Wednesday, July 20, 2011

http://vegetableassassin.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-be-unpopular-part-two-denounce.html

Heck, I believe in God. And I agree with the Vegetable Assassin.

In pretty much everything but the insignificant details - people are too hung up on those! I mean, come on.

"God does not exist."

"God exists."

Two unprovable assertions! Pure leaps of faith - both of them. Irrational, to take it that far. And frankly, a waste of time to debate the irrational person who has overinvested so much personal stake in an unprovable assertion. Anybody who thinks that what they believe about the fundamental state of reality alters the fundamental state of reality - in either direction! - whoa. Those people are the mean kind of fun to have at parties.

"Proof of God does not exist." Now there's a sweeter statement. One I'd make every day, and I'm pretty confident no one can gainsay me. See, the reason I get along so great with atheists is because neither of our personal leaps of faith away from pure skepticism conflicts with observable reality. And ultimately, observable reality is where I interact with people. It's the best place I know!

And that's why I say I agree with you, Veg: because the realities you point out here are far from insignificant, and all too readily observable. They matter a great deal. We need to be banging out danger and warning. Because those who interpret religion as primarily a means to make this life unlivable (or less livable) use it as a wedge and a weapon against those who don't. Those for whom religion's main use is as a hittin'-stick to control others' lives don't limit themselves to true believers when they swing that stick around. That's not near a big enough stick for who they want to hit. They want the religion stick swung by government, and aimed at everybody. They want to enforce a moral order, where God is Caesar and heretics be not only damned, but prosecuted.

Of course, not all theists want that. Comparatively rational theists who value secular liberty make common cause with agnostics and atheists. We have all made a good bit of progress away from theocracy, but the hollering from certain quarters is still all in favor. Those opposed need to band together and pull together against that kind of impulse. It's us vs. them, and I know where I stand.

But let's be clear about the problem: the common root of all intolerance-based misery in the world isn't religion. Ultimately, it's xenophobia. The need to feel secure in one's chosen camp and demonize the other. To come up with some aspect that you can judge the book by - any aspect will do, but some are more obvious, others more powerful - draw the line on that aspect and say: this person is not like us. We cannot trust this person, we do not know them, we should not try to know them. This person is not worth knowing, is dangerous to get to know. The stranger who is not like us is less worthy of human consideration than we are. They might as well be called inhuman - devil, animal. Slave. Not a person. In the end the one not like us is the enemy, and this attitude makes compassion for the enemy an offense.

The human map has lines drawn all over. Religion. Patriotism/nationalism. Ethnicity, race. Gender, class, region - even neighborhood. To use any of these aspects to draw lines of hate and enmity is to misuse them. And we must be wary, for misuse of religion is particularly powerful, particularly dangerous. More powerful I'd say than any of those others - and that holds true whether it is being misused or merely used.

Even people who believe in God badly need to beware of religion's misuse. I'd say people who believe in God ought to feel that much more a duty and an obligation to confront their coreligionists, on religion's misuse.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: you are about to leave a comment on blog post that is really only a comment on a completely different blog post by somebody else!

Rather than leave a comment here, consider clicking through to the original post! You can do that by clicking on my post's post title. Then leave a comment there! Imagine what a kick they'll get out of it, after all this time!

You'll be spreading joy and ticklishness.