Apparently Atheists Should Fear Obama..?
Offline *sigh*... Will they ever stop believing they know what we think?
Will they ever stop trying to find excuses for nonsense?
Does this guy actually have the audacity to hijack what we all know to be the true value of this historic moment in a cheap attempt to cover up the Christians' personal elephant in the room?
Will they ever stop trying to falsely claim everything that is good for themselves?
Pardon me while I say jesus titty-fucking christ already.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/president-obama-bad-news_b_141342.html
The Obama presidency is great news for almost everyone. It's bad news for some odd ideological bedfellows: the Religious Right and the so-called New Atheists.
Into the all or nothing culture wars, and the all or nothing wars between the so-called New Atheists and religion the election of President elect Obama reintroduces nuance. President elect Obama's ability to believe in Jesus, yet question, is going to rescue American religion in general and Christianity in particular, from the extremes.
There is no way to understand President elect Obama's victory as anything less than the start of not just a monumental political change but a spiritual revolution as well.Full disclosure: I was raised by American missionaries -- Francis and Edith Schaeffer -- who became leaders within the American Evangelical subculture. When I was in my twenties I was their sidekick. We Schaeffers had a lot to do with the formation of the Religious Right. (Sorry!) In the mid 1980s I escaped my tribe's literal-minded religion and currently go to a Greek Orthodox Church. I've also been one of President elect Obama's most vocal and prolific -- judging by the amount I've written -- supporters.
The pro and anti God industry churns. I know. I've worked this turf for years. But there is a new sheriff on the religion beat. He's smart! President elect Obama is a knowledgeable fan of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, has lectured seriously on his faith and the relationship of church and state, and is not a nominal Christian for political purposes, but someone who actually prays, believes and lives his faith.
To the New Atheists who think that with the resounding defeat of the Religious Right, we are entering a secular age, think again. Obama will block your path. He'll do it for the same reason he'll make the Religious Right's paranoid fantasies about him soon seem shamefully ridiculous. That's because President elect Obama is that rarest of all rare people: a thoughtful, compassionate and likable statesman who also is a thoughtful, compassionate and likable religious believer.
In the last few years there has been a spate of best selling books published that are for or against religion. All of them are by literalists who speak in fundamentalist tones. On the pro-religion side we find A Purpose Driven Life and the Left Behind series extolling a Jesus-solves-everything one note evangelical born-again message. On the flip side are the equally evangelistic one note New Atheist books including Sam Harris's The End of Faith, Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion and Christopher Hitchens's God Is Not Great.
The New Atheists' books provided a context for Bill Maher's movie Religulous, the most blunt instrument imaginable. Maher's documentary expands what Harris started in his book The End of Faith. Harris begins his book with a scene of a young Islamic terrorist in Jerusalem smiling as he commits suicide while blowing up a bus full of innocent people. In Religulous, Maher gleefully includes many more images of look-how-crazy-God-makes-everyone, religion-inspired violence. The Harris/Maher message is as clear: the world would be better off without religion.
There is another message in the Maher/New Atheist oeuvre: everyone must think in categories stripped of allegory. Forget the idea that perhaps one may hold two contradictory ideas at the same time, say that none of the stories in the Bible happened as written, but that they are true in more subtle ways than mere historicity, or that we're nothing but jumped up chimps, but are also connecting to a deeper reality when we say, "the Lord is my shepherd" and hope that he is.
The New Atheists don't seem to "get" grown up allegory any more than the fundamentalists of the Religious Right do, let alone literary imagination. And both the Religious right and the New Atheists also seems oblivious to serious religious thinkers from Confucius to the Sufi poets, from Reinhold Niebur to one of Reinhold Niebuhr's biggest fans; President elect Obama.
Maher's world contains no Pastor Deitrick Bonhoffer (martyred for trying to assassinate Hitler, and who defined the intellectual and theological terms for resistance to state tyranny based on Christian ethics), or the intellectual man of letters and convert from atheism to the Roman Catholic Church, Malcolm Muggeridge, let alone an awareness of the prayers written by the "atheist" W.E.B. Du Bois for his students, a poignant demonstration that faith is not so easily abandoned.
But President elect Obama has spoken of the need to meld religious ethics with the philosophical underpinnings of statecraft, when for instance he says that the Democrats have been mistaken in not understanding that the abortion issue is first and foremost a moral issue.
