Debating Bentham's Labradoodle
Christianity vs. Hinduism
Last night, I had a friendly dialogue with Matthew Adelstein (AKA Bentham’s Bulldog) on the evidence for Hinduism vs the evidence for Christianity: I think the most probable religion is Hinduism, while Matthew thinks it’s Christianity.
Among other things we discussed were: an anthropic argument for Henotheism, the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, the prior probability of God becoming incarnate, anthropic arguments for reincarnation, Joseph Smith, miracles by Christian saints, and the argument from common consent.
By the end, we agreed that the most worrying thing for Christianity is the evidence for reincarnation, and the most worrying thing for Hinduism is the evidence for the resurrection. You can see our discussion here.
(Pro tip: fast-forward to 1:21:50 for Matthew’s impressions of Lydia McGrew and Norm Finkelstein talking about the minimal facts).
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not inconsistent with Hinduism in the way that reincarnation is inconsistent with Christianity, though. Jesus miraculously resurrecting defends against anti-Christian polemics, but provides no positive evidence that Christianity is true (i.e. Jesus is God), assuming that you believe in a God and believe that supernatural events theoretically can occur (which, if you’re any sort of Idealist, you probably do). Then again, maybe this is just me not being interested in “probablistic arguments” for metaphysical truths. I don’t think Hindus are either, because it assigns a lot of significance to observed things.
But to throw Christians a bone, ascendancy to heaven is something of a form of reincarnation itself, it is just a very contrived version. The principle of reincarnation is simply that the experience of the observer does not end once the physical body expires. This principle is in my opinion, something which would require a “leap of faith” to deny, which is why I think of Atheism as much more of a faith than Hinduism. But pretty much everything beyond that, and maybe beyond the notion that there is “more than one observer”, is at least a little bit intuitive.
While I agree that resurrection is not typically featured in Christianity, it does not really represent a conflict with it, you can be a Christian and believe in reincarnation. You could believe that Jesus just knew that it wouldn’t have been fruitful to talk about it to a jewish audience, and neither is it necessary to know of it for salvation. After all, what is necessary for a good rebirth is near identical to Christian teachings. There is a big emphasis on the forgiveness of Karma, accumulating virtue, good deeds and faith and wisdom etc. there’s quite a few Christians who believed in reincarnation. Eg. Valentin Tomberg the mystic (Catholic) or Rudolf Steiner (founder of Waldorf schools). What typically is said to happen after death in Christianity is that we all fall asleep. And what happens when we sleep? We dream…
Edit: I’ve been chatting with fellow catholics about this and I had another thought: it seems to be better to believe that you get only one shot at life, rather than infinitely many, because then you will prioritize personal holiness and good conduct and your life will seem much more important and impactful. In fact some mystics have argued that Reincarnation is not taught in Christianity for this reason, that though it might be true, disbelieving in it can be beneficial for many, because one take this singular life that much more seriously.