is weaker. I don't choose what my beliefs are or how strong they are - it's all about how likely a given claim appears to be true.
I didn't have much choice about becoming a Christian, although the reasons for *being* a Christian (in contrast to *becoming* a Christian) came along later in the process. And the way in which my belief started to change didn't come about through choice.
Many years ago a thought experiment came into my head. If I could press a button and something weird would be done inside my head that would give me cast iron near as dammit 100% belief in God would I press it?
I decided I wouldn't. If I'm to have that sort of cast iron belief it has to be because it really is true and I have ways of knowing it really is true, not because I've made a decision to make myself believe it whether it's true or not.
And I agree with that absolutely. Before coming to the Ship, I thought everybody felt that way. It was a surprise to learn some people choose their beliefs.
It was a surprise to me too. But when my own beliefs started changing, I started wondering if I might be able to affect the process.
I Chose my beloved faith because it felt real and genuine and as I lived it it becomes habitual.
'Do I believe? doesn't come into it as I would then be looking at me and not at God. I'm not arguing .... just trying to explain how I am and how how I insulate myself from dreadful fundamentalism.
There's a splendid James Thurber cartoon. It's a busy party with a happy group. One guy stands apart, awkward and alone. The host tells another party goer, "oh him? He's a scientist. He only believes in facts!" I'll stop there .... as a 50 year plus career as a research scientist I know when I'm outgunned!
As to 'choosing to fall in love'. Tell Mrs RR that! We were both steamrollered. Choice didn't come into it. Hormones and all that .... But we were both free.
What if the person you love has a different political approach? NPR's program 1A discussed that yesterday. Audio Recording here 55 minutes.
Can you summarise the programmd for those of us without 55 minutes to spare to continue this thread?
I did summarise the program with the introductory sentencc. But here is how NPR introduced it:
Imagine you’re on a date with someone new. So far, you find them funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to.
But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
Nearly 80 percent of Americans would likely make an excuse and find their way home. Only 21 percent of U.S. marriages are between individuals who don’t share the same political party, according to the Institute for Family Studies. That’s a 10-percentage point decrease from 2016. And of that 21 percent of politically-mixed couples, only 4 percent are relationships between Democrats and Republicans.
What does the decline in politically-mixed marriages say about the important role politics plays in our romantic relationships? And for those who are in politically dissimilar relationships, how do they make them work?
Karl B wrote: 'Perhaps "believe" means different things to me and to you?'
This is probably so. I believe in oh so much more than I can prove, like the world is full of wonder and God's glory. I would disbelieve any 'truths' about the human condition, whatever the 'proofs', that lead to violence and division.
I'm like the aged priest who remarked, 'When I was young, I knew lots of proofs of Chritianity, but I've forgotten them all'. My faith, fortunstely, went from 'head to heart' after 17 years of dogmatism. Now, when debating with atheists, to their frustration, I tend to use the 'Puddleglum' defence.
Blessings .....
It seems to me that choice must play a role in people believing that evolution isn't real or climate change isn't real or that austerity brings economic growth. Even if that's only in so far as people don't go out looking for evidence that makes it less likely. And I feel it's unlikely that that only happens with regards to beliefs I disagree with.
Whether that should happen is another question.
If I'm to have that sort of cast iron belief it has to be because it really is true and I have ways of knowing it really is true, not because I've made a decision to make myself believe it whether it's true or not.
This is my position as well. What I still struggle with a lot is this:
Any how, I must be wired differently because whilst I often wonder whether my faith is true or real etc, I'm not particularly exercised about finding proof positive.
My largely happy-clappy charismatic evangelical upbringing really does bring to mind the idea that ignorance is bliss, because we were expressly instructed not to ask too many probing questions (somewhere there's a version of the RCC catechism that warns similarly). I've had to come to terms with the idea that many Christians I know would really prefer not to know. They're making the opposite determination with your thought experiment, @KarlLB. I try not to let it bother me, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't.
I have my doubts about choosing what one believes. It seems to me that this is like love; one does not deduce logically that one loves another person, but rather love is a discovery. I think this is part of the meaning of "Surprised by Joy". Of course, this is probably inconsistent with other statements I have made on the Ship; I do not guarantee consistency.
A fair amount of my real-life work is spent telling people they OUGHT to ask questions, that to refrain from doing so is a sign of weak faith, and also the way you lose the chance to strengthen what you have.
