If you haven't read any of the other threads, the short story is this: I had a clash with an online friend over religion.  I finally wrote a very long reply, which I'll include after my friend's letter.  I haven't sent it yet, so input will be valued.

Thanks!

 Hi,
 
First off, I sincerely apologize for not writing you personally and sooner.  Chris offered to be intermediary and I took him up on it because basically, I am a coward.
 
When we spoke via Skype ... you know, I don't even recall exactly what was said but all of a sudden you went off on a huge and long rant.  I'm not saying you were wrong or not justified.  But in doing so, you scared the living hell out of me.  Plain and simple, that's why I haven't been in contact with you.  You scared the hell out of me.  All the times we talked about the "fundies" who go insane and rant and rave and go on an on and on... in that instance, you sounded exactly like them.  It terrified me to the point where I felt I couldn't even risk communicating with you because I was terrified that you would suddenly go off on me again.  Yes, I guess we could try to have a "safe" word (maybe not "banana"... see?  I read your emails).  I want to try.  I want to fix this.  I miss you, dammit.  But I feel like I've been hugely traumatized and I still feel very, very scared.  Frankly, I feel sick to my stomach just writing this.
 
Chris wasn't quite right in saying I lost my faith when my dad died.  My faith has been severely battered over the years but the truth is, I never entirely lost it.  I am a Christian.  I became one in high school.  I have struggled dearly with it all these years.  But I've never lied to you about it.  I cannot bear pushy Christians, cannot bear pushy anybody who insist they're right and I'm wrong and that's all there is to it, it doesn't matter what the subject.  Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize that this doesn't have anything to do with whether or not you or I believe in God.  The real issue is that you went totally "fundy-like" and I couldn't cope.
 
I am willing to try to fix this.  If we can't, then I'm hoping to at least part as friends who have just moved on in different directions.  I don't want to be in an unstable relationship either and face it, neither of us are terribly stable.  But I don't know if I want to just throw away all the years we've known each other.
 
Think it over, ok?
 
Deb 

Hi Deb,

Here is a response to your e-mail.  Please read it carefully and get back to me.

Thank you,

Laura

I am a Truth-Seeker.  Prior to the phone conversation that freaked you out, I had been undergoing a lot of changes.  Actually, I’ve been undergoing changes for years.  That is the nature of constant truth-seeking.  It keeps you on your toes and quite frankly, it is tiring. Once, Tim said something very wise to me.  He said, “You have to drive all over the road before you can find the middle.”  That’s what I’ve been doing.  I’ve been driving all over the road, trying to find the truth and the moral high ground. 

I’ll continue to seek the truth.  Rationality requires keeping an open mind, which is hard.  I had to question some of my core beliefs recently.  That’s why I was suffering and needed to vent.  What I said to you was more like venting than recruiting, although I have changed my mind about the relative abhorrence of the latter (recruiting, persuading, proselytizing, etc.)  I’ll get to that later.

There is No Such Thing as an Atheist Fundamentalist.  Let me explain something about the nature of atheism.  It is impossible to be an atheist fundamentalist because there is no dogma about which to become fanatical.  Atheism is quite simply a lack of belief in a god or gods.  It is a lack of dogma, nothing more; nothing less.  At the Rational Response Squad, we have Objectivist, Libertarian, Liberal, Socialist and Marxist atheists.  That covers the political spectrum from right to left.  The one thing we all have in common is we abhor the current crop of Republicans.  I even found an Objectivist who can’t stand Bush.  Imagine. J

What is a Fundamentalist?  So, what is a fundamentalist (or fundy)?  A fundy is someone who adheres to a strict dogmatic position on a cadre of issues regardless of the facts.  They can’t be swayed through rational discourse even if you demonstrate their errors to them.  A person who can change his or her opinion on a subject when proven wrong is not a fundamentalist (or ceases to be as much of a fundamentalist as soon as he or she becomes more flexible).

