Once more, a Christian and devout believer was kind enough to point out to me that, not withstanding I am a good man and all that jazz, the real problem with all this head butting between Christian and Atheist … and Nan 😉
is me. Yes, that’s right. I simply do not understand.
So, after having read the bible cover to cover, being an ardent amateur on-looker for a number of years, regular engager with and reader of so many things Christian, including dialoguing with Christians themselves of, oh, so many various cults, sects , denominations, having compared pretty much all of the more popular Christian claims pertaining to their faith against real, testable and in many cases, verifiable evidence from across multiple disciplines including, but not limited to, history, geography, archaeology, biology, palaeontology, anthropology, geology, and basic boatbuilding, I arrived at the (apparently ) outlandish conclusion that not a single Christian claim could stand up against even the most rudimentary scrutiny.
And yet, here we have , a devout believer, one who, as far as I am concerned is as fundamental as all Christians are in their beliefs – telling me I do not understand.
So, I have a question. This is directed primarily at all of you who have de-converted and are now atheists …. and Nan.
In the instance of our Christian friend
As so many of you have been there , done that got the T – shirt, is this a case of 100% belief because of full blown indoctrination or … is this more a case of wilful ignorance?
What were you like in this situation?
And of course a tipping point was obviously reached for you lot as you are no longer living in the Twilight Zone.
Let me know, okay? Full on belief( via indoctrination) or wilful ignorance.
Gracias
Time for breakfast and to check on the bloke painting our front wall …
Catch you a bit later?
Ark.
A Tale Unfolds 
Here’s the comment I left for you over at Gary’s blog.
Ark, I didn’t mean this in an insulting kind of way. I just think our minds reason and think differently. You are supposing my faith is all due to blind indoctrination or willful ignorance on my part. I don’t agree. We have to let go of the conversation, Ark. In a way, it is like endlessly circling the Mulberry bush. 😊Appreciate you engaging with me, Ark
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See my response on Gary’s blog.
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I know Ark. You haven’t engaged with the best in Christian apologetics that’s why you don’t understand. Maybe you should stop engaging run of the mill Christians and engage with Swinburn or Platinga and you will see the light.
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Makagutu, I think what is not being grasped perhaps for folks on both sides..is how two equally sincere, intelligent and thinking people can look at the same arguments/evidence and yet, not come to the same conclusions. There has even been a sharp difference of opinion in what constitutes sufficient “evidence.”
I just think partly this is because people’s minds can think and reason differently. I would not chalk all this up to assuming the person who disagrees has simply been blindly indoctrinated or willfully ignorant.
Worldview is huge. Folks who move within a solely naturalistic kind of paradigm are not going to reason and think the same way as people who are even somewhat open to the possibility of the supernatural, to just give one example.
I’m making an observation here, not trying to be insulting or condescending toward anyone. Sometimes there’s just nothing to do but to respectfully agree to disagree, and then maybe revisit the discussion at a later time.
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That is a point of view certainly. But can we count on you to give your absolute solemn word not to proselytize in any fashion to people, especially those struggling with some sort of emotional trauma, and most definitely NOT to children in any shape or form?
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Hello Becky.
It is interesting this happens mainly with religious matters where what counts for evidence depends on who is looking/ asking. Imagine a maths class where 2+2 depends on who is asking or their own biases.
No amount of sound arguments are going to bring unicorns to life.
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“Listen, Mr. Oppenheimer… Yes, you’ve read some stuff on nuclear theory, you can quote a few experts, but we really don’t think you’re *qualified* to, you know, actually discuss the beautiful effects of this bomb. So thank you, but go away.”
