by Brad » Thu Sep 10, 2009 5:45 am
Less-literal / "liberal" believers,
Read carefully the words of mikesdjr.
Then please just tell the rest of us why you don't protest at all or at least present a contrasting view?
Because you think his view is helpful and beneficial to civilization?
Because any kind of belief is a good thing as long as it has Jesus in it somewhere?
Because it's none of your business?
Because it might make you realize or even outwardly acknowledge that the Bible has a very unfortunate ratio of wisdom to nonsense?
Why?
(Pseudonym has answered a similar question for me before. I should go back and read that again. But I have to say the unwillingness of Christians to make a public peep in response to the more extreme "interpretations" of other believers unless and until some enormous tragedy or embarrassment is all over the media never ceases to amaze me.)
Rian,
I noticed you didn't reply to my lengthy response to you in the previous thread, but the point I made there applies equally to your last query here.
Believers in sun gods going by various names around the world had "relationships" with their gods, too, and they prayed and worshiped and sacrificed young girls to keep those relationships on good terms.
Believers in the god of Abraham had worshipful relationships not only with Yahweh, but with quite a few other gods for hundreds of years before circumstances began to give rise to monotheism.
Believers in Shiva and Vishnu and the entire pantheon of Hindu gods have very sincere, devout, and loving relationships with their deities.
Believers in a divine Buddha arrange their daily lives and calendars and practices around relationships with him, too.
The people who hijacked the airplanes on 9/11/01 very seriously believed in their relationships with, and submission to, Mohammad and Allah, and believed to their cores that they were about to make those relationships far sweeter and more direct when their targets were reached. (One thing those believers had absolutely correct is that the arrangements they were making for themselves would be "everlasting.")
But while you assert that you "don't know everything," you do think that all those people, at least a billion of them altogether, are profoundly mistaken, and that their devout and sincere "relationships" with those deities are based upon false man-made notions, do you not? If so, on that you and I agree.
(By the way, however, if you'd been born in India, Thailand, or Pakistan, the probability is overwhelming that you'd be a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Muslim, respectively, and that I would at least have started out that way, too, had I been born in one of those locations.)
Those who are (or who, like me, have been inclined to be) critical of Emery for his subtle and seemingly passive approach in the podcasts,
I commend to you a listen to the most recent "Reasonable Doubts" podcast - #51. There, the hosts discuss some psychological research relating to what happens when worldviews are directly challenged, particularly worldviews that are arranged around fixed and rigid ideas and that contain promises of some direct form of immortality. Having heard about that research, I've begun to think that the manner in which Emery conducts himself during the podcasts is at the very least a valid and useful approach, maybe uniquely so.
Obviously my own approach is more direct, but I'm really trying to learn from Emery, whose talent in allowing folk like Danny Edge and Josiah to dig their own holes, so to speak, is very great, in my opinion.
Bottom line - I think Harris and Hitchens serve reason and reality well in their way, and Emery and other quieter voices like Eugenie Scott and David Sloan Wilson serve well in their way.
Those who know the most of nature believe the least about theology. - Robert Ingersoll
