My Friday morning coffee group is made up of either members or friends of All Souls Unitarian/Universalist Church in Kansas City; that’s a mouthful. It’s not uncommon for people to confuse us with Unity, a left leaning, liberal, Christian denomination and though we do lean left and favor hard won knowledge over medieval mythology, we do not practice Christian religion. If we need a label it would be Secular Humanists. I can’t recall the source but I’m sure it has Buddhist roots, it goes; Whether or not there is a god at all is irrelevant. We are born with everything we need to live in peace and serve the greater good. In this coffee group our spiritual fingerprints can range from that of aggressive, hardshell atheists to passive disbelievers to simple unbelievers and agnostics, then come the philosophical agnostics and people who don’t like labels and balk at all of the ‘Come to Jesus’ hyperbole. Talk is cheap; we try to focus on what we do. What one truly believes is like cream in a jar, it comes to the top.
Yesterday (at coffee) one of our more aggressive atheists was chewing on a bone, that our minister was using the Big G (god) word and alluding to biblical wisdom way too much and it was not only inappropriate but offensive. How are you supposed to practice your atheist faith with all of that distraction. Me, on the other hand, I don't think of myself as an atheist rather, one of those philosophical agnostics. I don’t know and I don’t care. To my knowledge, no one has ever proven or disproved the God conundrum. I learned that the lack of compelling evidence does not prove anything. That was Bertrand Russell’s argument when debating his Christian adversaries in the late 1800’s. “In theory I am an agnostic but I go about my life with the atheists.” Leaning on Russell I feel like I am in good company.
I make the distinction between unbelief and disbelief. I don’t believe because I have no reason to believe. It’s not an (Either, Or) but simply a vacant space. All logic and effort to find cause has failed so far and enough is enough. I don’t believe and I don’t care. Disbelief is simply belief turned upside down. It is a negative premise, predicated on the same emotional need that drives others to belief, some kind of direct or vicarious experience that creates an insatiable appetite to validate something that cannot be validated. Rather than keep digging in that bottomless hole I concur with Rhett Butler's rebuff of Scarlett O'Hara,(Clark Gable to Vivian Leigh); Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Next time we will chew on a different bone and I will try to stay out of it. But when someone asks what I think, that old ‘Gone With The Wind’ quote doesn’t satisfy anybody. We, (Unitarians) pride ourselves on being tolerant with a high value on diversity but truth be known, sometimes we are neither, sounding more like upside down Pentecostals, more concerned about seizing the moment than turning the page. In the movie, ‘Grumpy Old Men’ when, from his bedroom window in the middle of the night, Walter Matthau first sees Ann Margaret on her snowmobile with her long hair and he mutters; “Holy Moley”. I don’t think he was sanctifying a righteous dude named Moley. Joseph Campbell said, “God is a metaphor to which we attribute everything profound and mysterious that we cannot comprehend, God must have done it.” (a metaphor). When I spit out an O.M.G. I am not claiming the big G. We take lots of liberties with religious language that resonates a secular if not condescending lack of piety. I know a guy who, when truly amazed, falls back on, “Jesus @%#king Christ!” and we all know he’s not preaching. So when our minister prefaces a humanist idea with something out of the bible, I understand and I take it for what it is. I’m really trying to be tolerant and appreciate the diverse nature of all things, temporal and spiritual. But ‘Spiritual’ is another loaded word for my hard-shell atheist amigos and I’m not up to another philosophical disclaimer. Holy Moley after all.
Yesterday (at coffee) one of our more aggressive atheists was chewing on a bone, that our minister was using the Big G (god) word and alluding to biblical wisdom way too much and it was not only inappropriate but offensive. How are you supposed to practice your atheist faith with all of that distraction. Me, on the other hand, I don't think of myself as an atheist rather, one of those philosophical agnostics. I don’t know and I don’t care. To my knowledge, no one has ever proven or disproved the God conundrum. I learned that the lack of compelling evidence does not prove anything. That was Bertrand Russell’s argument when debating his Christian adversaries in the late 1800’s. “In theory I am an agnostic but I go about my life with the atheists.” Leaning on Russell I feel like I am in good company.
I make the distinction between unbelief and disbelief. I don’t believe because I have no reason to believe. It’s not an (Either, Or) but simply a vacant space. All logic and effort to find cause has failed so far and enough is enough. I don’t believe and I don’t care. Disbelief is simply belief turned upside down. It is a negative premise, predicated on the same emotional need that drives others to belief, some kind of direct or vicarious experience that creates an insatiable appetite to validate something that cannot be validated. Rather than keep digging in that bottomless hole I concur with Rhett Butler's rebuff of Scarlett O'Hara,(Clark Gable to Vivian Leigh); Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
Next time we will chew on a different bone and I will try to stay out of it. But when someone asks what I think, that old ‘Gone With The Wind’ quote doesn’t satisfy anybody. We, (Unitarians) pride ourselves on being tolerant with a high value on diversity but truth be known, sometimes we are neither, sounding more like upside down Pentecostals, more concerned about seizing the moment than turning the page. In the movie, ‘Grumpy Old Men’ when, from his bedroom window in the middle of the night, Walter Matthau first sees Ann Margaret on her snowmobile with her long hair and he mutters; “Holy Moley”. I don’t think he was sanctifying a righteous dude named Moley. Joseph Campbell said, “God is a metaphor to which we attribute everything profound and mysterious that we cannot comprehend, God must have done it.” (a metaphor). When I spit out an O.M.G. I am not claiming the big G. We take lots of liberties with religious language that resonates a secular if not condescending lack of piety. I know a guy who, when truly amazed, falls back on, “Jesus @%#king Christ!” and we all know he’s not preaching. So when our minister prefaces a humanist idea with something out of the bible, I understand and I take it for what it is. I’m really trying to be tolerant and appreciate the diverse nature of all things, temporal and spiritual. But ‘Spiritual’ is another loaded word for my hard-shell atheist amigos and I’m not up to another philosophical disclaimer. Holy Moley after all.
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