Pushing God from gap to gap.

[jogger08152]

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Jessuit is correct.

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Nearly always, the interested atheists have more knowledge about religion, from a wider set of sources, than any of the believers I have spoken to.

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I'd be amazed if this were true. Certainly my experience has been entirely the opposite.

I suspect Sklansky would post an impressive score on Standford-Binet, but I doubt he has 1/10th of the religious knowledge of the first random rabbi, priest or minister you could talk to.

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But how many of those Rabbi's, Priests and Ministers have taken the time to understand the flaws with Pascal's wager, the unreliable nature of their own sources, the nature of circular thought and only searching for confirming evidence, and the contradictions brought up within their own religion and the existence of hundreds of other religions, cults and mythologies throught history.

Every UK minister I have spoken too has certainly been hugely lacking in that philosophical depth, and couldn't do much more than keep refering back to popular bible verses.

Im sure they have knowledge of the contents of their texts, but thats completely different than having understanding, knowledge and thought outside-of-the-box.

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Knowledge != understanding.

That said, I've always wondered about Anglican ministers: the church essentially spun off of Roman catholicism for political reasons, rather than theological ones, and its head is the King (or crown prince? dunno what the status is ATM) of England. I would think that would have to have a limiting effect on the sincerety of their faith. Does that seem reasonable? (Not f*cking with you or anything; I really do wonder about this.)