Letters to the Editor
J. Tarrou
Published Letters: 31 Editor's Choice: 4
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Haven't I read this interview before?
[Read the article: Religion is poetry]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If you paint God in broad enough strokes, you can make a believers out of a surprising number of atheists. To claim that only those that are incapable of wonder are true atheists is to simultaneously claim a large swath of atheists for religion and load the word 'atheist' with connotations of dull, unimaginative men and myopic egomaniacal certainty.
As an atheist, this is like being told that I don't really believe what I think I do. God, as I understand the concept, is by definition supernatural and transcendent, is almost always sentient and agentive, and often takes a personal interest in the mortal world. 'Mystery' and 'wonder' are very broad terms that often have religious overtones but which that are not exclusively religious in their application. No atheist would ever claim that we have unlocked the universe's last secrets, even if he believed that we might do so in the future. Similarly, a man would have to be unusually incurious or solipsistic not be at least a little impressed or, dare I say, awed by his physical and perhaps existential insignificance in the face of the universe's vastness. Perhaps Mr. Carse is arguing that many so-called atheists (the ones capable of wonder, that is) are really just pantheists, but I would respond that being impressed by nature and believing that it has an organizing principle (and, moreover, referring to the principle as God) are two different things.
In short, Mr. Carse may be a scholar of religion, but he is as poorly versed in the nature of atheism as he claims Richard Dawkins is in the nature of 'true' religion. (As an aside, I wish we could move past using Mr. Dawkins as a shorthand for atheism. When his name comes up in every discussion of religion vs. atheism, we're approaching the point of cliché.) He thinks of atheists as supremely arrogant and intellectually sterile, and anyone who deviates from that stereotype isn't really an atheist, regardless of whether or not he believes in God.
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@ marikalilly
[Read the article: Our cupboard was bare]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah, screw those people who don't think like you do! And make sure you tell everyone about your beliefs whenever possible, no matter how inappropriate or off topic it might be!