Subject: Re: Choice of religion
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Date: Fri Jan 21 2000 - 18:14:32 EST
In a message dated 1/21/00 5:30:36 PM Eastern Standard Time, shok@netcom.com
writes:
<<
So you were brought up Catholic and you eventually settled on some other
brand of Christianity? And you don't see where you fit into the
paradigm?
Of all the religions in the world, of all the religious leaders in the
world, you ended up making yours that of your parents' (presumably) and
that of the dominant religious portion of your country. The specifics
are different (from Catholicism to some other variety) but not VERY
different. If you wanted to prove me wrong, you should have chosen one
much further removed.>>
Both myself and Catholics would agree that the brand of Christianity I've
chosen is pretty radically different from Catholicism. I'm too much of an
iconoclast to be a good Catholic. Even if I were an atheist I'd still be a
Protestant.
HOWEVER, you do have a point :) I don't have to personalize this though.
You have to account, then, for the growth of Evangelical Christianity in the
East. The largest Pentecostal church in the world is in Seoul, Korea, and
estimates about the growth of Christianity in China tells us that within 20
years there will be more Christians in China than in America.
People aren't limited to how they were raised.
<< Robbie -- I don't think you're doing this deliberately, but the
atheist rhetoric I'm reading tells me atheists understand my beliefs and
experiences better than I do. >>
Tell me how I should take the beliefs and experiences of Theists more
seriously than the beliefs and experiences of UFO abductees and
schizophrenics while remaining logically consistent and I will.
-robbie >>
I would say don't take the beliefs at all. Offer the same deference you
expect for yourself. You can be a bigot and assume that all theists are
essentially no different from UFO abductees and schizos, or you can recognize
a few facts:
If you were talking to a real UFO abductee or schizo, you probably wouldn't
be terribly drawn to the personality. You'd pity them as you did the guy on
the bus. But look at some of the theists in the world -- theism has given us
Martin Luther Kings, Mother Teresas, Christ, Buddha...the list goes on.
I could introduce you to people, allow you to follow them around, and you'd
be impressed with their humility, love, compassion...all values you've
inherited from Christian theism indirectly. NO non-Christian western
philosophy valued compassion until Christ came around. Read Aristotle's
ethics. Read what the Vikings say about how great retribution is. Don't
tell me how you're learning compassion from nature until you've put four
neons in a fishtank with a Betta :) Or watched lions hunt gazelles.
Combine the fact of rational, loving, sane theists with the fact that theism
presents the most attractive moral philosophies the world has ever seen, and
you have to ask yourself:
Is a guy that believes in God necessarily like a schizo or a UFO abductee?
See, the people that frame the very comparison do so out of their bigotry.
They have decided the question in advance, and will malign anyone who comes
to a different conclusion, no matter what their character.
I have to give Sagan credit for the ending of Contact on this one.
NOW --
I have to address the Theist arguments again atheism. I like C.S. Lewis's
the best, in the Chronicles of Narnia.
There was an unbelieving dwarf in Prince Caspian who was sent to Cair Paravel
to find the Kings and Queens of Old after the magic horn was blown. The
dwarf did not believe in the horn, but went. And he found the two kings and
two queens. The dwarf did not believe in Aslan, either, but eventually was
allowed to see him, because the dwarf was honest and principled. He really
didn't believe because he really hadn't seen for himself, and had no reason
to believe what he had only been told.
Compare this dwarf to the black dwarves in The Last Battle. They so
adamantly refused to believe in Aslan, that they could not see him even
though he stood right before them.
The difference between the two was a different in commitment.
One was committed to the truth as he saw it, the others were commited to not
believing something whether it was true or not.
Theism allows for a rational and understandable atheism. I hope atheism is
not so self absorbed and bigoted it cannot allow for a rational theism.
Jim
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