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A great Blog, "Atheists and Anger"
I know this is very long, but if you have some time to kill, you may see why more and more Atheists are becoming upset in the US.
Atheists and Anger
I want to talk about atheists and anger.
This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.
But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:
1. Why atheists are angry;
2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;
And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.
So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.
*****
I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.
I'm angry that atheist conventions have to have extra security, including hand-held metal detectors and bag searches, because of fatwas and death threats.
I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.
I'm angry that the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." My President. No, I didn't vote for him, but he was still my President, and he still said that my lack of religious belief meant that I shouldn't be regarded as a citizen.
I'm angry that it took until 1961 for atheists to be guaranteed the right to serve on juries, testify in court, or hold public office in every state in the country.
I'm angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. And not a broad, "God had a hand in evolution" creationism, but a strict, young-earth, "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" creationism.
And on that topic: I'm angry that school boards all across this country are still -- 82 years after the Scopes trial -- having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and any of the time/ money/ resources that they're spending fighting this stupid fight is time/ money/ resources that they're not spending, you know, teaching.
I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.
I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.
I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.
I get angry when advice columnists tell their troubled letter-writers to talk to their priest or minister or rabbi... when there is absolutely no legal requirement that a religious leader have any sort of training in counseling or therapy.
And I get angry when religious leaders offer counseling and advice to troubled people -- sex advice, relationship advice, advice on depression and stress, etc. -- not based on any evidence about what actually does and does not work in people's brains and lives, but on the basis of what their religious doctrine tells them God wants for us.
I'm angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.
I'm angry that so many believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I'm angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe, as if God gives a shit about who wins the NCAA Final Four -- and as if the other teams/ players/ contestants weren't praying just as hard.
I'm especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I'm angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I'm angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.
And I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn't what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously, and it's absurd for atheists to criticize it.
I get angry when believers use terrible, grief-soaked tragedies as either opportunities to toot their own horns and talk about how wonderful their God and their religion are... or as opportunities to attack and demonize atheists and secularism.
I'm angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn't draw in heaven. And I'm angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority... when in fact she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in heaven but not draw? And why the hell would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?
I'm angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I'm angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.
I'm angry at the trustee of the local Presbyterian church who told his teenage daughter that he didn't actually believe in God or religion, but that it was important to keep up his work because without religion there would be no morality in the world.
I'm angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children -- who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they're told, and (b) are very literal-minded -- with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.
I'm angrier when religious leaders explicitly tell children – and adults, for that matter -- that the very questioning of religion and the existence of hell is a dreadful sin, one that will guarantee them that hell is where they'll end up.
I'm angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality. And I'm especially angry that female children get taught by religion to hate and fear their femaleness, and that queer children get taught by religion to hate and fear their queerness.
I'm angry about the Muslim girl in the public school who was told -- by her public-school, taxpayer-paid teacher -- that the red stripes on Christmas candy canes represented Christ's blood, that she had to believe in and be saved by Jesus Christ or she'd be condemned to hell, and that if she didn't, there was no place for her in his classroom. And I'm angry that he told her not to come back to his class when she didn't convert.
I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.
I'm angry about 9/11.
And I'm angry that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People For the American Way. I'm angry that the theology of a wrathful God exacting revenge against pagans and abortionists by sending radical Muslims to blow up a building full of secretaries and investment bankers... this was a theology held by a powerful, widely-respected religious leader with millions of followers.
I'm angry that, when my dad had a stroke and went into a nursing home, the staff asked my brother, "Is he a Baptist or a Catholic?" And I'm not just angry on behalf of my atheist dad. I'm angry on behalf of all the Jews, all the Buddhists, all the Muslims, all the neo-Pagans, whose families almost certainly got asked that same question. That question is enormously disrespectful, not just of my dad's atheism, but of everyone at that nursing home who wasn't a Baptist or a Catholic.
I'm angry about Ingrid's grandparents. I'm angry that their fundamentalism was such a huge source of strife and unhappiness in her family, that it alienated them so drastically from their children and grandchildren. I'm angry that they tried to cram it down Ingrid's throat, to the point that she's still traumatized by it. And I'm angry that their religion, which if nothing else should have been a comfort to them in their old age, was instead a source of anguish and despair -- because they knew their children and grandchildren were all going to be burned and tortured forever in Hell, and how could Heaven be Heaven if their children and grandchildren were being eternally burned and tortured in Hell?
I'm angry that Ingrid and I can't get legally married in this country -- or get legally married in another country and have it recognized by this one -- largely because religious leaders oppose it. And I'm angry that both religious and political leaders have discovered that they can score big points exploiting people's fears about sexuality in a changing world, fanning the flames of those fears... and giving people a religious excuse for why their fears are justified.
I'm angry that huge swaths of public policy in this country -- not just on same-sex marriage, but on abortion and stem-cell research and sex education in schools -- are being based, not on evidence of which policies do and don't work and what is and isn't true about the world, but on religious texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago, and on their own personal feelings about how those texts should be interpreted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and no apparent concept of why any evidence should be needed.
I get angry when believers trumpet every good thing that's ever been done in the name of religion as a reason why religion is a force for good... and then, when confronted with the horrible evils done in religion's name, say that those evils weren't done because of religion, were done because of politics of greed or fear or whatever, would have been done anyway even without religion, and shouldn't be counted as religion's fault. (Of course, to be fair, I also get angry when atheists do the opposite: chalk up every evil thing done in the name of religion as a black mark on religion's record, but then insist that the good things were done for other reasons and would have been done anyway, etc. Neither side gets to have it both ways.)
I'm angry at the believers who put decals on their cars with a Faith fish eating a Darwin fish... and who think that's clever, who think that religious faith really should triumph over science and evidence. I'm angry at believers who have so little respect for the physical world their God supposedly created that they feel perfectly content to ignore the mountains of physical evidence piling up around them about that real world; perfectly content to see that world as somehow less real and true than their personal opinions about God.
(Note: The litany of specific grievances is now more than halfway over. Analysis of why anger is necessary and valuable is coming up soon. Promise.)
I get angry when religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people's trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again. And I get angry when people see this happening and still say that atheism is bad because, without religion, people would have no basis for morality or ethics, and no reason not to just do whatever they wanted.
I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism -- and make accusations against atheists -- without having bothered to talk to any atheists or read any atheist writing. I get angry when they trot out the same old "Atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics"... when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in their lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong.
I get angry when believers use the phrase "atheist fundamentalist" without apparently knowing what the word "fundamentalist" means. Call people pig-headed, call them stubborn, call them snarky, call them intolerant even. But unless you can point to the text to which these "fundamentalist" atheists literally and strictly adhere without question, then please shut the hell up about us being fundamentalist.
I get angry when religious believers base their entire philosophy of life on what is, at best, a hunch; when they ignore or reject or rationalize any evidence that contradicts that hunch or calls it into question... and then accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.
And I get angry when believers glorify religious faith without evidence as a positive virtue, a character trait that makes people good and noble... and then continue to accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.
I get angry when believers say that they can know the truth -- the greatest truth of all about the nature of the universe, namely the source of all existence -- simply by sitting quietly and listening to their heart... and then accuse atheists of being arrogant. (This isn't just arrogant towards atheists and naturalists, either. It's arrogant towards people of other religions who have sat just as quietly, listened to their hearts with just as much sincerity, and come to completely opposite conclusions about God and the soul and the universe.)
And I get angry when believers say that the entire unimaginable enormity of the universe was made solely and specifically for the human race -- when atheists, by contrast, say that humanity is a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, an infinitesimal eyeblink in the vastness of time and space -- and yet again, believers accuse atheists of being arrogant.
I get angry when believers say things like, "Yes, of course, the human mind isn't perfect, we see what we expect to see, we see faces and patterns and intention when they aren't necessarily there... but that couldn't be happening with me. The patterns I see in my life... they couldn't possibly be coincidence or confirmation bias. I'm definitely seeing the hand of God." (And then, once again, those same believers accuse atheists of being close-minded and only seeing what we want to see.)
I get angry when believers treat the gaps in science and scientific knowledge as somehow proof of the existence of God. I get angry when, despite a thousands-of-years-old pattern of supernatural explanations being consistently and repeatedly replaced with natural ones, they still think every single unexplained phenomenon can be best explained by God. And I'm angry that, whenever a gap in our knowledge does get filled in, believers either try to suppress it (see above re: evolution in the schools), or else say, "Okay, that part of the world isn't supernatural... but what about this gap over here? Can you explain that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Scientist? You can't! It must be God!"
I get angry when believers say at the beginning of an argument that their belief is based on reason and evidence, and at the end of the argument say things like, "It just seems that way to me," or, "I feel it in my heart"... as if that were a clincher. I mean, couldn't they have said that at the beginning of the argument, and not wasted my fucking time? My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don't.
I'm angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do. I get angry when believers say things about the tenets and texts of their religion that are flatly untrue, and I have to correct them on it.
