Atheism 2.0 and More

Comment

Comment by John L. Bohman on February 6, 2012 at 11:04pm

All proofs of God fail, but God is still there, despite our attempts to pay no attention.             

Comment by Todd Parola on February 4, 2012 at 1:03pm

PART TWO OF TWO

As this church transitions, I think we have a beautiful opportunity to consider novel alternatives to the traditional clerical hierarchy whose organizational vestiges seem inevitable but are not. Which is to say maybe we don't need a minister who is a lead executive, or a minister that sends a lot of time writing and delivering sermons.

I can imagine, perhaps half the number of sermons - the other half would be TED-like conversations given by lay leaders in the church, and other community leaders  who may be professional policy makers, musicians, activists, organic farmers, socially conscious local/regional business leaders - widening our beloved community. (Yes. This is concurrent with Rev. Morales's vision for UUs, and I actually think that this particular congregation is uniquely endowed to give prophetic shape to that transformative community experience he describes. We're seeing a prologue to this in VOICE activities right now.)

Consonant with the kind of didactic content that Botton proposes, the promotion of a lay sermon fellowship would also serve to diversify voices and conversations from the "pulpit," and give both youth and veteran, members and visitors, access to that part of ministry which uniquely enfranchises verbal authority - be it verse or oratory, enchantment or persuasion - of knowledge, grace, and experience on a multilateral basis (which is not permitted by the (ahem) euro/phallo-centric paternalistic structure imposed by the traditional pastoral model. 

So this could be a model of a society in which we listen and speak across communities and pay grades, class, sexuality, and color, etc., praising the spirit and the logos. 

I don't mean to deny the value of professionally trained clergy at all - that is as it does - and I can imagine there are season's in the life of a congregation when it critically needs strong leadership from the top. But mine is just a notion for possibly extending the covenant of intrinsic respect and mutuality, by activating a community forum of curiosity and concern, while structuring the organization to a degree, more familiar to a 21st Century egalitarian common sense.

Comment by Todd Parola on February 4, 2012 at 12:59pm

PART ONE OF TWO

I'm listening to this on the TED channel as I write. I don't think I need to hear him because I know where he's going just in the first few minutes, and concur. I think it's obvious. But I am an artist and sometime educator, and I understand that Western culture can stand on it's own and apart from the church which was it's patron.

Culture and learning and making images and music is civilization.

TED IS a sermon to me!

And standing outdoors reading devotional poetry to the moon 

constitutes a lovely song of praise to God ...

... atheist though I may be.

What I am interested in, per the question of GOD and atheism, is the atheist's typical conceptual entanglement with the traditional judeo-christian deity: the cosmic (anthropomorphic) author, intercessor, coach, and judge of an individual; the parental (patronizing, authoritarian) figure that de Botton refers to as being embodied in religious institutional culture; the force that simultaneously infantilizes, bullys, extorts, and provides the devotional breast from whose monolithic succor we are not intended to be weened from. (This is a simplistic description of both sides ... ) This is the magic and poison - the light and the dark sides, the way that language casts powerful befuddling spells  - all right there.

As an atheist I find very attractive the possibility of saying "god bless you;" or "god works in mysterious ways." I like the idea, liberty, and grace of being able to refer to concepts such as "providence" and "creation" as literal physical and divine forces that may inform my love and the shape of politics and history. I think Nietzsche and Hegel would not have been people bereft of this gratitude. And I believe our deist founding fathers were not.

Creation,providence and grace is manifest. It's embrace is self evident. But unlike the christian or theist who tautologically construes this as proof of their god, I do not. And atheists should have a vocabulary for talking about this stuff, because religious experience, which I actually consider phenomenologically, an esthetic experience (which has been co-opted by this corporation called a religion)  is a fundamental dimension of human experience. Some powerful people took that stuff and called it religious. That doesn't make it so.

So this becomes a question of getting back, as Saint Joni Mitchell expressed it, to the garden. And I think what Botton is saying in a way, is that "Atheism 2.0" lets us do that in a perfectly natural un-hypocritical way by saying ritual is okay; culture and lecture and sermon and didactic lessons on being well are to be praised and worshipped (meditated upon) on their merits. Basically, we have to retake this human space which "secularism" seems to keep at arm's length.

Comment by Rev. Michael McGee on February 2, 2012 at 5:08pm

Thanks for posting this TED video June.  I'll be talking about it in my sermon on "A Big Question: Can Religion Save Us?" this Sunday.

Comment by June Herold on January 30, 2012 at 11:03am

While he may be pointing out gaps in secular life; his desire, longings and expression sound to me like UUism. The omission of UUism from his talk suggested to me that he isn't even aware of its existence. Afterall, he does discuss other faiths and what they have to offer. He even says, at one point, that we need a way to pull from the various traditions. It just seems that what he refers to as atheism is far more like UUism. His overall comments are about the mystery of life, which he apparently defines as atheism. I found much to take a way here. What he is saying is understandable to all those who self-identify with UU values but don't know that there is actually a collective identity for them: UUism --- especially in his case UU Humanists. So my take away here is that he is compelling, especially to those who wouldn't normally give organized religion any attention. 

Comment by John L. Bohman on January 29, 2012 at 10:30pm

He starts with an assumption that we are either believers or non-believers; that we are either religious or secular.  He then describes what believers have that non-believers need and should take on, all the while maintaining the purity of their non-belief.  Why even bother at all with keeping the distinction between believers and non-believers?  This might free all of us from our creeds, and open us to faith, which is simply what lies in your heart that grounds you.  Ultimately, this lecture is about a longing for that grounding.