snitsnat wrote:
>
> sounds like you had a rootless, traumatic childhood from which you're
> trying to recover by turning to spirituality.
>
> IOW, i hardly think one should chalk up legitimate disagreements to
> childhood trauma. yoshie not only doesn't seem hostile to religion, she
> hardly seems to have been the victim of childhood religious traumas. Nor
> does anyone else here, for that matter.
I never had any religion, and what nominal religion I had I dropped the very day I discovered that there were nonbelievers out there. Certainly no trauma. I've always claimed that I was atheist by birthright more than merit. That's one of the reasons I can treat argument about religion as entertainment rather than anything seerious. It's also why I get along quite well with religious people: since I take my atheism for granted, I don't have to be continually reproving it to myself. Some of this debate was under the subject line of "Rationality of the Masses," which I began with a post claiming that fundamentalists were quite rational people, though wrong. (And incidentally, I am irritated by Joanna's use of the slang term "fundies"; they are people who have certain beliefs. Such slang as "fundies" belongs in the same part of the lexicon as "darky" and "towelhead."
I have no problem with understanding why people hold to a religion; what I do have problems understanding at all is why those who reject formal religions cling so desperately to "spirituality." That, quite frankly, seems sillier to me than fundamentalism.
Carrol