The Enlightenment is over,
and atheism has lost its moral cutting edge
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3933-1847654,00.html
This writer's essay is another illustration of the huge gulf between us and the British. It is way more than just the 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. I never knew atheism had a moral cutting edge to begin with.
Most of the SBC pastors rail against the immorality of atheists. Being a Christian in Britain does not mean the same thing it does here. Over there, they are a beleaguered minority. Over here they are running the government. And the Dark Age has already begun. I would submit it began when Reagan was elected.
I think there is a "God part of the brain" as one author on Art Bell described it once. This does not mean we will all believe that Jesus is Lord, but it does mean that the default position of the human brain and mind is that of a search for meaning and relevance and a "power greater than ourselves" as AA calls it.
Therefore, to be an atheist is to rebel against one's own nature, even if we cannot prove who, if anyone or thing, created us.
Seen in this perspective, one has to hand it to the atheists for their stubbornness and tenacity, what my next-door-neighbor trial lawyer called "stick-to-it-tiveness." I thought that of Madalyn Murray O'Hair. You had to admire her for her sheer dogged determination not to believe.
Pascal said everyone has a "God-shaped hole in his heart." But he was French, so who cares what he thinks?
The problem with this yearning for God is that Bush thinks God is telling him to bomb people. Anyone else would have been committed to an insane asylum or war crimes tribunal by now. The "God part" of Bush's brain (the actual one, not Rove) is apparently very, very violent.
posted by WRG @ 12:47 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
The Republicans and Loud Mouthed American Christians (opposed to the more silent, peaceful, and realistic version of Christian in America) believe they have the One, and Only definition of the Being to fit in Pascal's "God shaped hole," and they'll be damned if they can't cram it into everyone's hole on earth. They'll bomb it in if they have to, which turns out to be a good way to make money too, at tax payer expense. There is another take too, which is that the hole is a longing for reconnection to a natural world humans steadily and increasingly disconnect from. As we seperate ourselves, we have more of a longing for why things don't feel right, reasons why we get sick (when we play with lead and Uranium.) We also fear death, and God seems a good idea, especially with a Heaven where everything is grand, because the thought of it just ending is rather frightening at first glance, and sad at the second glance, and disappointing after that. I personally like that we don't know and won't know. It adds some mystery and mysticism, and helps me appreciate the moment more than worries about eternity, which really, when you look at it, is a rediculous thing to worry about. We very likely die like the worms, dust to dust.
What are these blogs all about anyway? I was surfing looking for john beck books when I ended up here. Back to the relentless searching for john beck books.
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