a midnight gallop
I've been sitting here for hours, listening to Christopher Hitchens on a good number of subjects. He's so brilliant. I love this guy so much. I could listen to him all day and all night. His mind is sharp, and his judgments are direct and nuanced in such a way that he is never an advocate for a "side" but a truly individualized view. I love that. You won't get that often. You'll maybe meet a few people like that in your entire life. He's one of them. Thank God for Christopher Hitchens (I fully recognize the irony of that statement).
I sat and listened to a video called "The Four Horsemen". The title refers to the 4 atheists that are pushing their ideology against belief in a god, and are seen as the leaders or front-runners. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. I've heard all of these men speak separately, and have man-crushes on all of them. It was so awesome that they got together. It started out like a bad stand-up comedy routine "Don't you hate it how etc etc", and everyone quickly went through the basic premises of their talking points, discussing various aspects of atheism vs theism. After a while, once they had all figured out how to talk to each other, the conversation became much less about each individual reciting their dogmatic points on the issues, and it became much more a collaborative effort to talk about and propose sound thoughts, almost to create what they wanted to see in the world. It was a beautiful thing. I found myself thinking in the middle of it "where do I go to find a conversation like this?" The conversation they had is the type of conversation I want to have. Google has failed me here... I can google almost anything I want, but I cannot google sharp intellectual conversation gatherings. For now I am stuck with youtube.
At another point in watching the video, I had such a feeling of reassurance in regard to my belief in God. Here these 4 men were, detailing extremely sophisticated arguments as to why God does not exist, and I cannot help but be encouraged in that belief they are seeking to disprove.
The more I think about the ideas of theism and atheism, the more I realize how seceded I am from protestantism. I believe that all four of those men are "going to heaven", whatever that means. I believe that the being I have labeled "Jesus" can very well be the same being someone else labels "Allah" or "cosmos" or whatever. A thought occurred to me, that on principle I should label myself as an atheist for a while. Not because I don't believe in the existence of spiritual reality, but because releasing my personal understanding of or relationship with spirituality from the confines and assumptions of linguistic labels associated with a particular religion will make it stronger. By removing definition, it becomes more defined. Half of me says no because of my fundamental view of religion as an intimately relational, essentially human function of expression to transcendence and the spiritual... a very subjective thing. For me to revoke christianity would be to not be true to myself in that spiritual relationship. The other half of me says no because of fear.
The one thing that I think these guys get wrong is their reasoning as to why religion is a poison that should be removed from society. Their argument is that that religion inflicts harm upon our species. Simple observation is used for this argument, which is in essence the only argument I have heard out of them. The crusades, genocides, inquisitions, heresy trials, etc etc etc. Their flaw isn't that they see these things as evil, because they are. What they fall victim to is the "us vs them" mentality. It's not religion that is evil, it's the people in the religions, and they are not evil because they are religious, they are evil because they are human. It's a correlation vs causation thing. All these atrocities in history were instigated by the religious, therefore religion is poison is analogous to saying people with black skin score lower on IQ tests than other skin colors, therefore black skinned people must have genetic IQ inferiority, or all of those fish have gills because they like to swim. It's a misapplication of variables and cause. It's just seems so overly inflammatory. I'm pretty sure they all say things like this to get attention, and sell a few more books. Their real content is very substantive, and the little quips they have about religion being poison or evil is the hook. Still... come on guys.
I sat and listened to a video called "The Four Horsemen". The title refers to the 4 atheists that are pushing their ideology against belief in a god, and are seen as the leaders or front-runners. Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. I've heard all of these men speak separately, and have man-crushes on all of them. It was so awesome that they got together. It started out like a bad stand-up comedy routine "Don't you hate it how etc etc", and everyone quickly went through the basic premises of their talking points, discussing various aspects of atheism vs theism. After a while, once they had all figured out how to talk to each other, the conversation became much less about each individual reciting their dogmatic points on the issues, and it became much more a collaborative effort to talk about and propose sound thoughts, almost to create what they wanted to see in the world. It was a beautiful thing. I found myself thinking in the middle of it "where do I go to find a conversation like this?" The conversation they had is the type of conversation I want to have. Google has failed me here... I can google almost anything I want, but I cannot google sharp intellectual conversation gatherings. For now I am stuck with youtube.
At another point in watching the video, I had such a feeling of reassurance in regard to my belief in God. Here these 4 men were, detailing extremely sophisticated arguments as to why God does not exist, and I cannot help but be encouraged in that belief they are seeking to disprove.
The more I think about the ideas of theism and atheism, the more I realize how seceded I am from protestantism. I believe that all four of those men are "going to heaven", whatever that means. I believe that the being I have labeled "Jesus" can very well be the same being someone else labels "Allah" or "cosmos" or whatever. A thought occurred to me, that on principle I should label myself as an atheist for a while. Not because I don't believe in the existence of spiritual reality, but because releasing my personal understanding of or relationship with spirituality from the confines and assumptions of linguistic labels associated with a particular religion will make it stronger. By removing definition, it becomes more defined. Half of me says no because of my fundamental view of religion as an intimately relational, essentially human function of expression to transcendence and the spiritual... a very subjective thing. For me to revoke christianity would be to not be true to myself in that spiritual relationship. The other half of me says no because of fear.
The one thing that I think these guys get wrong is their reasoning as to why religion is a poison that should be removed from society. Their argument is that that religion inflicts harm upon our species. Simple observation is used for this argument, which is in essence the only argument I have heard out of them. The crusades, genocides, inquisitions, heresy trials, etc etc etc. Their flaw isn't that they see these things as evil, because they are. What they fall victim to is the "us vs them" mentality. It's not religion that is evil, it's the people in the religions, and they are not evil because they are religious, they are evil because they are human. It's a correlation vs causation thing. All these atrocities in history were instigated by the religious, therefore religion is poison is analogous to saying people with black skin score lower on IQ tests than other skin colors, therefore black skinned people must have genetic IQ inferiority, or all of those fish have gills because they like to swim. It's a misapplication of variables and cause. It's just seems so overly inflammatory. I'm pretty sure they all say things like this to get attention, and sell a few more books. Their real content is very substantive, and the little quips they have about religion being poison or evil is the hook. Still... come on guys.