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Dec. 4th, 2008 07:40 pm
What is faith?
Perhaps you've heard about this:
I know that there are people on my friends list who ascribe to several different religious beliefs. To those people I ask this: Have your beliefs hardened your heart and enslaved your mind?
I'm not going to debate whether or not this sign should have been allowed to be posted. But by being so general and unequivocal, it seems to me that the group behind it is being intolerant, insulting, and even hateful. Not to mention ignorant. I am a Christian (perhaps not as devout as I once was, but I still identify as such); my wife is not, though she has her own faith. I regularly associate with people of other faiths, many of whom I call my friends. How hard must my heart be for these things to be true? How do they explain all the charitable works done in the name of Christianity and other religions? How do they explain that the people who engineered perhaps the largest mass freeing of minds in history - the formation of the United States under the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - were themselves men of faith?
Of course there are psychopaths like Phelps who do evil things in the name of religion, or flawed men who fail spectacularly to meet the ideals they espouse. But they get all the press. You don't hear about the millions of people of faith who live ordinary lives, who help those in need, whose faith provides comfort when life is hard. You don't hear about all of the good works done in the name of faith. You don't hear about all the people for whom the words "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself," really mean something and inspire them to live up to them. Why? Because it's the norm, and therefore not as newsworthy.
A protest, several counter-signs and a news conference are the latest in a flurry of activity spurred by a sign put up Monday by an atheist group in the Capitol building in Olympia.
Members of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group of atheists and agnostics, put up the sign that says, in part: "Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." It was partly a response to a Nativity scene put up nearby by a private citizen.
The article omits part of the text on the sign. The full text reads, "There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds."I know that there are people on my friends list who ascribe to several different religious beliefs. To those people I ask this: Have your beliefs hardened your heart and enslaved your mind?
I'm not going to debate whether or not this sign should have been allowed to be posted. But by being so general and unequivocal, it seems to me that the group behind it is being intolerant, insulting, and even hateful. Not to mention ignorant. I am a Christian (perhaps not as devout as I once was, but I still identify as such); my wife is not, though she has her own faith. I regularly associate with people of other faiths, many of whom I call my friends. How hard must my heart be for these things to be true? How do they explain all the charitable works done in the name of Christianity and other religions? How do they explain that the people who engineered perhaps the largest mass freeing of minds in history - the formation of the United States under the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution - were themselves men of faith?
Of course there are psychopaths like Phelps who do evil things in the name of religion, or flawed men who fail spectacularly to meet the ideals they espouse. But they get all the press. You don't hear about the millions of people of faith who live ordinary lives, who help those in need, whose faith provides comfort when life is hard. You don't hear about all of the good works done in the name of faith. You don't hear about all the people for whom the words "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and "Love thy neighbor as thyself," really mean something and inspire them to live up to them. Why? Because it's the norm, and therefore not as newsworthy.