John Lloyd was my Youth Pastor when I first became a Christian. A couple of years ago I had lunch with him,
which I wrote about here. Today I found a video of him doing a talk at the church he had founded, where he described his conversion and early ministry (starting at about 9:04), of which I was involved. My question to you is this: Has any atheist deconversion happened quite like this? I think not. It was purely experiential while he was on prescription medicine. And yet John Lloyd knows that he knows that he knows that his faith is true. It's a shame, really!
Secularists should teach the Philosophy of Religion in the classroom the same way they write their books, although they should allow for student interaction and debate. If the discipline is to be taught then this is one of the ways to do it right.
This is something I have posted in one form or another before, but I thought it would be interesting to see what you think about it here at DC. Before I set out, this is not a post to be confused with "should religion be destroyed" as that is an entirely different question.
Earlier I linked to what philosophers of religion think of Philosophy of Religion (PoR). The essay Jeff Lowder has linked to is by Paul Draper, who offers four suggestions on how to best approach the discipline in hopes of reforming it. I want to examine these suggestions in a little detail here.
Yesterday I was sitting on my gay friend's porch, drinking talking and laughing. Along comes a guy who asked if he could join us. We said okay and invited him to have a beer. He said he didn't drink. His shirt was a billboard for Christianity, you know the kind. So I asked him if he didn't drink because it was against his church teachings and he said yes. Okay, I said. When it got around to why he wanted to join us, he said he'd like to suck, er, have oral sex. When asked which one of us he would prefer he pointed to me. My friend was offended but laughed because he was off the hook. I merely told the guy I was not interested. Then I asked him if homosexuality was condemned by his church teachings and he said it was, but that he disagreed with them. Well, he left and we laughed. Nonetheless, is this Christianity? He agrees with his church when it comes to drinking but disagrees with it about homosexuality. And I'm equally sure his church would not approve of his wanton promiscuity. These are a few of the people who answer they believe in God and are Christians in those polls we've seen. This once again illustrates that Christianity is a pick and choose religion with a wide diversity among its adherents. Funny. We're still laughing.
"A god that needs to be worshiped isn't much of a god."