Fri 27 Nov, 2009
“An Invisible Magical Friend Who Grants Wishes”
9:59 am Comments (20) Filed under: New AtheismTags: Luke Muehlhauser
My debate with Luke Muehlhauser at Discussion Grounds has taken a detour to the question of whether Christianity is the belief in an “invisible magical friend who grants wishes.” Luke affirmed that in comments here, here, here, here, here, and here. I responded in my Letter 15 yesterday, and we have each added another letter since. I don’t know if we’ll be able to come to agreement even on this basic point, but if that’s the position he thinks we’re debating over, then we haven’t even agreed on the topic of the conversation.
Here in this post I want to pull out of the essentially defensive posture I’ve been in there, responding to and explaining the distortions of that depiction. Luke says it is possible to make a kind of case for each term in that description being true, and in a sense he’s not entirely wrong in that, but only in a stunted sense that badly misses the majesty of God and the glory of being in relationship with him. It fails to see God’s sovereign greatness, as told for example in Isaiah 40:10-41, including,
10 Behold, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
behold, his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.12 Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand
and marked off the heavens with a span,
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure
and weighed the mountains in scales
and the hills in a balance?13 Who has measured [7] the Spirit of the Lord,
or what man shows him his counsel?14 Whom did he consult,
and who made him understand?
Who taught him the path of justice,
and taught him knowledge,
and showed him the way of understanding?15 Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket,
and are accounted as the dust on the scales;
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust.
Is this a wish-granting invisible magical friend? No, this is the almighty Creator, yet the one who gently loves his people. It’s almost paradoxical, isn’t it? And that in itself gets to the heart of what’s wrong with Luke’s formulation of what Christians believe. It’s too simple, too one-dimensional, too lacking in multi-faceted interest and reality. There are religions that do believe in wish-granting invisible spirits, but I’m not aware of any for which the term “friend” would be included as it is for Christians’ view of God (in a decidedly non-equal sense). And those wish-granting spirit religions do not have the centuries of intense theological and philosophical exploration that Christianity has behind it.
Atheists and skeptics must recognize this at least.
- Christianity has been thought through at enormous length and depth, from every possible position of agreement, disagreement, and partial agreement. It has been tested from within and without.
- No completely thoughtless or trivial worldview could stand up to centuries of that kind of testing and remain viable to large numbers of people, especially large numbers of very thoughtful people.
- Christianity remains viable to large numbers of people, especially large numbers of very thoughtful people (evidenced here, for example).
- Christianity is not accurately regarded as a thoughtless or trivial worldview.
- To trivialize Christianity is therefore to distort it.
Psalm 42:1-6 shows paradox again:
1 As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
“Where is your God?”4 These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.5 Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation 6 and my God.
Where is “wish-granting” here? Where is magic? It’s not to be found. Instead there is a man seeking fellowship with God, while God seems distant and is in a certain sense invisible. In the entire context and scope of psalms like this, though (which I do not have space to treat here), there is growth, the development of a mature person who relates to God and to the world in a mature sense, not in a fairy-tale fashion. Life is often hard, and God is not always visible, but God is always there.
I recall my experiences with disease (when I was about Luke’s age I spent 69 days in the hospital one summer), earthquakes, hurricanes (especially Isabel), intense conflicts with bosses, intense conflicts with other powerful people, the death of family members, and other times of pain and loss. God was not always “visible” in each moment, but in retrospect he was clearly there, guarding my life and my heart, and building my character and my faith in him. “Wishes” were not often granted, though prayers were often answered: especially the prayer that I would draw close to God and experience his life and love; and that he would guide my future direction through the experience.
Is Christianity a believe in an invisible magical friend who grants wishes? No, it is far better, far more difficult, far richer, far more painful, far more loving, far more mysterious and wondering, than that simple formulation begins to touch upon.
[...] explaining why I think it’s a false depiction. I’ve presented a look at the positive reality of Christian belief in a blog post at Thinking Christian today. It’s not necessarily part of what we’re [...]