On June 28, 2006, Senator Obama spoke at the Call to Renewal Conference sponsored by Sojourners. President elect Obama said:
"For some time now, there has been plenty of talk among pundits and pollsters that the political divide in this country has fallen sharply along religious lines... Conservative leaders have been all too happy to exploit this gap... Democrats, for the most part, have taken the bait... At worst, there are some liberals who dismiss religion in the public square as inherently irrational or intolerant, insisting on a caricature of religious Americans that paints them as fanatical, or thinking that the very word 'Christian' describes one's political opponents, not people of faith..."I think it's time that we join a serious debate about how to reconcile faith with our modern, pluralistic democracy.
"And if we're going to do that then we first need to understand that Americans are a religious people... This religious tendency is not simply the result of successful marketing by skilled preachers... I speak with some experience on this matter.
"You need to come to church in the first place precisely because you are first of this world, not apart from it. You need to embrace Christ precisely because you have sins to wash away -- because you are human and need an ally in this difficult journey."It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle of Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street in the Southside of Chicago one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn't fall out in church. The questions I had didn't magically disappear. But kneeling beneath that cross on the South Side, I felt that I heard God's spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth.
"That's a path that has been shared by millions upon millions of Americans -- evangelicals, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike; some since birth, others at certain turning points in their lives. It is not something they set apart from the rest of their beliefs and values. In fact, it is often what drives their beliefs and their values."
Pre the Religious Right take over the traditional focus of the Republican Party had been on foreign policy issues, the economy, military preparedness and a generally libertarian laissez-faire view of the world-things William F. Buckley, and Barry Goldwater would have recognized. This was replaced by the "religious ethics" of what I imagine as the Saturday Night Live Church Lady's older, stricter, uglier, dumber and terminally self-righteous big sister. This humorless desiccated hag remade the Republican image as the anti-everything party. And in doing so this hag also took down all religious people through guilt by association. And that is the context in which the evangelistic New Atheists emerged.
Okay, so a lot of religious people are nuts, or worse, intolerant. That still doesn't address the baby swirling down the Maher/New Atheist anti-religion drain along with the right wing bathwater they're flushing.
President-elect Obama brings another perspective to faith . It goes something like this:
How do cultures define themselves if not through ritual? In the "big moments" of life; birth, marriage, sickness, death "who" -- in the inimitable words of Ghost Busters -- "you gonna call?" As President elect Obama has said, and I paraphrase: Strip the human race of our spiritual language and what do we tell each other about hope?
As President elect Obama has pointed out, a world of all math but no poetry is not fit for human habitation. If everything feels flat and dull, stripped of mystery and meaning who will bother to do the science? Why bother, if all we're doing is serving those selfish genes for another round of meaningless propagation?
So does this faith always make "sense?" No. Because our perspective is from the inside, something like paint contemplating the painting of which it's a part. We're all in the same boat, all stuck on the same "canvas."
So let's admit we all share the problem that was best articulated by Darwin in his dairy: "Can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions?"
As our new president recognizes, self-awareness and mortality are already such a mutually exclusive (and terrifying) contradiction that accepting a few more contradictions is par for the course! And President elect Obama has a generous enough spirit and a large enough intellect so that he can do with his spiritual life, what the Religious Right and the New Atheists have not done: understand that there is no shame in embracing paradox.
President Obama is about to make reasoned faith fashionable again. It's about time.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
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I think this is ridiculous enough that I might just rip it to shreds, but not tonight. It's on my to-do list, though.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I feel the same. I look forward to your shredding with eager anticipation.
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Hell, I'll throw up my own quick comments now, I suppose. Still looking forward to yours, Hamby, which I'm sure will be much more thorough.
That's funny, considering that those with no religious affiliation were MORE likely to vote for him.
As always, the term "new atheists" is bullshit and extremely insulting. It's like if we started calling black people "the new black people" because of Obama's election.
Exactly. Glad we could establish that you're a cockmaster.
I'm glad to see you employing "so-called" as a qualifier, because that suggests that you do not necessarily endorse the term "new atheist", which would be great news for you, since it would help you to not look so much like an ass. Yet you marvelously failed at realizing how inappropriate it is to use even when qualified with a "so-called", so you're still either a cockmaster or a wannabe cockmaster. Your choice.
You know he was campaigning in the united states of jesus, right?
Fixed! Now I agree completely.
Big fucking surprise.
If I might wax V for Vendetta, ideas are bulletproof. Fuck your "anti-god industry" condescension.
Does being a fan of a theologian necessitate than one must also be a devout theist?
True, in which cases he argued that the government is for everyone, not just the religious, and especially not for any one particular religion. Therefore, the government is by definition neutral; that is to say SECULAR. Just as it was founded.
