by Band on the Run 73 Replies latest social current
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/opinion/sunday/the-blessings-of-atheism.html
I found this essay today. It reminds me of Obama's first national speech when he pleaded for Dems not to let right wing GOP fundies define Christianity.
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Now when students ask how I came to believe what I believe, I tell them that I trace my atheism to my first encounter, at age 7, with the scourge of polio. In 1952, a 9-year-old friend was stricken by the disease and clinging to life in an iron lung. After visiting him in the hospital, I asked my mother, “Why would God do that to a little boy?” She sighed in a way that telegraphed her lack of conviction and said: “I don’t know. The priest would say God must have his reasons, but I don’t know what they could be.”
^ This is propaganda. It paints a picture of religionists not having the answer to the big questions. It acts like they all just throw their hands in the air. It's simply lazy reasoning to assert "God must have his reasons." Such a mysterious God in regards to the suffering of mankind is no God worth giving the time of day. The problem is corrupt and lazy religion, not religion itself or the idea of God.
-Sab
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I think that at one time, perhaps, atheisim may have been a "negative ideology", that it was an "excuse" to live in the here and now and justify nothing to anyone BUT I do NOT think that is the case now with the majority that are atheists.
I think that the majority are atheist quite simply because they do no "believe" there is enough evidence (much less proof) for the existence of any god.
Right now there is a deep rooted morla structure that allows for an athiest to nbe so AND to be a morally just and righteous one.
Atheists do NOT see a need to get their morals from ANY religion.
I think that for a person that has concluded there is no god, that person can still be very healthy emotionally and morally and by that I mean they KNOW what makes them happy and pothers happy and they know what is right and wrong and do their best to do what is right.
I also believe this is the case BECAUSE of the good brought about by religion and because, IMO, we are all born with the ability to know, understand and teach what is right and wrong.
Sab - "God must have his reasons" is about as insightful as any other answer I have ever encountered to the question of evil.
You're being dishonest Sab, if you mean to imply you have a better reason.
You're being dishonest Sab, if you mean to imply you have a better reason.
Of course I do.
-Sab
Sab - The world awaits your unique insight.....
Why on earth would God give a boy polio?
Maybe the boy didn't get it from God, he got it from the poliovirus probably from unsanitary ( man-caused) conditions, maybe contact with an infected person.
