Quote:
Originally Posted by elphenor
when you take religion out of the picture people still want for the things religion provides...meaning, community, ways to cope
so people tune into Harris and Dawkins and the late Hitchens in a way that's pretty ironic
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i agree.
Atheists annoy me.
I used to be more hard-line about it like they were, always trying to chase down religion and superstition into the shadows.
Then I slowly but surely stopped giving a ****.
I don't care about nativity scenes, God on the dollar, etc.
If anything like you say I long for the symbolic meaning that religious people find. I am culturally a Catholic and when I go to church as an adult for the christening or baptism of some family member, a lot of the ritualistic and symbolic aspects of the ceremony actually speak to me much more than they ever did when I was a dumb kid believing in God and just waiting for church to be over.
It feels like some sort of connection to the past.
Plus Sam Harris gives Muslim extremists way too much credit for how theologically pure they are. He makes it sound like suicide bombs are an obvious conclusion to draw from the Quran based on the supposed theme of martyrdom.
Meanwhile, historically Hezbollah (shia) was the first Muslim group to start the trend of using suicide bombs for pragmatic purposes. Sunni groups like al Qaeda had to go through some pretty convoluted theological arguments amongst themselves before they could finally justify using it.
The reason it's so prevalent is purely tactical, the religious reasoning behind it was an after the fact rationalization.
Because of course the Quran clearly says not to kill yourself. Unfortunately for the Jihadis, there's no * after that verse that says unless you can take a bunch of other people with you.