Hang on ... we back to the free will debate. Sure, 'You did not choose me, but I chose you ...'
Although the old song runs, 'Wise men say / Only fools rush in / ... / But I can't help falling in love with you.'
I think we do choose to fall in love with people.
Any how, I must be wired differently because whilst I often wonder whether my faith is true or real etc, I'm not particularly exercised about finding proof positive.
Sure, if a body were dug up tomorrow that could be unequivocally identified as that of Jesus of Nazareth then I'd have to make major adjustments.
Sometimes the whole thing feels very, very real. At other times as if I'm kidding myself.
I imagine that's fairly normal.
It’s definitely normal for me. As is not being exercised about finding proof positive.
But I certainly recognize that not everyone is wired the way I am.
A fair amount of my real-life work is spent telling people they OUGHT to ask questions, that to refrain from doing so is a sign of weak faith, and also the way you lose the chance to strengthen what you have.
Oh dear,
I wouldn't go telling folk I have pastoral care for what they ought to be doing. I'm delighted when folk do ask questions ... provided the really, like really, wanted to know an answer Or my answer, as there is always more than one answer) and they ain't just being bolshie. I tended to ask why they'd asked the question. Very often the answer is in the doing.
I want to feed folk, not spend all my time giving 'em medicine! Very often (in St Paul's terminology) it's spiritual milk ...
Let's try a better phrasing. I tell them that they ought to feel free to ask questions if they want to, that Christianity will not come tumbling down in a heap if they ask. If they feel no need to ask anything, I'm not going to chase them down.
I think we could be I'm danger of straying from the OP - or at least I am. I wasn't 'steamrollered', my wife and I were pals and gradually grew to love each other.
That doesn't mean it should be like that for everyone.
Anyhow, @Gramps49's thing about the decline in pan-political marriages is interesting, but also disturbing I think. Increasing polarisation.
Let's try a better phrasing. I tell them that they ought to feel free to ask questions if they want to, that Christianity will not come tumbling down in a heap if they ask. If they feel no need to ask anything, I'm not going to chase them down.
Dear LC, this is spot on. We are meeting one of our pilgrims tomorrow after eucharist for just this sort of session.
What does the decline in politically-mixed marriages say about the important role politics plays in our romantic relationships? And for those who are in politically dissimilar relationships, how do they make them work?
Politics has become more polarized and personal.
Reasonable people can disagree about what the best way to support the poor is, or how best to balance the competing interests in situation X, but still love and respect each other, because they agree at the fundamental level that the poor are worth supporting, and that the competing interests are all valid.
If we disagree about whether one of my friends or family members actually counts as a human being, I don't see a way I can have any kind of positive relationship with you.
I cannot choose what I believe, whatever C S Lewis may say. I would choose a lot more belief than I have, had I that power. But I don't. I believe things to the same extent they seem to be true on the basis of the evidence available. Choice doesn't come into it.
Choice just doesn't come into it. I originally became Christian because for various reasons its truth claims seemed to be true. Now I'm not so sure so by definition my faith is weaker. I don't choose what my beliefs are or how strong they are - it's all about how likely a given claim appears to be true.
I'm intrigued about what happened to make you less sure of its truth claims. Did the evidence change? Did your assessment of the evidence change? Did new evidence come to light?
And I agree with that absolutely. Before coming to the Ship, I thought everybody felt that way. It was a surprise to learn some people choose their beliefs.
What if the person you love has a different political approach? NPR's program 1A discussed that yesterday. Audio Recording here 55 minutes.
Can you summarise the programmd for those of us without 55 minutes to spare to continue this thread?
I did summarise the program with the introductory sentencc. But here is how NPR introduced it:
Imagine you’re on a date with someone new. So far, you find them funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to.
But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
Nearly 80 percent of Americans would likely make an excuse and find their way home. Only 21 percent of U.S. marriages are between individuals who don’t share the same political party, according to the Institute for Family Studies. That’s a 10-percentage point decrease from 2016. And of that 21 percent of politically-mixed couples, only 4 percent are relationships between Democrats and Republicans.
What does the decline in politically-mixed marriages say about the important role politics plays in our romantic relationships? And for those who are in politically dissimilar relationships, how do they make them work?
