[lbo-talk] Where we stand today

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Thu Nov 11 08:48:15 PST 2004



>From: Jon Johanning <jjohanning at igc.org>
>
>So apparently the view of the most politically sophisticated and
>knowledgeable LBO listers is:
>
>... 5) The country is in the grip of a medieval religious Dark Ages, and
>nothing can be done to make things better except to convert every American
>into an atheist.

Heaven forfend! Atheism is just another potentially homicidal religion, another claim of certain knowledge about unknowable things. Only agnosticism is consistent with mental health and, for that matter, sound religious principle.

I've long thought that organized religion as a whole is most vulnerable to attack on the basis of one core religious concept: idolatry. Each religion make the same self-contradictory claim that: (a) God is beyond human understanding, and (b) this particular religion (a human institution) understands God very well. It can thus be said that those who follow this religion, whatever it may be, are not worshipping God at all; they are worshipping the fallible, limited understanding of God that this religion serves up. In short, they are worshipping the religion, not God, and that by definition is idolatry.

So, it can be argued that only agnostics are God-fearing people. They alone respect the Almighty in all Its infinitude. They do not purport to understand what is unknowable. Hence, those who argue against religion are the truly religious, QED.

BTW, I can't believe that I'm sitting here in the early 21st century rattling on about the World Invisible. I never thought I'd be nostalgic for the cold war era, but that dark time seems infinitely preferable to these Dark Ages.

Carl



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