You Guys Need to Communicate! (thoughts from an ex evangelical Christian)

Easy to say from the comfort of the educated middle-class... I see many not-so-fortunate individuals take immense comfort in their faith - people who otherwise would have very little to live for, or had previous lifestyles that were certainly counterproductive to society. These are not people who would ever consider the idea of "investing effort to determine the credibility of an idea", not least because they would struggle with the meaning of at least two of the words in quotes. Nearly everything they have learnt has been taken on faith, religious or not.Furthermore, speaking on behalf of most of the Christians I know, they do have a great deal of evidence to back up their faith - the fact that we would describe such evidence as purely subjective and existential will not faze them in the slighest.

Absolutely... I wasn't implying that this was by any means the only, err, "excuse" as you call it And I am very familiar with the quote... soundbites make for good humour but not good criticism - nor anything else for that matter. If we want to work on the level of this quote then it is obvously down to personal state of mind vs effect on society. On this basis it is abundantly clear that comparing believer/skeptic to drunk/sober is bogus. I am very pleased by the level of no-strings social work performed by the church I attend... it is why I support them. Of course, this is balanced by all manner of social injustices carried out by Christians... I'm not so sure there is such a balance in the social effect of drunkard behaviour. Do you still have the records you kept from when you first met your wife? I trust you wrote them up and submitted them for peer-review?

But what is false? The state of mind induced by alcohol compared to our natural evolved state of mind uninfluenced by external chemicals? (Not that we can really avoid extrenal input. Blood sugar level has a marked effect upon mood-state)And even if it is false - what about the good old holodeck dilemma, portrayed wonderfully by Cypher in the Matrix. Why live a crap life in the "real" world when you can live out your fantasies in a pseudo-world?You won't find a bigger explorer of truth than me, whether it is in the dark abode of black holes, towering mountain tops, or the deepest most remote caves. But even I would be tempted by the allure of the holodeck.And I'm fine with you ddeclaring YECism, US fundie Christianity, etc as false - but to say God cannot reach and touch people through the crap of their surrounding religion is pushing your own beliefs a little too strongly. Glad to hear it ..and of course some very bad religion. Total agreement here.

Do you really think that the majority of parents - whether Christian, Muslim, or couldn't-give-a-damn - think about raising their kids to be critical thinkers? They don't even know what a "critical thinker" is!! All parents raise their kids with their own prejudices. In our (rather special) case, its the prejudice of educational snobbery

I would have to ask for evidence of the many many sects that "actively seek to remove or hinder..."I would be happy with "unwittingly (and in extreme cases actively seek to) remove or hinder..."And my point in return is that this is also true of many, many non-religious families. No, you don't, but it's my fault for not being clear. I was raising this in isolation from the previous discussion. I was merely pointing out that we will pass on our own prejudices - we're not immune.Edited by cavediver, : No reason given.