Is Apologetics Insincere?

[Bill Hamblin]

He's invented a straw man, and is trying to blame us for it.

Your Episcopal Holiness,

I regret to inform you that you are now clearly in direct violation of Hambiln's Rule of Apologetics #1. Please cease and desist immediately.

Your humble servant,

[LifeOnaPlate]

amantha, have you ever read a FARMS review?

If this is their modus operandi I ask you why they have criticized LDS authors in some reviews. I just finished a review from the current journal (albeit signed by a rogue) discussing problems in a recent book about Book of Mormon evidences based on some shaky ground. Why would FARMS criticize a work like that if the work was meant to promote the faith?

[Daniel Peterson]

Dear Investigator,

Please be sure to have scholarly degrees in Aquinas, al-Ghazali, Wolsterstorff, Swinburne, Origen, Craig, Habermas, Plantinga, before you seek your personal witness, as your personal witness won't be enough.

I've already expressly contradicted such silliness.

It is my opinion that religious apologetics seeks to defend a position at all costs, without regard to the evidence.

But you've never even tried to offer a single specimen of such behavior -- let alone enough to justify your blanket condemnation of religious apologetics over the past two thousand years.

And...just because things are old or believed by billions or proposed by historic figures, does not mean those things are true or sincere or anything for that matter. Lots of intelligent people used to believe the world was flat.

You're contradicting a claim that nobody here has even made.

Your Episcopal Holiness,

I regret to inform you that you are now clearly in direct violation of Hambiln's Rule of Apologetics #1. Please cease and desist immediately.

Your humble servant,

Good point.

I quit.

This has never risen beyond the absurd.

(Why do I even bother?)

[LifeOnaPlate]

But you've never even tried to offer a single specimen of such behavior -- let alone enough to justify your blanket condemnation of religious apologetics over the past two thousand years.

Conversely, express examples contradicting amanthas conclusions have been offered.

Quit winking and tell me Bill's #1 rule, thanks!

[Daniel Peterson]

Quit winking and tell me Bill's #1 rule, thanks!

Look in his signature.

[LifeOnaPlate]

Look in his signature.

I'm sorry, I don't really have time to look over that source material, Dan. All I can say is his rules likely amount to dishonesty and silliness.

[William Schryver]

amantha:

Dear Investigator,

Please be sure to have scholarly degrees in Aquinas, al-Ghazali, Wolsterstorff, Swinburne, Origen, Craig, Habermas, Plantinga, before you seek your personal witness, as your personal witness won't be enough.

â?¦

An insipid and pointless caricature.

And it fails to address the issue of â??evidenceâ? as a precursor of faith, as I explained in my prior post. That one personâ??s evidence varies from that of another, and even over the course of his/her lifetime, does not change the fact that â??evidenceâ? is still an essential component of the development of faith.

One overwhelmingly tangible piece of evidence that constitutes the initial offering to every investigator of the church is the Book of Mormon. They can hold it. They can read it. They can assess its worth. Most investigators who transition from investigation to conversion do so as a direct result of the â??evidenceâ? that they perceive in the form of the Book of Mormon. From that point they will advance to higher plateaus of â??evidence.â? They may discover that (for example) when they pay a faithful tithe, the car they thought was on the verge of breaking down suddenly takes on new life and they are able to drive it for another year or more until they are better able to replace it. Or they may lay their hands on the head of a sick child in the middle of the night and bless it to recover â?? and by morning the child will be healed.

The real evidences of faith manifest themselves in the lives of the faithful and serve to reinforce that faith, little by little, until that faith grows into a perfect knowledge. You may consider these â??evidencesâ? as mere coincidences. But the dispute over their interpretation does not change their essentially tangible properties.

[amantha]

amantha:

This sentence demonstrates your fundamental misconception in terms of this discussion. LDS â??apologistsâ? do not propound â??the notion that the only true evidence is the personal witness.â? In fact, the Book of Mormon illustrates precisely the LDS conception of the relationship between â??faithâ? and â??evidence.â?

In the famous exchange between Korihor and Alma, we read:

Among the â??all thingsâ? to which Alma referred as being the â??evidence â?? that undergirds his â??faithâ? are specific elements of the natural world which Alma clearly understands to be â??evidenceâ? of the existence of God. It is Almaâ??s understanding and interpretation of the evidence, and his ability to articulate the nature of that interpretation, that constitutes the basis and defense of his faith.