I think it depends. There are conservatives who are anti-Trump, but if it involves someone who is a genuine fan of Trump and his ways, yikes. (There are also extreme people on the left, but they’re not running the country into the ground at the moment.) I think it was easier to have inter-political relationships when things were less extreme.
FF wrote: "This is one of the beauties of operating our individual Free Will here and now, we get to choose our own viewpoints within the overarching Creation.
We all get to choose how best to frame our experiences in order to bring ourselves the most love, forgiveness, peace, balance, harmony and happiness in the face of overwhelming circumstances".
Another thought provoking thought from FF. CS Lewis came to believe, "We can only, in the end, choose what we believe".
I agree (pace ChasMastr) with FF, but would add:
We must be guided by the Holy Spirit, however we experience Him (or Her). What we believe must be reflected in how we act and behave, and chime with our inermost consciences. It must not jar with our character and gifting, and, importantly, not exclude, judge or comdemn another's way of being.
We, or at least I) fail to live up to this ideal, which is why trust (believe) in forgiveness and God's mercy being new every morning.
I can’t find this quote ("We can only, in the end, choose what we believe") to save my life. Can you tell me where it is? It sounds familiar. (I’m tempted to think it’s a line from That Hideous Strength. Not sure.) I think there may be a missing context here…
FF wrote: "This is one of the beauties of operating our individual Free Will here and now, we get to choose our own viewpoints within the overarching Creation.
We all get to choose how best to frame our experiences in order to bring ourselves the most love, forgiveness, peace, balance, harmony and happiness in the face of overwhelming circumstances".
Another thought provoking thought from FF. CS Lewis came to believe, "We can only, in the end, choose what we believe".
I agree (pace ChasMastr) with FF, but would add:
We must be guided by the Holy Spirit, however we experience Him (or Her). What we believe must be reflected in how we act and behave, and chime with our inermost consciences. It must not jar with our character and gifting, and, importantly, not exclude, judge or comdemn another's way of being.
We, or at least I) fail to live up to this ideal, which is why trust (believe) in forgiveness and God's mercy being new every morning.
I can’t find this quote ("We can only, in the end, choose what we believe") to save my life. Can you tell me where it is? It sounds familiar. (I’m tempted to think it’s a line from That Hideous Strength. Not sure.) I think there may be a missing context here…
From memory, it was in a biography of CS Lewis (I forget which one !) reporting a conversation CSL had with JR Tolkein.
Another (not CSL) quote springs to mind about 'the business of every day being about the terrible choice'.
Sorry about going on about choice and all that , but FF had had triggered (one of my many) 'King Charles' heads!
As St Paul reminds us (or was it Peter, James or Jude?) in one of the epistles, we must always be ready to give reason for our believing.
One thing that comes to mind is that, for you, belief might operate more like a mental model. (And I suppose it might do so for many of us.)
A mental model is an internal representation of external reality: that is, a way of representing reality within one's mind. Such models are hypothesized to play a major role in cognition, reasoning and decision-making. The term for this concept was coined in 1943 by Kenneth Craik, who suggested that the mind constructs "small-scale models" of reality that it uses to anticipate events.
One relevant aspect of mental models is how our mind reacts when an internal mental model of an aspect of external reality fails to accurately anticipate events.
One thing that comes to mind is that, for you, belief might operate more like a mental model. (And I suppose it might do so for many of us.)
A mental model is an internal representation of external reality: that is, a way of representing reality within one's mind. Such models are hypothesized to play a major role in cognition, reasoning and decision-making. The term for this concept was coined in 1943 by Kenneth Craik, who suggested that the mind constructs "small-scale models" of reality that it uses to anticipate events.
One relevant aspect of mental models is how our mind reacts when an internal mental model of an aspect of external reality fails to accurately anticipate events.
Hmmm .... this happens to me all the time .......!
One thing that comes to mind is that, for you, belief might operate more like a mental model. (And I suppose it might do so for many of us.)
A mental model is an internal representation of external reality: that is, a way of representing reality within one's mind. Such models are hypothesized to play a major role in cognition, reasoning and decision-making. The term for this concept was coined in 1943 by Kenneth Craik, who suggested that the mind constructs "small-scale models" of reality that it uses to anticipate events.
One relevant aspect of mental models is how our mind reacts when an internal mental model of an aspect of external reality fails to accurately anticipate events.
