Room for Humility in All Believers

Our tax money is helping to pay this jerk's salary?

"Pity the atheist.

There are not very many of them and a great many people in the U.S. already don't like them."

Gee, I didn't know that. I was under the impression that there are way too many evangelicals in the US and that most people can't stand them. Reading your essay I understand why.
You teach honors students at Biola I see. You wouldn't be confusing that with E Coli would you?
E coli is a virus less pernicious than your thinking. It's also a virus and therefore knows what it's doing while you we are told are a "professor" of philosophy. What happened? Did you miss the course on logic?

"Our view of reality is compatible with progress (which we have produced), but not perfection in this life for most people."

Progress, John? Are you referring to the Iraq War that has cost so many lives? Are you referring to the price of gas which is putting people out of work? Are you referring to the housing disaster?

Tell me, John, do you think that believing in a murderous god that sent his son to earth to be tortured to death translates into ideology somehow? Does worshipping the almighty buck have anything to do with it? What does the philospher say about this?

American Revolutionaries kept saying things like: "No King, but King Jesus!"

Really? Things like that? Wow! Maybe that's why we still have so far to go.

You are a great reason why evangelicals do not belong in the public sphere. Where did you get your doctorate? A mail order college? What the hay is a Biola University? Does anyone go there? Hope not, Jerk.

Of all the self-serving religious crap I've ever read this comes out at the top of the heap.

Of all the self-serving religious crap I've ever read this comes out at the top of the heap.

John,

You should be ashamed of yourself, filling your students' heads with this New Jerusalem nonsense, and you call yourself a philosopher. There is no evidence of a historical Jesus, as you well know. The Gospels are inconsistent with each other. And doubts about the existence of Paul are coupled only by doubts of his conversion. There was then, and there has never been, a Jew who "preached" as Paul did.

Shame on you, "Professor."

Dipping into the holy water, Mr. Reynolds? Jesus, Mary, and Uncle Joe.

What a piece of incoherent garbage. So this is a Christian philosopher.

This atheist would reject your pity.

Primo Levi an atheist who refused to pray, even in Auschwitz;

I entered the Lager (Auschwitz) as a non-believer, and as a non-believer I was liberated and have lived to this day. Actually, the experience of the Lager with its frightful iniquity confirmed me in my nonbelief. It has prevented me, and still prevents me, from conceiving of any form of providence or transcendent justice...I must nevertheless admit that I experienced (and again only once) the temptation to yield, to seek refuge in prayer. This happened in October 1944, in the one moment in which I lucidly perceived the imminence of death...naked and compressed among my naked companions with my personal index card in hand, I was waiting to file past the 'commission' that with one glance would decide whether I should go immediately into the gas chamber or was instead strong enough to go on working. For one instance I felt the need to ask for help and asylum; then, despite my anguish , equanimity prevailed; one does not change the rules of the game at the end of the match, nor when you are losing. A prayer under these conditions would have been not only absurd (what rights could I claim? and from whom?) but blasphemous , obscene, laden with the greatest impiety of which a nonbeliver is capable. I rejected the temptation; I knew that otherwise were I to survive, I would have to be ashamed of it."
From Primo Levi; The Drowned and The Saved.(1986)

What a Man!

And also, those founding documents state that *we the people* accept that *we* make the laws. And *that* we are a nation of laws, not Kings or rulers. Not even 'humble' surrogates for *divine* rulers. It's on *us.* Always has been.

We, the people.

And let me add, this is by far the most poorly written hack piece to appear in this "conversation." I had heard of neither this man Reynolds nor his "university" until 20 minutes ago, but after doing a quick search online I discovered why the writing is so poorly constructed and reasoning so flawed. Reynolds is just a propagandist recruiting new bodies for his religious school, an American imam indoctrinating new pupils at his California madrassa. The scree printed in this hateful attack on secularists (whatever that term means) is typical of the childish self-righteousness so characteristic of American evangelicals.

Bad writing and flawed logic, put this garbage where it belongs.

Ok, the recurring nonsense about regimes that substituted worship of a leader for worship of a God being 'secular' in the same way as America is supposed to be, is *nonsense.*

Our Deist founders did not base our democracy on the notion of 'Theist' 'theocracy.' Deism posits a basically-unknowable and distant 'Creator' which may or may not be identified with Christian stories or laws or rules, whatever they may be at the time.

Monotheism says, 'The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.'

Deism, along with America, says certain rights and equalities are *unalienable* Even by religion.

Just because there were a lot of Christians around and a Christian calendar and a lot of, say syncretism between Christianity and the Enlightenment 'Providence' does *not* mean America was founded to be 'A Christian Nation' as modern theocrats try to retroactively-cast it.

The 'Creator' they speak of is actually bigger than the Christian God, in a sense, not making certain tribal demands, at least, not seen as favoring those who kneel in a certain way or giving license to 'take away' those 'unalienable rights' in its name when the fancy suits.

