{"id":3002,"date":"2012-06-20T08:30:53","date_gmt":"2012-06-20T13:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3002"},"modified":"2012-06-20T08:30:53","modified_gmt":"2012-06-20T13:30:53","slug":"conversion-fascination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3002","title":{"rendered":"Conversion Fascination"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have to admit that I am still fascinated by the recent conversion of former <a href=\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/06\/this-is-my-last-post-for-the-patheos-atheist-portal.html\" target=\"_blank\">atheist blogger, Leah Libresco<\/a>. Unlike the re-conversion of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.examiner.com\/article\/atheist-converts-to-christianity-media-s-coverage\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick Greene<\/a>, Libresco was a blogger and so I assume that she knew the standard arguments and was presumably knowledgeable about the plot holes, ridiculousness, and just factually incorrect aspects of Christianity.<\/p>\n<p>Like I said before, I wasn\u2019t a reader of her blog so I don\u2019t know how much she really know anything about her positions. But I really have to assume she was knowledgeable. Her conversion is different than say Kirk Cameron\u2019s conversion in that he wasn\u2019t someone in the greater community of reason and he didn\u2019t know the arguments against religion.<\/p>\n<p>Libresco claims that her conversion was over Platonic Forms, but I am starting to wonder about that. It seems to me that Platonic Forms have been an outdated idea for some time now and that they are interesting for Introductory Philosophy students as a way of showing the history of thought. But aside from being a conversation starter, no modern moral philosopher would hold to such an idea as a moral theory. So my thought is that there was some emotional component involved as well.<\/p>\n<p>It is possible that Libresco isn\u2019t even aware of this emotional component, but I really do have a hard time believing that her conversion to Catholicism (and all the wackiness that entails) was a result of a belief in Platonic Forms.<\/p>\n<p>I mean, Libresco has to have heard of Sam Harris, right? If she is into Plato\u2019s Forms, she probably read Aristotle too. I think his view of morality is far better than Plato\u2019s and even that is outdated. There is a huge history of moral thought that it seems Libresco has surprisingly ignored. This seems unbelievable to me given that she appears to be a fan of philosophy and someone who is interested in the field of morality. So how did some religious person get her with the old C.S. Lewis \u201cMoral Law Giver\u201d argument?<\/p>\n<p>We have to be missing something here. Perhaps I can get a dialog started with her to try to reason this out.<\/p>\n<h6 class=\"zemanta-related-title\" style=\"font-size: 1em;\">Related articles<\/h6>\n<ul class=\"zemanta-article-ul zemanta-article-ul-image\" style=\"margin-left: 0px; display: inline-block; list-style-type: none;\">\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; font-size: 12px; width: 80px; height: 240px; margin: 10px 40px 20px 0px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2999\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; border: 0px none; display: block; box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px #999999;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/95225744_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; width: 80px; height: 90px; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 14pt;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2999\" target=\"_blank\">Plato&#8217;s Forms &amp; Morality<\/a>\n<div style=\"clear: both; margin: 10px 0px;\">\n<hr style=\"margin: 0px;\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; font-size: 12px; width: 80px; height: 240px; margin: 10px 40px 20px 0px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bigthink.com\/daylight-atheism\/my-questions-for-leah-libresco\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; border: 0px none; display: block; box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px #999999;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/95182036_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; width: 80px; height: 90px; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 14pt;\" href=\"http:\/\/bigthink.com\/daylight-atheism\/my-questions-for-leah-libresco\" target=\"_blank\">My Questions for Leah Libresco<\/a>\n<div style=\"clear: both; margin: 10px 0px;\">\n<hr style=\"margin: 0px;\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"zemanta-article-ul-li-image zemanta-article-ul-li\" style=\"display: inline-block; vertical-align: top; text-align: left; font-size: 12px; width: 80px; height: 240px; margin: 10px 40px 20px 0px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2970\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"padding: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; border: 0px none; display: block; box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px #999999;\" src=\"http:\/\/i.zemanta.com\/92934207_80_80.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><a style=\"display: block; width: 80px; height: 90px; overflow: hidden; text-decoration: none; line-height: 14pt;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=2970\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;The Atheist Challenge&#8217;<\/a>\n<div style=\"clear: both; margin: 10px 0px;\">\n<hr style=\"margin: 0px;\" \/>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=f89f50c0-114b-41ab-81f7-c7b96242b63e\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/?p=3002\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have to admit that I am still fascinated by the recent conversion of former atheist blogger, Leah Libresco. Unlike the re-conversion of Patrick Greene, Libresco was a blogger and so I assume that she knew the standard arguments and was presumably knowledgeable about the plot holes, ridiculousness, and just factually incorrect aspects of Christianity. [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 317364;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[551,589,134,49,642,702],"tags":[2215,11,259,284,2147,2226,2062,983,261],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3004,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3002\/revisions\/3004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dangeroustalk.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}