My five lessons from On Faith

[rug]

Posted at 10:00 AM ET, 11/17/2011
By Sally Quinn

It was five years ago this month that we launched On Faith. The idea was to inform and educate about all faiths (and no faith) and to initiate an on-going discussion about the role of religion, values and ethics in our daily lives. I hoped that after learning more, people would become more accepting of those who held different beliefs. Pluralism was the goal.

I have never been so enthralled, learned so much or been so fulfilled by any subject so much as this. It has totally changed my perspective on life. It was clearly what I was meant to do. From the volume of emails and comments, I know that others find the site as informative, provocative, thoughtful and entertaining as I do.

Here are five things I have learned in these five years:

1. NOBODY KNOWS

My favorite bumper sticker and the guiding wisdom for me every day is this: “I don’t know and you don’t either.”

An atheist father was trying to explain to his son that there was no such thing as God. “But dad,” asked the boy, “how do you know?”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/my-five-lessons-from-on-faith/2011/11/16/gIQAkC0RUN_blog.html

[whathehell]

1. "I don't know and you don't either"....Yup....Interesting lesson from son to father.

[trotsky]

3. Do you know if the god the right-wingers believe in is real?

You know, the one who sends homosexuals and non-Christians to hell?

[NMMNG]

7. He's real to them

Which is what gives them license to inflict His Will (as determined by them) on us in His name.

[moobu2]

2. Nobody knows if I have 8 arms and am really a polka dotted alien

from the dark side of the moon either.

[NMMNG]

4. Nonsense

An atheist father was trying to explain to his son that there was no such thing as God. “But dad,” asked the boy, “how do you know?”

“You’ll just have to take it on faith,” said the father.


Drivel made up by a religionist. No atheist says "you have to take it on faith". Atheists don't have faith. That's what makes them atheists.



EVERYTHING IS ABOUT RELIGION
<snip>
Gaddy might well have added the financial bailout, poverty, disease, movies, music, holidays, separation of church and state, parenting, sexual abuse, animal rights, sports, books, the internet, the military, women’s rights, racism, violence, crime, marriage, families, science, medicine and on and on. Everyone is interested in religion. They just don’t know it.

No it isn't. The problem is that some people try to force their religion into everything, then screech like banshees when the rest of us protest. My uterus has nothing to do with anybody's religion. My marriage has nothing to do with anybody's religion. What medications I take and what medical treatments I need have nothing to do with anybody's religion. My cats have nothing to do with anybody's religion. My vegetarianism has nothing to do with anybody's religion. The books I read or don't read have nothing to do with anybody's religion. My life has nothing to do with anybody's frigging religion and I'm sick to death of people thinking they have the right to use their religion as a weapon against me and mine.




What I have learned is this:

God is what you or I or anyone else says God is.

Basically they make the shit up as they go then use it to make unimpeachable declarations about what "God" wants for everyone. Remind me again why we're supposed to take any of it seriously.

[rug]

5. "Though I called myself an atheist when we started this site, I no longer do"

I guess she was no true atheist but I doubt that she'd call herself a religionist.

[NMMNG]

6. She doesn't seem to know what she is

She says she's no longer an atheist. Then she claims she's not an agnostic yet she bases that proclamation on a completely incorrect definition of agnostic. Maybe she should spend more time studying and less time pontificating. Whatever she is, the point stands. An atheist doesn't "take it on faith" because an atheist doesn't have faith. Whoever made up that little exchange between father and son obviously was attempting, as many religious people do, to "prove" atheists have as much faith in their position as do theists. They don't.