Semantics

When it comes to discussing philosophical issues, one of the problems is the problem of semantics. Something that all religious must deal with at some point is that atheists fail to realize that sometimes the religious aren’t as stupid as they think, and that we can follow an argument. More to the point, this is despite the atheist’s ad hominem attacks and spurious attacks. These arguments usually fall into three types: faulty logic, not realizing what “living word” means, and why “apologist” is an irritating term.

The term “apologist” has an interesting etymology. Originally, the idea was that you would have a “kategoria” and an “apologia”; the Roman equivalent of our modern-day prosecutor and defender. Over time, because the kategoria was dropped, but somehow the apologia was used so much by the Christians, that anyone defending their faith was called an “apologist”. Over much more time, around the time when The Enlightenment was in full force, the term acquired a negative connotation, as atheists and others decided that the person was defending himself out of some sort of feeblemindedness due to their disdain for the religious. Recognizing that disdain, and that it is essentially an insult, the religious have thus started recognizing the lack of respect inherent to the term. Ergo, it’s essentially a red flag that the atheist is not interested in respecting the religious person.

“Living word” means a number of different things to different people. The problem is that even some religious people have issues with the concept, especially when it involves those that The Bible literally. However, for those of us that study it, the means that we need to look at The Bible from two perspectives: historical and modern-day. We need to put a foot down into two very different eras; we need to find out the historical background of The Bible in order to better understand the relevant metaphors, but at the same time we need to keep in mind that The Bible needs to be considered in a modern light. The Bible in a lot of ways needs to be considered in light of the modern world, and the more we understand about the past the more we understand about The Bible.The problem is that difference between "ancient metaphor" versus "modern meaning" is rarely allowed for in most arguments.

Faulty logic is a fun one. The problem is that the atheist comes in with what they think is a great argument, but the religious person responds with “[facepalm]”. One of the more current ones is that The Bible supports slavery, which is an interesting argument given how the Abolitionists used The Bible to slap down slavery. The problem is that Paul’s Letter to Tarsus can be read about how slaves should behave. However, it can also be read about how Philemon, the slave in question, should be freed, especially as there are a couple of threats from Paul. Basically, there’s a good argument for slavery there, but you need to ignore a whole lot that’s in the book.

So…In short, atheists love their semantics, but need to leave them behind. After all, if the best argument is based on how it’s argued rather than what’s being argued, then you probably don’t have much of an argument…