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The problems of the theistic conception of God, brilliantly illustrated by Charles Hartshorne, are why PanDeism is the fastest growing religious position, and will continue to carry that mantle into the future!!

The problems of the theistic conception of God, brilliantly illustrated by Charles Hartshorne, are why PanDeism is the fastest growing religious position, and will continue to carry that mantle into the future!!

GB - I came back to this thread to check on a comment and found your late comment.

Here's my even later response if you or anyone else checks back.

Although it was not I who said, ""to believe in a theistic God takes ignorance and self-deception" I will stand by it -- with the emphasis on "theistic."

There may well be something out there, as yet undefined by humans, that is controlling our universe. But if so, I don't think there's any reason to believe that it's the God of Abraham or any other God or Godess, with his or heraccompanying story and set of rules and regulations. It's so obvious that humans have developed these stories - some of them really wild, by today's standards - that to believe in them does take ignorance and self-deception. Still, I can understand how even intelligent people believe in them -- because they've been inculcated.

I always feel hesitant to say anything in regard to all of the topics considered here, because the comments themselves show me how incredibly diverse people's viewpoints are, and how emotionally invested we all tend to be in our own, particular points of view. It is so difficult to be comprehensive and balanced where religion and spirituality are concerned, that often I end up thinking that silence is the best response. However, I do want to put my two cents in on some of Aaron's comments, and E. Favorite's reponse to them.

The assumption that "to believe in a theistic God takes ignorance and self-deception" and "there is no intellectual honesty in theistic faith" as a flat assertion with no qualifications whatsoever strikes me as being almost as hasty and uninformed and, even, arrogant in its dismissal of the experience and testimony of thousands of human beings all around the world since recorded history began, and probably before, as the blustering and pontification that comes from religious fundamentalists of every stripe.

Much of this I blame on the incredibly narrow parameters of religious discourse as it has generally been promulgated by the religious for centuries--and the understandable distancing of scientific language from that of religion, given what so many early, pioneering scientists suffered at the hands of the church back when it still held real martial power. Still, as someone whose first love was science, and who only discovered the existence of religion later in life, after reaching the age of reason, I have never been able to fathom the sense on either side of the equation that the two are necessarily adversaries, or that reason somehow precludes all forms of faith (at least if one is any good at reasoning). Perhaps it's the consequence of how narrow the religious definitions of faith became, as Marcus Borg suggests in his book, The Heart of Christianity.

Religions--the Western traditions at least--teach that we are dust, mud animated with the force of wind driven through it; science teaches that all life is dust, stellar dust that condensed, exploded into a blazing ball of light ("Let there be light," anyone?), cooled down, and eventually cohered into animation and reflective self-consciousness, by means which are still little understood and hotly debated. Is it too much to ask for a little humility from creatures of walking dust, that they refrain from loudly proclaiming they "know" how and why everything came into existence, and what it's ultimate purpose and destiny might be (if it has one)? Right at this very moment, all of us are being bombarded by radiation and communications signals which none of our physical senses can in any way detect; yet we know they exist, although x-rays, gamma rays, and radio emissions were unknown just a few hundred years ago. Are we really equipped to assert categorically that it is ignorant or self-deception to think that there could be other things going on in reality that are outside the range of our ordinary modes of perception? A careful, respectful listening to the total testimony of human experience seems to me to be the only sane response to the conflict, violence and heartache caused when we take up tight, defensive positions on either side, religious or scientific, faith-based or atheistic. A little appreciation for the poetry and aesthetics of life, also, might help us to ask questions that reconcile seemingly opposed points of view, such as: might not someone like the Buddha, who denied the existence of a Supreme Being or deity, be closer to the position of the devout Jew, who refrains from speaking the name of God out of sheer awe at the incomprehensible majesty of the Divine, than it seems at first glance? Could the fear and bewilderment at life's complexity and pain drive some to react in "atheism"--denying a transcendent Source of good--and others into faith, seeking to placate a Source they don't really understand? Could all of our understandings be provisional and incomplete, where matters of "ultimate concern" (Paul Tillich's phrase)are involved? Islam teaches that we human beings "are not created evil, but are hasty". Aren't the signs of that truth all around us, every day? If we could only slow down, calm down, and listen more deeply to each other, ourselves, and the vast, phenomenal display of existence around us, maybe we would discover that underneath the limiting structures of our concepts and language, our experience is not as divided as we thought. Then we could refine our religious beliefs, rather than dismissing them wholesale.

