warning signs

[miriam_e]

I'm atheist, yet have deep admiration for some religious people, like the wonderful nun, Joan Chittister. Here is another: Pulitzer Prize winning author Chris Hedges gave a talk in Massachusetts last year titled "Who are the American Fascists?"
http://forum.wgbh.org/wgbh/forum.php?lecture_id=3345
In it he honestly and clearly describes the danger of fundamentalist christianity. Mr Hedges is brilliant. The world would be a much better place if there were more christians like him.

Like a lot of religious people though, he still sees religion as the source of morality. This blindness disappoints me a little. But I guess I should not expect too much. In calling urgently for a tolerant and inclusive society while bringing into focus the real and imminent dangers of intolerant religiosity he does more to bring about a good future than most people, religious or atheist.

Comments

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

I totally get what you mean about the religion = morality thing - it bugs me a lot too. What I find even stranger is how being known as "God fearing" supposedly makes someone a better person. Firstly you don't need to be religious to be a good person, and secondly, if God is loving why should he be feared?

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Yes. What amazed me was that Chris Hedges, the guy I referred to above, even mentioned how good people can find good things to believe in the bible and bad people can find bad things in the bible, yet he still somehow considers religion the source of morality. Many of the most moral, thoughtful, kind people I know are atheist. As you say, you don't need to be religious to be a good person.

I've asked religious people about the "god fearing" thing before as it puzzled me too. It makes me smile how they tend to rewrite it, saying that it means to have respect for god. Of course there is the little problem that if an all-powerful god meant for it to be "god respecting" then that's what it would have said. Whatever anybody says it is easy to just look at the bible and see that the god depicted in most of it is a truly scary thing. Clearly fear was what many of the authors had in mind.

As for love, even the few parts of the bible that refer to god as loving make it a rather psychotic kind of love: "believe in me and you can have heaven, otherwise I'll torture you forever".

Oh yeah, that's a sane kind of love.

No. The bible is so obviously the ramblings of superstitious savages that it is amazing that anybody can actually believe it here in the 21st Century. I suspect most believers have never actually read it.