That Religious Opinions
Should Be Respected?
Chester Twarog
From: "CHESTER TWAROG"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Resurrection Mythologies
Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 7:46 PM
Dear Cliff,
I saw the "Quills" film but have no immediate deep philosophical impression except that suppression of information does not improve society, the determination of de Sade to mock society through his writing at any cost to himself, and the priest's conversion to "mad man". Perhaps I'll have to see it again.
Anyways, being an Atheist for over 30 years, I really want to impress upon the "believers" that god/jesus/satan are figments. I recently bought John McCabe's "The Resurrection Myth", Prometheus Books, at Borders but have had the website primenet copy of some of it. So, I am trying to compose a crafty, impressive letter to the editor for Easter to give Christians pause and re-evaluate their views of their lord and savior--which is very, very unlikely.
But concern is with my provisional position as the meteorologist with the Air National Guard on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Many Christians here.
Would writing that the cruxification and resurrection of their god is only the reworking of pagan death and resurrection gods of Mithras, Attis, Adoni, Tammuz, Hercules, Osiris, etc., reflecting the transition of Winter's Death into Spring's rebirth/resurrection be valuable? Or would it just stir more antagonism? Would it be beneficial? It's the 21st Century and 2,000 years of Christianity hasn't improved society, has not proved its concepts valid (the second coming), and will only cause more intolerance.
Input?
Chet
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "CHESTER TWAROG"
Subject: Re: Resurrection Mythologies
Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 9:15 PM
Being one who doesn't care what others believe in the privacy of their own minds, I would only express my abhorrence for those views in light of the tendency of Christians to seek to inflict their religion on the rest of us. This would include their insistence that we respect their views, or accept their fiction at face value.
| The most curious social convention of the great age in which we live is the one to the effect that religious opinions should be respected. -- H. L. Mencken, in American Mercury, March, 1930 We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. |
So, to the extent that we can make it clear that nobody should expect us to respect their religious views (short of them bringing forth strong and convincing arguments showing those views to be true), I would go along with Mencken:
| The way to deal with superstition is not to be polite to it, but to tackle it with all arms, and so rout it, cripple it, and make it forever infamous and ridiculous. Is it, perchance, cherished by persons who should know better? Then their folly should be brought out into the light of day, and exhibited there in all its hideousness until they flee from it, hiding their heads in shame.
True enough, even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge. Did Darrow, in the course of his dreadful bombardment of Bryan, drop a few shells, incidentally, into measurably cleaner camps? Then let the garrisons of those camps look to their defenses. They are free to shoot back. But they can't disarm their enemy. |
It is only in the context that they seek to protect their cherished views from public criticism that I would endorse the public criticism of someone's private views. If and only if people keep their religious views to themselves do they rightly protect their views from public scrutiny. Once those views are made public (and watch the Resurrection myth be made very public this Easter -- and every Easter season), and once somebody publicly insists that we take these narratives at face value and that the rest of us believe them to be literally true, then and only then do the stories become fair game to public scrutiny and the denunciation of anybody who finds those tales to be utter falsehood.
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
From: "CHESTER TWAROG"
To: "Positive Atheism" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
Subject: Re: Resurrection Mythologies
Date: Tuesday, January 16, 2001 11:46 PM
Dear Cliff,
Well, thanks for the inputs. I will continue to concentrate the criticism to its vitals for Easter 2001. I agree, with President Bush and the compassionate conservatives, we will see proclamations.
Interestingly, while I and a life-support (female) National Guard was watching CNN, I mentioned how we need to get out of other people's conflicts. She wondered why the USA is so supportive of Israel no matter what it does. I said because its the center of the west's three major religions and the USA wants to protect its status. She mentioned how everyone believes in "God" but there are three different kinds (Hebrew, Islam, Christian). I had to retort that not everyone believes in "God", over 30 million in the USA. Then she asked if I had a religious belief. I admitted that I was Atheist. She wanted to know if I had been raised one. No, Catholic but...
Unfortunately, I had to put out my weather forecast and excused myself. She went back to her office. Will continue the discussion later.
A closet Atheist does no good.
Chet
From: "Positive Atheism Magazine" <editor@positiveatheism.org>
To: "CHESTER TWAROG"
Subject: Re: Resurrection Mythologies
Date: Wednesday, January 17, 2001 1:52 AM
A closet atheist stays alive and retains work. This is not good, either.
The Johnny-come-lately Christian doctrine of premillennialism, that Jesus will return after a "Great Tribulation" in which the nation of Israel allegedly plays a role, is, I think, one of the main reasons the U.S. supports the nation of Israel. If we didn't, the Christian-American populace who believes in this blather (about 38 percent) would have conniption fits during the first week of each November.
The second reason, I think, is the memory of the Holocaust. Although there are more atheists in the United States than there are Jews in the world, we all know the outcry that would be leveled against anyone who would do or say anything against Jews or Judaism. That's one of the main reasons why even the most fundamentalistic of Christians place the prefix Judeo- before the adjective Christian when describing the values upon which this great nation of ours was allegedly founded. And many have bought this line -- swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. A recent and very poignant case in point would be Senator Lieberman's liberal use of this adjectival phrase, Judeo-Christian.. Don't say anything bad about religion; but in particular, don't say anything bad about Jews -- and be careful not to leave them out of the adjectival picture, either.
Cliff Walker
"Positive Atheism" Magazine
Five years of service to
people with no reason to believe
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