Please excuse the length of my comments.

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I and I wonder what it would be like to explore a just as relevant issue: Jon Sobrino, liberation theologian, rightly said the issue is not about atheism, but IDOLATRY. My greatest concerns are for people who "worship" idols of all forms rather that the God of love, life, right living and peace. For parents looking for two good children's book, please check out "God Created" and "Jesus, the WOrd" both published by Augsburg. This may help delay/prevent idolatry...

Thanks, Aaron. I think your point is so important that I’m repeating the essence of it to help make sure Rev Tully hears it:

“…for the dishonest believer in religious faith… the attitude is ’I am struggling with my faith due to the obvious contrary evidence bombarding me from every direction every time I open my eyes, therefore I need to…fuel my faith, inundating my consciousness with heaps of rationalizations and fact-excluding cherry-picked balms of forced self-deception that make me feel safe and comfortable, then persuade as many people as I can that this circular loophole of unreason is good….’”

So, Rev. Tully – please at least consider the blunt truth of this. Please consider discussing it seriously and straightforwardly with your colleagues Bishops Schori and Spong and other “liberal” Christians. Consider that there may be much more to gain than you perceive there is to lose.

I like to think that a movement among enlightened clergy must already be afoot – so obvious is the need to respond to the growing wave of change.

All religious people struggle with their faith. Otherwise they would not need such strong reinforcement from their church communities. It certainly takes faith to believe in a deistic god or pantheism. But to believe in a theistic God takes ignorance and self-deception.

I often wonder how an educated grown adult could not move from theism to at least some form of deism or pantheism like I did as I grew up and learned more about the world. Fear is certainly a component. The social glue of a religious belief is another component- strength in numbers, follow the flock wherever they go. As Sam Harris has said, religion allows people to believe by the millions what only a lunatic would believe alone. This idea can be transferred onto many sorts of organizations who ignore obvious reality in order to cohere.

Why do people uphold religious faith in the face of nature's crystal clear refutations? Faith is a unique meme in that it rewards itself for existing without merit. The religious are expected to fight a battle against their own unbelief, and they consider it courageous to continue finding reasons to believe in the face of the obvious.

You will never go to a bookstore and find a book titled "How to lose all your hopes, dreams, aspirations and desire to live in just 15 minutes a day for 30 days". Why? Surely a book like this could be created. It could be well argued, maybe even with more compelling arguments than a book of it's opposite.

But instead, we find books that encourage hope at bookstores. What point is publishing books on hopelessness, even if a case for it could be easily made? Even if it were perfectly clear that nihilism was the most coherent world-view, the bookstores would still be jammed full of books that inspired and gave hope. Exchange the word hope for "faith" and you can see that even if it were perfectly clear that faith in a theistic religion is false (which it is to any unbrainwashed observer), the bookstores would still be packed with books cavalierly refuting honesty.

My point is that there is no intellectual honesty in theistic faith, and this seems to me to be sinful, even in religious terms. Honesty would be to enter a bookstore with the attitude of "I need to learn more about my world so I can decide whether to continue believing in my faith". But for the dishonest believer in religious faith (they are all either dishonest or ignorant by definition), the attitude is "I am struggling with my faith due to the obvious contrary evidence bombarding me from every direction every time I open my eyes, therefore I need to go to the bookstore and fuel it my faith, inundating my consciousness with heaps of rationalisations and fact excluding cherry picked balms of forced self-deception that make me feel safe and comfortable, then persuade as many people as I can that this circular loophole of unreason is good because humanity couldn't possibly live without it."

