Okay, so, I was going to use this as the premise for my book, but I'm not really super happy with what I wrote so far. The fact is, writing for a book is actually a lot more stressful than just writing on here, and I get major performance anxiety as my more perfectionist nature kicks in. However, I do think it would be good if I more succinctly discussed the issues I wanted to address in it here, since I can make these posts free and available to all.
So, the Christian worldview, in the beginning, well, like in 2005, I read the book Understanding the Times. It was a textbook we read for a Bible class intended to indoctrinate us into an extreme fundamentalist version of the Christian faith. I already did several posts on this, including this one, but here, I want to discuss more succinctly the Biblical worldview and what went so wrong with it.
Essentially, Noebel discussed six worldviews, while he advocated for the Christian one. He also discussed ten topics related to each worldview: theology, philosophy, biology, ethics, psychology, sociology, law, politics, economics, and history.
To briefly outline the Christian worldview here:
Theology- To quote the book directly, the "Christian theology is Christ-centered" (p. 49). Everything goes back to God and the Bible. God communicates with us in two ways, through natural revelation (facts about the world around us, mostly related to arguments from design), and special revelation in the form of the Bible. Christians believe the Bible is divinely inspired by God, and that all of it is useful in that sense. As my Bible teacher would say back at the time, if you can't believe in all of it, why can't you believe in any of it? Which we will get to later.
Philosophy- While Noebel tries to reconcile science with the Biblical worldview, claiming that science is the study of God's creation, in my experience, when the Bible conflicts with reality, these people will choose the bible over reality. So there is a lot of denialism of particular scientific claims which we will discuss as the worldview unfolds from here, but at least from their own perspective, there is no conflict we just can't know everything from science. Noebel also makes arguments from design, essentially arguing that it takes more faith to be an atheist than to be a Christian (cringe), and argues the mind body problem in order to make a case for dualism.
Ethics- Christians believe that ethics are absolute, come from God, and are essentially codified. Once again, Noebel takes pot shots at atheists going on about how without an absolute moral standard from God, all ethics are subjective and that people might want to rape and murder each other. On the other hand, Christian ethics lead to loving one's neighbor. However, because no one ever consistently practices biblical ethics and all fall to sin, we must turn to Jesus in order to be absolved of sin, and to try not to sin any more.
Biology- Fundamentalist Christians reject the idea of an old earth and evolution because it conflicts with the Bible. If the Adam and Eve story isn't real, it weakens the narrative that we need saving from Jesus. So just...deny all of that stuff because the Bible is more trustworthy I guess. However, while Christians reject "macro evolution" (changing of species), they accept "micro evolution" (bacteria mutating), seemingly not understanding that they're the same thing. And finally, Noebel once again argues from design, claiming that intelligent design makes more sense than evolution anyway. I also remember, when I took this class, they also claimed that most evidence for evolution was faulty and/or a hoax. In retrospect, it was cringe.
Psychology- Rereading this one was fairly disturbing. They generally tend to reject the idea of mental illness outside of the most egregious examples of literal brain damage, and see most mental illness as a spiritual problem that needs to be solved by more Jesus. Human nature is evil and sinful after all, and people need to confess their sins and be forgiven through Christ in order to be healed of their afflictions. They also go full on mask off and say they don't want to alleviate suffering, but that salvation gives us meaning in our suffering. I mean, I'm sorry, but WHAT?! Anyway, we'll come back to this later but as you can tell this section practically gave me an aneurysm.
Sociology- Social problems don't real because it takes away from the concept of free will, which takes away from our responsibility for our sins. However, at the same time they double back and admit that society and individuals are both important and accountable to God. As for how Christians structure society, they do so around four institutions that they see as Biblically proscribed: family (ie, marriage), the church, the state, and labor/work. Noebel also bemoans how the institution of marriage is under attack by the secularists in this chapter. *sigh*
Law- They see God as the ultimate lawgiver. To expand on the previous sections, they do not like the idea of humans making laws, and see human laws as flawed and subject to change over time (the horror). After all, human beings are sinful. They believe in two forms of laws: natural law, which are laws we can discover from nature that come from God, and divine law, which is more a form of special revelation such as found in the Bible. They believe in the idea of rights, but that rights come from God. From there, Noebel tries to argue that our country was founded on Christian principles, using a lot of the normal revisionist talking points Christian nationalists love to throw around. Still, despite this, they try to argue that Christians shouldn't try to legislate morality and seems to argue for small government, much like conservatives do. If only they heeded their own advice...
Politics- Here is where things really morph into conservative politics. They seem to argue for small government, arguing that government should only exist to maintain order and protect people and not to overextend its mandate. They do not trust sinful humans to to make laws beyond what is necessary, and regularly warn people of the folly of falling into utopian thinking, believing it will always end in failure. Rather, Christians should support limited government, and are supportive of concepts like separation of powers and and checks and balances. Christians should be encouraged to participate in government to hold it accountable, and that people are to obey the law unless it conflicts with God's law.