How is this bad news for atheists again? That's giving them exactly the biggest thing they want!
Let's again remember that he's a politician. We cannot take his words, spoken or written, at face value on this one.
But even if he IS as Christian as he would have us believe, his views on the separation of church and state mean that he is in no way threatening to atheists.
I'm pretty sure no atheist ever said that. While the end of Bush's faith-based nonsense is a welcome one, I have yet to meet an atheist who thinks we're on the verge of a secular utopia.
As long as Christianity isn't mixing with our government's policies and decisions, atheists will be happy. All disagreements after that will be social and academic ones.
On the contrary, he is mostly blocking a path we are happy to have blocked. You really haven't talked to any atheists, have you?
I actually mostly agree with that, with the possible exception that I'm a little suspicious of whether or not he is really so religious. But that is pure speculation.
All of atheism lumped in with fundamentalist religion? Excuse me while I shoot milk out my nose.
And in the latter case, a manifesto of hate, doomsaying, and christian self-entitlement.
I like the way you indicated exactly what the one note was in the Christian case but not in the atheist case. Perhaps the reason is because none of those atheist books are making the same argument and are, therefore, not of the same note.
God Delusion: An introduction to the atheist perspective, complete with arguments old and new. It is a collection of reasons---scientific, philosophical, moral, theoretical, etc---why God belief should not be considered the best choice.
End of Faith: An argument for why faith-based thinking in any religion, particularly Islam, is dangerous. Complete with results from the past and present.
Breaking the Spell: A purely speculative book which offers a variety of possible explanations for how religion could have occurred naturally.
How are these books all of one note, other than the fact that they make you uncomfortable?
The context was already there. You appear to be a fan of Barack Obama, so let me ask you: Did "The Audacity of Hope" provide a context for his election, given that it was a best-seller, or were people in general just ready for it?
When you assume things, it makes an ass out of u and me.
Or just you, actually.
Which, let us remember, had a completely different thesis and objective than the other atheist books you mentioned. Although the movie did have an angle in common with Harris's book, it had exactly nothing in common with either Dawkins's or Dennett's books.
Close. It would be better off without faith-based thinking.
Jainism and Buddhism are religions, too, but you won't hear Maher and Harris getting pissed off about those. And for good reason.
Just find a religion that doesn't require its adherents to turn their backs on reason and objective inquiry, and you might find that no one is any longer pissed about your religion.
I'm 100% positive that neither one of them has said that. Good try, though, cockmaster.
One may, as long as one is okay with not deserving to be taken seriously.
Okay, only I'm not going to waste my time doing it hypothetically. I'm completely aboard that train.
READ: They are true in whatever ways I wish them to be true, as long as we still get to say they are true. Please?
Let's not say that, because the only people who say that are people who pretend they know what evolution says but really are only cockmasters that shouldn't be taken seriously.
Well, if we're allowed to have as many realities as we want, then allow me to slip off into the reality where I'm married to Kate Beckinsale.
"deeper reality" is a euphamism for "imagination land".
Hope. Hm. Good Obama plug. Let's hope for things that aren't a waste of time, though, please.
Sure we do. I see and appreciate allegory in the Chronicles of Narnia. I see and appreciate allegory in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The real distinction is between those who merely "get" the allegory and those who read the allegory as some kind of affirmation of ridiculous propositions.
I'm so sick of this fallacy. This "atheists think with microscopes while Christians think with poetry" bullshit. Get over your self-righteous garbage. We're just as capable of art, poetry, and music as you are, and we can appreciate each of them fully.
Your brain is, in fact, different than an atheist's, but definitely not in the good way you seem to think it is.
You mean like you're oblivious to evolution?
"Christian ethics" are really just everyone else's ethics. Christians just like to try and claim everything that is awesome or good for themselves.
Case and point: This article of yours.
Like I said. Christian ethics: stolen.
...snip snip...
You ridicule the characterization but still embrace the most ridiculous part of it?
Yes, everything that is good is ours. Everything that is bad is... erm... someone else's. It's those "new atheists" or that Saturday Night Live bit.
Yes. Not our bad, though. Nope.
Because, you see, no TRUE Christian blah blah blah....
Ritual =/= Religion.
There is more to culture than that.
Oh, was I supposed to say god?
You know he's a politician right?
Hope does not necessitate religion. I have no religion, yet I hope. What's the deal?
There's that wonderful bullshit fallacy again. And yes, even if Barack Obama said it, it's bullshit.
You know he's a politician, right?
It's a good thing a secular world wouldn't even come close to being like that. Lucky us!
