What's it like on the other side of the fence?

[His Noodly Appendage]

This probably excludes converts / devonverts...

I originally posed this as 'what is it like to be an atheist?' over in a theist place - but hell, let's try it both ways.

Many of us see the other side of the theism/atheism fence as a horrible, twisted place that must perforce damage its inhabitants horribly, or twist them to its own horribleness.

However, given that it's an observable fact that at least some [a]theists (delete as appropriate):

* are moral,
* are kind,
* are compassionate
* are altruistic,
* are honest
* are happy,
* have a positive outlook
* are not oppressed, despairing or nihilistic,
* and are generally good, smart, happy people

- how do you account for it? Many of us would predict absolutely the opposite, from our own POV. How must their world work in order for this to be so? What's it like inside their heads? How can you live there and yet be a normal, happy and decent human being? What does it feel like? How do they reconcile it all? What's their motivation, in the drama-school sense?

[DMB]

IRL I know very few theists. I am still friends after 30 years with a Southern Baptist, who has always seemed to me to be basically good person despite her wacky beliefs.

In her world her god is always there and responsible for anything even slightly good that happens to her or her family. I am not so sure what she thinks is responsible for the bad things. Her social life revolves round her megachurch. Apart from my family, which is mostly safely on the other side of the Atlantic, I don't think she knows anyone who thinks very differently from her. I don't think she really understands what we think about anything, but she is worried that we will end up in hell. She appears to believe totally in an afterlife.

[Pendaric]

Most people, be they Christian or atheist, don't have anything like the awareness of what the bible actually says and it's implications as the majority of atheists posting on these sites. By virtue of participating on this type of forum you become educated, and awareness is particularly drawn to the incongruent and morally repugnant bits.

I would guess your average theist doesn't give any particular degree of thought to the genicidal atrocities in Canaan or the prospect of the majority of the population roasting in hell for eternity. I attended church for 5 years, and I can't recall any sermons or bible studies giving in depth readings of the slaughter of the Amorites and bashing babies heads against rocks. The spotlight just doesn't go there.

I read somewhere that religion acts very much like a mirror for your own beliefs. If you are at heart a good and kind person you will see in it the Sermon on the Mount type teachings and view them as the be all and end all. If you are at heart a vindictive evil bastard you'll focus on the death, destruction and divine retribution and take that as the message. Cherry picking according to your own character.

Again, people on secular sites tend to be a lot smarter than the average bear. I would be mortally insulted if anyone seriously called me average in anything, because the bar is set so low in pretty much every area by the average. A lot of people are just not intelligent enough to grasp cognitive dissonance and the difference between absolute and relative moralism, and they wouldn't recognise decent argumentation if it bit them on the ass.

A lot of Christians compartmentalise as well. Church is what they do on a Sunday mornings, not what their lives are about.

[Jobar]

I agree, Pendaric. For most of us who contribute to boards like TR, the 'other side of the fence' would be people who think deeply and regularly about their religion, priests and preachers and similar shamans.

If we ignore the ones who get into the god biz for power and money (a not insignificant percentage, IMO, but leave that aside), there are those who see the promotion of their belief as an unquestioned good thing.

It's been a long time since I read James' Varieties of Religious Experience; he had a lot to say about those for whom faith was a sort of ecstasy, and also those whose belief was like a heavy weight they had to carry constantly. That book is huge- near a thousand pages, IIRC- and quite old, but still is worth reading for those of us interested in topics like this.

[Jobar]

More- I know lots of people who are, as the Biblical passage goes, "lukewarm". Neither their belief nor their unbelief is a terribly important facet of their lives. Even those who regularly attend church, and even contribute money, may not give any large amount of thought to their beliefs. Likewise, I know people who are secularists in any practical sense, who never concern themselves about ideas larger than their immediate biological and social needs; true apatheists. Heh, some of that sort may be better balanced than some of us active unbelievers are! Still, I can't regret the many thousands of hours of thought and study I've put into my own understanding of these topics, and all the time I spend on discussion boards like this one; I think it makes us much more complete and three-dimensional personalities, while the apathetic ones are bland and uninteresting.

But of course, that's probably just a matter of taste, eh?

