| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
06 Apr 2004 05:01:36 AM |
| Object: |
'God Bless Atheism' |
'God Bless Atheism'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53316-2004Apr5.html
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, April 6, 2004; Page A21
On Monday, our family asked why this night was different from all
other nights as we celebrated Passover at the home of Jewish friends.
There was nothing unusual in this. In Seders of their own, millions of
Jews around the world did exactly the same thing. But we are not
Jewish. We are Catholics who are celebrating Holy Week.
E.J. Dionne Jr.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=18510aff.0312041318.4acd7c39%40posting.google.com
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| User: "Kate " |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
06 Apr 2004 09:21:05 AM |
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On 6 Apr 2004 03:01:36 -0700, (maff) wrote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53316-2004Apr5.html
"The believer can certainly support religious freedom on pragmatic
grounds. History has shown that the alternative is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder. But it is also possible for the believer to be
intellectually rigorous and still acknowledge a debt to the
Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason -- and, yes, to atheists. "
History has shown the alternative to religion is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder? I don't see that at all. Er, more like the
opposite.
Real Shirts for Real People
http://www.cafeshops.com/realitees
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| User: "Therion Ware" |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
06 Apr 2004 09:31:11 AM |
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On 6 Apr 2004 09:21:05 -0500 in alt.atheism, Kate
(cobalt@newscene.com (Kate )) said, directing the reply to
alt.atheism
On 6 Apr 2004 03:01:36 -0700, (maff) wrote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53316-2004Apr5.html
"The believer can certainly support religious freedom on pragmatic
grounds. History has shown that the alternative is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder. But it is also possible for the believer to be
intellectually rigorous and still acknowledge a debt to the
Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason -- and, yes, to atheists. "
History has shown the alternative to religion is chaos,
Erm, the alternative to religious freedom, I think.
persecution,
war and mass murder? I don't see that at all. Er, more like the
opposite.
Real Shirts for Real People
http://www.cafeshops.com/realitees
--
"Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You."
- Attrib: Pauline Reage.
Inexpensive VHS & other video to CD/DVD conversion?
See: <http://www.Video2CD.com>. 35.00 gets your video on DVD.
all posts to this email address are automatically deleted without being read.
** atheist poster child #1 ** #442.
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| User: "Eric Witte" |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
06 Apr 2004 04:18:36 PM |
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(Kate ) wrote in message news:<40d0bbf0.322245187@news-west.newscene.com>...
On 6 Apr 2004 03:01:36 -0700, (maff) wrote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53316-2004Apr5.html
"The believer can certainly support religious freedom on pragmatic
grounds. History has shown that the alternative is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder. But it is also possible for the believer to be
intellectually rigorous and still acknowledge a debt to the
Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason -- and, yes, to atheists. "
History has shown the alternative to religion is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder? I don't see that at all. Er, more like the
opposite.
Real Shirts for Real People
http://www.cafeshops.com/realitees
History also shows if you did not back religion you were killed. Is
that what you mean? Lack of religion causes death and chaos to you by
the religious :)
Eric
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| User: "Fred Stone" |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
06 Apr 2004 09:43:35 AM |
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(Kate ) wrote in news:40d0bbf0.322245187@news-
west.newscene.com:
On 6 Apr 2004 03:01:36 -0700, (maff) wrote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53316-2004Apr5.html
"The believer can certainly support religious freedom on pragmatic
grounds. History has shown that the alternative is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder. But it is also possible for the believer to be
intellectually rigorous and still acknowledge a debt to the
Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason -- and, yes, to atheists. "
History has shown the alternative to religion is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder? I don't see that at all. Er, more like the
opposite.
Note that he's talking about the alternative to "religious freedom", not
"religion".
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
Cthulhu for President! Why vote for a lesser evil?
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
08 Apr 2004 12:44:50 PM |
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On 6 Apr 2004 03:01:36 -0700, (maff), Message ID:
<18510aff.0404060201.32410e05@posting.google.com> wrote in alt.atheism;
'God Bless Atheism'
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53316-2004Apr5.html
Honoring atheism during Holy Week
E.J. Dionne, Jr. - Washington Post Writers Group
04.06.04 - WASHINGTON -- On Monday, our family asked why this night was
different from all other nights as we celebrated Passover at the home of
Jewish friends.
There was nothing unusual in this. In Seders of their own, millions of
Jews around the world did exactly the same thing. But we are not Jewish.
We are Catholics who are celebrating Holy Week.
Our story might typically be used to tell a self-congratulatory American
tale about the triumph of religious liberty and pluralism. But some
serious believers, and also some principled atheists and agnostics,
might view our evening differently.
I could imagine an orthodox believer -- Christian, Jewish or Muslim --
wondering how committed we really were to our own faith. I could imagine
the atheist pointing to our shared celebration as evidence that
religious faith is, for many, not a matter of genuine conviction but of
sentiment, friendship and family ties.
There are easy replies to such skepticism, including the command shared
across many traditions to love both God and neighbor. This implies --
does it not? -- a respect and, yes, a love for those who seek God in
different ways.
