Oh Boy.
So because I’m working on a project in my larger life, I didn’t get to bed until midnight, which is generally ruinous for all things, and was particularly ruinous for Bible reading. I also didn’t take the Bible with me to work, because the one I have is a bit of a family heirloom and I lose things easily. And also, I’m just not ready to have whatever conversation this would result in with my coworkers.
I did, however, bring Shaffer’s book and read the first three chapters.
His book is billed as a response to people who feel a spiritual urge or want to find God, but don’t like religion or atheism. I feel this kind of describes the shifting demographic of the US right before September 11th, before there was a kind of rigid polarization; perhaps his book is signaling of a zeitgeist again? In any case, this is one of the very very rare occasions when I think I might be *the* target audience for this book!
In the first three chapters, he draws some powerful parallels between some of the more vocal modern proponents of Atheism and past instances of other kinds of true believers and they versus us thinking, and he makes a pretty strong case that when a person actively advocates that their answers to the big questions, and their answers alone, are the truth, and any other answer is dangerous- well, that person is being a fundementalist, regardless of the content of their answer. I don’t know if the word fundementalist is the one I would use, but I agree that it is pretty darn anti-social behavior (in that that kind of absolutism tears at the social fabric, particularly of multicultural societies). Sam Harris comes across as particularly strident, but the whole first couple of chapters make me feel that, to do justice, I need to go back and re-read the whole ouvre of anti-religious works that have come out in the past few years, which is unfortunate for me because I kind of hated reading them the first time. However! No pain no gain, and perhaps this time around I’ll come to a less frustrating and more deep or nuanced understanding of the ideas shaping Positive Atheism?
I like reading Shaffer’s book because it gives me a sense of not being entirely alone in my experience of both my spiritual life, and also in my observations of the religious war sort of happening in the world around me, perhaps best and most tragically embodied by the utterly idiotic War on Christmas et all nontroversy that has actually become a thing that is happening in the country, sort of. I like not feeling utterly alone in my experiences. But I don’t actually know that I am learning anything in particular?
Anyway, hopefully, tonight, Genesis.
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