Pastoral Care for Atheist Clergy

[JFRobot]

it is my belief that some evidence is falsely put together to support theories that are against God.

I'm sure some are put together falsely. Those should be ignored as well. But when all the evidence is taken as a whole, instead of cherry picked for or against god, the conclusion is at the least agnostic.

If you have no clue what a human skeleton looks like and you see a whole bunch of human bones lying around, are you going to automatically assume that the bones are apart of a human skeleton? I, personally, would think not.

No, I would not automatically assume. We would want to compare the idiosyncracies of the remains with what we know of human anatomy. If the cross referencing deductively eliminates all related primates or other organisms with a skeleton that resembles a human, then we can be comfortable concluding that the remains are human. If there is still doubt, there are many other methods to increase our level of confidence.

My advice is definitely NOT to automatically assume. My advice is the opposite, gather as much of the evidence as we can and look at it in whole.

Whether or not the earth is so many odd thousand years is not really doctrinally important. why? because the bible isn't a book that is supposed to tell you how the mechanical things of the world work.

Then why are you basing your conclusions of the mechanical things of the world on what the bible says? You're going against your own wisdom!

it's a book to tell you of a huge problem in human life. but i won't bore you with the details here.

There are modern books that are far better at explaining the huge problems in human life. With these modern books, you don't need to worry about misinterpretation leading to religious crusades. You also don't need to worry about disregarding certain parts about killing your family or friends at the city's gates. The bible is outdated, which I'm sure even you can agree with.

Only through cherry picking can you claim it applies to modern life, by ignoring certain parts. That's an inescapable truth of the bible, it must be interpreted before it can be applied. Otherwise, the literal interpretations are well understood by modern society to be immoral. We can and have done better, but people continue to cling to this ancient outdated morality.

To start the excavation of the tip of this iceberg(modern moral frameworks), start with a humanist manifesto. Follow the links and discussions, and you can find alternatives, competitors, and permutations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanist_Manifesto

I will choose to believe what i choose to believe. What are the consequences of believing Christianity?

[Interbane]

I will choose to believe what i choose to believe. What are the consequences of believing Christianity?

You may believe what you want. I wish it were as easy as making a choice!

[JFRobot]

Why isnt it as easy? You choose not to believe it...unless there's evidence that is swaying your opinion?

[Interbane]

unless there's evidence that is swaying your opinion?

Shouldn't evidence determine your opinion? I believe that we should divorce ourselves from our conclusions in favor of process. This is an important part of my worldview. Process trumps conclusion. If the results of process show something you disagree with, question what you believe. Or, make sure you are using good processes.


There are known processes that have passed the only test that matters in arriving at the truth. If the conclusions that result from that process differ from our opinion, I believe we should change our opinion. I have done that all throughout my life. You'd be amazed at the army of widely accepted lies or half truths that infest our culture.

Part of the reason is that people simply choose what to believe, rather than basing their beliefs on facts distilled from tried and true process.

[johnson1010]

Why isnt it as easy? You choose not to believe it...unless there's evidence that is swaying your opinion?

Precisely this.

Choosing to believe something rather than having your beliefs predicated on good evidence.

I cannot choose to believe that which all available evidence suggests is likely not true. This is not a choice i make. I could lie, and say i really do believe what i don't, but that is not the same thing as really actually believing it.

a belief is an attempt to accurately represent the world in our mind to the best of our ability, as opposed to a hope, as Sam Harris is quik to point out. I might hope that our politicians are always trying to do what is right and fair, regardless of political affiliation... but that is a far different thing than what i believe about the same.

Shall i do my "faith vs confidence" dance for everybody?

faith is an expectation held without evidence, against the evidence, and regardless of the evidence. That means no new information you ever learn on an article of faith will change your expectation. If you do change your expectation, that's because you have LOST faith in that thing and probably gained confidence in something else.

Confidence is an expectation built on a historical record of corroborative evidence which confirms and supports that expectation. Evidence can weaken or strengthen that expectation depending on how well it represents the evidentiary results. But in any case it is determined by real world empirical support which can be confirmed whether or not you would LIKE to believe it.

Faith and confidence are the opposite of each other and that difference is the foundation of success in the scientific method.

You mention evidence swaying opinion as though it's a bad thing...

When you've made a choice about what you would RATHER believe, instead of what the evidence supports, that is faith, which is the worst possible reason for believing something.

[johnson1010]

so let me ask: would a baby survive on a planet filled with baby animals with only small plant sprouts on an earth that may not be suitable for inhabitation?

He's saying that "of course adam and eve were adults, because they couldn't get by otherwise, and by extension, THAT's why the earth appears to be 1 million years old!"

But this is not a problem that science has to solve, JFR. Evolution says explicitly how all of these organisms came to be and it doesn't involve baby humans sitting in a field of baby corn stocks then starving to death because they don't know how to irrigate.

This problem you set up is instead yet another hurdle that must be overcome for a literal interpretation of the bible's creation myth.

[Interbane]

He's saying that "of course adam and eve were adults, because they couldn't get by otherwise, and by extension, THAT's why the earth appears to be 1 million years old!"

I was playing dumb in hopes of him explaining his version of evolution. Suddenly there were babies, and the babies grew into adults and voila!, life exists. People's conceptualization of how organisms change over time is limited to a single lifespan, rather than changes between and across generations. It's too much for the mental machinery. It's always fun to watch attempts to explain these conceptualizations.

[johnson1010]

JFR,

if you are interested in reading about evolution and have some questions you would like answered, take a look here for some discussion already underway.

http://www.booktalk.org/yes-evolution-t8939.html?