I cannot imagine belief being anything *other* than a mental model.
If I'm to have that sort of cast iron belief it has to be because it really is true and I have ways of knowing it really is true, not because I've made a decision to make myself believe it whether it's true or not.
This is my position as well. What I still struggle with a lot is this:
Any how, I must be wired differently because whilst I often wonder whether my faith is true or real etc, I'm not particularly exercised about finding proof positive.
My largely happy-clappy charismatic evangelical upbringing really does bring to mind the idea that ignorance is bliss, because we were expressly instructed not to ask too many probing questions (somewhere there's a version of the RCC catechism that warns similarly). I've had to come to terms with the idea that many Christians I know would really prefer not to know. They're making the opposite determination with your thought experiment, @KarlLB. I try not to let it bother me, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't.
Hmmm ... I think it's important to stress though, that my relative disinclination to seek 'proof positive' as it were isn't so much that I spent a fair bit of time in charismatic evangelicalism and that I'm now Orthodox with all the Mystery and so on, but because I tend to think that both religious fundamentalism, in its modern form, and atheism in its modern form, derive from Positivism and the 18th century Enlightenment.
Imagine you’re on a date with someone new. So far, you find them funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to.
But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
Nearly 80 percent of Americans would likely make an excuse and find their way home. Only 21 percent of U.S. marriages are between individuals who don’t share the same political party, according to the Institute for Family Studies. That’s a 10-percentage point decrease from 2016. And of that 21 percent of politically-mixed couples, only 4 percent are relationships between Democrats and Republicans.
I think it depends. There are conservatives who are anti-Trump, but if it involves someone who is a genuine fan of Trump and his ways, yikes. (There are also extreme people on the left, but they’re not running the country into the ground at the moment.) I think it was easier to have inter-political relationships when things were less extreme.
This is just another example of the media both-sidesing Democratic vs Republican political views. I'm 45 years old and the Republican party has been dangerous extremists for my entire lifetime.
When I was a baby, Reagan began the process of transferring an incredible amount of money from the poor to the rich, which continues to this day. When I was a teenager, Newt Gingrich destroyed the idea that government should actually try to do the work of the people. When I was a young adult, Bush and his cronies lied about our intelligence findings to launch illegal wars in the Middle East. Now, in my middle age, a literal fascist dictator has the support of 90 percent of the Republican base and is purging minorities and women from federal employment.
Why would I date someone who approves of all this? (Please don't not-all-Republicans at me. 90 percent is close enough to "all" that it's not a gamble I want to take.)
Why would I have sex with someone whose party has purposely made it more dangerous for me to have sex?
FF wrote: "This is one of the beauties of operating our individual Free Will here and now, we get to choose our own viewpoints within the overarching Creation.
We all get to choose how best to frame our experiences in order to bring ourselves the most love, forgiveness, peace, balance, harmony and happiness in the face of overwhelming circumstances".
Another thought provoking thought from FF. CS Lewis came to believe, "We can only, in the end, choose what we believe".
I agree (pace ChasMastr) with FF, but would add:
We must be guided by the Holy Spirit, however we experience Him (or Her). What we believe must be reflected in how we act and behave, and chime with our inermost consciences. It must not jar with our character and gifting, and, importantly, not exclude, judge or comdemn another's way of being.
We, or at least I) fail to live up to this ideal, which is why trust (believe) in forgiveness and God's mercy being new every morning.
I can’t find this quote ("We can only, in the end, choose what we believe") to save my life. Can you tell me where it is? It sounds familiar. (I’m tempted to think it’s a line from That Hideous Strength. Not sure.) I think there may be a missing context here…
From memory, it was in a biography of CS Lewis (I forget which one !) reporting a conversation CSL had with JR Tolkein.
Another (not CSL) quote springs to mind about 'the business of every day being about the terrible choice'.
Sorry about going on about choice and all that , but FF had had triggered (one of my many) 'King Charles' heads!
As St Paul reminds us (or was it Peter, James or Jude?) in one of the epistles, we must always be ready to give reason for our believing.
Well, we do have choice to follow what we believe is true, or look the other way when it is convenient.