[Garnet]

I read somewhere that religion acts very much like a mirror for your own beliefs. If you are at heart a good and kind person you will see in it the Sermon on the Mount type teachings and view them as the be all and end all. If you are at heart a vindictive evil bastard you'll focus on the death, destruction and divine retribution and take that as the message. Cherry picking according to your own character.

^^^I've been saying something like this for a while now. It's one of the reasons that I'm so leery of certain Calvinists and conservative Christians. Their god concepts can only be described as evil. I'm not comfortable around people who can believe in such a critter.

[meepmeep]

How do you account for it?

We're all human beings.

[trendkill]

More- I know lots of people who are, as the Biblical passage goes, "lukewarm". Neither their belief nor their unbelief is a terribly important facet of their lives. Even those who regularly attend church, and even contribute money, may not give any large amount of thought to their beliefs.These are the only people I really don't get. I feel like I can understand the hardcore of just about any belief system, but I just don't get the apathetic ones. Especially the apathetic ones who nonchalantly subscribe to doctrines such as salvation and damnation. It seems like you'd have to be irrational almost to the point of insanity to believe but not care.

[Ray Moscow]

More- I know lots of people who are, as the Biblical passage goes, "lukewarm". Neither their belief nor their unbelief is a terribly important facet of their lives. Even those who regularly attend church, and even contribute money, may not give any large amount of thought to their beliefs.These are the only people I really don't get. I feel like I can understand the hardcore of just about any belief system, but I just don't get the apathetic ones. Especially the apathetic ones who nonchalantly subscribe to doctrines such as salvation and damnation. It seems like you'd have to be irrational almost to the point of insanity to believe but not care.

I've never gotten that either -- perhaps from being brought up as a fundie to regard these matters as eternal life and death -- but I have many friends who are happy to assert to all sorts of beliefs but never want to examine them too closely or take them to their conclusions.

As a friend of mine put it, "I know very well what the Methodist church teaches, and I'm very happy with it. I would never want to pick things apart like you do."

I don't get it, but that's how lots of people deal with it.

[Zebulon]

As a friend of mine put it, "I know very well what the Methodist church teaches, and I'm very happy with it. I would never want to pick things apart like you do."

I don't get it, but that's how lots of people deal with it.

My ex-wife used to tell me that I think too much! :D

My old high school buddies are all staunch Catholics. They're good people, although I find them to be a little narrow minded on certain issues.

[Luis Garcia]

Many of us would predict absolutely the opposite, from our own POV.

You would? Why?

[Worldtraveller]

How do you account for it?

We're all human beings.

[Monty Python voice] I'm not!![/Monty Python Voice]

:D

[His Noodly Appendage]

Luis:

Well, the whole Christian 'thing' strikes me as being highly unpleasant.

God is an angry, jealous, vainglorious entity with a thing for retribution and punishment that borders on the sadistic - on the far side, that is. Knowing this, he went on to create man with massive capacity for suffering, and a huge tendency to piss him off on a daily basis.

He then sent the best liar in the universe to trick and deceive his innocent creations (who didn't even know what a lie was, let alone that they should beware them, or how to spot them) into directly violating his own arbitrary and amoral laws.

The serpent having succeeded, he then goes on to blame and punish the victims forever, with every kind of harm and suffering that exists - and when they die, to really ramp up the torture to infinite levels.

After millennia of personally directing all kinds of disasters, plagues and genocides - including the Flood, an unparalleled opportunity to drown puppies and kittens and babies - he hits upon an even better idea.

So he rapes a 12-year-old girl in her sleep, and gets her pregnant with his alter-ego, which he imbues with just enough power and knowledge to get it noticed and thus (unsurprisingly) lynched and tortured to death, but, of course, not enough to actually shake the place up and make some real changes.

Having done this, he then turns around and offers to refrain from torturing people in the afterlife if they are slobberingly grateful that he abandoned his rape-child to get tortured to death, and if they grovel on the floor and apologise personally for every second of their miserable, unworthy lives. Not that they don't *deserve* torture - this is just a special offer, today only; he planned for his kid to get tortured and killed, so that he could make this deal.

Oh yes, and any day now he's going to get bored of the whole thing, create an enemy to war against him, laying waste to the planet - and after the inevitable defeat, he'll destroy whatever is left and drag off any non-customers to be tortured.

Despite the above - hell, because of the above - there are people whose heart brims over with awe and love and admiration for this god, who seek his company their whole life, live only to please him and carry on through the worst shit life throws at them, fuelled only by the hope of finally meeting him.

