Unequally Yoked
Pencils down and masks off! Tomorrow, I’ll be posting the winners in the Christian round, and the Atheist round winners on Wednesdays, but you can all start scoring yourselves now, because our lovely contestants were…
Christians:
Beth – Author of C6 and A[this is the person who didn’t send an ‘A’ response]
I was raised Roman Catholic and cut my apologetic teeth in discussions with atheist friends. I just finished my MA in Theology (my only 2 years of Catholic school). I consider myself Vincentian & Franciscan by breeding and Dominican at heart.
Brendan Hodge – Author of C11 and A1
I’m a moderately conservative Catholic who finds a lot of inspiration in Dante and Plato. On Arnold Kling’s three axes of political thought I tend towards the civilization-barbarism axis, though I have an economistic and libertarian side which I’ve picked up as a data analyst and thus someone who focuses a lot on the limits of knowledge. I think both secularists and Christians often fail to fully understand the implications of the fact that we have bodies and that they mean something. Blogs at DarwinCatholic.
Christian H – Author of C3 and A3
I am Christian H of prompt #3. I attend Anglican churches and believe most of the Anglican Church of Canada’s teachings, but I was confirmed Lutheran and I spent my undergraduate attending a non-denominational church. I have an MA in English Literature from a Canadian university. I sometimes call myself a tentativist. Blogs at The Thinking Grounds.
Elliot – Author of C7 and A7
I was raised a non-denominational evangelical protestant in the midwest (son of a pastor). Converted to Catholicism at Yale, where I majored in Humanities. Thesis on Existential Anxiety and Conversion in Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Aquinas. M.A. in Theology from Dominican House of Studies, Washington. Thesis on the basis of intelligibility in the works of Michel Foucault and Thomas Aquinas. I’m a philosophy nerd with agoraphobia about my intellectual pursuits.
Gilbert – Author of C9 and A10
Growing up, I started out as what Americans would call a Cafeteria Catholic. As I started thinking for myself I noted that world-view was full of contradictions. But instead of going atheist I doubled down and gradually turned into the reactionary Catholic I’m now. In secular Germany that makes me seem rather eccentric. Blogs at The Last Conformer.
Ink – Author of C8 and A8
Ink is a cradle Catholic, originally raised in the South. It took a move to the dissident North to make her realize how much she really loved her Catholicism. She traces her ideological pedigree as Thomistic-Aristotelian/Platonic, but loves to add Church Fathers if context allows. She strongly dislikes “because the Bible says so” as the answer to a question and frequently searches for answers in science and natural law. She recognizes faith and reason as complements, not opposites.
Atheists:
Chana Messinger – Author of C4 and A5
Grew up in a Reform Jewish household that was atheist, too, though I didn’t know it. I went through my own constructions of God, theistic evolution, and pantheism before landing on atheism. I’ve been developing and growing in atheism, skepticism, secularism, humanism and rationalism ever since. Blogs at The Merely Real and contributes to Strange Notions.
Chris Hallquist – Author of C10 and A2
Raised liberal protestant, atheist at 16, atheist blogger at 18. Went to graduate school in philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, literally the top philosophy of religion department in the world, and was deeply disappointed. These days, I think a lot about making sure humans don’t accidentally destroy the world. Blogs at The Uncredible Hallq.
Guy Fletcher-Wood – Author of C2 and A9
I’m an atheist, recently realised that I’m ignostic, and this is probably why I’ve never “grokked” god. I’m a consequentialist and thus convinced religion is amoral at best. I want to take part because I love the questions and writing my “Christian” answer last year advanced my understanding of Christianity.
Ozy Frantz – Author of C1 and A11
I grew up in an agnostic family and converted to Catholicism in high school. After two years, I discovered skepticism and deconverted. I’m a rationalist, a naturalist, and a utilitarian. I’m still vaguely annoyed I don’t get to be a nun.
Steve – Author of C5 and A6
32 year old atheist here. My wife and I began dating when we were 16 and have more or less been together ever since, currently married 5 years. (if you’re doing the math, yes there was some dragging of the feet on both our parts). She’s a Yankee fan, I’m a Met fan. Shes an evangelical christian, I’m an atheist. Along with our daughter, we are a blissful family. As Golde says ‘If that’s not love, what is?’
Ambiguous:
Joy – Author of C12 and A4
Saved at 2 years old, I grew up immersed in — and finding much of my identity within — evangelical Christianity, with a strong, sincere faith. My attorney-father encouraged belief and questioning, but in college 3 things changed my belief in God: 1. Religious studies courses that challenged biblical inerrancy, 2. Reading the NT in the original Greek and 3. A newfound love for cosmology. Now I view myself as a “cultural Christian” and agnostic without belief, but without 100% surety, either.
So, how’d you do? Did you successfully pair up entries? Guess true religious beliefs? Spot denominations from fifty feet?
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