Linkage

[kerravonsen]

Interesting article: What the New Atheists Don’t See (written by an atheist). (thanks to rj_anderson)

Comments

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

hm. I find myself becoming an unbeliever, too (simply because I'm finding it easy to let go of the idea of God, and still find beauty in this world), but many of the loudest atheists annoy me just as much as the loudest preachers. Both groups seem to hold to the same tenet: "Anyone who disagrees with me is either deluded (by the Devil, or the Priest, depending) or foolish." And I just don't have the patience to spend time with people like that.

And as for humans coming to religious beliefs through evolution, well, that's probably true. Of course, we also came to our pulminary systems through evolution. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop breathing, on principle.

[kerravonsen]

Anyone who disagrees with me is either deluded (by the Devil, or the Priest, depending) or foolish.

Yeah, the attitude is that the Truth is so self-evident that anyone who disagrees must be:
(a) ignorant (in which case they must be preached at)
(b) foolish/stupid/lacking in understanding (in which case they must be preached at at length, to ensure their understanding)
(c) someone who is neither stupid nor ignorant, who knows The Truth and rejects it because they are Evil, an Enemy of the Faith (and much vitriol is cast)

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Weirdly (and this may be a side effect of my being American), I see this attitude just as much (or more, lately) in politics as I do in any sort of religious debate.

[jedibuttercup]

Word.

[kerravonsen]

Yes, I remember listening to the news on the radio, and they had a quote from a random Republican, who said basically that if you don't like the way Bush is running the country, then move somewhere else. Eh? Everyone who disagrees should be deported, is that it? So much for Democracy.

The "fundamentalism" pattern is a common one, alas. Not just in religion/atheism or even in politics, but in everyday life (as I have discovered with a certain person at work).

[jedibuttercup]

(a) and (b) remind me of the years I spent in youth group being told, over and over again, that everyone's true vocation as a Christian was to evangelise, evangelise, evangelise. Go ye forth into all the world, and all that. With specific emphasis on things like handing out tracts and working lunch the odd Saturday at a homeless shelter where there would be a captive audience, or something.

I spent years feeling guilty for not enthusiastically fitting into the cookie cutter mold they were using, before I started getting angry at the people making the molds instead. The old evangelism standards may have worked back in the early 20th century when the revivalism craze was huge in the States, but these days it tends to make a large percentage of people react with open hostility instead of receptively listening. If they think they're fighting in a "culture war", then why do they keep using broken weapons, I ask you?

[kerravonsen]

If they think they're fighting in a "culture war", then why do they keep using broken weapons, I ask you?

Because they're the traditional weapons.

[jedibuttercup]

*groan* Should have predicted that answer.

...The worst part is that it's true.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I like this quote from George Fox (founder, in the mid 1600s, of the "Quakers"):

"Be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations wherever you come; that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people, and to them; then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone..."

(Emphasis mine)...

At the very least, this approach saves paper by the truckload.... ;-)

[jedibuttercup]

*grin* I actually attended George Fox University, named for the aforementioned Quaker. So I know whereof you speak.

I appreciate some of the worship methods from the Assemblies of God churches I grew up in (category: Pentecostal, evangelistic) but in most other ways vastly prefer the Quaker approach that I absorbed at GFU. (Which acronym, amusingly enough, its students often try to avoid pronouncing: Gee, F-U?)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

And that attitude stems from the assumption that there is a single, capital T, Truth in the first place, and that this Truth is simple enough to be understood in it entirety without contradiction.

[kerravonsen]

And many people react to that by declaring that there isn't a single, capital T , Truth.

Whereas my attitude is that there is a single, capital T, Truth, but it isn't simple enough to be understood in its entirety without contradiction.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

For me, it's a bit like looking at one of those vase/profiles pictures -- depending on how I blink at any one moment, I can agree with one point of view, or the other.

...I'm born-again Agnostic, I think... should I wear a little silver question mark around my neck? ;-)

[kerravonsen]

Well, you're making a good start with that icon! 8-)

[jedibuttercup]

Very interesting article. For an atheist, he's a lot saner on these issues than a lot of Christians I talk to or read from, nevermind the neo-atheists he's writing about.

His observations on the fact that human beings have a tendency to look for some greater purpose in the world (this passage especially: "Without gratitude, it is hard to appreciate, or be satisfied with, what you have: and life will become an existential shopping spree that no product satisfies.") made me think of Ecclesiastes and the chasing after the wind bits.

I hope a lot of people read it and think. Thanks for linking it.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

That is an excellent article, and a pleasure to read. Thanks for the link.

[neuralclone.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was an excellent article. But then again I find many of Theodore Dalrymple's articles interesting.

Speaking as another atheist, I think the Militant Atheists are more akin than otherwise to the various brands of religious fundamentalists. Both groups - along with other groups of True Believers like the Communists - believe they have exclusive ownership rights to the Truth, and that anyone who doesn't agree with them is either wicked or deluded. There's a short step from that to deciding that anyone who doesn't agree with them should be made to conform to their beliefs.