wingedbeast (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wingedbeast) wrote2016-02-21 12:49 pm
wingedbeast) wrote2016-02-21 12:49 pm
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Tip #51 The Perils of Magical Thinking
In discussing the issue of the Confederate Flag debate in South Carolina that followed the shooting, Mike Huckabee had the following to say...
This is a part of the magical thinking involved in many a pitch given for Christianity. Last tip, I mentioned the movie Fireproof, in which a man's abusive behavior is mended and his marriage saved by his conversion to Christianity. A similar concept of movie, The War Room, has a woman in a marriage with an unfaithful and semi-emotionally-abusive husband that saves her marriage and transforms her husband with prayer.
Sometimes, the pitch is even more expansive than that, that being Christian will solve all of your own behavioral issues and that enough prayer will solve those of everybody else... and even everything else when you get to the level of "Christian Scientists".
The sheer enormity of the claim would be bad enough for believability's sake. But...
We hear stories of children dying because their parents "trusted God". We know about the conversions that solve all the problems... and then do the same for the same person again in a few weeks time when the problems come up again. We see the women who are told, by their pastors, to submit more, pray more, and it just doesn't work.
And, Mike Huckabee would later compare refugees fleeing ISIS to a 10lb bag of peanuts, with possibly 5 poisoned peanuts. This was in his explanation of why the US shouldn't be accepting Syrian refugees. In fact, the above quote was in the context of Huckabee discussing why he didn't voice any opinion regarding the Confederate Battle Flag in South Carolina.
To make this clear, do you think Huckabee would be so hesitant to voice an opinion if the flag in question had been used, historically, as a symbol of terrorism against Southern Baptists? Would the risk be unacceptable or even as inflated were the refugees Southern Baptists?
Racism, behavioral problems, bad marriages, and otherwise treatable health issues are not solved at all.
In this series, I try not to tell you what to or not to believe in your personal faith. In this case, I do see the harm that it does, so I would hope that, even if you keep to your faith, you let go of the magical thinking that says that faith alone will solve your problems.
As far as this impacts your ability to convince others to share your faith, we don't just see this magical thinking failing, we see the harm that it does. At the very least, don't over-promise on what your faith will deliver.
"Actually, Ed, we don't need more conversations (about race), we need more conversions. Because the reconciliations that changes people is not a racial reconciliation. It's a spiritual reconciliation when people are reconciled to God. We saw it in those church members. When I love God and I know that God created other people regardless of their color as much as he made me, I don't have a problem with racism. It's solved!"
This is a part of the magical thinking involved in many a pitch given for Christianity. Last tip, I mentioned the movie Fireproof, in which a man's abusive behavior is mended and his marriage saved by his conversion to Christianity. A similar concept of movie, The War Room, has a woman in a marriage with an unfaithful and semi-emotionally-abusive husband that saves her marriage and transforms her husband with prayer.
Sometimes, the pitch is even more expansive than that, that being Christian will solve all of your own behavioral issues and that enough prayer will solve those of everybody else... and even everything else when you get to the level of "Christian Scientists".
The sheer enormity of the claim would be bad enough for believability's sake. But...
We hear stories of children dying because their parents "trusted God". We know about the conversions that solve all the problems... and then do the same for the same person again in a few weeks time when the problems come up again. We see the women who are told, by their pastors, to submit more, pray more, and it just doesn't work.
And, Mike Huckabee would later compare refugees fleeing ISIS to a 10lb bag of peanuts, with possibly 5 poisoned peanuts. This was in his explanation of why the US shouldn't be accepting Syrian refugees. In fact, the above quote was in the context of Huckabee discussing why he didn't voice any opinion regarding the Confederate Battle Flag in South Carolina.
To make this clear, do you think Huckabee would be so hesitant to voice an opinion if the flag in question had been used, historically, as a symbol of terrorism against Southern Baptists? Would the risk be unacceptable or even as inflated were the refugees Southern Baptists?
Racism, behavioral problems, bad marriages, and otherwise treatable health issues are not solved at all.
In this series, I try not to tell you what to or not to believe in your personal faith. In this case, I do see the harm that it does, so I would hope that, even if you keep to your faith, you let go of the magical thinking that says that faith alone will solve your problems.
As far as this impacts your ability to convince others to share your faith, we don't just see this magical thinking failing, we see the harm that it does. At the very least, don't over-promise on what your faith will deliver.
no subject
I've always liked that story, and the point it makes--don't turn down the help you can get just because it's not the way you imagined faith working.
no subject
Part of me, as an atheist, tends to respond to say that God didn't send them unless he interfered with their free will or unambiguously gave them orders that didn't have to be interpreted.