Time to Think Again

I'm about to complete my second month as a blogger, and thanks to some advice from ERV and an unfortunate power outage I've improved my blogging technique. Here is a new post composed completely in gmail.

I'd been noticing over the last few weeks how my passion for analyzing the effects of godlessness and religion on my life was fading. Not that my desire to understand the world as it real is was diminished. I still value truth above most anything else. It was just that I'd made my peace with my world view, and most of the people who wanted to discuss my world view were either bored or convinced I was beyond hope. The action on my blog and Lori's MySpace blog had sort of died down. I even took a break from reading science to get caught up on some neglected fantasy novels. Of course I've had a huge back log on my reading list of science and logic stuff I need to understand, should I ever need to defend rational thinking from the many dogmatists in my life.

Now, it looks like it might be time to dust off those critical thinking skills again. I'd forgotten how much fun it was to uncover flaws in facts and logic. I mostly only get inspired to interact with people I know though. I don't have the energy or skills to lurk around blogs just for the sake of an argument.

Anyway, there have been two new developments in the last week.

The first was Lori got a nice long letter from my cousin who is a pastor. He covered a broad spectrum of topics from evolution vs. creation to the problem of evil. I thought his most compelling argument consisted of the Free Will Defense. Basically that an omnipotent, benevolent god is compatible with evil and suffering because god gives us the option to choose for good or bad ourselves. It is also why he is does not give evidence of his existence. Proof of god would defeat free will I had never taken the time to read up on this. Probably why I found it so compelling. There are many weaknesses to the free will defense, but the most concise came from Jim. Basically if Adam and Eve had free will (the ability to reject God) and proof of God's existence (face to face communication). There was more and maybe I'll be able to post some of it later. For right now it is private correspondences and I don't want to make it public without permission.

The second thing that happened was that Lori got a call from someone at church asking her to teach a children's class. I suppose a little background on that is in order. We still go to church on occasion because I'm on the A/V crew. I'd quit but the team is small and it would mean more work for some of my friends. We also have a strong social network going on there and some good friends we like to see. Church as a social club right. Okay, to get back on track, Lori got a call about teaching a class. Up to this point we hadn't really outed ourselves to anyone at church other than our closest friends. People talk so we didn't think it was a secret or anything, but if they are asking for a skeptic or an atheist to teach a children's class maybe not every one knew about us. So Lori ended up explaining her current stance to the church elder on the phone. I'm guessing it is only a matter of time before some people start calling to save our backsliding souls.