After thousands of years' worth of general agreement that "religion" means what it means, all of a sudden people are telling us that Christianity is not a religion, that Buddhism is not a religion, that they're spiritual but not religious, that they're followers of Christ but not Christians. (I didn't make that last one up, there's at least one very silly rock group saying that. I forgot the name of the group. I haven't heard them, just read about them. I can't remember whether they're considered Christian rock -- by some. Not by themselves of course, because they're followers of Christ, not Christians.)
I think this sudden denial of the meaning of the word "religion" is related to the recent absurd assertion -- unfortunately, not nearly absurd enough to get theologians fired even from the world's most prestigious universities -- that Biblical literalism is no more than 200 years old.
It's as plain as can be that before the study of science and history began to give us more accurate ideas of things, Christians and practicing Jews believed that the world was 6000 years old. Including the most highly-educated Christians and practicing Jews. They believed that Moses led 600,000 families out of Egypt and parted the Red Sea, and the Christians, at least, although not all of the Jews, believed that Jesus rose from the dead. They believed that angels and demons were all around us all the time -- not metaphorical angels and demons but real ones. The real un-metaphorical torture and killing of the Inquisition -- unfortunately, even claiming that the Inquisition never killed anyone has not been enough to get academics fired from history departments, let alone theology departments -- had very often to do with this belief in the literal existence of those demons. And let's not let Protestants off the hook here. Those 20 people in Salem in the 1690's weren't executed over differences in interpretation of mythological tropes.
And all of the universities in Western Europe and the Americas were very firmly in control of Christian authorities until a few centuries ago. What happened about 200 years ago is almost the exact opposite of this very popular assertion among today's theologians: Biblical literalism didn't appear for the first time. Rather, it started to fade from its dominance as the default intellectual position in the West.
Both the Christians who deny that they're religious and the ones who say that the Bible was never meant to be taken literally, that all of it is parables, not just the parables but all of it, are sort of half-smart about religion. They sort of half-suspect that religion is not the font of all wisdom which it has always claimed to be. (They may well deny that religious leaders ever made such a claim.) But they can't bear to consciously admit it, they are too heavily invested in religion, it would simply be too painful and/or too damned inconvenient, and so instead of a rational perception of religion for what it is and a description of it which makes any damn sense at all, we have this mass tendency to deny that religion is what it is, and this massive falsification of the history of religion.
This is one reason why it's important to study history. And really studying history means mastering the languages which people wrote and spoke in other times and places. So that you can check for yourself, and let people know when theologians, and even some historians, are trying to hand them a crock. This is what Gibbon did, and Bury, and Runciman, and this is why all 3 of them have been attacked to this day by apologists, many of them posing as historians.
Showing posts with label spiritual but not religious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual but not religious. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Friday, November 20, 2015
"It's better to have no religion at all, just Jesus, himself, alone." -- ACTUAL QUOTE
Actual quote from a real person:
"It's better to have no religion at all, just Jesus, himself, alone."
My fellow atheists, this is a perfect example of why many of you are way too excited about all those polls claiming that "religion is in decline." Someone tells the pollster they're not religious, but what you don't see when you read the poll results is them saying, "I don't need religion -- just Jesus!"
But you should sense it, because quotes like the one above are now so common that nobody but me remarks upon them. Once again, I have to do everything by myself. (A perfect example of why I deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature.) It's the people who often call themselves SBNR or "spiritual but not religious," whom I often call "religious but in denial about it" or "the disorganized religious." And of course, these people who don't call themselves religious are finding each other and organizing into groups that they don't call churches or temples, led by people they don't call clergy -- place where they get together and talk about how great God is and discuss His plan.
Similar to religion? Gee, ya think?
Yes, it's identical to religion. Identical to early Protestantism in most cases: people leave their churches because the churches are "doin' it wrong," and start their own, more self-righteous and Bible-obsessed groups.
At the very least, those doofuses taking the polls should become aware of all this, and adjust their polls to distinguish between atheists and the disorganized religious -- but as I've said before, sociologists aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer either.
Stupid disorganized religious, stupid atheists, stupid pollsters -- I'm surrounded by idiots! And no, this doesn't make me feel smart. Not at all -- I've allowed a bunch of idiots to surround me!
