Letters to the Editor
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you want to know why modern atheists don't study religion?
i just read 4 tedious pages of religious justification on why believing in god explains the world and is a force for good.
That's ten minutes of my life wasted. You could have boiled this entire article down to: belief in god makes people good. without god, people don't any any reason to live.
then there's the whole why doesn't god answer prayers stuff, the god of the gaps, and why your god isn't god of the gaps (it's because you say so).
Why do I bother read this stuff? I mean, we can find out whether or not god is a force for good in society, we can do that with studies, surveys, and use of the social statistics to find out. In other words, science is the best tool to find out whether or not all of those proclamations are true. Being a priest makes one incredibly unfit to answer these questions, because it means you do stupid things like pray to god for enlightenment instead of going out doing a good study.
why should we bother to read this stuff? It's pointless.
You know what is interesting. The koran, the bible, the gospels, the hindu vedas, religious scriptures are very interesting.
You know what is boring. A priest talking about god. A complete waste of time.
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God and Tea
If you are not around to turn on the gas, the water won't boil. Water will always boil, however, when "H2O molecules are moving around excitedly" enough. That's the difference between religion and science.
Some atheists set these guys up, however, by insisting that "there is no god," which is an absurd claim. One can only say that there is no evidence of god, not that it categorically does not exist.
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As a so-called "new atheist"
Even though I've been an atheist for 20 years, okay, as a "new atheist" let me just say that I do NOT think science has all the answers.
But it's plainly apparent that religion doesn't have any answers.
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Thanks repearwo
I was waiting for the "we humans are too stupid/limited/small/whatever to understand God" argument. That one's my favorite.
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Bravo
Excellent interview with a lot to think about. Pity the usual unenlightened troglodytes are out in force in the comments section to make me slightly ashamed that I read Salon, as per usual. If atheists and fundamentalists were capable of raising their levels of discourse just a bit, we might be able to get a lot more accomplished, and perhaps find Haught's purpose.
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Preaching to the (Well-Informed) Choir
A fool does not listen to sound reason, but only takes delight in his own words...
Gee whiz. It sure seemed like an informative article to me. There were phrases in there that a true contemplative from any discipline could spend a year or two on. And yet the whole thing was completely dismissed by a horde of readers so convinced of their own position that they couldn't do a course correction if their life depended on it. Oh wait, it does.
Ultimately, I think the proud atheists who said "this article can do nothing for me" are probably right. I sense that Haught's work is more for believers who earnestly seek an intellectual depth to their faith than for atheists comfortable in their position in a universe without God. For those of us in the choir who are deeply distressed by the actions of so many of our infamous soloists, we certainly appreciate the life work of those like Haught who can give utterance to such elegant theories and musings. As for you atheists, I don't really exist anyway so don't go writing mean posts about me.
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Reasons to believe in God
Without faith there is no hope or reason to be moral. That sounds like a reason to perpetrate a helpful myth on the unwashed masses. It's good for us.
(Let's just conveniently ignore a long history of religious warfare.)
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I'm with AJCalhoun
And all of those thinkers have far more in common with each other than they do with the firebrand version of either the religious or the atheistic variety.
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Faith versus Science
Haught says "The idea that science alone can lead us to truth is questionable."
But when I look at religion, I see no path to discovering the truth. Let's examine religion.
There are so many logical inconsistencies in the bible and established religion. Not only about scientifically proven facts, but about morality. For example, the bible says nothing against slavery. The slave trade in the Christian world would have been outlawed if it was clearly prohibited in the bible.
So, if the bible and established religion can't be relied on to guide us to the truth, we are left with God is whatever I feel him to be. God is whatever our society at this time thinks he ought to be. And let's remember, the Muslim world has their own idea of what God is.
And this is the process that Haught thinks is going to bring us to the truth?
In fact, the opposite is true. Faith helps believers be convinced that whatever they feel is true, is true. Investing wishful thinking and plain old ignorance with the sanctity of the "truth".
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Delusion?
I really do not want a theologian commenting on any aspect of atheism...we all know many scientists are "religious", that is no surprise, yet science came out of a way of understanding the world that myth and fairy tales just cannot fathom or reckon with...tales of a deity with a beard floating in the ether will never explain a black hole...just the black hole in Haught's snooty logic.
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Wanna talk ignorance?
Let's see: Religion demands that we suspend critical thinking and objective analysis in lieu of simply accepting baseless "belief" in what amounts to little more than fairy tales and atheists are the ignorant and deluded ones? What bullshit. I mean, that's like a bull shitting, wiping his ass with a sheep, and shitting again.
The thing is, though, there is definitely a value in maintaining and promoting bullshit beliefs in certain segments of our society. How else would we convince people to give their lives in wars that serve no purpose other than to inflate the value of my mutual fund portfolio? Let their imaginary gods bless them. Cha-ching!!! Got your money, suckers!