From: hartigan@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The Light
Date: 29 Aug 92 15:53:55 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <1992Aug29.080059.22172@en.ecn.purdue.edu>, muehlhau@en.ecn.purdue.edu (John Muehlhausen) writes:
> 
> WOW!
> Hey!  Look at this!

Ok, sure...you mean that? Yeah, I was raised with that! I believed every word of
it for 18 years. I felt the presence of "God," etc. 

I've seen it before, comrade.
 
> No, seriously!  Turn around and just take a look at this!

Ok, sure. Alas, looks like an old mythology to me...and my former belief in
it (I see know) occurred because ANY unfalsifiable system looks true if you
accept it's initial premises. Which I did, attributing feelings which have
no connection to Yahweh to just such a mythological figure.

> But that is just darkness.

So says this unfalsifiable dogma, which I used to hold also. I'm sure it seems
true to you at the moment.

> But this is light!

Yes, I know it feels good. I know it is intellectually satisfying, 
(if you don't ask TOO many questions - every intellectually active Christian
ends up a heretic. - Hartigan's law. )

I know it makes life more bearable. I know it provides stimulation, that it
provides companionship, that it allows one to make sense out of the chaos of
experience.  But, if you are a human being like me, it is self-deception to
be as sure about it as you are, comrade. Honest Christians are virtually
indistinguishable from honest atheists. Their most noticeable quality
is humility. 

> But that's nothing compared to this!

That is true. But some of us prefer an honest nothing, or an honest ambiguity,
to a false certainty.

> But this is beautiful!

It is PLEASANT, but some aspects of Christian myth are beautiful, I agree.

> You really should turn around.

Turning around for me means facing backwards, back to a life that is no longer
possible for me. Once you've seen what you're doing when you have a "strong
faith" in ANYTHING, it is impossible to go back. Just as it is impossible
for you to believe in Santa, once your parents reveal the truth. You may 
WANT to go back, but it is impossible.

> This is incredible!  Everyone should see this!

I have, comrade.  Your enthusiasm is admirable, but also a bit alarming.
Remember the enthusiastic Hitlerjugend? "Sieg HEIL!" Wheee! What fun!

> But this is IT!  What you've got is nothing!

What I have is what's left after you abandon an imaginative view of life.
All you have is life itself. IF you call that nothing, comrade, I wish you
good luck.

> I've got to get closer...

Your ideology makes no allowances for disagreement. I know that you think
I must be nuts. I remember laughing aloud at the first person to tell me
he was an atheist. How could he live like that? I wondered. How could he 
possibly believe that? HEY, LOOK AT THIS, I said...

Use your imagination, comrade. Try to see through the eyes of one of your
fellow featherless bipeds.

>    YOU ARROGANT CLOSED-MINDED @*#*!!
>    How can he say I've got nothing?  Why, I've looked this direction
>     for over forty years!
>    ...forty years!
>    I'd think after forty years I should at least see _something_!
>    Maybe I _should_ take a look.
>    But what if it's not what I hope it is?  What if I'm disappointed?
>    At least this way I can still have all this...
>    NOTHING!
>    Maybe just a peek wouldn't hurt.
> 

This passage demonstrates almost total ignorance of the position of the
ex-Christian.  To all Christians: you know FAR less about us than we do 
about you. We were once as you are now. You have yet to join our
illustrious :-) ranks - you don't know us at all. 

>    WOW!
>    WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!
> 
>    HEY!  TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!

Yes, hard-headed Christianity is, strictly speaking, a "branch of the bourgeois
narcotics trade," as Brecht once said of the popular theatre. I know it's
lots of fun. After all, I used to play too. 

> John M.


Sean Hartigan
hartigan@ac.dal.ca