Question* the New Atheists

To be honest, I’m quite disappointed.  I left Christianity last Spring, and then proceeded to read, read, read on everything from Pantheism to Secular Humanism to Agnosticism to Atheism to Skepticism. 

One thing is for sure: in my angrier moments, I’d like to take a few of the “New Atheist” preachers into a boxing ring and have a good mutual thrashing.  You know, I left Christianity due to its racism, sexism, narrow-mindedness, intolerance, etc.  Then I find that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Chris Hitchens, AC Grayling, etc are the same doggie doo-doo, different pile.  This goes for all the bored white males wasting time on all the atheist websites, Facebook groups, forums, etc.  I’m glad that I don’t have a chance to meet any of them face-to-face, because I’d probably end up getting carried away, then carted away in a police paddy-wagon.  When you’ve read and heard what they have to say, one can often conclude that the New Atheists are WORSE than the arrogant Evangelicals.  Sometimes I’m thinking now that they may even be secretly taking lessons on How to Be A Shudbag from Evangelical leaders. 

Where does that leave me?  In Nowheresville, that’s where.  Anyways, whatever.  I’d rather be alone and have peace of mind, than associate with a bunch of hotheads who figure they’ve cracked the code for the mysteries of the universe. 

What’s more, is that these wadcakes are often obnoxious Right Wingers like the Evangelicals they imitate.  Where the hell is the nonreligious Left or others who emphasise social justice?  Sleeping?  Extinct?  *&#%( . . .

Anyways, that’s my venting for the day.  On better days, when I’m out of my funk, I think I could have a debate with “clowns to the left of me,  jokers to the right”**, the “clowns” being Evangelicals and “jokers” being New Atheists . . .

Cheers,

Brandr

in the sky

with diamonds

* Originally I wrote “Fuck the New Atheists”, but after a bit of thought, I figured no one in their right mind would like to waste either their sexuality or their fist-fighting energy on these jokers.

**Stealers Wheels, “Stuck In The Middle With You” lyrics

The Seeker Keeps Seeking

 

For me, I’m in a curious place in my Spiritual Journey:

 

 

 

Relieved to be out of the Evangelical worldview.  It’s a huge change.  Recently I looked at some of my old journals and songwriting: it’s ALL Evangelical.  So now I feel like someone bit by a dog.  Scared to consider other metaphysical pitches.  I think this is a healthy fear.  On the other hand, I have in my phone some lectures from Bertrand Russell on “Why I’m Not A Christian” and one file says that religion is based on fear.  There’s all the apocalypticism that says the world will soon end and Jesus will return.  Along with listening to “wise” American preachers like Rick Warren, Timothy Keller, Charles Swindoll, John Piper, etc for guidance into everyday life.  Now I see it all as a crock of doggy doo-doo.

 

 

 

Wary of New Age.   From what you said, it sounds a lot like the “New Age” ideology of people I knew.  My Mom has been deep into it for decades.  Sorry to say, but it seems to be as superstitious as Evangelicals, e.g., hearing the voice of God, the “calling”, predicting the future, etc.  So far I’m planning to steer clear of Deepak Chopra, Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Eckhart Tolle, and all the other feel-good prophets.  To me, they pitch the same “we know all & we’ll offer it to you at the high price of a lecture or book”, similar to the American Evangelicals.

 

 

 

Attracted to the rebellion, cheekiness and “hard” science of the New Atheists.   Also a writer I admire, Chris Hedges, basically states that the New Atheists like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, etc are basically a mirror image of the American Fundamentalists who badger and criticize all religions and enforce a kind of Fascist worldview.  On the other hand, in documentaries or books I’ve seen, I think the New Atheists are doing us all a favour in warning us against the ridiculousness that Christians and other religionists  bring to the public square.  They’re basically saying that the Christian God cannot exist, and I agree.  However, to replace religion, all they offer is science.  I am also wary of the scientists telling us the meaning of life.  They, along with other capitalists who fund them, are responsible for the new yet unnecessary technology that is polluting the planet and turning humans into machines. Scientific triumphalism appears to me just as cocky as Evangelicalism.

 

 

 

Truth, truth, where art thou?  In fact, who really knows the truth?  For me, when I go out into a forest, there is a secret wisdom that goes far beyond anything humans can come up with.  This is the place of truth.  Human society, as inevitable as it may seem, is at odds with Mother Nature, and the result is our alienation from her, and from reality.  Just sitting there, with no thoughts of spirits, angels, demons, reincarnations around her, Mother Nature just IS.  And in a curious way, she almost mocks us.  For our arrogance. For our greed.  For our constant dissatisfaction.  Here is where I believe I can find truth.

 

 

 

And yet, human society is here, and I have to be a part of it, like it or not.  And because I’m forced to be a part of it, I will make the best of it, and point myself and others to the simple truths of Mother Nature and reality, without all the hocus-pocus and false promises of religion and commercialized spirituality.

