Religion
Related: About this forumAtheists and Foxholes
OCTOBER 23, 2012 1:14PM
Ann Nichols
When my brother told me my mother was really going to die, that there would be no amazing reprieve this time, I got the answer to a question I’d been asking most of my life. I always wondered if, when my parents died, I would pray, talk to God, and find some comfort in something outside myself. It was the worst thing I could think of, the death of my parents, worse for me than any physical threat. As a small child I stood at the window and wept if I heard sirens when they were out for the evening, convinced that they had been killed. The loss of either or both of them, although inevitable, was the hardest thing imaginable, the complete destruction of all that I believed to be stable and good.
It was never clear whether I would be atheist or believer in that unavoidable foxhole of loss. My spiritual life was shaped by my believing-but-not-very -observant Jewish mother and my lapsed Catholic-turned-atheist father. My brother and I experienced everything from Passovers, chopped liver and menorahs with my mother and her family to Catholic mass with my father’s mother. We received information about religion and spirituality that was contradictory,non-directive and honest. Organized religion, according to my father, was the root of most of the evil and suffering in the world. He believed that “religious” people unwilling to question doctrine, or to offer real help to those in need were sheep and hypocrites. He also took my grandmother to mass every Sunday, and genuflected before entering the pew at her funeral.
My mother believed in God, and she placed great value on keeping Jewish traditions and history alive. She was also as open and ecumenical as my father was not; in the later years of her life she and I discussed everything from Jesus to angels. She and I shared the belief that faith can be a great blessing, but that religion was absolutely not essential in raising moral children who felt a duty to serve. My brother and I turned out pretty well, we are both personally and professionally dedicated to helping other people, and we did it all without threat of hell, excommunication or judgment of any kind. We did it because our parents modeled it, demanded it, and made us want to be good people.
Left to my own thoughts and choices, I experimented, sampled, and studied. I believed there was something greater than our little lives. It could all be a series of accidents from The Big Bang forward that created the beauty of spider webs, seashells and snowflakes. Everything could be science, all gravity and stardust and evolution. I believed in the scientific facts, but I, personally, wanted something more.
http://open.salon.com/blog/ann_nichols/2012/10/23/atheists_and_foxholes
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beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I really wish people would do their homework before embracing alternative religions.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Fucking new agers, they aspire to be rebels and rogues but they're no different than Sarah Palin, just recycling old bullshit.
Great. I haven't even been back for two days and I'm already swearing.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)There is a lot of room between atheism and theism, and I think that is where many of the "nones" find themselves these days.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)you think that the need to believe is the same as actual belief. The person in this article is expressing the latter.
stopbush
(24,845 posts)Well, I am.
I've lost both parents and didn't feel a need to pray or seek god either time. In fact, I was pretty much appalled and disgusted by the whole Lutheran religious claptrap that went on during their funeral services.
My wife and I lost a child at 26 weeks. Didn't feel any urge to pray to the imaginary deity when that happened, either.
As far as atheists in foxholes - weren't all those "godless Communists" we fought all those years atheists? Weren't they in foxholes?
BTW - if you're not an atheist and you find yourself in a foxhole, why is your faith and your god so weak? Surely, you must believe that your god will be looking out for you in that foxhole, protecting you from danger. And if he doesn't have the power to protect you from danger, why bother groveling before him?
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Some people find comfort, strength, insight, even enlightenment through their faith. Those that are only asking their god to perform some kind of intervention on their behalf are quite likely to be disappointed.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Like an abused child promising they'll be good and begging their parent for mercy.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)Sometimes it's about reflecting on making the right decision. Sometimes it's about those that you love.
Whether one uses their faith and beliefs to get to those things is most likely inconsequential, but not all religious people see their god as a punishing parent.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)It refers to atheists who think they're going to die soon and in a moment of weakness hedge their bets.
So yes, it is just like a child pleading with an abusive parent.
I am an atheist, I have nearly died several times, I never begged for my life, not once.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)that the term is being used rather loosely.
I believe that there are atheists in foxholes, emergency rooms, ICU's, car accidents, etc., etc.
They are no more or less likely to have a better outcome than a theist in the same situation, imo.
In the end, it comes down to whatever gets you through your night.
Nice to see you back.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I really don't care what she believes or doesn't as long as she doesn't speak for other atheists or promote bigoted stereotypes.
Thank you for the welcome.
dmallind
(10,437 posts)So the reality that there does not need to be any "more" to explain this Universe is hard for you to take. You need to imagine that there is something greater for your own comfort. I guess it works for you, But the universe and reality don't exist for your comfort.
rug
(82,333 posts)
edhopper
(37,414 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)You've eliminated one reason. Do you believe there is another or none?
edhopper
(37,414 posts)none that I can see.
rug
(82,333 posts)I'm asking if you believe there is any reason for it to exist. We both know the mechanics of its existence.
meaning of life territory?
Yes, my life has meaning, that which I ascribed to it.
rug
(82,333 posts)I'll just say this.
It seeems to me that if one objects to the notion that the universe is here for a reason, perforce, there is no reason at all for it to exist, it just is. End of inquiry.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)Oh wait.....sorry...
cbayer
(146,218 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)I'm truly curious as to why it is being read as anti-atheist?
rug
(82,333 posts)I find his cool rational objectivity to be amusing.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)it would be the Atheist in a Foxhole meme.
It's extremely offensive.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)but that's not really what this article is about at all, as we discussed above.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)When the title is offensive it begs the question.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)This is a silly debate, isn't it? The article is not anti-atheist. The member appears to have made a knee jerk assumption based on reading the headline and his notions about the member who posted it.