But the orthodox believer and the atheist both have a point in
challenging our facile answers. That's why, in this week of all weeks, I
treasured The New Republic's ironic cover line: "God Bless Atheism."
Inspired by the recent Supreme Court argument over the words "under God"
in the Pledge of Allegiance, Leon Wieseltier, the magazine's literary
editor, praises atheists for taking the question of God's existence so
seriously that they force believers to do the same.
If the basis for religion "is not an intellectually supportable belief
in the existence of God," Wieseltier writes, "then all the spiritual
exaltation and all the political agitation in the world will avail it
nothing against the skeptics and the doubters, and it really is just a
beloved illusion." He goes on: "There is no greater insult to religion
than to expel strictness of thought from it."
Wieseltier makes clear by implication why is it is easy for the
nonbeliever to insist upon religious freedom and pluralism. Since the
nonbeliever sees faith as an irrational "preference" among many other
preferences, government has no business privileging one preference over
another.
The believer's basis for supporting religious freedom will necessarily
be more complicated because the believer, by definition, sees faith not
as a "preference" but as truth.
The believer can certainly support religious freedom on pragmatic
grounds. History has shown that the alternative is chaos, persecution,
war and mass murder. But it is also possible for the believer to be
intellectually rigorous and still acknowledge a debt to the
Enlightenment, to the Age of Reason -- and, yes, to atheists.
All religious traditions interact with their times. Some reject the
spirit of their times. Some are swallowed up. Most traditions survive by
finding a balance between preserving their integrity and adjusting to
new revelations.
The Enlightenment waged war on the imposition of religion through force,
and many religious traditions (notably, after some struggle, my own
Catholic Church) eventually adapted to the lessons it had to teach.
But the Jesuit theologian David Hollenbach puts an interesting twist on
that adaptation. Religious liberty, he argues, must be rooted not merely
in "tolerance" but in what he calls "intellectual solidarity."
Tolerance, he notes, is "a strategy of noninterference with the beliefs
and lifestyles of those who are different or `other."' That is the
classic Enlightenment view. Intellectual solidarity demands more. It
"entails engagement with the other ... in the hope that understanding
might replace incomprehension and that perhaps even agreement could
result."
Those who subscribe to various faiths and to none agree to put their own
understanding of things at risk, "to listen as well as to speak, to
learn from what they hear, and, if necessary, to change as a result of
what they have learned."
Those who believe they possess truth should not fear entering what
Father Hollenbach calls "a community of freedom." Doing so is not a sign
of intellectual fuzziness or a lack of faith. On the contrary, it means
embracing the very "strictness of thought" that Wieseltier rightly
demands of believers. It is only in dialogue with others that our faith
is tested, our ideas made explicit, our errors corrected. And that is
why I thank my friends who invited us to join in solidarity with them to
recall the Exodus story and to reaffirm the quest for human freedom it
celebrates.
(c) 2004, Washington Post Writers Group
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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| User: "Elroy Willis" |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
09 Apr 2004 07:34:27 AM |
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stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote in alt.atheism
Those who believe they possess truth should not fear entering what
Father Hollenbach calls "a community of freedom." Doing so is not a sign
of intellectual fuzziness or a lack of faith. On the contrary, it means
embracing the very "strictness of thought" that Wieseltier rightly
demands of believers. It is only in dialogue with others that our faith
is tested, our ideas made explicit, our errors corrected. And that is
why I thank my friends who invited us to join in solidarity with them to
recall the Exodus story and to reaffirm the quest for human freedom it
celebrates.
Too bad the Exodus story is a lie.
--
Elroy Willis
EAP Chief Editor and Newshound
http://web2.airmail.net/~elo/news
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| User: "stoney" |
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| Title: Re: 'God Bless Atheism' |
09 Apr 2004 08:04:42 PM |
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On Fri, 09 Apr 2004 12:34:27 GMT, Elroy Willis <elo@airmail.net>,
Message ID: <g06d705u17rh29kk89m0hakk9b6956o3nb@4ax.com> wrote in
alt.atheism;
stoney <stoney@the.net> wrote in alt.atheism
Those who believe they possess truth should not fear entering what
Father Hollenbach calls "a community of freedom." Doing so is not a sign
of intellectual fuzziness or a lack of faith. On the contrary, it means
embracing the very "strictness of thought" that Wieseltier rightly
demands of believers. It is only in dialogue with others that our faith
is tested, our ideas made explicit, our errors corrected. And that is
why I thank my friends who invited us to join in solidarity with them to
recall the Exodus story and to reaffirm the quest for human freedom it
celebrates.
Too bad the Exodus story is a lie.
As most of the Bible is.
Stoney
"Designated Rascal and Rapscallion
and
SCAMPERMEISTER!"
When in doubt, SCAMPER about!
When things are fair, SCAMPER everywhere!
When things are rough, can't SCAMPER enough!
/end humour alert
alt.atheism military veteran #11
{so much for the 'no atheists in foxholes' rubbish}
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