Fallacy expanded.
In fact, one could say it never does.
Metaphor is not an explanation because metaphors are formed ad hoc. You can't even write a metaphor without already accepting the described proposition beforehand.
Check out this metaphor:
"My heart thumped like an elthylgar in a treparelum."
Why doesn't this work? Or:
"The X was like a Z". Or:
"Love is like a fish. In what way, it is not certain."
If we don't have a relationship that we know to be true, we can't compare it to anything else that we hold to be true, because a) we don't know how, and b) we don't know that it would be analagous.
So by saying that faith is like paint contemplating the painting of which it's a part is to say that faith---the thing you're trying to explain---is a real thing that is analogous to another real thing that doesn't require explanation.
We are officially zero percent closer to understanding.
We never know what God or faith actually ARE, or what good they actually ARE.
We only know what they are supposed to be "like".
But really, this metaphor talk, since all metaphors are formed ad hoc, are just restating what you already believe in fancier language.
Even atheists could do that. Allow me:
*ahem*
Paint On A Canvas
The absence of religious faith is like the paint of the Mona Lisa,
which knows not how the canvas beneath it came to be,
which knows full well that it is but paint upon that canvas
it is not the actual skin on the ideal woman's face,
nor is it the cloth of her garments,
nor is it the hair of her head
---and yet it still thinks of itself as true, beautiful, and meaningful for what it is.
Paint.
On a canvas.
--a pretentious poem by Archeopteryx
So, not to ruin all this poetry with a well-deserved insult, but kindly fuck off with that shit.
Still works with my metaphor. Only I don't sound as crazy as you.
So let's admit that you don't know anything about evolution, indicated by the ignorant statements you made before about chimps, and now this.
And let's also admit that you don't know anything about how atheists think.
(For example, you do realize that Darwin is to modern evolution what a wheelbarrow is to a sports car, right? Dude didn't even know about DNA. Was that supposed to be a smack down? Pff... Puh-leez).
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
You need at least two things in order to have mutually exclusivity. We appear to have one: contradiction.
Unless you mean self-awareness and mortality are mutually exclusive AND CONTRADICTORY, in which case I could reply to you as if you knew how to construct a grammatical sentence.
Really, I think you were just looking for an excuse to use the term "mutually exclusive" so you could feel cool. Don't lie. Tool.
Oh, the religious right have totally done that, and so have you by your own admission.
Atheists would be more likely to say there is no shame in embracing paradox, as long as it's for artistic reasons. But to seriously hold two contradictory views at once? That takes religoius doublethink, and it is, in fact, shameful.
No such thing!
You say that as if people weren't already wearing it on their sleeves.
You. Are. A. Tool.
I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!
A place common to all will be maintained by none. A religion common to all is perhaps not much different.
Well, I WAS a bit pissed off until I read your next post. Thanks a lot!
I am a little bit disappointed that Obama seems so religious, but I doubt he would've won if he wasn't. Oh well.
Didn't he abandon his church for political convenience? I think he joined it for political convenience too. It allowed him to appear religious and to avoid appearing like an Uncle Tom.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
I think Obama is an atheist, BUT a smart politician, who understands the religious mind set. Ever hear me preach the atheist jesus message?
Barack Obama's Religion: Less Muslim, More Atheist. Thank God? - 1:45.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v0R7IzMJTI
.... see "more imfo" from the video author
Atheism Books.
When Obama was being interviewed the other night and was asked what book really inspired him, he said the bible. That sent shivers down my spine and was actually one reason I voted for Ralph Nader. I've seen it claimed too that Obama really is a closet atheist like IAGAU stated, but I've yet to see conclusive proof otherwise.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
But Cali_ , the famous bible "inspires" atheists too ... such as rrs Rook. Heck, ever read my; atheist jesus, and I am christ as you, rants? Yeah, well not always inspiring, but you surly get my point.
Umm, maybe Obama is more of a pantheist, but he has little choice politically but to call himself christian, but I'm rather sure his jesus interpretation is more like that of say Gandhi, Thomas Jefferson, the atheist zen buddhists, Alan Watts, and mine etc.
The 2 party system needs fixing. Do you know what activist Ralph Naders religion g-o-d view is?
Atheism Books.
Sorry for getting off topic, but: What's 'new atheism'?
I figured that before the agricultural revolution which afforded humanity time to sit around looking at the sky and make up bullshit that pretty much all life on earth was atheistic. What evidence do we have that single cell life forms over a billion years ago believed in any god?
