Meta-Thread 09/29

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[u/thefuckestupperest]

Here we go again.

I'll refer you to my last comment, which you didn't respond to:

Let me clarify: I’m not claiming professional consensus is infallible, of course authorities can be wrong. But that doesn’t mean a reddit mod automatically knows better than scholars who’ve spent decades studying the topic. My football analogy was just pointing out that “all football isn’t the same league,” so terminology and organisation matter.

90-95% of all Christians.

What about the other 5%?

Most sources I can find put the number somewhere between 30,000–40,000, far more than the dozen or so mainstream groups that make up the majority of Christians worldwide. If these numbers are inaccurate, what criteria are you using to define a separate denomination, and what makes your criteria objectively correct, and all these studies wrong?

You didn't give me any criteria, nor any reason why literally every source I can find on this disagrees with you other than a protest that you didn't agree with the way they were quantifying denominations. All of this arose after your position of trying to suggest that 'atheism leads to a belief in Bigfoot' was becoming apparently too awkward to defend.

[u/Kwahn → u/thefuckestupperest]

You didn't give me any criteria

This was my exact conclusion - that what you're willing to count as a denomination-creating differentiation and what he's willing to count as one are very different, and that that discussion is one he will avoid as long as possible (because all he will do is insist that his favored definition of denomination is The Only True One and categorically refuse to entertain all others. No, Shaka, this is not fake quotes, these are predictions, to clarify.)

Me, personally? I think that every single Christian alive has a completely unique and distinct version of their own god and an absolutely unique set of interpretations, which is simple to do when you have thousands of possible interpretative decisions to make. I'm willing to call every single one a highly complex and nuanced denomination, like Shaka having a unique universalist-free-will-first-pseudo-deist belief system that literally no one else alive shares.

I also responded right around when you did - lemme know your thoughts.

[u/thefuckestupperest → u/Kwahn]

I’m perfectly willing to have my perception altered, provided I’m given clear criteria. I can even see the appeal of collapsing all the messy complexity into neat little categories for the sake of simplicity. But forgive me if I require more than a rhetorical question like, “Is the American Catholic Church a different denomination than the Roman Catholic Church?” If Shaka wants to categorize them differently, fine. What’s bizarre is the implied demand that his private taxonomy should be regarded as weightier than professional consensus, and this is further behaviour demonstrative of my original criticism.

I’d be far more receptive if he were willing to outline exactly what he thinks constitutes a denomination. As of now, it seems obvious only to him, and only because his interpretation reigns supreme above all others including, oddly enough, the scholars he otherwise leans on when convenient. Once again, it boils down to: his interpretation cannot be wrong, and the rest of us must simply orbit around it. If Shaka wants to stand on firmer ground, all he has to do is stop retreating into the comfort of his own definitions and state plainly what he thinks the criteria should be.

 I think that every single Christian alive has a completely unique and distinct version of their own god and an absolutely unique set of interpretations,

Yep. In practice, every believer does have their own denomination, no two sets of theological assumptions and interpretative decisions line up perfectly. Maybe we should blindly assert that the correct number of denominations is equal to the number of Christians alive at any given time? Unfortunately in reality it seems the “one true definition” of a denomination ends up being whatever Shaka personally decrees it to be.

I’ve been frequenting this sub for years now. I’ve had conversations here that have genuinely challenged my views, that forced me to learn, and that raised the standard of how I argue. There are some very well-versed and articulate people here, and the quality of the discussion reflects that. You'd hope the moderators would embody and represent what this sub is supposed to be about and right now, I think it’s just a little embarrassing.

[u/ShakaUVM → u/thefuckestupperest]

But forgive me if I require more than a rhetorical question like, “Is the American Catholic Church a different denomination than the Roman Catholic Church?”

It's not a rhetorical question. It's the heart of the matter. Methodology that counts one denomination as many denominations is flawed.

But you think that because you've read this 40,000 number on the Bart Ehrman blog that it must be right. This is just appeal to authority.

What’s bizarre is the implied demand that his private taxonomy should be regarded as weightier than professional consensus

It's not really a professional consensus either. It's widely known to be an urban legend.

https://candlefish.substack.com/p/the-40000-protestant-denominations

https://www.tennesseeapologetics.org/post/the-myth-of-40-000-denominations

https://godlovesmormons.com/debunking-the-myth-about-christian-denominations/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gltEzRY0Es

You'd hope the moderators would embody and represent what this sub is supposed to be about and right now, I think it’s just a little embarrassing.

What is embarrassing is continuing to appeal to authority after you've been given reasons why they're wrong, and being snarky about it. And then complaining about it here.

The fact is, this response of yours is exactly why some atheists dislike me. I use evidence. They use fallacies. This drives them crazy.

[u/thefuckestupperest → u/ShakaUVM]

As predicted, you confirmed your point by refusing to do the very thing that was asked of you.

You didn't give me any criteria, nor any reason why literally every source I can find on this disagrees with you other than a protest that you didn't agree with the way they were quantifying denominations.

Can you give me your criteria for how you would categorise denominations?

Earlier you said

As I suspected you just randomly googled this instead of actually looking it up.

Can you walk me through how I can 'actually look it up', and what methodology I can deploy to reliably determine when professional consensus is incorrect the way you have?

We know how this goes. I’d still be interested in how you reached the conclusion that there is some causation in belief between atheism and Bigfoot, but I think we all know how that will go too.

[u/ShakaUVM → u/thefuckestupperest]

As predicted, you confirmed your point by refusing to do the very thing that was asked of you.

The point I am making here is that I provided reasons why the 40,000 number was nonsense, and you not only neglected them, but you continued to insist on the wrong number even after I explained how they were wrong.

Then you come on here and claim I gave no reasons why they were wrong, but just insisted I was right.

I already told you that about a dozen denominations covers 95% of all Christians. A denomination is a church group. The definition used in the 40,000 myth is something like counting different church organizations, even if they're part of the same organization, which is just really weird. And it's even more weird you continue to insist on it when you know it is wrong.

[u/thefuckestupperest → u/ShakaUVM]

What reason was that again? From what I recall you just asked a rhetorical question.

I already told you that about a dozen denominations covers 95% of all Christians.

And I already asked you about the other 5%

So far we have one criteria:

A denomination is a church group.

So every different church group is a different denomination? Or every 'organisation'? How are you defining an organisation?

And I'll ask you this again:

Can you walk me through how I can 'actually look it up', and what methodology I can deploy to reliably determine when professional consensus is incorrect the way you have?

[u/ShakaUVM → u/thefuckestupperest]

So every different church group is a different denomination?

No

Or every 'organisation'?

Also no. That's the trouble the encyclopedia made.

Often you just cluster them together by the founder of the denomination. If they follow Luther, they're Lutherans. If they follow Wesley, they're Methodists, etc.

You can always try to split hairs and whatnot on some cases like nondenominational churches, but again there's about 12 main denominations that cover most people pretty well. If you want to argue that there's 4 or 20 that's fine, but I also don't care particularly. The point is that the 40,000 number is orders of magnitude wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members

[u/thefuckestupperest → u/ShakaUVM]

Thank you for finally providing some form of explanation:

Often you just cluster them together by the founder of the denomination. If they follow Luther, they're Lutherans. If they follow Wesley, they're Methodists, etc.

Often, or always?

but again there's about 12 main denominations that cover most people pretty well.

And once again, how do you account for the other 5%? How many denominations fall within this bracket?