At times I find it hard to write here.
First there’s the time commitment. I maintain my own blog, with a post or two per day, I try to write for my student newspaper’s opinion every couple of weeks, I have a club to keep running, outreaching to other regional clubs, maintaining campaigns, planning a week’s worth of events in January for my engineering club, participating in off-campus groups and events, keeping myself fed and my apartment clean, and on top of all that, actually putting some time and effort into school. But after several years of university, I’ve learned the art of time management versus procrastination. There is always time to write (I’m writing this from class right now).
Next, there’s the scale of the writing. Oftentimes, Edger gets a vast amount of in depth, long articles. They’re well-written and cover a lot of philosophical and scientific ground. However, my writing style isn’t always akin to that. Sometimes I just want to post a link (which I do from time-to-time when I find interesting ones that aren’t covered yet), other times (like this) I feel like just rambling until I feel like I’ve made my point (read: I never proof read my work, it just kind of flows from my head). Basically, I’m saying that I doubt that I’ll ever be writing long philosophical treatises here (but kudos to those who do). Although, again, this doesn’t really prevent me from contributing short articles frequently.
What I think is my current biggest stumbling block is the issue of audience.
I’ve written on most of the religion topics before. I’ve read most of them again and again and again. It’s sometimes refreshing to see a new take on a familiar issue, but that’s a rare gem in a sea of redundancy. I also assume that most of the readers (and definitely the authors) here are in the same boat.
There are a few articles that go up here that stir the pot, addressing global warming, nuclear energy, and other somewhat controversial, but secular topics, that for a short term spark some interest, but for those to become the norm would be to remove the original goals of Edger.
So what we end up with, is a sort of secular circle jerk of preaching to the same old choir. (I realize the sad irony that this issue has likely been written on on countless blogs before). Whereas my writings for The Gateway reach an broad audience of upwards of 30,000 students (who don’t all agree with me), and even my blog (since my blast of political posts through the election) reaches a range from secularists to socialists to physics aficionados (and most importantly, my friends).
Yet for the time being, I’ll continue begrudgingly contributing to Edger, hoping that in some way we can break free from a base audience of tech-savvy “New Atheists” and routinely reach the greater public. The only problem being, I have no clue how we do that.
Anti-theist at a Christian Wedding
Saturday, January 17th, 2009I don’t usually allow emotions to run rampant in my writings, but it is a necessary recourse toward an important end. The emotions will dampen as we proceed. As many know, I try not to let emotions have any impact on my writings whatsoever. I even state I will not deal with emotions as a legitimate defense, because ideas must stand on their own merit not one what feels good or right. That simply misses the point. Nonetheless, when it comes to those I love, emotions are a big factor. As Russell highlighted, those we love can safely be left up to intuition; it is those we hate that must “fall under the domain of reason”. And not just people but ideas, too.
Thus I allow leeway because this involves the people I love.
I live in Cape Town, but my mother’s family lives in Pietermaritzburg (most readers will not care but it means I had to take a flight to see them). I arrived to warmth and happiness which is the stable diet of my maternal family. It is unlike any other reception one can have. Thus I cherish it. My cousin, 24, had found the woman who he was ready to “spend the rest of his life with” (as they say).
Now, personally, I find marriage, romance and romantic love quite silly, crass and shallow. It is not fulfilling for the most part and simply bizarre for the rest. I did not tell my family or cousin this – I do not tell most people. It simply is not appropriate. They do not even know about my views on god, religion and so on. And, as with most nonbelievers I’ve met, I have spent more time than they have on the topics of gods, faith and the afterlife. It is using thinking and self-reflection that results in the abandonment of faith after all (if you ever had it in the first place).
We attended the wedding ceremony today, in a beautiful church. The wedding began with the pastor speaking. What I noticed was this: 90% of his subject was his god, 5% had to do with how marriage is eternal and will be hard, and 5% had to do with my cousin and his bride. I was appalled by this brazen display of dismissal. I could stand all that, but I got protective when he uttered following statement: “You may be able to live without god, as many millions of successful people do…” this was followed by silence, then… “but you can not die without god!”
That sounds like a threat to me, with an undertone of Pascal’s Wager. Correct me if I’m wrong but did he not just say – ignore the smile and warm face, many pedophiles and sociopaths were better looking and more eloquent before making smiles in people’s necks – “You better believe in god or else you will die and burn in hell.” I can find little else he could be speaking about. He is obviously referring to the afterlife; and given that the notion that you will be tortured and decapitated and other torrid examples of dehumanisation only occurs in the New Testament (not the Old, as far as I know), this must be the case.
This proved to me quite finally that when it comes to weddings, funerals and so on, the faithful often have a disgusting appraisal of normal human sensibility. The argument that one needs religion for human binding and self-expression is as patronising as saying all religious people are stupid; or, all atheists are immoral. None of those latter statements are true. However, the religious have no argument when it comes to ceremonies except that their establishments have the two major advantages that will conquer everything: time and money.
When it comes to secular events, it will usually have the undertone of being personalised to the nth degree. Readings from their favourite writers, poets or songwriters. Or their favourite artist. Something that can be researched and have the flavour of the persons involved. Afterall, it should be the couple’s day not god’s. Naturally, I would like to see my fellow man remove the shackles and cull the living flower, to paraphrase Marx, but I do not see that happening. Instead, it should at least raise our hackles that god is mentioned more than those we love during ceremonies made for them. Notice how much the focus is refracted toward their god and consider if you think this is a good thing. If you do, why is the focus on a god more important than the focus on the couple in a wedding? If you want to add god, fine, but why more than the couple? (Ignoring for the moment the argument that marriage is a religious duty; to people I know it their expression of love and that is what I’m focusing on).
The major point is this: Religious festivities only appear to have the power of rituals and expression from groups. But secularists and nonbelievers have as much, if not better ones. The reason: It is focused on the individual people, thus meaning more work and personalisation. Once again, religion has outlived its purpose and needs to go the way of alchemy and the belief that Elvis is alive. It can hold no water against the nature of one’s fellow man, his self-expression, compassion, art, and individualism. It is truly more beautiful than the constant reference to the deity, whilst the couple fades into the background. This is their time to shine.
I will leave you with one last thought: Think of any ceremony that is traditionally performed by religions, (funerals, weddings, etc.) and think of one example where adding the notion of a god would make it better than one which does not mention gods, but simply focuses on the person or couple. This does not make it atheist or anti-theist, but keeps gods simply out the picture to cater for everyone. This to me seems reasonable. But I write this for interesting responses and bitter critiques.
Tags: ceremonies, god, marriage, nonbelief, religions, secularism
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