{"id":24137,"date":"2014-05-31T12:18:46","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T16:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=24137"},"modified":"2014-05-31T12:18:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-31T16:18:46","slug":"facts-should-change-your-beliefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/05\/facts-should-change-your-beliefs.html","title":{"rendered":"Facts Should Change Your Beliefs"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/05\/wpid-Photo-20140531093945.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/05\/wpid-Photo-20140531093945.jpg\" class=\"alignnone\" width=\"500\" height=\"298\" alt=\"\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/friendlyatheist\/2014\/05\/30\/facts-should-change-your-beliefs\/\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"\" class=\" decorated-link\">Hemant Mehta shared<\/a> the above image. I obviously agree with the sentiment. No one should think that this stance is an atheist one. Certainly, many atheists are committed to being rational. But if you have talked to an atheist who is an anti-vaxxer or a Jesus-mythicist, then you realize the two are not synonymous. Likewise there is a long and rich history of liberal religion that was at the forefront of pioneering the changing of beliefs when facts and evidence required it.<\/p>\n<p>But perhaps most importantly, if you are a religious believer who thinks all atheists are evil, or an atheist who thinks all religious people are delusional lunatics, then you are an example of someone refusing to allow facts to change their beliefs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hemant Mehta shared the above image. I obviously agree with the sentiment. No one should think that this stance is an atheist one. Certainly, many atheists are committed to being rational. But if you have talked to an atheist who is an anti-vaxxer or a Jesus-mythicist, then you realize the two are not synonymous. Likewise [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,80],"tags":[1087,3315,3329,4528,10384,10886],"class_list":["post-24137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism-religion","category-religion","tag-beliefs","tag-facts","tag-faith","tag-hemant-mehta","tag-ricky-gervais","tag-science"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Facts Should Change Your Beliefs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Hemant Mehta shared the above image. I obviously agree with the sentiment. No one should think that this stance is an atheist one. Certainly, many\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/05\/facts-should-change-your-beliefs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Facts Should Change Your Beliefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hemant Mehta shared the above image. I obviously agree with the sentiment. No one should think that this stance is an atheist one. Certainly, many\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/05\/facts-should-change-your-beliefs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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