Letters to the Editor
-
The Inevitable End of Your Time Here
I'm not going to read any replies until I've written. I've seen it before--the acrimony is too much for me. It betrays a deeper loss and deeper trauma than the intellectual discussion deserves at this point in human history.
The "religionists" adopt a scientific framework to promote their "position," while the "scientists" have made a religion out of atheism. Then the screaming begins.
Ugh. I'm a Buddhist, a Zen Buddhist. I don't look "out" at concepts or data to justify my belief or lack of it. I look "in" through the practice of meditation to find purpose and serenity. It is a totally satisfying intellectual and emotional experience for me. There is no dogma but still a community to be a part of which gives me pleasure and solace.
I have no interest in winning an argument with anybody and don't wish to promote it. I don't really care what you believe unless you want to impose something that may be necessary for you to believe onto me. That's where the fundamentalists of any faith and I do draw the line. I will in fact fight you to the death if you try to take what I have away from me.
It doesn't matter whether my body evolved from other bodies and substances, though it is totally plausable, or that some "concept" of creation put me here. In the greater scheme of life and death it is of little or no consequence.
My faith is personal. It is my choice. That to some extent is what gives it a value to me, and to you, I believe because it helps me PERSONALLY to live a life with a little less suffering in it and that makes me capable of greater compassion.
So go ahead. Hammer away at one another. Get it out of your system. When your turn comes and you face the inevitable end of your time here may whatever choice you make serve you.
-
Science Is Fact, Religion Is Belief
If I'm looking for an answer to a question, I'll take science.
If I want to control human behavior, I'll take religion.
-
Oh please, not the creationist red herring again!
Anonymous wrote:
"If teaching creationism in schools is offensive to you, then don't teach that OR evolution. If you teach one, teach the other...and everything is fair.
To this day, I do NOT see what the problem is here. Each is a theory to the other so either teach them both as theories or don't teach either of them."
The question of creationism has nothing to do with a debate about theism and atheism. Anyone who starts off down that road of "each is a theory" clearly has no idea what "theory" means. Most theists - most Christians in fact - accept evolution as a scientific fact. Even the Roman Catholic Church (and that's more Christians than all the other Christians in the world put together) officially teaches that evolution is a scientific fact -- and they are not exactly a "Christian-lite" organization! The alliance of right-wing politics and fundamentalist Christianity has given creationism a hearing it never deserved in this country. The politics of that alliance are the only reason we even have this silly debate about creationism. Anyone trying to make arguements for the believer's viewpoint and citing the evolution-creation "question" is doing their cause no service.
-
Haught makes many good points
I'd love to have a reasonable conversation with some of the "atheists" who've posted here but, ironically, I don't see a lot of reason coming from most of the posters. I can't quite figure out why Haught's interview caused such mass twisting of knickers in a bunch of people who have no problem believing in their atheism, who have no problem telling everybody else how they (the posters) are able to have full and happy and whatever lives and especially how full of crap Haught is.
I'd believe them more if they didn't vent so much. If Haught hadn't hit pretty darn close to home with his understanding of the history of both religion and some atheistic response, I don't imagine the response would have been so vitriolic.
As for several writers here who mentioned words to the effect that they "cut their teeth" on religion or theology or whatever and come from a position of understanding -- I call horse pucky. I've been a hardcore atheist most of my life, as well as a Christian for some of my life, and I'm damn well aware of how few atheists or Christians have any great understanding of anything. Most people I know are quite good at deluding themselves and based on Haught's reasoning in his interview, combined with the responses of people who say they "know" theology and philosophy, most of the posters here are ignorant and/or liars.
-
If there's any problem in discussing atheism and religion . . .
It's that we've got two limited terms people work to claim, and rarely have any subtelty or ways to think out of this box. We've got a mix of the same old arguments, same old arrogance, and same old scripts.
There's a reason Charles Fort is my personal savior, and it's not just the cool moustache.
-
More people like Haught into the limelight on both sides, thanks!
As a thinking atheist I have for a long time now been seriously annoyed with Dawkins and his kind. It may be that Dawkins just has too fun attacking religion to notice that he is not defending science and scientific thought in any meaningful way. He is just trying to replace one theology with one of his own. Dawkins attitude is that of the tone-deaf bore at a coctail-party who doesn't see that the other guests are listening to only because they are too embarrassed to tell him to shut-up, go home and sleep it off.
If Dawkins is waging his war for his own amusement, he can keep it. I am not interested. However, he has dragged the rest of us into it whether we want it or not because of his public profile. This I will not forgive him for.
On the other hand, if we want to discuss things in rational and constructive way we need more people like John Haught on both sides of the fence. Thank you for an excellent article and interview.