(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Fundamentalist Atheism is Ugly Too [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-17 In dog we trust Reportedly, H. L. Mencken wrote something to the effect of, “A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there. A theologian is the one who finds the cat.” As much as I like this quote, I have an interest in both philosophical and theological inquiries. So I am chiming in on the conversation that has been going on here about Christianity, whatever that is, and religion in general, whatever that is. Someone said that DK is not the place for metaphysical discussions, but rather a place to support democratic ideas, movements, and candidates. I mostly agree with that, but religion, primarily various corruptions of Christianity, have become such a threat to so many in this country, and to the heart of what is left of the democratic ideals that we share, that many rightly feel they must fight against these threats. We must. But maybe you have already taken issue with how I put that, referring to corruptions of Christianity, rather than Christianity itself, or religion itself. Religion is problematic in that it is easily corruptible, so perhaps the answer is to do away with it all together. Maybe you take issue with that statement as well and say religion isn’t corruptible because it is already corrupt from the start, that religions are non-scientific and false and have nothing to offer. I suppose that is possible, but it is not my view. It is not my place to tell people what they should or shouldn’t say, but in reading through the comments and some of the postings, I find some comments to be unhelpful in pushing the conversation forward. The claim that the idea of God is mythology, fairy tale, ridiculous, no different than the flying spaghetti monster, is certainly true in some ways. Perhaps in most ways. If by God one means literally an all knowing, all powerful being that watches over you and judges you when you die, I agree that this is fairytale-like. But the reason I say these comments do not push the conversation forward is that they, to me at least, indicate a similar fundamentalism in understanding religion and religious texts that fundamentalist believers have. If that is your take on what a religion is, or religion in general is, well, I agree with you. But when you don’t leave any room for other less simplistic or non-literal concepts of God and religion, then you are revealing your ignorance and being a jerk. In any case, you are not very understanding of other people. In this way I find that believers and atheists can be kind of the same. One believes in something that doesn’t exist and the other doesn’t believe in something that doesn’t exist. You might think it is more true to not believe in something that doesn’t exist, but still both the believer and the non-believer are relating to something that isn’t there. Is that you? Another thing that doesn’t move the conversation forward is bringing up biblical passages as a way to point out the ridiculousness of faith. The bible is a strange book, no doubt about that, particularly when trying to read it in the modern world. But it is part of our culture, so deeply embedded, there is no way I can see that we could ever extricate ourselves from it. It is what it is. It is a bunch of books with stories that some people think are foundational sacred documents. Whatever. Like many of the books written since humans created written language it tells us a lot about ourselves. But when one uses the bible to condemn theists, they are doing the same thing that other people do when they use the bible to condone slavery or condemn homosexuality. People create religions for a variety of reasons. A few of those reasons may actually be good ones. People wonder about the strangeness of existence. People are overcome by the mystery of life. People experience unspeakable cruelty and tragedy. The ineffable is just that. We do what we can using words, metaphors, and symbols to try to express the ineffable. When you express the ineffable symbolically and then someone takes that expression literally, it quickly becomes absurd. Religion becomes the worship of the flying spaghetti monster. I get it. For many people, the symbols and practices of faith are friends to them, they are familiar and grounding. They may be idols but one hopes ultimately they are not in themselves something, but point to something unknowable, something to make space for in one’s heart and mind, a universal love for everything that is. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/17/2153640/-Fundamentalist-Atheism-is-Ugly-Too Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/