Rethinking The Call
To Respect Theists
Carey Sherrill
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: September 12, 2001 12:54 AM
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
Just when I was beginning to get comfortable with respecting theists, this happens. The news reports indicate that Islamic zealots are responsible for the attacks. People driven insane by religion attack because this country's dominate god-myth differs superficially from their own pathetic little god-myth. Religion is a disease. A disease that causes insanity. How am I dealing with it? Trying to imagine a cure and, in the meantime, imagining the eradication of the most virulent carriers. I'm right back where I was almost a year ago when I first wrote to your forum about Xmas.
Carey
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To:
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
Date: September 12, 2001 12:25 AM
Not so fast.
What was the day that the race war was started in the novel The Turner Diaries? Wasn't that September 11?
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: September 12, 2001 2:50 PM
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
I've never read The Turner Diaries
In the cooler light of morning I'm not as rabidly angry. I am deeply frustrated. Bad enough Bush quoted a psalm in his speech, but then CNN had a bishop or cardinal or whatever say a few meaningless words and ask people to pray. This morning I heard NYC mayor Guliani say the fate of the buried survivors is "in God's hands". Assuming for a moment he/she/it/they exist, God dropped two of the world's largest buildings on them. Maybe asking God for help is just plain stupid. I am seriously considering seeking out the closest evangelical church and confronting any member I can corner with some seriously hard questions. I am carefully reexamining the assertion that theists have valid reasons for believing as they do. As long as humanity bases its behavior on subservience to myths and fantasy, the world will be a terrifying place.
Carey
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To:
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
Date: September 12, 2001 8:02 PM
I am continuing to hope that believers themselves will raise the same questions. Many atheists came out of the Holocaust.
That does not justify the Holocaust, but that's just what happened. People saw that there cannot possibly be a God who is a "Him" watching over us.Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: September 13, 2001 12:10 AM
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
As I return to my senses, I decided not to ask questions of the faithful. I don't expect any answers that will help me and who am I to go kicking crutches out from under people at a time when perhaps they need them most.
I am still very frustrated by the childish stupidity and inherent contradiction in asking God to help those on whom he has dropped a building.
I can hope that you're right; maybe this will cause believers to ask the hard questions of themselves.
Carey
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To:
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
Date: September 13, 2001 4:17 AM
More and more, as I remember the fruits of my studies comparing American with European religiosity, I see World War II as the deciding point where a large chunk of Europeans jettisoned their faith in a personal deity. Many reports from the Holocaust include telling questions regarding how a deity who cares could allow this to happen.
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Sent: September 13, 2001 2:28 PM
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
This morning, while flipping channels for news, I heard a very telling bit of a post attack sermon. These may not be the exact words, "You have two choices; you can deal with it yourselves or you can let God deal with it. If you let God deal with it then you don't have to 'camp out' on it mentally..."
Perhaps some people simply aren't up to thinking about the difficult side of life. "God" is the mechanism they use to separate themselves from it. Maybe there is a threshold however. If the severity of the event is too terrible, the crutch can't support it.
I also heard people thanking God for cell phones! How about thanking Alexander Bell for inventing the telephone? Thanking the scientists and engineers who built on that invention? The companies and their workers who invested in the technology and provide the service? Why is it God gets all the credit for the good and none of the blame for the bad? (rhetorical)
Carey
From: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To:
Subject: Re: A Beacon for Survivors (Heroic Stories)
Date: September 13, 2001 6:39 PM
I'm not convinced that very many are going to "camp out on it mentally." This was truly a wake-up call for a lot of us. I'm thinking that this will shatter the faith of a lot of people, particularly those who are younger and not as set in their ways.
The statistics are promising: The densest groups of Americans who believe Jesus will personally duke it out with Satan in some war in either the near or distant future are the elderly and the very poor. Those who are least likely to believe this are the under-30 crowd.
Another thing we know about the under-30 crowd (having been there ourselves -- or even being there now and being able to witness but not necessarily to compare): younger adults and teenagers tend to be more impressionable. This is particularly true considering that many haven't had the opportunity to allow experience to teach them. But, these are the years when the Santa Claus assumptions of our parents (religious myths as well as political myths) are jettisoned to make room for what we consider (at the time) to be our observations (although these "observations" may be as simple as picking some snippet of philosophy up from the lyric of a popular song).
So, I am hopeful that what comes out of this will be a change in people's understanding of God, and the role He plays (or doesn't play) in World affairs. This is particularly likely if September 11 is just the beginning and more along the lines of each major city gets touched with something like this.
Cliff Walker
Positive Atheism Magazine
Six years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From:
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: Scary quotes and Respecting Theists
Date: September 15, 2001 2:40 PM
In an email conversation with my uncle, he responded to my assertion that religion is a form of insanity with,
"But Tuesday was a perversion of Islam, according to what I have heard said about it. And can't any philosophy be perverted to support the claims of it's lunatic fringe?" |
To which I responded,
"Every religious philosophy I've come across, with the exception of Buddhism, which, like Unitarians, are atheistic, is already a perversion of humanistic tenets. Any further perversion is just a matter of degree." |
My latest thinking is theism has not earned my respect. I reject the idea that all philosophies are of equal value and that each requires my respect just because one or more people believe. I accept and support the important tenet that everyone is free to believe what they choose. Not because it's a "natural" or "basic" or "God-given" right, but because it is the only way to be sure we collectively arrive at the truth. Accepting this freedom does not mean I have to respect those beliefs if I examine them and find them wanting. Philosophies based on a belief in a god or gods are untenable. In 5,000 years of human civilization no one has produced verifiable evidence for the existence of a god. More than being myth, they are historically destructive, divisive, corrupt, and stagnant. These philosophies have done nothing to earn my respect. I see no reason not to vilify these beliefs at every opportunity. As for believers, I will hold in reserve the minimum amount of respect I would have for any stranger until they give me reason to reevaluate.
Carey
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