{"id":3706,"date":"2008-05-14T19:09:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T19:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/05\/not-getting-through\/"},"modified":"2008-05-14T19:09:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T19:09:00","slug":"not-getting-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2008\/05\/not-getting-through.html","title":{"rendered":"Not Getting Through"},"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><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fotosearch.com\/comp\/corbis\/DGT231\/man-putting-fingers_~CB055846.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fotosearch.com\/comp\/corbis\/DGT231\/man-putting-fingers_~CB055846.jpg\" border=\"0\"><\/a> Is it just me wanting to ask questions that Larry Moran doesn\u2019t consider interesting, or am I genuinely having trouble getting through? Here\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/sandwalk.blogspot.com\/2008\/05\/sophisticated-religion.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">what he wrote in a recent comment on his blog<\/a>, in response to my response to his response to\u2026<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The question that interests me is whether supernatural beings exist. If there are \u201creligious believers\u201d who are atheists then that\u2019s fine by me. Why would I want to have any further conversation with them?<\/p>\n<p>This debate over \u201csophisticated\u201d religion is always started by those who criticize atheists for not understanding modern religious thought. The clear implication is that the \u201csophisticated\u201d believers are not atheists. Otherwise, why criticize the atheists?<\/p>\n<p>James, I don\u2019t believe you would call yourself an atheist. What you are doing, I think, is quibbling over semantics. You want to define the word \u201csupernatural being\u201d in a way that permits you to believe in them while pretending that atheists like me don\u2019t understand your perception of reality.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you\u2019re right. Maybe I don\u2019t understand how you can believe in supernatural beings while pretending you don\u2019t. This is your chance to explain it to me. So far, you aren\u2019t doing a very good job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Maybe it is just that I\u2019m butting in on a conversation that is exclusively focused on \u201csupernatural beings\u201d. But that isn\u2019t terminology that I find helpful for expressing what <em>I<\/em> mean by \u201cGod\u201d, and I know the same would be true for other theologians and educated Christians of various descriptions.<\/p>\n<p>So why is this communication going so badly? Any suggestions on how to make it go better?<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-1337083777758579704?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is it just me wanting to ask questions that Larry Moran doesn\u2019t consider interesting, or am I genuinely having trouble getting through? Here\u2019s what he wrote in a recent comment on his blog, in response to my response to his response to\u2026 The question that interests me is whether supernatural beings exist. If there are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Not Getting Through<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is it just me wanting to ask questions that Larry Moran doesn&#039;t consider interesting, or am I genuinely having trouble getting through? 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