"I've yet to witness circumstance successfully manipulated through the babbling of ritualistic nonsense to an imaginary deity." -- me (josh)
If god can do anything, can he make a hot dog so big even he can't eat all of it?
It's because of lunch. I really enjoy lunch. A fantastic perk of being alive that I would be unable to enjoy if deceased.
Oh, sorry, did I give a ridiculous response? Well, then you probably shouldn't have asked such a ridiculous question. What is this "poetry" of which you speak? Why is it that people like you feel qualified to throw out vacuous albeit celebrated terms like "higher meaning" and call it a day? Your fundamentalist counterparts astound us because of the astonishing idiocy of their propositions. But at least their propositions have content. Idiotic content, perhaps, but content. Your kind astonish us because you put yourselves on some sort of high ground (above those unsophisticated and literal minded atheists) on the basis of beliefs so vague that the inanity of them is matched only by the sincerity with which they are propagated.
"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.
-Me
Books about atheism
I'm taking off for Bangkok this afternoon. It's gonna be a great trip. I love going to Thailand. I love being immersed in a different culture.
You know what else is great about Thailand? The food. I fuckin' love Thai food. They changed the recipe a few years back, but I love Singha beer with Thai food.
Life is good. (I've been using that phrase a lot longer than those dweebs that make the t-shirts.)
Your answer wasn't ridiculous. It was exactly the "purpose" of life: to experience life itself. If that weren't worthwhile, there'd be no point in reproduction, in eating, or anything else.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Singha isn't bad. Oh yeah, heh. You said "bang cock. "
*holds back the tears* Stop it, just stop it... you had me at -
You complete me.
No doubt Obama has some religious beliefs. It would be silly to assume that he didn't, certainly since he has openly proclaimed otherwise.
But, as this author clearly states, Obama is someone who (so far as I can tell, he is a politician so who knows) has his head screwed on straight. He seems to be a fellow that is interested in making the government work, and stop wasting everyone's fucking time and money. I strongly suspect he also does not plan on squashing our civil liberties with reckless abandon, like Bush.
As was said before, I don't know anyone who said anything like "secular utopia". That's bullshit, we live in America, that kind of state will not exist in our grandchildren's lifetimes. This douche needs to get a hobby.
Actually I totally get your rants and many are quite inspiring. Didn't jesus say he was the son of man? The bible inspires me to be an atheist so perhaps his messege was lost in translation.
Yes, the two (one) party system needs fixing, but until we realize that both systems worship at the same alter of vulture capitalism we cannot hope to fix it. You know, I'm not sure of Nader's views on god are. At this point it's not relevent what they are, but if you're privy to the scoop I would love to know.
"Always seek out the truth, but avoid at all costs those that claim to have found it" ANONYMOUS
Nice to hear cool Cali_ . I've actually tried googling unsuccessfully to get the religious scoop on quite a few famous folks including Nader. I guess one could email them the question, but I get the feeling many wouldn't reply.
Surly Nader's current g-o-d view is known. Damn I'm extra curious now. Well so, I tried again for 10 mins of nothings.
Atheism Books.
Oh thank goodness he was just referring to the "new" Atheists. I've been the same ol' Atheist all my life, you know, the sort of Atheist that doesn't believe in any supernatural entities like gods. I don't know who these new Atheists are whether they be the new Atheists referred to in the 1960s, or the new Atheists referred to in the 1990s, or the new Atheists of the 21st century. Anyway, I'm guessing I don't have much to worry about.
It's silly really. These "New Atheists" are like someone watching an episode of Seinfeld for the first time. It's been around but it's new to the person who hasn't been paying attention. So anyone referring to the "New Atheists" is just advertising that they don't know what they are talking about.
Quoteth la meathead:
"I was raised by American missionaries -- Francis and Edith Schaeffer -- who became leaders within the American Evangelical subculture."
Yeah, I kind of lost the will to listen around about there. Credentials have been shown, credentials have been rejected. All I'm hearing now is a big fat pile of la la la.
Still, New Athiests? Is that something like "New Labour" (British gag, sorry). If the old shit ain't working for you then REBRAND!
New and improved Athiest, bigger, better, brighter, BOLDER. The Athiset you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite.
I can see where thery're going with this, "NEW" suggests old. Old, no longer being here, suggests complete victory over the old. Which sets a benchmark for the fate of the "new".
Future enforcement through fictitious backward projection, lovely. A victory by name and no other, from those without the courage or conviction to fight.
If I might interject a small note of praise:
"So, not to ruin all this poetry with a well-deserved insult, but kindly fuck off with that shit."
Wonderfully put.