Atheism: Out of the Closet
Is atheism the answer?
Freethought Examiner-D.M. Murdock
Richard Dawkins & London Bus Campaign
Photo by Zoe Margolis
There has been a great deal of debate in the media lately concerning the "New Atheism" as led by "atheist gods" such as Richard Dawkins, P.Z. Myers, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. This notoriety has been enhanced by Dawkins & Co.'s infamous "bus ads," as well as the "Imagine No Religion" billboards by the Freedom from Religion Foundation headed by Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor. Then there is the little chat between famous atheists Bill Maher and Brad Pitt that is kicking up controversy, along with a number of other "stars" expressing their unbelief. We also read reports that atheism is on the rise in the United States, reaching percentages never recorded before. Truly, atheism is out of the closet.
posted by Indigobusiness @ Monday, August 17, 2009
11 Comments
11 Comments:
Perhaps like some kinky sexual secret having annointed Billy Graham's head with piss. I hate fucking Christians.
Z
I've been coming to terms with being an atheist. I'm not sure that there is no god, there are definitely things we don't understand and I kind of believe in an afterlife of some sort -- but I can't get behind the whole god thing especially as humans tend to conceptualize it as this judgemental, war-mongering him.
If there is a god, I'm pretty sure god wouldn't care whether or not I believe and I think it's time we satrted making policy decisions on this planet as if we were atheists.
Stop all of these holy wars and try to keep a safe, secure place for ourselves on the planet cause there ain't no fucking rapture coming either.
Maybe I should set my facebook status as "is an atheist"? Hahahah!
I just mispelled a bunch of stuff and had some sentence structure problems so pardon me and my migraine.
Oh, I'm going straight to grammar hell.
"weesome"
Whatever the answer might be, I've already forgotten the question.
My take on God is so divorced from the usual conversation it doesn't even enter into the argument. It doesn't compute.
I think other than my Gnostic Buddhism, most religious interpretations these days force God's round peg into a square hole. And they can all, of course, go straight to Hell for doing it. The mythos obscurs the ethos, in most cases, and much of what follows is a twisted pathos. Hence wars and Looney Tunes logic about the sacred aspect of life.
Not sure there is a grammar Hell, but it does seem I may have visited occasionally. But to blame God for holy wars is like blaming drugs for the war on drugs. Blame politics.
We only have a rudimentary understanding of the Cosmos and our place in it, to pretend to any certainties seems awfully pretentious to me.
I'm as wide-eyed and awestruck as ever, I couldn't be cynical if my soul depended on it.
I thought some more about this and I think much of the problem in the west is applying a linear worldview to religious matters.
Religion is a process, not a means to an end. God is referenced by metaphor, yet often ideationally manifested in a literal manner.
No wonder religion has failed in America's snatch-and-grab...me-first culture. We're too lazy and spoiled, as a group, to dig our heels into matters this difficult. Atheism won't help turn that around, but neither will fundamentalist religious folly.
My copy of The Cleaver by Neal Kramer arrived, and I've been listening to him crystallize these issues in a very lucid way. It gives me hope that there are minds out there thinking the right sort of thoughts in this whirlwind of craziness.
Maybe that's all anyone can really hope to do, think the right sort of thoughts and grow the hell up?
My name for ALL THAT IS, is God.
So why bother calling it all 'God'?
Similar reasoning to why I call where I live, 'home', rather than just 'a house', I suppose.
Because I CAN, because I desire it ... because I have some understanding of the limits of science & the ambiguity of conceptual language ... & because I feel, almost instinctively, that we are making it all up, no matter how we interpret or describe it.
But I also have NO FUCKING CLUE what 'ALL THAT IS' is ... & I don't think I ever could ¦:¬)_
I left a related comment here:
http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=zgf-ZNXLAPI&fromurl=/watch%3Fv%3Dzgf-ZNXLAPI%26feature%3Dchannel_page
That's why they call such things ineffable, I reckon. Some aren't comfortable with, accustomed to, or acquainted with the sort of knowing involved. Thinking that God can be found by measuring cathedrals or some such prosaic absurdity.
Everyone seems to want easy, pat answers, and so the whole controversy rattles its way into the comically ridiculous.
The modern world isn't advanced in all things.
You seem to be saying 'it' is something separate and distinct, and not an interconnected whole. 'All that is' includes our dreams and imaginings, but could that really be the be all and end all of 'it'? Does 'it' depend on us, or do we depend on 'it'? Or are we interdependent? Like figure and ground?
Sacred geometry is fundamental to the organization of matter, and great music and architecture...but it only reflects and points the way to meaning in a human revelation. And if one thing can be revealed, why not all?
(I think I should have used 'abstract language' where I used 'conceptual language' in my last comment)
"You seem to be saying 'it' is something separate and distinct"
No, I'm not saying that at all. Sorry if it came across that way.
I ultimately don't put my faith in any of the things I say (in this realm of thought anyway). But I also think there's a lot to be said for simplicity, & the "comically ridiculous".
But then that's only what works for me. My spiritual life has always had, at its heart, the function of transcending all meaning. Which is not to decry meaning to any extent at all. Quite the opposite in fact.
The modern world is a shit hole ... & we're the shit, baby ¦:¬þ
rincy
Whenever I read my words on this sort of thing, I immediately think of salient exceptions or arguments against my clumsy notions. And there are invariably many.
Far better to clearly question than to answer darkly. Muddled as my thoughts tend to be, the curious part often has a crystalline quality.
..................word ver- wines
I concur.
I really need to STFU & play my guitar.
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