Request for Criticism of an argument against dogmatism

[PrometheusRumiHuxley]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am requesting criticism for an argument against dogmatism, in the name of the betterment of society. Some explanation of the purpose & perspective of the argument follows it, not necessary to read. Murder weaknesses apart ruthlessly, but please:

No ad hominems
Use language effectively

Examples of criticism types I'm looking for:

Versions of this argument already in existence, anywhere in history
Links to the argument in usage
More thoughtful language
More effective language
Better phrasings, e.g. less scholarly, more folksy sounding sentences
Other/Better required attributes

The argument:

If we have the clear and direct, unambiguous, Word of God accessible to us, it must possess certain attributes.

1) Every person who reads it must thereby agree to the meaning; of every passage and in its entirety.
This is the Ultimate Truth, the Ultimate Word of the Lord. It must have the power to immediately express its Truth to all who read it. If it does not do this, it is thereby not the direct Word of the Lord, however inspired the text may be.

2) It must be impossible to be used in the name of evil.
The ultimate, direct Truth of the Lord could never be used in an unjust manner. Any text which has ever been misused to control others, to hurt an innocent life, to satisfy greed, anger, or jealousy, is thereby not the direct Word of the Lord, however inspired the writing may be.

3) Any person who reads it must thereby have a clear, and never wavering, realization of Divinity, of the Lord's Word, of who and what they are.
The smallest lack of confidence, uncertainty, the shortest possible moment of not knowing absolutely and without any ambiguity the precise divine meaning of the Word, shows thereby the book cannot be the direct word of the Lord, however inspired the book may be.

4) It must, in every moment, never be the slightest bit ambiguous.
Every person who reads it must immediately be in agreement with the meaning. This is not a work of man we are talking about, with semantics and culture confusing the meaning. This is the ultimate Word of the Lord. Culture cannot overpower the Word of the Lord. If the word of the lord is not stronger than greed, lust for power, anger, jealousy, selfishness, culture, fatigue, hunger, ignorance, evil - it cannot be the ultimate, unambiguous, direct, Word of the Lord. There cannot exist a force more powerful than the Direct Word of the Lord. If there is any earthly force able to distort, obscure, shadow, or confuse the word of the lord, it thereby cannot be the direct Word of The Lord. If there is ever a moment of lack of clarity, or ambiguity in the text, it is thereby impossible to use the text as a concrete, literal source for morality or social structure.

Basic Intro to Argument:

Perhaps there is a God.

Can we know him? Do we have his direct words?

Some will claim that we do. Christians for example, believe they are able to know God's Will, or at least God's Word, through the bible.

If God decided to give to us his Divine Word, there are attributes this Word would have to possess.

I'm going to argue that, because there is no source of text which possesses these absolutely required attributes, here on earth we do not have the direct Word of God written into a book.

Perhaps there is a God. Perhaps there are one or many texts inspired by God. I am not arguing against this. Perhaps Morality comes from God, and perhaps reading a religious text can help people come closer to realizing the source of great moral or spiritual truths, which perhaps is God. I am not arguing against this.

Purpose:
1) Social retention of religious scripture will not be harmful if the texts are looked at as an "attempt to express divinity, not to be taken literally".
2) This argument does not attack the value that many people place on the texts, strengthening it's ethos for the intended audience
3) I've known some atheist "social darwinists" and nihilists, and although I am certainly an atheist myself and do not believe atheism leads to a loss of value on life, I'd rather be in a society where people still use religious texts, viewing them as an "attempt to express divinity, not to be taken literally", then a society without value on life. I consider this to be a fine, possibly even necessary phase. When my God died, I did require some time to fill the void of space God had taken up. Let God die slowly, a quick murder perhaps really would do more damage to society than good.
4) The argument has some question begging, or circular reasoning regarding ambiguity. This is intentional. People who believe in the bible think they believe in it unambiguously, but don't actually hold it to this standard. For instance, I think many would accept the statement "the bible is the unambiguous Word of the Lord Our God," perhaps with a different word, but would not realize that as soon as two people read part of differently, or one person develops a "new understanding" of a passage, this means the bible is ambiguous, which renders it useless as an absolute concrete tool of social law.

If you wish to argue against my purpose points, or help refine them, please start, or ask me to start a different thread about it.

[DeterminedJuliet]

I have thoughts, but it is right before my bed time, so my brain is a little too fuzzy to express them adequately. But I'll give it a shot.

My first thought is: In a rational world, why are religious scriptures really useful at all? Surely there have to be some better written guides for a "universal" morality (if that's what you're going for) than most religious texts - or at least the Bible, which is what I'm the most familiar with. It's a slippery slope when it comes to using the Bible as just a general "guide" because the book itself demands so much adherence from the person reading it - so most people either become more fanatical and literal in their interpretation (which leads to all kinds of zany behaviour and beliefs, because so much of the Bible is either completely absurd or contradictory) or they realize that the book itself isn't as useful as they once thought and they "slip away" from using it as a guide at all.

I was a Christian myself, pretty religious at some points of my life, and I fell into the latter. I do agree that viewing the bible "in spirit" rather than literally is a good step, but once you are completely non-religious, it really isn't useful at all, I'd think.

I think you've presented some good arguments here, though.  

[PrometheusRumiHuxley]

Thank you

[Whitney]

welcome to HAF.

Since the getting to know you area is not for debate I moved the topic to religion.

