Feb 1, 2007

Thursday

Its 9:15 pm my time and I just got home. Older Son Sneed and I went to the basketball game this evening, courtesy of Daughter Sneed who bought me tickets for this evenings game. Our team, the University of Arizona, lost to Washington State University. My days of being highly emotionally involved the the outcome of athletic events is past, so I had a good time despite the bad outcome for the local guys. I got a comment yesterday, from a fellow whom I respect, that took me to task for judging all Christians based upon the actions of a few. I would like to rise to my own defense here and make it public and perfectly clear that I have nothing against Christians. I just happen to have a different world view than they do. My rant yesterday was not about Christianity, but rather about people who I thought were behaving financially irresponsibly and looking to their faith for justification. I appreciate the contributions that people of religious faith make to my community. There are good and decent religious people who are committed to making our fair city a better place to live. In fact, the lovely Mrs. Sneed and I financially support their efforts to do so. We simply happen to differ on the things supernatural. As a point of clarity, I count myself a member of the most hated group in America, the atheists. Atheists are the only people in America that cannot be elected to public office. Madalyn Murray O'Hare gave atheists a bad name by being a belligerent jackass. Besides, atheist has such a bad sound to it. Maybe I should come up with a less stigmatizing name. I think that people have a natural loathing of atheists, kind of like the fear of snakes. I recall being about 13 or 14 and telling my mom that I didn't believe in god. She reached her chubby little arm across the table and smacked me. Then she said, "Yes you do". This from my mom, the least religious person I knew. The only church service she attended in my lifetime was her own funeral and then just in body, not in spirit. Why my dad, a proclaimed agnostic, thought that was a good idea mystifies me. I however, am not some ranting lunatic, out to destroy religious belief (I am a ranting lunatic, just of a different sort). On the contrary, I respect the rights of people to believe what they will, so long as it doesn't harm me, as I am fond of saying. To my way of thinking, atheism does not necessarily mean the hatred of the concept of god or of organized religion, as is commonly and widely believed. I just think it means a disbelief in a personal god who intervenes in the life of humans. I don't believe that a supreme being created the universe. I don't believe that God made us in his image, but rather we made him in ours. That's where I'm coming from, in case you wondered. Or even if you didn't. Merle. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky Tag:

1 comment:

Kurt said...

What sort of ranting lunatic are you?

With all due respect to the commenter, who left a nice comment, you weren't judging Christians, just those who would shirk their responsibilities. I'm sure Christians come in all varieties, just like other people.