I am very disappointed in myself this evening. I went along to a talk from a series about meeting Jesus run by the university Christian Union, and my reaction upsets me. For the past three or four years I have managed to actually be an agnostic, the appropriate extension of my scepticism into the arena of religion. When talking with religious people I have experienced a clash of upbringing more than anything else. That seemed to be the drive behind religious belief. So it was an interesting thing to discuss, and I managed to remain fairly sceptical. But recently this is collapsing and esp. tonight. I’m getting angry with people for their theism. That’s the issue. The belief in a god. But this doesn’t fit because I try to keep my epistemological commitments minimal: it’s no different to realism vs. idealism w.r.t. the external world. So if I’m not going to get angry with people committed to that world (which probably includes myself), I shouldn’t get angry with theists either.

Yet I am doing and in the worst way possible. This speaker tonight was attempting to engage with Oxford students by saying that people aren’t open-minded enough about Christianity; appealing to the intellectual virtue of open-mindedness. Good. An open mind is appropriate for the sceptic, even on the issue of his scepticism. My reaction? A retreat to a pathetic construction of rationality invoking words like “Socrates”, “the Academy”, “analytic philosophy”. What do I know about any of these things? Very little, and in any case, invoking them like this is attaching oneself to things in a dogmatic and uninteresting way.

The correct response? Try to charitably construct a consistent story from the opposition. Help them to do this. Use one’s philosophical training. Then place it alongside all the other worldviews available, compare and contrast, come to understand the things we know and don’t know about the area better. Very far removed from tonight’s arrogance from me.