http://www.mcall.com/entertainment/all-godsquad.6487514jul05,0,1569551.storyI did not know this. I really dislike it when "god" people attempt to explain variations of atheism.
And I think the *most respectful* thing I can do when someone "offers" a prayer or says grace is leave the room. They want me to respect them, but they won't respect me! :nopity:
Grumble, grumble. "First stuff" idiots.
Q: I've been contemplating atheism of late and wishing there were varietal labels for that, as there are for most other belief systems. I'd appreciate your feedback on the following thoughts:
I am an ''observant'' atheist. I believe that man created God, and has created a plethora of rituals and beliefs that support, sustain and comfort us. I love ceremony, I value the rituals that mark life cycle events, I appreciate that there are institutions that specialize in teaching moral and ethical values.
I attend religious services because they challenge me to find the divine in myself and strive to be a better person. I have no problem with prayer in schools or at events because I don't consider someone else's expression of their belief to violate my own.
My spouse is what I consider a ''classic'' atheist. He refuses to take oaths that invoke God, will leave the room during any form of religious ritual (even grace at meals), will not enter a sanctuary of any kind if it can be avoided, attends life cycle events under protest, etc. We try to respect each other's beliefs and practices.
Then, there are the ''Science as Religion'' atheists. These are people who apply scientific principals to religion to argue that there is no God. As a trained research scientist with a doctorate in biology, I consider this to be a violation of scientific principals. Science is a method of thought that requires objectivity; turning it into a belief system results in the loss of objectivity. Similarly, I believe that religion has no place in the interpretation of scientific principles. Interestingly, these are the atheists that most get under my skin.
L., via godsquadquestion
@aol.com
A: Your first category of ''observant atheists'' really should be labeled agnostics. You don't know if belief in God is true or false, but you find that believing in the divine within us a helpful belief. You also find the rituals that flow from that belief engaging and valuable to your struggles to become a better person.
The part that doesn't make sense in this type of atheism is the incompatibility of believing that man created God and also believing that the rituals commanded by God are helpful, meaningful and morally inspiring. If the rituals can do that, why resist the conclusion that they don't come from us to us but from God to us? You say that rituals help you connect to a God in whom you do not believe. I think you might want to work on that.
Your husband is a bird of a different color. I respect his atheism, though I frankly consider leaving the room whenever someone offers a prayer to be both ostentatious and rude. I'm glad you respect each other but I'm not sure how he'd react if you were to ever come out of the closet as a person of faith.
To be clear, I'm just as offended when people of faith try to convert me as I am when atheists make a big stink about an innocuous prayer to which they are more than free not to answer, ''Amen.'' I am saddened that present court rulings (Lee v. Weisman U.S. 577, 1992, U.S. Supreme Court) have prevented generic prayers at public school commencement ceremonies. However, court rulings change and I live in hope that some day some clergy person can say what I said years ago at my daughter's high school graduation: ''May God bless these graduates.'' To my knowledge, the only people who walked out when I said that were the ones who had to go to the bathroom.
''Science as Religion'' atheists, as you call them, don't bother me as they seem to bother you. If these folks can refute God using scientific principles, then God bless them. I don't think it can be done, but I enjoy reading about their efforts. I agree that this quest to disprove God distorts science, which can have little to say about where the first stuff of the universe came from.
Science can and does and should describe with ever increasing precision what happened to the first stuff but it can't explain how the first stuff was created and more fundamentally, what is the purpose of our existence. The two great questions before us have always been: ''Are we free?'' and ''Are we loved?'' I'm happy to receive wisdom from whatever source brings a hopeful answer to the deep mysteries of our finite but striving lives.
Perhaps these words from Albert Einstein, delivered in a speech just a few days before he left Europe in 1932, might serve as a bridge between the spirit of science and the spirit of faith:
''The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavor in art, and in science. ... He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. The sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious. To me, it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.''
God bless you, and good luck to your husband.
Send questions only to The God Squad, c/o Tribune Media Services, 2225 Kenmore Ave., Suite 114, Buffalo, NY 14207, or email them to godsquadquestion@aol.com.
-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale
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