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Well, I can only speak for myself, but, I wasn’t convinced Islam was the One, True Faith until I read these undeniably true words in the Quran: “This book is not to be doubted!” Once I read those words, my Catholic upbringing and Christianity in general, became, to me, an obvious joke. “How could I NOT become Muslim,” I asked myself after reading those enlightening words. I mean, COME ON!!!!! $Allahu Akbar$
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So, to answer your question of what I would have been like back in the day… Just being honest about my scope of experience, I never “met my match” from the atheist side. Hard to say. I really did believe the evidence was “on our side” as believers, and I tried to talk to people from that standpoint. I had a brother that I would try to evangelize. I read a lot, knew the deeper arguments for intelligent design, etc. The problem for me is that I was operating on bad info — which is to say, curated and incomplete info. I think that was a strong source of the “rage against the machine” that followed my deconversion. It is palpable in my Journey pages. What can compare to the realizing that you have been an unwitting pawn in someone else’s chess game?
The reality as far as I can now determine, there are some blurred regions in the believers field of vision. They really do think “worldview” accounts for the divergences. But the worldview argument is actually part of the fallacious framework. There are several distinct flaws, which most folks don’t care to find out about. But I think to boil them down to some street-level phraseology helps.
One major flaw is that they grant questions of faith “the benefit of the doubt”. This powerful default setting kicks in whenever the questions get hard. It enables people not to do serious, deep investigation. Something has to come along and make them actually, really want to get to the bottom of the question. To stop granting their beliefs any quarter. No benefit of the doubt. No friends and family discount. No mulligans. No benefit of the doubt. They have to brass-tacks really and truly want to know. Something has to crack the egg, to catalyze that process, to heat those embers. Until that happens, there isn’t much you can say or do.
For me, the catalyst was that my daughter had been saved by prayer and miracle — which created a zero-bullshit zone of concern for me — and then it was revoked by the discovery that the possibility that she had actually been saved by a branch of science I denied to be true. This created dissonance, but the ground was sacred enough that it pushed me into the “no bullshit, brass tacks” zone of finding out the ground truth, all the way to bare metal, whatever the cost.
The buy-in price is different for everyone.
The writings of Peter Boghossian are fascinating to me. He does not advise persuasion, but trying to engender that state of arresting doubt. To crack the egg. To get the person to a place of “doxastic openness.” I agree with him in strategy. But to be fair — and you probably know my style well enough to chuckle — I haven’t had much success in sticking to that plan when actually talking to the faithful. 🙂
Anyway, there are other street level phrases that could be talked about, but this one rose to the top of mind when I read your post.
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Hello, Matt.
Would you say, therefore, ‘Yes’ to being indoctrinated and no to wilfully ignorant?.
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I would say yes to both, concurrently. In an age of information, ignorance is a choice.
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Wilful ignorance suggests deceit at some level.
Would you agree?
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Not per se. I couldn’t go that far. But it does suggest belligerence. Faith views the right sort of belligerence as a virtue. I disagree with that equivalence.
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Enough belligerence could produce deceit. There is a YEC geologist whose name escapes me at the moment who obtained a first class degree at a secular university and later wrote a thesis for his doctorate.
Meantime he also writes/wrote for Creation Ministries on the YEC position for the Flood.
Editorial content makes a deal of the fact he has a degree from fully accredited university.
If this is not deceit I don’t know what is.
I fully acknowledge that without full details of this bloke I could well be blowing smoke out my backside. So … trust me … I am an atheist.
🙂
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No question some of them do traffic in deceit. Apologist is another word for liar. William Lane Craig belongs on the same list as the fella you just mentioned. Most people who listen to him can’t see his sleights of hand. But I can, and I really needed Craig to be a straight arrow at one point of my life. When I saw him turn a card during one of his debates, and I realized what he was doing, I threw something at the television. Thieves.
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Your mention of Craig reminded me of something I wrote in my book (as related to “God”) …
… people feel they can relate to this entity in a personal way, similar to a good friend. He is considered analogous to human beings in that He can speak, breathe, see, hear, walk and talk, as well as portray other human attributes, such as anger, jealousy, love, compassion, forgiveness, etc. William Lane Craig (Christian apologist) puts it this way: God is “endowed with rationality, self-consciousness, and volition.”