Economics- Because of their fear of government, distrust of humanity, and belief that utopianism will end in failure, fundamentalist Christians oppose socialism and the state control it gives over the economy, instead opting for free market capitalism and the belief that it gives people freedom. They believe in the right to property, and because property exists in the Bible, so it shall exist in our world. They also have a work fetish, believing strongly in work ethic and believing that those who do not work shall not eat, because without this principle, no one would work. They support trickle down economics believing that wealth given to the rich can create more opportunity for the poor, and they argue for equality of opportunity rather than redistribution of wealth. Noebel also seems to blame the poor for their own condition at times.
History- The Biblical worldview begins with Christ, and ends with Christ. Noebel spends most of this chapter arguing that the Bible is a reliable historical document, that Jesus was a real person, and that he did indeed rise from the dead and was who he said he was. All of this shows a clear pattern of creation, fall from grace, redemption through Christ, thus reinforcing the Christian narrative.
This may be somewhat of an oversimplification that misses some nuance, but you get the idea. This is the executive summary of the Christian worldview in as succinct of a form as I can reasonably present it. It may disturb some of you that I was taught this in high school. Even worse, I embraced it passionately, much like Gabi embracing Marleyan propaganda in AoT, for anyone who gets that reference.
And honestly? I think it's still relevant today. After all, the religious right was, and still is, a major faction in the republican party in the US, and this kind of extremist thinking is arguably why so many of the people on that side of the aisle are not even living in reality. Because they're not. They embraced a worldview full of skepticism toward mainstream narratives, have a major persecution complex regarding the other side being against them, and they are often a bunch of radicals with crazy beliefs who want to impose these beliefs on the rest of society. And if their beliefs are true, that's one thing, but the problem is, they're not. And that's ultimately what unraveled the worldview for me. The linchpin of their entire worldview is the the unwavering belief in God and acceptance of the entire Bible, and because of that, they will literally deny reality when convenient. These people are not necessarily stupid, they're often very intelligent, but they're also very brainwashed, if that makes any sense.
But, the brainwashing didn't work on me. Why? Well, to summarize my reasons for breaking from this worldview:
1) I took a couple classes on the Bible in my first year in college. It broke my illusion of Biblical literalism and cast doubt on the book as a reliable testimony from God. We learned that rather than a coherent book to be accepted from Genesis to revelation uncritically and that it never ever contradicts itself, it's more a collection of works compiled over a thousand years by many different authors, many of which have conflicting worldviews, and there is a lot of shift in theology and retconning that goes on if you take the Bible as a single book rather than as a collection of works. if anything, taking the book as a single coherent work that never contradicts itself does a disservice and ignores a lot of rich history. Even worse, I learned fundamentalists grossly take a lot of parts of it out of context. Seeing how the Bible actually fits together, most Christians don't understand its nuances very well and have very flawed theology.
Of course, actually learning this shattered Biblical literalism for me and made it a completely untenable position to hold. There were actually two creation stories (yeah, a lot of the Bible is just a bunch of sources mashed together), and if you actually draw what they were describing, you would get something absurd like this. I mean, it looks like a freaking snow globe. But this is what we're supposed to believe over the best scientists in the world and their views on things. I'm sorry, but after learning about the Bible, this seemed small.
Of course, you don't just turn off from being a Christian overnight. You try to reconcile your views with reality. If you're reading this and are Christian but not a literalist, congratulations, you're not brainwashed like I was, but I would still advise you to reconsider your worldview. Often times, we try to compartmentalize different parts of our worldviews and hold tons of inherent contradictions and cognitive dissonance, and while extremist Christianity may have ruined Christianity for me, they did kind of have a point. If you don't believe in all of it, why believe in any of it? I went for years trying to bargain with reality so to speak here, as my worldview became more and more secular. And then a certain situation in my life ended up pushing me over the edge. That's also the reason why I eventually came back to spirituality from a cosmic humanist perspective. I have to believe in something now, but yeah no, it's not Christianity, and my worldview is a lot more consistent.But to discuss more issue with the Christian worldview..
2) Obviously without the need for biblical literalism I quickly reverted back to an old earth view of the world based on science.
3) Learning social science, philosophy, etc., made me question a lot of Christian ideas of social science. Yes, free will is a lot more limited than Christians admit. People aren't as responsible for their conditions as Christianity thinks. Mental illness is real. No, the solution isn't just more Jesus. And holy freaking crap, yes, we should alleviate suffering.