The only way I can reconcile this is either to diagnose a case of Stockholm syndrome beyond anything seen before, or to concede that human nature can really sink so low as to truly admire perfect evil.

All christians therefore ought, by my model, to be either complete bastards or total basket-cases. I know there's mental compartmentalisation and cognitive dissonance - and indeed, they're ubiquitous - but they don't seem sufficient to make up the shortfall.

[Jobar]

Noodly, I think it'd be interesting to post that somewhere like Rapture Ready, and see what the responses would be.

Oh, wait. They'd just delete it and ban you. Damn. :rolleyes:

Still, I wish we could get some believers' comments on that.

[seebs]

I never got why this is a problem.

To me, this question sounds a lot like "what kept people from flying into space before Newton discovered gravity?"

I understand that some people have models in which it is the holding of a position, not the circumstance the position attempts to describe, which matters. This makes no sense to me.

[seebs]

Noodly, I think it'd be interesting to post that somewhere like Rapture Ready, and see what the responses would be.

Oh, wait. They'd just delete it and ban you. Damn. :rolleyes:

Still, I wish we could get some believers' comments on that.

My comment is that I think it is in many cases simply inaccurate. Choice of terminology can turn a statement which is arguably a factual summary of a position into a gross misrepresentation.

Let's take a different example. Biology. I quipped the other week that I was going to go see a vetrinarian specialized in primates with overdeveloped speech centers. After all, humans are primates, right?

Now, what happens if someone says "Evolutionists believe that humans are just animals." That somehow isn't quite right; you can sort of make it factually correct, but the phrase "just animals" isn't quite accurate, because it has connotations far beyond mere membership in the kingdom Animalia.

I think the thread's topic is fascinating, because I've found that a great number of people, on all sides of an issue, are simply incapable of making sense of competing views. I don't know why. I think part of it is difficulty being able to get away from the emotional response to something.

Obviously, much of what Noodles describes is simply not part of how many Christians view things. But I'll take a particular example, because I think it's extremely representative. HNA says:

So he rapes a 12-year-old girl in her sleep,

This one isn't just a choice of biased language, but carries several fact claims that I haven't got any evidence for. What makes her 12? I have never seen anyone claim that Mary's age is clearly identified in the text. Also, what rape? The entire point of an allegedly miraculous impregnation is that it does not necessarily imply sex. No sex, no rape. Causing someone to become pregnant through some means other than sex might be pretty rude or intrusive in some way, but I don't think it counts as rape.

The whole thing is full of stuff like this, which depends heavily on the assumption that all of Christianity is accurately represented by the cherry-picked worst-sounding examples of everything at all times. It's about as relevant to anything any Christian I know believes as... Well, it's not relevant, I'll say that much.

Unless, of course, it'd be fair for me to assume that every atheist simultaneously believes everything ever asserted by both Ayn Rand and Rook Hawkins. :)

[His Noodly Appendage]

Really, seebs?

If someone impregnated your daughter against her will but didn't happen to use a penis, you wouldn't charge them with rape??

[Jobar]

Seebs, we know that some Christians don't see their god as vindictive, scornful, jealous, or hateful. But to do that, they have to actively ignore parts of their scriptures that very specifically say that's the way he is.

We've had any number of discussions concerning cherry-picking. As I've often said, I personally have no problems with people who pick out the passages about a loving and caring God, who is saddened by the pain and sinfulness of his creations, not angered by all that.

Trouble is, if someone is truly vile and hateful, they can find plenty of vile and hateful cherries to pick in the Bible, too. Just look at Fred Phelps. He can back up his beliefs from the Bible just as well as you can.

And I'm going to echo Noodly's question. Can you show us anywhere in the Bible that indicates Mary was given a choice? If not, even if no actual sex took place, couldn't it be said that she was raped in spirit?

[seebs]

Seebs, we know that some Christians don't see their god as vindictive, scornful, jealous, or hateful. But to do that, they have to actively ignore parts of their scriptures that very specifically say that's the way he is.

Sure, just as atheists have to deny the plain reality of Creation's testimony to God's greatness...

Which is to say, if you start by assuming the wrong premises, your conclusions are nonsense. You are starting, very very early in your analysis, by making the assumption that a particular subset of Christians are the absolute and unquestionable authority on how we should think about the text. I don't agree.