Amazing how these people know soooo much about this invisible and mute being.
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Endowed. A word that implies receipt from a yet higher source.
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Also, we bear the burden of responsibility. We own the lies that pass from our lips. The lies we post online. The disinformation we repeat. We own these things, and that should make grown ups very circumspect. Nowhere have I seen less regard, more brazenness, and more misplaced confidence than among the true believers. They believe that a claim of belief is enough to justify disseminating whatever they were told by someone else, who likewise did the same. Fictions all the way down. And all it takes to break that infinite chain is one person who takes responsibility in the deepest sense of the word – and refuses to post or say or preach that which they cannot and have not verified.
We would live in such a different world, if we lived in a world of actual grown ups.
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What I have been conveying to the likes of Becky for a while.
Water off a duck’s back comes readily to mind.,
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The entire project of Christian evangelism is to sell a set of claims that cannot be verified. To overreach evidence and reason and boast of knowledge that they can only pretend to have. And this act is the chief virtue of the faith. They admire the faith of a child, not the duty and burden of an adult. Hitchens was correct about this all along, of course, and said that if given unlimited power to change human thinking the one change he would proactive would be to forever separate in people’s minds the notion that faith is a virtue.
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It seems clear to me: how we think determines what we think. This is just as true for religious belief as it is the acceptance of any ideological framing in any area of human concern. In this religious context, a mind primed to receive the ‘Good News’ (and so come to fervently believe in the reality of all kinds of batshit crazy claims using ‘faith’) means how this brain thinks is already set. It has been taught that imposing belief on reality is actually a virtue rather than a vice! (See Trumpism for the effects.)
No matter how much information and evidence is presented to demonstrate the unreliability of the faith being used to be reflective of reality – the ‘what’ – all of this must pass through the filter that blocks its effectiveness because the ‘how’ has already determined that it’s somehow okay to impose belief on reality and expect reality to comport to it. (See confirmation bias as a handy tool to enable this insane method.) The filter is what I call the ‘how’.
So I think only those people who have the perceptive ability to realize that they are using this filter (usually by encountering the negative consequences of insisting reality must go along with their beliefs when it doesn’t) PLUS have the courage to honestly question the validity of the ‘how’ and a willingness to step outside using this with alternative methods can successfully deconvert/deprogram from the ‘what’ the mind’s filter allows.
And I think this is exceptionally difficult for people to face up to how badly they’ve been fooled and all the consequences – especially social – that accompany the rejecting of the ‘what’.
How we think really matters. Education is supposed to be (once upon a time) all about learning various ways to think (this is the heart of critical thinking: learning how to switch one’s mental gears at will, so to speak) and a necessary component to understand the basis on which other people present arguments, opinions, beliefs, values, and so on counter to one’s own and perhaps much better informed than one’s own. Without this ability to even grasp when one’s opinion/belief is weaker and less informed than another, how can one change one’s mind?
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Oh, and this is why I think faith-based belief systems (whatever form – religious, economic, political, social, whatever) are usually so brittle. One trademark of a faith-based ideology in action is a demonstrated unwillingness to withstand even slight moderation or mitigation or negotiation of its claims. The starting position for a faith-based belief has to be that it is already true/correct/right. That’s why it’s brittle: it’s not open to anything but whole-hearted defense or the whole structure collapses. Nothing CAN be wrong, so the entire field of apologetics is built to excuse and comport what’s wrong with the belief – especially factually wrong – as another kind of being right overall! I think in religious terms it’s called various names: in Islam, for example, it’s called ‘abrogation’ (the later verses in conflict with earlier verses are the ‘revealed’ correct ones, for example). Internal conflict is always a ‘work in progress’ kind of problem, an issue awaiting clarification. This is why we see the constant shuffle between ‘It’s TRUE!’ and ‘It’s just a metaphor, silly critic’. It’s never, ever wrong… until a person determines it just might be. And that’s why the moral component is brought to bear when honest questioning arises: you suddenly become a bad person to question, and this is as true of infidels as it those who dare to question anything to do with today’s woke culture of Critical Theory.
