Atheists for Jesus

Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man--living in the sky--who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time . . ,. But He loves you!

- George Carlin

I just finished reading Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion. Although his tone (at times catty, self-indulgent and smug) and style (shotgun, meandering, allowing his steed Tangent a far too liberal rein*) put me off, I quite enjoyed the content. And I like a man who wears an "Atheists for Jesus" t-shirt (I want one.) One can admire ethically principled teachers and teachings while shunning the religions and myths built around such teachers.

Stephen Colbert interviewed Dawkins recently, which was amusing:

If you wanted to ride the pulse of modern atheism and arm yourself with good arguments about the dangers of all religions, I'd recommend Sam Harris's The End of Faith. I wrote a little post about that book a while ago here.

However, Dawkins's book is a nice companion to The End of Faith, that contains some excellent quotes, arguments and (for a lay science geek like me) lots of fascinating (and accessible) information and studies, from evolutionary biology to the origin of life, to insect vision, social evolution and quantum mechanics.

A nice literary trinity (har, har) would be The God Delusion, The End of Faith and God Without Religion, if you didn't want to abandon your spiritual life altogether and believe we have much to learn about states of expanded consciousness, but you embrace reason and humanism and recognize that our clinging to ancient myths is destructive to all of humankind and hampers our inevitable progression.

Here's a little sampling from The God Delusion:

To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and 'improved' by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries. This may explain some of the sheer strangeness of the Bible. But unfortunately it is this same weird volume that religious zealots hold up to us as the inerrant source of our morals and rules for living.

* * *

I have described atonement, the central doctrine of Christianity, as vicious, sado-masochistic and repellent. We should also dismiss it as barking mad, but for its ubiquitous familiarity which has dulled our objectivity. If God wanted to forgive our sins, why not just forgive them, without having himself tortured and executed in payment--thereby, incidentally, condemning remote future generations of Jews to pogroms and persecution as 'Christ-killers': did that hereditary sin pass down in the semen too?

* * *

Our Western politicians avoid mentioning the R word (religion), and instead characterize their battle as a war against 'terror', as though terror were a kind of spirit or force, with a will and a mind of its own. Or they characterize terrorists as motivated by pure 'evil'. but they are not motivated by evil. However misguided we may think them, they are motivated, like the Christian murderers of abortion doctors, by what they perceive to be righteousness, faithfully pursuing what their religion tells them. They are not psychotic; they are religious idealists who, by their own lights, are rational. They perceive their acts to be good, not because of some warped personal idiosyncrasy, and not because they have been possessed by Satan, but because they have been brought up, from the cradle, to have total and unquestioning faith.

*With lots of distracting footnotes, such as remembering his time whilst at school scrumping apples, or an amusing Douglas Adams (dedicatee of the book) quote, or a Monty Python bit about every sperm being sacred.

Comments

[Adorable Girlfriend]

Yes, Dawkins has some good stuff, but you must be prepared when reading him for his style.

[Shephard]

"Some of us just go one god further." Brilliant.

I think I could read him, even if he's annoying. Unlike org. religion, I have no problem distinguishing the message from the messenger (wink)
~S :)

[SmartBlkWoman]

I have a couple of Dawkin's books on my Amazon list and haven't gotten around to purchasing any of them yet.

You might also like Natural Atheism by David Eller. I read it a few months ago and Eller is about as logical and straight-forward as it gets.

[Pearl]

I hadn't heard of this guy but he sounds like an intriguing voice. His brilliant quote that Shepherd pointed out reminds me of
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours" -- Stephen Roberts

[Bernie]

Richard Dawkins should get a life. Wherever there is any kind of individuality, there's going to be disagreeances and tantrums! And wherever there are people, there's going to be pain and suffering brought about by selfishness, whether it be people screwing each other over or destroying the environment. It's human nature to fight and compete, so don't blame everything on religion. We can only blame ourselves for making the wrong choices, especially if there is no God to take the blame for us.

[tiger]

(still on blogging hiatus myself, I just feel compelled to say, I really, really want an "Atheists for Jesus" t-shirt too. :)