"It's better to have no religion at all, just Jesus, himself, alone."
My fellow atheists, this is a perfect example of why many of you are way too excited about all those polls claiming that "religion is in decline." Someone tells the pollster they're not religious, but what you don't see when you read the poll results is them saying, "I don't need religion -- just Jesus!"
But you should sense it, because quotes like the one above are now so common that nobody but me remarks upon them. Once again, I have to do everything by myself. (A perfect example of why I deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature.) It's the people who often call themselves SBNR or "spiritual but not religious," whom I often call "religious but in denial about it" or "the disorganized religious." And of course, these people who don't call themselves religious are finding each other and organizing into groups that they don't call churches or temples, led by people they don't call clergy -- place where they get together and talk about how great God is and discuss His plan.
Similar to religion? Gee, ya think?
Yes, it's identical to religion. Identical to early Protestantism in most cases: people leave their churches because the churches are "doin' it wrong," and start their own, more self-righteous and Bible-obsessed groups.
At the very least, those doofuses taking the polls should become aware of all this, and adjust their polls to distinguish between atheists and the disorganized religious -- but as I've said before, sociologists aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer either.
Stupid disorganized religious, stupid atheists, stupid pollsters -- I'm surrounded by idiots! And no, this doesn't make me feel smart. Not at all -- I've allowed a bunch of idiots to surround me!
Friday, May 29, 2015
Atheists Need To Stand Up To New Atheists
If you don't know who I mean by New Atheists, if you read this post all the way through, you will.
Hundreds of years ago, some of the people who didn't believe that God or any gods existed were afraid to call themselves atheists, and so they called themselves skeptics instead. Sadly, it's happening again.
Today, there are atheists who are choosing not to publicly refer to themselves as atheists, because they're afraid that if they do, people will assume that they agree with Richard Dawkins when he compares Trinity College in Cambridge to "the Muslim world" and tacitly assumes that Nobel Prizes are an objective measure of a culture's achievements; or with the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion, important enough to him that he made it a subtitle of one of his books, that "religion poisons everything;" or with Sam Harris when he says -- just about anything; or admire PZ Myers for covering a copy of Koran with garbage and feces. Or maybe they're afraid that people will assume that they share the Islamophobia or the large gaps in the education in history of all four of the above... They choose not to call themselves atheists, to behave as if the word does not mean what it meant when the big atheist superstars were Russell and Sartre instead of Dawkins and Harris, because they're afraid.
And so they're hiding behind less clear labels like "skeptic" or "non-believer" or, if they're even a little bit more cowardly than that, they just keep going to church, and claim on Facebook they if they come out of the atheist closet they'll be lynched. In the last instance I'm not talking about atheists living in countries where atheists actually have been killed, sometimes by the authorities. I'm talking about the cowardly atheists in the US who claim that if they publicly acknowledge that they're atheists, they will be risking their lives.
But back to the "skeptics" and "non-believers" : the thing is that "atheist" does -- for the time being, anyway -- still mean what it meant back when Bertie and Jean-Paul were kicking ass and taking names and winning Nobel Prizes in Literature (Ai kan also haz??) "Atheist" still refers, for the vast majority of the population, to anyone and everyone who thinks that God and gods and miracles and resurrections and so forth are all make-believe.
But even beyond that -- what has ever been the point of anyone calling him- or herself an atheist? Outside of the Communist bloc, it hasn't ever been done in order to increase one's chances of winning political office. It's been done for the sake of honesty. For the sake of clarity. For the sake of good sense. (I've stopped using the phrase "common sense," because as time goes on it becomes more and more clear to me how uncommon good sense is.)
And so, in order to be as clear and precise as possible, if you're an atheist who realizes that a phenomenon that has included billions of people over tens of thousands of years is far, far too complex to be referred to as all bad, an atheist who's noticed both all of the Muslims being killed by majority-Christian nations and all the Muslims fighting ISIS and fighting extremism in general and just can't go along with the fearmongering Islamophobic bullshit of Dawkins and Harris and Hitch, an atheist who finds it disgusting and counter-productive when someone literally craps on books, or who knows several things wrong about describing authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders" -- if you're all or any of those kinds of an atheist, the thing to do is to say so. And not to surrender the label "atheist" to the fans of Dawkins, Hitch, Harris, Myers, Dennett, Coyne & Co.
