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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 4, 2023

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She wrote an essay called "Why I am now a Christian" (https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/) and left out any argument as to why Christianity is true, so it's natural to conclude that the truth-value of Christianity was not an important factor in why she is Christian.(And she references the title in the beginning of the article, so it's not just one of those stupid headline writer things.)

As it happens, I don't suspect she's lying. She just seems to think "I am Christian" means "Christianity is useful", which is just another form of the common practice of confusing what is nice to believe with what is actually true. This practice is seen all the time, including in both sides of the Christian-Atheist debate. It's not a lie, but it's sloppy logic around what Christianity actually is, so I concur with OP's use of scare quotes in reference to her "conversion" at least based on the best available information to me.

As it also happens, I am not Christian, but I believe Christianity is useful and probably even load-bearing for the USA.

I think that this whole schtick about "truth" of Christianity to me is a tactic used by New Atheists but also some other people as kind of mud fighting tactic. This is what we mean by truth, so then come down to mud with us where we can use common juijutsu techniques to overpower you.

To evade the topic of religion and existence of god, we can have a question of "Does Sherlock Holmes exist?". The New Atheist position on this matter would be something like - he is fictional character, he is invented and therefore it is false to say that Sherlock Holmes exists. There is no grave of Sherlock Holmes, he did not do any of the things described in books as he is not real. Okay, but another position can be that actually Sherlock Holmes may be the most famous of all the detectives, more people know about his character compared to any living detective and that he was important in shaping real lives of many people including kids who became detectives.

Moreover also this prioritization about truth in atheist and also sometimes in rationalist circles is not what it seems. One obvious example is that of correct model usage. One model can be useful in one situation and misleading in another situation, it may not be that easy to just say that the model is true or false. Which is actually pretty close to the above paragraph - Christianity is maybe "useful" as metaphilosophical system that binds and points certain ontology, teleology, epistemology, axiology and sociology toward some outcomes you may even agree are good from the outside-of-christianity view. In that sense it is useful and this at least in some sense "true" model of the world, in similar sense as Sherlock Holmes may be useful model of the world of detectives let's say.

Additionally and related to above, it is also hard to just say that "Truth" is supposed to be the ultimate good. For instance Sam Harris is also know for his utilitarian stance where he thinks that people "should maximize human flourishing", that is his teleology of people. He also thinks that even if you are epistemologically uncertain of how to define maximization and flourishing, you can at least say that you want to prevent suffering at the very least in certain negative thinking. But then this begs the question: what if the best way to minimize suffering and maximize human flourishing is for people to be Christians and believe something that is not "true" in the strict sense?

I think that atheists and also rationalists to large extent are too quick to point out hypocrisy in moral systems like Christianity let's say when it comes to their beliefs in truth of biblical events like the flood or creation. What us ommitrd is that everybody is hypocritical about something, we do value "usefulness" even above truth in a lot of our actions.

Yet I would not be truthful if I attributed my embrace of Christianity solely to the realisation that atheism is too weak and divisive a doctrine to fortify us against our menacing foes. I have also turned to Christianity because I ultimately found life without any spiritual solace unendurable — indeed very nearly self-destructive. Atheism failed to answer a simple question: what is the meaning and purpose of life?

She writes earlier of the doctrines she learned as a Muslim and how becoming atheist freed her of such fears. I think if she's now saying atheism is no longer enough, then the old doctrines of God, heaven, hell, and the rest of it must be making a re-occurrence.

She's writing for a secular audience. A Southern Evangelical style testimony of how she found the Lord and was convicted of being a sinner until she accepted Jesus into her heart is not going to be taken seriously by them any more than if a TV preacher recounted the same.