 

 

 

The Force?  In fact, I began remembering the Star Wars movies I saw as a kid.  They talked about the “Force”.  I remember in seminary, we studied “Animism” as if all the natives who believed in it were stupid and childlike, and their simplistic spirituality was a form of natural rebellion at the “obviousness” of monotheism.  From my research, I found that “The Force” has been a belief around the world for many cultures, for many millennia.  But now, I am getting into another weird New Agish belief here?

 

 

 

First Nations and Spirituality  It seems to me that indigenous peoples, who have been living closest to nature and have not fully “bought into” the Western-style life of technology, industry, resource extraction, urbanization, compulsory K-12+university education, etc, have something that the rest of us don’t have.  Of course, they’ve suffered horrendously for not buying into the system.  But they’re still here, and their lives are a sign, a testament, to an alternative that Westerners and all the other Western-Wannabes have neglected in our blinded rush to a Utopian Progress.

 

 

 

Once Bitten, Twice Shy  I’m still extremely skeptical of all “Metanarratives”.  Jean-Francois Lyotard, a late French philosopher, defined the “postmodern” condition as an incredulity toward all “Metanarratives”, which mean, a grand story that explains all of human existence, whether it be Christianity, Islam, Atheism, New Age, Marxism, etc. (http://cambridgeforecast.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/metanarratives-lyotard/).  In other words, in my view, there is not one mega-worldview that can cover all of human existence.

 

 

 

That’s why, after buying into the Christian worldview for so long, I relish my newfound freedom and have no desire to jump down another rabbit hole.  Having said that, I’ve embarking on this present spiritual journey for the last couple years, which led me to the point of breaking with Evangelicalism.  I have been researching other religions and forms of spirituality (eg First Nations sweat lodges & other ceremonies, Daoism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Sunni Islam, Hinduism, Catholicism, etc) and find it quite enjoyable.  But I always have to insist to people that I am a spiritual pilgrim and don’t wish to become a recruit.  Not always easy, seeing how in Canada everyone seems keen on converting visitors.

 

 

 

Sacred Time vs Sacred Space In Vine Deloria Jr’s book, God Is Red, he explains how people try to invent universal spiritual worldviews into which they force the entire human race.  Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, don’t look to prophets, holy people or holy books in history so much as they look upon a sacred place of worship.  Their spirituality is based on the experience in a geographic area, a holy mountain, river, forest, etc.  That is, they look more to space rather than time.  Christians look at the Old Testament / New Testament period as their Golden Age of spiritual wisdom.  They say that Jesus’ death & so-called resurrection are the crossroads of human history.  It is history-based.  First Nations live more in the NOW and WHERE.  Seems to make more sense.

 

 

 

Loneliness and Joy Strangely enough, at times I feel extremely lonely, as if cast adrift on a huge ocean, all alone in my thoughts and quiries.  In other instances, I am so relieved and happy to be a free agent, able to freely think, without referring to some “holy book” or “holy person” for guidance.  I don’t even see myself as the ultimate.  After all, as Socrates said, I know how much I don’t know.  All my learning leads me back to the same place: Ground Zero.  And, in a sense, it is a wonderful, joyous place.  It’s like some people have said: it’s not the destination that counts, but the journey.  Like U2’s old ditty “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”.

 

 

 

I have climbed highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you

 

 

I have run
I have crawled
I have scaled these city walls
These city walls
Only to be with youBut I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

 

I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her fingertips
Burning like a fire
This burning inside her

I have spoke with the tongue of angels
I have held the hand of a devil
It was warm in the night
I was cold as a stone

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for

I believe in the kingdom come
Then all the colors will bleed into one
Bleed into one
But yes I’m still running

You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross
Of my shame
Oh my shame
You know I believe it

But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for
But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for…
Lyrics from <a href=”http://www.elyrics.net“>eLyrics.net</a>

 

This is the heart cry of a seeker.  One who expects to find, and yet expects to keep seeking.  Maybe like the Rolling Stones’ “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction”.  Full, and yet still empty.  Content, and yet still restless.  I want to find the answer, but still don’t want someone to tell me this is THE answer, that this is all there is.  Rebellion against Metanarratives connected with a submission to the beauty and ruggedness of truth.  And I believe there is truth.  It just looks little like the fast food you and I have been dished from infancy.  Truth is solid, steadfast, relieving, and yet convicting, uncomfortable and challenging.  Beautiful, “sexy” and charming and yet tough, sometimes ugly and hard to swallow.  But it’s all there, all necessary, and all part of Mother Nature’s offering to us.  We just have to wipe the sleep out of our eyes and be willing to see.

 

 

 

Weird, I know.  But it’s lovely all the same.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

 

A Seeker