Scottie wrote:
Yes of course. If it wasn't for him, I would not be at my desk right now, I'd be out raping, murdering, pillaging...
Unfortunately, this is how atheists are perceived.
This is how atheists are perceived by idiots. Idiots who apparently have never read a book (including but not limited to works of literature, philosophy, history, political theory and hell, I'll even through in aesthetics).
I'm rarely in these threads because for me atheism is such a completely non-loaded term. Its a loose general description of lack of belief in a deity. This has been my default mode from the beginning and there was no turmoil or emotional or intellectual struggle attached to reaching it. Most of the people I respect and admire, from family members to cultural icons are either nonbelievers or "belief" is irrelevant to the relationship have with them.
That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the oftimes horrendous fallout others have had to endure along this philosophical trail. Far from it, nearly every time I peruse this, or other boards relating to Mormonism, I'm gosh-durned thankful I didn't grow up in a rigidly believing environment. It was probably the single thing my parents did right (though they didn't "do it" too actively and did require minimal church attendance for their young children out of a sense of fitting in to Utah culture that I actually can sympathise with a bit. And in the long term it probably gave me an ethical foundation by bad example).
Does this mean I despise any and everything produced out of global religious traditions? Hell no! I love my Dante and St. Augustine. I revere William Blake---though as a nearly sui generis creative genius I regard him as only tangentially, and perhaps only aesthetically, "part" of a Christian tradition, but I digress...
Neither does this mean I dismiss out of hand any and all believers.
It simply means that I pretty much don't regard the whole constellation of arguments around belief/non-belief to be very interesting or useful. With one caveat: the material conditions that have necessitated or abetted a rise in fundamentalism is of interest for a contemporary political critique, but this is a kind of "specialized" argument to me, a subset of an inquiry into the general fascistic tendencies of capitalism.
So that's my two cents, thrown in for now particular reason but that I'm home after a long day and unwinding on the internet.
From the Ernest L. Wilkinson Diaries: "ELW dreams he's spattered w/ grease. Hundreds steal his greasy pants."