[fester30]

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am requesting criticism for an argument against dogmatism, in the name of the betterment of society. Some explanation of the purpose & perspective of the argument follows it, not necessary to read. Murder weaknesses apart ruthlessly, but please:

No ad hominems
Use language effectively

Examples of criticism types I'm looking for:

Versions of this argument already in existence, anywhere in history
Links to the argument in usage
More thoughtful language
More effective language
Better phrasings, e.g. less scholarly, more folksy sounding sentences
Other/Better required attributes

I don't know about the exact criticism you're looking for, but I can give you what would be a typical Christian response based on my wide experience as a member in many different denominations.

The argument:

If we have the clear and direct, unambiguous, Word of God accessible to us, it must possess certain attributes.

1) Every person who reads it must thereby agree to the meaning; of every passage and in its entirety.
This is the Ultimate Truth, the Ultimate Word of the Lord. It must have the power to immediately express its Truth to all who read it. If it does not do this, it is thereby not the direct Word of the Lord, however inspired the text may be.

God gives us free will.  If he designed his Bible the way you describe, we would have no choice but to believe in him upon reading it, therefore erasing free will.  God wants to know we're following him because we love him, not because his power gave us no other choice.  This is pretty much the same argument you'd probably get from all of my churches (except for that one church where they'd instantly call you a messenger of Satan).

2) It must be impossible to be used in the name of evil.
The ultimate, direct Truth of the Lord could never be used in an unjust manner. Any text which has ever been misused to control others, to hurt an innocent life, to satisfy greed, anger, or jealousy, is thereby not the direct Word of the Lord, however inspired the writing may be.

More modern, liberal protestants may tell you the Bible is just a text that is filled with his Word.  His word is what fills us and causes us to do good if we truly love him, not just some pages with some writing on them in a binding.  The book itself could be used by humans in the same way as any other collection of words and pages, as it doesn't mean anything to a person unless they are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Southern Baptists might argue that there is a great battle between God and the Devil, and that humans are capable of any evil without God.  Satan often works in false prophets to lead people astray.  The preacher would be pounding his podium and raising his voice to warnings of hellfire and brimstone for immorality while he gave this sermon.  Southern Baptists love to be yelled at about the wages of sin.

Missouri synod Lutheran would say that everything that happens is God's will, and it is not for us to question his will.  Bad things are allowed to happen to test our faith.  Assemblies of God would say something similar, only adding that there is this great plan, and it all goes according to that plan (except, of course, that you have free will, don't try to argue the whole predestination thing, that argument goes in circles with them).

3) Any person who reads it must thereby have a clear, and never wavering, realization of Divinity, of the Lord's Word, of who and what they are.
The smallest lack of confidence, uncertainty, the shortest possible moment of not knowing absolutely and without any ambiguity the precise divine meaning of the Word, shows thereby the book cannot be the direct word of the Lord, however inspired the book may be.

See number 1.

4) It must, in every moment, never be the slightest bit ambiguous.
Every person who reads it must immediately be in agreement with the meaning. This is not a work of man we are talking about, with semantics and culture confusing the meaning. This is the ultimate Word of the Lord. Culture cannot overpower the Word of the Lord. If the word of the lord is not stronger than greed, lust for power, anger, jealousy, selfishness, culture, fatigue, hunger, ignorance, evil - it cannot be the ultimate, unambiguous, direct, Word of the Lord. There cannot exist a force more powerful than the Direct Word of the Lord. If there is any earthly force able to distort, obscure, shadow, or confuse the word of the lord, it thereby cannot be the direct Word of The Lord. If there is ever a moment of lack of clarity, or ambiguity in the text, it is thereby impossible to use the text as a concrete, literal source for morality or social structure.

Various fundamentalist churches, such as Pentacostal, Assemblies of God, and Southern Baptists would argue the Bible (they like to say the KING JAMES BIBLE! in a loud voice) does not have inconsistencies, is not ambiguous, and is the complete truth.  Every inconsistency you can bring up, they can perform some pretty impressive Biblical gymnastics to link various Bible verses together (whether a rational person would agree they should be linked or not) to prove that there is no ambiguity, inconsistency, contradictions, or redundancy (I threw that last word in there to make fun of myself).  Science is wrong.

Some more reformed denominations such as Catholicism, Lutherans (Missouri synod and modern), and some northern Methodists believe that the Bible is not to be taken word-for-word, but interpreted.  For example, to explain creation happening in six days, there is a Bible passage that points to the timelessness of heaven, where a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day.  So creation and evolution may have taken 6 days in heaven time, but billions of years the way we measure time.  After all, the Pope did say it's okay to believe in evolution so long as you acknowledge that's how God did it.

[AnimatedDirt]

I'm not sure why the argument is even being made.

Fester30 has most of the main points but furthermore as Jesus Christ, the one who claims to be God in flesh, Himself says, in speaking about the "Bible" scholars of the day;

"I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me. 37 And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, 38 nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. 39 You diligently study* the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

-My emphasis

You diligently study. The Jewish leaders studied Scripture in minute detail. Despite their reverence for the very letter of Scripture (see notes on Mt 5:18-21), they did not recognize the one to whom Scripture bears supreme testimony.

It is clear by this that the text of "God's Word" is not sufficient to gain understanding.  Many of the Atheists here on HAF are quite knowledgeable on scripture and still hold to their disbelief.

These Atheists are evidence against this argument.

The text itself is evidence against the argument.

Why make the argument at all?  It's not a stance "God" or believers of this text even uphold.

[xSilverPhinx]

After all, the Pope did say it's okay to believe in evolution so long as you acknowledge that's how God did it.

I thought that the main reason the pope accepts (theistic) evolution over creation in its present complexity is because they would have a more difficult time explaining why an all-knowing and all-powerful god didn't do better on designing living things. It's a smart move on their part, actually.

Not to mention things like Galileo's trial left quite a blemish on the record of an institution that claims to know truths. More of those would be bad for business...