Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Perilscope
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by RJ Eskow
How can atheists work with people of faith to create a better society if they won't even read and learn about their fellow human beings? Yet some still refuse, because knowledge might interfere with their own cherished beliefs - not to mention their sales pitch.
|
Well, reading that part, I can see he lives in a bubble, and I stopped reading there.  |
Strange what misunderstandings there are about atheism, seem to be more an annoyance that there is somebody who refuses in believing one's own idols. I am atheist myself - and consider myself to be a very religious person. Buddhism is atheistic, too. I would even argue that the new God-concept that was introduced and taught by Jesus, and that stands separate from the God of the old testament, in a way can be understood to be atheistic, non-theistic, in the way that Jesus' "God" is no personalised god, no idol, no theistic entity. I think a religion is the more theistic, the more it is interpreted word-by-word, literally. The more the "believer" understands that words are symbols only and do not necessarily describe a "real reality", the more he turns into an atheist, nevertheless he can remain to be a highly spriitual person.
take the four Gosples, and take them literally word-by-word: and you end up with some Christian fundamentalists who wants to live by biblic rules from a thoisuand years ago and in post-medieval (or pre-medieval!) living conditions. Take the fours gospels and go beyond the word, refuse to understand the word "God" or "Father" as an idol, and you end up with Meister Eckehard or Jakob Böhme.
Me thinks, where there is theism, there may be dwelling emotions and superficial rapture, but there is no true religious experience. Religion needs atheism.
"Die Schrift is Schrift, sonst nichts,
Mein Trost ist Wesenheit,
Und daß Gott in mir spricht
das Wort der Ewigkeit."
(Angelus Silesius, 17th cent.)