Posted on 04/21/2010 11:32:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's uncommonly generous of Michael Gerson[" What Atheists Can't Answer," op-ed, July 13] to refer to me as "intellectually courageous and unfailingly kind," since (a) this might be taken as proof that he hardly knows me and (b) it was he who was so kind when I once rang him to check a scurrilous peacenik rumor that he was a secret convert from Judaism to Christian fundamentalism.
However, it is his own supposedly kindly religion that prevents him from seeing how insulting is the latent suggestion of his position: the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship, which could read and condemn my thoughts and which could also consign me to eternal worshipful bliss (a somewhat hellish idea) or to an actual hell.
Implicit in this ancient chestnut of an argument is the further -- and equally disagreeable -- self-satisfaction that simply assumes, whether or not religion is metaphysically "true," that at least it stands for morality. Those of us who disbelieve in the heavenly dictatorship also reject many of its immoral teachings, which have at different times included the slaughter of other "tribes," the enslavement of the survivors, the mutilation of the genitalia of children, the burning of witches, the condemnation of sexual "deviants" and the eating of certain foods, the opposition to innovations in science and medicine, the mad doctrine of predestination, the deranged accusation against all Jews of the crime of "deicide," the absurdity of "Limbo," the horror of suicide-bombing and jihad, and the ethically dubious notion of vicarious redemption by human sacrifice.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Yep; he sure did. May God ever bless the man!
It was a very simple idea when it first occurred to me; on further meditation, it struck me as profoundly true.
I'm not the mathematician you are, dear sister in Christ, not by a long shot; but I seem to have some natural affinity for geometry. :^)
Anyhoot, with you and Eugene Wigner, I am impressed by the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in understanding our world.
I can't tell you how happy I am that your analysis come up with the same result mine did!
But it's not "my" idea really, dearest sister in Christ!
Thank you ever so much for your kind words of support!
THX FOR THE PING.
Thank you so much for all of your insights, dearest sister in Christ!
I see that Hitchens recognizes the absurdity of predestination, so in essence admits the existence of free will, but then denies or ignores the possibility that we were created whole and well but free and then used our freedom to do what we knew was wrong (Garden of Eden story) and began a self-perpetuating disease of humanity that then had to be healed.
I am a believer, but more on that later. : )
I believe in God, but more on that later. : D
In the parable of the fig tree, said by some to be the most difficult to understand, Jesus demands something from the tree, out of season, and when the tree refuses, he strikes it dead. Wow, the poor fig tree. Does that really fit with What Would Jesus Do?
The meaning for me is this, and your mileage may vary: Until we do something just for him, rather than because our understanding has advanced to the point where we can grasp the good of it, we have not put our trust in him, and only when we put our trust in him can we see him and be guided by him.
That last part at least has a bit of rationality to it, because if we don't trust him, i.e. believe in him for just one microsecond of time, how can we ever see anything he would show us? No matter how spectacular it was, we would think we were being fooled. In short, it's not Seeing Is Believing but Believing Is Seeing. From that point there is no going back, and he will shed his light upon us with such lavishness that we will never have a dark day again.
Hitchens is not deluded or stupid. He's a brilliant man who has used his God-given mind to understand a vast wealth of things. It's no wonder that he should trust it and try to use it to understand belief in God or God himself. He has not gone that last step, though, and done something for no other reason than that Jesus has asked him to. Not because it's good in itself, which it of course will be, but because it is beyond his understanding of good and evil--it is out of season, something he is not ready for, and therefore the only way to move forward from where he is now.
Someone once gave me this advice: Do something tomorrow that was not in your repertoire today. Do something more generous, kinder, more sensitive to the other person than you would have done today. That is bearing fruit out of season, and after doing this for a while you can then look back in time upon a person living in relative darkness, a person you cannot believe you once were.
IIRC, I used to have a book or article on THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF AGNOSTICISM . . . I forget the main rationale of it, though.
Thanks for your kind reply.
Someone once gave me this advice: Do something tomorrow that was not in your repertoire today. Do something more generous, kinder, more sensitive to the other person than you would have done today. That is bearing fruit out of season, and after doing this for a while you can then look back in time upon a person living in relative darkness, a person you cannot believe you once were.
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INDEED. QUITE SO. QUITE SO.
I’m not an atheist, but I like Hitchens and his essay. He’s using his God-given brain to confront reality as best he can. Not very different from a religious seeker in my opinion.
Thanks Firebrand. Quix drew my attention to this post. Beautiful.
= = =
Those who have been forgiven much love much.
= = =
Jesus didn’t come for the well, He came for the sick.
He is my healer.
That’s why He was able to reach me. I needed His healing touch.
= = =
It is He Who has made me, not I myself. I am His person, a lamb in His pasture.
AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
So very, very true, dearest sister in Christ. They must have found another penumbra....
LOL
I don’t think that the part of their anatomy they’ve been contemplating has been their navel.
LOLOL dear brother in Christ! No navel gazing there. Rather a good deal of positive legislating — without any basis in the Constitution — which they are not supposed to do from the bench.
LOLOL!
Indeed. But they really oughtn't to be contemplating regions south of the navel unless they want us to laugh at them for the baboons they would thereby plainly demonstrate themselves to be.
But then suchlike tend to be impervious to the idea that some people can still make the distinction between a man and a baboon. And to think — that distinction marks a real difference in kind.
I’d love to read this if you ever find it. Maybe I’ll google it later. Thanks.
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