When I read essays like this I can't agree more with Sam Harris in saying that "God's enemies are more honest than his friends".

Dishonesty is a sin.

The religious are caught in a logical bind because it is sinfully dishonest to continue having faith in these things unless one is grossly ignorant.

Some atheists may have come to disbelief because of bad experiences of religion, but I suspect many more are like me who just sort of grew out of faith. We sort of went from being "functional" atheists to being conscious of our atheism.

I grew up in fairly progressive Anabaptist congregation and I still embrace much of what I learned as a child; Christ's Sermon on the Mount, his exhortation to love our neighbours, to do good even to those who hate us; all this seems like good, humanistic ethics to me. In fact,I would still attend church and gladly call myself a Christian if only I wasn't then expected to embrace the magical teachings of the church; that there is a God, that Christ was god and rose from the dead, that I will burn in hell for eternity if I don't believe in the fairy tale.

The only part of religion that was really bad for me was this requirement to be superstitious. I just can't do it.

Please rethink and then rewrite the last two paragraphs of your Dec. 30th post, leaving out the condencension and patronizing. Thank you.

Someone (Plunge, I believe) posted that atheists are a 'tiny' minority. Small, yes, but tiny, no. According to everything I've read, secular Americans are about 15% of the population with 5 percentage points of that 15 being atheists. That's 15 million atheists - by comparison there are 12 million Jews and Muslims combined in the U.S.

To Plunge:

You quoted me: "I'd say, SOME are - making them a lot like Christians."

Then you said, "Lol, are you trying to prove my point? Christians in general are nasty and rude, as rule?"

Nope - I meant Christians can be nasty and rude too. I think this ability to be unpleasant applies to most people at some time, regardless of religious persuasion.

I said nothing about "in general" or "as a rule." It seems more like you're trying to prove you're own point.

"Many of us have been hurt by religion, and there’s a reservoir of those hurt feelings that might be fueling atheists’ feelings, if not their thinking."

William Tully, that comment resonates powerfully for me. I'm gay and an ordained Anglican priest.
Life isn't plain sailing for the homosexual clergyman because of the homophobia that exists among many Christians. I have experienced, and still do, times of great unhappiness. Many of my gay brethren, who were once priests, have embraced atheism with a fervour that once characterized their committment to Christ. Hurt feelings can indeed fuel the feelings of men and women who have abandoned Christianity because of their sexual orientation.

I haven't gone down that path myself, but I can fully understand those who have.

TX: maybe, but what he said was basically some atheists are rude: just like Christians (with the "some" conspicuously absent).

The reality is that some people are rude and obnoxious and will be no matter what their religious beliefs and we should all get over it and stick to the arguments. :)

> I wonder whether many of the responders are a-religious as much as they are a-theistic.

A number of us believe in God but think the traditional church as an institution has just about outlived its usefulness. This is not to say that all churches are bad. But what I do feel is that, for many, rites, rituals and ceremonies are often a barrier rather than an enabler of people trying to get closer to God. Megachurches and home worship are two aspects of how the "unchurched believers" are looking for an alternative to traditional worship services. Many find them skin deep because they don't engage us in every day life as you pointed out.

Oops, meant atheists and xians shouldn't be prejudged until you know them individually.

Plunge,
I think what E Favorite is saying that it's just as easy to say xians are rude as it is xians when you don't judge them individually on their own merit.

Mr. Tully,
Thanks for taking the time to try and understand the atheist view. I respect John Spong for the direction he is trying to take xianity in and hope you bring that level of tolerance and progressive motion to xianity also.

"I'd say, SOME are - making them a lot like Christians."

Lol, are you trying to prove my point? Christians in general are nasty and rude, as rule?

Come on.

But yeah, we have no real ultimate reason to strive for any common goal, because we are not really a real group onto ourselves. We're on outgroup defined by what we aren't.

