Christian Agnostic conflict?

[deBergerac]

One thing mentioned in the commentary that surprises me a bit, and it did surprise me when I first heard the talk as well, is the importance given to the fact that some material was given to Robert from Christians even if he himself is openly an agnostic.

Is it perhaps my European perspective that makes me oblivious to why this warrants to be mentioned?

I do not find it strange that Christians wants to stop frauds, or that they want to help agnostics in stopping frauds. To me the big news would have been if some Christians refused to help stopping someone they knew was a fraud because they did not want to help an agnostic, a Muslim, an atheist or whatever.

Is this a difference in what is considered normal between secular European countries and the not so secular US?

Finally, to Robert, great talk, great commentary, and great work.

 

[Gr8wight]

One thing mentioned in the commentary that surprises me a bit, and it did surprise me when I first heard the talk as well, is the importance given to the fact that some material was given to Robert from Christians even if he himself is openly an agnostic.

Is it perhaps my European perspective that makes me oblivious to why this warrants to be mentioned?

I do not find it strange that Christians wants to stop frauds, or that they want to help agnostics in stopping frauds. To me the big news would have been if some Christians refused to help stopping someone they knew was a fraud because they did not want to help an agnostic, a Muslim, an atheist or whatever.

Is this a difference in what is considered normal between secular European countries and the not so secular US?

Finally, to Robert, great talk, great commentary, and great work.

I think we are all, to some degree, affected by the vocal minority syndrome. Because the "Christians" that are most visible to us are the extreme right wing activists that catpult themselves into public view as often as they can, we forget that the majority of all those people we know (in North America at least) consider themselves Christian. The loonies are a small minority. The vast majority of all people who consider themselves Christian go about their daily lives, and never get involved with these contentious issues.

 

[strathmeyer]

The vast majority of all people who consider themselves Christian go about their daily lives, and never get involved with these contentious issues.

No, I think it's that a vast majority of the people just consider themself to be whatever religion a vast majority of the people are.

 

[RSLancastr]

One thing mentioned in the commentary that surprises me a bit, and it did surprise me when I first heard the talk as well, is the importance given to the fact that some material was given to Robert from Christians even if he himself is openly an agnostic.

Thanks for bringing this up, deBergerac. If I ever write a longer version of the paper, I will try to be clearer on this point.

When I said that I was heartened by the fact that many Christians supported my efforts to stop Kaz, I did not mean to imply that I thought that Christians would support her. Far from it.

Of course many Christians are offended by what Kaz does. In some ways, many are even more deeply offended by her than I am, because she is doing what she does in their own back yard.

But people within any group can have a tendency to resist or resent criticism of things happening within their group by those outside the group.

When I started up the StopKaz site, I was concerned that what I was doing would be perceived by some as an attack on Christianity, rather than an attack on one fraudulent woman. And I'm sure it was perceived that way by some.

Perhaps because I was so concerned about that possibility from the beginning, there has been far less of that sort of thing than I had feared.

However, many of the Christians who have given me information and documents about Kaz did so only after speaking or corresponding with me enough to be certain that I was intent only on exposing what Kaz was doing, and was not interested in using her fraud as an excuse for attacking their religion.

And many have told me that they wished it had been a Chrtistian who had put the site together, because it would have made it less difficult for some Christians to accept.

I hope this makes it a bit clearer. I'll read this again after I've ingested some caffeine...

Is this a difference in what is considered normal between secular European countries and the not so secular US?

Perhaps so. I'm by no means qualified to say.

Finally, to Robert, great talk, great commentary, and great work.

Thank you very much. And thanks for bringing this question up. It is something I'll try to be clearer on when making the point in the future.

 

[DrMatt]

I routinely find, here in the US, that pretty much anything I say is automatically discounted because I'm not a Christian--or, conversely, that I get called a closet Christian because of my honesty and ethics. My impression is that people think like this worldwide--it's related to tribalism, nationalism, racism, etc.

A couple weeks ago I attended a music festival in Houston, Texas where a piece of mine was played. One of the other composers there came up to me on the first day I was there and started lecturing me on the topic of why there's no such thing as an atheist. I kick myself for letting discussion get derailed immediately thereafter without offering to at least try to answer any questions he might have about atheism.

 

[T'ai Chi]

One of the other composers there came up to me on the first day I was there and started lecturing me on the topic of why there's no such thing as an atheist.

It goes both ways though.

I've heard the "everyone is an atheist with respect to..." line enough.

I think a thread was started here fairly recently on there being no such thing as a 'believer', because everyone is really an atheist.

 

[Rolfe]

Mmmm, I'm a Christian, and I think Robert's stuff is the greatest. Insincere sanctimonious lying bitch gets comeuppance. Yay!

Rolfe.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I think a thread was started here fairly recently on there being no such thing as a 'believer', because everyone is really an atheist.

Note to self: Don't forget to start thread on ridiculous false dichotomies.

~~ Paul

 

[dvdmx]

Well, here in Mexico is hard to be an agnostic, atheist or a skeptic, people actually see it like an attack to their religions i dont know why, maybe because of our deep traditional values or something else, so i wasn't very surprised about that part of the speech. Congratulations Robert!, you are the kind of person who this world needs in an excesive way

 

[RSLancastr]

I routinely find, here in the US, that pretty much anything I say is automatically discounted because I'm not a Christian--or, conversely, that I get called a closet Christian because of my honesty and ethics.

I think this sort of mindset is more common in some parts of the USA than in others. Here in Los Angeles, I do not see much of it, at least in the workplace.

Mmmm, I'm a Christian, and I think Robert's stuff is the greatest. Insincere sanctimonious lying bitch gets comeuppance. Yay!

Thanks, Rolfe. I'm an admirer of your work fighting homeopathic woo. (And in helping kittycats and such. )

Well, here in Mexico is hard to be an agnostic, atheist or a skeptic, people actually see it like an attack to their religions i dont know why, maybe because of our deep traditional values or something else, so i wasn't very surprised about that part of the speech. Congratulations Robert!, you are the kind of person who this world needs in an excesive way

Thanks! Yes, I can see how Mexico, being largely Catholic, could be that way.