Re: Rationalizing God (fwd)

Miracle (miracle@procyon.com)
Mon, 12 May 1997 20:06:01 -0500 (CDT)

Aholland
I know of few people who leave christianity as the result of debate.
I think that it is those who are intellectually honest will see the
absurdities if they become aware of them in a nonconfrontational manner.
I left because I discovered biblical difficulties on my own in addition
to repulsive theological doctrines (predestination). I couldn't make
sense of them on my own and I found that neither could my christian
friends, adults, nor even pastors. All I found was "mental pretzel"
answers and was warned to stay away from religion classes at the
university. This influenced me to take the classes and then eventually
major in religious studies.

I have also encountered a judgemental response to my inquiries.
Most of the fundamentalists I asked difficult questions to gave me a
response that didn't answer the question but rather asked if I was
stuggling with sin at the moment. The general assumption was that there
can't possibly be genuine reasons for doubt so this person must be
sinning in some form or another and is the real reason of doubt. In
other words, I want to sin and not feel guilty so I find an excuse to
not believe. Has anyone else enountered this?

RJV 5/12
I have encountered that exact same thing. I just try to make them stick
to the question I have raised. That seems to work - especially if there
is an audience. There is a campus thumper group that preaches on campus
sometimes - and I try to be there b/c there are usually 100-200 people
listening (usually not seriously - but for entertainment) and I direct the
questions to the thumper - but so that others can hear me. Usually, I'm
approached by crowd members when I'm ready to leave - and they ask me some
questions. I give them URL's and tell them to join errancy... (I don't
know if any have joined - but I don't think any have...) I usually have
some papers with my arguments on them and hand them out when I am ready to
go. (Yoel - you might be a bit more famous than you realize...) I've
been thinking about putting up signs on campus advertising the $3000
reward given by three members of this list for coming up with a coherent
account of Easter Sunday. That should attract a few people...

-- R Jason Valentine ..ooOO miracle@procyon.com

"The way to make money is to start your own religion."
[L. Ron Hubbard, 1954]

(For those of who don't know, L. Ron Hubbard founded the Church of
Scientology in 1954.)