I get angry when believers treat any criticism of their religion -- i.e., pointing out that their religion is a hypothesis about the world and a philosophy of it, and asking it to stand up on its own in the marketplace of ideas -- as insulting and intolerant. I get angry when believers accuse atheists of being intolerant for saying things like, "I don't agree with you," "I think you're mistaken about that," "That doesn't make any sense," "I think that position is morally indefensible," and "What evidence do you have to support that?"
And on that point: I get angry when Christians in the United States -- members of the single most powerful and influential religious group in the country, in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world -- act like beleaguered victims, martyrs being thrown to the lions all over again, whenever anyone criticizes them or they don't get their way.
I get angry when believers respond to some or all of these offenses by saying, "Well, that's not the true faith. Hating queers/ rejecting science/ stifling questions and dissent... that's not the true faith. People who do that aren't real (Christians/ Jews/ Muslims/ Hindus/ etc.)." As if they had a fucking pipeline to God. As if they had any reason at all to think that they know for sure what God wants, and that the billions of others who disagree with them just obviously have it wrong. (Besides -- I'm an atheist. The "They just aren't doing religion right" argument is not going to cut it with me. I don't think any of you have it right. To me, it all looks like something that people just made up.)
On that topic: I get angry when religious believers insist that their interpretation of their religion and religious text is the right one, and that fellow believers with an opposite interpretation clearly have it wrong. I get angry when believers insist that the parts about Jesus's prompt return and all prayers being answered are obviously not meant literally... but the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination, that's real. And I get angry when believers insist that the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination aren't meant literally, but the parts about caring for the poor are really what God meant. How the hell do they know which parts of the Bible/ Torah/ Koran/ Bhagavad-Gita/ whatever God really meant, and which parts he didn't? And if they don't know, if they're just basing it on their own moral instincts and their own perceptions of the world, then on what basis are they thinking that God and their sacred texts have anything to do with it at all? What right do they have to act as if their opinion is the same as God's and he's totally backing them up on it?
And I get angry when believers act as if these offenses aren't important, because "Not all believers act like that. I don't act like that." As if that fucking matters. This stuff is a major way that religion plays out in our world, and it makes me furious to hear religious believers try to minimize it because it's not how it happens to play out for them. It's like a white person responding to an African-American describing their experience of racism by saying, "But I'm not a racist." If you're not a racist, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to the black people talk? And if you’re not bigoted against atheists and are sympathetic to us, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and let us tell you about what the world is like for us, without getting all defensive about how it's not your fault? When did this international conversation about atheism and religious oppression become all about you and your hurt feelings?
But perhaps most of all, I get angry -- sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry -- when believers chide atheists for being so angry. "Why do you have to be so angry all the time?" "All that anger is so off-putting." "If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?"
Which brings me to the other part of this little rant: Why atheist anger is not only valid, but valuable and necessary.
*****
There's actually a simple, straightforward answer to this question:
Because anger is always necessary.
Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it... all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.
I mean, why the hell else would people bother to mobilize social movements? Social movements are hard. They take time, they take energy, they sometimes take serious risk of life and limb, community and career. Nobody would fucking bother if they weren't furious about something.
So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You're telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You're telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You're telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it's coupled with passionate anger. In a battle between David and Goliath, you're telling David to put down his slingshot and just... I don't know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or something.
I'll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it's valuable, it's necessary... but it can also misfire, and badly.
But unless we're actually endangering or harming somebody, it is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we're going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it's up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it's not helpful. It's patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it's just going to make us angrier.
And when believers tell passionate, angry atheists that extremism is never right and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, they're making a big, big mistake. Not just because they're making us want to spit in their eye. They're making a mistake because they're simply mistaken. Read this piece from Daylight Atheism on The Golden Mean. Read the quotes from the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the American Revolution. And then come tell me that the moderate position is usually the right one.
And you know what else? I think we need to have some goddamn perspective about this anger business. I mean, I look at organized Christianity in this country -- not just the religious right, but some more "moderate" churches as well -- interfering with AIDS prevention efforts, trying to get their theology into the public schools, actively trying to prevent me and Ingrid from getting legally married, and pulling all the other shit I talk about in this piece.
And I look at atheists sometimes being mean-spirited and snarky in blogs and books and magazines.
And I think, Can we please have some goddamn perspective?
Because the other thing I'm angry about is the fact that, in this piece, I've touched on -- maybe -- a hundredth of everything that angers me about religion. This piece barely scratches the surface. I know, almost without a doubt, that within five minutes of hitting "Post" and putting this piece on my blog, I'll think of six different things that I'd wished I'd put in. I could write an entire book about everything that angers me about religion -- other people certainly have -- and still not be finished.
Are you really looking at all of this shit I'm talking about, a millennia-old history of abuse and injustice, deceit and willful ignorance -- and then on the other hand, looking at a couple of years of atheists being snarky on the Internet -- and seeing the two as somehow equivalent? Or worse, seeing the snarky atheists as the greater problem?
If you're doing that, then with all due respect, you can blow me.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at civility.
Addendum: If you're having trouble commenting, seeing your comment, or reading the other comments on this post, please read this. Thanks.
Addendum 2: I've written a reply to the most common themes that are coming up in the comments here. If you're going to comment on this post, you might want to check it out first.
October 15, 2007 in Atheism
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/atheists-and-an.html#
Atheists and Anger
I want to talk about atheists and anger.This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.
But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:
1. Why atheists are angry;
2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;
And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us.
So let's start with why we're angry. Or rather -- because this is my blog and I don't presume to speak for all atheists -- why I'm angry.
*****
I'm angry that according to a recent Gallup poll, only 45 percent of Americans would vote for an atheist for President.
I'm angry that atheist conventions have to have extra security, including hand-held metal detectors and bag searches, because of fatwas and death threats.
I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that evangelical Christian groups are being given exclusive access to proselytize on military bases -- again in the U.S. armed forces, again in direct violation of the First Amendment. I'm angry that atheist soldiers who are complaining about this are being harassed and are even getting death threats from Christian soldiers and superior officers -- yet again, in the U.S. armed forces. And I'm angry that Christians still say smug, sanctimonious things like, "there are no atheists in foxholes." You know why you're not seeing atheists in foxholes? Because believers are threatening to shoot them if they come out.
I'm angry that the 41st President of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush, said of atheists, in my lifetime, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." My President. No, I didn't vote for him, but he was still my President, and he still said that my lack of religious belief meant that I shouldn't be regarded as a citizen.
I'm angry that it took until 1961 for atheists to be guaranteed the right to serve on juries, testify in court, or hold public office in every state in the country.
I'm angry that almost half of Americans believe in creationism. And not a broad, "God had a hand in evolution" creationism, but a strict, young-earth, "God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last 10,000 years" creationism.
And on that topic: I'm angry that school boards all across this country are still -- 82 years after the Scopes trial -- having to spend time and money and resources on the fight to have evolution taught in the schools. School boards are not exactly loaded with time and money and resources, and any of the time/ money/ resources that they're spending fighting this stupid fight is time/ money/ resources that they're not spending, you know, teaching.
I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry.
I'm angry that women are having septic abortions -- or are being forced to have unwanted children who they resent and mistreat -- because religious organizations have gotten laws passed making abortion illegal or inaccessible.
I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it.
I get angry when advice columnists tell their troubled letter-writers to talk to their priest or minister or rabbi... when there is absolutely no legal requirement that a religious leader have any sort of training in counseling or therapy.
And I get angry when religious leaders offer counseling and advice to troubled people -- sex advice, relationship advice, advice on depression and stress, etc. -- not based on any evidence about what actually does and does not work in people's brains and lives, but on the basis of what their religious doctrine tells them God wants for us.
I'm angry at preachers who tell women in their flock to submit to their husbands because it's the will of God, even when their husbands are beating them within an inch of their lives.
I'm angry that so many believers treat prayer as a sort of cosmic shopping list for God. I'm angry that believers pray to win sporting events, poker hands, beauty pageants, and more. As if they were the center of the universe, as if God gives a shit about who wins the NCAA Final Four -- and as if the other teams/ players/ contestants weren't praying just as hard.
I'm especially angry that so many believers treat prayer as a cosmic shopping list when it comes to health and illness. I'm angry that this belief leads to the revolting conclusion that God deliberately makes people sick so they’ll pray to him to get better. And I'm angry that they foist this belief on sick and dying children -- in essence teaching them that, if they don't get better, it's their fault. That they didn't pray hard enough, or they didn't pray right, or God just doesn't love them enough.
And I get angry when other believers insist that the cosmic shopping list isn't what religion and prayer are really about; that their own sophisticated theology is the true understanding of God. I get angry when believers insist that the shopping list is a straw man, an outmoded form of religion and prayer that nobody takes seriously, and it's absurd for atheists to criticize it.
I get angry when believers use terrible, grief-soaked tragedies as either opportunities to toot their own horns and talk about how wonderful their God and their religion are... or as opportunities to attack and demonize atheists and secularism.
