Conflicted

Monday 14 June 2010 - Filed under Kentucky + Religion

Paul Prather in The Lexington Herald-Leader on “new atheism”:

Atheists remain a tiny minority, but they’re far more vocal and combative than they used to be, an approach advocated by Dawkins and others. They have every right to state their views.

The irony is that this current brand of aggressive atheism is just another form of fundamentalism. These particular atheists are zealots on the subject of faith who see no shadings of gray, only black and white. They’re dead-set against religion but weirdly obsessed with it.

The “new atheism,” as it’s called by its adherents, is itself a kind of church. An anti-church church, granted, but a form of lockstep belief nonetheless. It reminds me of Hazel Motes’ Church Without Christ in Flannery O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood.

I’m conflicted because on one hand, he is absolutely right.  Many atheists are just as dogmatic in their atheism as your average annoying Christian trying to “bring one to god.”  But even though he is absolutely correct, I’m conflicted because what annoys me about Christians like Paul Prather is that they will rail on about about atheists being inherently exclusive, “smug, dogmatic and mean-spirited” yet continue to exclude anyone who doesn’t think as they do from every activity in which regular people might want to engage.  When you’re done telling the world why gays can’t marry, prostitutes are nothing but dirty whores living a life of sin, and drug users need to go to fucking jail for getting high, amongst a whole host of other talking points, perhaps you might have some room to start telling atheists how annoying and inappropriate their behavior is.

2010-06-14  »  madlibertarianguy