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Mmmm, yes Tildeb. One does not know/understand what one has not yet experienced fully in all possible diverse, multiple ways. Staying only within one single bubble an entire lifetime is cheating one’s self from increased maturity… IMHO.
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What I’m trying to express is more along the lines of being open or closed to questioning/changing ones mind, ones beliefs, ones framing (the ‘how’ in ‘how one thinks’). If you’ve furrowed the mind’s field in only one direction, input – like water on a furrowed field – will run in only one direction. Using this analogy, if one uses only a single ‘how’ to think, one is already arrived (whether one knows it or not) at the predetermined conclusion and so is closed to understanding why this conclusion – in the religious scenario, the set of necessary beliefs taken on faith – might be wrong. Contrary evidence from reality under this method plays no role because it has no means to irrigate doubt. But equally important, this is not just about religion but a way of thinking that makes division between real people and the creation of silos, a way to guarantee conflict between those who respect reality and those who think they can shape it by believing otherwise. Trump supporters, for example, don’t recognize why they’ve been fooled, why they are foolish to continue to believe, and no means from reality to convince them why they might even be wrong/mislead/lied to any more than a religious person firm in their faith. The how – the method of thinking used to frame something – determines the what.
So it’s not a question of understanding what one has not yet experienced in all diverse, multiple ways that you summarize but a question I raise about failing to learn how to think in various ways, how to recognize framing – especially one’s own, how to see the red flags of indoctrination used by others as well as one’s self, how to be self aware of being subject to and using the common tools of deception/misrepresentation, and so on. Once the singular ‘how’ is in place, the ‘what’ from that resulting framework is already known. That’s how algorithms to which we are subjected all the time in mass and online media, entertainment, finances, economy, advertising, and so on work to such effect: if you can figure out by pattern/poll how a cohort of people think, you can sell them anything, any ‘what’ you want.
So it is even more important today than ever – considering the really big issues we as a species face – to teach people how to think better, how to render these algorithms less powerful, less predictive, to take away the high probability of achieving a specific desired result for any interested/invested party, to lessen the influence of those who want to be the ‘tail wagging the dog’ by using this manipulative approach.
We need more people to recognize the inherent danger to all of us when enough of us are so easily manipulated by not being able to recognize the tools dependent on knowing ahead of time how we think and then have that used against us, against our own best interests. That’s the same method used to such effect by defenders of tobacco and anti-climate change and anti-mask and anti-vaccine idiots, by deluded Trump and Woke defenders subject to identical framing of being told one is clever if one buys into what Merchants of Doubt are selling, to sell their wares to those who remain so easily susceptible to this targeted ‘how to think’ framing.
That’s why the attack on language itself is right out the religious indoctrination handbook: calling yourself virtuous by doing unvirtuous things, moral by doing immoral things, tolerant exercising intolerance, being patriotic by attacking the national institutions and law, murdering cops in the name of restoring the Constitution, burning and looting in the name of peaceful protest, and so on. Once you understand how people think, you can establish what you want them to think… no matter how batshit crazy and insane and contrary to reality the ‘what’ might be. We are inundated with compelling evidence for this.
If we want to defend ourselves from being manipulated this way, promote our children’s ability to defend themselves, it falls on each of us to learn different ways of how to think. Intentionally. Fortunately, our biology provides us with the means to do exactly this… if we so choose to empower it (learn to see one’s self in the Other). But that’s another topic.
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Do I take it then you swing towards full on indoctrination rather than wilfully ignorant?
