Are atheists their own worst enemy?

“This is why the more extreme atheist groups, with their penchant for mocking all believers, are so hazardous to secularism’s already failing health.”

Jacques Berlinerblau, “How to Be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom”, p. 196, section “Understand the Value (and Etiquette) of Coalitions"

Insecure believers and non-believers

"Insecure believers sometimes cling to a rigid and simplistic faith."
- David Brooks, "The Subtle Sensations of Faith", New York Times, 2014-12-23

The insecure believers make the headlines or the history books.  Think of all the "Islamists" who want to kill anyone who does not believe as they do.  Think of the Ku Klux Klan, the Protestants and Catholic gunmen of Northern Ireland, the Communists of North Korea, and many more "true believers".

We also have so-called non-believers who have to attack those who claim to believe.

Maybe I'm being a hypocrite here because I have questioned the texts that many base their beliefs on.  However, it is only the texts I question, not the belief in something greater than oneself.  But I have no problem with people who believe in something I don't believe in.  My problem is with those who want to "prove" that they are right because of something somebody long ago wrote as "fact".

For example, did Adam and Eve really exist?  Or are they metaphor for our hubris that we "know better than God"?

What we really should consider is "moral truth" over "mythical truth".  For example, was God really tempted by Satan to severely test Job, or is the Book of Job an exploration of why bad things happen to good people?

An expected by-product of rigid thinking

When I wrote "Quote of the day - Separation of church and state" I thought about how many groups with rigid thinking believe those who believe differently also have rigid thinking.  All the foo-foos, who have very strict ideas about being a real foo-foo, believe that all the oof-oofs have rigid thinking, even though the oof-oofs have a wide range of beliefs.

Some of the Lake Superior Freethinkers are what I call evangelical atheists and are ready to knock any church dogma with sweeping generalizations.  Many church dogmatists are ready to knock Freethinkers and atheists with sweeping generalizations.  The truth is that many church members and many Freethinkers have a more generous view of those with different views.

Believing and belonging

This morning the minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Duluth, the Rev. Gail Lyndsay Marriner, gave a sermon on belonging, about the four levels of belonging we have - intimate, personal, social, and community. Sorry, I don't think I have the last right but it is beyond the level of neighbors, friends, and groups we join.

As an example of belonging she cited an atheist who joined a Presbyterian church because of the moral beliefs of the members. Although he didn't believe in God, he felt he belonged with people who lived as he thought Jesus taught.

This led me to think about how many people reject those who don't believe exactly as they do and therefore do not belong in their company. We have that in people who claim to be Christian rejecting those who are Muslim. We have those who claim to be Muslim who reject Christians. We have people who claim to be Sunni killing those who claim to be Shi'a and vice versa.

They don't look to the common ground that they have in being neighbors or citizens of a city or country that needs to make the electricity function reliably, to provide clean water, to properly dispose of sewage, and to have a fair and responsive police force.

Jonathan Swift captured the folly of belief being more important than co-operation in "Gulliver's Travels" where those who broke their eggs on the little end (little-enders) were superior to those who broke their eggs on the big end (big-enders) and vice versa. For this, they had war without end.

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In trying to find the source of the Rev. Marriner's story, I came across a wonderful quote:

Infidel: In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does.

- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary", quoted in "Atheistic quotes"