Friday, May 16, 2008

A very good blog on atheism

Without Gods was an intereactive blog where the author bounced ideas about a book on the history of atheism. The most arresting feature of the blog is its comments. I have already quoted from one of the comments in an earlier post. Many a times, the comments are much more enlightening than the post itself.

Sample the link posted where the author asks whether leaving theism is a moment wrought with pain or liberation.

The comments highlight different aspects of the phenomenon. the very first, in fact, questions the premise if it's a single moment.

But the gem is this one -

It doesn't "have" to hurt. It often will, though, because like most such life transitions, it won't be complete -- ie, bits of the old theistic thinking will still be lurking, and thus you'll experience conflict between the opposing worldviews.
Think of Camus' meditation on whether a thinking person should just commit suicide in the face of a meaningless universe. That question is predicated on a couple of conditions: 1)that meaning is, in fact, necessary; and 2)meaning must come from a source external to yourself. That second condition is the classic theistic position, and I think that when people suffer pain from their de-conversion, it's because that idea is still lingering in their heads. Those kinds of underlying believes/assumptions about reality can be devishly hard to overcome.

1 comment:

Pankaj said...

breaking away never happens in a "moment"