I tried to write a comment to Tully’s entry, but after I wrote a bland account about my leaving my church at age 15 because I didn’t agree with their supernatural worship, I realized it was also because of their emotional abuse of me. I started feeling the fear again from the incident where the pastor literally backed me into a corner of my own bedroom to get me to join the church, an emotional blackmail. I wasn’t encouraged to express how bad it felt. In fact, when I told one of the church people years later, she didn’t understand or accept how bad it felt to me. She tried to gloss it over. But I felt I wasn’t given a choice. I took the easy way out because I knew if I didn’t do what they wanted, I’d be hounded from then on. I just wanted them to accept me. It was the beginning of the end. I left 2 yrs later.

I had a bad experience, but I wasn’t the only one. It was customary in our church for the 13 yr olds to be pressured extensively to make a profession of faith & be baptized. It was like a rite of passage. I remember feeling like they didn’t want me to ask questions, or take time to study just what it was they wanted me to believe in. They wanted immediate acquiescence, assurance that I was one of them. I watched the same thing happen to other children there after it happened to me, & I wanted to believe it was good for them, that they were doing it because they loved us. But the longer I looked, the less I approved. I saw children being forced to make a choice - either to be ostracized from their families & friends, or to be embraced by them. What child of 13 can stand up to pressure like that?

You know what angers me the most now? It’s the image of my father watching them hound me, realizing that he saw how much emotional pressure they were putting on me, & he did nothing to stop them. He sympathized with me, but he didn’t stand up to them. And he wasn’t even a churchgoer. My mother was. And when I told her later that she shouldn’t have let them hound me into making a confession of faith in something no 13 yr old could possibly understand, she said it was wrong of me not to believe, that that made me a bad person.

I might have stayed with that church till today, if they had accepted the individuality of each person, & respected my right to choose. But unlike Rev. Tully, my church didn’t. And I’ve found that most around here don’t.

I applaud Rev. Tully for not only realizing, but for accepting that everyone doesn't believe the same thing, and that it's OK.

Plunge, you say,

"There are a lot of atheists who are pretty nasty and rude, period."

I'd say, SOME are - making them a lot like Christians.

I agree that atheists don't have common agreement on many issues - and possibly never will. Unlike religious believers, I don't think they are striving for a common agreement.

E fav: there is certainly an element of that, but lets face it: there are a lot of atheists that are pretty nasty and rude, period.

The thing is, atheists don't have a common agreement on lots of things, and the biggest relevant one is, of course, what to think about the religions they don't share.

Plunge, you say:

"A lot of what some atheists say now that they can speak out is rude and nasty, but hey: that's the social cost of spending centuries using them as the butt of sermons, the scapegoats of politics, and so on. Of COURSE some are going to be a little pissy back."

I’d add that some of what atheists say is not as rude and nasty as it sounds. It’s just that people aren’t used to hearing atheists stand up for themselves.

Some people seem shocked that atheists don’t “know their place,” just as women and blacks and gays shocked people when they started to make it clear that they had a different view of themselves than that which had been ascribed by society.

Your piece sounds like a reasoned approach. However, it is not clear to me whether it reflects sensitivity or some sort of condescending PR approach. In another piece you wrote:

"At St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York, we have a rabbi on our staff. His job is to nurture the obvious reality that New Yorkers live side by side with people of faiths different from their own, and now know what they don’t know and what they need to know. The rabbi offers dialogue, courses in other religions, public lectures and explorations that search for truth."

Now, why on earth would St. B's Church do such a thing? You believe that the Christian faith is what leads you to the truth, not some Rabbi's explorations. Here is something else you wrote just after the above:

"As Christians and Episcopalians, we have a tradition that gives us a road map to explore truth. Our lives are shaped, hallowed and energized by the truth we find through faith in Christ."

So, why the Rabbi?

You go on to say in the same piece:

"But most of us do not think that our tradition assumes only its truth or denies the possibility that other traditions can lead to underlying truth."

Now this is where you sound sensitive, but obviously you recognize that not all or even a majority of Christians feel this way -- certainly people who are "religious" don't feel this way across the board. Obviously, varying degrees of passion and fundamentalist ranting lead to different levels of hatred, insensitivity, violence, etc.

