Atheism as Medicine
Although I have strong reservations about the Freedom from Religion Foundation's choice of venues for posting that “religion is but myth and superstition which hardens the heart and enslaves the mind,” I certainly can't disagree with the message itself. Religion is indeed a mental disease, and one which in my case was literally almost fatal. Critics of atheism often argue that it doesn't offer anything inherently positive or constructive and that it only tears down religion. They're correct, of course, but they're entirely missing the point. If religion is a disease, atheism is the medicine. It doesn't offer anything beyond canceling out superstition in exactly the same way that most medicine doesn't offer anything beyond canceling out sickness. We don't dismiss chemotherapy for just treating cancer but not offering any benefit to those who are already healthy! It may even be argued that I'm missing the point because atheism doesn't need to offer us anything whatsoever in order to be true.
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2 comments:
My name is David E. Oliver. I have my own humanist website. www.davideoliver.blogspot. David E. Oliver Blogs
I hope you will contact me as soon as possible. I am very interested in correspondance. My e-mail address is dvdeolvr@aol.com.
It is not easy being an atheist and I am sure I am in the minority where I live.I admit I try to live a moral life as most people think I am very descent. I was raised in a Christian home and even attended a Christian school and graduated from Liberty University. But I admit I feel away from the faith as I am quite certain Jesus could not have risen from the dead. I am an agnostic as I don't claim to know anything about the nature of God.
Most Sincerely;
David Edward Oliver, BS
• de-conversion no easy matter **
Ever wonder about getting some insight into how someone might go through a rejection (or deep modification) of belief. You might take a look at one blog site which addresses itself to that, to "de-conversion." http://de-conversion.com/
Another blog where the level of discourse against theism is high is Daylight Atheism:
http://www.daylightatheism.org/2008/03/on-amateur-atheism.html
• siege mentality: Those not with us are against us. (Luke 11:23 NIV)
It was Apollo on his temple at Delphi who advised “gnothi seauton,” know yourself. He also said, “nothing in excess.” Two admonitions xians never have learned to follow.
Xian intolerance and self-righteousness were traits noted with distaste by Romans two thousand years ago. (See R. Wilken. The christians as the romans saw them. Yale Pr. 1984)
The new religion appealed to poor, uneducated, displaced people pushed into swarming slums in the eastern roman empire. With Jerusalem destroyed and the province of Palestine subjugated in 70 CE, thousands of anti-roman jews escaped into Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, Alexandria, and Rome where there were already jewish enclaves.
Cults of Jesus appealed to marginalized jews and pagan malcontents who wanted a world cleansed of roman occupation, who hoped for a religious military leader, who wanted revenge, soon, not in the sweet by-and-by. Only a miracle worker could defeat a military machine whose advanced weaponry, tactics, and generalship left subject populations completely defenseless.
• myth making and xian inverted elitism
Most successful among agitators appears Paul of Tarsus, an apostate hellenized jew, whose letters to xian cells are considered “holy writ” even today. After suffering a mental breakdown featuring a hallucination of Jesus as typical near eastern world savior, Paul fashioned his mythical being of cosmic proportions out of pre-existing judaic and hellenistic cults. Christ would return from an otherworldly reality to purify his believers, destroy the roman empire, and bring about a magical end of the world.
In short, Paul and his fellow revenge seekers created a god sharing their nihilistic values. He and the primitive church had a perverse self-understanding, an inverted snobbery:
27 God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are. . . .” 1Cor1:27-28 NIV
• a religion of hatred tarted up as a religion of love
Xianity still appeals to those who believe themselves mistreated. To those in whom resentment surges. To those who must blame others. To those who must punish their guilty selves. Xianity is practical nihilism.
Directed inward, hatred of self. Directed outward, hatred of others and the world.
Xianity is also highly addictive nihilism. The ‘New Testament’ is pure christo-myth.
bipolar2 ©2008
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