Sitting down for an afternoon snack, I decided that the hardest thing to do in life is make a piece of cake and scoop of ice cream come out even at the last bite. But that’s not what’s on my mind. Earlier today I heard a portion of an NPR program featuring a couple of atheists talking about their beliefs. What struck me is that the most important thing in their lives is the God in whom they do not believe. They spend their days thinking about God and planning how to convince others that God does not exist by doing what they do – think about God a lot. I think their problem may have more to do with religion than with God, and more particularly with what they see as dangerous fundamentalists, wussy Mainline Protestants, and superstitious Catholics. Being Episcopalian myself, we can accommodate all three images without too much difficulty. In the end, I’m not too worried about it. At least they are making more people think about God and faith, and besides, as I recall, this is God’s world and what God purposes to do, he does. We do not need to enter into battle with atheists, we need to be more bold in proclaiming the good news of God in Christ.
Their languge does not lend itself to a discussion between fellow seekers after a sustainable morality. Fundementalists are betting their morality on obeying God\’s commands. Most of us think of moral development from childhood to adult maturity. Instead of reasoning both sides were using sound bites as if they were cheering on high school ball teams.
Amen!
he he hesort of reminds me of the fundies and homosexual sex. they spend an awful lot of time and energy talking about it, and I bet they spend more time thinking about it than most homosexuals do.\”we do not need to enter into battle\” Exactly!However I do wish we would understand proclaiming more as a demonstration or indication rather than an announcement.
Yes, my impression is that self-proclaimed atheists of a public type, such as Christopher Hitchens, spend more time thinking and talking about god (as Hitchens spells it) than most casual believers do! Sometimes they care enough to learn more about church history, other religions, theology and scripture than even the more regular church goers! And, as you said, they are mainly interested in attacking the most fundamentalist beliefs of each religion, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, as did the ancient philosophical critics of the paganism of their time, attacking superstitions mainly. In this country, H.L. Mencken, who thought he was an \”equal opportunity\” enemy of all religion, spent more time attacking ignorance and hypocrisy, but sometimes confessed a weakness for the beauty of Bach and religious art, and for the poetry of the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, as well as for the Latin of the Mass. (He even boasted that he was descended from German Lutheran theologians!) And as to your point, he spent an awful lot of his time talking about God!