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nuary 24 2010 who is the patron saint of atheists http home earthlink net yuba yada yada saint html saint edward of providence currently resides in a grotto near the levee lined shore of the feather river at six feet tall bearded and with sparkling eyes saint edward presents a commanding almost jesus like presence among the homeless residents of the tent town east of yuba city http en wikipedia org wiki antitheism antitheism has been adopted as a label by those who take the view that theism is dangerous or destructive one example of this view is demonstrated in letters to a young contrarian 2001 in which christopher hitchens writes i m not even an atheist so much as i am an antitheist i not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth but i hold that the influence of churches and the effect of religious belief is positively harmful i am not certain darwin is the best choice when darwin sent his little monograph on the origin of the species etc to press he assumed that only a few hundred see morescientists would read it he was shocked when every butcher baker and candlestick maker bought a copy it was not darwin s agenda to debunk religion with his book i was recently looking at some of darwin s biographical info and it does seem that he went through his own personal crisis of faith besides which simply proving that evolution is a scientific fact does not disprove that some supreme being is behind or above everything i haven t read darwin s book in 40 years i am sure i can find a copy on line in public domain i am curious to search it for words like god and religion and faith william buell http www gutenberg org etext 2009 searching the on line text of darwin s book reveals the following first occurrence of word faith breeders of cattle wish the flesh and fat such faith may be placed in the power of selection first occurrence of word god it makes the works of god a mere mockery notice that darwin presumes the existence of god in this sentence first mention of religion i see no reason why the views given in this volume should shock the religious views of anyone i just now searched the gutenberg copy of darwin s book for the first occurrence of the word creator and find authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created to my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the creator notice the capital c it is difficult to choose between terms like atheist and antitheist but if our goal is to identify that one author who most marginalizes the importance of deity then may i suggest someone like siddhartha gautama the historical buddha who did not deny the existence of gods but pointed out that gods suffer the same problem that humans do namely suffering itself and jesus would present no refutation to this view to vehemently deny the existence of any god is to unwittingly grant god publicity and we know that all publicity is good publicity to point to a problem in life which is more fundamental than the god question and which the god question cannot solve which is accomplished by various existentialist writers is far more effective than railing and roiling against the notion of a god but christopher may i suggest how our task of extinguishing the religious drive is sisyphean i recently spoke with a young pharmacist who was raised in russia i commented that the former soviet represents a 70 year 3 generation experiment in atheism and yet when the soviet union collapsed people came pouring out seeking some sort of religion whether eastern orthodoxy or judaism or such things as hare krishna there were so many russian speakers in the brooklyn schermerhorn temple that classes in gita had to be conducted in russian the young pharmacist said something very profound namely that people need something transcendent to believe in to cling to at the height of mao s communism in china i listened to young teenagers speaking about marxism with a religious fervor and awe one girl explained how degenerate capitalist girls are always thinking about sex whereas chinese communist girls only think about being good citizens alfred adler cleverly sidestepped the problem when after a lecture in nyc one student asked dr adler what of god what do you have to say adler answered if there is a god i would hope that he is pleased by the way i have chosen to live my life epictetus was also clever in this respect we you child is about to depart on a perilous journey you pray to jove for save return but why not pray for the equanimity to accept any outcome whether auspicious or tragic i have heard certain tutors give what sounded like religious sermons about how we should study regularly after graduation certainly klein and brann have exhibited a kind of devotion to the life of the mind which was religious in its fervor but had nothing to do with religion or a deity per se one never wins with losers i merely exercise my mind each day with whatever presents itself we are the living dead we lost a long time ago and like huck finn we hide in the rafters listening to our own eulogy venice might possibly be saved by an engineering project which would take 30 years to implement yet no administration stays in power more than 2 years hence no one is willing to support something which will not benefit them during their career in about 8 billion years our sun will die the death of a white dwarf but in 500 000 years it will have expanded to the point where life on earth will be burned to a crisp some scientists theorize about methods to move the earth in its orbit to buy another 50 000 years or we could work on developing little noah s arks manned by self repairing cyborgs containing the digitized genetic information of all earth s life forms and all human culture well perhaps we would omit one or two books then we could launch those vessel into space searching for a new planet to colonize or infect depending upon your point of view this months atlantic monthly puts it all in a nice nutshell in after the crash how how america can rise again not by james fallows notice the passages about how corporations only position themselves for the next quarterly report wall street positions for the closing dow and media positions for the next soundbite minute i dug out vol 1 of calvin s institutes and sure enough ch 1 pg 1 is an appeal to intuitive common sense no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the god in whom he lives and moves the qur an also appeals to common see more sense and what is intuitively obvious surah 5 44 do ye not know that god his is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth he punishes whom he pleases and forgives whom he pleases for god is mighty over all it seems strange that god would have to send messengers and revelations and inspire theologians to explain what should be intuitively obvious through reason calvinism and islam both share a penchant towards predestination and yet tertullian states i believe because it is absurd http en wikipedia org wiki fideism note in particular calvinist scholasticism possibly encouraged by the prestige of science developed an ever more elaborate systematic theology that sought to make a rational and thus invulnerable account of all god s dealings with humanity these constructions would provide the intellectual foundation for the eventual fundamentalist movement in the u s and have remained influential to