Bearing False Witness in Evangelizing

[Keith&Co.]

Let's be fair. There was that 6-year-old Pennsylvania boy who died, went to heaven, and came back. I think he actually got Jesus' autograph, too. He was...I can just see the name...Timmy Twaddle? No..but something like that...Cody Balderdash? No. Alex Malarkey!!! The first grader who got to see heaven! A true Christian witness! (Just don't google him.)

See, that counts as false witness.

Actually, it does not. Twaddle? Balderdash? Malarkey? Obviously speaking in jest. Which is how Hustler got off the hook in the Falwell case. Probably is not going to work that way for Sydney Powell....

 

[Rhea]

Not surprised, you often say you are not like the rest of them.

This post is about how the rest of them behave.

You say I do not understand because I am "not like the rest of them".

AS Keith noted, this is not an accurate reflection of the words posted above your reply.
And I will not be engaging with you in a discussion about how orthodox you happen to feel like being today

But you yourself are very much "not like the rest of them", yet you expect us to accurately represent "their" points of view.

I am not representing their point of view, I am observing their actions and their stated words, and noting how they do not comport.
I am well aware that every one of them will have some excuse for why they think it is logical to tell stories about their eternal kingdom and how wonderful it will be, while having never seen it and following a religion that says bearing false witness is a terrible act.

And I will observe that further malalignment when they do that step, too.
And I will marvel at the way the human mind can hold two contraditory feelings simultaneously and call it “divinely inspired.”

Are you sure you are not at risk of bearing false witness?

Since I am talking about things that I have indeed witnessed, that would be a big no, I am not at risk. Although it should be noted that since I don’t carry a book saying that if I claim to have seen something when I haven’t, I will be punished eternally, then I look on this type of activity as far less dire. For me it (bearing false witness) is a pragmatic matter of whether it will interfere with my ability to comunicate well and build relationships, not a matter for my eternal soul.

 

[Politesse]

You say I do not understand because I am "not like the rest of them".

No, she did not. She said YOU say you're not like the redt of them.
Do you do this on purpose?

Do you find it easier to quibble over nonsense like this than to discuss the topic at hand?

 

[Keith&Co.]

You say I do not understand because I am "not like the rest of them".

No, she did not. She said YOU say you're not like the redt of them.
Do you do this on purpose?

Do you find it easier to quibble over nonsense like this than to discuss the topic at hand?

You think putting her on the spot for what she absolutely did not say is nonsense?

 

[Politesse]

Do you find it easier to quibble over nonsense like this than to discuss the topic at hand?

You think putting her on the spot for what she absolutely did not say is nonsense?

Yes. It's not what the thread is about, and it does nothing to shore up her point or rationally critique mine.

And if there's some sort of moral high ground to be had, it's not in Rhea's post, which of course badly misquotes me to begin with. I can't imagine myelf ever saying "I'm not like the rest of them". I'm not fifteen, for one, and I dislike vague "thems" in rational conversation. So if it isn't Rhea's phrasing, it certainly is not mine. Who wrote it then? This phrase that I am supposedly miquoting? From my perspective, it was the "evidence" Rhea invented to discredit my perspective. Not a quotation of something I ever said. Because, I obviously didn't. I don't know who else to put on the spot for what Rhea originates and puts into print, aside from Rhea.

 

[Rhea]

Politesse, your perspective rarely matches what most of Christianity believes or does.

I stand by my position; a person is only bearing false witness if they claim to have been somewhere they haven't, not because you disagree with them about where they might be going later.

Thank you for your input.


Back to the topic at hand, Christians will evangelize about the gift/promise of heaven and what all it includes, and their certainty of it. We had quite a thread here about it, in fact.


And yet, there they are talking all about these eternal life aspects, having never ever seen them. Like bearing witness, but about things they have never witnessed. It’s quite a conflict.

 

[Politesse]

And yet, there they are talking all about these eternal life aspects, having never ever seen them. Like bearing witness, but about things they have never witnessed. It’s quite a conflict.

If they claim to have personally seen them, they're bearing false witness.

 

[Politesse]

Politesse, your perspective rarely matches what most of Christianity believes or does.

