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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: nihil who wrote (42824)6/30/1999 4:54:00 PM
From: jbe  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
Nihil, I agree that one should never say ever...

But I still think it unlikely that America will become officially "atheist" in the foreseeable future. (How's that for a compromise phrase?)

The mainline Christian churches may indeed fragment, and more atheists may be willing to proclaim their disbelief openly. But that does not mean that the belief in God (some God, any God)will disappear, or that religious groups of one sort or another will not continue to proliferate. I think the religious impulse in many, perhaps most human beings is innate (perhaps we need it, like Art, in order to survive). And most of us would find living in a completely desacralized universe fairly grim.

Furthermore, someone who "doesn't know and doesn't care" is not an atheist; he is an "indifferentist." An atheist is someone who says he knows there is no God. Call it a very strong faith in the non-existence of God or the divine in any shape or form. And most people will be just as skeptical about that faith as about any other.

So.

Joan
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