I've known people one-shot by pure text, like Atlas Shrugged, The Communist Manifesto, The Bible, The Qur'an, The Selfish Gene, Godel Escher and Bach, etc. Don't underestimate text.
A clever quip, but I have to point out that most adherents for a given ideology have never actually read the canonical text of their ideology. The Bible particularly was generally inaccessible to laypeople for a ~1000 year period, who would typically learn everything they knew about it filtered through the preachers of the Church. Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.
The Bible was fairly widely read, but books were very expensive until the invention of printing. There were efforts - it would have been read to people, there were English translations of parts of it going back to the 7th century. Reading it aloud forms a large chunk of services even today.
> Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.
Not read all of it certainly. However, most Christians have definitely read some of it. The Bible is not "the canonical text" for two reasons: there are disagreements about what is canonical, and it is not a single text, it is a collection of works.
Not reading all of it - why should we? What is the point of Christians reading things such as (most of?) Leviticus which is a collection of rules that do not apply to Christians? It is perfectly reasonable to be selective about which books within a large collection people read.
If you don't read all of it then how would you know you're abiding by it or that it's a collection of works that you agree with and want to associate with?
It's like commenting on the book Abundance without having read it.
Or talking about the Death Panels in ObamaCare.
I haven't read Mein Kampf / The Communist Manifesto but I would bet some pages if not chapters are agreeable to a lay-person while the overall theme wasn't.
This is how we end with the Dunning-Kruger effect meaning worse performers rate their own performance than high performers rate their own performance. (The actual effect found was that low-performers could not distinguish between a high or low performance; and although they rated themselves higher than they were it was still lower than the self-ratings of high performers for all tasks but Humor).
As the other comment said, it is not a body of rules to follow. The core message of Christianity is quite simple - the Nicene Creed sums up mainstream Christianity quite nicely.
Abundance is a book. The Bible is an anthology of various works - letters, poetry, biography, historical chronicles and all kinds of things. You can comment on the books you have read.
You also need to interpret it, which makes it a very hard read. You cannot really understand it without knowing the context (historical, cultural, personal) and about things like disputes about correct translations.
You also do not have to attach the same authority or relevance to all of it. As I said, the laws of Leviticus are irrelevant to Christians and we simply do not follow them (we eat pork, for example). They might be worth reading as historical background. In general the gospels and epistles are the most relevant for most people.
When you say all of it, what constitutes all? Different denominations accept different books - no Judith in protestant Bibles, no Ethiopic Clement except in Tewahedo (Ethiopian) ones, etc. Its not usual for individuals to disagree with their denominations, but it certainly happens. It is definitely reasonable to read the books you think are relevant.
> If you don't read all of it then how would you know you're abiding by it
Why would it matter, because Christianity is very much not about following a large set of rules. It's more (some branches of) Jewry, that is famous for knowing and following a large set of rules. Most of the interaction with the priests is about how that is not actually sufficient and doesn't actually matters all that much. There is even a passage how someone following all the rules still won't succeed (the rich young man). The only real hard rule fits into a single sentence (double commandment of loving).
> it's a collection of works that you agree with and want to associate with?
Disagreeing is a normal and expected part of the faith and is the topic of some books in the collection. If you don't disagree with anything in the bible, I don't thing you are actually believing, you are just regurgitating things. The bible is a side effect of the formation of cultures and the getting to know in a relationship, and there is quite a development in it.
> I haven't read Mein Kampf / The Communist Manifesto but I would bet some pages if not chapters are agreeable to a lay-person while the overall theme wasn't.
Maybe in the Communist Manifesto, but Mein Kampf is total bullshit.
> Death Panels in ObamaCare.
No clue what that is, must be an US insider.
> This is how we end with the Dunning-Kruger effect
It should be clear by "a ~1000 year period" that I was talking about history with that sentence, not the present day. For a very long time there was only one Church, the Catholic Church. Any "denominations" were local deviations considered heresy worthy of extermination, and it took the deadliest war in European history (prior to the world wars) for Christians to be able to openly practice beliefs that diverged from the Church.
> So the "employees" of X are untrustworthy, but the collection of circular letters for the "employees" of X is not. This doesn't make any sense.
I am not saying anything about whether the text of various ideologies is trustworthy or next. I am contending that contrary to the original comment I was replying to, it's not actually text that converts people to most ideologies. For Christianity, people generally adopt it for reasons like: being born into a Christian household/society; societal pressure; a desire for community; having received charitable aid when they needed it most; mid-life crises seeking a purpose in life; reckoning with mortality after a near-death experience or losing a loved one; witnessing something they perceive as miraculous. There are many, many reasons people become Christians, but I have never once heard of someone being converted merely by reading the Bible, and I suspect that such an occurence is exceedingly rare relative to all the other means of adoption.
