"Anybody who goes through seminary and comes out believing in God hasn’t been paying attention"

[cynatnite]

DENNETT: It’s true, here are these young people in seminary, they have come with the purest of hearts and the noblest of intentions and they’re going to devote their lives to God. And one of the first things they learn is textual criticism. They’re looking at all the existing papyruses and scrolls and so forth and learning about the recension of the texts — the tortuous and often controversial historical path from Hebrew, Greek, and Latin versions of the books of the Bible — and all the Apocryphal books that got rejected — to the King James Version and all the later English translations. And that’s not what they taught you in Sunday school.

That’s the joke that we often provoke from people when we talk about this: Anybody who goes through seminary and comes out believing in God hasn’t been paying attention.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/04/11/the_unbelievers/?page=1

This portion of the interview came from page 3. The entire article is a very interesting read.

[iris27]

1. No kidding! I didn't even make it to seminary; all it took was an intent to head there after

undergrad. I was so enthusiastic about it that I started close reading the Bible, Lewis, Craig, Strobel, and the like. Didn't take long for me to see just what a scam I'd been buying into since birth.