On Jan 22, 2007, at 6:20 PM, Charlie Coleman wrote:
>>> Ok. Just a second. Let me ask this simple question: Do you think
>>> Stalin was an atheist?
>>
>> Yes.
>
> Oh. Ok. Now that makes more sense. From your earlier email I didn't
> gather
> that you actually agreed he was an atheist. I thought you actually
> trying
> to say he wasn't an atheist by your definition. So I see why you
> wrote what
> you did at the end.
I said that to illustrate the dishonesty of re-defining things on
the fly to fit your conclusion. You want to believe that all
Christians are good, so faced with an obviously evil Christian, your
response is to declare that he isn't a "real" Christian. I tried to
illustrate that with a similarly defensive re-definition of Stalin to
avoid tainting atheism with him. Either way, that practice is just
wrong. There are good Christians and atheists; there are evil
Christians and atheists.
> You think I'm redefining terms. I'm not intentionally trying to do
> that.
> But lets consider something else. Lets say some politician declares
> he is
> an atheist. And then he's constantly seen attending church, praying in
> public, hands out religious tracts, says "God bless you", etc. Do
> you think
> he is an atheist? At some point you have to create a set of
> definitions to
> explain the belief system. If someone puts a label on themselves
> but then
> violates the belief system of that label it would be reasonable,
> IMO, to
> say that they actually are not what they claim to be.
I'd say he is a hypocrite. It would be perfectly reasonable to say
that his actions do not reflect his words.
But let's take something closer to the discussion: someone who is
brought up in a religion; who is raised to believe in the tenets of
that religion, and who actively practices that religion. You would be
comfortable saying that he is a member of that religion, I assume.
But once he's grown, he is swayed by other external pressures and
events to do things that we would consider evil. Is he a sinner, in
need of forgiveness? Or is he automatically disqualified from being
considered part of that religion once he stops observing its rules?
I knew several "Sopranos"-type people growing up in New Jersey. They
were good Catholics; attended church every week; were at all church
functions; had their babies baptized in those churches; etc. Yet we
all knew what they did to make their money. Are they Catholics?
-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com
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