Faith, at least as understood by Latter-day Saints, is never based on exclusively intangible elements. To the contrary, almost every faithful Latter-day Saint can quickly list several essentially tangible evidences as being the foundation of his/her faith.

So it is also with LDS apologetics. It seeks to identify and interpret those tangible evidences â?? things which are seen -- that support the belief in things which are not seen. Of course, there is often dispute between non-believers and believers as to whether or not the apologistsâ?? interpretation of the â??evidenceâ? is valid and correct. But that is another issue altogether. The fact remains that Latter-day Saints do look for and rely on â??evidenceâ? to justify their faith.

That you fail to appreciate and understand this fundamental concept is at the root of your fallacious arguments throughout this thread.

So Alma is engaging in apologetics. Hence, Joseph (or whoever wrote the thing) was defending his new faith sock-puppet style. Talk about insincere.

There is no evidence of God unless you have faith in that evidence. So what kind of evidence is it--opinionated evidence, aka, the personal witness.

[amantha]

Your Episcopal Holiness,

I regret to inform you that you are now clearly in direct violation of Hambiln's Rule of Apologetics #1. Please cease and desist immediately.

Your humble servant,

Good one.

[amantha]

I've already expressly contradicted such silliness.

But you've never even tried to offer a single specimen of such behavior -- let alone enough to justify your blanket condemnation of religious apologetics over the past two thousand years.

You're contradicting a claim that nobody here has even made.

Good point.

I quit.

This has never risen beyond the absurd.

(Why do I even bother?)

Why did you? That's a good question after starting the thread and participating well over a hundred posts later.

I was happy to let it rest at the abrupt closing of the Mitt Romney thread.

[William Schryver]

So Alma is engaging in apologetics. Hence, Joseph (or whoever wrote the thing) was defending his new faith sock-puppet style. Talk about insincere.

There is no evidence of God unless you have faith in that evidence. So what kind of evidence is it--opinionated evidence, aka, the personal witness.

"Amantha" is sounding more and more like a certain long-since-departed-but-apparently-not-forgotten former participant on the FAIR board. Perhaps someone should start a new thread wherein we can all guess what former moniker was used by this latest incarnation.

And with that final observation, I also invoke Hamblin's rule #1.

Have a good night ...................... amantha.

[amantha]

"Amantha" is sounding more and more like a certain long-since-departed-but-apparently-not-forgotten former participant on the FAIR board. Perhaps someone should start a new thread wherein we can all guess what former moniker was used by this latest incarnation.

And with that final observation, I also invoke Hamblin's rule #1.

Have a good night ...................... amantha.

Oooh, what an important revelation that would be.

[Scottie]

Do you not see the rather enormous assumption being made here? You are, essentially, assuming dishonesty on the part of the apologists and then using your assumption as evidence that apologists are, in fact, dishonest. That seems like it would be easy to do with anybody, including yourself. If you were faced with incontrovertible evidence that you were wrong, would you change your position? If I assume that you wouldn't, should that count against you and justify my labeling you as insincere?

I am a curious person. I like to understand things. When I become interested in a topic, I study it. Now, if, hypothetically, I meet a critic who presents to me an argument about why my beliefs are wrong, and it just so happens that in my studies I have come across information that either severely undermines or outright disproves his argument, what should I do? If I present the evidence to him, haven't I just crossed the line and become an insincere apologist? Is this not acceptable? Must I simply concede that he must be right and make no effort to inform him of the evidence that he seems to have missed?

Or is my hypothetical not even possible? Is it impossible for me to come across evidence that any critic, anywhere, at any time, might be wrong? Is the very idea that, because I am Mormon, I might actually have a case to make simply not a realistic option in your mind?

That seems ridiculous, and I don't imagine that you actually believe that. But from your post above, I have trouble seeing any other option.

Mind you, I'm not saying that all apologetic arguments are insincere. I think the thread with BY involvement in the MMM is a great example. I'm no expert in it, but I have yet to see any evidence linking BY to the MMM.

In your example, if you have an argument that hold some merit, by all means, defend the faith. There will always be some critics, especially in religion, that will throw every half cocked idea that might shed the tiniest smear on the church. Those should be defended. And I think Amantha said that. That the evidences should stand or fall on their own credentials.