Tom,
Maybe I’m just not hearing you right, but the above post sounds to me like:
“Well, it’s true that according to Christianity, Jesus is my invisible, magical, wish-granting friend, but that’s not ALL he is.”
And I have already affirmed that there is a lot more to Christianity than that, many times. All I wanted to point out was Jesus IS an invisible, magical, wish-granting friend, among many other things.
You can also say Jesus is the Almighty Creator, and that’s fine, but it leaves out the true part about him also being an invisible, magical, wish-granting friend.
I never said that’s ALL Christianity is. I’ve repeatedly affirmed that Christianity is a lot more, that Christianity seems to be the only religion bothering to make an intellectual defense of itself, and so on.
See my recent postscript to Letter 16 at DG.
Tom, this looks like a waste of time. When anyone introduces terms like “magical” and “wish granting friend” he is sending a clear signal that his subjective argument from incredulity is to be the baseline for a discussion. I could just as easily turn around (and I have done so in other forums) and point out in mocking terms the logical absurdity of a causal chain advanced by them.
There are two categories of critics. There are the Bradley Montons and the Thomas Nagles who seek to seriously grapple with issues that have been addressed by some of the best minds in western civilzation without resolution. There are also the mockers and scoffers of this age who rely on internet proliferated cliche arguments. There is an adage to consider. “Don’t throw your pearls to swine.”
Hi Tom,
I actually addressed this same thing about a month ago while debating a different group of atheists here. This is a common argument from incredulity from the online antitheist crowd and reduces into them not really wanting to deal with studying what Christians actually believe about God. Pure and simple, it’s laziness.
Brennon
Mr. Muehlhauser, when he speaks of a magical, invisible friend who grants wishes, doesn’t so much speak falsehood as he signals that he wishes to belittle the object of his criticism. Such language has no place in serious debate. It shows a lack of respect for one’s interlocutor.
I can think of nothing else to say about the topic. It bears little real interest.
You may notice that Luke is simpy throwing out assertions and not really presenting any arguments or supporting his assertions except to insist that this is his understanding of standard Christian doctrine. He’s obviously trying to provoke and bait.
In other words he’s being a troll! I’ve got to say that I’m impressed with how elaborate he’s been. Plus, the way he went competely postal in his letter 10 was just plain odd in a Dahmer kind of way. Tim, I don’t believe you are dealing with a rational person.
I agree with many of the previous posters re: Luke’s posture and methodology.
I have chosen not to follow that discussion any longer due to Luke’s frequent equivocation, which is most readily apparent in the “reader’s comments.”
That is like saying Luke’s mother gave birth to a thoughtless jerk because Luke IS a thoughtless jerk, among many other things.
Hi Tom,
A number of folks dealt with the “magic” issue pretty well in this comment thread at Luke’s place – although it may be locked out now. I dealt with some of the issues here
Luke used this definition of magic:
The simple truth is that Luke’s own definition of magic does not fit Christianity. We do not practice an art that purports to control or forecast natural events. Jesus also did not purport to practice an art that invoked the supernatural to control or predict events in nature. Jesus wields power – He doesn’t invoke it. Also, he does not use charms, potions, rituals, etc. in order to accomplish His work.
Finally, one of the first acts of nascent Christianity was to ban magic, and burn magic books – we distanced ourselves from any real definition of magic.
As we pointed out there, this is something that paganism claims – that nature can be predicted or controlled supernaturally; and that they invoke the supernatural to do so. So the word “magical” is gone by Luke’s own definition.
The rest – a friend that grants wishes – well, who would want to deny it.
I realize that making generalizations is dangerous, and I hesitate to do it here. Please understand it’s at least a qualified generalization.
I don’t understand why some skeptics, who claim to be bound by the laws of reason and logic insist on repeatedly employing logical fallacies in their critiques of Christianity.
