[quoted from his book "On Guard"]
A person who has been raised in a culture that is sympathetic to the Christian faith will be open to the gospel in a way that a person brought up in a secular culture will not. For a person who is thoroughly secularized, you may as well tell him to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ! That’s how absurd the message of Christ will seem to him.
To see the influence of a culture on your own thinking, imagine what you would think if a Hindu devotee of the Hare Krishna movement, with his shaved head and saffron robe, approached you at the airport or shopping mall, offering you a flower and inviting you to become a follower of Krishna. Such an invitation would likely strike you as bizarre, freakish, maybe even a bit funny. But think how differently someone in Delhi, India, would react if he were approached by such a person! Having been raised in a Hindu culture, he might take such an invitation very seriously.
41 comments
This is very much a meh, it is after all the truth. Cultural norms do shape our thinking. The connection those norms may or may not hold to reality is largely irrelevant.
As distateful as many of his views are, this is hardly one worth posting.
"For a person who is thoroughly secularized, you may as well tell him to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ!"
I'd say it at least qualifies as a "Fundy says the darndest thing," just for the fact that a fundy has admitted to this.
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"That’s how absurd the message of Christ will seem to him."
"If you get the message, hang up the phone." - Alan Watts
Works equally well for the opiate of the masses.
That said, the OP is a surprisingly lucid understanding of how a delusional bubble works, and where to find the low-hanging fruit when hunting for devotees.
"A person who has been raised in a culture that is sympathetic to the Christian faith will be open to the gospel in a way that a person brought up in a secular culture will not. For a person who is thoroughly secularized, you may as well tell him to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ!"
Of course. When you ask people who have been brought up in an environment of critical thinking and logic, and have seen how well that works, to believe in nonsense it should come as no surprise that they reject the nonsense. That's a good thing, Willie.
I've noticed some people are wondering how this is "darndest". Basically, William Lane Craig, for all his talk of reason, has stated that if shown evidence that the Bible is false, he would still believe it to be true because the Holy Spirit dwells within him. It is a common belief among fundamentalists that belief is created and sustained by the Holy Spirit. In the Lutheran Catechism, the meaning of the Third Article of the Apostle's Creed literally says "I believe that I cannot of my own power believe in Jesus Christ" or something along those lines. Yet, here we have one of these fundamentalists admitting their belief is false, that culture and upbringing, not the Holy Spirit, are largely responsible for creating faith in the Bible. Ah well, thanks to the Holy Spirit dwelling within Craig, he can still believe in that doctrine in spite of the evidence to the contrary!
So cultures are different. Nothing wrong with that.
And I have been approached by the Hare Krishnas in an airport close to DC. I welcomed him and if I recall most others were cordial if not welcoming. Being secular just means you leave your religion to yourself and not force it into laws and the like
Where Craig goes off track is in assuming that atheists, at least most American ones, come from "thoroughly secularized" backgrounds. I was raised Southern Baptist, and most of the atheists I know were brought up in churchy households too. We just had the intellectual and, yes, moral fortitude to see through the bullshit.
The Sweden I grew up in had a state church, we learned about Jesus in Christian classes in school, and sang a hymn at the beginning of each schoolday. The last day of each term was spent in church, singing more hymns. Would you call that "thoroughly secularized", Billy?
I was brought up in a more or less secular culture that was sympathetic to the Christian faith. It's seldom one or the other, dearie, it's mostly both at the same time. Very few Swedes are overtly religious, most don't care one way or the other. We do have our own Bible Belt, though, with people who actually believe in the "absurd message of Christ", to use Billy's own words. The rest of us pity them and their old-fashioned ways...
To the world, William Lane Craig may appear as a mild-mannered, slightly neurotic, often bumbling theist...
...but what no one knows is his secret identity, for William Lane Craig is also [drum roll] Captain Obvious, the superhero with the uncanny ability of stating the most apparent with a tone of authority, that actually sounds impressive to most people with a double digit IQ. The mighty crusader of etc. etc.
"For a person who is thoroughly secularized, you may as well tell him to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ!"
Does this mean you'll quit trying?...
Unlike Hindus, Hare Krishnas are just another cult; not as bad as, say, the Church of $cientology, or that of Brother Stair, but one nonetheless.
And y'know something, Billy-boy? India is the most religious country on the planet (Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Christian, you name it), yet politically, it is more secular than the UK, certainly Parliament, government-wise.
So what's your country's excuse, re. the GOP, Religious Reich, et al? Time to elect to office in the US's Repubican party only Atheists is it not, hmmmmm?! And why do said candidates HAVE to be married? Edward Heath was elected Prime Minister in the UK, as well as being an MP, and he was single .
Which simply illustrates the point that religious affiliation is an accident of birth.
If I remember correctly, Richard Dawkins has been saying that for years.
The irony of this is, I don't think Craig sees this.
imagine what you would think if a Hindu devotee of the Hare Krishna movement, with his shaved head and saffron robe, approached you at the airport or shopping mall, offering you a flower and inviting you to become a follower of Krishna.
I would react the same way as I would to someone trying to give me the message of Christ. In fact, I'd introduce them to each other and let them argue about it while I went to Williams-Sonoma for a new pepper grinder.
This quote just isn't frightening without scare chords and disturbing non-sequitur images.
Reminds me of 18th century arguments against the "no religious test" clause: "Why, if there's no religious test, the president might be a Papist! Or a Quaker!" Nearly two centuries later, we elect Kennedy and Nixon (not that the latter wasn't a mistake, but only because he wasn't much of a Quaker).
@Alencon
This is Craigs phychological based approach to debating Atheists. He'll often go for paragraphs stating several plain truths of the world or some societies, like above. What's missing here is the off-the-cliff conclusions he ends up with that often goes completely against the preamble. Don't know this particular thread of thought but i'm guessing he's heading for an answer to why people aren't so Christian away from it's influence.
His answer will be an unwarranted assertion that ignores the fact Christians are all indoctrinated to believe while insisting all other beliefs are enforced.
This is the guy that throws "Supernatural reality" into some statements like it's an established fact of existance.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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