> For a very long time there was only one Church, the Catholic Church.
My question wasn't about denominations, I wanted to know what you think the church IS. Because the definition I am familiar with is the collective of all people (and creatures) believing in Christ. With that "people get to know about Christ only from the Church" is circular.
> I am contending that contrary to the original comment I was replying to, it's not actually text that converts people to most ideologies.
That I agree with. But that is not what you wrote.
To be honest, as a non-Christian person, I had no idea Christians used "the Church" in the way you describe. I don't think I've ever personally seen that usage, and I apologise for the miscommunication. As someone interested in historical research, the usage of "the Church" that I am familiar with is shorthand to describe the historical central institute of Christianity as an organized religion - the Roman Catholic Church.
And the point I was trying to make was that "the collective believers of all Christianity" did not have direct access to the Bible for a long time - manuscripts were rare before printing, and they were even more rarely written in a language laypeople could read, if they could read at all. Therefore, anything they heard about the contents of the Bible and Christ's teachings would be subject entirely to the filtered interpretations of the Catholic clergy, and that would determine the shape of their beliefs rather than the writings themselves. Indeed it was specifically the advent of the printing press, when more people gained access to the Bible directly rather than the Papal interpretation of it, that led to the Reformation and spread of Protestantism and other denominations.
As for your claim, "people are convinced mostly by actions not by pious texts", I think I agree. Although there are exceptions, often from people already mostly taking their world view from papers (professors and other academics), but even then they are convinced, but don't really see the point until they interact with others (i.e. get in touch with the church). At least according to their own later words.
> And the point I was trying to make was that "the collective believers of all Christianity" did not have direct access to the Bible for a long time - manuscripts were rare before printing, and they were even more rarely written in a language laypeople could read, if they could read at all.
I also think that copying manuscripts was a huge thing, BECAUSE reading the original was so highly valued, and the literacy rate was higher under christians as opposed to the fellow heathens for which there was just no point in learning to read. The letters were addressed to the whole parishes rather than at single individuals, so I think the expectation was that the whole parish read it. This might have changed in the middle ages, when "being a Christian" was much less an individual decision, but more an effect of the ruler saying them to be.
> Therefore, anything they heard about the contents of the Bible and Christ's teachings would be subject entirely to the filtered interpretations of the Catholic clergy, and that would determine the shape of their beliefs rather than the writings themselves. Indeed it was specifically the advent of the printing press, when more people gained access to the Bible directly rather than the Papal interpretation of it, that led to the Reformation
I think what led to the Reformation was much less the clergy hiding "the true meaning" with the Papal interpretation, but rather the clergy preaching their crude personal insight against the Papal interpretation. This was a huge issue and problem at that time. Most of the issues raised by the reformators were indeed a problem with which the church at large agreed. The Reformation was (initially) exactly that, a reformation in the church. That reformation was continued even after some parts decided to split off.
Also the bible is a written form of the teachings of the church, so I don't think that there is a real disagreement to be found that is substantially true and not just language lawyering and not just yet another (mis)interpretation.
> spread of Protestantism and other denominations
The dogma of Protestantism are also largely based on the translation and omissions of their founding fathers and often not really based in the text itself.
> the usage of "the Church" that I am familiar with is shorthand to describe the historical central institute of Christianity as an organized religion - the Roman Catholic Church.
Note, that I perceive the "Church" in "the Roman Catholic Church", to be what I described. I don't really know what exactly you thing of when you write that (hence my initial question), but I guess something more like a company? The Roman Catholic Church isn't really a single uniform entity, and hasn't been through history, there isn't really a real hierarchy above a bishop. This is actually much less true for protestant denominations, which tied themself to the nations they live in and thus had a real hierarchy often entangled with the state.
I definitely have read philosophic articles where I was instantly convinced and found it to bring into words, what I have long thought of. Either something contains a logic error or something is the truth, there is no maybe if I read it enough it will become true. That would just be self-deception.
Famous American detective TV show True Detective had the hero annoy his colleague by referring to religion as "language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain" and thereby "dulls critical thinking". In other words, a lot people read shit and it fries their mixers. Obviously, it can also work the other way. Et cetera.
Infected by a packet of ideas that profoundly alters your outlook on life, for good or ill like a mind virus. I've been shot several times, it's thrilling. For me it's always text that does it.