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No, I consider it a lack of educating one’s mind. This takes intention, and it’s the intention that I think is widely lacking… sometimes intentionally lacking (in the case of religious indoctrination), sometimes by laziness (is this on the test?), but most often I think because we like feeling like we have special insight others are missing. And it’s easier to assume our assumptions are correct to begin with! We also like being aroused (as in being emotionally stimulated) and are susceptible to paying much more attention to the source than taking a step back and doing a compare-and-contrast evaluation of whatever.
The stand alone, default question to any claim about anything is, “Is this true (the what), and how might we know (the methods of determining the how)?” This answer isn’t just about/for me, just you, just whomever: it’s for anyone including ourselves. Does the answer stand alone on independent merit? This approach significantly reduces personal bias that all of us are susceptible to using. And that includes Manchester fans!
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How is a child expected to do this?
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Well, in a variety of ways but they are also very susceptible to guidance. The quality of that guidance matters a very great deal (Jesuit principle: give us the child and by age 7 I will give you the Jesuit for life). To lay down new neural pathways later in life is always possible with a plastic brain (there are optimum times like teenage years and again around 40) but it’s much more difficult when the pathways become efficient (expertise pares away unused connections). In other words, the more you use a singular way of thinking, the greater the likelihood you will use that singular way of thinking! The earlier that begins, the greater the likelihood it will continue.
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The exact point I am making – indoctrination.
When other info comes along one can either reject or, with the right guidance/stimuli investigate and challenge.
Then it surely depends on how strong the indoctrination as to how long one can maintain a belief in the face of contrary evidence.
At which point it can then become wilful ignorance.
If you read the way Becky responds or one who is truly belligerent such as Mel Wild or David Robertson it is extremely difficult ( for me, at least) to accept that these two are not regularly engaging in wilful ignorance.
Their livelihood depends on maintaining the façade.
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Yes, it can be that, but it’s so much more than that.
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Well, yes, I’m sure there are other factors that can be tagged on.
But I was looking at the bare bones of why people such as Robertson or Wild or even Branyan (He’s may well be unique – a case study on its own) behave in the manner they do, and the differences – if they exist – of the type and manner of belief expressed by someone such as Becky.
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😄 Including “Man U fans.” Hah!
You’ve explained your meaning—above and here—even better Tildeb and I would wholeheartedly agree with you about critical-analysis, critical-thinking tools/skills to “learn to see one’s self in the Other.” I liken that to two metaphors or analogies…
1) Putting one’s self in the Other’s shoes is a bit similar to an out-of-body-experience. IOW, imagine in your mind leaving your own experience/existence and placing yourself fully in their experience/existence.
2) And #1 aids and compliments your concept and cognition of one way to begin that out-of-body-experience. A related concept we former teachers/educators hold dear to our hearts in the classroom for our students. It is this…
“Teach them HOW to think, not what to think.”
Tildeb, way WAY TOO MANY Americans (perhaps other peoples, other cultures too) are staunchly taught the latter… “what to think” and blindly believe, in particular all Abrahamic religions and their blind followers.
Thanks Tildeb.
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Remember, though… it’s not just religion. The same applies to many other areas of human activity. And the same manipulation. Consider the algorithm based on this idea of ‘Likes’ used for Facebook and supplied ‘News’.
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True. 🙂
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As one might expect (especially since I was mentioned in the original post ;-)), I’ll have more to say, but for now …
I totally agree with tildeb’s statement: It’s never, ever wrong… until a person determines it just might be. That pretty well sums up people’s thinking about most topics. The turning point only comes when something triggers enough doubt and uncertainty to prompt deeper investigation. And for some, that’s a VERY scary move.
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Well, it might also work the other way around. CS Lewis called himself “the most reluctant convert in all of England.”
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If, when you write, “it might also work the other way around,” you are intimating that atheists might convert due to doubt and uncertainty … I would love for you to provide statistics. This isn’t to say that it doesn’t happen, but I daresay the reverse happens MUCH more frequently.
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Or as Lee Strobel converted eh. What do these conversions prove? That men can change their minds and that they will believe only to the extent of their convictions? And not whether these beliefs are true.
