Archive for March, 2009
The Atheist’s Way: Living Well Without Gods
The Atheist’s Way: Living Well Without Gods
By Eric Maisel, Ph.D.
I see my new book The Atheist’s Way: Living Well Without Gods as primarily providing a roadmap for non-believers who are looking for an answer to the question, “How can I invest my life with meaning if the universe takes no interest in me or in human affairs?” At the same time, I think it will serve the many believers who have questions about their belief system and who harbor a lurking doubt that believing in gods makes good sense. For both groups, I see The Atheist’s Way as providing real answers and a vision of an “atheist lifestyle” characterized by personal responsibility, meaning adventures, and joy.
In writing the book, I thought it wise to skip the arguments for the non-existence of gods. Those arguments have been presented many times already, sometimes thoughtfully, sometimes thunderously. From my point of view is made better sense simply to state that there are no gods and to proceed on to the really important next questions. For the non-existence of gods is a starting point, not an end point, and merely sets the stage for the play…
Continue Reading March 17, 2009 at 9:50 am writerdd 16 comments
The Golden Rule challenge to Christians
Christians are supposed to follow the golden rule.
Christians ask those outside the faith to seriously question their own beliefs.
Therefore, if I was to be an honest Christian following the golden rule, I should analyze my own beliefs to the same degree which I require those outside the faith to do.
At this point, I began to study the atheist / skeptic perspective in depth and discovered I could no longer hold onto my faith because under scrutiny it was no better than any other religious worldview.
Now then, what I find so hard to understand is how Jesus advocated following the golden rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”) yet I have met very few – if any – Christians who seriously follow this principle in their attempts to proselytize.
I guess my question is this: why is this so hard for Christians to seriously do? Most believers I have met tend to isolate their study to that material which either confirms what they believe and / or debunks every other worldview. Why do you guys think this is?
Continue Reading March 14, 2009 at 10:43 pm Joshua 171 comments
Great News:Those With No Religion Fastest-Growing Tradition!
…. According to a New Survey
This is being reported in numerous news agencies. Here is a link for the report itself: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/
This survey had 54,461 respondents and was conducted over 10 months. So it’s not one of those worthless, “barely 1000 surveyed with one afternoon’s phone calling” polls.
Some highlights:
- Summing up those who said of the existence of God “There is no such thing”, “There is no way to know”, “I’m not sure”, & “There is a higher power but not a personal god” gives as 24.4% of all respondents! Of course there is the downside that there are still 69.5% who said, “There is definitely a personal God”. But that first number is a vast improvement over what was seen 15+ years ago.
- Those who identify themselves religiously as “none” amounted to 15% of respondents. Up from 8.2% in 1990!
- 27% do not expect a religious funeral at their death.
There’s still a long way to go, but this is great progress. I would like to hope that it’s a sign of increasing sense and honesty among people, but I’m NOT that optimistic (naïve?).
– LeoPardus
My journey into and, later, out of Christianity (Born Again)
“Don’t be disappointed,” she said, “but you won’t be getting much for Christmas this year.”
“How do you know?” I asked. It was, after all, still summer. School hadn’t even started yet. Santa couldn’t have already decided if I’d been naughty or nice.
“We don’t have as much money since Daddy left. So I won’t be able to buy a lot of presents for you.”
I looked down at the pile of laundry and dug out a match to the sock in my hand. What could that possibly mean? Had my parents been buying my Christmas presents all along?
“You already know this,” my mother said, “but please don’t tell June that Santa Claus isn’t real.”
Even though I was only nine, I knew I couldn’t tell my mother that I had believed in Santa right up until that moment. I didn’t want to make her sad…
Continue Reading March 9, 2009 at 2:03 am writerdd 17 comments
Taste and See the Mystery
I tasted, and I saw that the Lord was good. At one point in my life, I did take refuge in God, the Almighty. However, my solid belief in the God of the Bible underwent severe trauma that severed my connection with him, or at least the concept of God I was led to believe from my exposure to Christian theology. When you remove absolute certainty that the words of the scriptures is divinely inspired, what do you have left to hold on to? Only experience.
So the question had to be asked: was my experience of God merely emotional excitement and fervour that is part and parcel of Christian ritual and celebration? When I face most Christians with the question on how we can be sure that the Bible is the Word of God, given that it is a collection of books that a group of men decided was divinely inspired, they merely point back to faith. They suggest a simple trust in God that he did guide this group, and the widespread acceptance of the Bible as ultimate truth attests to God’s intervention. I would concur that such trust exists in large portions of the world population – not just amongst Christians, but also Jews and Muslims, who all sharply disagree on this point of their particular perspective being the only true one (not all adherents do hold this position, but the majority do very much outweigh the progressives).
It seems to me to be supreme arrogance to assert that God has chosen a certain portion of the population, and a small one at that compared with the vast portion of the other major faiths. To those who would suggest that God does not choose, but the matter of faith is of free will, I would remind them that those born into strict Muslim families will never have the opportunity to exercise such free will to choose another path. This idea of free will is a fantasy very much restricted to democratic western societies…
Continue Reading March 6, 2009 at 11:25 pm Steven Wanderlust 33 comments
A Look at Liberal Christianity
I came across an interesting post written by a thoughtful Christian who has moved beyond a literalist, fundamentalist mindset regarding the Bible as the inspired, revealed word of God. Here are some highlights (although you probably should read the whole post, in order to understand the context from which these bits are excerpted – the comments are worth reading too):
The question of whether the Bible is God’s word is not a new one…. There are certainly a number of things which seem “wrong” if we are to take a literal understanding….Yes, genetics has confirmed that we are all related through mitochondrial DNA – but this does not mean one person; it means one small group of people (who were located somewhere in Africa). It also assumes that humanity is hundreds of thousands of years old, which means we need to accept, at least in part, the theory of evolution….
*************
Suddenly, we find ourselves in the position of looking at the Bible and deciding which parts are to be taken literally, which parts are to be taken allegorically, and which parts are to be understood as no longer applying to us because they have “been fulfilled in Christ.” This is a very dangerous thing to do. Once we start doing that, what difference is there between Christianity and any other man-made religion?
**********
…the Bible has been used to say whatever man wants it to say…and so justify anything we want it to.
Continue Reading March 5, 2009 at 4:50 pm the chaplain 365 comments
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