A legitimate plurality of positions has yielded to an undifferentiated pluralism, based upon the assumption that all positions are equally valid, which is one of today’s most widespread symptoms of the lack of confidence in truth.

Just thought that it was a good quote. Concerns the changes in philosophical thinking.
If any one wishes to talk about this that would be great.

Thanks

Hey, thanks for your reply.
I would just like to say one point, sorry i am a bit busy.
You refer to religions being involved with science. It is not that religions try to assert their authority over progression for society, i read a quote from “Humanae Vitae” which said (roundabouts) that the Catholic Church cannot say that something is allowed if it is intrinsically wrong. The C.C doesn’t say that abortion is wrong because it has decided it is, it is wrong because it contradicts the natural law, it is wrong whether or not it is said to be wrong.
Oh i can’t help myself i will have to make another point. You said;

“As an atheist it makes no sense to me to base scientific research on ideas that were first put forward thousands of years ago and are now totally out of context in light of today’s scientific world.”

I fail to see, as a human being it makes no sense to me how the teachings of religions are irrelevant or out of context. If a religion says that man is not God and therefore must not destroy life or create it outside of the act of sex, how has this become irrelevant? Has man become a new creature? Has life lost its value? No, the teachings of religions contain absolute truths that cannot be changed, no matter the length of time, or the emotions of individuals.

You said that the views of religion go against society!! If it wasn’t for charity an innapropriate word would be used to express my disbelief. Religions go against society? Madre mia. Thats news to me.
Firstly tell me what society is and then rethink what you have said.
Is it not religions that teach marriage>>these provides strong places for the raising of children. Is it not religions that teach chastity and fidelity>>there would not be the great spread of AIDs and other lethal STD’s. Is it not religions that teach against homosexuality>>a homosexual society will die to itself as it cannot reproduce. Is it not religion that teaches decency and love>>people may live in a happy society.
Now let us look at how secularism is killing society. No belief in God, no care for individuals, no respect for peoples’ bodies, diseases, emotional breakdowns, children growing up not knowing true love. On that point, i read that you have children. It is interesting that a person can be a loving father if he doesn’t believe in God. How can this be if you see you child as no more than a random collection of cells?
Sorry if i go overboard a little, i am a bit busy.

Thanks
Daniel

I was in NYC several years ago when I heard Julia’s program on NPR, went to her website, hit the link for the God Who Was Not There DVD, purchased it, etc. I did not hear anything I had not read before and found it very engaging and entertaining. Sam Harris is a hoot, a good man as far as I can tell.

As a former minister with four degrees–the last a PhD in the history of religious violence–I have found the rationalistic arguments finally unsatisfactory, either for or against deity or deities (and angels or demons). As I moved through text criticism in the original languages, then the construction of texts, and then moved on out into the history of Christianity, my empiricism took and takes me to where I am now.

Empiricists require intellectual honesty, the scientific method, and openness to the facts. The facts of Christianity indicate that most Christians throughout history have chosen, for various reasons—some theological, some political, indeed, for every kind of reason, but all ultimately PERSONAL–to disobey Jesus’ commands or to follow his behavioral lead (at least as reported in the NT). Many Christians have relied on Paul’s doctrine of grace (”I’m not perfect, just forgiven”-type belief) to set aside any moral wrestling with ‘turn the other cheek,’ ‘love your enemies and do good to them, ‘put away the sword’, and so forth. One can get away with any behavior (particularly since ‘original sin’ keeps its force!) since the supernatural fountain of pure, holy Jesus-blood enables forgiveness.

While so many Americans are concerned with radical Islamicists and the shocking event of 9-11, and while everyone seems eager to kill as many Muslims as possible—including women and children as ‘collateral damage’, unfortunate errors–Christians have killed millions, and likely, billions of people. As much as I am a loyal American, killing 3,500 of our own (plus the economic damage still unfolding, including the Iraq War) does not compare with the billions affected by Christians in every nation, either holding political office or in government services, who have literally killed, tortured, displaced, exterminated, expatriated others—and who were satisfied that their religion remained intact through every action. I will not get into the reasons.