The criticism that Luke has levied here (and yes, I’ve been reading at DG) is a quintessential straw man. From wiki:
1. Topic A is under discussion.
2. Topic B is introduced under guise of being equivalent to topic A.
Topic B is usually a distorted version of A. It can be set up in several ways, including:
1. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person’s arguments – thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[3]
2. Misrepresenting the opponent’s position and refuting the misrepresentation, giving the appearance that it was the opponent’s position which has been refuted.[3]
3. Quoting an opponent’s words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent’s actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[4]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent’s argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. A participant (usually the one who introduced B) attacks B, as if it were A.
This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
Luke, you’re such a smart guy, and it’s so obvious based on your letters and blog — but why, why, why do you insist on killing the conversation with such an obvious logical fallicy?
One major problem with regarding Christianity as a “wish-fulfillment” mechanism is that this God we worship doesn’t do what WE want. He does what He wants: always what is good for us, and often far beyond our petty desires.
God is much more like the parent of a 2-year-old (us) and nothing like a vending machine. In my experience, if you treat him like the latter, he makes a point of showing you how wrong you are! He is a person (and much more!) and wants to be regarded as such–we need to learn this truth for our own good.
LG
BTW everyone, I changed my mind about Jesus being a magical wish-granter. See here.
I’m not surprised that Luke persists in trying to engage in the debate after it has ended, though I do find it sad.
Justaguy,
I respectfully disagree. It takes class to do what Luke did. I hope Tom considers renewing the debate in light of Luke’s postings. They had made good progress.
Thomas,
Thank you for your response. Perhaps we differ on perspective.
It appears that Luke has had a semantic revelation re: the word “magical,” but his confession of this reversal doesn’t reframe the nature of the entire post (“Invisible, Magical, Wish-Granting Friend”) and his subsequent rationalizations/defenses of it. Ditto for posts such as “[Christianity] is truly less plausible to me than belief in werewolves..[which is] an insult to werewolf-belief,” and references to “party tricks.”
Therefore, this one detail does not provide sufficient justification to me to re-open a public discussion when one considers the totality of the events – including Luke’s most recent posts misrepresenting Tom’s reasons that he “quit.”
Even if one decides that Luke is guilty of no equivocation or misuse of rhetorical devices, then one might be led to conclude that he may have difficulty processing the totality of meaning – that he may get stuck on singular concretes while missing the gestalt. It could also indicate a lack of genuine desire to truly understand the other’s position before moving forward.
For me, any one of these conclusions is sufficient to decide not to engage in a public discussion with him of this sort.
Personally, I was hoping for something more than the game of debate, and I believe others were as well.
I’d have to side with justaguy here. The sad fact is, some people just aren’t worth debating – and I feel particularly bad for Tom, because really, the guy goes out of his way to be civil and respectful. So watching him endure what really was a petty and shallow display of Stupid Debate Tricks. And, as said.. if these weren’t Stupid Debate Tricks but honest misunderstandings, then it still doesn’t bode well. Someone who can honestly misunderstand so much makes for a shoddy discussion partner.
There’s likely better people out there who Tom can discuss things with.
Whilst I appreciate Luke’s backtracking on the issue it also calls into question his claim that he is well-versed on Christian theology. Having suggested that he can speak with authority on various Christian theologies, and insisting with a somewhat self-righteous indignation that his concept of Christianity is not sunday school level, he still failed to understand (despite his supposed extensive research) why his characterizations were misleading and unrepresentative.
“Christianity has been thought through at enormous length and depth, from every possible position of agreement, disagreement, and partial agreement. It has been tested from within and without.
No completely thoughtless or trivial worldview could stand up to centuries of that kind of testing and remain viable to large numbers of people, especially large numbers of very thoughtful people.”
Can someone explain (i) how Christianity has been tested and (2) what testing from within and without means?
Silver Bullet,
I don’t mean this to sound as trite as it is bound to sound given the medium through which I will make this comment. Know that I don’t say it with any hostility, though.
Take a course or two in church history. Study the writings of the earliest Christian theologians, apologists, and philosophers. Then study those same people in each major era of church history, up to and including the present. You absolutely will find an answer to your own question if you do.