From: Nanci Ann Miller <nm0w+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Theists And Objectivity
Organization: Sponsored account, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA
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In-Reply-To: <1993Apr25.185715.1326@news.unomaha.edu>

trajan@cwis.unomaha.edu (Stephen McIntyre) writes:
> Can a theist be truly objective?  Can he be impartial
>      when questioning the truth of his scriptures, or
>      will he assume the superstition of his parents
>      when questioning? 

I think that if a theist were truly objective and throws out the notion that
God definitely exists and starts from scratch to prove to themselves that
the scriptures are the whole truth then that person would no longer be a
theist. 

> It usually all has to do with how the child is
>      brought up.  From the time he is born, the
>      theist is brought up with the notion of the
>      "truth" of some kind of scripture-- the Bible,
>      the Torah, the Qur'an, & etc.  He is told
>      of this wondrous God who wrote (or inspired)
>      the scripture, of the prophets talked about in
>      the scripture, of the miracles performed, & etc.
>      He is also told that to question this (as
>      children are apt to do) is a sin, a crime
>      against God, and to lose belief in the scrip-
>      ture's truth is to damn one's soul to Hell.
>      Thus, by the time he is able to read the
>      scripture for himself, the belief in its "truth"
>      is so ingrained in his mind it all seems a
>      matter of course.

You're missing something here.  There are people who convert from
non-theism to theism after being brought up in a non-theist household.  (I
don't have any statistics as to how many though.  That would be an
interesting thing to know.)  I think that religion is a crutch.  People are
naturally afraid of the unknown and the unexplainable.  People don't want
to believe that when they die, they are dead, finished.  That there is
nothing else after that.  And so religion is kind of a nice fantasy.
Religion also describes things we don't know about the universe (things
science has not yet described) and it also gives people a feeling of
security... that if they just do this one thing and everything will be ok.
That they are being watched over by a higher power and its minions.  This
has a very high psychological attraction for quite a few people and these
people are willing to put up with a few discrepancies and holes in their
belief system for what it gains them.  This is why I think it's kind of
useless to try too hard to convert theists to atheism.  They are happy with
their fantasy and they feel that other people will be happy with it too
(they can't accept the fact that there are people who would rather accept
the harsh reality that they are running from).

Anyway, I'm getting kind of carried away here.  But my point is that theism
doesn't have to be ingrained into a child's mindset for that person to grow
up as a theist (although this happens far too often).  Theism is designed
to have its own attractions.

> 
>     _/_/_/_/  _/_/_/_/   _/       _/    * Atheist
>    _/        _/    _/   _/ _/ _/ _/     * Libertarian
>   _/_/_/_/  _/_/_/_/   _/   _/  _/      * Pro-individuality
>        _/  _/     _/  _/       _/       * Pro-responsibility
> _/_/_/_/  _/      _/ _/       _/ Jr.    * and all that jazz...

Nanci
.........................................................................
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