21st-century Christian Philosopher

There’s a line out there that if you believe in God, you don’t “think for yourself”. You’re brainwashed, mind-controlled. (see Chomsky)

Of course, this line probably wouldn’t be so repeated if more anti-theists did.

I’m going to display a diagram to help them out. I thought it up (myself, mind you!). I don’t suggest that it represents anything you need to accept, so you’ll still be free afterwards to form your own opinion about it.

It’s more food for thought.

It’s a sort of “vector map” of thoughts in relation to the middle consensus. The consensus does not have to be in the exact center, the range of thought is not necessarily equidistant to the consensus.

You can think of the dotted black lines as the momentary vectors, showing the direction and intensity of current individual’s thoughts. And just for comparison purposes, I included the idea of “thought paths” which more or less represented changes in direction over time.

Probably the good majority of thought takes place in that little off-blue circle called consensus. But it could be a little fuzzball with small arrowheads sticking out of the perimeter everywhere. But we could say that however the vectors in that circle go it represents a dense middle.

Notice, that I’m even giving each and every atheist the maverick designation they might desire, having braved the disapproval of the crowd. Intrepid explorers! In that diagram you have to have a vector away from the crowd in order to pass over the line of disbelief.

It really doesn’t matter to me though. Because if you viewed a central consensus and independent thinkers capable of going off in 360º from there, it becomes a rather simple thing to say that because you stay within the designation of 80-85% of the population, you do not have a mind of your own.

I also find it ironic. One of the values of “Science” is peer review. That means that you accept something partially based on a collective agreement that it is unexceptionable.

Another standard by which we people of faith fail is “objectivity”. If everybody can see it, then it is more likely to be true—especially if people with accredited degrees from acknowledged institutions.

In fact the final criticism is that we think too unlike these others. That we do not constrain our imaginations to what has been accepted by the technical society.

Add to that, the typical atheist observation that we do not agree in matters of faith–and this is carried forth even in discussion about people of a single faith. How many variations of “Christianity” are out there?

What apologist hasn’t heard the argument that we need to figure out what it is we believe before they can understand what it is they should believe?!

As long as I’ve heard the argument that we all think alike, I’ve often heard the argument that we can’t agree in the same discussion. Of course in light of this trend, I think the individual atheist needs to decide which it is.

For my part, I’ve often been the witness of all sorts of broad-brushing about me which is laughably alien. I’ve been an invidual all my life. My main link to God is not a fear of death (I do retain some fear of death, but that is God-neutral, really) –and I really wasn’t close to anyone who had passed on before 10 years into being a Christian.

The answer is pretty simple to me–it has to do with my temperment, “the way that God made me”: God holds the Teacher’s Edition of the Mysteries of the Universe. That’s my vision of transcendence. Of course, I’ve never entertained the stripped-down version of this: that God exists to be my afterlife librarian or documentarian. That’d be a little too convenient. That’s not what I’m looking for.