Chris, more: I don't care if people want to believe in something ineffable they call God, which I see you do, but I do care if they make very concrete claims based on that belief, and build power-constructs and wage wars and wrap themselves in an impervious cloak of dangerous unreason based on what they claim are instructions from that ineffable entity. None of this is irrelevant.
<<<The ultimate egoism of the human race is trying to judge God by human standards.>>>
The problem is that, being human, those are the only ones we have. However, I don't judge God at all. I judge claims made in His behalf. If they are risible, for example, I feel free to laugh. If they are monstrous, I feel free to be repelled. And I do observe with interest the actions of those who claim that their lives are informed by their belief in God.
In Africa, I saw medical missionaries doing what they called God's work in the most, you should pardon the ironical expression, God-forsaken places on earth. Didn't see any atheist medical doctors spending their lives, decade after decade of them, out there in the Kalahari Desert running TB clinics. So I see that their belief brought them the strength to do good work that's very hard, and I admire them for their strength and their work. It doesn't tell me God is real, of course.
But if there were not so few such shining examples of the transformative power of religious belief, and so very many Chris Lands and Emile Vidrines and ann angels, I might be moved to call myself an agnostic, at least, instead of an atheist. As it is, I shudder, and am move to keep my philosophical distance. |
