How does this commentary on a NY Times Op-Ed piece make you feel?

[BurtWorm]

This was a response to a piece by Times columnist Charles Blow on Saturday called "Defecting to Faith," which seems to argue that more people are heading away from nonbelief toward religious affiliation than are going the other way because faith is more cuddly and social. Actually, Blow's faulty argument is based on his fucked up reading of a Pew poll that actually said nothing about nonbelief; it was looking at non*affiliation*, which is a whole 'nother matter. But that's another subject.

I was looking through the comments readers left at the online version of Blow's piece and one struck me, as an avowed atheist, as being particularly nauseating. I would imagine other atheists might feel this way, but I can also imagine more moderate responses among my atheist brethren and sistren who might grant that perhaps there is something in what this commentor says about the pverty of nonbelief compared to belief when it comes to matters "spiritual." But I wonder if there are any believers who agree with me that this person is spewing pure gas.

Pay particular attention to the second graph. Is this an honest argument, or a gust of wind?

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/05/02/opinion/02blow.html?permid=20#comment20

May 02, 2009 10:05 am

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I was at a funeral today and the priest referred to my friend, the body in the casket, as 'the remains'. I thought it an interesting phrase. The remains were there, in the box, but by inference the 'substance' was gone. His life, his heart, his mind and soul - had left - and they were what made him, 'him'.

An atheist cannot tell you where my friends 'life' went because they refuse to acknowledge the spiritual side of man. Though an unbeliever might want to discuss 'beauty', 'goodness', 'love', 'truth' - they cannot speak with any great depth because they are 'spiritual' ideas. Bring up the subject of 'meaning of life' and they don't know what that is. If they do have some idea, some inate idea, then they are speaking from their 'heart and spirit'. But finding meaning is to affirm life itself. In other words, a life without meaning is - not a life - just and existence (for a short time). A secular finds 'meaning' but it is situational and temporary. Faith gives eternal meaning, significance to even the smallest 'insignifcant' things - makes everything in life important and profound.

"While science, logic and reason are on the side of the nonreligious, the cold, hard facts are just so cold and hard. Yes, the evidence for evolution is irrefutable. Yes, there is a plethora of Biblical contradictions."

I would argue that logic, reason and even science are, as far as they go, on the side of Belief. I see no contradiction between any of those things and what I believe.

One thing believers fail to realize is that the Bible spends 3 chapters in Genesis on the creation of all things and approximately 23 on the person of Abraham (the father of faith, our faith). We can deduce from this that God (inspirer of the Bible) felt it was more important to focus on that - faith - rather than this physical world. In regards to creation - God made the laws of nature, couldn't evolution be one of those laws? Finally, the prophets said that with God 'a thousand years was as a day' and vice versa - He didn't say it was a day or was like a literal day - He made it clear that His sense of time is beyond our grasping or quantifying. So, why are we saying that a 'thousand years equals a day'!? It is these arguments that confuse the real issue - that God truly exists, loves us all and that each person needs to experience the living God and know that love.

The world and all it contains loudly proclaims the existence of God. Our own bodies (so amazing!) do as well. So why are minds so confused and darkened? To believe requires humility and a recognition that we need God - our lives are empty without Him, have little meaning beyond what physical temporal pleasure a person can find (this is what is 'meaningful' to the unbeliever since it is something physical).

My hope is that everyone come to recognize how very loved they are by God. I hope they learn how special and wonderful they are in His eyes. Finally, I hope they come to recognize that God not only made them good but wants to bless them, always, with good.

Peace to all sincere seekers. I know you will find Him for He wants to be found by you. Peace to all who believe - let us show His love to the world (nothing elee matters in our faith if that love is missing!). God be praised!

[redqueen]

1. Not even a gust.

More like a little toot.

[BurtWorm]

5. An evil-smelling little toot, though.

:insert smiley wearing gas mask:

[MineralMan]

2. Makes me feel like the writer is someone who

has limited understanding.

[BurtWorm]

3. The writer is some kind of monk, I believe.

I agree with you.

[MineralMan]

7. A monk, eh? Well, not one who has an extraordinary

intellect, then. Either that or one who dares not to think about the alternative to the belief system to which he has devoted his life.

I'd enjoy a conversation with him, I think. It's one I've had with a number of the religious. I leave them thinking about things in a somewhat different light.

[Occam Bandage]

4. Douglas Adams, from Last Chance to See:

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?"

[redqueen]

6. Apparently the faeries make it a permanent thing.

Whereas you can only appreciate the garden while it's in bloom... something I personally have no issues with. Yes, things die... even us. It's not the best thing about life, but there it is.

[MineralMan]

9. For me, it is the boundaries of life that make

it meaningful. Without the boundary of death, I would savor my life less.

[Occam Bandage]

12. If the stars only came out once a year,

the entire world would turn off all its lights, and every man, woman, and child would go out to watch them intently. As it stands, few ever bother to notice them.