I'm angry at the Sunday school teacher who told comic artist Craig Thompson that he couldn't draw in heaven. And I'm angry that she said it with the complete conviction of authority... when in fact she had no basis whatsoever for that assertion. How the hell did she know what Heaven was like? How could she possibly know that you could sing in heaven but not draw? And why the hell would you say something that squelching and dismissive to a talented child?
I'm angry that Mother Teresa took her personal suffering and despair at her lost faith in God, and turned it into an obsession that led her to treat suffering as a beautiful gift from Christ to humanity, a beautiful offering from humanity to God, and a necessary part of spiritual salvation. And I'm angry that this obsession apparently led her to offer grotesquely inadequate medical care and pain relief at her hospitals and hospices, in essence taking her personal crisis of faith out on millions of desperately poor and helpless people.
I'm angry at the trustee of the local Presbyterian church who told his teenage daughter that he didn't actually believe in God or religion, but that it was important to keep up his work because without religion there would be no morality in the world.
I'm angry that so many parents and religious leaders terrorize children -- who (a) have brains that are hard-wired to trust adults and believe what they're told, and (b) are very literal-minded -- with vivid, traumatizing stories of eternal burning and torture to ensure that they'll be too frightened to even question religion.
I'm angrier when religious leaders explicitly tell children – and adults, for that matter -- that the very questioning of religion and the existence of hell is a dreadful sin, one that will guarantee them that hell is where they'll end up.
I'm angry that children get taught by religion to hate and fear their bodies and their sexuality. And I'm especially angry that female children get taught by religion to hate and fear their femaleness, and that queer children get taught by religion to hate and fear their queerness.
I'm angry about the Muslim girl in the public school who was told -- by her public-school, taxpayer-paid teacher -- that the red stripes on Christmas candy canes represented Christ's blood, that she had to believe in and be saved by Jesus Christ or she'd be condemned to hell, and that if she didn't, there was no place for her in his classroom. And I'm angry that he told her not to come back to his class when she didn't convert.
I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression.
I'm angry about 9/11.
And I'm angry that Jerry Falwell blamed 9/11 on pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians, the ACLU, and the People For the American Way. I'm angry that the theology of a wrathful God exacting revenge against pagans and abortionists by sending radical Muslims to blow up a building full of secretaries and investment bankers... this was a theology held by a powerful, widely-respected religious leader with millions of followers.
I'm angry that, when my dad had a stroke and went into a nursing home, the staff asked my brother, "Is he a Baptist or a Catholic?" And I'm not just angry on behalf of my atheist dad. I'm angry on behalf of all the Jews, all the Buddhists, all the Muslims, all the neo-Pagans, whose families almost certainly got asked that same question. That question is enormously disrespectful, not just of my dad's atheism, but of everyone at that nursing home who wasn't a Baptist or a Catholic.
I'm angry about Ingrid's grandparents. I'm angry that their fundamentalism was such a huge source of strife and unhappiness in her family, that it alienated them so drastically from their children and grandchildren. I'm angry that they tried to cram it down Ingrid's throat, to the point that she's still traumatized by it. And I'm angry that their religion, which if nothing else should have been a comfort to them in their old age, was instead a source of anguish and despair -- because they knew their children and grandchildren were all going to be burned and tortured forever in Hell, and how could Heaven be Heaven if their children and grandchildren were being eternally burned and tortured in Hell?
I'm angry that Ingrid and I can't get legally married in this country -- or get legally married in another country and have it recognized by this one -- largely because religious leaders oppose it. And I'm angry that both religious and political leaders have discovered that they can score big points exploiting people's fears about sexuality in a changing world, fanning the flames of those fears... and giving people a religious excuse for why their fears are justified.
I'm angry that huge swaths of public policy in this country -- not just on same-sex marriage, but on abortion and stem-cell research and sex education in schools -- are being based, not on evidence of which policies do and don't work and what is and isn't true about the world, but on religious texts written hundreds or thousands of years ago, and on their own personal feelings about how those texts should be interpreted, with no supporting evidence whatsoever -- and no apparent concept of why any evidence should be needed.
I get angry when believers trumpet every good thing that's ever been done in the name of religion as a reason why religion is a force for good... and then, when confronted with the horrible evils done in religion's name, say that those evils weren't done because of religion, were done because of politics of greed or fear or whatever, would have been done anyway even without religion, and shouldn't be counted as religion's fault. (Of course, to be fair, I also get angry when atheists do the opposite: chalk up every evil thing done in the name of religion as a black mark on religion's record, but then insist that the good things were done for other reasons and would have been done anyway, etc. Neither side gets to have it both ways.)
I'm angry at the believers who put decals on their cars with a Faith fish eating a Darwin fish... and who think that's clever, who think that religious faith really should triumph over science and evidence. I'm angry at believers who have so little respect for the physical world their God supposedly created that they feel perfectly content to ignore the mountains of physical evidence piling up around them about that real world; perfectly content to see that world as somehow less real and true than their personal opinions about God.(Note: The litany of specific grievances is now more than halfway over. Analysis of why anger is necessary and valuable is coming up soon. Promise.)
I get angry when religious leaders opportunistically use religion, and people's trust and faith in religion, to steal, cheat, lie, manipulate the political process, take sexual advantage of their followers, and generally behave like the scum of the earth. I get angry when it happens over and over and over again. And I get angry when people see this happening and still say that atheism is bad because, without religion, people would have no basis for morality or ethics, and no reason not to just do whatever they wanted.
I get angry when religious believers make arguments against atheism -- and make accusations against atheists -- without having bothered to talk to any atheists or read any atheist writing. I get angry when they trot out the same old "Atheism is a nihilistic philosophy, with no joy or meaning to life and no basis for morality or ethics"... when if they spent ten minutes in the atheist blogosphere, they would discover countless atheists who experience great joy and meaning in their lives, and are intensely concerned about right and wrong.
I get angry when believers use the phrase "atheist fundamentalist" without apparently knowing what the word "fundamentalist" means. Call people pig-headed, call them stubborn, call them snarky, call them intolerant even. But unless you can point to the text to which these "fundamentalist" atheists literally and strictly adhere without question, then please shut the hell up about us being fundamentalist.
I get angry when religious believers base their entire philosophy of life on what is, at best, a hunch; when they ignore or reject or rationalize any evidence that contradicts that hunch or calls it into question... and then accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.
And I get angry when believers glorify religious faith without evidence as a positive virtue, a character trait that makes people good and noble... and then continue to accuse atheists of being close-minded and ignoring the obvious truth.
I get angry when believers say that they can know the truth -- the greatest truth of all about the nature of the universe, namely the source of all existence -- simply by sitting quietly and listening to their heart... and then accuse atheists of being arrogant. (This isn't just arrogant towards atheists and naturalists, either. It's arrogant towards people of other religions who have sat just as quietly, listened to their hearts with just as much sincerity, and come to completely opposite conclusions about God and the soul and the universe.)
And I get angry when believers say that the entire unimaginable enormity of the universe was made solely and specifically for the human race -- when atheists, by contrast, say that humanity is a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, an infinitesimal eyeblink in the vastness of time and space -- and yet again, believers accuse atheists of being arrogant.
I get angry when believers say things like, "Yes, of course, the human mind isn't perfect, we see what we expect to see, we see faces and patterns and intention when they aren't necessarily there... but that couldn't be happening with me. The patterns I see in my life... they couldn't possibly be coincidence or confirmation bias. I'm definitely seeing the hand of God." (And then, once again, those same believers accuse atheists of being close-minded and only seeing what we want to see.)
I get angry when believers treat the gaps in science and scientific knowledge as somehow proof of the existence of God. I get angry when, despite a thousands-of-years-old pattern of supernatural explanations being consistently and repeatedly replaced with natural ones, they still think every single unexplained phenomenon can be best explained by God. And I'm angry that, whenever a gap in our knowledge does get filled in, believers either try to suppress it (see above re: evolution in the schools), or else say, "Okay, that part of the world isn't supernatural... but what about this gap over here? Can you explain that, Mr. Smarty-Pants Scientist? You can't! It must be God!"
I get angry when believers say at the beginning of an argument that their belief is based on reason and evidence, and at the end of the argument say things like, "It just seems that way to me," or, "I feel it in my heart"... as if that were a clincher. I mean, couldn't they have said that at the beginning of the argument, and not wasted my fucking time? My time is valuable and increasingly limited, and I have better things to do with it than debating with people who pretend to care about evidence and reason but ultimately don't.
I'm angry that I have to know more about their fucking religion than the believers do. I get angry when believers say things about the tenets and texts of their religion that are flatly untrue, and I have to correct them on it.
I get angry when believers treat any criticism of their religion -- i.e., pointing out that their religion is a hypothesis about the world and a philosophy of it, and asking it to stand up on its own in the marketplace of ideas -- as insulting and intolerant. I get angry when believers accuse atheists of being intolerant for saying things like, "I don't agree with you," "I think you're mistaken about that," "That doesn't make any sense," "I think that position is morally indefensible," and "What evidence do you have to support that?"
