Comments are for Commenting

In a bid to get involved with my local community, I started reading the websites of a number of my local churches. They all seem to be doing some very good word, and providing very valuable services to the community, such as mother toddler groups, fundraisers and other events.


I found a blogspot account for one of the churches local to me, the St David's Uniting Church, which provides an account of the events that they put on in the church. In one post, here, seems to have been a talk which focused on 'sin'. I would say that this is largely understood as a religious concept, and as is so often the case though we have a general understanding of what 'sin' is, I realised I was unable to actually form a coherent definition that I feel people would agree to. After looking at a few dictionary definitions I found that at it's most basic it is an action which breaks a moral law.


If you click the link you can see the entire post, which isn't particularly controversial, but as I read it I felt that there were two conflicting accounts of what constituted 'sin'. I tried to comment on the post, since that is what the option is there for, but discovered that only the authors of the blog are allowed to comment there, so, having written out my comment, I felt slightly annoyed, and thought I'd post it here instead. Here it is:


*****


I'm not sure whether I'm misinterpreting what's been written here, but I think some of the thoughts on sin here are inconsistent.


In the third paragraph it says:


"Sin is not so much about moral misbehaviour as about lazy thinking - opting out of thinking for ourselves."


Which, it seems to me, would be advocating critical thinking, however in the next paragraph you say:


"It cannot be sinful to think as we have been taught, rather the sin is to refuse insights which are given to us, which would keep us honest."


Unless I am misunderstanding, you seem to be saying that you should both 'think for yourself' and also 'think as you were taught', which would seem to be contradictory.


I'm unclear if your sentence "think as we have been taught" refers to a method / way of thinking or whether it just means 'believe what you are told (presumably by someone in religious authority).


Apologies if I've simply misunderstood.


*****


I personally do believe it is very important to think for yourself, and to think critically. If the second point raised does imply that it is good to simply believe what you are told, I would vehemently disagree. They have phrased it very misleadingly if that is what they are suggesting, travelling an interesting linguistic route to justify simply believing as the church says. Unfortunately I was unable to ask them directly, so I may never know what they actually intended.

Skepticism

Recently I have become preoccupied by skepticism, rationalism, critical thinking and science, and I have been watching and reading widely on these subjects. My research efforts have been a little formless and scattergun, so I decided to start blogging about it in order to give more form to my efforts. I am intending it to be somewhere I can write as I learn, to serve as a tool to help me keep track of what I am learning about, and also, hopefully, serve in some small way as a link to a community which is growing ever larger in the world, and especially online.


Who am I and where am I coming from?


My name is Adam and geographically I am from the South Wales Valleys. I am an atheist, and while I've never considered, nor experienced anything that suggested, that position to be socially controversial, it seems that it is widely considered as a minority position, and so in the effort of upping awareness I have no reservations about broadcasting my position. I am an atheist because there is no evidence for the existence of a god/gods.


I would like to be able to say that all of my beliefs boil down to:


I believe in x because there is sufficient evidence to support it
or
I do not believe in y because there is insufficient evidence to support it.


Unfortunately that isn't the way life works, and I, as everyone else is, am subject to presumptions and trust in arguments from authority. I believe it is only a rational approach that can help filter out presumptions and falsehoods from actual truth. At this point in human history our knowledge is so vast that it is impossible for any individual to have tested and to conclusively know everything we have discovered or worked out as a species. No one person knows everything, and every individual has been wrong or mistaken at some point in their lives. I believe it is through a process of rational thinking, skepticism and critical analysis (and self-analysis) that we can discover what is actually true or correct.


I don't believe this aim is easy to achieve. This is why I subtitled this blog 'A Skeptical Effort', because being skeptical is a constant effort, it is not something you achieve and then have built into you and suddenly you can think critically about everything. It is something you have to work at, and it involves the willingness to alter your position if you discover you are wrong.


I have a degree in English Language and Communication which, of course, is of minimal use when it comes to scientific matters, but I would say it has made me very capable where it comes to picking apart illogical or inconsistent statements, and also gives me a grounding in research and analysis. Perhaps stating it in such a way is slightly hubristic, time and my efforts will show whether I am mistaken in my self-assurance.


I am eager to improve my scientific knowledge and understanding, which I have left wither somewhat since school, but I am actively taking steps to improve. While I have an interest in all things skeptical, the specific area of interest where I have an acute fascination is religion, as it has such clear and tangible positions on morality, where it's pronouncements, by their very nature, are not open to discussion or alteration, which I believe is a stubbornly ignorant position, and ultimately negative.


My aim is to always be learning and thinking, and using what I learn to be better in interacting with other people. I believe in the importance and value of discussion, and am seldom happier than when pointedly philosophising with good people. I hope that I am always trying to become a better writer. I write fairly often, though broadcast the writing less and less lately, and I also record vlogs, up until now on the topic of the Welsh language, and I also write, perform and record sketches, podcasts and videos with my friends, in a comedy group called The ACRE. I, increasingly infrequently, perform stand-up comedy. I enjoy reading (favourite author Haruki Murakami), playing games (favourite game Final Fantasy 7), watching good films, good comedy and anime regardless of how good it is. I have recently discovered the abundance of long debates and talks on youtube and I have become obsessed with them. Above everything else I value thinking and talking, by myself and with other people. I can't do very good impressions and I know very few jokes. I almost always have a beard of some kind, but I distrust moustaches.


That's some of me and Why.