(Which is why I never claim to speak for Christianity. The very idea is absurd. No one can speak for all of Christianity, it is not a homogeneous tradition to begin with and never was.)

 

[Rhea]

And yet, there they are talking all about these eternal life aspects, having never ever seen them. Like bearing witness, but about things they have never witnessed. It’s quite a conflict.

If they claim to have personally seen them, they're bearing false witness.

You are trying to use semantic tricks to claim an answer to the OP and make excuses for the behavior of Christians.

They are claiming to KNOW there is a heaven and what is in it. They are “WITNESSING” about heaven. When they have never seen it. This is my last reply on the topic of the semantic gymnastics of whether they claim to have personally seen it or claim to know it exists and that they can tell me about it. It’s a word game and off the topic. YOu can play that game, I do not wish to.


For those who wish to actually engage with the thread, the point is that if they are claiming that they can tell me about heaven, they are bearing false witness. They have no idea, no clue of any kind. They are bearing witness to a thing they have never witnessed. They are claiming to know a thing that they cannot know.

And it struck me as I was thinking about this as they use the language about there being a heaven or any of the other things they claim to know about without ever having witnessed.

 

[abaddon]

If "bearing false witness" means outright lying then, IMV, that's too harsh a criticism.

They have a different idea of how to know things. It's based in a different epistemic method where special revelatory states are considered more reliable than everyday experience. Some folk are accepted as experts in this method, similar to academics and scientists. These experts do it as their profession - they're the ones who study the books, who fast, who pray, who induce those revelatory states that are generally inaccessible to the masses of believers. Some extra-special experts wrote their holy book, which is a revelation of truths that can't be learned from a study of the world with only our unreliable senses.

Is it a method that's trustworthy enough to make big claims about reality? Nope. But is it lies? I think that's too harsh a judgment. They haven't adopted your epistemology. Should they? Yes, they should trust their senses and reason better. But it's not lying to have made the mistake of not doing that.

 

[atrib]

In that case, presuming they are correct in their cosmological views, it isn't false witness since the life you're living right now is your eternal life, and anyone can bear witness to it. I thought the implication Rhea meant was that since no one can observe the afterlife, they can't bear witness to it honestly.

Everyone who bears witness to this life knows it is not eternal. Everyone dies. EVERY. ONE. No one has ever witnessed anything eternal. No one has ever witnessed life before birth and no one has ever witnessed life after death. No one has ever witnessed anything that is not finite.

Come on, don't play word games. You're better than that. You know what they are saying and you know they have never seen it.

How can anyone personally witness what happens after death? I stand by my position; a person is only bearing false witness if they claim to have been somewhere they haven't, not because you disagree with them about where they might be going later.

You are arguing that Christians cannot be guilty of bearing false witness because they lack the ability to parse evidence and reach rational conclusions.

"Your honor; my client is unable to distinguish right from wrong, and should therefore to referred to a mental health facility instead of being tried for triple homicide in a court of law!"

2,000 years ago, our ancestors knew very little about the nature of the universe they inhabited, so it would be fair to give them a pass for believing the superstitious nonsense they were exposed to. It is true that a small cross-section of the Christian population living in the modern world today is likely mentally unbalanced, and people in this group genuinely lack the ability to function as rational, thinking humans. But most Christians living in the modern world appear not to be handicapped by such a disability; they exhibit the ability to think rationally and navigate the universe successfully in many or most aspects of their lives. With the exception of their Christian beliefs. Consciously or otherwise, they choose not to think critically about their faith. And, many, but not all, appear to be aware of at least some of the contradictions inherent to their religious beliefs, but refuse to attempt to resolve such contradictions, or in extreme cases, refuse to even acknowledge the existence of such contradictions. Choosing to remain selectively ignorant about certain aspects of the apparent reality they inhabit, while continuing to loudly assert that their unsubstantiated beliefs are factual, is bearing false witness, no matter how you try to rationalize this behavior.

 

[Politesse]

You are trying to use semantic tricks to claim an answer to the OP and make excuses for the behavior of Christians.

Why would I do that?

For those who wish to actually engage with the thread, the point is that if they are claiming that they can tell me about heaven, they are bearing false witness. They have no idea, no clue of any kind. They are bearing witness to a thing they have never witnessed. They are claiming to know a thing that they cannot know.