I do think we can have an intuitive sense of some things--right and wrong, some philosophical/theological matters, etc.--even if our conscious reason cannot perceive them--in our heart or soul or such, so that even if someone can't explain why they need to do what we might call "the right thing," on some level, they may know it. If someone's worldview is officially nihilistic, yet they act better than that, and they can't explain how it's consistent with that, their heart may know goodness even if their conscious reason denies it.
I don't think, given everything else Lewis wrote and said, that in that conversation he was throwing away Reason as a path to faith in Christ.
One thing that comes to mind is that, for you, belief might operate more like a mental model. (And I suppose it might do so for many of us.)
A mental model is an internal representation of external reality: that is, a way of representing reality within one's mind. Such models are hypothesized to play a major role in cognition, reasoning and decision-making. The term for this concept was coined in 1943 by Kenneth Craik, who suggested that the mind constructs "small-scale models" of reality that it uses to anticipate events.
One relevant aspect of mental models is how our mind reacts when an internal mental model of an aspect of external reality fails to accurately anticipate events.
Well, in the case of God (or for that matter of lots of things even in this world), remembering that it is only a creaturely model of understanding that is pointing at the real, not fully understood God (or anything else), can be helpful.
But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it-to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improvement of his composite object, and to keeping it steadily before his imagination during the whole prayer. For if he ever comes to make the distinction, if ever he consciously directs his prayers "Not to what I think thou art but to what thou knowest thyself to be", our situation is, for the moment, desperate. Once all his thoughts and images have been flung aside or, if retained, retained with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature, and the man trusts himself to the completely real, external, invisible Presence, there with him in the room and never knowable by him as he is known by it-why, then it is that the incalculable may occur.
Imagine you’re on a date with someone new. So far, you find them funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to.
But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
Nearly 80 percent of Americans would likely make an excuse and find their way home. Only 21 percent of U.S. marriages are between individuals who don’t share the same political party, according to the Institute for Family Studies. That’s a 10-percentage point decrease from 2016. And of that 21 percent of politically-mixed couples, only 4 percent are relationships between Democrats and Republicans.
I think it depends. There are conservatives who are anti-Trump, but if it involves someone who is a genuine fan of Trump and his ways, yikes. (There are also extreme people on the left, but they’re not running the country into the ground at the moment.) I think it was easier to have inter-political relationships when things were less extreme.
This is just another example of the media both-sidesing Democratic vs Republican political views. I'm 45 years old and the Republican party has been dangerous extremists for my entire lifetime.
When I was a baby, Reagan began the process of transferring an incredible amount of money from the poor to the rich, which continues to this day. When I was a teenager, Newt Gingrich destroyed the idea that government should actually try to do the work of the people. When I was a young adult, Bush and his cronies lied about our intelligence findings to launch illegal wars in the Middle East. Now, in my middle age, a literal fascist dictator has the support of 90 percent of the Republican base and is purging minorities and women from federal employment.
Why would I date someone who approves of all this? (Please don't not-all-Republicans at me. 90 percent is close enough to "all" that it's not a gamble I want to take.)
Why would I have sex with someone whose party has purposely made it more dangerous for me to have sex?
I'm not sure how many anti-Trump conservatives have remained in the Republican Party these days. A bunch of them have formally become Independents, and feel politically homeless.
I'm assuming that when you say "This is just another example of the media both-sidesing Democratic vs Republican political views," you're referring to the article, not to my response?
What if the person you love has a different political approach? NPR's program 1A discussed that yesterday. Audio Recording here 55 minutes.
Can you summarise the programmd for those of us without 55 minutes to spare to continue this thread?
I did summarise the program with the introductory sentencc. But here is how NPR introduced it:
Imagine you’re on a date with someone new. So far, you find them funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to.
But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
Nearly 80 percent of Americans would likely make an excuse and find their way home. Only 21 percent of U.S. marriages are between individuals who don’t share the same political party, according to the Institute for Family Studies. That’s a 10-percentage point decrease from 2016. And of that 21 percent of politically-mixed couples, only 4 percent are relationships between Democrats and Republicans.
What does the decline in politically-mixed marriages say about the important role politics plays in our romantic relationships? And for those who are in politically dissimilar relationships, how do they make them work?
How politics—particularly different political views—comes into play in romantic relationships and following Christ’s directive to love our enemies seem like two very different things. There may be some overlap, perhaps, but they’re not the same thing, I don’t think.
One relevant aspect of mental models is how our mind reacts when an internal mental model of an aspect of external reality fails to accurately anticipate events.
