Letters to the Editor
-
Confident people, secure in themselves and their beliefs, don't come off anywhere near as angry as most of the atheists here.
Confident people, secure in themselves and their beliefs, don't need to post anonymously.
Did it ever occur to you to wonder just why some atheists might be angry?
If Christians were truly confident in their beliefs then they would welcome, not fear, death.
Recall the Terry Schiavo brouhaha?
True Christians would have wanted to release Ms Schiavo from her agonizing and pitiful earthbound existence and let her go and be with her God and Savior in Heaven.
-
Aycharaych
"Did it ever occur to you to wonder just why some atheists might be angry?"
Yes, and I understand it. But doesn't getting insanely angry on a Salon message board seem quite pitiful? Why not channel that anger into positive change?
"If Christians were truly confident in their beliefs then they would welcome, not fear, death."
That's a huge assumption to make, that all Christians fear death. Evidence?
"Recall the Terry Schiavo brouhaha?"
Yes.
"True Christians would have wanted to release Ms Schiavo from her agonizing and pitiful earthbound existence and let her go and be with her God and Savior in Heaven."
What does that have to do with anything? Most Republicans aren't true Christians? That's news?
-
Intriguing interview!
I found Haught's ideas intriguing and even exciting. They reminded me of two different things I had read in the journal Agni. Once is an excerpt fromo the "Philosphical Journals" of artist Christopher Gausby.
"The world by itself is without aesthetic or moral value, and therefore does not contain the sufficient reason for aesthetic experience or rapture. This fact raises the question of transcendence."
And, even more to the point of what Haught was saying (at least as I understood him), are these questions by William Pierce as he reviews a short story by Michael Mejia: "When Watson and Crick reduce passion and heritage to four chemicals, base pairs in a strand of DNA, are we drawn to see ourselves diminished; or do we - already knowing ourselves - feel the inanimate world coming to life around us? ... As we learn that - forget monkeys - we are, in many of our important genes, nearly identical with fruit flies, do we feel belittled, or is life magnified?" THIS is the direction in which I understood Haught's argument to be tending, that the discoveries of science shouldn't be taken as threats to the idea of God, but actually move us closer to the reality of Him/Her/It. (I am agnostic when it comes to a personal God. But I believe in SOMETHING [she writes boldly].)
The crucial phrase is "knowing ourselves". Whatever is learned objectively cannot be used - this is the delusion - to negate what we know subjectively. Just because biologists (or whatever specialists are responsible) have located romantic love in the activity of hormones - chemicals - in our brains - does not mean that romantic love, as we subjectively experience it, is any less real, or matters any less. Or that we can free ourselves from it.
So, that's all from me. You may now return to the atheist pep rally.
-
@lostinthestars
An important implication of atheism is that ethics is nothing more than words games, and that life has no meaning or purpose.
It's a possible implication that life has no inherent meaning or purpose. Not that many atheists in fact accept that view although Nietszche does. He proposes creating a meaning. And he is explicitly opposed to nihilism which he views as a product of a previously held belief in something which has now been exploded. Like Christianity.
-
Aycharaych
By the way, you guys are indulging in a lot of the little tricks ("fallacies") you like to call believers on.
"Name me a violent atheist."
"Stalin."
"Stalin isn't a true atheist."
"True Christians fear death."
"I don't fear death and I'm not a Christian."
"But you're not a true Christian."
Pathetic.
-
Damn, messed it up.
"Name me a violent atheist."
"Stalin."
"Stalin wasn't a true atheist."
"True Christians fear death."
"I don't fear death and I'm a Christian."
"But you're not a true Christian."
-
what we have learned
1 all wars are religious wars
2 a morality of personal responsibility is really the way to go (this dovetails nicely with 1)
3 God == unicorn
4 Ok ok, god != unicorn. But the truth test for inclusion in the "god" set is the same as the truth test for inclusion in the "unicorn" set
5 physics is way cool dude
-
what we have learned
6. Fundamentalists of all stripes should just calm down and stop taking everything to seriously.
-
6Stringer
I'm not surprised how much you have abandonded your sacred scientific method when it comes to defending your stupid assertion that religion is the cause of human violence and wars.
You're lying again, 'Christian'. I didn't say it was 'the' cause. I inferred that it was a primary motivation.
Again, i ask you "were is your EVIDENCE"?
I showed you plenty of evidence. In True Believer fashion, you ignored it.
You certainly are angry. Maybe you should go pray.
-
@BeltlineBetty
Your response is sadly typical of too many of the letters from the anti-religion side of this debate. Rather than reading and thinking critically about my letter, you reflexively turned to knee-jerk arguments about the specific things that set you off. As I clearly spelled out in my 2nd paragraph, I'm not even a Christian! Yet your response assumes that I am, as well as assuming that my "dear old departed Dad" example applied to me, which it does not, as should have been abundantly clear.
As to your points: the difference with dental care is that everybody agrees it's a good thing. In contrast, there is great disagreement about whether either religion or atheism/agnosticism is a good thing. It is well accepted that as income and education increase, belief in religion decreases. I am a progressive and very much in favor of anything that will bring greater prosperity, education, equality, and freedom to everybody who does not currently have those things. But until then, I see nothing wrong with poor people turning to religion for answers and comfort. If you want to argue with the abuse of power by religious institutions and leaders, then fine. I completely agree. But mocking regular people for their personal belief in religion as a means of providing purpose and meaning is the height of elitist, noblesse oblige condescension.
It is similarly condescending, in the literal sense of the word, to compare someone using religion to seek comfort over the loss of a loved one to a child's belief in Santa Claus. As I noted, this does not apply to me, but it could apply, for example, to my aunt who lost her husband last year. In effect, it appears that you are saying, "Get over it! He's dead, and your stupid belief in the Christian god won't bring him back." Oh that we should all be as enlightened as you! If that's not what you're saying, then I apologize, but it sure appears that way.
Note also, if you re-read my letter, that I did not argue, even implicitly, that such comfort is sufficient justification for belief in religion. Again, this confirms my suspicion that you jumped straight to knee-jerk arguments rather than thinking critically about the substance of my letter.
Similarly, you said my coffee cup example is silly, but you didn't actually answer my question about the justification for accepting scientific principles as consistent. Let me try again, while repeating what you should have noticed the first time: that I am pro-science and not a Christian. What, precisely, is the epistemological basis for accepting the 2nd law of thermodynamics as valid, not just for our previous observations, but for our future observations? For that matter, what is the epistemological basis for accepting our sensory inputs, and thus our observations in scientific experiments, as valid? My own answer is that I take a "leap of faith" and simply accept the reality of my surroundings, including my sensory inputs and my observation that the broken coffee cup has not reassembled itself.
This is the crux of my argument: that all of us, including scientists and atheists, have to simply accept some things as true, as starting points/assumptions/premises for our reasoning processes. Even mathematicians have to do this, as the controversy over the validity of the axiom of choice in Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory demonstrates. I personally accept that the 2nd law of thermodynamics is true and will continue to hold true. But I cannot prove it through formal logic, through mathematics, through computation, or through any sort of deductive process. Can you? If not, then why exactly do you accept the truth of the 2nd law, or of your sensory inputs? I look forward to hearing your answer.