Trouble is, if someone is truly vile and hateful, they can find plenty of vile and hateful cherries to pick in the Bible, too. Just look at Fred Phelps. He can back up his beliefs from the Bible just as well as you can.

I don't think he can. I think he can do so well enough to fool a casual reader who has been unconsciously trained to assume that the text is just a huge list of disconnected sound bites each of which must be taken without reference to the paragraphs or pages surrounding it.

Phelps sounds persuasive about the Bible for the same reason Hovind sounds persuasive about evolution -- good speaking skills and a receptive audience. As long as it's emotionally more comfortable to think that he's representative, he's going to sound like he knows his stuff to some, no matter how poorly he comes across to the people who know the material better.

And I'm going to echo Noodly's question. Can you show us anywhere in the Bible that indicates Mary was given a choice? If not, even if no actual sex took place, couldn't it be said that she was raped in spirit?

I don't think so. Rape isn't just denying someone a choice. It's fucking them without permission. No fucking, no sexual contact... no rape. Now, you might be able to make a case for some other kind of abuse-of-persons. It might be a persuasive case, although I'm not convinced yet. But unless there's sexual contact, of some sort, I don't think there's rape.

That, for our usual purposes, procreation implies sex, does not mean that procreation is sex.

As to the choice question, that's a fairly interesting one. As people are fond of saying, absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. I cannot offer you a shred of evidence that either of the people to whom I brought tasty chocolate dessert the other day had any choice. At no point did I ask them in advance whether they would like some ice cream. I just showed up with ice cream and spoons. Sometimes, if you know people, you do not have to ask, or visibly offer a choice, to legitimately and correctly act in a way that they will be okay with.

In short, I don't think I have evidence either for sex or for non-consensuality.

[Garrett]

trendkill
These are the only people I really don't get.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Not hard to understand for most people - its good advice to get along while avoiding unnecessary problems.

Now imagine you live in Rome. It becomes an ingrained habit. Average people go to church and give tithes because they are expected to. It tells society (as they see it) that they are normal.

This points to the reason that polite company avoids religion as a topic of discussion. The apathetic aren't religious due to the deep thought given the subject! They are religious because they they live in a religious society.

[His Noodly Appendage]

Seebs, have you ever lived with a pregnant woman?

'some kind of abuse-of-person' is possibly the greatest understatement of the century.

There's a reason why all but the most rabid pro-lifers make exception in case of rape. Having a *thing* grow inside you, like a proto-senient cancer, taking over your body, reshaping it, reprogramming it, driving you half crazy with hormones, causing 'morning' (ha!) sickness, sciatica, gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, making walking a burden and sleep nigh-impossible, binding your emotions and wrecking your girly bits...

As something sought-after or even resigned to as a risk come home to roost, it's dealable-with. But for it to be a violation - well. The emotional violation would likely be worst of all.

if an assault caused as much pain, damage and distress as a pregnancy, the perpetrator could be flayed alive and salted, and justice still would not be done. You call mere involuntary-fucking the greater crime?

FFS.

[Luis Garcia]

Hilarious and highly quotable description of christianity

Your list was

* are moral,
* are kind,
* are compassionate
* are altruistic,
* are honest
* are happy,
* have a positive outlook
* are not oppressed, despairing or nihilistic,
* and are generally good, smart, happy people


Which of those do you think are impossible for a christian to be? Specifically, which of these are impossible to be while one holds a given belief about a god?

The only ones I think you could even make even the beginnings of a case for are "moral" or "smart", but morality is described by actions rather than beliefs (for me, anyway) and one doesn't have to be smart in every department available to be regarded as smart.

So I still don't get it.

[His Noodly Appendage]

Well, living under a tyrant would seem to rule out either moral or happy, and mandate oppression.

Worshipping a torturer would seem to rule out compassionate.

Accepting the carrot and stick of heaven and hell would seem to rule out altruistic.

Categorising all of humanity as miserable sinners in need of salvation would seem to lead to negativity, nihilism and despair.

And accepting it all as fact, in light of the evidence, would seem to rule out either smart or honest.

[Ray Moscow]

Well, living under a tyrant would seem to rule out either moral or happy, and mandate oppression.

Worshipping a torturer would seem to rule out compassionate.

