Boring, unreasonable, whining snoozers

I gather that Charlotte Allen isn't afraid of hate mail, based on this opinion piece in the May 17, 2009, edition of the Los Angeles Times:

I can't stand atheists -- but it's not because they don't believe in God. It's because they're crashing bores.

Other people, most recently the British cultural critic Terry Eagleton in his new book, "Faith, Reason, and Revolution," take to task such superstar nonbelievers as Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins ("The God Delusion") and political journalist Christopher Hitchens ("God Is Not Great") for indulging in a philosophically primitive opposition of faith and reason that assumes that if science can't prove something, it doesn't exist.

My problem with atheists is their tiresome -- and way old -- insistence that they are being oppressed and their fixation with the fine points of Christianity. What -- did their Sunday school teachers flog their behinds with a Bible when they were kids?

Another example of a boring, unreasonable, and whining atheist is ex-Catholic Susan Jacoby, who pretends to not care a lick about the Catholic Church, but writes ill-informed, poorly considered, condescending columns about how the Church needs to change if its going to survive (it's like those poor souls who say "American Idol" is a rigged, talentless contest of screeching hacks, but they still watch every minute of it):

As an atheist and an ex-Catholic, I cannot claim to be displeased at the spectacle of the Roman Catholic Church continuing to shoot itself in the foot by refusing to ordain women or to allow priests to marry. If I cared about the survival of the Catholic Church, however, I would have to say that the severe priest shortage would end tomorrow if the church simply allowed its preachers to have a normal family and sexual life.

Jacoby appears unaware of the fact that the Eastern Catholic Churches do ordain married men, and have done so for centuries. As for ordaining women (which is in the realm of established doctrine, not changeable discipline): wow, great idea! But, just in case it might not work, let's have a bunch of mainline Protestant denominations and the Anglican Communion try it out first. What? They already have? And they're adding members by the bazillions? No? Quite the opposite? What a surprise that is.

In the end, Jacoby sounds just like "Bishop" John "I'm Always Wrong" Spong, an Episcopalian who frets that Christianity must change or die, even while he jettisons everything that is Christian from his essentially atheistic version of "Christianity." So, it's very nice of Jacoby to care about such things, even though she doesn't really care (although she must care, otherwise why does she make such a big deal out of not caring? Follow?).

I'm guessing she's bored. After all, if she's right, life is basically a meaningless, empty joke played on us material accidents called "humans" by an impersonal, cold, and pointless universe/cosmos. If so, I'd be desperate to entertain myself by taking potshots at theists, even if it meant being unreasonable and whiny; it sure beats facing a dull life devoid of mystery and meaning and a certain death stripped of any hope.

Comments

[M. L. Hearing]

I had an atheist room mate in college. He was angry and serious and pretty unexciting. But he didn't seem to have the flaws and destructive habits I did. He reminded me a lot of the chaste and deadly virtuous lietenant in Greene's The Power and the Glory.

M. L. Hearing

[NW Clerk]

You should send this to Jacoby!!! Great!!

[Gail F]

Believe it or not, I actually returned to the church in part because I heard Bishop Spong on the radio. I read a bunch of his books -- mysteriously (or not), not the ones I actually tried to read, but by a series of "coincidences" some different books. The first one I read was called "Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism," and it completely changed my view of the Bible. I had thought that what I assumed was the Fundamentalist understanding of the Bible was the only way to understand it. That book opened my eyes to what the Bible really is. And another one, "Liberating the Gospels," is still one that I like -- its argument is that the synoptic Gospels are in the order they are because they were written to be read along with the Jewish scriptures. Someone else came up with it, he was just doing a "popular" version. And it showed me that there COULD be different reasons for putting things in the order they are. Anyway... and then "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" came out, I read it -- and realized he had long ago jumped off the deep end. So I owe him a great debt but geez!!!!!! He's nuts.