trying to relate cognitively to Christians. In that respect, your link to the "freud v god II" post is spot on. That's EXACTLY the problem I'm talking about.
Let me see if I understand the problem. Brown's problem with neo-atheist fundamentalist neo-sceptical secularists like Dawkins is, as far as I can tell, not that they're wrong about whether there's a God, but that they're naive. In the Freud vs God post, Brown says that the sort of cognitive hygiene that seems second nature to the neo-atheist is rare, hard work, and that it's not clear to most people that it's worth the bother. Given this, you cannot take religious people at their word: when they say they believe a thing about how the world is, they're making another sort of statement entirely, even if they themselves claim otherwise. Trying to demolish these supposed beliefs about the world isn't going to make religious people into atheists, because they never really believed them in the first place.
I think you're saying that I have the same problem. Maybe I do, and my time would be better spent trying to get kids educated in logical thinking, or something. Nevertheless, the Christianity I knew appeared to be genuinely making statements about how the world is, and I stopped calling myself a Christian when I realised it was very unlikely those statements were true. I don't think I'm unique, although I may have a very specialised atheist ministry :-)
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timeasmymeasure
hit the comment limit: here's part 2
Date: 2009-02-23 05:55 pm (UTC)Let me see if I understand the problem. Brown's problem with neo-atheist fundamentalist neo-sceptical secularists like Dawkins is, as far as I can tell, not that they're wrong about whether there's a God, but that they're naive. In the Freud vs God post, Brown says that the sort of cognitive hygiene that seems second nature to the neo-atheist is rare, hard work, and that it's not clear to most people that it's worth the bother. Given this, you cannot take religious people at their word: when they say they believe a thing about how the world is, they're making another sort of statement entirely, even if they themselves claim otherwise. Trying to demolish these supposed beliefs about the world isn't going to make religious people into atheists, because they never really believed them in the first place.
I think you're saying that I have the same problem. Maybe I do, and my time would be better spent trying to get kids educated in logical thinking, or something. Nevertheless, the Christianity I knew appeared to be genuinely making statements about how the world is, and I stopped calling myself a Christian when I realised it was very unlikely those statements were true. I don't think I'm unique, although I may have a very specialised atheist ministry :-)