Unbelievers in the pulpit

[grumpy]

Dan Dennett is working with a research group to determine how common it is for preachers to be atheists or agnostics.

That would be a nice thing to know. So far they have only anecdotal data from a very small sample. The long range results should be very interesting.

(I wonder if papist pedophile priests believe in god and hell.)

[Deacon Doubtmonger]

Gotta wonder how church "management" polices the thoughts of the preachers ... I assume they have to periodically verify that belief is still present?

[Ikari Gendou]

I have a suspicion that many preachers who teach social justice and the ilk are not very strong believers in the deity.

[d'Armond]

Was just talking to my dad about this last night. He thinks it's very common. He was married by an atheist preacher (for one random data point).

[disgracian]

Originally Posted by Ikari Gendou

I have a suspicion that many preachers who teach social justice and the ilk are not very strong believers in the deity.

Interesting idea. What's your suspicion based on?

Cheers,
D.

[grumpy]

I share Ikari Gendou's suspicion. My reason is that I've noticed that those preachers who believe most strongly and loudly aren't that into social justice.

[Quath]

I saw a statistic that 1% of Christians do not believe in God. I have seen a few Christian priests talk about God in a different context than the being who fathered Jesus. They see him in a nebulous manner that may just mean "shared spirituality" or "shared humanity." I think it is hard for a person to believe in a good deity that can control earthquakes and floods. Preachers have to wrestle with this and I think a few of them don't like this idea. One way is to make God powerless. (This TED talk is a good example of this.)

It would be interesting to see how common this is though.

[Seeker630]

Damn he was good. One of the only Christian clergy I've ever heard that made any sense.

[homo hirsutus]

I think it's an issue of extremes. The folks that are all about social justice are probably more skeptical of the idea that there is a benevolent force in the universe. At the same time the assholes that teach prosperity gospel are clearly exploiting people and, I assume from appearances, have no fear that evil deeds will be punished in an afterlife. It's the people who get by without much attention, just trying to do good on a most basic level, that are probably believers. They haven't done any real analysis of the universe they live in to figure out that no force is helping them, but they're not assholes so even if they did realize it they probably wouldn't exploit it for their own advantage.

I'm probably doing the argument harm by dividing it into a dichotomy. There could easily been tons of non-theist priests just floating down the stream not making any waves one way or the other.

[grumpy]

I sat through the whole thing, and it was like watching a 20-minute lecture about the tooth fairy.

Either there is no god, or

There is a god who can't rid us of evil and misfortune, or
There is a god who CAN rid us of evil and misfortune but chooses not to.

In any case, worship is meaningless.

[homo hirsutus]

I love it:

[It is possible that] "god expresses himself or herself though powerlessness rather than power"

Right.

[disgracian]

Originally Posted by homo hirsutus

[It is possible that] "god expresses himself or herself though powerlessness rather than power"

This reminded me of Bishop Spong. He's so completely extricated himself from any and all traditional notions of what Christianity is that you have to wonder what he's still holding onto.

These Christians, while I do respect them, are really atheists who don't realise it yet.

Cheers,
D.

[grumpy]

Pharyngula has an article about this, and provides a link to a Washington Post article by Dennett about his study. The link works.

The Dennett article in WashPo links to his study. That link doesn't work.

fuck