And on that point: I get angry when Christians in the United States -- members of the single most powerful and influential religious group in the country, in the wealthiest and most powerful country in the world -- act like beleaguered victims, martyrs being thrown to the lions all over again, whenever anyone criticizes them or they don't get their way.
I get angry when believers respond to some or all of these offenses by saying, "Well, that's not the true faith. Hating queers/ rejecting science/ stifling questions and dissent... that's not the true faith. People who do that aren't real (Christians/ Jews/ Muslims/ Hindus/ etc.)." As if they had a fucking pipeline to God. As if they had any reason at all to think that they know for sure what God wants, and that the billions of others who disagree with them just obviously have it wrong. (Besides -- I'm an atheist. The "They just aren't doing religion right" argument is not going to cut it with me. I don't think any of you have it right. To me, it all looks like something that people just made up.)
On that topic: I get angry when religious believers insist that their interpretation of their religion and religious text is the right one, and that fellow believers with an opposite interpretation clearly have it wrong. I get angry when believers insist that the parts about Jesus's prompt return and all prayers being answered are obviously not meant literally... but the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination, that's real. And I get angry when believers insist that the parts about hell and damnation and gay sex being an abomination aren't meant literally, but the parts about caring for the poor are really what God meant. How the hell do they know which parts of the Bible/ Torah/ Koran/ Bhagavad-Gita/ whatever God really meant, and which parts he didn't? And if they don't know, if they're just basing it on their own moral instincts and their own perceptions of the world, then on what basis are they thinking that God and their sacred texts have anything to do with it at all? What right do they have to act as if their opinion is the same as God's and he's totally backing them up on it?
And I get angry when believers act as if these offenses aren't important, because "Not all believers act like that. I don't act like that." As if that fucking matters. This stuff is a major way that religion plays out in our world, and it makes me furious to hear religious believers try to minimize it because it's not how it happens to play out for them. It's like a white person responding to an African-American describing their experience of racism by saying, "But I'm not a racist." If you're not a racist, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and listen to the black people talk? And if you’re not bigoted against atheists and are sympathetic to us, then can you shut the hell up for ten seconds and let us tell you about what the world is like for us, without getting all defensive about how it's not your fault? When did this international conversation about atheism and religious oppression become all about you and your hurt feelings?
But perhaps most of all, I get angry -- sputteringly, inarticulately, pulse-racingly angry -- when believers chide atheists for being so angry. "Why do you have to be so angry all the time?" "All that anger is so off-putting." "If atheism is so great, then why are so many of you so angry?"Which brings me to the other part of this little rant: Why atheist anger is not only valid, but valuable and necessary.
*****
There's actually a simple, straightforward answer to this question:
Because anger is always necessary.
Because anger has driven every major movement for social change in this country, and probably in the world. The labor movement, the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, the modern feminist movement, the gay rights movement, the anti-war movement in the Sixties, the anti-war movement today, you name it... all of them have had, as a major driving force, a tremendous amount of anger. Anger over injustice, anger over mistreatment and brutality, anger over helplessness.
I mean, why the hell else would people bother to mobilize social movements? Social movements are hard. They take time, they take energy, they sometimes take serious risk of life and limb, community and career. Nobody would fucking bother if they weren't furious about something.
So when you tell an atheist (or for that matter, a woman or a queer or a person of color or whatever) not to be so angry, you are, in essence, telling us to disempower ourselves. You're telling us to lay down one of the single most powerful tools we have at our disposal. You're telling us to lay down a tool that no social change movement has ever been able to do without. You're telling us to be polite and diplomatic, when history shows that polite diplomacy in a social change movement works far, far better when it's coupled with passionate anger. In a battle between David and Goliath, you're telling David to put down his slingshot and just... I don't know. Gnaw Goliath on the ankles or something.
I'll acknowledge that anger is a difficult tool in a social movement. A dangerous one even. It can make people act rashly; it can make it harder to think clearly; it can make people treat potential allies as enemies. In the worst-case scenario, it can even lead to violence. Anger is valid, it's valuable, it's necessary... but it can also misfire, and badly.
But unless we're actually endangering or harming somebody, it is not up to believers to tell atheists when we should and should not use this tool. It is not up to believers to tell atheists that we're going too far with the anger and need to calm down. Any more than it's up to white people to say it to black people, or men to say it to women, or straights to say it to queers. When it comes from believers, it's not helpful. It's patronizing. It comes across as another attempt to defang us and shut us up. And it's just going to make us angrier.
And when believers tell passionate, angry atheists that extremism is never right and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle, they're making a big, big mistake. Not just because they're making us want to spit in their eye. They're making a mistake because they're simply mistaken. Read this piece from Daylight Atheism on The Golden Mean. Read the quotes from the abolitionist movement, the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the American Revolution. And then come tell me that the moderate position is usually the right one.
And you know what else? I think we need to have some goddamn perspective about this anger business. I mean, I look at organized Christianity in this country -- not just the religious right, but some more "moderate" churches as well -- interfering with AIDS prevention efforts, trying to get their theology into the public schools, actively trying to prevent me and Ingrid from getting legally married, and pulling all the other shit I talk about in this piece.And I look at atheists sometimes being mean-spirited and snarky in blogs and books and magazines.
And I think, Can we please have some goddamn perspective?
Because the other thing I'm angry about is the fact that, in this piece, I've touched on -- maybe -- a hundredth of everything that angers me about religion. This piece barely scratches the surface. I know, almost without a doubt, that within five minutes of hitting "Post" and putting this piece on my blog, I'll think of six different things that I'd wished I'd put in. I could write an entire book about everything that angers me about religion -- other people certainly have -- and still not be finished.
Are you really looking at all of this shit I'm talking about, a millennia-old history of abuse and injustice, deceit and willful ignorance -- and then on the other hand, looking at a couple of years of atheists being snarky on the Internet -- and seeing the two as somehow equivalent? Or worse, seeing the snarky atheists as the greater problem?If you're doing that, then with all due respect, you can blow me.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at civility.
Addendum: If you're having trouble commenting, seeing your comment, or reading the other comments on this post, please read this. Thanks.
Addendum 2: I've written a reply to the most common themes that are coming up in the comments here. If you're going to comment on this post, you might want to check it out first.
October 15, 2007 in Atheism
http://gretachristina.typepad.com/greta_christinas_weblog/2007/10/atheists-and-an.html#
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Comments
I especially love the quote from one of your links.
I am not the author of the blog, though.
The blog is by Greta Christina.
I also get angry sometimes, and this has me thinking about how I should be using my anger for good, and not just spinning my wheels.
I want to show it to my wife, who is passively Christian. She's the kindest, sweetest person I've ever known, and yet she can't understand how I cannot believe in a god. She's intelligent, but questioning the unquestionable is confusing to her.
But I probably won't, because in her case, it won't lead to anything constructive. We have come to a kind of don't ask, don't tell policy. We live our lives happily together.
But I do want to keep a dialogue open.
Thanks again.
::
If your lost in anger over this religous versus science debate or any of the political garbage we hear each night on TV and believe it is so important and become it .. then honestly you are lost ... very lost and you are no less dangerous then the those that would like to burn scientist at the stake.
We are not what we think .. when will people learn that and start acting human instead of like barbarians beating drums ready to hunt tiger ??
Good Day ...
Many of the things that make the writer so angry are political rather than spiritual, arising from human imperialism and the will to power. The thirst for power that has pushed the Catholic Church into the model of the Roman Empire has little or nothing to do with the teachings of the founder it claims for itself. The brutality of the Protestant Reformation still clings to states which align themselves with its doctrines of hell-fire and damnation. The imperialist ambitions of the early Muslim conquests continues to taint the peaceful parts of the Q'ran. As I have said before, it is an accident of history - and a happy one - that empires that adopted Buddhism never managed to last very long and so did not pervert the peaceable into the warlike.
There is, however, a confusion here, inevitably in the context of modern US hegemony, between the political and the spiritual. The very emphasis that is put on the 'separation' between 'church' and state demonstrates how intertwined they are. It is just like a couple who, though parted and divorced, cannot bring themselves to let go of the out-dated and now despised relationship.
To take one example: the terrorist attack on the WTC in 2001. By claiming it to be an attack based on religion, the poltical powers of the West have managed to distract and blind. The roots of the attack are political and economic, even if the rhetoric has distorted religious concepts to justify it. The West has failed to acknowledge its own guilt in creating the conditions that led to the attack: the stationing of foreign garrisons in Saudi Arabia, the economic stranglehold of OPEC, the complicity with human rights abuses throughout the Middle East and the support of the State of Israel in its ongoing landgrab policy. All these combine to produce, among the poor and disinherited of the Middle East, resentments that had to explode at some point.
Look at the history instead of at the spin. The Allied Powers dismantled the Ottoman Empire and divided it among themselves and their friends, like the House of Saud. Nothing to do with religion and everything to do with power and money.
By creating a false opposition of extremes between dogmatisms, be they theist or atheist, our attention can be diverted from the real problems of hunger, poverty, sickness and oppression. While the brightest among us are arguing over the unprovable, the people of the world are dying: "the hungry sheep look up and are not fed."