However, on the flip side, I think that the "horses were tapirs" defense for example is an apologetic argument bordering on the absurd. IMO, this is taking a world view and grasping at ANY remotely plausible defense, no matter how improbable. The question of the BoM NOT being historical is not even considered. The apologists are not seriously looking to modify their opinions based on this. They MUST come up with something to explain it away. THAT is insincere.

And, no, I try very hard not to do that. Believe me, I wish that I could examine the evidences and come to the conclusion that the church is true. My life would be much easier. There are several pro evidences that are quite plausible. But not enough so to outweigh the mountains of problems I see with the LDS church. Unlike faithful members who claim to KNOW the church is true, I'm not so arrogant as to claim that I know that it's NOT true. There is every possibility that it is true and every new evidence that appears, I study and try to adjust where I stand.

[Daniel Peterson]

I think that the "horses were tapirs" defense for example is an apologetic argument bordering on the absurd. IMO, this is taking a world view and grasping at ANY remotely plausible defense, no matter how improbable. The question of the BoM NOT being historical is not even considered. The apologists are not seriously looking to modify their opinions based on this. They MUST come up with something to explain it away. THAT is insincere.

No, that's typical paradigm maintenance and anomaly management, of the type so classically studied by Thomas Kuhn in his famous book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Maybe I just don't know enough about the way foreign cultures and languages work, particularly in pre-modern times, but the tapir hypothesis, though it's not my preferred way of dealing with the question of Book of Mormon horses, has always seemed fairly reasonable to me. I've always thought that those who find it simply too absurd for words have a na

[lynnr]

I read the posts in this thread with more than a little interest. I respond with a cacophony and smorgasbord of points.

1) Amantha seems to infer that most posters here respond with â??opinion.â? And her inference is: itâ??s inevitable sooner or later that valid discourse and/or discussion ends in, or is reduced to, â??opinion.â? Not evidence. Not fact. Not axiomatic truth. My point is: her argument is self-defeating. For instance, if my interpretation of â??truthâ? is wrong because itâ??s simply my interpretation, then her opinion of my interpretation is wrong because itâ??s her opinion! The epistemological cat just jumped off the cliff and drowned in the sea of nothiness. If her opinion of my opinion is wrong because itâ??s my opinion, then her opinion of my opinion (i.e., that revealed religion is grounded in historical fact) is wrong because itâ??s her opinion. I'm saying, she's contradicting herself. Her statement has to be grounded in the non-contradictory law of truth in order for her to reject my opinion as "truth." She validates my point by rejecting it. Opinion cannot be based solely on opinion. In my discipline (literature) you canâ??t have a symbol unless some â?thingâ? is behind the symbol. And neither can you have strictly opinions if only opinions are behind opinions. Amanthaâ??s pony wonâ??t ride. For in her world, there is no "real" pony to ride. Just her opinion that we might have one to ride. But then, that's only her opinion. I'm confused? Is there, or is there not a real pony?

Take Amanthaâ??s statement, â??It is your opinion that I created a straw man. I'm okay with your opinion. I don't require any more evidence than that.â? Her "opinion" just self-destructed. It takes more than an opinion to validate an opinion. Anamantha is saying--we need no more evidence than an opinion to validate an opinion? Thatâ??s like â?? I need no more evidence than doubt to doubt my doubts. Wherein lies the criteria for certitude (even regarding Amanthaâ??s statement!) regarding everyone's opinions, including hers, if opinions carry no weight of evidence other than another opinion?! Why should I believe her statement regarding our opinions?! And hers? I'll say it again--the epistemological cat just jumped off the cliff.

2) Amanthaâ??s disdain for â??evidenceâ? is as unfounded as is her placing the â??scientificâ? grid for knowing on a pedestal.

She/he says, â??Apologists demand evidence for the claims of their critics while defending a religious faith which propounds the notion that the only true evidence is the personal witness, thereby rendering other kinds of evidence unnecessary.â?

Thatâ??s exactly what the Christian apologist must not say!

Christianity claims to be a revealed religion. But not the non-propositional view of revelation! My God, no! At the core of the scriptural conception is revelation as divine activity in history. The existential import of these words is dependent on their historical factuality! History is the medium of the divine self-disclosure. The scriptural understanding of revelation is never taken to denote a non-conceptual, ecstatic experience of mystery to which scripture and theology merely pose an attempted human interpretation and/or opinion. Easter faith is never divorced from historical fact!

