Oh God

[vaneramos]

The Guardian recently published an interview with Richard Dawkins, British evolutionary biologist, leading proponent of atheism, and author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. People like Dawkins make me squeamish, the same way I suppose many sincere Christians feel sick whenever certain religious leaders open their mouths.Critics accuse him

Comments

[dakoopst]

I respect this.

I find as I age that I think less and less of gods and religion. It's not that I don't believe deities exist, precisely, as much as I believe that at times, belief in those deities gets in the way of living in the here and now.

The only thing that causes negative reaction from me now in that corridor is extremism from either side.

Who knows what will happen as I age further; I would expect my viewpoint to evolve somehow, but I have no set goals for it.

[vaneramos]

Thanks Stephen. I've followed a circuitous route, as you know. The past few years it has come about as a matter of how I relate to death. Now that I've more or less made peace with that question, I'm more concerned about community. These questions keep bringing me back to religion.

[themage]

Well expressed from start to end, and I concur on empathy and openness.

Jung's point is well made, and I am compelled to add that the "beneficial psychological phenomenon" and "harmonising the psyche" is not the sole province of a spiritual community. It's a benefit of belonging to any community, or it should be. Our culture accepts religious belonging more openly than any other belonging and often marginalizes other belonging-ness as less important.

Of course, that's just a tactic to keep up attendance at 'Church'.

[vaneramos]

Yes, essentially I'm concerned about building good community. Traditionally churches performed that function, sometimes but not always well. Of course we're better off participating in communities where we don't have to support misguided values.

[bitterlawngnome]

I've never understood how something like the existence and function of mirror neurons is less awe-some than a belief in the aetheric transference of emotional vibrations.

[vaneramos]

Heh, that's the thing that gets me. I probably get more spiritual development from reading Scientific American and National Geographic than sitting through a sermon once a week. One of the biggest challenges is that when I'm anxious or depressed I tend to stop reading stuff that stimulates my mind.

[inishglora]

Thought-provoking post and even more so the responses.

The last seven or so years destroyed any shred of blind faith in any figure, religious or otherwise.
Therefore, to me, dakoopst captures it perfectly in a masterful sentence: It's not that I don't believe deities exist, precisely, as much as I believe that at times, belief in those deities gets in the way of living in the here and now.

[vaneramos]

The last seven or so years destroyed any shred of blind faith in any figure, religious or otherwise.

I can remember the moment I realized I didn't believe in God anymore. It was about nine years ago and I was standing on the riverbank. I had been an evangelical Christian at one time, so the realization came as a shock and left me fluttering for a frame of reference in the universe.

What finally hit me was seeing how much religion presents the best argument against itself by so often getting in the way of love.