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Indeed he did.
Francis Collins cited Lewis after his conversion.
He also cited an old lady who held his hand while she was dying in a hospital ward.
And his emotional grip on reality slipped and he opened the door for Death Anxiety.
Seeing a frozen waterfall in three columns (He says it reminded him of the Trinity – how barfable is that?) was enough for him to fall to his knees and admit to his god that he truly did believe and he was a sinner and needed to ask for forgiveness.
It is not known what Yahweh said at this point.
Maybe it peed down with rain?
And then there is Anthony Flew, the most celebrated atheist of the 20th century so I read.
Damn, and I thought it was Nan …
Flew only admitted to deism, but of course Evangelical Gary Habermas , who went to see him after his ‘conversion’, suggested something leaning more to Christianity and fellow sleazeball Roy Varghese who ”helped” a senile old man write a book all about his conversion and new found god belief.
These toe rags have no shame.
So , that’s like …. a bazillion conversions, right?
Geez, frak me, Christians. Yuck… they leave a really bad taste in the mouth.
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So, you too side with indoctrination rather than wilful ignorance?
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Actually, Ark, I think it’s a bit of both. The indoctrination comes first, then the willful ignorance.
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That sounds more like it. I appreciate the short and sweet answers the best. Just like my favourite non-atheist.
😉
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A guy hits a ball. It flies away, and lands somewhere out of sight.
The guy then walks toward where it went. He manages to find the ball. And then he again hits it and it again flies away.
This seems like a stupid thing to do. However a golf afficionado has a very different way of describing and understanding what is happening.
So yes, you do not understand things the way the Christian does; nor would you want to. But it is not surprising that he points to this different understanding to defend his own way of looking at things.
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I merely ask for evidence of claims made.
Therefore, why must the standard for evaluating Christian claims be different to every other non Christian claim?
Are those pushing such skewed standards/beliefs indoctrinated against all challenges to their position or are they simply wilfully ignorant?
Nan seems to think it starts out the former and finishes with the latter.
I reckon she probably has a good point.
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It’s a bit of both, I think.
Theology is carefully designed so as to not be subject to evidential tests.
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Well Arkesatan, my Partner in Wonderful Ungodly Crimes… 😈 😉
No matter what any of you say or try to infiltrate, corrupt in my Homo sapien brain or heart, my belief, my UNBENDING UNWAVERING “FAITH” is in and with the Almighty Sasquatch and Sasquatchianity!!! It has just as much validity and divine endorsement as any Abrahamic religion does, if not more!!! Sasquatch was captured, sentenced, crucified/executed, and rose again after 3-days! Praise His hairy name Amen, Appy Amen! Sasquatch lives! He does exist, always has, always will! 🦧🐵
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Becky comes across as a nice person who is delusional.
I’m not delusional, but then, I’m not a nice person. Which is better, I really can’t say.😇
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“Delusional” is a psychiatric term. Call her “deluded” if you want, but best not to say she is delusional.
Personally, I would just say that I disagree with her religious beliefs.
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Should Dawkins have his publishers rewrite the title of his book?
Deluded by God Belief?
Or perhaps something more snappy?
DELUDED!!
How belief in God makes you talk like an idiot.
-Richard Dawkins-
2021 Edition. Includes
Up -to-date forward by Mother Theresa fan, the deceased Christopher Hitchens.
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“Deluded” (as in the Dawkins title) is not the same as “delusional”.
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Correct. One is a verb while the other is an adjective.
Otherwise… I see no difference at all.
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You’re a nicer person than I, Neil.👍
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I’m not sure what you’re asking, Ark. You wrote, “Let me know, okay? Full on belief( via indoctrination) or wilful ignorance.” Either A or B? No other choices?
Is all ignorance willful? Are all Christians the same? Are you stereotyping?