the present time within those circles one might sum up those theologians attitudes by the concise observation of a modern day calvinist thinker robert l reymond when he claims biblical faith is not a leap in the dark it is not fideism the 19th century princeton theologian benjamin b warfield says we cannot be said to believe or to trust in a thing or person of which we have no knowledge implicit faith in this sense is an absurdity reformed protestants hold that biblical faith is based upon the revelation of divine knowledge faith devoid of knowledge is believing the lie that leads to condemnation 2 thessalonians 2 11 12 in islam the theologian al ghazali strikes a position similar to tertullian s fideism in his tahafut al falasafa the incoherence of the philosophers where the claims of reason come into conflict with revelation reason must yield to revelation this position drew a rejoinder from averroes whose position was more influential in thomist and other medieval christian thinking than it was in the islamic world itself ghazali s position of the absolute authority and finality of divine revelation is in fact the standard position of orthodox muslim exegesis however most muslims do not subscribe to the idea that god s existence cannot be proven by reason but merely that god cannot be fully comprehended with reason chesterton expresses a similar sentiment reason is itself a matter of faith it is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all g k chesterton philosopher orthodoxy chapter iii the suicide of thought 1909 my first and last philosophy that which i believe in with unbroken certainty i learnt in the nursery the things i believed most then the things i believe most now are the things called fairy tales they seem to be the entirely reasonable things they are not fantasies compared with them other things that are fantastic fairyland is nothing but the sunny country of common sense g k chesterton philosopher orthodoxy chapter iv the ethics of elfland 1909 http timesandseasons org index php 2008 06 walking by faith with popper and quine douglas adams in the hitchhiker s guide to the galaxy uses his babel fish to demonstrate a rationalist fideist paradox i refuse to prove that i exist says god for proof denies faith and without faith i am nothing but says man the babel fish is a dead giveaway isn t it it could not have evolved by chance it proves that you exist and so therefore by your own arguments you don t q e d oh dear says god i hadn t thought of that and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic oh that was easy says man and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing tags atheism darwin existentialism posted in philosophy religion science leave a comment 8th grade existentialism august 25 2009 written sat jul 13 2002 9 03 am when my stepson was in 8th grade i saw a copy of camus novel the plague on his desk and i was startled to think that such a book was required reading for an 8th grader so i asked him are you reading this for school he became alarmed and said is it a bad book he was worried that it was something he shouldn t be reading i said no it s a fine book i m just surprised if they require you to read it he explained that it was not required reading he simply chose it on his own because it seemed interesting he then asked me what is surprising about an 8th grader reading camus what sort of writer is he i said well camus is an existentialist of sorts then he asked what is an existentialist i answered aha that is a very interesting question let s look up existentialism in the encyclopedia but i guarantee you that when we are done reading the article you will see that basically it will say that it is hard to define existentialism we read the article on existentialism together and when we finished he agreed that it didn t really explain what existentialism is i tried to explain if you keep reading lots of books by existentialists like camus sartre kierkegaard etc then very slowly you will perhaps change and see the world through the eyes of the existentialists and you too will be existentialist in your thinking similarly if you read lots and lots of plato s dialogues you will possibly slowly change and begin to see the world in platonic terms you are roman catholic and have always gone to catholic schools so you see the world through the eyes of catholicism so then he asked well is that good i e is it good to see the world through the eyes of existentialism i answered it is not a matter of being good or bad as if there is only one right way to see the world but i will say it is far better to see the world through some kind of eyes with some kind of perspective be it existentialist platonic roman catholic etc then to not look at the world at all and go through life with your eyes closed that was an eighth grader s first venture into existentialism the dead baby factory poem based on an actual event with my step son i remember how easily you laughed you laughed at the drop of a hat you laughed at the slightest thing when i was 49 and you were nine the tv groaned as usual the newscaster spoke of tragedy the death of many infants a pharmaceutical error in quality control the tv voice repeated ad infinitum dead babies babies dead babies died dying you starred blankly immune to daily tragedy frankly in a trance but i began to sing a silly song and dance a senseless dance oh the dead baby factory crunch those babies grind them up squish them scrunch them you laughed until you cried you rolled upon the floor beyond control life is senseless we are senseless too we laughed ourselves senseless the more i sang and danced the more you laughed because you laughed i sang and danced all the more you doubled over rolling on the floor laughter song and dance until you pee your pants human life is in reality a dead baby factory except they age the product until it s slightly elderly with ernest and julio gallo we can say we sell no wine before its time but today we are having a special buy one baby get two free the shortest verse in scripture jesus wept and as we danced and sang those babies resurrect and sing and dance with us clapping and keeping time macabre or debonair i guess you had to be there the tragic and comic blur and there we were lost in a moment of childhood forever found throwing humor against horror and winning sartrean humor against the anguish of senseless existence and there we ever are in that lost and found collection realm of the trans eternal moment of recollection in life s department store we are there right now staring the void in the face beware be damned and back it stares at us and grins and grimaces with fun house mirror faces we dance and sing with nietzsche well why not life is peachy written 5 06 2003 tags existentialism nietzsche sartre posted in education parenting philosophy 2 comments william buell daily posts on twitter tweets by readgreatbooks blog calendar august 2026 m t w t f s s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 feb my links halloween 2009 facebook pics linkedin profile for william buell facebook com william buell posterous daily blog flickr blog stats 68 936 reads pages golden rules administrative assistantance handbook of company policy and procedure im contact info biography software chit chat stuff i use a lot about karebac u s factory outlets diamond district 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