I've thought a lot about this question of whether there is a God.

The distinction between "a-theist" and "a-religious" you draw, without any detail is important and intriguing.

If "theism" is the belief that the universe was created by a God or Creator, then I have to acknowledge that I can neither prove nor disprove such a proposition. Although one does not have accept the silly Intelligent Design yahoos who purport to say everything was created in 6 days some 6000 years ago, that does not necessarily end the discussion.

The ultimate questions of whence it all came from and why -- before even the Big Bang, if you will -- have not and cannot (under the current state of knowledge) be answered.

Therefore, saying that one dismisses the notion of some Creator or Creative Force is to be irrational and almost "religious" in committing to a proposition that cannot be proved.

On the other hand, what I can say with a lot of assurance is that no religion so far propagated is the answer or has answered the questions mentioned above -- for me.

I acknowledge that each of the religions that has come and gone, has answered for believers - to varying degrees of satisfaction - some or all of the questions, or provided a systematic basis for inducing "belief" that the questions have been answered.

I also know that every religion has been exploited, to a greater or lesser degree, by SOME of those in positions of authority, to extract money from people and governments, to justify or wage war and killing, and to wield power in the name of divine authority or divine right.

It is not easy for people to give up such power and wealth or the trappings of the same.

As a result, those who don't accept a religion are labeled "atheists" - an undesirable connotation being attached to the same because they represent a threat to the religious movements.

There is a certain camaraderie among religiosos -- it is almost as if they all recognize that non-profit, tax-exempt status is just one of the things that can disappear if enough people come to the "political" position that tax dollars should not support religious beliefs.

Hence, it is convenient for you to have a Rabbi on staff at a church -- an absurdity on its face, until you recognize that this is like John Murtha negotiating with the Republicans to deliver Democratic votes in exchange for entitlements.

So, I know that I am a-religious. As for the rest, I cannot prove or disprove anything, have no resources to do so, and believe, given the likelihood of never succeeding in the effort were it undertaken, that it's not worth wasting time. Except that religioso mafia types have a brotherhood with lots of political power and it should be checked, or they will make Galileos of us all.

Happy New Year to you and the St. Bart's Rabbi!

Amy – you say:

“So I'm the opposite of the kind of person most people think depart from the church -- I hold no anger toward the church. In fact, I'm very grateful. Any anger I have is toward fundamentalism and what it's done to the country. …If I could be an Episcopalian-Atheist I'd do it in a heartbeat.”

Thanks Amy, I think there are a lot of people like that, some of whom are still in the pews and some are on the Altar and at the pulpit. They don’t buy the supernatural stuff either, and haven’t for a long time. Some clergy will even say as much at the pulpit, often in a veiled or indirect way, so skeptics will catch it and believers will miss it. It seems to have worked well as a middle ground for both clergy and lay people. Still, there’s an inherent dishonesty to it and a lack of candor that I ultimately think is unhealthy and won’t continue – especially in light of the current consciousness-raising that is causing more people to come of the closet about their beliefs or lack thereof.

REV TULLY – ARE YOU LISTENING? Optimist that I am, I see a future for the Church, in which these parishioners and clergy can come out of the closet together and find a way to preserve the positive aspects of the church community while speaking clearly and honestly about the supernatural and historical aspects of church tradition that have been glossed over for too long.

To Interested Person:

I meant to say that the same KIND of person would have done the same thing -- meaning that people who have a tempered view of church/state issues would act in a rational way, in accordance with the law. They do not have to act because of their religion, or in spite of their religion.

Of course, I don't know exactly what motivated these particular people or how religious they were, and neither does the writer, Plunge. Who knows - some of them could have been closeted atheists.

Hope this helps.

To E. Favorite:

You wrote: "Yes, and those same people would have done the same things if they hadn't been believers."

How do you know this?