There are many Christians out there. I hope you know, (“…having read the bible cover to cover, being an ardent amateur on-looker for a number of years, regular engager with and reader of so many things Christian, including dialoguing with Christians themselves…”) that a given degree of belief or information obtained or accepted, is seldom the same or equal among them. Believers are hard to pigeon-hole.
When I look back, I am certain that my belief was not what others claim there’s to be. I was always a doubter, skeptic, and an atheist-in-waiting trying not to be. I wanted to believe.
My walking out and final conclusion was not based upon anything I knew about “…verifiable evidence from across multiple disciplines including, but not limited to, history, geography, archaeology, biology, palaeontology, anthropology, geology, and basic boatbuilding…”
I simply decided that it made no sense, was all made-up BS, and that no matter what I or anyone else did, I would never believe in any religion and probably not in any god in any form.
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Let me ask this: Where did your first exposure to Christianity occur?
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Saint John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church (where) at the age of 8 days (when). That was my infant baptism. I hope that helps. I literally grew up “in the church/religion.”
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So you were for want of a better word, indoctrinated.
But like you said, at one point you thought … Nah, this is all bullshit , and ditched it.
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If a child growing up in a culture is indoctrinated, certainly I was. So were you. In my life I have faced many forms of indoctrination. It’s part of how we learn.
I prefer educated as the “better” word, since many people infer from “indoctrinated” some brainwashing, which was not the case for me. More detailed and complete learning took place later in life, most of that self-directed.
And I think it would be inaccurate to say “at one point” I walked away, since I spent years learning. I am writing a book on it, so it’s far too much for a blog comment.
I still take issue with applying ‘willful ignorance’ to people who believe in god or practice some religion. People can certainly be such, but not always in the way you seem to imply. Giving us either indoctrinated or willful ignorant as the only two options indicates to me a strong anti-religion/Christian bias on your part, possibly caused by your frustration in dealing with some believers on social media. That’s your choice.
I think I do understand why many people believe, not because I did believe in god, but because I wanted to. If you never did believe or never wanted to, I think it is possible that you do not understand why others believe simply because you never did. Their faith/belief may indeed be due to either learning or ignorance (willful or not). But so what?
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I think we may be talking past each other here, Bill and this is probably my fault.
So let’s unpack your comment and I’ll try my best to iron out any wrinkles?
If by culture you are referring to your religious upbringing then yes, if you were a ”full on believer” you were indoctrinated.
I was raised in the UK, a fairly laissez faire so-called Christian culture. My mum is devout the rest of us not. I am now most definitely atheist and anti-theist.
I was not indoctrinated into anything.
I too was educated, but certainly not with anything to do with religion; such education only came much later and I, like you, took upon myself to learn.
In context wilful ignorance is directed at those who refuse point blank to acknowledge evidence that refutes their religious perspective. Perhaps such folk are still full-on indoctrinated?.
But someone such as David Robertson whose outlandish quote about evolution is the feature of the latest post is almost certainly wilfully ignorant.
While you are free to disagree, it makes it difficult to develop the argument further if you don’t offer some sort of alternative, so I will stick with the definitions I have outlined until shown good reason to think differently.
I do understand. There are numerous reasons but initially they all boil down to indoctrination.
This part of your comment is somewhat troubling.
Such people may pass such beliefs on, especially to kids, thus perpetuating the delusion.
Some may grow up, and become suicide bombers or obtain a pilot’s license and fly a jetliner onto a tall building, or become powerful and wealthy enough to force children to be indoctrinated with Young Earth Creationism.
Just a thought …
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Ok, then. Giving you the last word, as well as the first.
As for talking past one another, like Thrasymachus and Socrates, it would not be my first time. Sorry, if I got off script.
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Hey, Bill, this isn’t a competition to to see who can best the other.
If you have more you’d like to share, put it out there my man, no sweat.
If we can tolerate Colorstorm you can never write anything that will rattle my cage, I assure you.
🙂
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Ok, Ark, but later. Have a great week ahead.
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Always! You too.
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