It occurs to me that the situation may already have grown so ridiculously confused that not only some atheists, but also many religious people may agree with Hitchens' slogan "religion poisons everything." without agreeing with Hitchens or me or any other atheists (or skeptics or non-believers, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) in any particulars whatsoever. I'm talking about the so-called "spiritual but not religious." Like the "skeptics" and "non-believers" who are actually atheists but prefer to be obscure, to hide from the danger of association with the barbarian New Atheist hordes, the "spiritual but not religious" have differences with people who share certain metaphysical beliefs with them (the set of beliefs known as "religion"), and instead of directly confronting those specific differences, whether they have to do with hierarchy in religious organizations, or corruption in religious hierarchies, or with politics -- instead of dealing with those specific issues, the "spiritual but not religious" have preferred to pretend that the term "religious" suddenly does not mean what it means. There are a lot of Buddhists who suddenly are pretending that Buddhism is not a religion and never was, and that Buddhism who think or thought it is or was a religion are or were doin' it wrong.
I think that we atheists should leave this sort of semantic nonsense to religious people, along with their metaphysical nonsense. If you don't believe God exists and you do believe Dawkins has become a huge jackass since he stopped studying biology a decade ago, or you have differences with Harris or Hitch or Myers -- or with Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain, or with me, or with anyone else who identifies as an atheist -- I think you should call yourself an atheist and talk directly and clearly about your specific differences with those other atheists.
Why? Because if you correctly identify yourself as an atheist, there's a greater chance that others will understand what you're talking about. Abandoning the term will only lead to confusion -- it has only led to confusion. Simple and plain as that. And again, what ever has been the point of any of us (outside of the Communist bloc) opposing religion and exposing ourselves to so much aggravation, if it has not been for the sake of greater understanding and greater clarity, and for the sake making more sense and speaking more plainly than those others in their churches and temples and mosques, and for the sake of striving to be better than those who know better but would thrive on the confusion of others?
Hundreds of years ago, some of the people who didn't believe that God or any gods existed were afraid to call themselves atheists, and so they called themselves skeptics instead. Sadly, it's happening again.
Today, there are atheists who are choosing not to publicly refer to themselves as atheists, because they're afraid that if they do, people will assume that they agree with Richard Dawkins when he compares Trinity College in Cambridge to "the Muslim world" and tacitly assumes that Nobel Prizes are an objective measure of a culture's achievements; or with the late Christopher Hitchens' assertion, important enough to him that he made it a subtitle of one of his books, that "religion poisons everything;" or with Sam Harris when he says -- just about anything; or admire PZ Myers for covering a copy of Koran with garbage and feces. Or maybe they're afraid that people will assume that they share the Islamophobia or the large gaps in the education in history of all four of the above... They choose not to call themselves atheists, to behave as if the word does not mean what it meant when the big atheist superstars were Russell and Sartre instead of Dawkins and Harris, because they're afraid.
And so they're hiding behind less clear labels like "skeptic" or "non-believer" or, if they're even a little bit more cowardly than that, they just keep going to church, and claim on Facebook they if they come out of the atheist closet they'll be lynched. In the last instance I'm not talking about atheists living in countries where atheists actually have been killed, sometimes by the authorities. I'm talking about the cowardly atheists in the US who claim that if they publicly acknowledge that they're atheists, they will be risking their lives.
But back to the "skeptics" and "non-believers" : the thing is that "atheist" does -- for the time being, anyway -- still mean what it meant back when Bertie and Jean-Paul were kicking ass and taking names and winning Nobel Prizes in Literature (Ai kan also haz??) "Atheist" still refers, for the vast majority of the population, to anyone and everyone who thinks that God and gods and miracles and resurrections and so forth are all make-believe.
But even beyond that -- what has ever been the point of anyone calling him- or herself an atheist? Outside of the Communist bloc, it hasn't ever been done in order to increase one's chances of winning political office. It's been done for the sake of honesty. For the sake of clarity. For the sake of good sense. (I've stopped using the phrase "common sense," because as time goes on it becomes more and more clear to me how uncommon good sense is.)
