World Religions class, and why I say I'm an atheist

[esmenet]

In World Religions class this past week, we covered 'classic apologetics' i.e. arguments for Deism. I kept wanting to scrawl SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE all over my notes but I only wrote it a couple of times on empty lines. The world does not need an 'unmoved mover', kthx, and perfections do not prove a perfect being. The presence of order and beauty does not mean that a sentient being created them. And no way in hell does being able to conceive of something mean that it exists. (I mean, being able to conceive of dragons = dragons existing = awesome, but really. This is an argument that people have used?)

It seems like I am absolutely aces at and with religion only so long as it doesn't mess with my true loves of history and science. Like, it's pretty certain that the Jews were never slaves in Egypt, and I'm damn sure the universe was created by SCIENCE, and I highly doubt that Xuanzang kept getting kidnapped by demons and had to be rescued by his monkey disciple.

But I think that religion is important, because in some ways it is culture. And, well. To quote coffeeandink, "[. . .]the history doesn't change what the story means to me at all. And I suppose, really, that's the explanation. The story is enough."


What I think I mean by all this -- and I know there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this, and I think some of them may be my very Christian extended family -- is that something doesn't need to have happened to be real. (And also that you shouldn't mix up that kind of real with the other kind, but that doesn't sound as good and would probably make for more shouting.)


Oh! By the way, the Scar icon is because Scar is the one religious character I am a big damn fangirl for.

Comments

[branchandroot]

*wry* Right up there with the one about how the physical world is only a shadow of the world of ideas, and the only True reality is that of ideas, because otherwise how would we be able to know that all those different tables (for example) are all tables and not desks. There must be an Idea of Tableness that we all understand, though of course only the philosopher understands it clearly! Oh Plato, you and your transparently self-serving screeds that take no notice at all of little things like the process of language acquisition and socialization.