If you say that when religious persons act rationally and show deference to others, those actions are not related to their religion, aren't you placing yourself in a position to cherry-pick the facts? When religious persons act violently, is that a pure expression of religion? But if they act rationally or deferential, it's not?

What I just wrote sounded more argumentative than I intended.
Sorry. I'm not accusing you of going that far. But your logic would allow it.

I grew up in the Episcopal church, and I mean that literally. My mother was the church babysitter and my grandmother taught the kindergarten Sunday School. I sang in the choir and grew up listening to divine organ music (St. Peter's Church in Lakewood, Ohio -- our organist was an organ professor at Oberlin)

My family prayed at each meal, and I prayed every night before bed. After my grandmother's death, the rest of my family stopped going to church, but I continued and joined the adult choir while in high school. I credit that church with giving me as much of a grounding in my eventual profession (music) as my public school.

It was while sitting in a pew in Christ Church in Georgetown, DC that I realized I didn't actually believe in any of the supernatural stuff of religion. I was there because of the rest. The music, the ceremony, the care and concern that members of our church showed my family. Although we were poor, thanks to my deadbeat dad (grrrr) we were never treated shabbily by our wealthy congregation. In fact, our holiday meals were sometimes provided by the church.

So I'm the opposite of the kind of person most people think depart from the church -- I hold no anger toward the church. In fact, I'm very grateful. Any anger I have is toward fundamentalism and what it's done to the country. Fundamentalists I've met know less about the Bible than I do, and they certainly don't make decisions in line with their WWJD bracelets. They tailgate, cheat in business, lie "for good causes," and show disdain for people Jesus would have loved and cared for. They criticize "cafeteria Christians" yet pick and choose the parts of the Bible they want to follow.

If I could be an Episcopalian-Atheist I'd do it in a heartbeat. That stuff about there being a god, a soul, a hereafter... I just can't go along with it. And despite the emptiness I *should* feel at the loss of that belief, becoming an atheist has given my life more meaning. Now that I view death as the final end, what I do with my time here matters even more. I don't miss the sky-daddy and cosmic forgiveness at all, but I do have very fond memories of the people I met as a Christian.

Hey, Plunge, nice post. It again makes me glad I live in America.

Hey, Fr. Tully (Do Episcopalians still use that form of address), nice words. You can attract a lot more bears with honey.... Most people say, "...attract more bees with honey," but then, I always thought bees were after nectar..., anyway, like others have said here, I really appreciate your attention.

Yeah, it looks like everybody has got "a lot of 'splainin' to do." You make a good start.

Boy! (I could have said "God!"). Just knowing how the Christian Europeans took over the Western Hemisphere..., well, it makes you wonder. Not that its indigenous peoples were filled with too extensive amount of "Botherly Love" either, just that, well, you know.

And, whether or not I am a believer or a non-believer, I just love it. Don't we all? Here in America, at least?

W. M. Tully, you are a breath of fresh air. You must have been reading C. G. Jung, a little bit. Yeah, "What a piece of work is man...." Well, that's Shakespear, but I wanted to end with it.

Mr. Tulley: The vehemence of many of these comments has taught me that I need to sharpen my thinking about the faith I profess.

For reading these vehement comments and not automatically reverting to defensiveness, I applaud you. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Tulley: I wonder whether many of the responders are a-religious as much as they are a-theistic.

I am about as atheistic as it is possible to be; my a-religiousness varies with the particular religion or sect being discussed. For example, as both the Bible and the Koran give divine commands for my death, Christian and Muslim inerrantists give me great concern. Quakers and unitarians give me none.

Plunge --

You say, "It was believers who made the decision, and believers that put it into effect, and believers that enforced it, and none of that could have happened without them. Don't forget that."

Yes, and those same people would have done the same things if they hadn't been believers.

Rev Tully -- Happy to see you here. I will respond to you directly soon. Nice to know you're listening.

Mr. Tully,

Thank you for your thoughtful post. It was a breath of fresh air compared to most of the theistic panelists.

