Letters to the Editor
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An Auspicious Start, No Name Given... (part two)
I truly don’t want to sound mean here, but an atheist immediately translates that sentence to: “My wishful-thinking and self-delusion come into play when contemplating what comes after that last moment.” Religious faith is simply a willingness to believe something because you are told to, in the complete absence of any supporting evidence. Meanwhile, well – the Emperor so obviously does NOT have any new clothes on. The Emperor is walking naked down the street. Religious faith is the only thing making you think he has a stitch of clothing on.
...you cannot pass up an opportunity to insult my intelligence and even my mental health. Genuine religious faith - and here you reveal your woeful ignorance - does not spring from the dogmatic teachings of this or that church or cleric. It comes from lived experience. Like another LW here I am very suspicious of twentysomethings who profess "faith" that is little more than received wisdom, something upon which they were raised. And conflating religiosity to the mythical crowd that "saw" the Emperor's new clothes is ludicrous.
It might lead to a rational, reality-based ideology. But it doesn’t matter – just because the reality you are presented with is rather ugly and makes you uncomfortable – and the religious fantasy is so much prettier – one is still reality, and the other is still fantasy.
Like Marxism or Leninism, perhaps? Communism was very scientific, in fact it banished religion everywhere it gained power, thereby creating societies founded on "rational, reality-based ideology." About a century and 100 million dead later I think we all know how much value to ascribe to THAT little experiment. Only an atheistic thinker like Stalin could come up with a line like "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Rationalist, scientist ideologies invariably do come to view people as an undifferentiated mass of meat puppets, easily disposable. And spare me any tales of religious mass-murder. I don't mean to suggest that religious extremists are guiltless, but that they are no worse or better than the alternative. There must be a return to the socio-political agnosticism with which this country was governed for most of its existence. Let every man and woman be as religious as they want to be, but in PRIVATE. Remember that the greatest right, indeed the right from which all others flow, is the right to be left alone.
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Is Allie really Christian?
Allie
In one of your posts you define “faith” – first for yourself as a Christian, and then for atheists. But Religious Faith is simply this: a belief held despite a complete lack of supporting evidence. Any arguments? Anyone? (Please spare me arguments that start with “Well, I believe…” or “Well, I feel…” I’m sure you DO “believe” and “feel”, but I want to see if anyone can shed some new light on what religious faith IS, not on what they feel.)
Two sections from your post really interest me:
<< I'm a Christian. I tend to mistrust the faith of any Christian over the age of 20 who says he has never questioned his faith, that he believes something "because the Bible says so" or "because that's the way I was raised." I have a few probing questions for such people: Why aren't you a Muslim "because the Koran says so"? What if you had been born in India, to Hindu parents, would you have chosen to become a Christian? Usually this gets a round of "because the Bible is the revealed word of God" and "but my parents are people of faith, not heathens." If I keep going: Why do you believe the Bible is the revealed word of God? Why do you think God loved you enough to be let you born middle-class American Protestant and raised in the One True Faith, but didn't love children of Hindu families in the same way? then the polite mask starts to drop, and this "faith" is revealed for what it is: fear, hedged around by anger.>>
<<. A lot of atheists seem to believe that "faith" means "voluntarily checking your brain at the door." They get mad, because it's frustrating watching other people do something so stupid. I respect that. In fact, I respect it a whole lot more than I respect "because the Bible says so and my mommy told me the Bible was the world of God.">>
I’m interested in those two paragraphs because they argue quite well the atheist side of the argument – indeed, to my eyes, they are the most sensible portions of your post. Well, Allie, really – whose side are you on?? Are you sure you’re not an atheist? Are you sure you're a Christian?
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True secularism vs. cult of personality
Many religious folks, including some here in this letter writing section, like to bring up Stalinist Russia, and Hitler's Germany, and Mao's revolution as examples of secularism gone mad. Some even suggest that mass murder is inevitable in a truly secular society, and use these as evidence.
The truth is that each of these men formed a cult around themselves, and made worshiping them, and their philosophy, the state religion. Each of them had their own bible, even. Hitler with Mein Kampf, Mao's Little Red Book, Stalin's Short Biography.
It is precisely because humans are so susceptible to religious indoctrination that these cults were so successful, and so deadly. It's groupthink, comrade. Don't kid yourself.
Secularism enforced at the point of a sword is not secularism. It's tyrrany.
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Rob Anderson and Myself - the only gorillas still slugging it out.....
