But that's the thing, isn't it? Atheism is based around belief. Because not believing in something is believing in its absence, in some capacity. Not to belittle atheism at all; a lot of them make a lot of sense. Richard Dawkins, eg.
Some atheists consistently bother me, though. I like to read RSS feeds, and I have a collection on Google Reader consisting of some pagan websites I like to read (like Wild Hunt and the Juggler [through PNC], etc) and some funny stuff. Well, I also subscribe to an atheist blog called LOLgod. I don't mean to trash it because they say some nasty things about witches. I believe that nothing is sacred, in the sense that anything can be the subject of satire and sarcasm (including anything I believe in, BTW). But I do have a problem with hypocrites. I absolutely loathe hypocrisy. I loathe it so much that in order to avoid hypocrisy myself, I will (a) point out that loathing something doesn't mean you never perpetrate it, and (b) admit that I may occasionally succumb to it. I really try not to, but this is beside the point; hypocrisy drives me up the wall and I see a lot of it in the atheist community (because they are a community, no matter how much they may protest).
The reason I had to write about this today is because of something I saw on LOLgod.
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| Wednesday Nov 3 |
I like this cartoon. The biggest problem I have with Christianity is the holier-than-thou attitude many Christians have. So yeah, good post LOLgod.
Only on Oct 24, LOLgod posted a flowchart of alternative medicine with pretentiously labeled paths to many spiritual healing practices (yes, I mean Reiki and Faith Healing) as well as some non-spiritual healing (like homeopathy and herbal medicine). I'm not going to put it here, because I don't like it and I don't want it associated with this blog, but go see it here and form your own opinions. Similarly on Oct 21 they posted a spoof of Christine O'Donnell. Which I am all for. But in making fun of O'Donnell, they associate witchcraft with Christianity, which with my feelings about Christianity is enough to make me fume. The spoof completely misrepresents witchcraft, equating the belief of magic (which of course, out of context, couldn't mean they're speaking of the respect for nature and nature's power over us) with a belief in God (don't get me started). BTW, can I be totally incensed about the whole "raising the undead" comment? I mean, WTF? Again, go see it here.
When I think of atheism, I think of a culture of reason above all. But these latest posts really show a side of atheism (or at least some atheist) that doesn't fit with this interpretation.
It's disappointing, but I see some atheist writers and bloggers that restore my hope. ContraRarian is a good example. The humor is much more cerebral, and I never see the blatantly elitist jokes that I see on other blogs.
Still, atheism troubles me. Yes, reason plays a pivotal role in the formation of the atheistic concept, but I also see a lot of hatred. There's a lot of hatred everywhere (evangelism, for example, is hatred in pseudo-solid form), but I thought atheism would be--I don't know--better somehow. That's one of the reasons I came to druidry; our culture is based on the positives of life and love and happiness. Again, I mention Dawkins when I speak about atheists who create positive space out of belief in the inexistence of divinity, but I think that's not the norm. From all the atheist blogs I've read, I think atheism is usually just a form of rebellion, and therefore hatred. I don't want to be a part of that.
What more can I write about this? That I'm disillusioned about the grand idea of reason and atheism, and I'll never read LOLgod again? I think that was pretty much taken for granted. But I do want to thank ContraRarian, Richard Dawkins, and others like them for keeping the dream alive, in a sense. I want to believe that a culture based on reason is reasonable.
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