Of course, there are those who deny that revelation has cognitive truth, but they do so to their own peril. The notion that faith based upon historical investigation is somehow immune from criticism and beyond falsification is pure fantasy. The credentials of the gospel, its opennes to investigation form, is its beauty. Christian faith is related to historical reality.

Any disengagement from history is docetic and deeply heritical. Faith is not an existential leap into the dark; it is indeed a step into the light.

And now to the meat of Amanthaâ??s fallacy. She/he argues against historical evidences for Christianity because such evidences possess only probability and lack scientific certainty. Admittedly, absolute certainty adheres only to assertions of formal logic and not to factual, historical beliefs. This is just to admit that mortals have to make decisions on the basis of probabilities. Life operates on this basis. Amanthaâ??s skepticism is a pleasant philosophical game, but one cannot live by it!

Lynn

[amantha]

I read the posts in this thread with more than a little interest. I respond with a cacophony and smorgasbord of points.

1) Amantha seems to infer that most posters here respond with â??opinion.â? And her inference is: itâ??s inevitable sooner or later that valid discourse and/or discussion ends in, or is reduced to, â??opinion.â? Not evidence. Not fact. Not axiomatic truth. My point is: her argument is self-defeating. For instance, if my interpretation of â??truthâ? is wrong because itâ??s simply my interpretation, then her opinion of my interpretation is wrong because itâ??s her opinion! The epistemological cat just jumped off the cliff and drowned in the sea of nothiness.

Your interpretation is your opinion. Whether it is wrong or right, I don't know. I don't claim to know. The certitude of anything is precarious at best, if it is even possible. We simply decide to act on our best opinions.

If her opinion of my opinion is wrong because itâ??s my opinion, then her opinion of my opinion (i.e., that revealed religion is grounded in historical fact) is wrong because itâ??s her opinion. I'm saying, she's contradicting herself. Her statement has to be grounded in the non-contradictory law of truth in order for her to reject my opinion as "truth." She validates my point by rejecting it. Opinion cannot be based solely on opinion.

Why not? It happens all the time.

In my discipline (literature) you canâ??t have a symbol unless some â?thingâ? is behind the symbol. And neither can you have strictly opinions if only opinions are behind opinions. Amanthaâ??s pony wonâ??t ride. For in her world, there is no "real" pony to ride. Just her opinion that we might have one to ride. But then, that's only her opinion. I'm confused? Is there, or is there not a real pony?

Take Amanthaâ??s statement, â??It is your opinion that I created a straw man. I'm okay with your opinion. I don't require any more evidence than that.â? Her "opinion" just self-destructed. It takes more than an opinion to validate an opinion.

It is my opinion that he had an opinion. Whether or not his opinion was right, is anybody's guess. The rightness of the opinion is to be decided by the individual.

Anamantha is saying--we need no more evidence than an opinion to validate an opinion?

No, I am saying that religious apologetics wants you to believe that you need more evidence than the personal witness while backing down to the fail safe of the personal witness when the evidence comes up short. I have said nothing about the validity of someone's opinion.

Thatâ??s like â?? I need no more evidence than doubt to doubt my doubts.

That's a great line for apologists, because, if we didn't doubt the certainty of our personal witness, we wouldn't require apologetics. If apologetics didn't exist to create doubt in our doubts we might just find a way to believe something else.

Wherein lies the criteria for certitude (even regarding Amanthaâ??s statement!) regarding everyone's opinions, including hers, if opinions carry no weight of evidence other than another opinion?! Why should I believe her statement regarding our opinions?! And hers? I'll say it again--the epistemological cat just jumped off the cliff.

Is it your opinion that there need to be a "criteria for certitude?" I've got one. Everything is uncertain, we simply make decisions based on our own assessment of the probabilities using evidence that is not restricted to supporting a rigid and unmovable viewpoint.

2) Amanthaâ??s disdain for â??evidenceâ? is as unfounded as is her placing the â??scientificâ? grid for knowing on a pedestal.

I don't disdain evidence.

She/he says, â??Apologists demand evidence for the claims of their critics while defending a religious faith which propounds the notion that the only true evidence is the personal witness, thereby rendering other kinds of evidence unnecessary.â?

Thatâ??s exactly what the Christian apologist must not say!