* It is not some petty Vatican rule about condoms that is condemning Africans to death from AIDS: it is the refusal of the monopolistic pharmaceutical companies to supply available medication because it ould reduce their profits.
* It is not the madrassas that give people the means to kill the 'outsider', it is the arms manufacturers who have no scruples about who their customers may be.
* The debate about voluntary medical termination of pregnancy does nothing to help the millions, worldwide, who are born unwanted or unloved, or the mothers who must watch their children lose all hope and die in slums.
We are being fooled again, if we allow ourselves to be. Our energies are being diverted into useless debate. We are arguing over who owns the fire-extinguisher while the flames leap higher.
Yes...we should just ignore everything and have "no-thought".
It's all so clear now.
Screw fighting for equality and peace...I'll just sit next to OneSunTemple, and meditate, and laugh at those who give any meaning to anything...because it's all worthless and meaningless.
We'll sigh at the thought of people getting involved with any sort of political or religious movement...oh those silly human beings...why can't they be on a higher level like us?!
Hell, we may just reach enlightenment...we would be lonely and selfish for shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world, but we would be SO FREAKING KNOWLEDGEABLE! I think OneSun may already be there!:om:
Thank you for opening my eyes, OST!!!
"We are not what we think"!
The answer to life is right freaking there!
Just stop thinking! Then we don't have to be anything!
Get over yourself, guy. I might be able to respect you if you had some original way of thinking, but you, yourself, are "what you think". You, yourself, may be lost in an ideology that is meaningless and pointless.
It's too easy to sit back through life pretending you have reached some kind of higher mentality, and just shooing away other peoples causes and ideals...much too easy.
It's also much too easy to believe that you are more enlightened than the rest when the only person you discuss the matter with is yourself.:-/
Would this post apply to anyone who is generally angry about anything? Consider again the abolitionists of the 19th century....
"You know, Mr. Garrison. You're a very passionate man and all, but you are becoming lost in your cause. If your whole life is defined by trying to free a bunch of negroes, then you are truly lost. And might I add that you are no less dangerous than the slave owners themselves."
To be honest, William Lloyd Garrison was a dangerous man. So was Galileo and so was Darwin. And so is Ayann Hirsi Ali. Why? Because all these men and women sought and continue to seek to challenge the status quo. To undermine thousand year old tenets and beliefs. That is a dangerous thing indeed. Should we dismiss them simply because they are angry? Not stately enough in delivering their messages? I think not.
Every great social movement has been inspired by anger. Abolition, Suffrage, Civil Rights, Anti-War....etc. Find me a social movement that has not been inspired by dissatisfaction or anger.
"No mind"...."You're not what you think."....and "You're entering into extinction if you become so involved with your thoughts."
How do any of these vague, meaningless, statements have anything to do with atheism, modern social movements, or anything at all for that matter. If you want to disagree with a post, at least give some solid, relevant reasons why you differ; not just some cryptic message about our thoughts. Like Dennis Prager always says, "Clarity before agreement." I welcome a challenge, but I just want a clear response.
I think the message of the blog as a whole was that Atheists are treated unfairly in America. Is it political? Yes, but thats just the problem. Religion and politics mix much too often. An Atheist would never get voted into the White House. Atheists are the least trusted minority in our country. There are real problems here that need to be dealt with.
Exactly! OST comes off as an extremely selfish person to me. He seems more worried about finding "truth" for himself than saving lives or the freedom of large groups of people...it makes no sense to me.
I just read the book Siddhartha again. The main character in the story comes off the same way to me. He spends his whole life trying to find truth and enlightenment. He forgets that there are people he has developed friendships with, and loved ones, that he just flat-out abandons on his journey.
If it were me, I'd be more happy spending my last days surrounded by loved ones, than sitting with my legs crossed smirking about my "higher intelligence".
OneSunTemple, In the Dhammapada didn't the Buddha say exactly the opposite?
You can't help anyone if you can't understand your own mind.
As I pointed out in another thread redpill your aetheism is more a battle cry then anything else. It helps you hunt or fend off your tigers. You need to grow up. We don'y live in the jungle anymore.
Knight your still wet behind the ears .. that's ok I can understand that .. I was too .. once .. if you think anger is what drives creative .. innovative .. and humanitarian thinking you really have a lot to learn about science and life.
If you have not noticed .. the battles you speak of have been going on for a lonnnnnggggg time. Who are you going to save with your anger ??
Maybe it's time we try a different approach ? Hmmm ?
Cheers ..
So Darwin was angry now and you know that how ??
Darwin was not trying to upset the status quoe. First of all Darwin was a religous person and not an aetheist. He did not attempt to disprove "God" but in his mind to understand "Gods" creation. The very mechanism of evolution was developed by a religous man. Gregor Mendel ? That's the guy you see in text books with the big cross hanging from his neck.
Galileo was also religous ... both Galileo and Darwin were trying to undertsand the world they were NOT out to oppose religion. The great scientist were in fact men of religion.
The battle between religion and science historicly is a battle "amongst" religous people. It's a family sqabble. Young people like yourself knight come into the debate not even knowing your own family.Like the divorced mother that tells her kids over and over "dad is no good" they end up thinking dad is a waste and never give him a thought. Young people in science get the impression religion is old outdated ideas and not worth considering.
They are only getting the message from one side of the family. They don't know their family and neither do you .. you don't know the full story.
Cheers ..
When we attach to our thoughts we are the thoughts.
.. and so the mind the mind filled and attached to anger is what ?? The mind that will help the world ????
Cheers ..
Battle cry? Let me guess...militant atheists? What course of action should people take when they are surrounded by people who not only believe in an invisible magic man, but who want to undermine science in the name of this invisible, magic man?
And what about oppressed people in general? People like Garrison should have just grown up? "Don't change the world for the better. Be civilized. This isn't a jungle. Just grow up. Your anger won't free a single slave!"
I don't doubt I have some things to learn. But I do know that wherever there is a social struggle whether it is emancipation, suffrage, or civil rights, there is always an element of dissatisfaction that drives it. There has to be. Otherwise, people would have no reason to continue the struggle. Are you telling me that blacks slaves who ran away weren't a little angry about their horrible living conditions?
I guess you're right. Why bother doing anything? Don't change the world for the better because there will always be problems. Justice is overrated. It's far better for the world if I just chastise humanitarians and talk in riddles.
The "battles" over slavery are over...at least in the states. The "battle" for women's suffrage is over. Yes, through anger, lives have been saved and made better. I ask again...what social movement has not had anger and dissatisfaction as its inspiration? The desire for justice, and man's ability to never give up are not something to be sneered at.
Like?
I'm sorry. I should have made a clear distinction about Darwin. I meant to convey that just because someone (not necessarily the names I listed) are angry about some injustice in society, does not mean that they are misguided or "barbaric." I have never believed that Darwin was in any way angry about the debate he inspired.
What I meant was that what made those (referring now to Darwin and the rest) pioneers dangerous was that they all challenged long held beliefs. I never meant that they were all angry. (I'm sure Galileo was when was put under house arrest though) It is almost always inherrant with people who challenge the norm, that someone will find them as dangerous. Garrison was dangerous to slavery. Ayann Hirsi Ali is dangerous to fundamentalists. Darwin was dangerous (and continues to be so) to proponents of creationism.
Angry?
Quite possibly. I think Harriet Beecher Stowe's did.
I understand the anger but also know it is of no use. I am not going to bullshit and say I am free of anger but when it arises in me I try not to entertain it and never expect good from it. Anger is very seductive .. kinda gives you a feeling of power but it is delusive it is not as useful as it seems it is more addictive and toxic.
Don't confuse a deep compassion for anger ? A slave that battles for his freedom out of compassion for himself and others in slavery is NOT the same as the slave that rebels in anger. Be careful with justice it is easy to confuse with revenge. Two different things.
Since you are a logical kinda guy knight I leave you with an equation :
( 1 ) Love + Wisdom = Compassion
If you love the world and want to help it find the wisdom that will allow you to act with compassion no matter what the circumstance. The wisdom is to be found along your lifes path.
Cheers ...
Well .. yes .. but that's the way they see it and "anger" .. "fear" ... make it hard to see anything else.
Although Darwin could be considered a Saint and be an asset to the fundamentalist religions. Why ? He found the flaws in the scripture .. he could of been the source of new hope to a religion that was rendered almost useless by fundamentalism.
What would of happened if people rethought their religion in light of Darwins and other insights by scientis ? If people did not find a need to choose sides but stayed open to the new insights ? A more useful religion may have arised or the refinding of an old one lost by fundamentalism.
It is the anger .. ignorance and fear that close the minds of religous to darwins ideas. The Dalai lama himself does not refute evolution but the christian fundamentalist must do so ??
It is also anger that can close the minds of those in science or other fields. We can not afford to be angry.