And so, in order to be as clear and precise as possible, if you're an atheist who realizes that a phenomenon that has included billions of people over tens of thousands of years is far, far too complex to be referred to as all bad, an atheist who's noticed both all of the Muslims being killed by majority-Christian nations and all the Muslims fighting ISIS and fighting extremism in general and just can't go along with the fearmongering Islamophobic bullshit of Dawkins and Harris and Hitch, an atheist who finds it disgusting and counter-productive when someone literally craps on books, or who knows several things wrong about describing authors of the Bible as "Bronze-Age goat herders" -- if you're all or any of those kinds of an atheist, the thing to do is to say so. And not to surrender the label "atheist" to the fans of Dawkins, Hitch, Harris, Myers, Dennett, Coyne & Co.
It occurs to me that the situation may already have grown so ridiculously confused that not only some atheists, but also many religious people may agree with Hitchens' slogan "religion poisons everything." without agreeing with Hitchens or me or any other atheists (or skeptics or non-believers, po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to) in any particulars whatsoever. I'm talking about the so-called "spiritual but not religious." Like the "skeptics" and "non-believers" who are actually atheists but prefer to be obscure, to hide from the danger of association with the barbarian New Atheist hordes, the "spiritual but not religious" have differences with people who share certain metaphysical beliefs with them (the set of beliefs known as "religion"), and instead of directly confronting those specific differences, whether they have to do with hierarchy in religious organizations, or corruption in religious hierarchies, or with politics -- instead of dealing with those specific issues, the "spiritual but not religious" have preferred to pretend that the term "religious" suddenly does not mean what it means. There are a lot of Buddhists who suddenly are pretending that Buddhism is not a religion and never was, and that Buddhism who think or thought it is or was a religion are or were doin' it wrong.
I think that we atheists should leave this sort of semantic nonsense to religious people, along with their metaphysical nonsense. If you don't believe God exists and you do believe Dawkins has become a huge jackass since he stopped studying biology a decade ago, or you have differences with Harris or Hitch or Myers -- or with Russell or Sartre or Nietzsche or Twain, or with me, or with anyone else who identifies as an atheist -- I think you should call yourself an atheist and talk directly and clearly about your specific differences with those other atheists.
Why? Because if you correctly identify yourself as an atheist, there's a greater chance that others will understand what you're talking about. Abandoning the term will only lead to confusion -- it has only led to confusion. Simple and plain as that. And again, what ever has been the point of any of us (outside of the Communist bloc) opposing religion and exposing ourselves to so much aggravation, if it has not been for the sake of greater understanding and greater clarity, and for the sake making more sense and speaking more plainly than those others in their churches and temples and mosques, and for the sake of striving to be better than those who know better but would thrive on the confusion of others?
Thursday, May 22, 2014
(Review Of Why I Am An Atheist Who Believes In God By Frank Schaeffer) I Wonder Whether There's A Precedent For This Willy-nilly Re-Definition Of Terms:
-- "spiritual but not religious." "Followers of Christ but not Christians." "Jumbo shrimp." (Just kidding about about the term "jumbo shrimp;" it doesn't belong in this discussion because if the shrimp in question are unusually large, the term actually makes some sense.) And Now: The Amazing Story Of Frank Schaeffer, The Atheist Who Believed In God!
If it were not already quite enough that Schaeffer claims to be simultaneously a believer and an atheist -- oh, but it is, it is -- in this book Schaeffer claims never to have met an atheist nor a believer. Nonsense is one thing. Inconsistent nonsense is quite another, and writing "or" when "nor" is correct -- strike three, siddown, Schaeffer!
Just as there was a serviceable existing description of SBNR's etc -- they're Protestants -- so also is there a term for what Schaeffer is talking about in the title of his goofy new book: he's a Christian who has crises of faith now and then. If he had them a lot he might actually wake up someday and become a nice sensible atheist, but we really shouldn't hold our breath in Frank's case.