Christianity claims to be a revealed religion. But not the non-propositional view of revelation! My God, no! At the core of the scriptural conception is revelation as divine activity in history. The existential import of these words is dependent on their historical factuality! History is the medium of the divine self-disclosure. The scriptural understanding of revelation is never taken to denote a non-conceptual, ecstatic experience of mystery to which scripture and theology merely pose an attempted human interpretation and/or opinion. Easter faith is never divorced from historical fact!

Of course, there are those who deny that revelation has cognitive truth,

but they do so to their own peril.

Is that a threat?

The notion that faith based upon historical investigation is somehow immune from criticism and beyond falsification is pure fantasy. The credentials of the gospel, its opennes to investigation form, is its beauty. Christian faith is related to historical reality.

Any disengagement from history is docetic and deeply heritical. Faith is not an existential leap into the dark; it is indeed a step into the light.

Hey, I agree with you on this one. We have to have faith--a working hypothesis. Just don't muck it up with the need for some revelatory precedent. Let the revelations happen now as a result of the faith--and chances are they will seem less supernatural.

And now to the meat of Amanthaâ??s fallacy. She/he argues against historical evidences for Christianity because such evidences possess only probability and lack scientific certainty. Admittedly, absolute certainty adheres only to assertions of formal logic and not to factual, historical beliefs. This is just to admit that mortals have to make decisions on the basis of probabilities. Life operates on this basis. Amanthaâ??s skepticism is a pleasant philosophical game, but one cannot live by it!

I don't think I ever once said anything about evidences for Christianity. Where's the beef? YOu admit that absolute certainty is not truly relevant to us mortals--only probabilites. And you can live by the probabilities, in my opinion. You can even live by in the mirage of absolute certainty as the apologist would have you do, but that path lacks sincerity. It is my opinion that you must be open to changing your point of view, even if it means letting go of the notion that Christ is divine or that Joseph Smith is a vessel of the restoration of Jesus' divine gospel. Keep it if you want, but be sincere. People don't have any evidence that these things are true except the personal witness. All the other "evidences" that are apologized for are to create the illusion of something more than opinion. --amantha

Lynn

[Abulafia]

Amantha, are you really saying that the only defence a person should give is that of a personal witness? Sure that has a part in mormon practice and theology whether it's resorting to the authority of scripture, or Joseph Smith or Jesus of Nazareth..

But if we take Jesus as example surely he defended himself against attack or criticism by justifying his position on a variety of issues. He didn't always resort to...ask God...get a personal witness...he also taught and defended through parable, story, explanation.

Was he insincere or on an insincere endeavour?

I don't get your beef?

Mary

[amantha]

Amantha, are you really saying that the only defence a person should give is that of a personal witness? Sure that has a part in mormon practice and theology whether it's resorting to the authority of scripture, or Joseph Smith or Jesus of Nazareth..

But if we take Jesus as example surely he defended himself against attack or criticism by justifying his position on a variety of issues. He didn't always resort to...ask God...get a personal witness...he also taught and defended through parable, story, explanation.

Was he insincere or on an insincere endeavour?

I don't get your beef?

Mary

A religious person, making religious claims has only their personal witness and if they feel they must use them, the opinions of others--including the opinions of people who wrote stuff that ended up in old books--based upon their personal witnesses. It always looks better when other people agree with you, but if all the agreement is based upon is personal witness and opinion, well, that's what you've got. That's what religious faith is in my opinion. And...I am not putting forth my opinion as truth, only my opinion.

Jesus was a philosopher and an apologist, in my opinion. The things he proposed (his opinions) may have worked great for him (although ultimately not very well--if the opinions of historians are to be believed)but they were just his ideas, his opinions. Parable, story-telling and explanation are teaching methods, not defensive methods. Joseph Smith was quite good at that as well.

No, ultimately, I don't think religion would be religion if the personal witness factor wasn't central to it. It would be something else.

[JRG39402]

I know I come from a different viewpoint on this issue being Baptist, but I think it still applies. I think the place of apologetics is as bait for a witnessing encounter. The cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. They need God to change them.

[lynnr]

Amanda,

To be candidâ??without intent for offense: youâ??re in over your head.

This thread started as a discussion regarding the nature of apologetics. Specifically yours. Having read the posts, Iâ??m not convinced you understand the discipline. Apologetics is a discipline. Itâ??s like speaking German. You have to learn the language before we can talkâ??lest you have us committing theological hari-kari.

