STRANGE (ALMOST) COINCIDENCE
I drove back from WV yesterday. 8 hours in the car, alone with only the radio. Scanning through the AM band I came across some radio preacher (this is WV, remember) going on about Hell and all of the scientific evidence for it and how atheists are really going to have a bad day eternity. Somewhere along the way he mentioned that the famous atheist Tom Paine allegedly had some kind of death-bed conversion. I’m not sure how someone facing their death and succumbing to the mythologies of the day is supposed to be any kind of evidence for Hell, but I’m not a radio preacher. Their ways are too deep for mere mortals (and scientists), I suppose. And now for the (almost) coincidence. For completely unrelated reasons P.Z. Myers posted less than 24 hours later that Paine was not an atheist at all.
Hmmm. It’s almost like someone is trying to tell me not to believe the radio preachers. 🙂
2 Responses to “STRANGE (ALMOST) COINCIDENCE”
![]() Comment by Nance Confer October 3rd, 2009 at 7:42 am |
His Noodliness has touched you! 🙂 Nance |
![]() Comment by JJ Ross October 3rd, 2009 at 12:15 pm |
Two things: FavD the religion major recently told me with great relish, the same things about Thomas Paine. One book to read is Waldman’s “Founding Faith” that on pg. 41 quotes Paine as arguing against the monarchy, not with “common sense” but because it’s old testament idolatry promoted by the Devil and “ranked in scripture as one of the sins of the Jews.” And second, I was just blogging the REAL scientific evidence for human values! (hat tip Paul) Coincidence indeed . . . |