Faith and Doubt events - Part III

The 1st day at the Faith and Doubt event.

After the surprising effect of that first quote, mentioned in our last post, the real interesting part of the speech began. One could almost say it matched the very definition posts about atheism that this blog contains, specifically, the ones that are labeled under definitions, and that covered, theism, atheism, agnosticism, and so on...

It was with satisfaction and some excitement that I witnessed a totally accurate description of that all these terms mean.

Unfortunately, it all changed when the the quotes of atheists were brought into the spotlight.

As the speaker would bring each carefully chosen quote of the most popular atheists, the highlight was on the words that would describe Christianity in the worst possible way. All the reasoning leading up to such adjectives and claims were totally left aside.
Was that inevitable or intentional? Perhaps. After all, showing some good reasons in support of religion's failures would probably defeat the whole purpose of preaching for it in the first place.

Still, the chosen quotes did stir a negative sentiment towards atheists, and specifically, the militant ones.

At this point, I expected nothing else other that seeing all militant atheists being painted as a real threat to religion. Some of them are such. Some aren't. And that is exactly what it should have been said.

Atheism is an individual achievement.

Even though Faith can be too, Religion can't.

A Religion and its followers are bound by a set of beliefs, therefore we can expect accuracy in describing some behaviors and/or beliefs when grouping people by faith.

Atheism does not have a belief set, nor a set of reasons that all atheists share (or are supposed to share) to support their disbelief.

Therefore, one cannot expect a good enough precision in grouping atheists as one can expect when grouping religious people.

In this event, portraying all atheists fairly was not only very hard with the amount of time available, but it was impossible. I was in a church after all.

Too bad Peter never asked his followers to also ask Atheists about the reasons for their lack of faith. :)

He just asked Christians to be kind and respectful to those who inquire about the reasons for faith.

I took that quote seriously, and I did point out a few things to the speaker afterwards.

Let's just say that the next post will show how hard and complicated things can really get.

Faith and Doubt events - Part II

How was my first trip to the event about faith and doubt?
I was caught by surprise from the start. In my experiences with religious people and the fiery debates that come from the usual conflict between religion and atheism, I am used to resistance, and in some unfortunate cases, disrespect and aggressive stances towards atheists.
This time it was going to be different. It started with a quote from the Bible:

"…Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts,
always be prepared to give an answer
to everyone who asks you to give the reason
for the hope that you have.
But do this with gentleness and respect."
1 Peter 3:15

Be gentle and respectful when anyone questions your faith. Seriously? I was impressed. I immediately got those images in my head of the most extreme of Christians. Those who preach by yelling, those who preach with a closed fist and loud voices, and would call me Satan, or devil, just by asking the wrong question. This didn't happen here. But it was right after listening to Peter's quote that I glanced at the concentrated look of my friends and decided: "I am going to see this through".

Faith and Doubt events - Part I

A couple of weeks ago, religious friends of mine asked me to go to some event that their church organized.
The reason for the invitation is pretty obvious:
I am an Atheist, and the event was about faith and doubt.

We went, we listened, and we came home to talk about it.
Unfortunately, Atheists were not very well portrayed, and I left under the impression that every religious person in that room now likes atheists a bit less after having heard what we did.

Let us just say that the explanations about what we represent were accurate, the quotes of popular atheists were too, but the conclusions were pretty offset by the emotions of faith.

As such, and after stating my opinions to my friends, I was invited back due to the event being a 4 week presentation on Faith and Doubt, to see it all through, and now the presenter knows they had and will have an Atheist in their midst. I told him on their website.

More details soon, here, on the Religious Faith Challenger.

[Definition] Theist

Theism in the broadest sense is the belief in at least one deity [divine being or god]. In a more specific sense, theism refers to a particular doctrine (or religion) concerning the nature of God and his relationship to the universe.

-in Wikipedia

Theism also divides itself in a few categories:

Monotheism:

• The belief in one God.

Polytheism:

• The belief in more than one god.