Re: Merely words (was Re: Agenda for Jigme's next return)

Evelyn wrote:

On Dec 31, 9:28 am, Hollywood Lee <hollywood...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Evelyn wrote:
Hi Keynes,
Welcome back, and happy New Year! No matter how crazy it gets here on
the newsgroups it is seldom THAT crazy! I think it was rather
amazingly rude of your relatives to try and push their beliefs onto
you, but I am sure you handled it well.
Today my fundamentalist Christian brother is coming to visit, with his
equally fundamentalist lady friend. They too, are very nice people,
and honestly I like them very much. We scrupulously avoid getting
into any kind of philosophical conflicts with one another because I do
dearly love my brother. He knows where I am coming from, and only a
very little of what I believe. He has been to KTD with me, and he was
respectful, but was inwardly and silently disapproving, I knew. He
knows better than to try to lay any trips on me, because he knows that
I am of a different mindset. We respect one anothers differences and
leave it at that.
In case you are interested I have a huge list of biblical errors and
other quotes, which in years past I emailed all over the place for
people who asked. It is quite useful in these kinds of situations.
It is my observation that when these fundies want to discuss with you,
their ONLY reference material is the bible, which is a very flawed
collection of documents. Few of them have ever taken the time to
actually cast a critical eye upon it, or to dare to analyze it with a
clear mind. They imagine it might even be sinful to do so. After
all, their imaginary god might get mad at them for doing so. So it is
completely unnerving if someone who has actually done this, points out
the anomalies in the whole scenario, because after all it isn't a
"whole" scenario, it is a carefully hand picked collection of
documents, some of which still present differing views in spite of the
attempts of its first editors, to find books that "matched".If you think pointing out Biblical contradictions will convince them to
drop their beliefs, then you just haven't met the web-savvy apologist.
Those trained in Biblical inerrancy will run circles around most
non-believers using arguments found on many Christian apologetic sites.
See, for example,http://www.carm.org/bible_difficulties.htm

But don't think these interpretive strategies are unique to
fundamentalist Christians. It has been my experience that any belief
system based on a set of scriptures develops a hermeneutic or
interpretive strategy that accommodates the written word to the belief
structure. I personally have my own interpretive strategy that
dispenses with many of the literal interpretations of the early Buddhist
canon.



I don't think it would dissuade them from their beliefs, for the very
reason we both discussed a couple of days ago, because faith seems to
come from some sort of an emotional part of ones consciousness, much
like love. But I think that if you can provide them with some
knowledge, even if they develop interpretive strategies as you say, it
leaves them with something to think about, and I guarantee you that
they WILL think about it. Sometime when a moment of clarity strikes,
there is a seed of knowledge there that can take root later. I think
about my own conversion, which really took place over many years. I
was every bit as big a "believer" as any of them are, and even for
years afterwards I still carried much of that same psychological belief
mechanism, or interpretive strategy along with me into buddhism. Only
after many years did I come to understanding a little more about what
was taking place. It was a process that took many years.

Like the zennies are often inclined to say "a journey of a thousand
miles begins with a single step" So I don't think that a bit of truth
dropped here and there will change anyones mind overnight, but it can
definitely be a seed for later realizations.

It is always possible, I guess. It would be interesting to do a survey of "conversion" experiences and find out what was the catalyst for someone reorienting their belief system. After all, even the Buddha had to almost kill himself before dropping all the nonsense.
.