Now, I don't agree with the imagery that makes Creation a 'thing' 'designed' or 'crafted,' but when I see our founding documents I know that they're talking about essential principles. There's no trouble *there* seeing the Great Mother for 'God' or Providence, but the fact is that our Constitution and other documents on which our secular, religion-friendly Republic are *foundationally based* are a promise between *we the people,* not to any God or religion.

Unalienable rights, not conditional upon worship or piety or profession of belief. Absolutely unalienable.

One might be called an 'atheist' for saying that.

People aren't very literate about what 'Deism' means, these days, either.

But a lot of the self-identified 'atheists' in this survey certainly could be the same sort of folks as Deists.

Sorry but I stopped reading when you ask me to "admit" that secularists did great evil, "in the name of their cause." The crazed "secularists" you allude to- Stalin, Mao, Hussein et al- were not interested in advancing secularism per se, they wanted to crush opposition to their regimes, to which religion was a threat. These were personality cults possessed by the madness of their charismatic leaders, not enlightened "brights" gone wild.

Ok I did skim the rest of your article and it's just an ad hominem attack on those of us who don't share your superstitious belief in magic. In the words of Christopher Hitchens, "Fu@% you," too.

"Secularists must admit that secularists have done great evil in the name of their cause."
Mr. Reynolds, that is utter garbage. What in the world are you talking about? Are you talking about the Communists? Are you too stupid to know that atheism and Communism are not the same thing? When you equate them, you reveal how pitifully ignorant and/or dishonest you are.
Why are believers so incapable of understanding what Communism is?
Secularists support freedom of religion; Communists don't. Secularists support non-violence; Communists don't. Just because Communists mouthed the word "science" does not mean that they honestly supported it -- Stalin supported the discredited theories of Lysenko, even though they contradicted Darwin and were utterly wrong.
For those of you lacking the necessary intelligence to figure it out (in other words, for those of you with a magical, invisible friend in the sky), here's how it works: Communists want to rule society absolutely. Any group that claims to have greater knowledge or wisdom than them must be eliminated. Religions claim to have this greater knowledge and wisdom, so the Communists eliminate them. It has nothing to do with "secularism" and everything to do with absolute control.
Duh!!!
Now we rational people would be very grateful if you believers would stop lying about this matter.

B R E A K I N G -- N E W S:

The IRANian "AL-TAQiYAH" [islamic-Zionist] Army threatened to Destroy the "KABBA" in SAUDI ARAbiA & the "DOME Of The ROCK" in JERUSALEM & other islamic, Christian, Judeo, Hindu, Buddhist Holy sites.. IF,

PERSiA & their Mulla's gets attacked by any Judeo-JEWS & or Judeo-Christs secondaries , or Judeo-Hindu's [via HinDUTVA, aka Hindu-Zionists] teriary's or Judeo-Buddhists or Judeo-Islamic like MESAPOTOMiA/iRAQ et al.

John,

Here is a post on R. Steinsaltz's thread. I'm pasting it here for your edification. Unfortunately, the author posts as Anonymous, and always on his thread. I figure, why not share the wealth?

Posted on July 8, 2008 11:04

Anonymous:

Here's a few atheists...

Robert Frost, Vincent Van Gogh, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur C. Clarke, Dave Matthews, Billy Joel, George Carlin, Voltaire, Mark Twain, Frank Zappa, Gene Roddenberry, George Bernard Shaw, George Burns, Groucho Marx, W.C. Fields, Leo Tolstoy, Kurt Vonnegut, James Joyce, Isaac Asimov, John Lennon, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alfred Hitchcock, Irving Berlin, George Orwell, Robert Heinlein, Oscar Wilde, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Christopher Marlowe, Noel Coward, Charlie Chaplin, H.P. Lovecraft, Woody Allen, Gillian Anderson, Marlon Brando, Dick Cavett, Jean Luc Godard, John Sayles, Jodie Foster, Mira Sorvino, Simone de Beauvoir, Gore Vidal, William Shatner, Stanley Kubrick, Ursula K. LeGuin, Ian McKellen, Burt Lancaster, Katharine Hepburn, Christopher Reeve, Max von Sydow, Ingmar Bergman, Rodney Dangerfield, Angelina Jolie, Bruce Lee, Diane Keaton, Arthur Rubenstein

July 8, 2008 10:55 AM | Report Offensive Comments

Most of this essay is nonensense. If anyone can make somthing out of it, I wish they would speak up and tell the rest of us. I am espeically interested in knowing about secular "beliefs."

That should have read "Dr. Reynolds!" He's right: I'm wrong!

Dr. Roberts,
is God really bigger than the boogy man?

Well, John, I confess the word "brights" gave me pause, but that was before I read your "essay."