I think your comments on "functional atheism" and the practice of dealing with our daily challenges by "making it up as we go along" is dead-on. In my mind, this is one of many areas where western religious traditions are in direct conflict with reality. That is, many forms of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have a core belief in absolute and objective moralities. But moral decisions are nearly always made with limited knowledge of the factors involved, with conflicting ethical issues, and with virtually no way to predict the potential outcomes. In such circumstances, lists of objective moral seem pretty useless, even ignoring the fact that no evidence for objective morals exists.

Concerning atheists versus the areligious, I've never personally encountered anyone whose atheism was based on a contempt for religion. I've talked to some people whose journey towards freedom from religion began with negative feelings towards their church, but those feelings didn't become the basis of their atheism. Rather, it led them to seek out scientific, historical, and philosophical information which exposed the contradictions inherent to their faith.

I would say the opposite is far more common. Just check out the "Atheists' Testimony" thread at the Internet Infidels forum (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/index.php). You'll read probably hundreds of stories of ex-believers who were rejected and ostracized by their families and communities after revealing their atheism.

In contrast, I've never heard of a believer being rejected by his family for not being an atheist.

Thanks again for you column.

Let me put this out there:

Nearly every single political goal that non-believers tend to support has many many allies amongst believers as well. I have never in my life seen any reason for "atheist-only" groups, both because there is little ground for agreement or grouping amongst an outgroup (defined by what we are not) and also, perhaps more importantly, because many many believers have and always will agree with values like a secular government, freedom of religious conscience, and so forth.

In fact, given that atheists are such a tiny minority, the fact is that every major important stride for religious freedom and SoCaS has been taken not in spite of religious people, but could ONLY HAVE HAPPENED because many many religious people cared and helped and fought for those things.

Remember: Mady O'Hair was a screechy, nasty woman, but government-led secretarian prayer in schools was ultimately banned not because of her efforts, but rather because god believing judges agreed not with her personally, but with the point she made about the proper role of government. It was believers who made the decision, and believers that put it into effect, and believers that enforced it, and none of that could have happened without them. Don't forget that.

You've written a very nice column, William Tully. And it's particulary nice that you read the comments that are posted. I'm sure that all of us posters wonder if any of the panelists ever read them. Thank you!

I'm also pretty sure that almost all "non-believers", whether atheists, agnostics, or those simply indifferent to the question of belief, don't care at all what beliefs anybody has until they are embodied in legislation or other exercises of political power. Then the "non-believers" feel themselves and their lives threatened by what they see as insanity-in-action.

Mr Tully's essay brings to mind an incident that took place in a southern Baptist church shortly after the 2004 election. The minister discharged members of the congregation because they "admitted" voting for Kerry. At that time others left in protest. Looks like they might just be faking it at that church. It would be interesting to get a good count of just how many really believe the nonsense.

By the way. That incident serves to verify, "Religion is the great enemy of democracy." As we anxiously await the return of Jesus who shall rule His kingdom? Could that be those who represent Jesus, collect the king's taxes, (tithes) and spend it for Him too. There appears to be a few easy dollars in faith.

One last response to something you wrote.

We have all been hurt by religion, in little ways and in big ways. The other day I wanted to buy a bottle of wine for a friend but it was Sunday and I couldn't do it. Minor, but real. Of course, kids in Kansas were deprived for awhile of modern scientific education because the board of education in that state was hijacked by fundamentalist wackos. And of course, religous wars are blazing all over the world as we speak, an dthe World Trade Center in NYC was destroyed and 3,000 people were killed. I could go on, but it is impossible to argue that these are not among the varieties of religious experience in the world today.

God, if such there be, surely has a sense of humor, the proof of which lies in the character and number of those she allows to self-appoint as explainers of Her works.

Mt. Tully,

I agree with much of what you just wrote, and I commend you for actually having given some thought to it. I also appreciate that you have not adopted a condescending or unctuous tone. The anger in atheists is a direct reaction to heaping portions of that that we have enjoyed for a long time. That, along with the idea propagated by one of the Catholic theologians on the panel that the only reasonable starting point for a "dialog" is that atheists must concede everything important from the start. (To which I would argue that it might be a good start if Christians also lived "as if God existed").

