No God?
"There is no god," is said by people who really mean that they stopped seeking the god they expected - it begs the question of the God who comes as a surprise. And "Science will lead you astray," is said by religious people who fear loss of their expectations, because they don't want to be surprised.
But as our understanding grows surprises (like earth's roundness and human evolution) come. The universe - it's a gift.
JH Futterman
This insightful quote comes from J H Futterman who runs the Virtual Church of the Blind Chihuahua.
I have often felt people calling themselves atheists were doing just what Futterman says. They have decided there is no god of the kind they wanted, or alternatively, disliked, so they proclaim there is no god. So they are unlikely to be surprised by a god of another kind, if there is one.
It also often seems a cop out. If they are a-theist, what are they? What are they "pro?" Often this kind of atheism seems to me an escape from the responsibility a god would impose. After all, if there is no God, then there is no need to abide by the god's requirements. I greatly respect atheists like Phillip Adams who are not "just" atheists. Adams is a humanist, an activist, a political campaigner. And often sounds profoundly Christian in his outrage at some of the injustices of our country and world.
Futterman's comment is equally hard on some kinds of Christianity: "Science will lead you astray," is said by religious people who fear loss of their expectations, because they don't want to be surprised. This says the least of it! Christianity is riddled with the fear of surprises. The great fear, of course, is that the atheists may be right. Our kind of god might not exist! We of little faith reject or avoid much science, and many other areas of human knowledge for this one reason. We are afraid the god we have imagined might not be the god which really is. Christians of this kind, preaching freedom and grace, are among all people most to be pitied. For they lock themselves into the prison of a set of beliefs which ultimately lock them away from God!
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