I’m all in favour of not jerking off over our ability to outthink Christian fundamentalists (also: some Christian fundamentalists are actually pretty damn smart in their domains of expertise), but it doesn’t look to me as if that’s what Benquo’s doing. I think he’s saying: OK, this guy managed to escape fundamentalism, which we know to be difficult even for smart people, so can we see what enabled him to do it and try to learn from that?.
I do agree with Viliam that this should have been a comment in the Open Thread, though.
Yes, I’m aware. But it’s useless. “Hurr durr I learned about evolution and therefore original sin didn’t happen.” Now I don’t know a lot about Christian theology, but does it even matter that original sin didn’t happen, so long as people sinned anyway?
He mentions that there are plenty of theists who accept Darwin. Why are they wrong? He just goes on about how they can’t be reconciled and doesn’t avail himself to explain why. I can’t see anything to be gained here except an understanding of how utterly estranged from reality creationists are.
Now I don’t know a lot about Christian theology, but does it even matter that original sin didn’t happen, so long as people sinned anyway?
Very much so, according to that theology. The point of original sin there is that it means nobody can be blameless, even in principle, i.e. all people are tainted by Adam and Eve’s actions; opinions differ on whether this represents some sort of ancestral culpability or is supposed to work in a more metaphysical way. Either way, it leads directly to the idea that people need divine intervention to be absolved of that taint, which underlies the justification for the Gospels’ sacrifice-for-redemption narrative and by extension pretty much all of Christianity.
(At least, that’s the perspective I got from my Catholic relatives. Other Christian sects might have slightly different takes on it, but all the existing mainstream ones have similar doctrine.)
In this case it means that the person saying “Open Thread” thinks this isn’t worthy of its own thread and instead should be posted in the weekly Open Thread.
I’m all in favour of not jerking off over our ability to outthink Christian fundamentalists (also: some Christian fundamentalists are actually pretty damn smart in their domains of expertise), but it doesn’t look to me as if that’s what Benquo’s doing. I think he’s saying: OK, this guy managed to escape fundamentalism, which we know to be difficult even for smart people, so can we see what enabled him to do it and try to learn from that?.
I do agree with Viliam that this should have been a comment in the Open Thread, though.
Yes, I’m aware. But it’s useless. “Hurr durr I learned about evolution and therefore original sin didn’t happen.” Now I don’t know a lot about Christian theology, but does it even matter that original sin didn’t happen, so long as people sinned anyway?
He mentions that there are plenty of theists who accept Darwin. Why are they wrong? He just goes on about how they can’t be reconciled and doesn’t avail himself to explain why. I can’t see anything to be gained here except an understanding of how utterly estranged from reality creationists are.
What does ‘Open Thread’ mean, btw?
Very much so, according to that theology. The point of original sin there is that it means nobody can be blameless, even in principle, i.e. all people are tainted by Adam and Eve’s actions; opinions differ on whether this represents some sort of ancestral culpability or is supposed to work in a more metaphysical way. Either way, it leads directly to the idea that people need divine intervention to be absolved of that taint, which underlies the justification for the Gospels’ sacrifice-for-redemption narrative and by extension pretty much all of Christianity.
(At least, that’s the perspective I got from my Catholic relatives. Other Christian sects might have slightly different takes on it, but all the existing mainstream ones have similar doctrine.)
In this case it means that the person saying “Open Thread” thinks this isn’t worthy of its own thread and instead should be posted in the weekly Open Thread.
Clearly.