Its even more of a shame that others want to impose sameness.
And that is why the Bush Presidency and his choice of cabinet members scare me.
I wanted to read "Confessions of a Lonely Atheist" by Natalie Angier in yesterday's NYTimes Sunday magazine b4 I responded to your post. I thought it might be pertinent. I'm not sure that it is, but I enjoyed the article anyway. (Smile)
I've never felt a need for a religious alien in my life. God exists only in conversations with my mother and other relatives. They all attend different churches so perhaps that is why they don't discuss religion very often. They don't want to end up in a fight. (g)
The quote in the atheist article that was most relevant to my life was by Richard Dawkins
"Society bends over backward to be accommodating to religious
sensibilities but not to other kinds of sensibilities," says Richard Dawkins,
an evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist. "If I say something
offensive to religious people, I'll be universally censured, including by
many atheists. But if I say something insulting about Democrats or
Republicans or the Green Party, one is allowed to get away with that.
Hiding behind the smoke screen of untouchability is something religions
have been allowed to get away with for too long."
and
"Over the centuries, we've moved on from Scripture to accumulate
precepts of ethical, legal and moral philosophy," Dawkins says. "We've
evolved a liberal consensus of what we regard as underpinnings of decent
society, such as the idea that we don't approve of slavery or discrimination
on the grounds of race or sex, that we respect free speech and the rights of the individual.
All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today
owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion."
That's not to say religion has no potential to do good, or to inspire
brilliant thought, art, music, indeed many of the jewels of civilization: the
Song of Solomon, Handel's "Messiah," the Hagia Sophia. Perhaps Mary
McCarthy was right in her lovely claim that "religion is good for good
people." What remains open to question is whether religion makes
anybody good or great who would otherwise be malicious or mediocre."
< All of these things that have become second nature to our morals today
owe very little to religion, and mostly have been won in opposition to the teeth of religion.">
I agree with the above. Had we gone with "sameness" we would never be where we are today.
Dawkins also says that...." if I say something insulting about Democrats or
Republicans or the Green Party, one is allowed to get away with that."
In society, I believe the above is true, but on SI, I am not so sure. Just some thoughts, ramblings, I know.
I suppose the point I wanted to make but have had trouble doing so is that religion has been irrelevant in my life because I live so far away from family who might have stressed it. Instead of religion, I realize that
the people who surround me are interested in other ideas.. For instance, when I looked at
the last chapter in Unweaving the Rainbow, by Dawkins, which is called
The Balloon of The Mind you enter a world that is dominated computers and the brain
There is no place for religion in this analysis of life.
So, I wonder how will we survive a Bush Presidency that supports a right-wing Christian
platform.
Thank you for your patience.
Cheers,
Mephisto |