[redqueen]

15. Beautifully put.

And... it kind of explains a lot.

[Meshuga]

8. I don't believe in spirit in its conventional connotation

But I use the word spirit a lot in context with the person's memories and legacy. Especially when someone dies.

Instead of living for an afterlife I would like to live with a goal to get a pretty nice obituary written about me and to leave some good memories of me to my children and loved ones. That's my spirit that I wish to see "survive."

One does not have to believe in the supernatural to give meaning to life and speak of 'beauty', 'goodness', 'love', etc. And the eternal meaning in faith, in my opinion, is self deception. It could be useful and comforting to some but it is not something that I am comfortable with for myself.

[BurtWorm]

10. Spirit, from Latin, means breath.

Interesting to meditate on, how that concept developed. Nothing supernatural about breath.

:hi:

[Meshuga]

13. The soul leaving the body after the last breath

I am making shit up. :-)

[BurtWorm]

14. D'oh! Forgot about the soul!

:crazy:

[struggle4progress]

21. Do you know this joke? A Baptist Minister, a Catholic Priest and a Rabbi were

discussing what they hoped to hear at their own funerals, if they were somehow able to spy on the ceremonies. The Baptist said: "He was a good man: he didn't drink, he didn't chew, he didn't gamble, and he was faithful to his wife." The Priest said: "He was a good man: he helped the poor and fed the hungry." THe Rabbi said: "He was a .. was a .. Look! He's wiggling his toes! He's alive!"

[JuniperLea]

11. I'm a "sincere seeker"...

This person doesn't understand the difference between being spiritual and being religious. One can believe in spirit without believing in a bearded cloud being. I choose to believe that our energy returns to the greater mass of energy that surrounds us.

And if I choose to believe in faeries, that's my choice too.

To condescend like this, in the name of God, must surely be a huge sin.

"However you treat these the lesser of my brothers, you also treat me". ~ Paraphrasing Jesus

Good band name... Paraphrasing Jesus:)

[charlie]

16. 3 chapters vs 23 tells him about God's priorities

I guess he's never seen the old and new testaments printed separately.

[trotsky]

17. It's an argument based on ignorance and prejudice.

Not all that different from the bulk of Christian apologetics.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. The eternally rational Robert G. Ingersoll:

That guy is presuming to speak for other people. That's narcissistic.


Christianity has such a contemptible opinion of human nature that it does not believe a man can tell the truth unless frightened by a belief in God. No lower opinion of the human race has ever been expressed.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll,



I admit that reason is a small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stumblers carried in the star-less night, -- blown and flared by passion's storm, -- and yet, it is the only light. Extinguish that, and nought remains.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, sentiments later echoed by Albert Einstein ("One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have."), from the Field-Ingersoll Debate (Part 2): "A Reply To The Rev Henry M Field, DD"

If there be an infinite Being, he does not need our help -- we need not waste our energies in his defense.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "God in the Constitution" (1870)

We need men with moral courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Thomas Paine" (1870)

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child"

They knew no better, but I do not propose to follow the example of a barbarian because he was honestly a barbarian.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Limitations of Toleration"


The moment you introduce a despotism in the world of thought, you succeed in making hypocrites -- and you get in such a position that you never know what your neighbor thinks.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Limitations of Toleration"


The doctrine of eternal punishment is in perfect harmony with the savagery of the men who made the orthodox creeds. It is in harmony with torture, with flaying alive, and with burnings. The men who burned their fellow-men for a moment, believed that God would burn his enemies forever.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Crumbling Creeds"


The Church demonstrated the falsity and folly of Darwin's theories by showing that they contradicted the Mosaic account of creation, and now that the theories of Darwin having been fairly established, the Church says that the Mosaic account is true because it is in harmony with Darwin. Now, if it should turn out that Darwin was mistaken, what then?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, in "Col. Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone" from *The Autograph Edition of the Complete Works of Robert G. Ingersoll* (Dresden: 1902), Volume 11, Page 276


We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872)


Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?
-- Robert Green Ingersoll, "Some Mistakes of Moses"



"The hands that help are better far than the lips that pray." -- Robert Green Ingersoll

[The_Commonist]

19. What a bunch of gibberish!

Pure blather.
I want that two minutes of my life back...

[Jim__]

20. I think the second paragraph is an honest opinion.

I also think it's a very uninformed opinion. I don't see any argument in it. This person is completely incapable (uninterested) of stepping outside his current viewpoint. It is difficult to try to see the world through someone else's eyes, but I think it's worth the effort.

[JerseygirlCT]

22. Not an atheist, but I think his idea that atheists necessarily

live lives devoid of meaning exposes a pretty limited view of beliefs outside his own.

First, I don't think any of us can ever really judge whether another person's live is meaningful. Secondly, not believing in a deity simply does not mean ones life is meaningless. I suppose it might appear so to some believers, but I'd fault them for a pretty naive or uninformed opinion.