To Disagree With Cliff:
The Downfall Of Humanity
Eric
From: "Eric"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: November 17, 2001 10:24 PM
Subject: WebMaster:_Positive_Atheism_Index
Cliff,
I am an atheist. I do not believe in God, or a god. I operate my life on the assumption that there is no sentient being that is responsible for our existence and carries on an active role or an opinion regarding such. I can not prove it, nor can anybody else, but I believe it to be true.
This being said, I have spent many hours on your site and it has affected my thinking to an enormous degree. I at first found myself cheering your cause, and wishing that more people would find your logic as impeccable as I, thus dropping their guns and their rhetoric so that they should "Wake Up" to it's impenetrable truth.
But the more I read, the more I absorb and understand, the more emotional I become. So I write to you and criticize you from an emotional point if view. I am, after all, human, suspect to all of the instinctual habits of everyone that has come before me and will follow, I am emotional. I wouldn't challenge your logic. It is as perfect as I have seen.
I recognize one thing that you do not, so far as I can tell. I am aware of the fact that not everyone is capable of spacious reasoning. Not very many people are able to make the psychotic break from what they have been taught. Few are aware enough to know the difference.
The one thing that this country has that no other possesses however, is balance. Both sides of the issue are heard loud and clear, regardless of the issue. Liberal thinking does not always prevail, but conservative thinking certainly does not dominate. I am able to live free of the church and surround myself by people who I respect and enjoy.
You fight for your point of view vehemently, as if to do otherwise would result in the downfall of humanity. You seem to believe that: Unless people discontinue their beliefs and leave logic as the sole moral compass for humanity, as you have, that we will ultimately suffer the consequences. Were that not true, then you would not say that fundamentalism were dangerous.
In this country, the one that you and I live in and love, we are allowed to live as we choose. We have the right to surround ourselves with whomever we choose. Our government acts as an extension of us. The scrutiny that we exorcise over it's actions has never been experienced by any democracy or empire, throughout the history of the world.
It is necessary for some to challenge the mainline train of thought. You do this well. But you still do it from a hard-line point of view. You seek to upset the balance. You're agenda has not been proven as a successful guidebook for humanity, anymore than any other. Large groups with an agenda are inherently dangerous. You are preaching, and trying to form a group. The bigger the better, as I'm sure that you'd not be advert to having of as many people as possible agree with you, or it would not be necessary to publish this website, nor refer to yourself as an activist.
This is what bothers me, it's that tragedy begets division. It's that when something happens that causes suffering, we all seek our soap-box and look to point the finger, rather than look in the mirror at ourselves and wonder what it was that we did or did not do that led us to the edge, and what it is that we can do to bring us back.
Theists are as blind as you or I, they claim no more, or less, of the right to the truth than you or I, but they are many. George Bush is a man burdened with the task of leading 360 million people in a direction. If he chooses God as a direction, then it is only because he recognizes that the majority of those he is obligated to lead will understand that. It does not mean that America is wrong in it's chosen path. I believe that we have an obligation to let the world live as open and as just as we do. I believe that this country represents the most perfect model for society that mankind has managed to produce to date, and that we should defend it with our lives and our conscience.
I would love to see more empathy for ALL that lives on earth, but it will take time. Humans have been waging war since they have been able to take record of it. Post modern thought has only been in existence for a few hundred years and already it affects world policy. The United Nations was built on the idea of free thought. We don't drop nuclear weapons anymore because we are aware of the fact that the survival of human-kind comes first. Humankind is on the right track. You want us to believe that unless we all follow logic we are doomed. I say that emotion has kept us alive for hundreds of thousands of years and that someday we will know the truth. No man should claim ownership to it in the mean time.
Sincerely,
Eric
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "Eric"
Subject: Re: WebMaster:_Positive_Atheism_Index
Date: November 18, 2001 1:59 AM
You fight for your point of view vehemently, as if to do otherwise would result in the downfall of humanity. You seem to believe that: Unless people discontinue their beliefs and leave logic as the sole moral compass for humanity, as you have, that we will ultimately suffer the consequences. Were that not true, then you would not say that fundamentalism were dangerous.
-- and --
You are preaching, and trying to form a group. The bigger the better, as I'm sure that you'd not be advert to having of as many people as possible agree with you, or it would not be necessary to publish this website, nor refer to yourself as an activist.
I am sorry that my inability to communicate clearly has left you with such a strikingly flawed understanding of what I do here. I've had many people misjudge my motives in this respect over the years, particularly those who do not actually read anything in the website but rather simply click the "webmaster" link on the front page (even though, to a man, each claims to have read large sections of the web site). But never has anybody taken their erroneous assumptions to such an extreme as you have.
Oh, well, one thing I do know how to do is let people make their own mistakes. I am not here to give anybody an education; rather, I enjoy the sport of a philosophical and ideological sparring match. Anybody who would like to step into the ring for a few rounds need only to follow the posted game-rules and I'm happy to give them a run for -- no money, even, if that's what they want! Fortunately for everybody, it's not my burden to "set anybody straight" in that regards -- particularly when it comes to what I'm doing.
I'm glad that the vast majority of those who write to me appear to at least be in the right ballpark as far as their speculations about my motives are concerned, because if everybody who wrote to me were as far off base as you appear to be (particularly if they were as self-confident regarding what's taking place within the privacy of my own mind), I'd have stopped doing this a long time ago. If I even got one letter each month that was as far off base as yours is, I'd be forced to consider that my inability to communicate might therefore strongly suggest that I go do something else with my time and energy.
Fortunately, though, even those who are hostile to my stated ideological position tend, for the most part, to at least be able to see my motives for what they are. I suspect that most of the regulars had a good chuckle over your assessment of me, seeing as how my motives are fairly transparent and thus easy to detect. Being pretty much of a Gandhian, I really have very little to hide, so there is really no point in trying to build up some mysterious "Cliff" who lives behind what you see here.
Thus, I am not concerned in the least that you might have something going for yourself. I fully intend to continue the game that I'm playing here for as long as I can handle it and for as long as my interest in doing it holds out. Good luck in finding someone who might become intimidated by this little game. If this is what you seek, I wish you the best in finding such people.
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
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