God is not in Schroedinger's cat box! A fundamentalist takes a wrong turn to chu

FUNNY REVEALING STORY (Read on, the story does not merely mocking
fundamentalists)

What did the fundamentalist say after he took a wrong turn on his way to
church, and after his agnostic brother-in-law pointed out that it was such
a wrong turn that they were actually travelling in the opposite direction?
 

He said, "I didn't take no WRONG turn, we is gettin' there in GOD'S OWN
PERFECT TIME!"

That's not only a depiction of how the fundamentalist brain/mind works,
but everyone else's too, to varying degrees. Probably the people who have
read more widely and deeply avoid the grosser forms of denial such as
displayed in the above tale, and instead remain more open and aware of
alternative generalizations, a full spectrum of them, not just the ones at
the far ends, and they embrace more agnosticism in many cases and openly
admit having more doubts about things they have no direct knowledge about.
  But generally speaking, the brain/mind accepts huge generalizations and
tries to file everything it knows under those huge generalizations. The
things that don't "fit" the huge generalization get explained away,
ignored or outright denied.

There really is no way to deal with a fundamentalist, since they live with
a general certainty that all will one day be revealled and Everyone will
be shown to be a fool except them and their church and their beliefs.

Though I have heard stories of people coming out of different
fundamentalisms. Even the most certain beliefs can sometimes die the
death of "a thousand qualifications." But it takes literally "thousands"
of minute specific qualifications before the brain/mind jettisons the
certainty with which it formerly held some of the generalizations that
have worked for so well for it all those years.

So, patience is necessary when communicating with someone else whose
brain/mind functions based on a different set of generalizations. And
always have plenty of well referenced, focused, direct, concise,
"qualifications" on hand, a couple thousand at least. *smile*

Cheers,
Ed

"Glenn Morton" <glennmorton@entouch.net> writes:
>I need to reply to another thing Howard said.
>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>>Behalf Of Howard J. Van Till
>>Sent: Sunday, October 17, 2004 7:02 PM
>
>>Glenn wishes to defend the idea that his
>>portrait is an exception to this judgment. I suggest that the
>>"observational
>>data" regarding the diversity of existing God-portraits defeats
>>that theory.
>
>Once again, Howard shows that he doesn't understand what I said, or what
>my
>view is. I did not say my view is the except to that judgement, and this
>is
>just more distortion of my position. Show me where I said that!
>
> I am saying "IF God can't communicate anything substantial about himself
>to us, then Howard is correct---all we have are human constructs, human
>portraits or human choices. But since I believe a religion is not worth
>having if all one has is self delusion, then if a religion is true, God
>must
>be able to communicate something about himself and the religion then is
>more
>than a construct. I have also said that the only way one can have any
>hope
>of determining the truth of a religion is if one can verify the peripheral
>stories about it--things like the flood. And that is why I feel
>observational data and a concordance to reality is so important."
>
>Somehow Howard, you always fail to get it correct.
>
Received on Mon Oct 18 18:01:01 2004