Christmas Dismays 0
In reacting to Duncan’s comment about this kerfluffle over Christmas displays in the Washington State capitol building, Mithras points out that
Part of the hubbub involved a local atheist group wanting to place something in the display area, followed by requests from hell-and-brimstone Christianists, Seinfeldian “Festivus” celebrants, Flying Spaghetti Monster devotees, you name the creed–serious or surreal–its adherents wanted to get in on the action.
As I have pointed out on numerous occasions in this space, the purpose of the religion clause in the First Amendment was to prevent the state or its agents from dictating, either overtly or covertly, religious beliefs or doctrine to the populace, not to restrict the ability of citizens acting personally to exercise or discuss their faiths or lack thereof.
I have a good friend who is an atheist.
The road to atheism was a gradual and unexpected one; one day my friend was leaving church and realized it had become personally meaningless and irrelevant. Since then, the decision has been reinforced by the witnessing of much suffering, leading to a conclusion that no benevolent god could allow such random, mindless, pointless suffering as we see about us every day.
Nor would a benevolent god be allow itself to be represented by so many who arrogate to themselves the position of spokespersons, the Ted Haggards, the James Dobsons, and all their self-aggrandizing fellow-travellers–just to pick a few from current events–who preach love while practicing hate.
This friend has also lived back and forth between the United States and Europe and remarks, sometimes with much intensity, about the prejudice against atheists in the United States. (Aside: If I want advice about what is a right action versus a wrong action, I would unhesitating accept my friend’s advice, because my friend’s moral compass is accurate and judgement unerring.)
And that prejudice is very real. It pops up in big ways and little. When I was a young ‘un, there used to be public service announcements on the telly vision that admonished persons to attend the “church or synagogue of your choice.” (Implicit in the announcement was the assumption that Christianity and Judaism were the only two religions represented amongst the polity and that everyone had a “church or synagogue” to attend. That was wrong then and is wronger now.)
Today we still hear persons repeat that hoary old chestnut, “There are no atheists in foxholes,” which is not only false, but also ignores that witnessing the horrors of war for religious causes may have produced more atheists, appalled by the brutality committed in the name of someone’s God, than peace has done. (I am confident that one reason the Founders included the religion clause in the First Amendment is that they were still close to the horrible blood-letting of the Thirty Years War and knew what evil could result from establishmentarianism.)
There is a American societal assumption that some reason, some religion, any religion (except, perhaps, Wahhabi Islam) has to be better than no religion. This leads to idiotic assertions such as that atheism is actually a form of religion and that atheists are ipso facto validating religion by being atheistic and the even more idiotic assertion, popular several years ago, that there was such a thing as “secular humanism.” (There isn’t. There’s humanism. Period.)
Atheism is a profoundly rational conclusion. It is, indeed, the only rational philosophical conclusion. And by that I mean that no philosopher who has ever tried to “prove” the existence of a god by strict logic has ever succeeded. When their logic is reduced to Booleian algebra, there is always a flaw–usually an invalid syllogism, sometimes a postulate that is actually a conclusion, rather than a postulate.
Atheism is not my conclusion, and I will willing concede that, if I’m wrong, I’ll be just as dead.
Faith is the evidence of things unseen.
It is not the disproof of things seen, nor is it any one else’s damn business unless a person consents to allow it to become so.