****
On an aside .. Darwin ofcourse is dead. So he does not threaten anyone. His idea of evolution is over 200 years old .. and has changed with new research and insights. So Darwin and his ideas to a significant degree are gone .. we may give him credit along with Wallace but times have changed.
In other words .. what many fundamentalist say they oppose does not even exist. Just to emphasize how easy it is for ignorance to creep in.
Cheers ...
Is there really a difference? Slavery is wrong no matter what. Whether the slave is an enlightened, political idealist, or or just hates his master, it doesn't even matter in the end what the motives are.
Where the current debate about atheism worries me is nothing to do with what opinions anyone holds about the "ineffable" but that the loudest atheist voices are also "hawkish". The view that all religion is the enemy does nothing to defuse the current 'Chistendom/Islam' preparations for war.
Personally, I don't give much of a damn what the worker next to me believes or doesn't believe so long as they keep it to themselves unless I ask. What interests me is what they do, how they go about leaving the world and their fellows better than they found them. If a belief in God is genuinely an obstacle to service to others, it is time it passed away like belief in Jupiter or Wotan. If, however, some still find such a belief empowers their service, as I know many do, we should be very wary of making enemies of those who are our fellow labourers in the vineyard.
It makes a world of difference. Never heard of the slaves becoming the slave drivers ? One does not want to become that which they fight against. Motives always make a difference.
Cheers ...
Sure .. when I was a kid the religious people felt threatened by science and aetheism so they called a truce with one another and pooled their resources against the "science" world. Now they enjoy a bit of breathing room and they are plotting against each other .. it never ends...
.. but when you reaaly know the wonder of it all there is no need to fight over anything. When your path brings you to another human that needs help .. you simply help.
Cheers ...
A different approach? YOUR approach? Sit back and do nothing because it is all pointless?
It's hilarious how you keep projecting your beliefs on Atheism onto me.
You "think" you understand Atheism, but you don't.
I am trying to understand the world, life, and why we are here. I believe that religion is a wall blocking man from discovering these things.
You have some sick delusion in your head when it comes to Atheism. A battle cry? Tigers? Wake the hell up man.
The "battles" I speak of have NOT been going on for a very long time. We have just recently got to the point where an Atheist can state his beliefs and not be cast out of his/her society or killed for heresy...kind of. Many Atheists are still abandoned by their families when they admit to not believing what their families do.
OneSunTemple, you are just an egotistical ass. Get off your "high horse of knowledge" and come back to reality. Because what you think is knowledge, I call hiding from the world by pretending to understand it better than anyone. Oh, you used to be silly like us, but NOW you are so educated and enlightened... what a joke.
I am dealing with the here and now. You can sit under a Bodhi Tree and pretend to be better than everyone else, but don't expect everyone else to agree with you...especially when you bring no alternative to any debate...just a few quick-witted comments about how nobody gets it but you.
.. and stop crying like a baby.
Cheers ...
I've tried different ones...I prefer reality.
Cheers...
@ OneSunTemple,
I will outline what I have said so far in this thread and where I stand on the issues raised. I will make it into in a list form. You then, can feel free to counter any of my points that way we aren't responding to multiple posts anymore.
-First off, I agree with the main message of the OP blog. Atheists have many valid grievances against religion and its effects on science, education, foreign policy, and the 3rd world.
-I believe atheists (and anyone else for that matter) have a right to be angry about these things.
-I believe anger is a legitimate and necessary tool if you are in the business of social reform or revolution.
-I believe that [organized] religion is a roadblock to advancement in the sciences and its faith-based elements are a hindrance to intellectual growth and inquiry in young people particularly.
-I believe that anger is an equally valid emotion to love and as long as it is kept in check, it can be a very useful tool in confronting grave injustices.
-I believe that people faced with grave injustices should speak openly and boldly against them. They should not try and be nice. Here's a quote to better explain what I mean...
*This Garrison fellow is fast becoming a hero of mine. I was disappointed when I couldn't find his collection of articles in the store today.
Ok ..
-First off, I agree with the main message of the OP blog. Atheists have many valid grievances against religion and its effects on science, education, foreign policy, and the 3rd world.
So what do you want a financial settlement ??
-I believe atheists (and anyone else for that matter) have a right to be angry about these things.
Sure .. I can understand the anger .. I have a science degree in biological science .. I have been very angry over these issues. My blood has boiled !
When I was ten years old .. I was the odd one out in school. Most kids were jewish or catholics .. even then as a ten year old I was interested in science and did not believe the old man in the sky nonsense. That was 1974 .. religous people were nuts then .. their sheep today by comparision and red pill is crying like a baby about how hard it is to be aethiest today. Give me a break.
People had their heads busted back then for wearing their hair to long never mind talking about darwinism or being an aetheist.
Nevertheless the best thing to do with anger is let it pass ..
-I believe anger is a legitimate and necessary tool if you are in the business of social reform or revolution.
I completely disagree. Anger is delusional. Whatever you think anger is giving you that helps in the "business" of social reform or revolution you would be much better off with deep compassion for fellow human beings as your motivation.
If by revolution you mean "War" and killing of other humans .. even then a deep clear compassion for fellow humans is better then anger. The compassionate heart must be the warrior because only then can you be assured that you yourself will not become the oppressor. Are you looking to start wars now ?
Anger is a great tool though if you are a hit man in the mob. Are you making a mob knight ? What industry are you going to work for .. they don't like anger these days in the work place.
-I believe that [organized] religion is a roadblock to advancement in the sciences and its faith-based elements are a hindrance to intellectual growth and inquiry in young people particularly.
Well that is your opinion. I also shared such an opinion before I entered into the world of the university and started to study science. To make a long story short .. not only did I study science .. chemitry .. evolution .. psychology ect. I stumbled upon a new understanding of "religion" and what it has and does not have to offer.
Religion is not outdated ideas we had before science. Science grew out of religous thinking and inquiry into the world. The late Joseph Cambell did a great job articulating what religion is really about.
****
It is our attachment to our own thinking that causes the trouble not religion or science. When we oppress .. mame .. or kill over the ideas we think are so noble and so true that is the problem. We worship the minds activity and fight and kill over it because we think it is so real. We forget how to be human. This is what is oppressing people all over the planet .. not religion .. not science.
The "wall" is in your mind.
-I believe that anger is an equally valid emotion to love and as long as it is kept in check, it can be a very useful tool in confronting grave injustices.
As I said I have no use for it. I care about the world. I help where I can as I move along my lifes path. Action is more important then rhetoric. Anger grows .. and it gets passed from one to another like the flu .. and it festers as hate. It is delusional.
Managing anger is like managing a metaphetamine addiction. Don't waste your time.
-I believe that people faced with grave injustices should speak openly and boldly against them. They should not try and be nice. Here's a quote to better explain what I mean...
No .. ofcourse not .. being nice is such an outdated idea. Lets just kill each other ?? Is this the same knight that said he was a pacifist ?
Between humane men and tyrants there is much room for compassion.
In my life Knight ..I have found most people are working hard to understand. I work with people every day that cling to religion and don't really have the education to understand modern science and evolution. I hear all the anti Darwin comments frequently.
Are they tyrants ? Should they be given no quarter ? I thought you were a pacifist knight ?? Now you speak of and entertain revolution ?
It's your turn now to go out in the world. Are you going to show no quarter ? Is that really the way ? Do you seek revenge ? What is it you really want to see happen ? Don't lose your humanity along the way .. knight.
Don't get crazy like redpill:rockon :rockon: he is getting so angry he wants to punch me in the nose
Cheers ...
You may be surprised to learn that your arguments and discourtesy between theists, non-theists and atheists are viewed as marginal over here. Admittedly we have Professor Dawkins and Joel Edwards who shout at each other about God but, for most people, it is a non-issue. What worries us is that the USA appears to be going the way of the fundamentalist Islamic states, but Christian after a fashion.
If it is true, as you state, that no politician could lead your country if they declared their unbeleif, how is this any different from Iran or Pakistan?
And, far more important for world peace and general security, how do you move back from this increasing fundamentalism? I can't honestly see how getting angry with each other and chewing over ancient wrongs will bring about a way of living comfortably together.
Of course, you may not understand how concerned we, as Europeans, feel about the religious and anti-religious violent speech that underpins almost all political rhetoric coming out of the USA. We worry that three nuclear powers, Pakistan, Israel and the USA, appear to be making their own peculiar interpretation of their god-of-choice a truth that all other countries must accept and follow.
Is it not time for the US to realise that only a multi-cultural world in which we respect our neighbours' beliefs and customs will bring about the peace within which we can begin to address the real problems of a world where people die of hunger, thirst and disease, and where resources are becoming scarcer as climate alters?
There you go projecting your own thoughts on to me again.
Yes, sure, I am just foaming at the mouth in anger, lol...whatever helps you sleep at night.
And now I guess I am wanting to get physical, as well....wow...you are very mature...and psychic too, huh?
I don;t know why I even bother talking to you. Your arrogance is sickening. You've been through the hardest times, us youngins know nothing....you are all-knowing...pffff.
Again...get over yourself.