If it were not already quite enough that Schaeffer claims to be simultaneously a believer and an atheist -- oh, but it is, it is -- in this book Schaeffer claims never to have met an atheist nor a believer. Nonsense is one thing. Inconsistent nonsense is quite another, and writing "or" when "nor" is correct -- strike three, siddown, Schaeffer!
Just as there was a serviceable existing description of SBNR's etc -- they're Protestants -- so also is there a term for what Schaeffer is talking about in the title of his goofy new book: he's a Christian who has crises of faith now and then. If he had them a lot he might actually wake up someday and become a nice sensible atheist, but we really shouldn't hold our breath in Frank's case.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
A Big "Duh" Moment: Why They Call Us Nones
Ever since I have heard the term "nones" to describe people who identify as religiously unaffiliated, I have been extremely annoyed that we atheists are called "nones" along with Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, etc, etc, who lately haven't been going to church or temple. I object to being put into the same group as those people -- sometimes also called "spiritual but not religious" -- every chance I get.
But then today it suddenly hit me why we all would but put into the same category, and also why that category is called "nones": because "none" describes the financial contribution we are currently making to traditional religious institutions. From the point of view of those institutions, that is exactly what we all have in common.
But then today it suddenly hit me why we all would but put into the same category, and also why that category is called "nones": because "none" describes the financial contribution we are currently making to traditional religious institutions. From the point of view of those institutions, that is exactly what we all have in common.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
We Don't Need Would-Be-Deep Theologians Telling Us What We Need!
I only use the word "we" in the headline to make fun of all the articles with "we" in the headline which purport to tell entire civilizations how they feel. It may be that there are such essays written these days by people other than clergypeople and theologians, I don't know. I just know that more often than now and then a reverend or priest or rabbi or Professor of Theology, or sometimes more than one of the above united in one person, gets depressed, and projects his mood upon millions. "Why do we feel so empty inside?" one of them may ask. What you mean, "we," Kimosabe? I don't feel empty inside at the moment. I'm not completely unfamiliar with the feeling, but at the moment, I feel alright. "People don't seem to trust religion anymore." Well, good! Sounds like maybe they're recovering from religion, or potentially about to, or never suffered from it to begin with. Religion hasn't been at the cutting edge of human thought for thousands of years. (Yes, I know that in Medieval Christendom, all scientists were Christians, or pretended to be in order to be allowed to be scientists. That was a forced unity of science and religion -- worse, actually: a forced unity of science and one religion -- which is very convenient for the nincompoops today who insist that there is no conflict between science and religion, and was very bad for science at the time.) Perhaps what really feels particularly empty inside at the moment is the house of worship where the depressed clergyperson-author is attempting to make a living. I feel for someone who entered a profession which not long ago seemed like a completely reliable way of making a living, and now, all of a sudden, does not. I feel for the farmers who used to make a reliable living growing tobacco, and now, all of a sudden, cannot. I feel for them, but I still think they should switch to other crops.
In the 19th century in the US, religion -- well, Christianity -- well, evangelical Protestantism -- boomed. Pastors proclaimed that what "we" needed was "old time religion." I'm not sure how accurate at the time the adjective "old" was to describe what they were offering, but old-time religion was what it was called, and it was what the pastors were offering, and it was a booming industry. These days, "old time religion" is offered mostly on the political right wing. In the politically-progressive publications where these depressed men and women of God are going on and on about what "we" need, very little could be less popular than old-time religion. And so these depressed theologians insist that we need "new ways" into the same old religious stuff. (Sometimes by going along with the nuclear option of denying that what they offer is religious at all, but the dreaded SBNR.) These are the clearest-imaginable cases of projection: it is they who need new ways to attract people to their congregations. I'm really not so upset with them. They're trying to save their jobs. Trying to sell their tobacco, as it were. Yeah, well, I quit smoking and I think others should too. The depressed theologians need to adapt and change -- and not by trying to re-invent their millennia-old wheels.