Accepting the carrot and stick of heaven and hell would seem to rule out altruistic.

Categorising all of humanity as miserable sinners in need of salvation would seem to lead to negativity, nihilism and despair.

And accepting it all as fact, in light of the evidence, would seem to rule out either smart or honest.

This is all pretty much true if people were consistent to their beliefs and followed them through to their logical conclusions. Fortunately, they usually aren't and don't.

Lots of people in all sorts of crazy religions are actually pretty good people, aside from their crazy beliefs. As someone said, they are still human beings.

[Luis Garcia]

Well, living under a tyrant would seem to rule out either moral or happy, and mandate oppression.

Unless you didn't think he was a tyrant.

While it wouldn't make me happy to live under a tyrant, I don't see how it would make me immoral unless I had a choice in the matter, which they don't seem to think they do, and I totally fail to see how it would mandate me acting oppressively.




Worshipping a torturer would seem to rule out compassionate.


Unless you didn't think he was a torturer.



Accepting the carrot and stick of heaven and hell would seem to rule out altruistic.


Only in the purest sense, but then in what way is anything that altruistic?



Categorising all of humanity as miserable sinners in need of salvation would seem to lead to negativity, nihilism and despair.


Unless you happened to have found the salvation.

This is, I think, important, and at the root of why christians so often think atheism leads to negativity, nihilism and despair. They think we're in the same trap but haven't got the escape route.



And accepting it all as fact, in light of the evidence, would seem to rule out either smart or honest.


Crucially, it would rule you out as one of either smart or honest about that one thing.

As I said, I don't think you need to be smart at everything to be considered smart.


(I'm also slightly baffled as to why I'm defending christians here. I'm normally on the offensive side)

[Luis Garcia]

Fortunately, they usually aren't and don't.


As I recall, about 1 in 12 do. :)

[Ray Moscow]

(I'm also slightly baffled as to why I'm defending christians here. I'm normally on the offensive side)

Closet theist!

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/6711/hahasp8.png

[His Noodly Appendage]

Oppressed, not oppressive.

[Luis Garcia]

Oppressed, not oppressive.Makes sense

[Luis Garcia]

Closet theist!




Doesn't make sense.

[His Noodly Appendage]

*long involved Narnia pun*

[Garrett]

Ray Moscow
This is all pretty much true if people were consistent to their beliefs and followed them through to their logical conclusions.
They also see to assume that "religious" means "Christian".

[meepmeep]

(I'm also slightly baffled as to why I'm defending christians here. I'm normally on the offensive side)

Perhaps because Noodly's argument is rather silly and ignores the fact that people are, well, human?

[Luis Garcia]

Perhaps because Noodly's argument is rather silly and ignores the fact that people are, well, human?

Could be.

At least I now have some evidence to support myself if I ever claim I'm not always offensive.

[meepmeep]

Perhaps because Noodly's argument is rather silly and ignores the fact that people are, well, human?

Could be.

At least I now have some evidence to support myself if I ever claim I'm not always offensive.

I don't see anything unreasonable or strange in what you wrote in this thread. You're not "defending" religion by simply pointing out that Christians are human beings and that being Christian doesn't automatically prevent someone from having the qualities Noodles listed. The way I see it, you're simply pointing out the obvious, and that has absolutely nothing to do with whether you believe in any kind of god.

Just to expand on what I meant: I find the whole us v. them business bizarre and ridiculous when it gets beyond the point of simply protecting people's rights. By that I mean that I do care about issues like church/state separation and persecution based on beliefs or lack thereof, but other than that, it doesn't matter to me at all: if religion gets someone through the day, then so be it. I don't automatically consider someone a worse person for it, and it only bothers me when people use religion to do harm.

The bottom line is that it doesn't make sense to me to assume that people are simply the sum of their professed religious beliefs. Even those who hold strong beliefs and philosophies consistently fail to live up to them, so I don't really see the point in judging a Christian based on what's written on the Bible (unless that person persistently makes it a point to quote scripture and claim that it is the absolute truth). Why not examine a person's actions and look at them as an individual? Although personal beliefs do say something about people's individual personalities, I would guess that most don't define themselves solely by their religious beliefs, and it just seems silly to say, "The Bible says X, so all Christians must be Y: this person is Christian, so they absolutely must believe X and must be Y."