Do the match, as best you can. From their move away from pacifistic origins shown in the NT and on into the Constantinian era, and then through the history of heresy; the 8 Crusades; the Inquisitions; the wars of religion (my specialty), witch hunts in Europe and the U.S.; the extermination of Native Americans; African slavery; the atrocities by both sides during the Civil War; both WWI and WWII; and every nation’s military operations where Christians have filled the ranks and made their appeals, how many BILLIONS have died as a result of devotees of the Christian god, or trinity?

Please read Mark Twain’s posthumously-published, “The War Prayer”.

I admit that I love the image of Jesus presented in (most) of the NT and have been led to admit by the facts above that–Amish, Mennonites, Society of Friends-types aside–Christianity has shed more blood than all the religions combined. I find it bloody ironic that Israel, now that they are a nation, find their religionists willing to use ancient covenants set by their “god” to claim all the Palestinian lands they “deserve” and “already own by divine decree” to the utter destruction of the Palestinians in every respect: psychological, infrastructure, etc. The religious Jews will be no better than the Christians, now that religious Jews have their own political power. We see it now, and Jimmy Carter, honest man that he is, is being ridiculed for pointing out a few facts.

On the OTHER HAND, if one looks into the history of the development of education, medicine, science, law, the arts, and so forth, it was mainly Christians and Christian organizations who initiated many of these on THEOLOGICAL grounds. One also must admit that the Arabs gave the Christians a BIG boost in the Dark Ages through Arab achievements in science, medicine, math, and philosophy.

So MOST religious behaviors are enough to lead one to “let go of God” or other supernatural beings—because of adverse impacts in human history as a result of their “supervision” or lack of it.

As an empiricist, I also have involved myself in many of the disciplines that have researched religious peoples, rituals, and behaviors. Anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, have taken interests in shamanism, supernatural powers and entities, near-death experiences, etc. Religious and non-religious people have studied “threats” to theism, such as UFOs, etc. I think of old William James and his work on the paranormal, his debunking of most of it, but his reservations about killing it all off—based on the evidence. I think of that book back in the late 90s on the “power of prayer” with its blind studies and their results.

Readers, for me at least, being open and honest has meant that the journey continues. I find some of theoretical atheism’s arguments compelling, and I also find PRACTICAL atheism in the lives of so many “religious” equally compelling to lead me to certain conclusions.

1. If deities exist, they are too weak or unwilling to enforce better behavioral results than we have seen in human history.
2. If religious people want to adduce evidence for their belief, they are too weak or unwilling to engage in “supernatural” behaviors that set them apart from all the unbelievers in the world.
3. While there ARE evidences for entities or experiences that FIT descriptions of traditional spiritual entities—angels, demons, human ‘spirits’ disembodied (remote viewing, etc)–most atheists are monochromatically dogmatic in pressing the evidence into their materialistic presuppositions.
4. I stand with atheists and skeptics against all the abuses of religions against others.

Letting go of God or the gods and goddesses is not hard for anyone who dislikes bloodshed and when the deities call for blood, hatred, and destruction. I never held to the bloody deity of the Jewish faith, or the one that demanded innocent blood from Jesus to satiate ritual blood hunger so the guilty could be let off. I loved the image of Jesus in the NT, even though it took years of study to “hear” him saying, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword” or “Behold, my mother and family,” as he pointed to his disciples. Like Julia Sweeney, I found that so cold.

So, I look at the EXCEPTIONS for when the Christian faith went right for my very, very, very small quasi-theism. In recent years, we have Mother Theresa, just as we once had an Albert Schweitzer, or periodically, in previous centuries, people who sacrificed their lives to work with widows, orphans, the dispossessed, the sick, the maltreated. Do these few heroes and heroines prove that any deity exists? Oh, no, not at all. How could such micro-epiphanies offset the billions of others dead or abused by others wearing the name of god in their bold misadventures?

