Hi Marsha, >A couple of years ago, I went to the Emergency Room at the local >hospital. It was my first time at this particular hospital so they >asked me a bunch of questions. One question was my religion. I was >struck dumb by the question for at least a minute, and then mentally >scrambled for a correct answer. Witch? Pagan? Atheist? Because >there are so many religious nuts running about these days, and being >a coward, I said agnostic.
Steve: I know how you feel. Sometimes people ask me if I believe in God and I always bristle at having to answer. I've never felt like I want to label myself atheist because I associate philosophical materialism with it and agnostic justs sounds wishy-washy to me. Sam Harris says that we shouldn't use this label for two reasons. 1) strategically it allows people to dismiss our arguments without answering them because every believer thinks she has a knockdown argument against atheism. 2) philosohically we shouldn't need such a term any more than we need a term for a non-racist. I once read someone say that if atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color. It seems to me that having to say that you are an atheist when asked your religion is like a bald person asked about his hair color having to answer "transparent" or "invisible." Sam Harris recommends talking about "evidence" and "reason" rather than atheism. Wouldn't really help in the emergency room...How about "not religious?" Regards, Steve Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