In the 19th century in the US, religion -- well, Christianity -- well, evangelical Protestantism -- boomed. Pastors proclaimed that what "we" needed was "old time religion." I'm not sure how accurate at the time the adjective "old" was to describe what they were offering, but old-time religion was what it was called, and it was what the pastors were offering, and it was a booming industry. These days, "old time religion" is offered mostly on the political right wing. In the politically-progressive publications where these depressed men and women of God are going on and on about what "we" need, very little could be less popular than old-time religion. And so these depressed theologians insist that we need "new ways" into the same old religious stuff. (Sometimes by going along with the nuclear option of denying that what they offer is religious at all, but the dreaded SBNR.) These are the clearest-imaginable cases of projection: it is they who need new ways to attract people to their congregations. I'm really not so upset with them. They're trying to save their jobs. Trying to sell their tobacco, as it were. Yeah, well, I quit smoking and I think others should too. The depressed theologians need to adapt and change -- and not by trying to re-invent their millennia-old wheels.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Are The "Spiritual But Not Religious" Today's Jesus Freaks?
I've already often remarked that the large and remarkably self-important group which calls itself "spiritual but not religious" are Protestants who don't know what Protestantism is because they're ignorant of history. It just occurred to me that the "spiritual but not religious" may also have some characteristics in common with what decades ago were called "Jesus freaks." The term "Jesus freak" may well mean something very different to many or most people than it did in the early 1970's -- and perhaps earlier than that. I'm not sure, in part because I was only 8 years old on 1 January, 1970. But as a child I saw the Jesus-freak movement going on around me. These people were "freaks" in a sense of the term not entirely dissimilar to "hippies": they had very long hair, often wore tie-dyed shirts and went barefoot, and were Skeptical About Society. And they believed in Jesus. (Think Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar.)
And unless I'm very much mistaken, very many of them attended seminaries and took part in shaping today's liberal Christian theology. And so, man, you know, they're like, way too laid back to get all radical if someone decides they're not religious anymore even though they still love Jesus and believe in the Bible, okay man? Because they like realize that the true message of the Bible has been distorted by thousands of years' worth of patriarchy and homophobia.
I'm against patriarchy and homophobia. But I'm also against nonsense -- no, check that. I'm against patriarchy and homophobia because they are nonsense. Same reason I'm against religion, and against the claim that the "spiritual but not religious" aren't actually religious. They may be against some manifestations of organized religion, but 1) disorganized religion is still religion, and 2) as we speak, enterprising individuals are busy organizing these allegedly "spiritual but not religious" people, these religious people with Daddy complexes having theological disputes with others, into flocks and shearing them. The "spiritual but not religious" movement is just sad in the way that Christian rock has always been sad: they want so bad to be cooler than the other Christians and it just makes them dorkier. And like their claim that they're not religious, their claim that patriarchy and homophobia are distortions of Christianity is nonsense. There never was a matriarchal and gay-friendly Christianity until they invented one. Full rights for women and gays are worthy goals, worthy of fighting for. But they're not traditionally christian. And that is so obvious that it makes it obvious that these people are oblivious of the history of the religion they claim to embrace. And discouragingly but hardly surprisingly, trying to point this out to them is like trying to nail a blob of mercury to the wall. Religion, most definitely including the "spiritual but not religious," continues to provide a haven for people who, to paraphrase Jack Gibbs, are tenaciously fighting off the very idea of trying to think.
And unless I'm very much mistaken, very many of them attended seminaries and took part in shaping today's liberal Christian theology. And so, man, you know, they're like, way too laid back to get all radical if someone decides they're not religious anymore even though they still love Jesus and believe in the Bible, okay man? Because they like realize that the true message of the Bible has been distorted by thousands of years' worth of patriarchy and homophobia.
I'm against patriarchy and homophobia. But I'm also against nonsense -- no, check that. I'm against patriarchy and homophobia because they are nonsense. Same reason I'm against religion, and against the claim that the "spiritual but not religious" aren't actually religious. They may be against some manifestations of organized religion, but 1) disorganized religion is still religion, and 2) as we speak, enterprising individuals are busy organizing these allegedly "spiritual but not religious" people, these religious people with Daddy complexes having theological disputes with others, into flocks and shearing them. The "spiritual but not religious" movement is just sad in the way that Christian rock has always been sad: they want so bad to be cooler than the other Christians and it just makes them dorkier. And like their claim that they're not religious, their claim that patriarchy and homophobia are distortions of Christianity is nonsense. There never was a matriarchal and gay-friendly Christianity until they invented one. Full rights for women and gays are worthy goals, worthy of fighting for. But they're not traditionally christian. And that is so obvious that it makes it obvious that these people are oblivious of the history of the religion they claim to embrace. And discouragingly but hardly surprisingly, trying to point this out to them is like trying to nail a blob of mercury to the wall. Religion, most definitely including the "spiritual but not religious," continues to provide a haven for people who, to paraphrase Jack Gibbs, are tenaciously fighting off the very idea of trying to think.
