Nutcracker (with apologies to Sartre)

I love macadamia nuts, Chris and I even have a tree. I used to crack the nuts with pieces of rock, then we got Le Bonk which is a small vice that splits the nuts with little effort. The difference between the two in how they work is not vast. They both perform the job well.

The difference is that the vice was designed to crack the shell of a macadmamia nut, the rocks just happened to do an excellent job. Sartre proposed that we are like the rocks. We can do many tasks well but we were not designed for them. Sometimes I think we confuse these two catagories and believe like the vice that we are designed.

Just because we crack nuts well does not make a designer necessary.

What are you?

An email this morning raised this question. What are we now that we no longer hold ourselves to be Christian in the traditional sense? Firstly I don't see it as a real serious problem, because no matter what flavor of Christian you happen to be, I figure I can find at least ten other versions of Christianity that think you are going to hell and not really a Christian.

Being a non-realist is a problem for True Believers (TM) because they don't have a category to put us into. It's bad enough for them to deal with atheists who were once Christians. That is not supposed to happen. At least though they have the decency to align themselves with the devil. They go in the evil sinners box.

The thinking goes like this:
You don't think God is real? So your an atheist - evil sinner box.
What do you mean you believe in God? You just said he wasn't real, move to heretic box.
God is a human construct that embodies truth??? Don't have a box for that.
Why can't you just deny God and get it over with??

How can we dialogue with Christians in any meaningful way? It is a hard question, we know them as well if not better than they know themselves but they refuse to counternance the thinking we have undergone. My approach has been to simply challenge every Christian statement that cannot be proven factually true. Each time I ask for evidence, or point out that that is only one of dozens of Christian truths and perhaps the speaker needs to show more respect for Christians. In a public setting this can really make Christians shut up. You in the end are not speaking against faith but for it. An example of this was when a Christian started speaking about intelligent design and their faith, I asked they show more respect for the Catholics among us whose church supported evolution. I actually said " Could you not assume you speak for all believers as many churchs disagree with your church's views, is it too much to ask for a little respect for people of faith.

Continually asking for evidence for faith based statements has two effects
1. Prevents the spouting of Christian propaganda
2. Points out not everyone thinks you are correct
3. Allows for the possibility of further dialogue
4. Takes back public space for all people not just the most rabid

Just some random thoughts on a Sunday.

Remember while we hate fundamentalism we love the fundamentalist.