Wow, these entries are flying fast and furious today. Here is some more conversation with my friend about Atheism:
I get the strong feelings Tim. You make your case very well. Are you waging a personal battle against it for some reason though? You don’t have to get into your reasons, it’s just that there is no way you or anyone is going to change it. In fact, as we’ve seen in recent years, the world is becoming more ideologically defined, for the worse, as you point out. I just don’t see the benefit of fighting against all religion. Thousands of years of human faith in something or someone larger than ourselves is a hell (heh-heh!) of a tide to try to turn.
If no one fights against it, how will change occur? I’m waging a personal battle against it because the religious politicians are trying to tell me how to live my life. They are trying to (and succeeding) pass laws based on their religious viewpoints. They are limited my freedoms based on something that I don’t believe in.
As someone stated earlier in this thread, the Pilgrims came over here to escape religious persecution. Our Constitution firmly lays out the separation of church and state. And yet they are passing laws that weaken this separation.
Stating that there is no way that anyone is going to change something (anything, not just religion) is, I’m afraid, a cop out. It’s the lazy way out. There have been many things that have been hard to change, yet have been changed. Segregation, aparthied, etc.
As far as bucking 2000 years of religion, what do you think the christians did? There were religions before christianity, and yet they bucked them.
As an aside, our you opposed to anything “spiritual”. Is that what atheism is about? Is it OK to worship trees? And then spike forests that are being logged to injure loggers? (That’s the only analogy that comes to mind right now, lame as it is)
No, I am not opposed to ‘spirituality’, what I am opposed to is belief without proof. Atheism is about not believing in god. Any god. Atheism is about rejecting the fact that we are taught to just believe that God exists because ‘We tell you he does.’ Where is the proof that he exists? All we have is stories in a book. That’s not proof.
If you what to think of atheists as worshipping anything (though atheists don’t worship) it would be the truth and scientific method.
And no, it’s not okay to spike trees to injure loggers. WTF does that have to do with atheism?
The risk I see is that becoming too involved in fighting against religion is basically a religion in itself, isn’t it? If I don’t have the energy or interest to be a devout Christian why would I expend energy fighting against it actively.
There is a difference between a ‘religion’ and a ’cause’.
A religion is based on blindly believing what you are told by an authority figure regardless of the facts.
A cause is something that you believe in because you have checked the facts and proven to your own satisfaction that it’s the truth.
JSYK, this is the most conversation and thought I’ve EVER had about faith in my life. Including confirmation classes and whatever we did before we got married, in our Lutheran church.
Heh. I’ve been doing a lot of reading of atheist blogs and books recently, but this is also the longest conversation I’ve had about it.
It is helping me clarify my position though.
With regard to several of the bullet points you make, I can see how, even without religion involved, these are issues that will generate strong opinions for and against, simply as to what is right and what is wrong.
I have no problem with opinions on what is right and wrong, as long as they are based on sound ethical reasoning.
When people make statments like “homosexuality is wrong because the bible says so”, then I have a big problem.
Don’t quite know where to go from here, what do you think. Maybe it’s time to get some work done.
Maybe. I’m more than willing to continue this dialog if you like.
Just as something to make you think some more about this, here is a nice little story about saying the Plege of Allegiance. You know, the pledge we probably all said in school. The one that the religious groups managed to get the phrase “under God” added to in 1954. (See this for the background on that.) Read this story and see how it might make you feel.
I would highly recommend these books to anyone who thinks that religion is a benign force in the world:
‘Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism‘ by Michelle Goldberg (this one scared the shit out of me.)
‘The End of Faith‘ by Sam Harris
‘The God Delusion‘ by Richard Dawkins
There are also some really good athest blogs out there, some that I read
are:
Atheist Revolution
Atheist Ethicist
10,000 Reasons to Doubt the Fish
God Is For Suckers (this one is pretty in-your-face)
And for a good blog about what the religious groups are trying to do to
science (and other misc fun stuff to read): Pharyngula
Enjoy!
