Letters to the Editor
-
Ignorance, it appears, is not bliss
I have had friends, in my life, who were, from birth, of limited mental capacity. They were generally, from my personal experience, happy people.
They did not, as you do, understand, at your core, that there is some meaning in life that you seem to just not fully grasp... or that your concept of the futility of life is so devoid of meaning to leave you cranking up your iPod or having a drink or whatever you do to ease the pain.
The problem, for you, is deeper than the problem with religion. You, my friend, have a lack of joy.
(To prove it, feel your brow right now.... is it furrowed because of me, a random typer? Really? Am I the problem?)
No. The problem, my friends, is willful ignorance. The blind pursuit of an ideal that you have that does not exist... the ideal, in your mind, but never in reality, is a universe that is filled with both chaos and order... the chaos, in your mind, is the Creative process that begat you, me, bugs, etc... the order, in your mind, is the beauty of the Universe devoid of hope (or as some would say- God).
You know, deep down, there must be some deeper meaning... you suspect that the chaos that you so eagerly argue about begets not the order that you --- hope for--- but the craziness around you and inside of you...
It angers you deeply that people like me sleep peacefully in the certainty of purpose, and hope and love and meaning because of our Faith in what we see (a universe Created by a God who loves you and me).
You are, probably, right now, enraged or at least put off...
Ah, see? See yourself? See you in the mirror, not smiling but at most smirking?
Wouldn't you LIKE to be happy?
So, consider this. Consider taking some time to find out what's what, instead of Nintendoing your way through life.
Read.
Read it all. I did. Read the major books on Buddism, read the Koran, read the Bible, read up on the archeology that proves the validity of some beliefs and undercuts others...
Read up on the science behind the Big Bang, the atom, etc...
Read it all... (or at least surf the 'net some for differing opinions that the idiots you drink coffee and Jagger with)...
Then meditate on it... that's right. Just sit. Think. Breathe...
At worst, you will be a better informed angry wandering whatever.
At best, you will find direction and live a life worth living.
-
Does God exist? Does it matter?
I believe that science will eventually reveal the reasons why so many of us believe in God. It will, I predict turn out to be a complex product of the brain, evolved over millions of years. Will that then mean that God will be proven not to exist? And along with God so also will go meaning and purpose? Rationally I would have to say yes but since as I postulate it is an innate part of us, the answer has to be no.
Perhaps that is mankinds curse its solace. We can choose rationally to understand the scientific root of these feelings, or accept them. It has been demonstrated that it is possible to live with either belief. That I think is what mankind has done through out history, and I see no reason why we will ever change.
-
AnOptomist
It angers you deeply that people like me sleep peacefully in the certainty of purpose, and hope and love and meaning because of our Faith in what we see (a universe Created by a God who loves you and me).
You're quite mistaken when you say "It angers you deeply". False presumptuousness on your part, and as usual quite dishonest.
Proves my point: religion is by its nature contrary to morals.
No, not angry. Just disappointed that you're willfully stoopid, and proud of it.
At least you don't claim to be 'reasonable'. That would be dishonest also.
-
So Many Fatal Flaws to This Article
Apparently, using the logic of this author, if you grew up on a desert island, and had never heard of any deities up in the sky that exhibit the worst ego characteristics of human beings (rage, violence, jealousy, pettiness, etc.) you would be doomed to a life of misery, devoid of purpose or meaning, with no justification or hope, and well.... you might as well just kill yourself right now! What a total crock.
Just because an atheist doesn't believe in some hokey Santa Claus-like, human projection of a deity, doesn't mean they don't believe in GOD. God to me is the all permeating, animating energy of the universe, that is everywhere. But this "God" doesn't have a raging and petty ego/personality, or choose sides, or divide humanity.
Study Zen Buddhism and all this discussion become meaningless.
Buddhism is religion matured. Christianity is religion gone wrong.
-
Atheism = nihilism? ignorance indeed
John Haught has failed to read the sources for modern secularism and has absurdly attacked its writers. Why not grapple with the ideas? Because it is easier to ascribe motivations and failing to individuals and then condemn those failings, than to actually deal with the issues they raise.
Pick up any issue of Free Inquiry. Every issue there are the foundation beliefs of secularists, listed right in the front of the magazine. This is always followed by the editorial writings of the editor, philosopher Paul Kurtz, and he devotes nearly every issue to his latest refinements and insights regarding positive beliefs, and life-affirming practices, that do not require faith in the supernatural. Morality is a human problem, and all of us grapple with it. Kurtz brings generous and kindness to the debate, but does not fail to clearly and realistically define a rational, moral world, full of joy, and cognizant of responsibility.
There are no "extreme caricatures" in gentle Kurtz's writings, and plenty to challenge a sincere man of faith's assertions that only faith supports "the theme of social justice." I wish Salon would find someone other than religious apologists and fuzzy thinkers, so that we get a truly informed response to Kurtz, and Dennett, and others who raise, in genial tones, profound challenges to the exclusivities of religion.
His focus on the cult of personality is at the core of his comments about Nietzsche, Sartre and Camus. Leave aside for the moment that he simply gets his facts about whether Dennett et al wrestle with serious theological concepts wrong -- though it reveals that Haught has not actually done more than skim the "new atheism" books --
the writers he cites, whose work is 80+years old, are poor comparisons to the modern thinkers he deplores, particularly in regards to the realities they faced in America and Europe.
He conflates the actual isolation and estrangement that Nietzsche experienced, as an original thinker outside of religious doctrine in a Europe still super-saturated at every level with belief and adherence to dogma, with individual isolation, as a philosophical issue. Modern writers are liberated by comparison, enjoying greater freedom of thought and and larger audiences, and they can and do move ahead to confront the inanities and intellectual failings of faith. To criticize them for not agonizing about isolation is to ignore historical and conditional reality. Come to think of it, the religious ignore all conditional realities; why else would they adhere so to an ancient wisdom book that defends slavery and glorifies genocide?
But the show stopper, and so typical of the pseudo-intellectual pretensions of theology, is his answer to the question about God vs. nature. He starts out promisingly, identifying three typical responses to the question "why is the teapot boiling?" He offers: science (excited H2O), common observation (the gas is on), and causal (I wanted tea). OK. He claims these are three different points of view, though, and they are decidedly not. They are all three empirically-based, derived from observations and the natural world. But he immediately asserts: "This is how I see the relationship of theology to science."
Huh?
He then waves his hand about "what is nature?", and claims theology would "talk about it in terms of being a gift from the creator". The labyrinth of this makes my head hurt. Hitchens, Harris, et al don't believe there is a supernatural being. No creator. The difference he MIGHT be asserting is one can make factual and observational assertions about reality, but then you leave out the "supernatural being", but if one does not find any evidence for the supernatural, if one cannot deliver any such evidence, then how is it a failing for writers to move on? to address instead the consequences of false belief?
To him we fail to see it or include it; our problem is there is no "there" there, and no one can produce one, after thousands of years of effort.
It is exactly this kind of empty, fatuous gobbledegook that drives thoughtful people to conclude theology is silly.