I remain attached to the idea of love and that the phenomena attached to healthy love are worth promoting. Oh, I understand that “love” is defined by materialists as neural firings prompted by hormonal, genetic, and experiential mappings, nothing more. People can love the poor (for nonreligious reasons, too, I know), pull them out of the gutter, and wash their wounds, and millions can love killing the enemies of their gods (mainly male ones, I note), or worshipping their Fuehrers, or investment portfolio results.

Albert Schweitzer taught “reverence for life” and was a kind of Christ-mystic. Read his last paragraph of the Search for the Historical Jesus book, “He walks through the mists of history as One unknown.” When I read Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he–or the editor who made all that stuff up—I agree with him. I want to be merciful. I want to be humble. I want not to judge others. I want to give to those who ask. I love the Jesus-Image presented in most of the NT. Unlike others, I do not make Jesus a deity, since again in an-often neglected passage in the NT, he says, “Why do you call me good, when only God is good?”

I really do not care whether there is a deity or not. I do know that I am not a moral relativist. I believe there is a truth and a lie. I believe that love is better than hate, yes, my brand of love, not yours! I believe that constructing reality is a difficult task, and I am working, laboring, sweating, struggling, to live and die so I will leave at least a very, very small wake of goodness behind me. Yes, I am aware that ‘goodness’ is a subjective and arbitrary concept. I still believe in it. And I reject the materialists’ position that consuming all the world’s resources and energy, and displacing and destroying others for more toys are merely neutral acts. They are, to use some Old Testament prophets’ language, human wickedness wrought upon the innocent widows, children, and poor.

Immanuel Kant taught that the construction of knowledge was a subjective and arbitrary act but with social consequences. Read Hans Vaihinger’s Die Philosophie des Als-Ob (The Philosophy of As-If) for a discussion of fictive construction. There are many in the U.S. and world today who wonder why things are falling apart—or about to. The fact is that the ancient religious commands and systems, such as the Ten Commandments or the Sermon on the Mount, have been replaced by egocentrism, consumerism, and complete moral relativism. These Isms have replaced very thoroughly all the old, pre-scientific beliefs that humans were created in the image of an intelligent, loving, judging, intervening deity, who invited human beings into fellowship, self-control, and active participation in the divine life.

What is so bitterly humorous to me is that so many Americans engage in every form of practical atheism in their personal, familial, business, social, and political decisions, yet believe themselves somehow “religious” because their clergy or religious theologies or commentaries tell them so!

Bull shit, bull shit, bull shit.

So, while I have let go of the dark, bloody gods and goddesses, I have my own fictive form of faith, a la Kant. I’m not engaged in Pascal’s Wager, such a self-interested way of gambling. I really do not care. All I know is this: I feel such a deep motivation to be a peacemaker, a reconciler, a person of love, that I attribute this driving, all-encompassing motivation to something bigger than me. I grew up in a loving home, never had any conflicts of note, but I know how I respond to love and how dedicated to it I am.

I invite any loving atheists to join me in the work of love, and hope that, whatever essence or veneer of religion I bring into my work, they will not ridicule my earnest effort to use my control of the airspace around me to remove misunderstanding, abuse and hatreds of all kinds, and to put something better in their place.

With Encouragement to The Team!
John

If anyone wants to see how I do my thing, go to http://leadershipethicsonline.com. Thanks

Hello

Very interesting information! Thanks!

G’night

Everyone who I have heard who outed themselves as atheists are worried how their family, friends and associates will react to them. They dont speak about how they confront themselves and the inward changes it makes. It is like a 6 yr old who comes to the conclusion that there is no Santa Claus. Does that mean there is no good and bad. No gifts, rewards or love. Does it mean that all the religious stock you bought for years and years was in Enron and Worldcom? Are your values changed? Doesnt it change you. Who cares what others think.

[…] I think Julia Sweeney is terrific. Her ‘Letting Go of God’ monologue was one of the most amusing de-conversion stories I’ve ever heard and I’m delighted that it’s due out as a film. It’s definitely one to look out for but in the meantime the monologue is available on Audible, from her website directly or a small preview in an older post from earlier this year. […]