Reasonable Dissent

Beginning interviews tomorrow

I’ve been a little quiet for a few days on this site, mostly because I’m preparing for interviews. I wrote a post a little while back about wanting to meet with Christians of all types and discuss with them their beliefs and any justifications for those beliefs, responses to common criticisms and arguments, and how their beliefs compare with the official teaching of the church.

As I mentioned, this is a project that is motivated by the increase (it seems) in recent times to having fewer authoritative teachings, and more ‘personal interpretation’. Even with authoritative teachings, there are so many denominations and shades of gray within those denominations that I encounter, “Well that’s not what I believe,” more than getting into a real discussion.

Actually, I’ve already started conducting a few correspondence interviews, and they’re going well. I haven’t decided the format that I want to use for the results of this project yet, though, so I haven’t talked too much about them. Really, I think the most interesting material will come at the end, when I can compare all that I’ve gathered. But since I’m beginning my face-to-face interviews, I want to give any of my readers one more chance to post subjects that they want discussed. I want to try to hit as many of the same topics as I can with all of my interviewees, so I need to get as much as I can before I go into them.

I’m already planning the standard stuff. We’ll talk about creation, creationism, intelligent design, evolution, literal interpretation of the bible, homosexuality, gay marriage, prayer, the nature of God, arguments and proofs for and against God, the god of the old and new testaments, evangelism, morality, Jesus, miracles, resurrection, gnostic gospels, canonical gospels, the trinity, separation of church and state… just to name a few. Hopefully I’ll have time to really get into this in the hour or two that I have with them.

But what’s most important is what you all encounter as well. The point of my project is that we may all have some issues or arguments with some Christian teachings, but the followers are so scattered that it’s difficult to actually discuss it, nail it down and deal with it. I want to try to eliminate the argument that you may be opposed to one person’s understanding of Christianity, but that’s just because you haven’t encountered this one before. You’re welcome to hold whatever beliefs you have, but if you say that you’re a Lutheran, or a Protestant, or a Mormon, or a Catholic, that has certain implications. I want to know what those are, and know what each of them has to say about the important issues of our time.

So, before I go tomorrow, here’s a final call: if you were going to do this yourself, what would you want to know? What questions have never been answered to your satisfaction? It’s easy for me to ask the questions I want to know about, but yours are just as important. Leave a comment, or send it through the ‘Contact’ page.

Tags: atheism, Christianity