>Yoshie quotes Dennett who writes:
>"The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is
>a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a
>supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or
>elves or the Easter Bunny - or God. We disagree about many things,
>and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning
>of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic - and life after
>death."
>
>This is silly but fairly representative of the "aetheist"
>position...which claims a tradition of "inquiry" stretching back to
>the enlightenment, but then inquires into nothing. God is not a
>matter of "belief." God is not a matter of life after death. God is
>not a belief in black magic.
>
>I regret using the word "God" -- but must use it at least as a placeholder.
For the majority of mainline Protestants, liberal-to-left Catholics, Reform, Conservative, & Reconstructionist Jews, liberal-to-left Muslims, etc., "God" is indeed a placeholder, the Other serving as a place for regard for others (e.g., Matt 25:34-45), not at all a matter of "life after death" and other supernatural beliefs. This is a point that Daniel Dennett humorously makes: "Wanting to preserve and transmit a great culture, we [who have a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view] even teach Sunday school and Hebrew classes. Many of the nation's clergy members are closet brights, I suspect" (Daniel C. Dennett, "The Bright Stuff," _New York Times_, 12 July 2003, <http://www.the-brights.net/dennett_nyt.htm>).
That is probably why the right wing of each faith and denomination regard the left wing of it as practically a bunch of Godless atheists. -- Yoshie
* Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>