So by "engage with the thread", you mean, "agree with you"? You aren't really addressing my point, just re-stating your OP over and over and more vehemently. What sort of discussion are you actually open to, here? I mean, it seems to me that I largely agree with your initial point. But because I don't agree with all of it, you're pouring all this invective in my direction, and refusing to have a real conversation. Is this accomplishing anything at all? If what you want is a circle jerk, I'm willing to leave the thread be, though if so, I don't really see why you bothered to post it in a debate forum. Why not the secular support room, if encountering an agnostic upsets you so much?

 

[Rhea]

If "bearing false witness" means outright lying then, IMV, that's too harsh a criticism.

Good discussion point. Let’s go there.

When I hear them say “false witness,” I think of it as a pretty useful term, actually. Taken literally, it doesn’t need to imply maliciousness, it merely says, “you’re saying you’re a witness to this fact, that you’re an authority to this truth, and that is false.” I kinda like the term in that sense.

You’re saying that when you hear “false witness” you hear an assignment of intent.

So one wonders what the christians today mean by it. I had read a great article by a pastor many years back at the beginning of the internet about how Christians should avoid passing on unvetted e-mails because it risked demonstrating (to the people they were trying to evangelize) that Christians’ witness was unreliable. That people would ask, “if they believe this thing, that is obviously not real, is in fact true, what else that they believe is also not true? The resurrection?” And that this “false witness” damages the true christian witness.

I found that article to be profoundly insightful and good advice. And it stuck with me as a meaning of the words “witness” and “false witness.” So I do not equate “false witness” with lying (which has intent.). I think of it much more literally, that they are bearing witness (trying to lend authority) to something that is not true, whether they know it or not.

They have a different idea of how to know things. It's based in a different epistemic method where special revelatory states are considered more reliable than everyday experience. Some folk are accepted as experts in this method, similar to academics and scientists. These experts do it as their profession - they're the ones who study the books, who fast, who pray, who induce those revelatory states that are generally inaccessible to the masses of believers. Some extra-special experts wrote their holy book, which is a revelation of truths that can't be learned from a study of the world with only our unreliable senses.

And I agree with this. In fact, that’s part of what made that Pastor’s blog so revelatory. That they should be more careful about unthinkingly granting authority to sources they have not vetted.

So, to clarify, I do not use the term “false witness” to imply or impute intent. I am not accusing them of trying to deceive. I am pointing out that they are claiming to be an authority on something that they have absolutely no authority on. And that that is “bearing false witness.”

 

[Rhea]

Consciously or otherwise, they choose not to think critically about their faith. And, many, but not all, appear to be aware of at least some of the contradictions inherent to their religious beliefs, but refuse to attempt to resolve such contradictions, or in extreme cases, refuse to even acknowledge the existence of such contradictions. Choosing to remain selectively ignorant about certain aspects of the apparent reality they inhabit, while continuing to loudly assert that their unsubstantiated beliefs are factual, is bearing false witness, no matter how you try to rationalize this behavior.

You’ve explained better than me why this contradiction sparks a conversation in me. You point out that it is exacerbated by the contrast to areas where they do insist on critical thinking against the areas where not only do they not insist, but they eschew.

Thanks for your thoughts. That’s why I find it interesting to discuss these things, to explore how other people see it and whether that adds insight to why this thing happens, and why Christians are not troubled by it.

 

[Elixir]

Compartmentalization is a skill that a person must begin to practice early, if they are to have any hope of sticking with it for life.

 

[Angry Floof]

Compartmentalization is a skill that a person must begin to practice early, if they are to have any hope of sticking with it for life.

I disagree. Compartmentalization is easy and natural. It's very easy to forget what we did yesterday if it doesn't work to satisfy our justifications of what we're saying today. Applying your current rationale in justifying your view to a different topic where you used a different rationale the day before is a skill that requires some discipline of thought. It requires self reflection and intellectual honesty and an examination of your stated principles, and all of that has to happen before speaking. Do you know very many religious believers or conservatives who do that?

I would agree, though, that compartmentalization is something that can be reinforced and cultivated as a mental habit in lieu of conscious thought.