LTTE: Wyoming: Atheists' lives too easy/wimpy, lazy conclusions.

[Synnical]

http://www.trib.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_5defd869-e78f-52ee-96cd-78e0a16bf0c7.html

Posted: Monday, February 15, 2010 12:00 am | (25) Comments



Editor:

I am not sure how Gary Wells can state something so obvious ("It's up to you," Letters/Jan. 22) and receive so much flak. He is, if anything, too lenient on the Bible bashers, seeing them as only being too into themselves and being lax in seeing the harm they do. Dino Wenino's Jan. 27 letter nit picks Gary's "Lord" to pretty well say the same thing as Gary.

Being more interested in how atheists in general think, I waded through Steve Ford's Jan. 26 letter, "All Christians think they're true." Steve Ford actually has two or three things correct: (1) no man is perfect, (2) mainstream religion is about a form of control and (3) Jesus dying for man's sins is symbolic. So far, he gets it but slides badly as he blames religion for only being a business. Sure, it's a business of sorts, in a business world, and it's disgusting how usurpers gain from the religiously unresolved.

Steve Ford's list of culprits, starting with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, are suspiciously on my list which also includes the illicit Rev. Jesse Jackson and Jimmy Swaggart who both have been caught with their pants down (literally). Ford totally skips the core point of believing or not believing in a power greater than himself. We do not owe lazy critics anything. We owe ourselves. We are responsible to ourselves and the power that created us. Some like Billy Graham help us to a mental commitment but truly, many don't. Man, including members of the clergy, are not perfect.

As Steve Ford regularly tries, it is difficult to understand why atheists fight so hard "not to believe" and to belong to a empty-purposed club. What an interesting concept, to believe in nothingness, to have no purpose, and no accountability. Is there nothing to be morally, ethically or spiritually accountable for?

The point I conclude so far is that atheists' lives are too convenient, too easy, too responsibility-free and the possibility of a power greater than themselves scares the hell (pardon the expression) out of them. It is spiritual cowardness at its best, but like Gary Wells says, "It's up to you!"

Nonbelievers gamble there is no God, but think about it. If they are right, they lose to nothingness. If they are wrong, they still lose. Bad bet, wouldn't you say?

Call God, your creator, by any name you chose but don't blame weakness in man to support your wimpy, lazy conclusions.

CURT WARTICK, Casper

Posted in Mailbag on Monday, February 15, 2010

Somehow the comments section wanders into paganism and the Nordic God Odin?

http://www.trib.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_5defd869-e78f-52ee-96cd-78e0a16bf0c7.html?mode=comments

-Cindy if Fort Lauderdale

[lazarus]

1. Pascal's Wager again?

How many times does that have to be knocked down?

[enlightenment]

2. Forever. New ijits are born (again) every day.

*sigh*

[sakabatou]

6. Too many

[vixengrl]

3. Wow--how smug this guy sounds.

I thought we were supposed to be the smug ones.

Easy--that is new to me. He might have a point.

Oddly, I don't think think I even "fight so hard 'not to believe'", as just, don't believe. Poor busy thing, he has to do all the heavy lifting of carrying around the mental baggage of his forebears, and doesn't have a hand free to work it out for himself. I suppose we do have things easier by comparison. I think he's a little confused about what a higher power than your hypothetical atheist would be--for me, I am respectful of fires, gravity, high voltage, lack of oxygen, and things with sharp teeth, and that's just a start. There's a lot of things that are real that could do me right in without inventing any! I've just decided not to be scared by an omniscient boogeyman who might send me to hell for reasons that are, very probably beyond my control. I dislike the implications of the set-up, and I'm sure if there was an omniscient boogeyman, being omniscient, He'd know that.

And I just finished Cecil Bothwell's book on Graham, so I had to chuckle at that mention. One of the good guys....:rofl:

[onager]

4. Thanks! I'll be getting that book!

Over in R/T, I really get tired of hearing the hosannas to Saint Billy Graham.

He's just a sleazy power-whore, and has been ever since the Hearst media empire first launched his career back in the Late Bronze Age.

DU'ers often point out that Graham is a Democrat. Well, he all-but-endorsed G.W. Bush for president and I think YouTube still has the clip. Also, Graham's credibility took a serious hit back in the 70's, when he jammed his saintly nose right up the butt of Dick Nixon. Graham's spin-meisters had to work overtime to fix that one, as I remember.

IIRC, the conservative writer Garry Wills penned one of the best descriptions of Graham. Quoting from memory, I think Wills said: "By hard work and perseverance, Billy Graham has managed to turn himself into the thinking man's Easter Bunny."

Don't know if this is in Bothwell's book...but the late evangelist/agnostic Charles Templeton worked with Graham before he was famous. Templeton decided he wanted to learn more about the historical roots of Xianity, and signed up for Princeton's theological school. (Which helped turn him into an agnostic.)

He suggested that Graham join him. Graham declined, saying he already knew enough about Xianity and didn't want to be confused by any inconvenient facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Templeton

[progressoid]

5. Yeah, he has it exactly backward.

When I was young I fought hard to believe. It was a losing battle.

Ending that fight to believe was a huge relief.