Today is Towel Day, my friends. What is Towel Day? Towel Day is the day of remembrance for Author Douglas Adams. Adams, best known for writing “The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” was probably the best writer atheism has had in my lifetime. Funnily enough, I didn’t know he was an atheist until after he died and I read about this side of him in the writings of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins and Adams were great friends.
Listening to Adams reading his own work… on the origin of belief in God –well at least the teleological argument for belief in God … I am struck by his warmth, his humor and his keen ability to paint a vivid picture.
Instead of a Friday Funny Video, I present a Friday Witty Audio Clip. You won’t laugh, but you may enjoy it nonetheless.
Think of it as an atheist’s reverse version of the Creation account in Genesis. Rather than God’s story about the creation of man, this is man’s story about the creation of God.
-Siamang
NOTE - I had a lot of trouble putting this into words, so it may not make sense. I hope it does.
In Siamang’s post earlier this week, What are we first, he talked about how people online see him primarily as an atheist, but in reality he’s *not* an atheist first. He’s a person/father/husband/etc first and atheist comes farther down the line.
But all three Christians who posted listed “Christian” or “Jesus Follower” first, and other things followed that.
That got me to thinking … are either of those priorities so wrong?
To me, it seems completely reasonable for a Jesus follower to list their relationship with Christ first. After all, if Jesus tells us to put God first, and we don’t, it seems like it would result in a weak or ineffective Christianity.
On the other hand, if an atheist listed ‘atheist’ first, that would come across as somehow out of balance. It seems like an atheist *should be* person/father/husband first, followed by atheist.
I just went back and added “student of people” to my list of things that I am, because these kinds of things interest me. But is it possible that part of the natural conflict between atheists and Christians (other than the obvious difference in beliefs) is this natural difference in priorities? Could it be that we Christians project our priorities upon atheists (god is lower than he should be) so we perceive atheists as anti-God? Could it be that atheists project their priorities upon Christians (god is higher than he should be) so they perceive us as militant?
I suppose neither stereotype is entirely false (many Christians are militant … many atheists are anti-god). But I wonder if it’s not really just a problem of projected priorities. I suspect that atheists would like Christians better if God wasn’t so important to us — but he is! And I suspect Christians would like atheists better if God was more important to them — but he isn’t.
And given what we believe, maybe we just need to understand that. God *should be* first to me, or I would be an out-of-balance Christian. Atheism *should not be* first to an atheist, or you would be an out-of-balance atheist.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts, Mike O | 21 Comments »Xianhang Zhang, who invited Jim to speak at the SSU meeting on Monday, gave us this podcast of it.
Note: it’s big (84MB), so it will take a while to download.
Posted in A Cacophony of Posts | Comments Off