Re: [asa] "As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God"

I thought this was an interesting comment:

"As a former atheist, it took yrs to realize I left God due to a "religious" father (& pillar in the church) being verbally & emotionally abusive. I returned to God in 05 (it was a gradual process). I am at peace and I am an Eucharistic minister. Life is great even when the teachings are difficult."

I'll bet you this type of dynamic is far, far more common than many realize. We're all supposed to participate in this head-game where it's all supposed to be about Reason and Evidence. Yet I'd bet the majority the New Atheists are people who, like this person, have been hurt and betrayed by someone who was religious. This would explain why there is such animosity against religion (and God) and so much hyper-sensitivity about religion (ie, American culture is primarily secular, yet New Atheists often behave as if a theocracy is about to take root at any moment).

That's what makes this blog entry even more interesting:

"Because we subscribed to this false ideal of rational, logical thought, we diminished the importance of everything else," said Marvin Minsky, a professor at MIT and pioneer of artificial intelligence. "Seeing our emotions as distinct from thinking was really quite disastrous."

Cognitive psychologists have traditionally downplayed the importance of emotions to the thought process. "They regarded emotions as an artifact of subjective experience, and thus not worthy of investigation," said Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at NYU.

In all fairness to cognitive psychologists, the field of cognitive psychology has always been criticized for being too "soft" of a science. The effect is that cognitive scientists have always felt compelled to "harden" the science up with logical facts, and less study of emotion and behavior. Ironically, "feelings" ARE the new "fact", and the main determination of the choices we make- not logic.

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/12/vulcans-nixed-y.html

Vulcans are imaginary creatures.

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: philtill@aol.com
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2009 3:05 PM
  Subject: [asa] "As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God"

  Here's a great article on how the gospel changes people and societies. This flies in the face of charges from Dawkins and other so-called New Atheists. The replies to the article at the bottom are interesting, too.

  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

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Received on Fri Jan 2 00:29:34 2009