Not a PZ sycophant!

I discovered the blog of Rob Knop this week, Galactic Interactions, another one at ScienceBlogs who thinks PZ Myers is too harsh on religion. That’s at least 3, and Rob even goes farther than the others to make a target of himself with his liberal Christianity. It is a thing to behold how atheists attack liberal Christianity in just as demeaning a way as any other religion. What did liberals ever do to them?

Rob explains how science means God doesn’t make sense as Creator, which I like better than how Francis Collins sees it. Rob sees God as Sustainer and Redeemer, or in my language, sustainer and redeemer. He wrote a little on why he believes in God as sustainer in his last piece, though only in theory, not as it applies to him personally. He’s going to write another one about God as redeemer. I hope he writes something else before then, because there are a lot of comments from atheists who aren’t following him, mostly asking how he dares claim it reasonable to believe in God.

He does that without referring to a spiritual, non-physical side to reality. I can’t manage that. I can’t see God in a non-dual reality or as artificial unless that artificial quality is just how atheists think our brain makes our consciousness in a completely physical way. So for me God is Spirit. It is a lot easier to be vague about such things in one’s own life than if you start talking with people who believe differently. I’m sure being forced to be specific can be a good thing, though probably not if for the other person only agreeing with him or her is specific enough.

In an earlier piece, Rob pondered how “a PZ sycophant” would respond to what he was writing. It turned out not only sycophants, but PZ Myers himself answered, too many times for me to keep count. PZ didn’t resort to “kook” or “idiot” this time, but he wasn’t gracious either. People on the internet are just so right about everything.

It’s important to me that not everyone who believes in God is a kook or an idiot. It’s somewhat meaningful to me that many support PZ Myers in using that language. I wish they didn’t, but I don’t see a way for me to tell them they’re wrong in that, especially not with so many other harsh putdowns being fair game in politics and religion today.

I know the experiences that have caused me to believe in God as sustainer and redeemer and how those experiences don’t conflict with science. Whether or not consciousness really can be explained in purely material terms affects what God is. It doesn’t affect who God is to me. I would love to get that across to any atheist, as well as the fact that science has not nailed down that consciousness is purely material. I don’t know that any on the internet will listen. It’s a pity. Understanding that might spare a lot of hard feelings, even with God.