Quote:
|
Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi
You're right, I could and probably should have tried to be articulate and explain my position at length, but —just like you're feeling now— I couldn't muster the energy to do so once again (I've talked about this here in the past). Instead, I decided to have a little fun with it. (As Thomas Haden Church tells Paul Giamatti in Sideways, "Remember FUN?"). And I had to seize the chance to use that Greg House gif! Kanye shades with "Fight The Power" coming from the boombox don't really mix though, but hey, the gif is silent.
I gotta say, "I choose to believe in a fantasy" is one of the biggest oxymorons I've read in my LIFE. But lookit, man, nevermind, really. You remembered the "Heroes" <-> The Best Day connecsh and that's all that matters to me now. That and Molly Parker. Good GOD what a woman...
|
It’s not really an oxymoron. It’s just anachronistic. And I get that. But I think the people/ideologies you (and I) have issues with are the folks who cannot, or are unwilling to, understand and accept that God is just a fucking idea. Claiming there is, factually, a God, is ridiculous and absurd, and throwing your public or political decisions behind that idea is DANGEROUS. But I believe Thomas Kuhn would say that definitively claiming that there is no God is just as absurd and pointless, and even potentially dangerous.
I have huge, lifelong issues and gripes with every religion under the sun, and I subscribe to exactly none of them, holding them all in equally negative regard including atheism (which is essentially a religion).
I think we probably agree on just about everything of substance that there is to agree on here. But my choice to stubbornly believe in goodness and benevolence is not harmful in any way, shape or form to anyone anywhere. Besides, my “God” is not the Christian God, and it’s not Yahweh and there are no prophets. When I say I believe in god, I mean I have a thing in my mind that is the essence of goodness, and I choose to root for this thing in the privacy of my own mind.
Categorically I am an agnostic.
I think being an agnostic is the only sane option. If you’re anything else, you’re deluded/ willfully ignorant/ arrogant in the extreme.
So I don’t think your beef is with people like me. I think your beef is with organized religion, zealots, and people who DON’T understand that they’re making a choice to believe in what is
almost certainly a fantasy.
I have beef with all the same things, people, ideas and institutions. And since I get this, and understand that we are in fundamental agreement (correct me if I’m wrong and I don’t get it), then I guess I could go easier and avoid getting peeved. But I’d like to think there are more people out there like me, who identify as theists because they’re not atheists, and because they have hope in something good that has nothing to do with common ideas of religion or spirituality.