Mijin pretty much gets me. Although I’d add that a religion being “competing” doesn’t necessarily mean that a religion has alternate evangelists actively trying to recruit people. A religion can compete just by being compelling as an alternative. How many college kids go away to school and get “really into eastern philosophy” just because they first learned about it in some Phil 101 course? The actual actions of real adherents of the other religions is immaterial.
It appears that many Creationist YouTube channels have comments turned off so that their viewers won’t get bothered by embarrassing questions and facts.
The reason I like it when a JW comes to my door is that I can quiz her on evolution in a situation where leaving would be an admission of defeat.
I thought it was morally wrong to intentionally torment the weak minded.
Hey, I’m an atheist so according to them I have no morals.
Another tangential factor is that, as a Christian author once pointed out, many Christians have this notion that “faith” means “believing something as hard as you can”. That the moment you allow doubt or scrutinizing thought enter into the mind, your feeling of certainty starts to dissipate, and therefore you start to “lack faith” (which leads to all kinds of bad outcomes.) So what these Christians do is they try as hard as they can to block out any contradictory sources or info from entering their mind, for fear of their feeling-of-certainty getting eroded.
Well, Pacioli developed the two-column accounting method so he never had to deal with negative numbers. (Wikipedia says he was the second person to publish the technique.) He may not have even known of negative numbers. Accountants to this day do it that way, and may never need to use a negative number. (Never mind that computerized accounting systems use negative numbers internally.)
So I can see why a graduate student in accounting would not need to know about, nor believe in, those fictitious, even blasphemous, “imaginary” numbers.
Well I have had more productive conversations than this, but I guess context matters: Here in the UK, Creationism is clearly a fringe belief (kinda religion itself is*).
So the conversation often begins with the other person at least pretending to be only holding a tentative belief.
It’s “This stuff you hear about the moon landings really make you think…” not “We never went to the moon!”
It’s easier to have a productive conversation when it starts that way.
* As discussed in other threads, while officially the vast majority of Brits are Christian, that’s more about membership of the same “team” as their parents rather than actual belief. Church attendance is virtually nil and any talk of Jesus or God in a normal social situation would rapidly end said social situation.
Dammit I hate it when I lose.
Yeah, I had a friend whose mom believed that. We didn’t spend much time at his house. Always reminded me of Carrie.
Just realized how old this thread is. Wow.
It is rank heresy to suggest that the Devil can create anything.
The thread’s not really that old. It just appears that old to deceive you.
Kent is getting another visit to the ole Greybar Hotel. (Only a month–it could have been a year.)
Also, remember Josh McDowell? He was a big deal in apologetics in the 1990s (I see that he has been mentioned in lots of threads here). He has done some of his own petard-based hoisting recently.
I understand a little of what Josh McDowell was getting at, but there’s no need to make it racial, plus the conclusion is wrong.
Because being from a privileged family doesn’t just mean money. It means being around aspiration and success; knowing people who’ve gone to college and got great jobs. Or who have worked hard and been rewarded for their hard work.
I grew up in a poor community and it’s sad how low most people’s sights were.
However, if there’s any correlation with skin color, it’s likely because of the systemic racism that got us to where we are. And the solution isn’t just to say “well it’s fair because you grew up in a hopeless environment”.
Sure, but learning this might make some white school child feel bad, so we shouldn’t mention that possibility.
That reminded me of a former co-worker - like his wife, a lifelong Lutheran - who was a bit disappointed that his daughter embraced Buddhism when she went away to college. We told him that she needs to figure out what’s right for her, and if Christianity is, in the long run, she will return to it.
I found out a few years ago that she married a Greek Orthodox priest.
Did her parents consider that to be worse, or better?
It’s been a long time since we worked together. As long as they approved of him, I don’t think it would matter.