Yoinked from dikaiosunh

[jackofallgeeks]

1. Reply with your name and I'll respond with something random about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll pick a flavor of jello to wrestle with you in. I reserve the right to name a champion.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me.
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll tell you what animal you remind me of.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal. You MUST. It is written. (or typed, even)

Comments

Part Deux

[dikaiosunh.livejournal.com]

A few caveats:

1. Of course, it's not always bad. And so I'm not going around crusading to get folks to drop their religion - though I do try to work against dangerous varieties of religion (e.g., as I see it, the brand of Christianity that Bush & Co. preach that seems to care much about power and little about care). Religion is a source of comfort and moral reflection for many people - and plus, maybe I'm wrong about those supernatural avenues not helping (though I hate to see them being pursued to the exclusion of worldly ways of helping. Another story: one of my ex-gfs, an evangelical Protestant, was in a serious car crash a couple years after we broke up. She thanked G-d for saving her, but it didn't occur to her to thank the EMTs who showed up with the jaws of life to get her out of the wreck). I don't think religion is always and everywhere bad. I just think that, on balance, it's unlikely to do much good and can do much evil.

2. There are secular ideologies that are every bit as bad as the worst religious ones on all these counts. For instance, if the only difference between my views and Stalinism was that we disagreed on the most efficient way to organize production, OK, let's just see which one works. But Stalinist communism also encourages its adherents to suppress their own moral judgment, subordinate the worth of the individual to some ideal, etc. And look where it got us. In many ways, it's pragmatism that I endorse more than materialism. The most important claim of my atheism is not "G-d does not exist" but rather (to quote again, this time from my congregation) "We believe that people determine the conduct of their own lives, and must take full responsibility for their behavior... We believe that only people can solve human problems... In resolving ethical dilemmas, whether personal or social, we seek solutions that respect the dignity and self-esteem of every human being."

3. I don't like the term "spiritual," since it conjures up images of people who abuse Native American religion (to me). But depending on how you define it, I do believe in "spirituality." I'm a materialist in the sense that I don't believe there is any STUFF besides what we encounter in the material world - people, rocks, trees, etc. But I'm not a materialist in the sense that I only VALUE material things. I believe in 'things' like love, beauty, morality, honor, etc. just as much as I believe in numbers. And I think that the genuine sources of value in life are precisely those 'non-material' things. So in that sense I'm "spiritual."

Does that clear things up a bit? Or muddy them?