There are religious and political fundamentalists of every stripe.  There have been fundamentalists who also happened to be atheists, but atheism was not the source of their fundamentalism.  I’m thinking mainly of despots like Joseph Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao Zedong.  These atheists had radical, dogmatic political views which they clung to despite evidence that their “programs” weren’t working.  In some cases they insulated themselves from the truth.  George W. Bush likes to do that.  It’s also common among religionists and other fundamentalists who can’t handle having their beliefs questioned.

Trying to Convince Others You Are Right Does Not Make You a Fundamentalist.  For a long time, I viewed anyone who was pushy or took a stringent stand of any kind as a “fundamentalist,” but this is an incorrect view.  This is one of the “core beliefs” I questioned and tossed aside. (After all, when you wrote me, weren’t you trying to persuade me your position was correct?) A person can hold a strong view, be pushy and not be a fundamentalist.  It took a bunch of pushy people to abolish slavery.  It took pushy scientists to force fundamentalist religionists to acknowledge that the earth is spherical and that it revolves around the sun.  It will take even more pushy people to force fundamentalist religionists to acknowledge that evolution is a fact, that homosexuals are not evil, that the United States in not a Christian nation, that the bible is not a good guide for morality and that faith-based initiatives result in destroyed World Trade Centers, endless wars on terror and the eroding of civil liberties.  There has never been a greater need for pushy people of conscience.

Religion as Sacrosanct.  For many years religion has enjoyed a position of unassailability.  It is not only considered “rude” to question a person’s religious beliefs, in some countries it is punishable by death.  In Afghanistan, the half-time entertainment of a soccer match consists of burying adulterers, blasphemers, etc., up to their necks and stoning them to death with brick-sized stones.  The United States isn’t this badly off yet, but we will be if we continue to “respect” religious beliefs.  Just look how far things have deteriorated under President Bush.  He won’t fund stem-cell research.  He wants abstinence-only sex education.  He invaded Iraq because god “told him to.”  The guy is religiously insane and so is a good chunk of the general population.

Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and many others finally convinced me that our current position of respecting others’ religious beliefs must come to an end.  Religion must be held to the same scrutiny as all other beliefs.  We don’t allow people to hold erroneous beliefs on whether or not the earth is flat, whether or not the holocaust happened, whether or not pi is a (probably) infinite number that starts with 3.14.  All other beliefs—including political beliefs—are under constant, intense scrutiny.  But religion is somehow different.  Why?  If religious beliefs have value, they should stand up to a little scrutiny.  If religious people are honest, they shouldn’t mind allowing their beliefs to be scrutinized.

Sam Harris says it best: “[When it comes to religion] the conversation never takes place….The moral arguments never have to be made at the political level because it is fundamentally taboo to criticize someone's religious beliefs.  Faith is really a conversation stopper.”  And if you don’t believe it, just look at the three and a half months of silence that has descended on our friendship.

The time for respecting religious beliefs has long since passed. Criticizing religion is not only a right, it is a responsibility.

Religious Moderation is a Dead End.  During the last several months, I’ve also started questioning my respect for moderate and liberal religion.  After all, liberal and moderate religionists are well-behaved.  They don’t fly planes into buildings or stone people during half-time.  They aren’t the ones squalling about homosexuality being a sin.  They aren’t the ones stalling stem-cell research or calling for creationism and abstinence-only sex education to be taught in the classroom.  As citizens go, these people are good people, but there are some problems with their beliefs.

1. Moderate / liberal religion betrays faith and reason equally.  Moderate religionists barely know what their sacred texts say.  Hell, it’s been twenty years since I formally studied the bible, but I bet the rock-solid education the fundies gave me during the first half of my life trumps the knowledge of most Christians, especially moderate and liberal Christians.  The moderate and liberal Christians I’ve known have been downright shocked when I quoted nasty bible verses to them.  They didn’t even know what was in their own holy books!  Once the shock wears off, the moderate religionist will attempt to explain away the genocidal hatred shown by the god of the bible.  If only I had a dollar for all the times I’ve heard the following:

• It’s allegorical!  You’re not interpreting it correctly! (Who gets to decide what parts are allegorical and which are literal?)
• The new covenant did away with the old.  We’re not under Old Testament Law anymore. (Oh really?  And if god is perfect, why would he need to change covenants in the first place?  Why is the old covenant so flawed?  And what’s so great about sending everyone who doesn’t believe in Jesus to hell?)
• Faith is an alternative path to knowledge.  Faith is “heart” knowledge. (Oh yes? Then why do we have so many mutually-exclusive religions?)

