New Jersey Newspaper Religion Editor on Atheism, Likes My Approach
Rather than ridiculing my opponents which many New Atheists do, including comedian Lewis Black in his new book, and Bill Maher in his movie Religulous (a play on the word ridiculous), Michael Riley says of my book that I prefer to convince people of my position through reason. From the sound of it he prefers my approach. This is a good piece, although I've seen some poll data that differs from his.
4 comments:
I want to comment on your previous poll data. Your data says that 29 million declare themselves to be without religion. I noticed a curious trend that I have seen among some groups of conservative Christians. They say that they don't have a religion, but a "relationship with Jesus." These are people who go to church every week, read their Bibles, attend Bible studies / small groups, etc. To any outsider, they would be considered part of a religion; however, this is not how they describe themselves. I wonder how many people like this get placed in the "no religion" category in these polls.
I wonder how many people call themselves christian and yet don't go to church, don't read the bible or have a clue as to what being a christian means.
And then you have all of those false christians who think that they are real christians but they aren't going to the right church or being told the right interpretation of the bible.
Personally, I estimate the number of actual christians to be about 7 (give or take a dozen or two).
tigg13,
You make some good points. However, I would imagine that those non-church going Christians are not atheists by any stretch of the imagination. My point was that people who declared themselves as non-religious may not be atheists / agnostics or similar non-believers in God.
In any case, I hope that we would all agree that polls don't determine truth. Only politicians say otherwise.
Tigg13,
That was funny! I actually think that other people think that other people are damned, and taking into consideration that everyone has a personal view of xtianity and salvation, they themselves will be the only lottery winners on judgment day, therefore the correct number is ONE.
Just a rash guess on my part, but the majority of so-called 'believers' who are not attending services and becoming 'warriors for god' are in reality noncommittal and would likely commit to non-belief if the reputed stakes weren't so high (eternal damnation seems a bit of a risk to most folks).
Further, I think the general human tendency to fear death keeps many folks from walking away -- after all, to commit to non-belief is to commit to total annihilation after dying (except in the new age world). Quite a splash of cold water in the face (at least it was for me).
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