Tooth Fairy Bullshit

[Neo-Scholastic]

If I approached you on the street and told you about a magic guy who runs around healing people, predicting the future, raising people from the dead and the like, but these claims had nothing to do with what you already believe, would you even bother listening to it?... Even if they weren't in conflict with what you believe you wouldn't even consider it as possible because you weren't raised from childhood to accept such fantastical claims without question and proof…In that respect a guess an atheist is really nothing more than someone who has rejected the propensity toward belief of certain fantastical claims without question planted in our brains during childhood.

It's unfair to castigate the average Christian in a mainstream denomination for having simplistic notions about theology. The most important thing about the Christian religion isn’t about what you intellectually believe. It’s about the heart. That’s why priests and preachers (in mainline churches) focus on teaching people about a God that cares for them personally and how to honor His loving-kindness. Laypeople don’t need to know the ins-and-outs of Theology or read biblical Hebrew. I do and I can. But that’s just me. For the average Christian, though, the executive summary is sufficient. Is that so wrong? I have a basic understanding of economics, physics, and art history, but I’m no expert by any means. Nevertheless I can balance my checkbook, mix paint mediums, and appreciate Van Gogh.

Now I wholeheartedly agree with you about street preachers. There is one on State Street (Chicago) who babbles endlessly about the Lake of Fire and who’s going to be cast into it. He is clearly insane. So what? It’s stupid to compare some random wacko’s beliefs and values with those of Wilberforce, Bonheoffer and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Yet many AF members feel quite comfortable doing so. I have no problem calling them douchebags. That's not shutting down discussion. It's shocking you to reflect on your own belief - the one that allows you to equate great people with psychopaths.

I became an atheist in part because our Elders would gather us in the church basement to tell us that Dungeons & Dragons was demon worship and that we’d be tools of Satan if we listened to Led Zeppelin. Some of my schoolmates were Jehovah Witnesses. My AP friends and I had a lot of laughs over their tracts on YEC. They weren’t bad people. They just had bad theology and a piss-poor grasp of science. They didn’t know any better.

It’s clear that a lot of AF members, like me, had the unfortunate luck grew up in repressive and/or intellectually bankrupt churches. That’s no excuse for going the other extreme. Just because you’re smart enough to know that biblical inerrancy is bullshit doesn’t make you a paragon of Reason capable of evaluating something like Plantinga’s ontological argument. I would bet money that 90% of people that put the words like logic or reason in their self-description haven’t even heard of modal logic. If all you've got is endlessly repeating "no evidence", can't see the obvious category error, even after it's been made obvious, then you're no better than Christians who quote the Bible to prove it's the Word of God.