Reply #46: He said, "How can I win without giving in to her?" [View All]

[hunter]

Maybe like trying a case in court... do you win or lose the case? That was the tone I got.

I've pissed off people in this forum before by saying this, but I'll say it again --

There is a certain kind of Atheism that is basically Fundamentalism without God. Somebody who is escaping Fundamentalist Christianity will simply drop their church and God, yet still expect all the other social structures in their lives to remain intact. But that can't happen. Fundamentalist Christianity is so invasive upon so many aspects of one's own ethical structures, that some of these structures will have to be replaced. (Just as an aside, and entirely unrelated to the original post, some of the most toxic homophobes I've ever met are fuck-it-all-I'm-going-to-hell Fundamentalists who have long quit their God.)

If one's atheism is mostly a reaction against theism, it will not be as strong as it would be standing on it's own roots.

I think back to my own wedding in the Catholic Church. My wife and I have friends and family of many religions, and many friends and family who are atheists. It was interesting seeing their reaction to the Church. I was frankly terrified at first because none of my groomsmen were conventionally Catholic, and my dad is basically a very argumentive Liberal Presbyterian when he wants to be. I was thinking, "Oh God, this is great, they'll get in a brawl about religion with our Priest." But they didn't. They talked about fishing, and everyone was smiling and joking, except me, who was still terrified because I was about to be married.

Out in the church our family and friends who are atheists were smiling and talking and soaking everything up like they were on some grand anthropology expedition. "Oh, look at that! Are those the stations of the cross?" The most uncomfortable people were the Fundamentalists who looked like they were afraid of getting Catholic Cooties if they touched anything. I suspect some of the people who only attended our reception felt a Catholic Church was forbidden territory.

I'm pretty fearless visiting alien churches. I got some of that from my parents, and some of it from a Bahá'í friend of mine (I should look him up, it's been many years) who was as comfortable in a Black Evangelical Church or Catholic Church as he was in his own. I think if I was an atheist I'd like to be the same way, to feel the same sort of security in my own beliefs that I do now.