I am a Christian, and also a scientist. I don't like politics, except international relations (where continued third world poverty continues to be the greatest moral failure of the rich nations of the world). Global warming is a reality. War is an abomination. I dislike dishonesty, cheating, lying and real estate agents.
To all those who disagree with me: welcome. Let's start up a conversation between our blogs. All you have to do is link to one of my posts and the conversation has started.
On the other hand, if you're a geek like me who loves programming, astronomy and God, hopefully you sit back and just enjoy this blog!
(crossposted from my response to your post on r/atheism)
ReplyDeleteYou sound like an interesting person.
Why converse over blogs? They're usually a very clunky way to converse. I think reddit is a better place to have a conversation, if that's what you want to do. Post to reddit and you'll get an audience, and plenty of response.
I blog, but these days only when I have something to say that doesn't work as a r/atheism post, or when it's a bit long/full of pictures for a post so I put it on the blog and link back to it here.
What kind of scientist are you?
What programming do you do?
Why are you a Christian?
If you'd been born in Pakistan or Tibet, wouldn't you almost certainly have been Moslem or Buddhist instead?
What is it you want to say to atheists?
I'll simply ask a question.
ReplyDeleteWhen you do science, do you apply epistemological rules like falsifiability, reproducibility, parsimony, logical consistency and an assumption of natural causation?
If the answer is yes, do you apply those same rules to spiritual claims? If not, what exempts spiritual claims from such requirements?
If the answer is no, are you doing science?
Saying “I’m a Christian, let’s start up a conversation” is a huge waste of time for an atheist.
ReplyDeleteWhile saying “I’m an atheist” means one thing: “I do not hold a belief in any deity.”, saying “I’m a Christian” means that you can be one or more of 30,000 different denominational beliefs.
I would have to begin by asking you to tell us what kind of Christian you are: Do you believe the bible is literal or metaphorical, or a vague combinations of the two? Is salvation reserved for believers, good doers, only 144,000 select individuals, is it available posthumously and/or pre-birth? What is the nature of your god: are you a triune polytheist, a triune monotheist, is he omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent or 2 out of 3, or none of the above? Is he a personal god who listens to and answers prayers, or a deity who maintains a definitive and unchanging plan for all people? Do you believe in miracles and modern supernatural phenomena? What is the nature of the soul? What is your belief in other gods: only those mentioned in the Bible, gods not mentioned in the Bible, none at all?
As you can see, an atheist would spend a tremendous amount of time just trying to figure out which flavor of Christianity you subscribe to. If you laid it all out for us, then we could proceed without wasting hours trying to figure out your personal beliefs.