Hmmm .... this happens to me all the time .......!
It happens to lots of us, lots of the time - the question is whether or not our mental models adjust (learn) to take account of this. (Generally, this is not a conscious process.) For example, do we gradually get used to the way a piece of technology works, and spend less time needing to think about how to carry out new or infrequent tasks? Or does it continue make as little sense to us as the day we first encountered it?
How politics—particularly different political views—comes into play in romantic relationships and following Christ’s directive to love our enemies seem like two very different things. There may be some overlap, perhaps, but they’re not the same thing, I don’t think.
Dating an enemy seems like a very bad idea.
From NPR: But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
If we don't share the same political views, in this day and age chances are we don't share the same values. If I were young and looking for someone to marry and have children with, I'd need to know that he wanted me and our children to have access to good healthcare (Republicans did their damnedest to overturn Obamacare, and both infant and maternal mortality have gone up since Roe v Wade was overturned), and that he would love our children no matter what (LGBTQ youth are much more likely to be homeless than their peers because their families turn them out). And that's just two big things. How could I live with someone who espouses things that are downright cruel? Political views have very real consequences at home. As the second-wave feminists said, the personal is political.
Frankly, I consider some of the political views at odds with mine to be completely immoral. It can be difficult to hold an extended conversation with people like that. I'd never last all the way through a first date with someone in favor of mass deportation, terrorizing the federal work force, applying the techbro principle "move fast and break things" to government, etc etc. We're well past "we have different views" and into "you're fucking wrong and what your ilk are trying to do to this country is a horror show."
How politics—particularly different political views—comes into play in romantic relationships and following Christ’s directive to love our enemies seem like two very different things. There may be some overlap, perhaps, but they’re not the same thing, I don’t think.
Dating an enemy seems like a very bad idea.
I agree, and I agree with pretty much everything else you said, especially about different politics likely indicating different values. I don’t think that changes that what Jesus meant by “love your enemies” is different from questions of romance. Jesus wasn’t advising people to date or marry their enemies.
The word Jesus is recorded as using in both Matthew and Luke is agapate, a form of agape, which is also the word used in phrases like “God is love.” Agape is not romantic love or familial love. As Karl Barth put it, Jesus’s call to agape calls on disciples to care about the needs and interests and well-being of another “in utter independence of the question of his attractiveness, of what he has to offer, of the reciprocity of the relationship, or repayment, . . . with no expectation of a return, even at the risk of ingratitude.”
In the sermon this morning, the point was made that we all too often think of love in terms of how we feel. But the love of enemies Jesus is talking about here isn’t at all about how we feel. It’s about what we do, what choices we make about our actions, regardless of how we feel.
What NT said. 'loving our enemies' is not romantic nor familial love but it is about seeing in them the same human beings that we are. - with all their good and bad points.
Comments
If I became a Sikh it would be because I had become convinced that the truth claims of Sikhism were more true than those of other religions. I couldn't choose to believe those claims.
Choice just doesn't come into it. I originally became Christian because for various reasons its truth claims seemed to be true. Now I'm not so sure so by definition my faith is weaker. I don't choose what my beliefs are or how strong they are - it's all about how likely a given claim appears to be true.
Many years ago a thought experiment came into my head. If I could press a button and something weird would be done inside my head that would give me cast iron near as dammit 100% belief in God would I press it?
I decided I wouldn't. If I'm to have that sort of cast iron belief it has to be because it really is true and I have ways of knowing it really is true, not because I've made a decision to make myself believe it whether it's true or not.
Although the old song runs, 'Wise men say / Only fools rush in / ... / But I can't help falling in love with you.'
I think we do choose to fall in love with people.
Any how, I must be wired differently because whilst I often wonder whether my faith is true or real etc, I'm not particularly exercised about finding proof positive.
Sure, if a body were dug up tomorrow that could be unequivocally identified as that of Jesus of Nazareth then I'd have to make major adjustments.
Sometimes the whole thing feels very, very real. At other times as if I'm kidding myself.
I imagine that's fairly normal.
It was a surprise to me too. But when my own beliefs started changing, I started wondering if I might be able to affect the process.
'Do I believe? doesn't come into it as I would then be looking at me and not at God. I'm not arguing .... just trying to explain how I am and how how I insulate myself from dreadful fundamentalism.