Simon, that is what the problem is...how are we any different from Iran or Pakistan? We hear everyday on the good ol news how terrible these other countries around the world are for teaching hate to their children and mixing religion with politics, yet we are doing the same here.
Hello Simon ..
The difference is in Iran you get taken away if you declare your "unbelief" that is not the case in the US.
I highly doubt "fundementalism" is increasing in the United States despite the fact that we have a religous nut for a president. There is nothing that says one can not run for president and declare "un belief" and succeed ... except a few posters here that want to cry the blues.
The US does indeed recognize the importance of a multi cultural world .. that is why we have so many religions here in this country as well as a scientific community of which the two are not completely discrete entitities.
What you here coming out of the US is the clammer of democracy .. yeah .. we debate religion .. science ect. thats good not bad. It's the countries you don't hear debate you have to worry about.
As far as world peace goes it's "oil" not religion thats making the trouble.
It's also the fact that people with strong convictions have equally strong attachments to their ideas and can not seperate their ideas from who they are .. so diversity is seen as a threat to their existence .. despite our free country someone always has to tell someone else what to do .. but thats not a US problem .. is it ??
Cheers ...
It is highly unlikely that a person could be elected president anytime in the near future without being a Christian. You can't possibly disagree with that. People just will not vote for them. Recent polls say that Atheists are the least rusted minority in the US. And yes, there are written laws in some states stating that an Atheist cannot run for any state office, unless it has been recently changed.
That being said, I believe that there have been Atheist presidents in the past who only pretended to be Christian in order to win the popular vote.
In fact, our first 4 Presidents: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison all said some pretty harsh words against religion and Christianity. In fact, none of the first seven Presidents ever claimed to be Christians.
Many of the authors of the Declaration of Independence were Atheists.
Some of the biggest Christian movements were in the early to mid 1900's.
For instance:
-Adding "under God" to the pledge of allegiance.
-Adding "in God we Trust" to the American dollar and coin.
The founding fathers would fight things like this till their last breathe. Yet, for some odd reason, it is nearly impossible for an Atheist to get elected today.
Great chatting with you.
You ..in the bible belt ? Wow .. that is tuff.
Still I see the source of anger being misunderstanding of the world around us .. if I see people suffering I hope to help by being compassionate which could involve a range of actions. If I can't help because I do not understand .. I get angry.
Look at it this way ... if ones computer goes on the blitz and you don't understand how to fix it .. you may get frustrated and then angry .. you may even grow in time to "hate" the darn thing !! Ofcourse .. we both know .. the way to solve the problem is to learn about computers. Replace ignorance with knowledge.
In that sense the bible belt could provide a great oppourtunity in your case. If you could understand those that make you angry .. your anger will be replaced by wisdom.
With that wisdom .. you could not only help those oppressed by religion but the oppressors as well .. Just a thought to ponder.
Cheers ...
Know I understood ... and your right wars do often accompany them. It is not "bad"people that start wars. Good people with noble intentions can start wars and we ALL have noble intentions.
I agree completely .. how silly !! Still it is just an idea .. a thought .. and many of our state of the art scientific ideas could be just as silly .. in a hundred years or even tomorrow.
To be a "free thinker" one must know that ideas are whimsical .. they should not be considered "truths". Some of the biggest stumbling blocks in science have been caused by "what was known" not what we did not know. Our confidence or attachment to our thinking hampered us from readily seeing other solutions.
So .. I say .. their is no truth. What truth ? Just passing thoughts like a passing wind. A scientist works with this wind or thoughts like a potter works clay. Shaping and reshaping .. throwing out .. and starting over .. going back .. going forward... knowing all along what he thinks up today will be re thought tomorrow.
It is a shame you must carry a knife. I can understand that ... be careful though .. " a man's trade is known by his tools".
Cheers ...
Do you imagine Atheists gathered around in little meetings nation-wide, foaming at the mouth, plotting a vicious rebellion? It seems that way.
Anger is a human emotion. It happens to everyone. I just don't understand why you think you can sit back and judge others, stating when they should and should not be angry.
You are one single person with one view of the world.
Maybe it would better you to try to understand why Atheists are angry about the facts in that blog, instead of just dismissing it and telling yourself that Atheists are whiny, angry people who will never go through the things you did back in "1974".
I consider myself to be very much a pacifist. Most Atheists I know are. I post a blog about Atheists being upset about certain things, and you dismiss it as no big deal. I know many Atheists that were around back in 1974, and are also upset about modern issues. So, please stop acting as though you have been through the rough of it and anybody complaining today is just a "baby". It is disrespectful and completely based on opinion.
I'm glad that you found Buddhism and that it works for you, but you won't find many Atheists that aren't sick and tired of "trying to understand" Christians. Many Atheists used to be Christians. We understand it completely, and it's because we do that we find ourselves becoming angry at points. I understand that as a Buddhist, you look at things from a Buddhist perspective. That doesn't make you correct. That just makes you a Buddhist.
You talk a lot about trying to understand others. I think that you do not understand Atheists very well. Maybe you were an angry Atheist when you found Buddhism so you project anger on to all other Atheists? Maybe not...I don't know. I do know that the Atheists I know are some of the most intelligent, peaceful people that I have ever met. Nobody is talking about war, here. The topic is change. And sometimes anger is helpful in making changes.
To tell you the truth the thought never entered my mind.
Redpill ...
I am not suggesting we understand Christians or Aetheist .. I am talking about understanding human nature which is common to us all and knows no label.
I am not a buddhist .. nor a scientist .. I am a human being. I don't have to identify myself with my thoughts nor see others as their thoughts. I only hope to see human beings.
The Christians used to be thrown to the Lions and you think you are having a bad day ??
The "kick the cat" syndrome is part of the human condition. So now your cat is being kicked ? In 50 years maybe you will be the one kicking the Christians. Anger plays a big role in this syndrome. It arises from misunderstanding it is not part of the solution.
The goal is not to win .. the goal is to understand.
Cheers ....
I think you are very confused about my intentions. I do not judge anyone. I have already stated many times that anger is a human experience.
I am though suggesting there is an alternative way to expeience anger and other human emotions and even thought itself. The reason to entertain the plausability of such an experience is the possibility of a more human life on this planet. To be "free thinkers" and not haunted and trapped by our past thoughts.
I don't understand .. Does anger bring you joy ? I do not know of any business organization anywhere that promotes the fostering of anger in the work place ? Apparently it is not very useful in getting the job done. Any job.
What organizations are going into the world today in a peaceful manner to promote change .. help others in need .. to help the oppressed and have an anger promotion policy.
Is anger the policy in your work place ?
Every work place I know has a policy to prevent anger ... anger IS NOT Compassion. Either one can motivate one into action.
An angry aetheist .. an angry scientist .. an angry religous person an angry human being all have one thing in common ... their eyes are starting to shut .. they are becoming blind to the suffereing of the world.
Cheers ...
It is better for you to understand that this unacceptance of "aetheism" is not a personal attack against you .. it is a battle that has been raging for a long time .. and now that you are here in this world you can jump in with the whirlwind of cats and dogs and play the bandwagon or you can jump out of it all and begin to forge a new understanding.
Don't perpetuate the problem be the solution.
Cheers ..
Wow. Christians have done far more damage and inflicted much more pain and suffering than they have received. It's not even close by comparison. You seem to know your history well, though, so you probably knew that.
That is a Buddhist statement...therefore, you are a Buddhist. You study Buddhism. You can avoid the label all you want, but you are still a Buddhist. Saying you don't want the label changes nothing. Everyone else still calls you a Buddhist, and deep down you know that you are a Buddhist.
Why even classify yourself as a human being? Why not just a "being" to avoid the whole human label?
Are scientists wrong for classifying all the creatures on this planet into groups and species? Should we just look at everything as "Animals"? That would be 10 steps backwards in modern education. We classify things for a reason - to understand them.
Just as your dog cannot tell whether you are a lawyer or a trash collector. it gives a damn. all it knows is that you feed it, take it out for walks and keep it company.
Whatever term we use to describe things, it's just a term we use for clarification, but it neither adds to our understanding nor deepens our knowledge.
So a Buddhist may be a Buddhist to themselves and to others, but this too, is just a classification, a label describing a function. It's 'what' you do, but it's not 'who' you 'are'.
Many of us here have dipped our toes into the chilly waters of a 'Buddhist' discussion board that likes to call itself "E-sangha" (http://www.lioncity.net/buddhism/) and have recoiled at the vituperative and divisive nature of many of the posts. There is a tone of judgment and criticism that will not accept a moderate or eclectic approach. One is reminded, far too strongly, of the 'Christian' sites where honest and respectful debate is castigated and posters 'excommunicated' for holding heterodox views.
Led by a link, I have spent some time at yet anothet 'Buddhist' site, BuddhaChat (http://www.buddhachat.org/forum/) and have been dismayed to find that a similar critical stance is taken, particularly by some whose 'Buddhism' is of a reductionist and even nihilistic kind. Personal attacks seem permitted, even encouraged, from some of the members of long standing.