As you and a few others suggest, the modern view of God in certain circles is not infinitely far removed from weak atheism, especially in practice. As much as I am glad to see that trend, I would go further and suggest that this renders the concept sufficiently vague as to be meaningless; but people like the sensations produced by sincere religious experience. There is evidence that this is something hard wired that has roots very deep in our history as a species. IMHO it is a neurological phenomenon akin to my own responses to jazz music, BUT I could be wrong about that.

The largest source of atheist anger arises when fundamentalists of any sect become politically powerful. First, it is dangerous when anyone believes that they are "chosen by God", and when I hear people say "God bless the USA" there is an implicit sense that they believe that we are God's new chosen people, chosen for our intrinsic wonderfulness. That stance makes one blind to the realities of the world, it is an excuse for bigotry, but it is encouraged in pulpits all over the country. Put aside the theological details, Dobson, Patterson and their ilk would find much in the Taliban agenda that they would agree with.

I'm sure its comforting to most religionists to assume that most atheist have been "hurt" by religion and therefore don't choose to believe. That takes some of the onus off the actual believability of what you espouse and throws it back on the non-believer in the form of anger. The problem is, most non-believers are not non-believers because of something a church or adherent has done to them, they are a-theists because they find the whole philosophy of religion devoid of anything rational.
Irrationality is something that truly thinking people cannot abide. Its the old "the only sin is stupidity" thing all over again.

typo correction in above post/last paragraph

should read INTRINSICALLY

also para 1 have/has

I apologize to Mr. Tully, if the venom of my Mad Love was misdirected. To err is human and all that...

Rev Tully,
I am a bright who have many good church-going friends - even in Cambridge, Mass.

They mostly exhibit the same self-reflection and openness to other opinions that you show.

This truth clarifies the fact that the barrier to reasonable discussion, and IMO to reasonable social policies on things like stem cells and condom use, are the religious dogmatists who believe in the Super-natural myths about God and Jesus and Allah.

To another of your points, I am both an a-theist and a-religious. It's not just the organization, it's the myths, the tendency towards abdication of personal and intricially motivated moral responsibility that belief in God engenders in so many (clearly not you) where I behave well in order to escape eternal damnation, not because I am concerned about getting my girlfriend pregnant.

Thanks again for promoting the discussion.

A panelist who actually reads the comments? Who knew! You can bet we won't see the same from Cal Thomas, who just copy-pastes the same old slanders and long debunked arguments over and over without fail or listening.

I hardly think William Tully has anything to do with "theocracy" however, Mr. Mad Love.

Mr. Tully,

I have to agree with you about seeing the "hurt by religion" thing. I'm a strange position sometimes as a non-believer who really has no beef or bad experience with religion at all. I don't believe, and see no compelling reason to to, but I don't begrudge the beliefs of others. Bad practices and bad ideas promulgated as truth in the public square I'll certainly argue against, but I'm not anti-religious. Non-believers, of course, have even less necessarily in common than believers do (and they don't necessarily have very much in common either), so I can't speak for "us" and no one really can.

But I think you're quite right that there are a lot of angry anti-religious atheists out there (though I think they are outnumbered by non-believers who really aren't even all that interested in these sorts of debates in the first place). Lots of other panelists here have seized upon these loud, rude people as a chance to easily dismiss and slander all non-believers (a practice now colorfully known as "nutpicking"). But if you read over what many of the panelists say about non-believers, it's pretty clear where the nastiness, rudeness, and presumption started, sometimes even unthinkingly. And until very recently, atheists have never even been safe to speak out against it. A lot of what some atheists say now that they can speak out is rude and nasty, but hey: that's the social cost of spending centuries using them as the butt of sermons, the scapegoats of politics, and so on. Of COURSE some are going to be a little pissy back.

Great, but in the mean time could you guys chill out on the whole 'turn America into a Theocracy' thing? thanks...