From the Morning News:
Only rarely do I encounter someone who will admit to being an atheist in Northwest Arkansas.
On those infrequent occasions I have found the non-believer to be sincere, cordial and respectful of my faith. Often I will respond to the atheist's contention that there is no God by responding, "Tell me about the God that you don't believe in."
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Only rarely do I encounter someone who will admit to being an atheist in Northwest Arkansas.
On those infrequent occasions I have found the non-believer to be sincere, cordial and respectful of my faith. Often I will respond to the atheist's contention that there is no God by responding, "Tell me about the God that you don't believe in."
More often than not, I find that I also don't believe in the omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful God that the atheist describes.
A few weeks ago, atheists around the world celebrated "Blasphemy Day" by "un-baptizing" people with hair dryers or displaying paintings like "Jesus Paints His Nails," in which an effeminate Jesus is depicted painting polish on the nails that pierced his hands.
Such actions are a reflection of the attitude of the "new atheism" advocated by Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins and journalist Christopher Hitchens. Speaking at the University of Toronto recently, Hitchens said, "I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right."
Perhaps it should be no surprise that some of the "new atheists" would claim the right to treat religion with "ridicule, hatred and contempt." Throughout history, similar tactics have been employed against non-believers by practitioners of a variety of religions.
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Yet Dawkins and Hitchens, in their attempt to discredit religion, are themselves practicing a brand of fundamentalism. Their writings seem to reflect an unflinching conviction that they are the sole possessors of the truth, just as fundamentalist Christians and Muslims often lay claim to a unique knowledge of the nature of the Divine.
The new atheists seem to assume that the faith of all religious people can be painted with a broad-brush stroke and that all who call themselves religious also hold fundamentalist beliefs. Their analysis ignores the fact that many Christians do not regard the Bible as literally true or accept the theory of evolution as the only credible scientific explanation for the earth's current biological makeup. These Christians imagine a God that is very unlike Hollywood's portrayal of an old man with a beard sitting on a throne, vigilantly directing events on earth.
Many Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus and Buddhists conceive of God in a far less dogmatic way than the new atheists go about dismissing the existence of God. In short, Dawkins and Hitchens have erected a straw man, a conception of God that is easily toppled by even the most elementary understandings of science, logic or philosophy.
Both atheistic and fundamentalist conceptions of God seem unable to imagine God as distinctly different from the "beings" that we are. Many progressive-minded religious people conceive of God as transcendent, distinctly mysterious and ultimately unknowable. Yet other religious people, despite possessing intelligence, education and an otherwise sophisticated worldview, cling to an infantile conception of God.
Their idea of God was formed about the same time as their conception of Santa Claus. As they grew older and let go of a child's idea of how the world works, they continued to hold on to a view of God that is essentially a being similar to us, perhaps only larger or more powerful.
Such a way of conceiving of God is indeed fair game for the new atheists and, perhaps, can serve to propel religious folk onto a deeper and more meaningful understanding of the nature of the Divine — even if the process of letting go of untenable beliefs proves painful.
In the final analysis, I think it is important for all us who are bold enough to speculate on the nature of God — whether atheist, fundamentalist or progressive — to recognize that we are all wrong.
The mystery that is the essence of the Divine is essentially beyond understanding by human minds.That recognition shouldn't prevent us from pursuing serious theological inquiry — just provide us all with a strong dose of humility.
The Rev. Roger Joslin is the vicar at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Bentonville.
http://www.nwaonline.net/articles/2009/10/29/religion/102409relfaithmatters.txt