Angry Atheists

[poliphilo]

A happy atheist- by which I mean an atheist confident in their unbelief- wouldn't continually be banging on about God the way Dawkins and Hitchens and Pullman do, they'd just let the matter rest and get on with their cheerfully Godless life, wouldn't they?

I read a piece by Dawkins the other day. (Thanks to chiller  for the link. ) It's very ecrasez l'infame- very shrill. Dawkins thinks he's got the Pope on the run and is giving chase with loud cries.

Philip Pullman is just about to publish a book about Jesus with a provocative title. I doubt that it'll be any good. Fictions about Jesus- for or against- never are. I enjoyed the Dark Materials trilogy, but the anti-God stuff was clumsy. As Eliot said of Matthew Arnold, Pullman is dealing with a subject "in (which) reasoning power matters, and it fails him."
 
I've been an atheist. I've dreamed that dream. The one where the bastille is tottering and you put just a little more weight on the crowbar and something gives and the masses come staggering out into the light of pure Reason. It's not going to happen.

Comments

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know these are generalisations. They're meant to be.

Why would you do that?

I know many relaxed, friendly, and polite atheists. I've also run into many aggressive, obnoxious, and downright rude Christians--and I do my best to avoid making generalizations based on that, because I would rather be respectful towards the Christians who are nice.

You probably interact with many atheists you just haven't labeled as "atheist" because it hasn't come up.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A true atheist, I think, is someone who doesn't bother to identify as one because they find the whole god business irrelevant.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Yes, that would be presumptuous of me. Sorry, I didn't mean to give offence.

I'm thinking of people so completely secular in their approach to life that it wouldn't occur to them to define themselves in theistic terms. If you said to them, "So you're an atheist?" they might well agree, but it's not a label they'd choose for themselves. They're so deeply atheist they've gone beyond atheism.

[kutsuwamushi.livejournal.com]

Do you mean that my atheism is false? That I actually do have a belief in God? Or am I just not living up to some standard of behavior that you think atheists should follow?

Because either one would be very presumptuous.

Furthermore.

The whole "god business" is irrelevant to my spirituality, but not to my experiences. I live in a world where most people believe in gods. That I don't believe in them means I approach certain areas of life and thought from a different angle, and sometimes I need a word for that. "Atheist" is the best one I have.