<<While it is true that there is much invective directed at "unbelievers", "heathens" and so forth, why pay any attention to it? When I wrote that the screeds of radical atheists seem to be everywhere, I meant it. Hence my title and its reference to too much NPR. But should I really have to listen to Top 40 Radio, watch "American Idol" and read the funny papers just to escape such vitriol? I can tune out 99% of the cultural noise that passes for religiosity in this country. Why can't you?>>
Oh, I can and do, but – why should I have to? Truly, I’m having trouble taking your complaint seriously. I feel the same way I do at church (I’m a catholic church organist, if you can believe that – one of the zillions of atheists in my line of work) when the priest starts whining about how “They are trying to stamp out Christian traditions and the expressions of our faith!” and my eyes roll around in my head and I can barely stay on the organ bench. I mean, you have GOT to be KIDDING! Christianity in this country is like putting on a pair of lavender-colored glasses – it colors EVERYTHING. Atheism doesn’t hold a candle. And, well, if the more informed, intelligent (NON-top-40, NON-American-Idol) sites you go to in order to find relief from all the ‘religiousiness’ tend to keep interviewing Richard Dawkins – what does THAT tell you??
<< Excepting 9/11 and unfortunates like that nun in Somalia and Daniel Pearl, jihadis are killing each other, not blowing up Lutheran temples or conducting raids on Sunday afternoon Bingo at the local parish.>>
Well, and excepting the train bombings in Spain and the subway and bus bombings in London and….wait a second. How many thousands of people are we ‘excepting’ by this point?? Thousands of people IN THE LAST 6 YEARS! I’m not seeing this as much of an exception at all.
<< I was disappointed that you deployed Dawkins's outrageous canard that those who are moderately faithful and pious somehow "enable" the lunatic fundamentalists. Are you not aware that we're number one on their death lists?? Look at Muslim fundamentalists. Sunnis see Shi'ites as apostates worthy of death, and vice-versa.>>
But, looking at that paragraph from a slightly different perspective – what, at their most basic, do all these ‘moderately faithful and pious’ and ‘lunatic fundamentalists’ and ‘Muslim fundamentalists’ and ‘Sunnis’ and ‘Shi’ites’ have in common?? What is the most basic cause for all the strife? RELIGION! Different interpretations of different fantasies, not ONE of which has a GRAIN of evidence to support its beliefs! And people dying every day over this! Now I’m starting to ‘screed’ like some of the radical atheists you refer to, but – do you not see WHY?
<< Genuine religious faith - and here you reveal your woeful ignorance - does not spring from the dogmatic teachings of this or that church or cleric. It comes from lived experience.>>
Well, you have certainly hit on one of the biggest themes that separates the theists from the atheists – the nature of Religious Faith. As an arguer for atheism, I always feel that, when a theist plays the “faith” card, he is basically capitulating – the second he says “Faith,” he loses the argument. I completely understand that Faith “does not spring from the dogmatic teachings of this or that church or cleric.” OK, that’s one of the many things Faith is NOT – but what IS it? It IS the belief in something despite a complete lack of supporting evidence. Many ‘religious’ carry this as a banner – it looks to me to be Religion’s crushing weakness; Atheism’s coup de grace. Or, if you’ll indulge me, the Emperor’s New Clothes.
<< Only an atheistic thinker like Stalin could come up with a line like "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.">>
There is nothing demonstrably ‘atheistic’ about that line. Indeed, there is nothing demonstrably “atheistic” about Stalin’s whole reign of terror. Atheism is the lack of a belief in God. ‘LACK of belief’ has to be, I’m sure you will agree, a very poor motivator. It seems to me impossible to assign Stalin’s atrocities to his LACK of belief in ….anything! No no – it was his strong BELIEF in something – an ideology – that motivated him to his millions of murders.
<< Communism was very scientific, in fact it banished religion everywhere it gained power, thereby creating societies founded on "rational, reality-based ideology.">>
No, Communism was not scientific. It was, at best, an ideology that many hoped could work as a government, but, being bound-up in a cult of personality [Stalin, Lenin] as so much of human society IS, it seems to have ended up either as another type of dictatorship or, if you will, another type of religion. Isn’t it clear in hindsight that Stalin tried to eradicate religion primarily so that there would not be a COMPETING power in the land? Communism could only be considered “scientific” in the sense that it was a single experiment in governance - that failed. (And I just noticed another blog along the same 'cult of personality' lines!)
<< Rationalist, scientist ideologies invariably do come to view people as an undifferentiated mass of meat puppets, easily disposable.>>
Do they? Invariably? EVER?? What on earth are you talking about? Precisely what ARE these “Rationalist, Scientific ideologies”?? (I do like ‘meat puppets’ though. Colorful!)
<< I don't mean to suggest that religious extremists are guiltless, but that they are no worse or better than the alternative.>>
That’s a big statement which you would need to support. And what IS the ‘alternative’ anyway??
<< There must be a return to the socio-political agnosticism with which this country was governed for most of its existence. Let every man and woman be as religious as they want to be, but in PRIVATE.>>
A statement with which I absolutely – and passionately – agree.