[...] The Day I Quit Believing in God – My friend Daniel over at Reflections&Meditations (R&M) wrote a post titled Fierce Doubts and Distant Friendships in which he linked to the post at the start of this little paragraph. I encourage you to read both posts – start with Daniels, and then read the other one. It’s important that we Christians help our fellow brothers and sisters in the Christian faith – be there to encourage, pray for, listen, and care. [...]

[...] something that I think is missing from a lot of theological blogs – shoe leather. I had read this post (I linked to it so you would read it…don’t disappoint me), among others but [...]

Unmerited suffering – a biggie

Hitler forgiven and in “our” heaven I’d rather be sent to the other place.

I always knew you had a heart, but I had no idea you were such a good writer. al

I don’t want to put words in Michael’s mouth, but I don’t think he is saying the day to day interaction with your children is the same as you would have with rocks. Rather, when you are dead and no more, the relationship you had with your children is as valuable is the relationship you had with the rocks.

Michael,

Sure – I understand that you were just relating an experience, not making an apologetic argument.

It’s trivially true that an atheist can believe his children to be (objectively) worth much more than rocks.

What’s hard to see is why the atheist can’t reasonably hold that value to depend on intrinsic features of the children – not on facts about where they came from, or about who values them, etc. (call them relational features) It’s not clear they need to appeal to a transcendent source of value; they may hold that any being with feature X has a unique sort of value (in virtue of which, we can’t treat that being in any old way), and that little Johnny has X, while the rock lacks it.

I’ll stay tuned – perhaps you’ll have a post some time on this very sort of argument from moral realism to theism. I don’t claim that no such argument can be made – but only that this is not at all obvious: that an atheist who is a moral realist is inconsistent.

62. Howard Pepper on 24 Jun 2010 at 3:12 pm #

…the more one studies, the more one tends to perceive that the document is human, perhaps reflecting interaction with the divine, but not uniquely revealed and limited to 66 canonized books….

So, when Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall free you,” did He mean that if you really, really study the Bible (i.e., abide in His word), your deeper study of the Bible would free you from belief in its divine authority and perhaps even belief in the divinity of its Author/Subject?

To wrap up what didn’t fit in my last post:

“…some sort of god…” Most of the posts seem to assume either Christian belief in God or its supposed “opposite,” atheism. I agree with those saying that there are few true atheists, and only 8-10% of Americans self-identify as that.

However, Hesiodos and I are only a couple of probably many participants here and literally many millions of Americans and others who believe in some kind of God/god or “higher power,” but find the Bible to be a human source about God/god that fails to evidence being a direct “Word” from God. The trend, as far as serious students of not only the content of the Bible, but its history, composition, historical and literary analysis, textual transmission, etc. is clear: the more one studies, the more one tends to perceive that the document is human, perhaps reflecting interaction with the divine, but not uniquely revealed and limited to 66 canonized books (plus Apocrapha for Catholics).

For everyone, but especially Hesiodos,

I much appreciate your spirit and your points in your post… particularly the importance of humility (or holding things tentatively–the other post-er on the maturity of accepting uncertainty is right). Also, that much (I’d say most) of our thinking is “subrational.” To me, that means “not on the same plane of awareness and mental process as the ‘rational’,” but neither inferior nor superior, as I think you also mean it. Indeed, we “rationalize” things when we seek justification for views, attitudes, etc. already taken.

At the same time, copious collecting and comparing of “facts,” others’ experiences and thoughts, etc. in a rational way IS a helpful way to reach further truth, more clarity re. what is “real.” But at least until after the event (of a belief change, e.g.), we are poor at understanding our own processes and reasons for belief or action, and often never gain much understanding.

My own journey into stronger and more specific faith (in conservative Protestant Christianity, “knowing God”) and then out of it was nearly the opposite of Michaels’ (thank you for the honest, daring sharing) and others’ sudden, extreme bouts of either doubt or full disbelief. Both were gradual. I was raised in a Christian family and very regular at an Evangelical church, then went to Christian college, seminary, worked in apologetics, Christian counseling and church ministry. Around 40 I began probing more deeply and attended a psych/theology PhD program at a progressive seminary that also had conservative students, besides myself, MDiv and PhD.

It seems that exposure and the broad scientific, etc. searching I did right after it helped me ease gradually and naturally away from orthodox views of the Bible, and thus also of the core doctrines of historic Christianity WITHOUT “losing my faith” in some kind of an undefinable Creator. So I identify with and appreciate Hesiodos’ comment about “…

Dale,

I have never questioned whether atheists can value human life more than rocks (and I am glad that they do). The issue is always justification for such that has some type of transcendent value and reasonings, not simply sociological or even evolutionary norms.

Either way, my account above and my thoughts that my children were rocks was not something that I reasoned out in my new state of mind, it was something that was just there as a “first-responder” default worldview that seemed inevitable at the time. At least in this post, I was not trying to make the argument that if you are an atheist, you have to believe that all people are of equal worth as rocks (even though I am persuaded that such is true—especially now!).

Hope that makes sense.