A Cool Utterance - Beliefnet Forums: "Being alive in a society that includes other people, involves interacting with them, finding a reason to do so, and finding meaning, that is stimulation of the pleasure centers of the brain, for those interactions. This is all done with the awareness that life may end at any time and will end eventually.
Atheism is the process of developing solutions to these issues that do not involve a little tinhorn in the fancy dress in an overdecorated balcony or a supernatural omnipotent alpha humanoid. A lack of belief in God, gods, or fairies is absolutely irrelevant to my atheism. My atheism is living a rich, full, meaningful life for as long as I can, and leaving a rich, full, meaningful legacy for those that follow. The fact that God is nowhere to be found is absolutely meaningless."
Next year in Jerusalem
1 week ago
4 comments:
Here's where I think I am, today:
http://www.iheu.org/adamdecl.htm
This Declaration resonates with me; although, I have considered myself, technically, to be an atheist for the last 40 years, the Humanist Philosophy, combined with elements of the Objectivist Philosophy better define my thinking.
Not bad, but Humanism is too individualistic for me.
Humans are intensely social animals and until a secular alternative to religion comes around that provides the social ethos as per Tom Lehrer, "Get right down upon your knees, fiddle with your rosaries, bow your head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect." atheists will be a backwater collection of individuals whining that God is an idiot.
Sport crowds and mosh pits may provide some of this feeling in a secular setting, but the effects are fleeting and carry very little meaning. I suppose supporting our warriors even if the war is meaningless has some social value, but overall the experience lacks lasting meaning.
I suspect that there are large numbers of parishioners in the old established, non-charismatic religions that find the God concept pushed by their church to be almost irrelevant in their lives. You catch them in an unguarded moment and ask them what God does for them, they will admit that Hesh makes no real difference in their lives or for that matter their afterlives.
Ask why they go to church and they will mention all sorts of social advantages of belonging to the church. There is plenty to justify the time and resources they devote to their religion, even though God is nothing more than a unifying presence.
Beatin01
Good points that are/were valid within a time and circumstance referenceframe of the "herd-human." And since "God" is a human construct, a contrivance, anyone "whining that God is an idiot" is just a misdirection of one's criticism.
The only reason a human might find value in "getting down on one's knees" is to temporarily leave their ego in a "park and ride" and get on a collective bus that acknowledges their "inherent inferiority;" such busrides bind rather than free the huiman spirit. The idea that a "crowd" focusing their attention can produce a "transpersonal level of consciousness" has been proposed and argued by Ken Wilbur; that "something" can be achieved does not necessarily grant a "nobility" to the result; as the "skill" to induce transpersonal consciousness has been widely abused by the "clergy," I am careful to approach such a state outside the reach of their "guidance." The "power" of the "Santa Claus transpersonal consciousness" is the power I continue to both employ and explore.
I agree that when "God" is used as a referent, individual "references" will widely vary.
I think the abuse of the religious invocations of God is serious and perhaps inevitable abuse of this human need. However, I have been in services where the invocation of God seemed to be useful and benign for the parishioners.
I wonder how this will play out in the years to come. It seems clear that the abusers, those that preach inherent inferiority, and hatred of the other will wither as the young intelligent group leaves either for secularism or new age experiments.
Whether the "professionals" of the mainstream Progressive Christian movement and its counterpart in some RCC parishes will attract/retain enough of the young intelligent population to sustain a viable long term congregation is an open question at this point.
If not it will be interesting to see what takes it's place. It may distribute unmediated over the internet eg facebook groups, or there may be family oriented unmediated centering that replaces the religious centering. I know that has been the case for me, but I am not aware of any other.
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