There's a splendid James Thurber cartoon. It's a busy party with a happy group. One guy stands apart, awkward and alone. The host tells another party goer, "oh him? He's a scientist. He only believes in facts!" I'll stop there .... as a 50 year plus career as a research scientist I know when I'm outgunned!
As to 'choosing to fall in love'. Tell Mrs RR that! We were both steamrollered. Choice didn't come into it. Hormones and all that .... But we were both free.
Perhaps "believe" means different things to me and to you?
I did summarise the program with the introductory sentencc. But here is how NPR introduced it:
Imagine you’re on a date with someone new. So far, you find them funny, intelligent, and easy to talk to.
But 20 minutes in, the conversation turns to politics. It becomes clear that you don’t share the same views. Do you stay on the date? Or do you leave?
Nearly 80 percent of Americans would likely make an excuse and find their way home. Only 21 percent of U.S. marriages are between individuals who don’t share the same political party, according to the Institute for Family Studies. That’s a 10-percentage point decrease from 2016. And of that 21 percent of politically-mixed couples, only 4 percent are relationships between Democrats and Republicans.
What does the decline in politically-mixed marriages say about the important role politics plays in our romantic relationships? And for those who are in politically dissimilar relationships, how do they make them work?
This is probably so. I believe in oh so much more than I can prove, like the world is full of wonder and God's glory. I would disbelieve any 'truths' about the human condition, whatever the 'proofs', that lead to violence and division.
I'm like the aged priest who remarked, 'When I was young, I knew lots of proofs of Chritianity, but I've forgotten them all'. My faith, fortunstely, went from 'head to heart' after 17 years of dogmatism. Now, when debating with atheists, to their frustration, I tend to use the 'Puddleglum' defence.
Blessings .....
Whether that should happen is another question.
This is my position as well. What I still struggle with a lot is this:
My largely happy-clappy charismatic evangelical upbringing really does bring to mind the idea that ignorance is bliss, because we were expressly instructed not to ask too many probing questions (somewhere there's a version of the RCC catechism that warns similarly). I've had to come to terms with the idea that many Christians I know would really prefer not to know. They're making the opposite determination with your thought experiment, @KarlLB. I try not to let it bother me, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't.
But I certainly recognize that not everyone is wired the way I am.
Oh dear,
I wouldn't go telling folk I have pastoral care for what they ought to be doing. I'm delighted when folk do ask questions ... provided the really, like really, wanted to know an answer Or my answer, as there is always more than one answer) and they ain't just being bolshie. I tended to ask why they'd asked the question. Very often the answer is in the doing.
I want to feed folk, not spend all my time giving 'em medicine! Very often (in St Paul's terminology) it's spiritual milk ...
That doesn't mean it should be like that for everyone.
Anyhow, @Gramps49's thing about the decline in pan-political marriages is interesting, but also disturbing I think. Increasing polarisation.
Dear LC, this is spot on. We are meeting one of our pilgrims tomorrow after eucharist for just this sort of session.
Blessings!
Politics has become more polarized and personal.
Reasonable people can disagree about what the best way to support the poor is, or how best to balance the competing interests in situation X, but still love and respect each other, because they agree at the fundamental level that the poor are worth supporting, and that the competing interests are all valid.
If we disagree about whether one of my friends or family members actually counts as a human being, I don't see a way I can have any kind of positive relationship with you.
Promises that weren't fulfilled?
Sounds like material for a new thread.
Ditto.
I think it depends. There are conservatives who are anti-Trump, but if it involves someone who is a genuine fan of Trump and his ways, yikes. (There are also extreme people on the left, but they’re not running the country into the ground at the moment.) I think it was easier to have inter-political relationships when things were less extreme.
I can’t find this quote ("We can only, in the end, choose what we believe") to save my life. Can you tell me where it is? It sounds familiar. (I’m tempted to think it’s a line from That Hideous Strength. Not sure.) I think there may be a missing context here…
From memory, it was in a biography of CS Lewis (I forget which one !) reporting a conversation CSL had with JR Tolkein.
Another (not CSL) quote springs to mind about 'the business of every day being about the terrible choice'.
Sorry about going on about choice and all that , but FF had had triggered (one of my many) 'King Charles' heads!