Asking myself why I return to such an antipathetic site, I realise that it is to remind myself that simply hearing or studying the Dharma is not enough. We have to put into practice the lessons of the Noble Truths, Neither Buddhism nor Christianity, humanism nor theism can guarantee compassion - it has to be worked at.
It saddens me that sincere seekers may stumble across such sites and be repelled by the level of invective and dogmatism masquerading as Buddhism, just as I find the ranting, reductionist cant of many 'atheist' sites obscures the genuine goodness of many who are unable to give credence to a Yahvistic deity. Bulletin boards on the Net, to which I have been a contributor for so many years, can be powers for good (well done, Brian and team!) but also deeply unpleasant places.
Whilst I would, understandably, be the very first to admit that occasionally we have had the odd member who has (either in the short- or long-term) caused some disruption to a greater or lesser degree, I think I can honestly say that hostility and animosity has not played a part in their ultimate departure. Every member who has made a contribution has been permitted to do so with respect and dignity, and they have been given ample chance to conform and comply with Forum 'Rules and Reg's'. These entail treating all other contributors with politeness, decency, respect and dignity. These are not Buddhist pre-requisites, they are social interactive qualities one would hope are present in every Being.
Banning members (especially those who have enjoyed a lengthy relationship with the other members on the forum) is a dreadful thing to be constrained to do, and it's often not easy making that decision. Fortunately, it's also rare.
'Offenders' are contacted on more than one occasion, to discuss the reasons for disquiet and unrest, if matters require this, and they are never banned without good reason.
Spammers and blatant advertising is of course, another matter, but these contributors are mercifully rare, and even if one does slip through Brian's 'Buddha-net' (!) Other Mod's are on hand to help deal with matters appropriately.
With so much hatred, discord, disharmony, suffering and unhappiness so prevalent in the world today, I think it is up to us, here, to remind ourselves that Peace is every Step, that our Religion is Kindness, and that the only way to effectively combat Hatred, is with Love.
We owe it to ourselves - and everyone else - to resolve to lead by Example.
Even if it takes several lifetimes.
Hello Redpill ...
As a biologist with interest in taxonamy I am quite in the habit of namimg of things. I have never said it was wrong. What people fail to understand is that the naming of things is a matter of convention NOT a reality. Weather you view the world as a buddhist or a scientist you must come to undertsand convention is not reality.
Even today biologist can not agree on what a species is .. to say something is an elephant is misleading. Are all "elephants" the same ?? It is a useful convention since when we see an animal we can say "elephant" but confusing because a closer look unveils no single entitity that is an elephant. This now I say as a biologist NOT a buddhist.
Taxonamist constantly change and regroup the names of animals and plants and other organisms. They understadnd the use of convention but are not fixed in the namimg of things.
What is a planet ? There use to be nine orbiting the sun .. now we hear eight. In fact closer study demonstrates that there could be 8 , 9 or several hundreds. It is a matter of convention not reality. Did the solar system reaarange itself ? .. or did we change our conventions.
What is gravity ? Have you seen "Beyond The Big Bang" ? Gravity has changed completely from Newtons view to Einstien and could change even more. Maybe a view with no gravity at all.
Do not get stuck in conventions .. you are not the label .. use the label to a compassionate end but do not "worship"the label.
Be Well.
Cheers ..
If you are in a room of aetheist and christians .. conservatives and liberals ... pro choice pro life ... on and on THE BEST WAY TO HELP IS TO ADOPT THE HUMAN BEING LABEL and help where you can help.
Cheers ..
There are good and bad people in every group across the Earth. You can have somebody who studies Buddhism their entire life and then acts completely against it. I think religion is just peoples way of putting meaning to life. We are all still human, though. Each religion has it's many great attributes and it's unique problems.
I, personally, don't believe that any religion has the answers to life. It is all assumptions.
Sure, once you get taken over by a religion, you feel you have all the answers, but to people who have different beliefs, you are further from the truth than one who admits he knows nothing.
I've never met Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, or anybody like that. We can't even prove their existence, much less that their views on life are correct. Again, they only work for those who accept it as being "truth".
I'm sorry, but life doesn't work that way. SO easy to say, but impossible to achieve. You want everyone to just toss their ideals and values out the window and say "You know what? We are all human beings!"
How would that work with politics? With Atheists and Christians? With Pro Choice/ Pro Life? That's just silly. Sounds very peaceful and easy, but it just can't happen.
"Lets see...you guys want abortions...and you guys don't...well, lets just stop debating it...we're all human beings!" (And it just disappears?)
"This group wants to teach the Bible as fact in schools nation-wide, and this group doesn't want it taught to their children...well, screw it, we're all human beings!" (And the whole issue becomes non-existent?)
I'm not seeing an answer here at all. All of your responses are these cute little bumper-sticker statements that really solve nothing at all.
You are like the guy that stands on the sidelines while two countries go to war holding your sign that says "Can't we just have Peace?".
It is unbelievably easy to make these little statements. The hard part is when reality kicks in and real solutions are needed.
"I was just stabbed with a knife":hair:
Yes...but is there really a knife? Do not worship the "Stabbed" label.:scratch:
Do you see what I am trying to say?
Redpill ...
You contradict yourself.
On the one hand you say each religion has it's many great attributes and on the other hand you say religion does not have the answers and is all assumptions. Which one is it ??
Lets face it you have an allergic reaction to anything that even remotely sounds religous and maybe anything that does not sound like logic and empiracal science.
Cheers ...
No .. I never have been the guy holding up peace signs. I was always in the battle.
When I come upon a man starving and in pain with his family in shatters .. I inspire or I practice to be the guy that offers food and help .. even if the guys is a pro life christian warrior that despises scientific types ( like myself ) and wants to hang my forum commrade Redpilladdict.
Do you understand what I am saying ?
It is very easy to make such statements .. action is MUCH harder. So I open my mind and do not worship my thoughts. I avoid knee jerk reactions to my thinking and emotions. I will not be a slave to my own mind. In hopes I can do the most human thing when the situation arises. I understand science .. and find parts of buddhism insightful .. but most of all learn from my own life.
Yeah .. I understand what you are saying. Can you not learn to see anything else ? The issues have been around a long time and will be around long after you and I are gone.
The issues are not important. The people are important.
Do we burn our adversaries in an oven ?? Like in Germany in WW ll ? These kinds of things do not happen overnight .. they happen when people follow thoughts they are certain are of a real and just nature.
Yes we fought the war and confronted the situation .. we had to take life. We had no choice. Why did it ever happen ??
It happened because someone germany convinced someone else that the "issues" or "ideas" in their collective minds were more important then human life.
Cheers ....
I don't think any system of thought has all pr is capable of providing all the answers. As I tied to say several times I was educated and in essence am a scientist type. I also find many concepts in buddhism very "high tech" and insightfull. There is a lot to learn from buddhism and it meshes well with modern science.
As far as christianity goes .. if someone was to dust off all the baloney that fundamentalist and organized religion havemade up to control people .. then I am sure christiananity would be very insightful.
Cheers ..
"Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't - you're right." Henry Ford.
The only people stopping Good Intention, and Peaceful solutions from happening, are the cynics who desire to maintain instability in order to simply be able to turn and say, "ya see? I wuz right!" But they do nothing, they contribute nothing to the Right Effort of making the Right Intention blossom....
No, the hard part is putting your money where your mouth is and Walking the Talk.
There are countless thousands of unsung 'heroes' in this world doing whatever they can to make a difference, and change the consciousness of the World in general. Not only those who are openly devoted to Change, but people who work with the poor, the sick, the outcasts and the diseased, to make the world a nicer place to live in for those affected.
*And please let me caution you:
Do not make crass statements about what we say and accuse us of 'bumper sticker' mentality. You have no idea what we all do, behind these posts, in our day-to-day lives, to actively behave in the manner in which we speak. To accuse us of empty words and inactivity is to insult the very purpose of what we do within our lives.
Try it for yourself, and see the results.
Act crabbily and dismissively all day to everyone you meet. See the result at the end of the day.
Act kindly and charitably, with Compassion towards everyone you meet. See the result at the end of the day.
Which day did you prefer?
Now do it every day. And you will see the subtle change in attitudes of others. And in yourself.
You will please conduct yourself with dignity, respect and politeness on this board.*
You're rather conveniently missing the point, aren't you?
There are different levels of consciousness here, different aspects of awareness.
Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form." Do you understand this teaching? Are you deeply aware of what it is telling you?
Until you can absorb this teaching and understand it, statements like the one above would seem to illustrate that you haven't grasped the concept of the illusion of the knife, together with the compassion required to understand and forgive your attacker.... Buddhism is not simply and purely concerned with whether the knife is real or not. The complexity of Buddhist teachings require first and foremost that we train our own Mind to View things openly and to see things as they really are.
So we're back to point One:
The Mind.
Yes, believe it or not, I think we do. But I think perhaps I would respectively ask you to stand back and see what it is WE are trying to say - and accept that your viewpoint is built on shifting sands.... and that maybe we all need to constantly review our own positions more than we think. You included.