Evangelical Athiests.

[logansrogue]

Okay - you guys know me. I love science. I love nothing more than to snuggle down with a Carl Sagan book and get ready to have my mind utterly blown at the staggering awesomeness of the universe. You also know that I believe in a naturalistic, ineffable spirit God that we humans can't comprehend without going insane, so we have to digest It in bite-size gobbets of wisdom, hence, differing religions and thought processes (science).

I am utterly respectful of one's right not to believe in God. I also know that morality is separate from belief and that you can be a perfectly wonderful human being and not believe in anything other than what can be proven with logic and science.

Then you get people like this. Or Richard Dawkins. People that have taken it upon themselves to view what they call 'religion' as some kind of scourge of society that needs to be wiped out. To them I say: Who the hell asked you?

One of the first things a person has to learn in life is that each life is that own person's journey. It's their trip - you can't understand it. You can empathise, but you can't know it. You can't take someone's spirituality away from them. You'd be crazy to even *try*. It's one of the very things that define humans as a species - the tendency to have a belief system based on supernatural beliefs. And I'll agree, a lot of shitty things have been done in the name of religion. I've been a victim of that, being a queer woman and all. Do you see me calling for the whole-sale phasing out of religion? No. It just seems crazy talk to me. It's getting a little too much like the scary fundamentalist religious sorts that want to convert the whole world to their religion.

Here's a tip for free - it ain't ever gonna happen, yo. It's just not in human nature. Humans are a varying, kenspeckle, eccentric bunch of sentients that will disagree just because they can. Rebellion is second nature. Free will is our greatest asset and eradicating one of our rights kinda goes against that very tenet.

Religion is a reality - people believe in crazy shit. Athiests like skepchick need to relax and get the fuck over it.

Comments

[angriest.livejournal.com]

It must be repeatedly said that Richard Dawkins, for all his remarkable intelligence, generally behaves like a total dick.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

He does. Nothing frustrates me more than these intelligent people acting just like the people they claim to despise. The hypocrisy is so thick it's choking!

[angriest.livejournal.com]

That said, there are plenty of evangelical religious types who use their positions of authority to act like total dicks as well - starting with His Holiness.

But, as my mum always used to say, two wrongs don't make a right.

[lauredhel.livejournal.com]

The difference being, of course, that His Holiness and his foul minions have an enormous amount of institutional power, and have caused untold suffering the world over.

Sounding like a bit of a dick on a blog (and I don't think this link is a sterling example of the genre) doesn't exactly compare.

[angriest.livejournal.com]

No, but it's still unhelpful.

What actually irritates me about the Dawkins of this world is the intolerable smugness of applying empirical reasoning to something that by definition can't be empirically disproven.

Irritates is a good word. Those people irritate me. The Pope actually upsets me.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

The Pope induces me to apoplectic rage if I think about the shit he's done in the name of God. I'm not personally offended by this girl in her blog, just very tired of hearing extreme atheists say that they want to get rid of religion wholesale. I mean, that means they want me not to believe in God and the Spirit anymore. And that would make me a very miserable, depressed person.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me wrong. I am super pissed at the Catholic Church and their bullshit. But the Catholic Church is not all religion or spirituality. There's a world of it beyond institutionalised religion. I'm against that sort of powerful religion. It has no place in the world. I'm with the atheists on that.

Stalin, Hitler and the Pope walked into a bar.

[flyingreptile.livejournal.com]

Well mordernist and postmordernist idealogies have had enormous amount of institutional power in the guise of Communism and Fascism. Neither of these have ever given a shit about Dawkins, ofcourse. Then again, I understand that his holiness would not be likely to care much about any of the fundamentalist evangelical types that are all the rage these days; the Roman Catholic church is very conservative so I don't see what they would have in common with the "I read a few select parts of the bible once so now I'm fully qualified to lecture everyone on how 9/11 was sent to punish the US for its predominantly Christian ethos that I consider not to be Christian" crowd.

[asweetdownfall.livejournal.com]

Ew. I'm staying far away from that post.

As for YOUR post..I love it. It's beautiful.

[greteldragon.livejournal.com]

On the upside, there's something doubly funny about evangelical atheists, you can't help but feel they missed the point somehow.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, I hadn't looked at it like that. *chuckle*

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

*probably shouldn't be using this icon*

What, exactly, is it about that article that pisses you off so much? Because I can't really see it. Sorry.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

The general post doesn't upset me. Just the line in there near the beginning about ... here, I'll quote it:

By encouraging believers (whether they believe in a religion, some "spirituality," or other paranormal claim), do we only perpetuate the problem? And might it be possible to put religion to bed if we push the point that the religious are not in any way more trustworthy?

