I'm a little late to the party, so this may already have been covered. But Cary, dammit, why did you have to throw your little personal believer condescension in at the end? Your advice was really good up to that point.

Then you had to regurgitate your version of "God exists whether we believe in him or not." Essentially telling the LW he was full of crap and loved by the sky-daddy at the same time. Way to contradict yourself!

This is the problem we atheists and agnostics face every day. People look at us with "knowing" glances, as if we are wounded or somehow need to be let in on the cosmic joke. In fact, we have made a very conscious choice to *not* live our lives as if there was some grand intelligence or plan, and finding the courage to face the reality of feeling alone in the universe is difficult enough without being constantly told that "it's OK, God even loves the atheists."

The man asked you how to handle his doubts, both socially and internally, and you essentially accused him of being naive. He was crying out to you for a lifeline, and though you advised him to be his authentic self, you just compounded his dilemma!

He was trying to make it OK to not know, to question and to wonder. Instead you had to tell him you actually DO in fact know, (hiding behind the disclaimer "I might be crazy, but I think it's possible") the universe has a spirit that takes care of you, that's going to bathe you in love (like a dog), and it doesn't matter about those pesky doubts. How sickeningly smug all spiritual believers are, whether explicitly religious or not!

Let me turn this around to show you how it feels--what a true agnostic or atheist actually has to come to terms with--a journey you seem to fail to grasp, a question you seem loathe to face:

"Cary, I really think it's possible that the universe is a totally indifferent and inhospitable place, it's so vast and beyond our comprehension that it just doesn't care what kind of teleology or spiritual identity we might wish to dream up. We remain bathed in the pointless randomness of our short lives on a tiny planet. And we must create whatever meaning we want for ourselves, by ourselves."

Feel better now?

Salon, another groaner. After your inexplicable dalliance with the confused ramblings of Camille Paglia, it's hard to pretend you're still intellectually or politically relevant, or to justify my subscription fees, which have continued unabated since about 2002. (That will likely change).

Under the jaunty subhead "Atoms & Eden" you pander to the worst cliches and stereotypes about atheism. You give a science-trashing religious partisan absolutely free and unfettered access to your audience. While Steve Paulson tried mightily to introduce a note of skepticism, Haught outmaneuvered him.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Theology cannot survive without attacking science. Theology cannot survive without fabrication, equivocation, and appealing to a fundamentally sentimental anthropomorphization of God and the universe. How it would (the thought is delicious!) terrify Haught if he were to realize that his God exists not only in the form of man, but is also a product of him.

To watch Salon participate in yet another attempt to wheeze life into the expired bones of Haught's discredited Bronze Age fantasies makes me want to gag and hurl great chunks of indignation--the sickening saccharine sweetness and neatness of it all. What, are we two years old??

Ugh.

His book seems nothing if not a desperate lullaby for those too afraid to live with the reality that we are all but specks in an uncertain and unknowable universe. "Go back to sleep kiddies. You are special and loved. God is in his heaven, and it's a place of order--a place for everything, and everything in its place."

No relationship, with parents or otherwise, is worth having if a person doesn't accept you for who you are. If you want that acceptance, then you will have to shout who you are in a loud enough voice that everyone you associate with knows about it. (Get some atheist T-shirts and bumper stickers if necessary) You will lose some friends and gain new ones. This process may be difficult, but pretending to be someone you're not is even worse. Get right with yourself, and you will solve the ethical problem that caused you to lie on your application.

Come out! And transfer out of that brainwash-mill you're attending--right away.

Some people prefer that everything be smooth and nice and non-confrontational. That we get along nicely with everyone, no matter what their ideas. But ideas have implications--strong ones. They shape a person's every act. When they are incoherent or hidebound by unsupportable traditions (as we find with most organized religions), they can cause otherwise good people to justify horrendous acts. They make people untrustworthy and unpredictable. God can tell them to do anything, and then God can change his mind.

The bad ideas of religion can also affect your education and modes of thought in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

You're already way ahead of most people, in that you have philosophically rejected religion. Now claim the prize and fully embrace who you are. I was raised religious and I became a minister when I was 23. I spent precious years of my youth professing one thing and believing another. (Though I kind of made myself believe it for a while.)

I had doubts from the time I was maybe 13, I waited until I was 30 to leave the church, and several more years before I fully came out as an atheist. It was a waste of precious time. Do it now. You'll be glad you did.