Monday, April 8, 2013
I Wouldn't Call Myself A Human --
-- because there's so much unpleasantness associated with the human species and I'd like to distance myself from that.
What's that you say? I'm being ridiculous? Maybe so. But more ridiculous than the spiritual but not ridi -- I almost wrote "spiritual but not ridiculous," ha. Am I being more ridiculous than the spiritual but not religious? No. Less so, I'd say, because I knew I was being ridiculous and I did it for a laugh and to make fun of spiritual but not religious people such as Marcus Mumford, a Christian musician, but be careful if you call him one. He says, I don't really like that word. It comes with so much baggage. So, no, I wouldn't call myself a Christian. I think the word just conjures up all these religious images that I don't really like. I have my personal views about the person of Jesus and who he was. ... I've kind of separated myself from the culture of Christianity.
Uh-huh. Not from his fixation on Jeebus Christ Himself though, of course, which is where the Gosh-darn word "Christian" comes from...
Now, of course, religion has never been about being logical or consistent. And perhaps Christianity has never been about a rudimentary knowledge of the history of Christianity, because anybody with that rudimentary knowledge must surely see the striking similarities between the Protestants separating themselves from the Christian herd, and the SBNR doing it again all around us today: the dissatisfaction with institutions, the effort to have a more direct connection with Gosh and Jeebus, the emphasis on "what Jeebus really did and said" (which today is flying in the face of scholarship which is coming more and more to the conclusion that we don't know what Jeebus really did and said, although the mainstream still recoils from considering the obvious question: did he really actually exist at all? Not that the answer to that one matters so much, it's just an interesting, obvious question), the holier-than-thou attitude wrapped in that very diaphanous Christian cloak of stupid arrogance which is the repeated insistence that one is not holier-than-thou, but very very humble... I don't think it'll come to full-scale warfare like it did between Catholics and Protestants for most of the 16th and 17th centuries, but other than that I think we've pretty much got the entire nine yards. If these people knew that history perhaps they'd begin to see what a hamster-wheel they're on, and stop focusing so intently on one imaginary friend and one thick boring volume of ancient lore as if all the answers were in there and as if every attempt at good sense had to be measured against it -- as if any one volume were justified in such an absurd claim -- and become good sensible atheists and begin to open up more to the entire, real world. But how long, O Gosh, how long yet before we get there?
What's that you say? I'm being ridiculous? Maybe so. But more ridiculous than the spiritual but not ridi -- I almost wrote "spiritual but not ridiculous," ha. Am I being more ridiculous than the spiritual but not religious? No. Less so, I'd say, because I knew I was being ridiculous and I did it for a laugh and to make fun of spiritual but not religious people such as Marcus Mumford, a Christian musician, but be careful if you call him one. He says, I don't really like that word. It comes with so much baggage. So, no, I wouldn't call myself a Christian. I think the word just conjures up all these religious images that I don't really like. I have my personal views about the person of Jesus and who he was. ... I've kind of separated myself from the culture of Christianity.
Uh-huh. Not from his fixation on Jeebus Christ Himself though, of course, which is where the Gosh-darn word "Christian" comes from...
