Courtesy of Alternet:
What happens when a clergy person -- a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam -- realizes he doesn't believe in God?
And what happens when he says it out loud? What happens when they find each other; when they support each other in coping with their crises, when they help each other with resources and job counseling and other practical assistance? What happens when they encourage each other to come out?
Could this affect more than just these clergy people and their followers? Could it change how society as a whole thinks and feels about religion?
There is strong evidence that we may be entering a new age of enlightenment, which can only bring good things to us. Well that is unless you believe that without religion, there can be no morality.
And hopefully nobody who visits here is so primitive in their thought process as to subscribe to so antiquated a notion.
On a slightly related topic, there is also a growing number of evangelical teachers who are rebelling against those who say the teachers must lie to their students.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2012/06/if-they-only-knew-what-i-thought-the-sad-cycle-of-evangelical-biblical-scholarship/
Even Mother Theresa doubted the existence of God for more than the last half of her life. Her personal letters were published in a book not too long ago expressing her feelings of darkness and lonliness. She said at times it felt like Hell. It was an extremely faith-shaking disclosure for her devotees, who had started pushing for Sainthood immediately upon her death, to accept and have tried to spin it every which way.
DeleteShe never let her doubts show to the public but rather always tried her best to present her faith and God with as much belief as she could muster. She later admitted, the smile was "a mask".
I don't think it will ever be as simple as a clergyman or woman deciding that he doesn't believe in God. First he has to go through the process of understanding that whatever his religion is teaching and preaching is wrong. Then they have to get to where they see that their religion isn't only wrong, it mostly interested in money and/or power.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people can get to this point and never stop believing in God, only in the human corruption of God.
Some of us believers in the magic or the mystery don't think of God as a bearded white man sitting in judgement but as the force or energy or life that is in every living thing.
Whose God offers the best prices?
ReplyDelete"We have to keep our God placated with prayers, and even then we are never sure of him--how much higher and finer is the Indian's God......Our illogical God is all-powerful in name, but impotent in fact; the Great Spirit is not all-powerful, but does the very best he can for his injun and does it free of charge."
--- Twain, Marginalia written in copy of Richard Irving Dodge's Our Wild Indians
They join the UCC, where our last pastor was an atheist and the current is agnostic.,
ReplyDeleteSo why do you need a pastor at all?????
DeleteFor a great look at Twin's views on religion, read one of his lesser known works, "Letters from Earth." Then, there is a wonderful "real morality" versus Calvinism essay on the morals of Huck Finn, versus those of Himmler and Preacher Jonathan Edwards.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.earlymoderntexts.com/jfb/huckfinn.pdf
Excellent essay.
New age of enlightenment is just another religion.
ReplyDeleteYou ran me off the first time because I was an outsider; this time because I am a believer. Sorry it took me so long to become enlightened. Anyway, thanks, Gryphen, for all you've done to hold politicians and leaders accountable.
New age of enlightenment? You mean what some people believed in the 1960s, which was more than half a century ago? What are you even talking about?
DeleteYes, that's the one. The 60's really did mark "the dawning of the Age of Aquarius". Astrologically, we are moving from the Age of Pisces -marked by the end of individualism and the necessity for blind belief - into the Age of Aquarius, the Awakener - marked by technology, radical thought, invention and ascension.
DeleteJust as each month when the stars move from one sign into another there are a few days of overlap called the "cusp" when the characteristics of both signs apply. With Ages being a much longer span of time from one to the next, the cusp period is about 50 years. This is what began in the 60s and is just finishing up now in 2012. You may have noticed the changes. Less acceptance of long held beliefs and more questioning of the status quo - less religion and more spirituality so to speak. This transition is one reason there has been so much tumult in the world these last several decades.
The good news (astrologically) is that if we can make it through the next little while without annihilating ourselves, we may be able to pull it out as a species.
I think the notion that there can be no morality without religion is one perpetrated by evangelicals rather than by Christians. If one is a Christian and believes that God made man in his image, then it would be incongruous to believe that man has no capacity to be moral unless he/she is a believer. We could argue this concept, however, at the end of the day, the evidence is in how many people we know lead compassionate, moral lives without benefit of religion. If one believes that God gave us choice, then it follows that man has the choice to lead a moral or immoral life as well, regardless of faith.
ReplyDeleteBut first one has to believe in God at all.
DeleteI'm afraid every Christian I've ever known has believed its impossible for me to be a good and moral person as an atheist. All types of Christians. Generally, they will all tell you they are superior people as believers once you corner them into admitting it. Unfortunately, there's something about Christianity in the 21st century that is so inherently warped and wrong, that people within it have all come to believe themselves as 'better than', 'morally superior to'. They'll all, like yourself, deny it until you engage them on a war of logic and corner them into what they honestly have to admit as its become a central tenet - 'We are better than other beliefs, because WE KNOW, they just believe and think they're right but WE know the TRUTH they don't, WE know we are RIGHT, and so we are personally blessed by God and Jesus to go to heaven based on what came so easily to us as a gift, NO MATTER WHAT TERRIBLE DEEDS we undertake in our human lives.'
DeleteThere is nothing more arrogant to me than the central tenet of Christianity: that any action no matter how terrible or what suffering it inflicts on others, has absolutely NO bearing on your punishment. You can be a genocidal maniac, but believe in the redemption of Christ, and believe deeply in Yahweh, and for that you will be lushly rewarded.
No, that's evil and sick, not good and right. Christianity to me is inherently evil and cruel. No thought is given to the non believing victims of genocidal believers...presumably Christians know that these poor people go to hell and yet they smile and think that fair? No. No more. Im Gen Y and were coming.
"What happens when a clergy person -- a minister, a priest, a rabbi, an imam -- realizes he doesn't believe in God? "
ReplyDeleteOOH! I know! I Know!
What is: he either opens a Gay nightclub or becomes a televangelist, Alex?