"We must also be alert to "theological prejudices", not only in religious contexts, where they are overt, but in all metaphysics-even those that profess to be atheist. Like any modern philosopher, Jacques Derrida was deeply suspicious of the fixed, binary polarities that characterize modern thought, and the atheist/theist divide was, he believed, too simple. [Some] atheists have reduced the complex phenomena of religion to formulas that suit their own ideologies-as Marx did when he called religion an opiate of the oppressed or Freud when he saw it as oedipal terror. A fixed and final denial of God on metaphysical grounds was for Derrida as culpable as any dogmatic religious "theology". ...He was inclined to the view that, since no absolute certainty is within our grasp, we should for the sake of peace hesitate to make declarative statements of either belief or unbelief."
-Quoted from The Case for God, Karen Armstrong
I posted this because this blog is not about my own personal delusion that I have all the answers, and I want to maintain that it is solely an outpost for me to voice incompatibilities that I, myself, have recognized in organized religion, and my thoughts regarding better ways to think about the subject. I recognize that it is a complicated subject with a history that has spanned millennia. I am not trying to reduce it to a simple issue in its entirety.
Though I think you would be hard pressed to find an atheist who claims to KNOW that God does not exist with the same certainty that religious people KNOW that God exists, and this is the difference I would like to point out. Most of those people who would consider themselves atheists are actually agnostics leaning TOWARDS atheism, for to declare oneself as atheist when there is no proof that God does not exist, would make said atheist as bad as the religious person who chooses to believe in God on blind faith and on blind faith only.
That being said, that is not to say that such atheists don't exist (though I have yet to meet or read about one), but I am not including myself in the bunch.
- Jessica
- Welcome to The Secular Gospel According to Jess! In this blog you’ll find everything from cartoons that make me laugh, to quotes that inspire me, to stories of my own personal experience when it comes to dealing with religion and pretty much everything in between. The title of my blog is intended to be ironic, as one doesn’t often hear the word, “gospel”, associated with secularism, but my intent is to preach, for lack of a better word, what I think gospel should really be about: love, rationalism, fairness, equality, human rights, science and truth. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment