On Apr 30, 2005, at 11:27 PM, Ronn!Blankenship wrote:
Out of curiosity, why is it that Erik and a few others are able to get away with incessant windbaggery and insulting behavior?
"Cuz others find _that_ as funny as the Three Stooges? :D
Could be, could be ... the thought occurs, though, that comments such as "religion-addled brain" are really marks of prejudice, or at least arrogance; in my experience arrogance is usually little more than vastly undeserved pride.
You realize, I trust, that the above was just another smart-aleck one-liner . . .
I would like to think that those who align with atheism would be *more* inclined toward openness and understanding of others. Nick, for instance, is not what I would call religion-addled; however, being addled by one's *lack* of religion is clearly possible.
It took me more than a decade of very deep personal inquiry to arrive at my atheism, and during that time I struggled with my own philosophical issues; with attempting to integrate various religious views into my own life and with one another; and ultimately with that first aching sense of isolation that I felt when I realized I could not believe in any kind of deity any longer. Looking back it was pretty damn painful sometimes. One could argue that I am the addled one for following that path.
It's grossly unfair, I think, to start from the assumption that something as (ideally) deeply personal and personally intense as a quest for understanding of one's faith and one's position vis-a-vis a deity is somehow a manifestation of mental unbalance.
Dawkins, as brilliant as the man is, can be too harsh, I believe; his is probably not the best model to follow in terms of framing a discussion, because there's not much discussion to be found in phrases such as "God is a delusion". That's as hubristic as "God said it, I believe it and that settles it". (I know this might read as pot-and-kettle, but Dawkins is after all a trained scientist purportedly skilled in rational discourse, while I'm the one who likes to toss the words around in an attempt to create emotional effect.)
I commented before that I think atheists can be divided into two broad categories: Those who are angry at their god and so say they don't believe as an act of defiance; and those who really just can't believe. It seems to me that the angrier an atheist gets at the suggestion there might be a god, the more likely that atheist is to be in the first category. It seems to me that, if one is angered at the suggestion a god does exist, one should seek to understand why.
The reverse is true of course -- if a believer becomes enraged at the suggestion a god doesn't exist, the question "why" is very pertinent.
Sometimes, it seems to me, anger is really a masking emotion for fear.
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
-- Ronn! :)
"While we cannot agree with others on certain matters, we must never be disagreeable. We must be friendly, soft-spoken, neighborly, and understanding."
� President Gordon B. Hinckley, October 2003
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