[trendkill]

trendkill
These are the only people I really don't get.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Not hard to understand for most people - its good advice to get along while avoiding unnecessary problems.

Now imagine you live in Rome. It becomes an ingrained habit.I don't have to imagine what living in a religious community is like. I suppose some people just deal with these beliefs by just not thinking about them at all; I just don't know how they manage it. "Getting along" is one thing, but if they're lying to get along, then they're not really believers. I'm talking about people who really believe, but are apathetic.

erhaps because Noodly's argument is rather silly I don't think it's silly; if anything, I think his is the more sane view and the common view of God is silly in much the way he describes it. Especially in a post-authoritarian Western world. Even though I still have no trouble "understanding" the authoritarian view, or the watered-down C.S. Lewis versions thereof, I can still see that there is a certain intellectual disconnect from many of their other beliefs that people have to go through in order to believe it.

[His Noodly Appendage]

Meep: I know people are 'just folks'. I get that.

However, it seems to me that some belief-worldview packages would surely have to throw a person off-balance, and require rather more compensating for than I could imagine keeping up.

Obviously they manage - my question is how.

[Jobar]

Seebs, we know that some Christians don't see their god as vindictive, scornful, jealous, or hateful. But to do that, they have to actively ignore parts of their scriptures that very specifically say that's the way he is.

Sure, just as atheists have to deny the plain reality of Creation's testimony to God's greatness...

Which is to say, if you start by assuming the wrong premises, your conclusions are nonsense. You are starting, very very early in your analysis, by making the assumption that a particular subset of Christians are the absolute and unquestionable authority on how we should think about the text. I don't agree.

What nonsense! Just how the hell are you reading that into what I wrote? Of course I'm not saying that any particular sect has the patented One True Truth! Just as the Christians who want to believe in a loving and gentle God have to ignore certain verses, so too do the ones who want to believe in a God who is all set to kick ass and take names.

And I responded to your comments about Phelps and Hovind on the other thread, so I won't repeat myself here, except to say that you're quite wrong about Hovind, and that there have been plenty of Biblically-defensible dogmas even worse than Phelps'.


I don't think so. Rape isn't just denying someone a choice. It's fucking them without permission. No fucking, no sexual contact... no rape. Now, you might be able to make a case for some other kind of abuse-of-persons. It might be a persuasive case, although I'm not convinced yet. But unless there's sexual contact, of some sort, I don't think there's rape.

That, for our usual purposes, procreation implies sex, does not mean that procreation is sex.

As to the choice question, that's a fairly interesting one. As people are fond of saying, absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. I cannot offer you a shred of evidence that either of the people to whom I brought tasty chocolate dessert the other day had any choice. At no point did I ask them in advance whether they would like some ice cream. I just showed up with ice cream and spoons. Sometimes, if you know people, you do not have to ask, or visibly offer a choice, to legitimately and correctly act in a way that they will be okay with.

In short, I don't think I have evidence either for sex or for non-consensuality.

Granted that the Bible says very little concerning Mary's opinion on the whole virgin-birth thing. And as I'm sure you're aware, I'm fully convinced she's as much a myth as her divinely begotten son. And seeing as how we're positing an omniscient God, here, of course such a being would be aware of her willingness or lack thereof. Still, given the general attitude of the Biblical authors towards women, I doubt that they even considered writing in a bit where she was given any choice.

[meepmeep]

Meep: I know people are 'just folks'. I get that.

However, it seems to me that some belief-worldview packages would surely have to throw a person off-balance, and require rather more compensating for than I could imagine keeping up.

Obviously they manage - my question is how.

The mind does a very good job of dealing with cognitive dissonance in most cases. What I'm saying is that no one really lives up to the standards of their own belief-worldview systems, so I really don't see any kind of fence separating people when it comes to something like this.

[His Noodly Appendage]

Seebs: did you give them a choice as to whether they wanted to eat the icecream, or did you just shove it down their throats?

There's something of a difference between an offer and a fait accompli - especially where bearing someone's child is concerned.

[Garrett]

His Noodly Appendage
Obviously they manage - my question is how.
Some (I think most) don't think much about it - they aren't "true believers". Others, like the anecdotal creationist geologist, manage to hold contradictory beliefs by "compartmentalizing" (which is a psychological "defense mechanism") their beliefs and understandings.