Very interesting editorial in the DC Examiner today about secular superstition. Everyone has heard the shots that the anti-religious forces take against believers - that we are irrational, anti-science, and ignorantly cling to our invisible friend in the sky. True enlightenment and intelligence is reserved for those exceptional few who reject God, reject the spiritual sphere and embrace cold, hard atheism.

Now obviously the irreligious are as diverse as the religious, but many individuals I have met who claim to be atheist or non-religious seem to be also interested in things like paganism, ghosts, and other phenomena that seemed contradictory to me. Generally in my experience with the anti-religious they seem to have much in common. Not that they all have done some serious thinking and study into science, theology and philosophy, but that they think conservative Christian pricks are… pricks. Often they were raised by conservative Christian pricks who forced their beliefs down their throats or grew up in very conservative schools & communities and were picked on or otherwise mistreated for being different.

Now, I don’t mean to detract from the crap these people have gone through, and while I agree with them 100% that conservative Christian pricks are intolerant pricks, I don’t think that is reasonable evidence to support a life-long opposition of religion.

This study seems to confirm some of my gut suspicions. Apparently those describing themselves as atheists or otherwise irreligious are much more likely to believe in Big Foot, the Loch Ness monster, UFOs, Atlantis, haunted houses and astrology. I bet (though it wasn’t in the study) there are a fair share of 9/11 Truthers in their ranks as well. In fact “While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.”

I think the results of the study are striking. The author of the column uses this fact to try and smear Obama and make a point that the religious are in fact smarter and more rational than the non-religious. While I do agree that western rationalism, science and progress owes much to Christian thought, this isn’t the point I want to make with this post.

My point is just that many atheists (not all, obviously) don’t really have a rational opposition to faith but are more so angered (often rightly) by the many bigots who hide behind the Bible to justify their intolerance. These people, like everyone else, do believe in the unseen and are searching for higher answers. They just reject traditional religions in search of more “cutting edge” beliefs. Mostly, I’d argue, because they feel they have more in common with that crowd than with the average church-goer. Not because of any fundamental philosophical difference.

Now, I certainly understand the desire to spend time with people you “gel” with more. And I certainly understand the many problems with conservative, fundamentalist Christians, but there are a lot of liberal, tolerant, open, and groovy churches out there. Responding to intolerant Christians with intolerance to all Christians (or all religions) despite their grooviness isn’t a good approach I think.

I just found the high need among the irreligious to believe in something to be quite interesting. If only they can be shown that there are plenty of reasonable religions and religious people out there.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.