Now, of course, religion has never been about being logical or consistent. And perhaps Christianity has never been about a rudimentary knowledge of the history of Christianity, because anybody with that rudimentary knowledge must surely see the striking similarities between the Protestants separating themselves from the Christian herd, and the SBNR doing it again all around us today: the dissatisfaction with institutions, the effort to have a more direct connection with Gosh and Jeebus, the emphasis on "what Jeebus really did and said" (which today is flying in the face of scholarship which is coming more and more to the conclusion that we don't know what Jeebus really did and said, although the mainstream still recoils from considering the obvious question: did he really actually exist at all? Not that the answer to that one matters so much, it's just an interesting, obvious question), the holier-than-thou attitude wrapped in that very diaphanous Christian cloak of stupid arrogance which is the repeated insistence that one is not holier-than-thou, but very very humble... I don't think it'll come to full-scale warfare like it did between Catholics and Protestants for most of the 16th and 17th centuries, but other than that I think we've pretty much got the entire nine yards. If these people knew that history perhaps they'd begin to see what a hamster-wheel they're on, and stop focusing so intently on one imaginary friend and one thick boring volume of ancient lore as if all the answers were in there and as if every attempt at good sense had to be measured against it -- as if any one volume were justified in such an absurd claim -- and become good sensible atheists and begin to open up more to the entire, real world. But how long, O Gosh, how long yet before we get there?
Monday, July 9, 2012
Atheists, Do You HAVE to be Spiritual?
So why do I have a problem with atheists saying they're spiritual?
Even if there were not this huge and growing movement of people who insist that they are "spiritual but not religious," "spiritual" would be a nebulous term, and, it seems to me, clarity of thought and expression is one of the primary goals of the atheist. Or at least it seems to me it should be. To say the same thing another way: clarity and religion are mutually-opposed principles. One lessens the other. What does a person mean when he describes himself as spiritual? Who knows? Perhaps an atheist describes himself as spiritual, and by that he means that he feels a great sense of awe when contemplating the universe. (And by the way, who doesn't?) If that's what he means, then that's what he should say. Eleven words: "I feel a great sense of awe when contemplating the universe." Instead of five: "I am a spiritual person." Six extra words are a small price to pay to eliminate so much confusion.
And of course the above-mentioned "spiritual but not religious" people, who of course are nothing more or less than religious people whose relationship with some religious organization has undergone a change, and who are not aware, or behave as if they were unaware, that what they are now is already covered by some existing category of person traditionally considered just as religious as anyone else, if not actually more so: Protestant, or mystical, or Pietistic, or charismatic, or some combination of the above -- these people provide one more big reason for atheists not to describe themselves as spiritual.
Of course it makes no sense for these people to say that they are not religious -- that is to say: not religious anymore. Have you ever met any "spiritual but not religious" people who were not previously religious, according even to themselves? Yeah, neither have I -- but, of course, language does not change according to what makes sense, but according to how people use it, and I am already resigning myself to these turnips re-defining a few terms for all of us. I'm fighting them on linguistic and logical grounds, but I'm not kidding myself that I'm going to win.
Even if there were not this huge and growing movement of people who insist that they are "spiritual but not religious," "spiritual" would be a nebulous term, and, it seems to me, clarity of thought and expression is one of the primary goals of the atheist. Or at least it seems to me it should be. To say the same thing another way: clarity and religion are mutually-opposed principles. One lessens the other. What does a person mean when he describes himself as spiritual? Who knows? Perhaps an atheist describes himself as spiritual, and by that he means that he feels a great sense of awe when contemplating the universe. (And by the way, who doesn't?) If that's what he means, then that's what he should say. Eleven words: "I feel a great sense of awe when contemplating the universe." Instead of five: "I am a spiritual person." Six extra words are a small price to pay to eliminate so much confusion.
And of course the above-mentioned "spiritual but not religious" people, who of course are nothing more or less than religious people whose relationship with some religious organization has undergone a change, and who are not aware, or behave as if they were unaware, that what they are now is already covered by some existing category of person traditionally considered just as religious as anyone else, if not actually more so: Protestant, or mystical, or Pietistic, or charismatic, or some combination of the above -- these people provide one more big reason for atheists not to describe themselves as spiritual.
Of course it makes no sense for these people to say that they are not religious -- that is to say: not religious anymore. Have you ever met any "spiritual but not religious" people who were not previously religious, according even to themselves? Yeah, neither have I -- but, of course, language does not change according to what makes sense, but according to how people use it, and I am already resigning myself to these turnips re-defining a few terms for all of us. I'm fighting them on linguistic and logical grounds, but I'm not kidding myself that I'm going to win.
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