[...]

Probably not. But it may be worth trying.

I am indignant at the concept of my spirituality (I'm not religious as it were) being seen as a problem. The idea of atheists encouraging religion, the rest of her post - no problems. What I took issue with was really just a nugget in there that rubbed me the wrong way.

I guess I just get so frustrated because I love to read about science and logic, I think creationism is a load of unmitigated hooey and I like to be skeptical about the paranormal (even though I love reading about it). Yet, I can't go to these sites without having my intelligence insulted just because I happen to believe in something spiritual. It's just upsetting, I suppose.

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

The keyword there, I think, is 'more' - "not in any way more trustworthy". It's going back to the idea that, say, "Oh, Bob always goes to church and John doesn't, let's let Bob watch the kids for a while". The idea that religion inspires trust and implies reliability and a solid character. And, well. I'd like to think I was more trustworthy than my deceitful, swears-at-kids, incredibly devout bitch of a stepmother. (She's the one who called me a 'fucking ignorant little shit' to my face when I was twelve, after I had gone over there for first night Seder.)

The article wasn't saying that all religious people are inherently deceitful and that all atheists are magical sparkly ponies who shit rainbows. It was taking offense at the idea that religious people are inherently more trustful than non-religious people.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

I got that point in the message, and I agree. It's just the "put religion to bed" line that got under my skin. What else could putting it to bed mean other than the want to put an end to it?

I'm sorry about your step-mother. That's just awful. :(

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

Oh... true.

And yeah -_- I don't talk to her very much any more.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Yeah. See, I'm all for reducing the role of organised religion in the power structure of politics and I'm raging mad about the way it interferes with education and stuff. But I'm not an all-or-nothing person. It's pointless operating in binaries cause the world doesn't work like that.

You can share my Mum with me if you like. She's awesome!

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

XD Don't worry, my Mum is pretty cool, too *grin*

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Oh good! I didn't want to assume anything about your Mum, I'm glad to hear she's a good-un.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I suspected it was the "put religion to bed" line that had you up in arms. A pity she did such a good job of alienating a swathe of potential readers with an aside, as the first portion of the post is both interesting and reasonably neutrally worded, and the latter part makes a good point about Massimo’s first respondent reacting to something he didn't even say.

Besides, if you take the definition of rational as "having its source in or being guided by the intellect (as distinguished from experience or emotion)" - then surely it would be no insult to describe faith as irrational? Experience and emotion are perfectly valid motivators for action, and indeed are sometimes all we have to go on.

I'm sorry you found her article so upsetting.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Thing is, there are a lot of natural laws to the supernatural. Skeptics view it as this amorphous blob of bullshit that's built entirely on people's beliefs. I really do think there are kernels of truth hidden in there, and I spend most of my time reading something and going, "Well that's bullshit." The most compelling stuff tends to go along with nature's laws. Just because it's supernatural doesn't mean it gets to be fantastic and make no sense. You have to be very rational when researching and looking at this stuff. I mean, even Carl Sagan looked at the supernatural. He didn't believe in any of it, but he still looked. To close your mind off completely to these possibilities is cutting one's self off to an area of possible discovery.

My point being - it is possible to be rational about the unknown.

[hotclaws.livejournal.com]

Dawkins is so full of this desperate unfocussed anger.I wish people like him could sort out the difference between organised religion which is mostly political and true faith which is amazing.
A Poor Clare who I was friends with for many years told me this story, Someone came to see her Abbess and he ranted and raved and gave her facts and figures and finished by saying triumphantly "So,I don't believe in God"
she smiled sweetly and said "That's okay, He believes in you"

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

Heh. That's a sweet story. :) I know what I believe, and I know there are other people who have their beliefs and are even more stubborn about them than I am. You can't change them and you can't change me. I'm strongly of the opinion to let people have their trip in this life. They believe what they need to believe. It's nobody's place to disrupt that. Is that such a hard thing to do? Leave people the hell alone? :T

[sir-devans.livejournal.com]

*applause* Richard Dawkins opens his mouth and I want to close it with my fist.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

I need to proof-read my fucking posts better. *cringes at her spelling errors*

[sir-devans.livejournal.com]

?

[leopardeternal.livejournal.com]

I've been going rounds about such subjects in my own journal, and I can't help but to speak up.

In a response above you mentioned that your biggest problem is the line "put Religion to bed." I wanted to address that.