I asked him to explain and so far he has not done so, but I am curious.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I guess I can't expect you to understand why it's so offensive, I just wanted to give you a heads up since this issue is quite popular in this forum and others.
And imo, the op regularly posts material that just barely squeaks in under the 'flame bait' radar.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)You said the phrase "No atheists in foxholes" was offensive and I agreed with you. That's not the title, however, and the author is an atheist.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)And secondly I'm not making this personal, I am just trying to answer your questions.
Nit picking about the exact phrasing in the title is either naive or purposely obtuse.
When the words 'atheists' and 'foxholes' are used in the same sentence we get it, we're not stupid.
And neither is the op.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I didn't get that from the article at all.
Anyway, I think it was a good article about a very personal experience.
Editing to add that if you think I am naive or intentionally obtuse, we will have little to talk about in the future.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)So I flirted with Catholicism, Judaism, Wicca, some vague amalgamation of Taoism and Other Asian Stuff. I joined a Protestant Church, of which I am still a member, and while I love the community, the good works and the exhortations to follow Christ’s example, it was only a couple of years before rebellion stirred. I had problems with The Bible. I loved the language and poetry in The Old Testament, and there were lessons of universal usefulness in both Testaments. If everyone actually did the stuff Jesus said to do, we would have peace, justice, and enough love and food and support for everyone on earth.
***
There may be atheists in foxholes, but apparently I am not one of them. During those last hours, I believed that the universe breathed with me. It was neither the stark atheist nothingness of stardust and gravity, nor the embrace of some omnipotent God.
And yes, the article is just fucking adorable, the part I find offensive is where she uses a bigoted stereotype to describe her silly quest for "something more".
I am not labeling you naive or willfully obtuse, but if you continue to completely disregard the op's posting history in this forum what else am I to conclude?
Referencing the atheists in foxholes meme is as offensive as comparing your god to Santa Claus.
My beef was with the op and the ditzy author, not you. I will not push your buttons if you don't push mine.
Peace out.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)See you around the campfire.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts) cbayer
(146,218 posts) rug
(82,333 posts)As I said, you have some weird opinions.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)Your concern for us poor confused atheists is touching.
What would we do without Unca rug?
rug
(82,333 posts)When called, you invoke "us poor confused atheists" like a dog whistle and resort to an ad hominem.
I'd say that's play but this place is not a playground.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)It's just not your playground.
When called, you invoke "us poor confused atheists" like a dog whistle and resort to an ad hominem
Oh dear.
We need a hypocrisy smilie.
rug
(82,333 posts)Disruption versus discussion?
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)
Which one of us is banned from posting in the other's group again?
rug
(82,333 posts)It would behoove you to see precisely what happened there. I invite you to post right here, in my words, what that decision was based on. BTW, say hello to laconic. He stated the objection was to my mere "presence". I can't say I have that objection.
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)It's not my fault you set the bar so fucking low rug.
rug
(82,333 posts)As do minds ringed by stereotypes. Don't forget to say hi for me.
rug
(82,333 posts)Silent3
(15,909 posts)The author over-personalizes a connection to the universe in a way that most atheists I know would avoid, given their generally skeptical nature about all forms of mysticism, not just about deities. Atheism, however, is not defined by a "stark... nothingness of stardust and gravity". Atheism is defined by a lack of belief in deities.
The author started out as a mystically-inclined atheist, then confronted the death of her parents as a mystically-inclined atheist. She did not suddenly embrace a belief in a deity. A universe that "breathed" with her for a time is not a God. She simply didn't remain as narrowly-defined an atheist as she seemed to think one would have to be to remain an atheist.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)I didn't read this as her denouncing her atheism, just embracing something else (which doesn't read as theism to me either).
tama
(9,137 posts)http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-sophstate/notes.html
When I was living in Athens, there was a nice psistaria with good cheap wine and interesting clientele called "To Kati Allo". The expression has double meaning, meaning also "Something Special". When I read the Sophist by Plato, the theological part of that dialogue struck me as deliberately omitting something, which I imagine was omitted for the reason why Socrates was sentenced to death by Athenians on charge of atheism. Socrates denied the accusation and said that the God he was serving was "Something Else":
In a highly inflammatory section of the Apology, Socrates claims that no greater good has happened to Athens than his concern for his fellow citizens, that wealth is a consequence of goodness (and not the other way around), that God does not permit a better man to be harmed by a worse, and that, in the strongest statement he gives of his task, he is a stinging gadfly and the state a lazy horse, "and all day long I will never cease to settle here, there and everywhere, rousing, persuading and reproving every one of you."
As further evidence of his task, Socrates reminds the court of his daimon which he sees as a supernatural experience. He recognizes this as partly behind the charge of believing in invented beings. Again Socrates makes no concession to his situation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_(Plato)
cbayer
(146,218 posts)As I said above, there is a huge gaping grey area between theism and atheism, imo, and this is an interesting description of it.
She's not an atheist. I happen to know the author. She wrote a personal story about a personal experience. That in and of itself entitles her to write whatever she freaking wants, does it not? I believe we are still entitled to our feelings and expression of same, or has that changed?
This is a very cool and open minded woman. Stop summarizing people you know nothing about aside from a blog post.
We hear all the time about fanatic religious people. Stop being intolerant of others for having the views they do. Unless someone is telling you that you are wrong or interfering with your life, freedom, etc, what another expresses - and believes - is none of your business.
gopiscrap
(24,756 posts)cbayer
(146,218 posts)I can't see where I said anything here that would lead you to the conclusions you did.
I liked her article very much and understood her struggle between atheism and theism.