Atheism, Faith, and the Reality-Based Community

This is in response to Sam Harris, and more so, to PastorDan's reply. I'm not going to say much about either post directly. But I'm going to explain one thing.

As it goes to Harris's post, it was completly undiplomatic and had the subtlety of a 2x4. BUT. The core of the post was about two..well..common discussion points when it comes to religious philosophy. The first being the problem of evil, and the second being the adadge that "we're all atheists. The only difference is in the number of gods we don't believe in". Both of these ARE reasonable discussion points, as much as you like it or not.

But for the question I'm going to explain...that question is why?

Why? Why what?. Why religion gets such a short shrift on DailyKos, and yes, on other blogs as well. Like or not, while atheists/agnostics make up 20-30% of society at large, they probably make up over half of the blogospheric community, at least on the left side of things. And possibly more. But I think that's not the whole story. And we need to go back to the blogfather to see the whole thing, and in fact, to one of the idea battles going on right now. And this has NOTHING to do with faith.

Are we, a bunch of leftist (not meaning far left, but from moderate-left over) ideologues, or, as Kos likes to argue, ideology really doesn't play a role in how the blogosphere thinks.

My hobbby, for a while, is studying socities. And when I'm done writing my book on morality (after I finish my screenplay), the book after that is going to be on on-line socities of all types and the role they play in the lives of those who are in them. So I watch this stuff. And it's all in what we call ourselves.

The Reality-based community.

Listen. Politically, we're no bunch of ideologues. We're a bunch of technocrats. We'd do and support anything that would work, and make things better. As long as you can prove it. And that's the key word.

Proof.

A community that runs on proof, as the very life-blood that runs through its veins, is by default going to have a little bit of a hard-spot for faith and religion of any type. That's the reality of the situation. Is that a weak spot? In my opinion, I say yes. But that's the boots-on-the-ground reality.

But, I'll be honest. I could see some candidate..some leader..rising up and making some serious waves on the reality-based community platform. And that would probably not be good from a religious point of view. And I'm truly sorry about that, as a non-believer from the UU (we're all looking for community and our place in the universe) school.

But I do think that it's going to happen, none the less, and on the whole it's a good thing. Not because it'll hurt religion, but because it'll help everything else. And if we could win on a religous-based point of view, I would support that. But I just don't see it happening. Because there's too much pain, and too much sacrifice in what we want to do, and too much religion is designed to allay, and even negate that pain and sacrifice.

So try to remember all this, the next time you see some harsh words. Think of where it comes from...that it actually comes from a place in the heart and the mind that you support.