> But I half suspect that for a lot of lefties hatred of religion is about the
> only thing you could call a conviction that they've got -- that, and a
> pleasure in attitudinizing about what fools and gulls the common herd are.
> Leftism in this country, I fear, is badly compromised by being confined to
> the National Merit(*) class, with our officially endorsed and scientifically
> certified sense of superiority.
Stephen Colbert once called atheism "the religion devoted to the worship of one's own smug sense of superiority." In many ways that's accurate, judging from the contents of the major atheist websites and blogs -- nearly all of which is dedicated to making fun of the latest theistic outrage.
This is sad because atheism can also come with a positive vision: the brotherhood of man, cherishing your own life and the lives of others, working to tame nature to the service of humankind, an aversion to dogma, etc. This is the vision embedded in Diego Rivera's beautiful mural "Man At The Crossroads": http://history.sandiego.edu/GEN/filmnotes/images/rivera02.jpg (I love this painting, I mean, there's everything I stand and work for, right there).
I once wrote a blog post on this topic that got linked by Pharyngula and others: http://thevanitywebsite.blogspot.com/2005/09/rejuvenating-atheism.html
-WD
__________________________ thevanitywebsite.blogspot.com