Now as disclaimer I can't speak for all Atheists, but I think that most Atheists do recognize a difference between Faith and Religion. What you describe above as your belief is a Faith. You don't have a group of followers who try to spread the word of your faith, or enforce the rules of your faith, and you most certainly don't expect others to believe as you do. Putting religion to bed would take away the churches influence, not deny people their faith.

When it comes to Evangelical Atheists, I think they still make this distinction, they just emphasize that people learn and reason and understand where a belief might be completely ridiculous.

Then again, this could just be my viewpoint, and I'm sugarcoating the world. It happens.

YMMV.

[flyingreptile.livejournal.com]

Meh, I don't necessarily have anything against organized religion either. In the old days (and a number of parts of the world) providing for the poor was the task of religion, and distributing alms is better done in a organized way. And non denominational "faith" can be an excuse to believe in crap that is way more disturbing than any existing religion could dreams.

Re: YMMV.

[leopardeternal.livejournal.com]

In the old days Religion used the dogma to enforce itself as the Government by excuse of some Divine will. This is why Religions all tend to have laws, and it is those same laws that today people are still trying to enforce (prop 8 and the like) because they hold their Religion to be true and right. By riding ourselves of the religion, we rid ourselves of such ridiculous, divisive, arbitrary, and ultimately harmful laws.

Organization is always required when groups of people come together, so its only requirement is having a group of followers. Religion seeks to have everyone follow its rules and as such requires organization. There is plenty of belief out there that we should care for those less fortunate than ourselves, it is a faith. Getting rid of religion does not change that, and in good faith we can still care for the less fortunate without religion forcing us to.

Faith is always an excuse to believe in something without proof, and for this reason alone faith varies wildly often coming up with disturbing results. As Nancy said, you can't change that. Religions take that faith and institutionalize it, making it something that others also have to belief and follow. There are plenty of disturbing beliefs found in many if not all religions. If we get rid of the religions we allow that while this person is free to take on faith any belief he wants, he cannot force anyone else to also believe such.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Well said.

(FWIW, I'm a lapsed Catholic, agnostic verging on atheist, who also has a habit of sugarcoating the world)

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

This woman has made a blog career of trashing anything supernatural. You might make the distinction between me and the Catholic Church, but I am highly doubtful that she would.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that I'd draw as big a distinction between your spirituality and my personal experience of the Catholic Church as you might expect.

Certainly right up to my mid teens it was a very new testament 'love one another as I have loved you', hugs, and warm fuzzies kind of experience.

I disapprove of the organisational stance on abortion, contraception, sex outside marriage, and so forth, but none of that impacted on me before I was 17 - and a lot of Australian Catholics ignore the contraceptive edicts.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

The Catholic Church's position on earthly matters really feels irrelevant to the question of something more and greater than humanity. It's a human failing, a human error. We're just ascribing it to God. It's got nothing to do with the Ineffable.

[flyingreptile.livejournal.com]

I'm an atheist, but I'm not religious about it. I just joined for the free^H^H^H^H cheap food.

Actually I don't think the atheist society has held any BBQs recently. I might threaten to convert to Krishna.

[logansrogue.livejournal.com]

If you're going with a world viewpoint organisation on food benefits, Krishna beats the shit out of all. And if you do the dishes, you get it for free. *nods*

[shantari.livejournal.com]

It's the religion-hating atheists that make me wanna pull out my "you-beleive-something-for-certain-for-which-you-have-no-proof-how-are-you-better-than-religious-people"-stick and do some poking.

That said, I identify myself primarily as an agnostic not because I require proof, but rather becuase my world view causes me to see things from different perspecitves all the time. Ever since I was a kid or early teenager (don't know for certain when it started) I have segmented my perception of reality in such a way that I am fully capable of taking very opposing views as both being real. The one thing I do feel certain about in metaphysical questions, is that there is or are matter/thing/being/existance/s much much more powerful than humans, most certainly infinitely more so. But whether they're of a divine nature, or if they're automatically devine simply because of being more powerful and/or immortal is a tricky question. Especially when you consider how not all gods have been universally portayed as immortal, or all powerful. Plus just cus a sufficiently advanced alien can read my mind and teleport, doesn't mean I'll take their word on having created the universe in the first place. Rather more likely that something even more powerful created everything including them.

One thing that actually bothers me about being an agnostic: I still use "Oh my God!" as an expletive. Both in English and in Swedish, but actually more commonly in English. I tend to preserve "Åh herre Gud!" for the really mind-breaking things I see or hear people say/do/consider an enlightened opinion.

[berenicepotter.livejournal.com]

I love reading entries of yours like this one.