As St Paul reminds us (or was it Peter, James or Jude?) in one of the epistles, we must always be ready to give reason for our believing.
One thing that comes to mind is that, for you, belief might operate more like a mental model. (And I suppose it might do so for many of us.)
One relevant aspect of mental models is how our mind reacts when an internal mental model of an aspect of external reality fails to accurately anticipate events.
Hmmm .... this happens to me all the time .......!
I cannot imagine belief being anything *other* than a mental model.
Hmmm ... I think it's important to stress though, that my relative disinclination to seek 'proof positive' as it were isn't so much that I spent a fair bit of time in charismatic evangelicalism and that I'm now Orthodox with all the Mystery and so on, but because I tend to think that both religious fundamentalism, in its modern form, and atheism in its modern form, derive from Positivism and the 18th century Enlightenment.
This is just another example of the media both-sidesing Democratic vs Republican political views. I'm 45 years old and the Republican party has been dangerous extremists for my entire lifetime.
When I was a baby, Reagan began the process of transferring an incredible amount of money from the poor to the rich, which continues to this day. When I was a teenager, Newt Gingrich destroyed the idea that government should actually try to do the work of the people. When I was a young adult, Bush and his cronies lied about our intelligence findings to launch illegal wars in the Middle East. Now, in my middle age, a literal fascist dictator has the support of 90 percent of the Republican base and is purging minorities and women from federal employment.
Why would I date someone who approves of all this? (Please don't not-all-Republicans at me. 90 percent is close enough to "all" that it's not a gamble I want to take.)
Why would I have sex with someone whose party has purposely made it more dangerous for me to have sex?
Well, we do have choice to follow what we believe is true, or look the other way when it is convenient.
I do think we can have an intuitive sense of some things--right and wrong, some philosophical/theological matters, etc.--even if our conscious reason cannot perceive them--in our heart or soul or such, so that even if someone can't explain why they need to do what we might call "the right thing," on some level, they may know it. If someone's worldview is officially nihilistic, yet they act better than that, and they can't explain how it's consistent with that, their heart may know goodness even if their conscious reason denies it.
I don't think, given everything else Lewis wrote and said, that in that conversation he was throwing away Reason as a path to faith in Christ.
Well, in the case of God (or for that matter of lots of things even in this world), remembering that it is only a creaturely model of understanding that is pointing at the real, not fully understood God (or anything else), can be helpful.
https://www.thespiritlife.net/facets/81-warfare/warfare-publications/1879-chapter-4-the-screwtape-letters-cs-lewis
I'm not sure how many anti-Trump conservatives have remained in the Republican Party these days. A bunch of them have formally become Independents, and feel politically homeless.
I'm assuming that when you say "This is just another example of the media both-sidesing Democratic vs Republican political views," you're referring to the article, not to my response?
If we don't share the same political views, in this day and age chances are we don't share the same values. If I were young and looking for someone to marry and have children with, I'd need to know that he wanted me and our children to have access to good healthcare (Republicans did their damnedest to overturn Obamacare, and both infant and maternal mortality have gone up since Roe v Wade was overturned), and that he would love our children no matter what (LGBTQ youth are much more likely to be homeless than their peers because their families turn them out). And that's just two big things. How could I live with someone who espouses things that are downright cruel? Political views have very real consequences at home. As the second-wave feminists said, the personal is political.
Frankly, I consider some of the political views at odds with mine to be completely immoral. It can be difficult to hold an extended conversation with people like that. I'd never last all the way through a first date with someone in favor of mass deportation, terrorizing the federal work force, applying the techbro principle "move fast and break things" to government, etc etc. We're well past "we have different views" and into "you're fucking wrong and what your ilk are trying to do to this country is a horror show."
The word Jesus is recorded as using in both Matthew and Luke is agapate, a form of agape, which is also the word used in phrases like “God is love.” Agape is not romantic love or familial love. As Karl Barth put it, Jesus’s call to agape calls on disciples to care about the needs and interests and well-being of another “in utter independence of the question of his attractiveness, of what he has to offer, of the reciprocity of the relationship, or repayment, . . . with no expectation of a return, even at the risk of ingratitude.”
In the sermon this morning, the point was made that we all too often think of love in terms of how we feel. But the love of enemies Jesus is talking about here isn’t at all about how we feel. It’s about what we do, what choices we make about our actions, regardless of how we feel.