How can doctors and scientists often times consider themselves christians?
I really do not understand this. these are smart people that work hard to accomplish the goals that they set for themselves, but they thank God for the knowledge that they have. Shouldnt these people know better? it just doesnt add up. what is your input on this?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on -
cognitive dissonance, confirmation bias, rationalization, and compartmentalization.
"smart people, because they are more intelligent and better educated, are able to give intellectual reasons justifying their beliefs that they arrived at for non-intelligent reasons."
-Michael Shermer
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Permalink Reply by Bill on -
Some of them keep the Christian label just to appease the family, I'm sure. Also, if you are not a biblical literalist, it's not so hard to accept science and keep your beliefs.
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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on -
I can see your point, but most Christians believe that the bible is the word of God, so they DO take it literally. Also, how can you accept some parts of the bible and not all of it even if you are not a literalist? there are so many absurdities.
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on
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i wouldn't at all say that "most Christians believe that the bible is the word of god, so they do take it literally." by far and away it seems that most people are cafeteria Christians who pick and choose from the bible the verses they take literally and which they take metaphorically.
and that's the answer to your next question; though certainly the practice is not without big difficulties, they just label the absurdities as metaphorical, allowing that they didn't actually happen but that that doesn't mean they can't still lead us to truths.
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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on
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I do agree that most people are "cafeteria Christians". That is why organized religion doesn't work.
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on
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i'm confused... in what way does cafeteria christianity not work more than literalist christianity (if that's what you were saying) and how, indeed, does it keep organized religion itself from not working? what do you mean by "work", for, surely, that the majority of people in the world are religious might indicate that organized religion works in some sense right?
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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on
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i didn't mean to imply that cafeteria Christianity does not work more then literalist Christianity. I just mean that I see a lot of Cafeteria Christians.
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on
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right. ok. yeah, definitely. i agree. then in what sense does cafeteria Christianity result in organized religion not working? i'm certainly not saying that i believe that organized religion works in every or even most senses. i'm just trying to understand how you meant your statement to be taken.
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Permalink Reply by Jon Heim on
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well, i suppose it does work if the people who follow it don't care if they are ignoring the truth.
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Permalink Reply by Nelson on
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well, yeah. worse still is that they don't think they're ignoring the truth... they're quite sure they have the truth on their side.
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