RE: Now it's personal
May 23, 2020 at 2:27 am
(This post was last modified: May 23, 2020 at 2:35 am by JohnMBauer.)
(May 22, 2020 at 1:28 pm)brewer Wrote: Falling away, quite concerned? Interesting choices. I think you might be more biased than you realize.
Yes, I probably am. However, I don't understand how you pulled "more biased" out of those two statements. On the one hand, "falling away from the faith" is merely Christian vernacular, and it should not be unexpected that a Christian would speak in his native tongue. As such, I don't see how it follows that this indicates I am "more biased" than simply biased. (I'll grant this may be a cognitive blind-spot, and trust that you'll expose it for me.)
On the other hand, it is just my observation that he has "suddenly become quite concerned" about logic and critical thinking. He had never cared about that sort of thing before, and now it pops up in nearly every other paragraph, with him reiterating, again and again, this desire to practice logical consistency and good critical thinking skills. Obviously I am biased—we all are, really—but how does this statement of my observation indicate a kind of "more" to my bias?
(May 22, 2020 at 2:31 pm)Shell B Wrote: Do you intend to continue to have a close relationship with this family member?
Absolutely. I love him dearly. But I also think it's kind of important that we maintain this close relationship, as he has hemorrhaged so many supports since declaring his atheism. I don't want him isolating. It's not healthy. He still has a couple of good friends, but at this point I'm the only one interested in exploring the deep end of the pool with him, and (he said) he really appreciates having someone willing to engage these complicated questions and ideas with him.
(May 22, 2020 at 2:31 pm)Shell B Wrote: Are you trying to convince them to revert back to religion?
No. I hope he does return, of course, but the Bible as I understand it is quite clear that we're unable to convert others, so I never bother trying. At this point what I'm trying to do is get him to explore why he lost his faith in the first place. We both shared a lot of doctrinal beliefs in common, but his deconstruction led to atheism while mine did not. I think that's interesting and I want to explore it. I know why mine did not, so I'm curious to learn why his did. And from what I've gathered so far, he doesn't know. So I think that's worth looking at.
(May 22, 2020 at 2:31 pm)Shell B Wrote: Welcome to the boards.
Thank you very much.
(May 22, 2020 at 8:09 pm)Belacqua Wrote: It seems like, for the purposes of honesty and accuracy, we ought to get some kind of periodic mental pop-up window that says: "You have held this idea to be true for 10 years now. Please deconstruct and re-evaluate before proceeding." It would keep us on our toes.
I love this. And I enthusiastically agree.
(May 22, 2020 at 8:09 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I think a lot of people change their beliefs as a reaction to family issues, emotional changes, or other non-academic reasons. ... Once the emotional motivation is there, one might rummage around for more rational-sounding reasons.
Nailed it.
(May 22, 2020 at 8:09 pm)Belacqua Wrote: And I think there's a danger of polarization in today's discourse, which generally discourages nuance. On this forum, for example, it often seems as if the only two choices are 1) sola scriptura literalist talking snakes or 2) total atheism. Since you are not a talking-snake type Christian, I look forward to hearing more about your take on things as we go along.
And you make a good first impression, because you come across as genuinely curious. A lot of people, on all sides of the debate, are just here to repeat their slogans.
So I hope you find some good discussions here. It's nice to have a new voice.
I really appreciate that, thanks. Cheers, mate.
(May 22, 2020 at 9:09 pm)Rhizomorph13 Wrote: As others have said there really isn't an atheist world view. I consider myself a humanist and theological noncognitivist, those are part of my worldview.
And, just to be clear, I never mentioned an atheist world-view—as I'm cognizant of the fact that atheism is not a world-view. Rather, I spoke of my interest in the atheist point of view (which is obviously not univocal). Given this experience I'm dealing with at the moment, those voices are relevant, important, and really hold my interest.
