Discover magazine and the blogs they host have been some of my favorite things to read for a while. Unfortunately, Melissa Lafsky has written a rather pointed theology post that reflects poorly on the entire magazine.
Religion is a very important part of my family. I’m a buddhist and my wife is very active in the Episcopal church. Our faith is an important part of our life, and it frustrates me when people whom I respect belittle other’s beliefs.
While many fundamentalist atheists often personify every member of an organized religion as a crackpot, most of us are pretty normal. Pat Robertson and othe fundamentalist crazies don’t represent the majority of religous people. Unfortunately for people like Hitchens, these normal people are more difficult to embarass.
I find it difficult to put my thoughts into words on this, but here are a few quotes that represent the real spirit of those of us with faith. Keep in mind, that these are all quotes from prominent religious figures in normal religions and I encourage any fundamentalist atheist to counter any of them instead of targeting nutjobs and extremists.
Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.-HH Dalai Lama
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
-Mother Teresa
We must not be attached to a view or a doctrine, even a Buddhist one. . . . The Buddha said that if in a certain moment or place you adopt something as the absolute truth, and you attach to that, thenyou will no longer have any chance to reach the truth. Even when the truth comes and knocks on your door, and asks you to open the door, you won’t recognize it. So you must not be too attached to dogma–to what you believe, and to what you perceive.-Thich Nhat Hanh
Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.
-Mohandas Gandhi
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
-Buddha
Faith is not trying to believe something regardless of the evidence. Faith is daring to do something regardless of the consequences.
-Sherwood Eddy
There is no such thing as a fundamental atheist. Atheism is not a belief system, it is merely a statement about a lack of belief in regard to one issue, the existence or non-existence of god. Therefore it is impossible to be fundamentalist. Calling someone a fundamentalist atheist is like calling someone a fundamentalist non-capitalist, or a fundamentalist non-leprechaunsian The only reason you feel that way is because religion is on a pedestal in culture and sits in a place where it’s not supposed to be questioned. People speak just as harshly about political candidates and that’s acceptable on network television. I think you are wrong about what atheists need to address to counter religious claims, as well. It’s the holy books that should be argued against, not quotes by people who have followed those holy books.
Regardless, I will comment on your quotes. Most of those quotes I would agree with, despite the fact that in a couple of cases they are very blatant hypocrisies on the part of the speakers. However, since you probably don’t think that’s relevant let’s move on to what is wrong in a couple of the quotes. The Buddha quote first. That seems to me to be arguing for closemindedness. If it left off “common sense” then I don’t think I would have a problem with it, but as it stands it sounds like it is arguing for rejecting, out of hand, something that you can’t understand. Common sense is neither common to the masses, nor sensical where it’s present. I have heard people often say things like, “It’s just common sense that there is a god.” This shows the fallibility of the concept. Starting from a neutral beginning point and only making up their mind on this issue by the evidence nobody could ever come to the conclusion that there is a god unless they actually had a mental defect. The evidence is simply not there. As for the last quote, well, that is pure rubbish. He’s trying to redefine a purely moronic concept, faith, as being something it’s not. It’s a transparent attempt to try to bring credibility to a word wholly devoid of any logical merit. Faith is exactly the first definition he gives, he hit the nail right on the head if you leave off the last sentence. That penchant for believing things because you grew up in it, because it’s comforting, or the alternative is too hard to understand is the only reason the world is full of religious people. If humanity was immune to the temptations of giving in to faith, which is a vice, not a virtue, about 1%, if that, of the population would believe.
I probably won’t be back to counter your response since I only found this off your link in the article you are speaking of here, so goodbye and have a good day.
Well, thank you for being a fascist and rejecting my comment. It just shows how weak your position really is if you can’t even handle dissent.
Chris, I apologize if you felt that your comment was rejected. All comments from new users are put into a moderatino queue which I check a few times a day.
Fundamentalism is merely a total commitment to a belief. An anti-theist can be fundamentalist just as easily a theist, there are plenty of discussions either way on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalism#Non-theistic_.22fundamentalism.22 I personally have no problem with people who are atheist, but I do have a problem with any person who enforces their religious beliefs, or lack there of, on other people.
In addition, I have no problem with the discussion that Ms. Lafsky linked to, but I do have a problem with where she chose to post it. The debate was sponsored and posted by OnFaith, a theology blog. Discover magazine is dedicated to science and should stick to a secular viewpoint.
As far as your comments on the quotes:
The Buddha quote as written is a bit close-minded without the context. The statement was in response to whether people should have blind faith in religion. Also, keep in mind that the original quote was made 3,000 years ago in Pali and is likely not the exact wording.
In retrospect, the last quote is a bit of a stretch, but I was trying to pull quotes from a variety of moderate religions. It’s easy to believe that all religous people are nuts when you only hear quotes from morons like Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter.
Finally, your reference that anybody who believes in god has a mental defect is interesting. By most estimates, this one is a bit outdated (http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm) about 80% of the world is religous. That’s a lot of mental defects.
I said faith is a vice, I did not say anyone who is religious has a mental defect. The difference is I don’t think it is a malfunctioning of the brain that causes people to have faith in unprovable things such as god, I think it is the brain functioning normally, just being applied in a situation that it is unable to deal with correctly. That is why critical thinking has to be taught to people, we aren’t born with the skills to deal with these ideas in the proper way. However, granted that, your rebuttal is incorrect. At one time everyone believed the earth was flat, but that doesn’t make it true. You are arguing ad populum. The majority of the world also believes in psychic phenomenon even thought that has never had any evidence to support it. I believe it’s something like 60% of Americans think JFK’s assassination was a conspiracy by the government. The point is, just because the majority of people believe something doesn’t make it true. Conversely, just because someone believes something that is stupid, it doesn’t make the person stupid.
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