4) As I understood it, Christian ethics were based on love, but watching how Christians treated LGBT+ people disturbed me and came off as the opposite of loving. Seriously, I had a lesbian friend in college who hated Christianity because Christians hated her first. Is there any surprise that people turn on it because Christians act like jerks? Even worse, I couldn't really argue against what they were doing biblically. Because it was in the Bible. And I felt forced to choose between my own conscience and the chapter and verse of the Bible, and I chose my conscience. But this puts me in a weird place with Christianity. Because if I'm picking and choosing, and by this point I am, then how can I accept any of it? Again, fundamentalist Christianity is rigid and has an all or nothing mentality to it, looking down on other christians for being "lukewarm", and this extremism put me in a position where I was ultimately forced to reject Christianity outright.
5) To go on about ethics more, learning about actual ethics made Biblical morality to seem small and outdated. Shouldnt biblical ethics be superior to human ethics? But it seems like the Bible seems quite dated and authoritarian and based on "just trust me bro" over actual substance. I mean, the Bible doesnt actually like people to think about ethics for themselves. If anything that seems to be what the original sin was, daring to decide what is right and wrong for yourself rather than blind obedience.
6) Speaking of blind obedience, taking a psychology course taught me how screwed up blind obedience was. Ya know, after WWII there were a lot of scientific experiments trying to figure out how people were capable of committing the atrocities in the holocaust. And it turned out that blind obedience and deference to authority is a big factor. And many people are susceptible to that kind of thinking. it can happen here. And in the age of Trump and Biblical Christians turning into crazed authoritarian nationalists, this all should scare us. But yeah, the Milgram experiment kind of sums this thinking up. Basically, people were commanded by researchers to subject others to electric shocks of increasing intensity, to the point of intense pain and potentially death, and many people would continue following the researcher's instructions until they reached the danger zone. of course, there were no real shocks, it was all an act to see how far people were willing to go, but it really does give me pause as to being willing to blindly obey people. And then when I thought about the Bible, I thought about stuff like God commanding genocide in Joshua and the idea of eternal hell, and I'm just like, I can't believe this stuff any more.
7) Sociology presented a world in which there are many many different cultures, and maybe Christianity doesn't have the answers. It takes a lot of maturity to realize that you only believe what you believe because of cultural reasons. You were raised to. As one book I read in college once said, "If I were raised a turk, I would be a turk, but because I was raised a Christian, I am a Christian." I mean, do we really think we come to earth and we got it all right simply by being born in the right place? Clearly we need a more objective standard for reality than mere cultural indoctrination.
8) Studying actual law and political science really beat out a lot of the Christian brainwashing there. No, the founders didn't want us to be Christian, they were deists arguing natural rights theory a la locke, not any specific god. They wanted god to be a personal matter for people and wanted separation of church and state. The constitution was intended to preserve religious liberty and isolate the state from religious influences. We had enough religion mixed with politics in Europe, and it was bad. It corrupted religion and led to the persecution of many over mere beliefs. America is a country where we have freedom of thought and conscience instead. And I support that.
9) Learning political science broke the idea of being small government conservative in some ways. I studied policy and realized that many policies are good and government does things, useful things that make our lives better. This is not to say that we should not be distrustful of giving people too much power, but not all exercises of power are bad, and it is possible to make the world better through carefully applied policy.
10) The great recession severely strained my belief in free market capitalism, making me much more of an economic interventionist. As I said, government does things, useful things we are better off with than without. Small government conservatism ultimately leads to a world of extreme inequalities, in which the poor are mere wage slaves to the rich. Liberalism and the regulatory and welfare states actually help make the world better, even if their approach isn't always perfect (and as we know I've greatly developed these views after becoming an atheist in 2012).
All of these things, and more, shot so many holes into the Christian worldview that by the early 2010s, it was swiss cheese. I was dealing with so much cognitive dissonance that I had no choice but to deconvert. Quite frankly, I needed to do it for my own sanity. To maintain my belief in God at that point would have involved a denial of all that I knew was real, and would have represented a major delusional break from reality. I couldn't do it. I was sane, and I tried to make my views conform to reality the best I could.
So yeah, you can say that ultimately, the rigidity of the Christian worldview killed it. It starts from the assumption that God and the Bible are real and to be trusted over the rest of reality, and then it proceeds from there. It is a dangerous worldview that after leaving, I became an intense critic of Christianity and skeptic of religion in general. Because as the saying goes, those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
Some Christians might say, well, their views aren't like that. And I will say, okay, cool. But I will still maintain that their worldviews are likely full of inconsistencies and that they will be dealing with a lot of cognitive dissonance in their perspectives. I cannot maintain a belief in Christianity any more. I just can't. As I said, I became theistic much more recently again, but my faith is a very personal one, and is based more on what Noebel would call "cosmic humanist" principles rather than Christian ones. And those principles are much more compatible with my underlying secular humanist worldview.
I'll be outlining my actual worldview in a separate article. I feel like I should basically write some articles making what essentially amounts to an abridged version of my book idea. But yeah, this is actually a summary of what I came up with so far. I accepted Christianity, and then I didn't, and then I had a fire lit within me to build up an entirely new perspective from there, that I largely built up and maintained on this blog.
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