Just received the book, sat down to start reading it. First chapter has definitions:
Faith:
1. Belief without knowledge, belief in something without proof.
2. Pretending to know things you don't know.
Atheist:
"There's insufficient evidence to warrant belief in a divine, supernatural creator of the universe. However, if I were shown sufficient evidence to warrant belief in such an entity, then I would believe."
He doesn't use the word "agnostic," because it's ambiguous.
Difference between faith and hope:
Faith makes statements about reality, such as "Jesus walked on water." Hope doesn't do that, it represents wishes or desires, such as "I hope I pass the exam."
So, not long after I started reading the book a neighbor dropped in. I showed her the book and she laughed. She is a true believer - in just about everything except reality - and thinks I'm a little rascal to claim to be an atheist. I told her the author's definition of faith and she agreed, it's belief in the unknowable was how she put it.
Then she went on to a long discussion of all the wonderful things the "universe" has done for her, such as saving her life in a car accident. I said it seems a little uneven to me, what about all the thousands of people who die in car accidents? She said, "karma." I said, "so, it's their own fault?" She said, "yes." She said that if good things happened to her, she earned them, and if bad things happened, she needed to learn a lesson, or she was paying back bad karma from a previous life.
Then she asked me what I get from being an atheist, what does it do for me? I said, "I don't get anything. It is just facing reality and recognizing what it means." She went on for a bit, karma, etc. I said that being an atheist makes me appreciate life more, and makes me more compassionate, because suffering is such a huge part of life for people and animals. I said it makes me realize more and more that I'm part of a group, not the center of the universe, and that all living things desire life and have the right to enjoy it as much as possible without hurting others.
She finally said I'm just living in the present, which is what the Buddha advocated, and so I'm living a "spiritual" life.
Oh well, whatever floats your boat. I'm going to practice stuff from the book on her, although I think she is so enveloped in the religious bubble I doubt that I'll get anywhere with her.
My thought about the idea of karma is that it teaches you it's OK not to feel sorry for people because whatever happens to them is their own fault. A belief Jesus supposedly had, didn't he? Didn't he say, "who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
