The WP Strident Atheists

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I can't be a rational empiricist and also a Christian?

If you're an empiricist, then that's in direct contradiction with a theistic world view. Either that you're saying that you're an empiricist to a point then you have a blind spot.

It all depends who is going to define the terms and filter the data.

Not without the ability to suspend disbelief. To be a Christian requires you to accept the far less rational explanations for possible events.

I am going to identify something similar to what the others see.

I am not going to say it is just the "evidential" nature of your approach, but rather, I think your framework in which you approach most questions tends to suggest an approach very much in line with an atheistic approach. I am not going to say that one cannot be a "rational empiricist" and a theist. However, you tend to quite quickly adopt arguments on the more skeptical and even materialist side of rational empiricism. You rarely involve God in any of your explicit philosophic thought processes either, which also is a major issue. If God cannot generally be included in your framework, then that is evidence that God is an ad hoc addition rather than something that stands on its merits.

Perhaps you find some of these accusations of closet atheism, and even claims that you are absurdly inconsistent to be insulting. However, from what I have observed, there is reason for an outsider to believe that your views are inconsistent (in a weaker sense) with the notion that God exists. (Strong inconsistencies being more like a clear-cut deductive inconsistency)

Well, really, it tends to promote a systematic interpretation of reality in a manner that disagrees with standard responses. For instance, one could call oneself a rational empiricist and believe in witchcraft, but the issue is that your approach to issues, Orwell, is such that it really is very much less like the witchcraft rational empiricist, and more like an atheist rational empiricist.

Sorry I should have been clearer, the YOU in my statement specifically refers to Orwell.

"Welcome to the English language, where words don't always mean what they sound like."

True true - and from Orwell to boot.

Being linguistically conservative, though not so much as my father, I have problems with the mean spirited and illogical way languages redefine words unthinkingly - but also that is my living and I am to a point reconciled to it.

But I abominate the Big Brothers who sit in the halls of power and the media webs and manipulatre meaning without reference to the community for their vile ends.

I love Animal Farm, but I hate living in it.

Religious people can have different opinions too, but basically they all agree that a creator exists. Some don't believe in ghosts or spirits. Some worship Allah, or Shiva, or Buddhas etc., They vary in world views probably more so than Atheists.

It's all throughout the Nag Hamadi or Gnostic Bible. The Judeo Christian Bible was created by those who killed Jesus, so I don't really put too much stock in it. The dead sea scrolls contradict the Bible left and right. It makes me wonder how the Essenes had the foresight to hide the scrolls in caves. They must have known that the persecutors would of destroyed them. The Egyptian king actually wanted to kill all the boy babies when the astrologers/wise men predicted that the prophet was coming. That is why Mary had to go into hiding. The Gnostics believed in reincarnation; very different from Catholic beliefs. Think about it, if Jesus was prophesized to come into the world and to return, and John the Baptist was widely accepted to have been a reincarnation of an enlightened teacher, why does the bible not include this?

To take all this literary horse manure excreted by demented primitives seriously is probably why extraterrestrial life avoids this planet like the plague.

So the answer I get from Dent and Ska is that they do indeed believe a rationalistic or empirical approach to the world is inconsistent with theism, and that is why I am sometimes mistaken for an atheist. That's not really a surprising claim, though, considering I know you both have a bias on the subject.

OK, but are skepticism and Christianity mutually exclusive?


Well, when there is a debate that does not explicitly involve religion, I will generally avoid phrasing a response in a theistic manner just so the discussion isn't sidetracked into yet another religious flamewar. Besides that, my interpretation of Christianity tends to be left-wing compared to the stereotypical American Christian, so if I ever bring up the religious basis for my beliefs when talking to right-wing Christians, it ends up being very foreign to them, so we would just be talking past each other.


Not insulting per se, but a bit perplexing. I am not surprised that right-wing Christians reject me as a heretic—my theology is very different from theirs, my politics are different from theirs, and worst of all I'm a biology student. I don't fit into their particular narrow box, so in their typical black-and-white manner they decide I am a godless heathen. It is less clear to me why atheists would consider me to be one of them.


"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) " -Walt Whitman

Yes, I have a bias of requiring extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims. And consistent results, at that because a one-off "miracle" isn't evidence so much as a statistical anomaly.

I don't think it's unfair for claiming Christianity. It is unfair for claiming deism but those are two different things, now aren't they?

Sand, you are very rude. Talk about primitive behavior.

Some people have different kinds of brains. You can call us ret*d all you want, but the fact is that our spiritual experiences are very real to us. We don't need proof because it's an inner knowing of feelings and other senses combined. You may not think that way, but a lot of people do. I don't understand why you care so much to the point where you seperate yourselves in some cultish sect of atheism and then make fun of spiritual or religious people. It's very hypocritical.

I have a relative who used to work at setups to make fools of his preschool children. He got a kick out of it. Made him feel big to make someone seem little to him.

The Bible and its antecedents was clearly the product of primitive cultures that had absolutely no concept of the universe as we know it. I do not claim modern science knows everything about the universe as new radical insights are revealed every week but the people who originated the revered religious material were completely in the dark. I do not claim they were stupid, merely terribly ignorant. But those today who ignore the huge major discoveries of modern science are, frankly, stupid.The ancient social codes were brutal and violently antifemininist and to deny that they were primitive is about as unaware as anyone could be. I am speaking truth, not trying to elevate my ego. I really care not at all about what your opinion of me may be. I do care that facts are acknowledged. That is not rude.