My basic reaction to Red Cardigan's latest atheism post (which can be loosely summarized as, “Atheism isn’t a good philosophy because it doesn’t tell us what the meaning of life is”) is that the fact that she doesn’t find the answer satisfying doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good answer. If you ask, “What is the meaning of life?” and someone answers, “As far as we can tell, there isn’t one,” well, guess what? That’s a valid answer.
I followed the link over to her blog. She does seem pretty patient, but has a very hard time accepting the answers atheists giver her. She's conflating a belief with a worldview. As if because you have a belief that "A" you would/should have worldview "B". That's just not how it works.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's about the size of it.
ReplyDelete(Incidentally, I tried to leave a comment on your blog, but I can't get it to go through - I can't even get it to pull up the capcha text so I can prove I'm human. It wasn't a very important comment, just a bit of snark, but I'll try it again when I get home - I'm wondering if our network is blocking the capcha.)
I read there this morning and I came to a conclusion...I won't be reading there again. To each his/her own...but it's not for me.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's kind of my feeling too. She's obviously very smart, and I appreciated her willingness to stop and converse, but she seems to have trouble with the idea that different people might just see things differently.
ReplyDeleteHmmm..I haven't changed anything. Let me know if you're still having trouble.
ReplyDeleteThe attitude that atheists are atheists because of their worldview / philosophy and their morals come from an external source really bugged me. Especially the apparent inability to understand the concept of evolutionary benefit of altruism and good behaviour.
ReplyDeleteI will likely keep an eye on her blog and comment occasionally. I think keeping informed of contrasting opinions is healthy, even if they are wrong. Maybe I'm a closet sadist at heart, LOL!
Red Cardigan seems to feel everyone should think like her. I don't understand such an inability to accept diversity, unless it's rooted in some kind of insecurity. Maybe she's not as sure of her beliefs about the meaning of life as she professes to be?
ReplyDeleteI understand where she's coming from, and I think, face to face, I could communicate better. But I feel hampered by the medium - I can't stop her when she starts getting things wrong, so she keeps asking for answers to the wrong conclusions she's reached, and can't backtrack to the point where we'd start disagreeing.
ReplyDeleteI was reading this post, and thought of this thread: http://askakorean.blogspot.com/2011/08/another-persons-room.html
ReplyDeleteI think it's the same issue; you have to have a basic level of trust in the people that are different than you. Atheists and agnostics have meaning of life, it's just not in the God's purpose drawer.