In their rationalization, moderates betray scripture.  Why can’t they just admit the text says what it says? (Answer: because then they’d have to admit that the bible is an immoral book.)  By continuing to believe irrational things—Jesus was the Son of God; Jesus was born of a virgin; Jesus rose from the dead; miracles really happen; prayer works—they betray reason just as thoroughly as they betray faith.  Moderate and liberal religionists try to have it both ways, which is intellectually bankrupt and woefully dishonest.

2. The worst thing about moderate / liberal religionists is they provide a shield for the fundamentalist nutcases.  Moderate and liberal religionists constantly clamor for others to respect their religious beliefs.  Fundamentalists have no such compunctions; they criticize everyone’s beliefs but their own, yet expect their own beliefs to not only be respected, but to become the law of the land!  In this paradigm, those who want to “live and let live” don’t stand a chance.  As long as it is politically incorrect to question someone’s religious beliefs, no progress will be made against faith-based nonsense.  The only voices heard will be those of the religionists.

When Is It Appropriate to Criticize Another Person’s Religious Beliefs?  The short answer is I haven’t worked this out completely.  That’s why I vented in your general direction.  I was (and am) in flux, trying to decide the best way to approach the matter.

Sapient, one of the founders of The Rational Response Squad, has a very level-headed way of viewing the matter.  Because religion is such an emotional topic, he leaves his friends and family out of it completely.  He says if the movement grows, then hopefully some other atheist will have an effect on his friends and family.  He can agree to disagree and leave it at that. 

The Rational Response Squad keeps all activism in the public sphere.  Basically, we pull “publicity stunts” to get people to think and respond.  The last publicity stunt was the Blasphemy Challenge on YouTube.  It pissed off a lot of people, but boy did it ever open up a discourse!  What we want is to open up a dialogue.  We want people to come and defend their religious beliefs and listen to our rebuttals.  If someone ends up proving god actually exists, that’s great!  We’ll believe. 

Most of all we want to get rid of the cultural taboo against criticizing religion.  Then, and only then, can we even begin to arrive at anything that resembles the truth.

Buddhism and Mindfulness Meditation.  This leads me to my final point.  Although I lack belief in god, I am not against the concept of “spirituality.”  I believe that it exists not on some metaphysical plain, but in the human psyche and that someday we’ll be able to quantify and measure it.  What is “spiritually” true will be true, whether the practitioner lives in Los Angeles, Tokyo, Baghdad, Calcutta, Jerusalem or Bangkok.

With that in mind, I’ve just begun looking into mindfulness meditation, which comes from the Buddhist tradition.  Now, I don’t believe in reincarnation, but I do believe that humans can attain altered states of mind.  These altered states (and even permanently altered brain patterns) show up on brain scans.  Tomorrow science may prove this too is bunk, but I’m interested enough to give it a try.  It helps a lot of people attain peace of mind.

What’s more, I’m impressed with the Dalai Lama, who is open to science and even defers to science when religion and science clash.  (It’s always religion that eventually gives way.  It’s just the faith-based dogmatic religions tend to drag their feet for centuries.) This is the kind of spiritual leader that is needed in today’s society.

This Tome is Finished.  That’s all I have to say.  I just wanted to explain the recent changes in my life that led me to bring up the topic of religion.  I also had to explain to you that I am not a fundamentalist.  When it comes to simple atheism, there is no such thing.  I have become more active in the “culture war” declared by Christians against us and I intend to make sure that rationality and reason win out in the end no matter where they may lead.  I fully intend to keep my “culture warrior” activities in the public sphere and away from my personal relationships as much as possible.  That’s a fancy way of saying I won’t bring it up unless you do.  If I do, then it’s my fault (as it was before) and I will cease and desist immediately.

Sincerely,

Laura