thanks for proving my point. which was: there's always a tactic theology on all sides and that you, Dawkins, whoever have to work with a certain (extremely limiting imo) conception of what faith is. so if I don't have what you define as faith then I have no faith at all. I would say I have a different kind of faith that you either haven't thought about or been exposed to. same with new atheists--they strike me as having no frame of reference for alternative conceptions of faith.
then we get to where the discussion could actually go (as I said in the beginning), what we all really believe and what are the consequences of our beliefs.
undoubtedly very silly.
2009-02-03 17:43:56
I had rotini last night for dinner, which means I think I had communion in the religion of pastafarianism. Must say it was quite delicious.
On a more serious note in response to Dave and Ryan re: social consequences of beliefs, the way it seems to me to deal with that is to cover the various manifestations of the religions themselves. From the most destructive to the most saintly. My assumption is that though many people claim at least verbally they are worshiping the same God (or image of God if you like), they are in fact not.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster assumes a certain kind of view of God, specifically the Christian God, that many Christians worship but others do not. The correlation between that Flying Jesus or Allah God as it were and the kinds of negative consequences for society you mention can be pretty high (although not necessarily either).
It's just not very subtle. Again it grew out of the Creationism debate, but what happens if you are religious person who doesn't believe in Creationism nor in the form of God in which the Creationists believe Him (and it's always a Him at this point) exists?
Then like me you might say, who really cares. Particularly if the New Atheist position assumes that Flying Spaghetti Monster god is an appropriate parallel to the Christian-Jewish-Muslim whatever God. I can't really have a conversation with such people because in my experience (having participated in a few of these debates) they generally can't grasp that I'm talking about a different conception of God. Which means at some point they end up doing theology--they are deciding what God would be like if there were to be a God. They just don't do it very well, since they haven't studied it from within. That's why I said it was like taking views on art from someone who says that all art is bunk. You could, but presumably some art could not be bunk in which case you would need someone who knows good art from bad art. Who knows the canons, the history, and the intentions of art. As well as various degrees of sophistication and development of art.
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matoko,
thanks for proving my point. which was: there's always a tactic theology on all sides and that you, Dawkins, whoever have to work with a certain (extremely limiting imo) conception of what faith is. so if I don't have what you define as faith then I have no faith at all. I would say I have a different kind of faith that you either haven't thought about or been exposed to. same with new atheists--they strike me as having no frame of reference for alternative conceptions of faith.
then we get to where the discussion could actually go (as I said in the beginning), what we all really believe and what are the consequences of our beliefs.
undoubtedly very silly.
I had rotini last night for dinner, which means I think I had communion in the religion of pastafarianism. Must say it was quite delicious.
On a more serious note in response to Dave and Ryan re: social consequences of beliefs, the way it seems to me to deal with that is to cover the various manifestations of the religions themselves. From the most destructive to the most saintly. My assumption is that though many people claim at least verbally they are worshiping the same God (or image of God if you like), they are in fact not.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster assumes a certain kind of view of God, specifically the Christian God, that many Christians worship but others do not. The correlation between that Flying Jesus or Allah God as it were and the kinds of negative consequences for society you mention can be pretty high (although not necessarily either).
It's just not very subtle. Again it grew out of the Creationism debate, but what happens if you are religious person who doesn't believe in Creationism nor in the form of God in which the Creationists believe Him (and it's always a Him at this point) exists?
Then like me you might say, who really cares. Particularly if the New Atheist position assumes that Flying Spaghetti Monster god is an appropriate parallel to the Christian-Jewish-Muslim whatever God. I can't really have a conversation with such people because in my experience (having participated in a few of these debates) they generally can't grasp that I'm talking about a different conception of God. Which means at some point they end up doing theology--they are deciding what God would be like if there were to be a God. They just don't do it very well, since they haven't studied it from within. That's why I said it was like taking views on art from someone who says that all art is bunk. You could, but presumably some art could not be bunk in which case you would need someone who knows good art from bad art. Who knows the canons, the history, and the intentions of art. As well as various degrees of sophistication and development of art.