For instance, historic Christianity is committed to objective theism. C.S. Lewis made an excellent point (and Iâ??m paraphrasing). He commented, â??People mistakenly think we Christians believe in Christianity because it makes us feel good. We believe in Christianity because we believe certain events occurred.â? My point isâ??apologetics addresses such issues. For instance, as Christians weâ??re committed, not to just a way of life, but to specific beliefs that are true to reality. Our creed is not just a poetic expression of an ideal we subjectively hold, but a claim about what is really there. We worship the God who is there, as Francis Schaeffer liked to say.

Iâ??m saying, to engage in a somewhat meaningful discussion on the matter of apologetics, certain assumptions are held. We must assume you know some things about the discipline; not everything, mind you. But some things. Enough to carry on an edifying discussion. There is at least a fundamental jargon shared among most lovers of apologetics; i.e., fideists, cognitive truth, â??upper storyâ? theism, â??revelation empiricists,â? â??supra history,â? before we can say much to one another.

Lynn

I agree with the last poster in that apologetics is best used as "pre-evangelism."

[lynnr]

"...I know I come from a different viewpoint on this issue being Baptist..."

Hi fellow Baptist. I'm Baptist. Lynn

[amantha]

Amanda,

To be candidâ??without intent for offense: youâ??re in over your head.

This thread started as a discussion regarding the nature of apologetics. Specifically yours. Having read the posts, Iâ??m not convinced you understand the discipline. Apologetics is a discipline. Itâ??s like speaking German. You have to learn the language before we can talkâ??lest you have us committing theological hari-kari.

For instance, historic Christianity is committed to objective theism. C.S. Lewis made an excellent point (and Iâ??m paraphrasing). He commented, â??People mistakenly think we Christians believe in Christianity because it makes us feel good. We believe in Christianity because we believe certain events occurred.â? My point isâ??apologetics addresses such issues. For instance, as Christians weâ??re committed, not to just a way of life, but to specific beliefs that are true to reality. Our creed is not just a poetic expression of an ideal we subjectively hold, but a claim about what is really there. We worship the God who is there, as Francis Schaeffer liked to say.

Iâ??m saying, to engage in a somewhat meaningful discussion on the matter of apologetics, certain assumptions are held. We must assume you know some things about the discipline; not everything, mind you. But some things. Enough to carry on an edifying discussion. There is at least a fundamental jargon shared among most lovers of apologetics; i.e., fideists, cognitive truth, â??upper storyâ? theism, â??revelation empiricists,â? â??supra history,â? before we can say much to one another.

Lynn

I agree with the last poster in that apologetics is best used as "pre-evangelism."

To be candid--without intent for offense--your hubris is palpable.

And to be honest, I don't understand the discipline of apologetics. It has never made sense to me and probably never will. It strikes me as very, very insincere. I don't like scenarios where people start experiments with their minds already made up as to what the result should be.

You have an opinion about reality and you want to defend it with "facts." You believe those facts support your opinion of reality and yet all you have is opinions and, as you so perfectly stated, the particular opinion that apologetics is best used as "pre-evangelism." Isn't that another name for "witnessing?" So apologetics leads to the giving of a personal witness. No surprise there.

[Thinking]

Whether we are talking about just Mormon apologetics and apologists or ALL apologetics and apologists the answers to both questions are YES & NO.

Each apologetic argument must be judged individually and each apologist as well.

[JRG39402]

"...I know I come from a different viewpoint on this issue being Baptist..."

Hi fellow Baptist. I'm Baptist. Lynn

Hi. :-) Nice to meet you.

[Abulafia]

Amantha, I would dispute that Jesus never defended a position and that he never defended a position through story, and parable.

If the apologist sincerely believes that their faith is based in divine reality then their quest to defend that faith is sincere surely?

The mormon apologist is for sure making certain assumptions about the truthfulness of their own religion. They sincerely believe in the divine reality of what they are defending.

Of course that divine reality is going to be questioned usually by critics but often by followers of a particular creed. Good thing too. If there was no apologetics in religion (or any area for that matter), or critics then I can't think of anything worse. It keeps any religion or idea, vibrant.

If there is one a priori assumption (within traditional religion), I would assume it to be that there is some kind of God/force/unknown in terms of what we are doing here. The rest is up for grabs.

Mary