Yesterday's blog questionaire about religious beliefs reminde me of a story out of Northern Ireland some years back of a gunman who jumps out of a doorway, holds a gun to a man's head and asks, “Are you Catholic or Protestant?” “Actually,” says the man, “I'm an atheist.” “Ah, yes,” replies the gunman, “but are you a Catholic or a Protestant atheist?”
The question actually makes more sense than it seems. If one is a non-believer, one must be a non-believer of something. What is it that one does not believe in? Usually it is whatever religious culture one was raised in. If I were an atheist, I would have to become a fundamentalist Protestant atheist.
It would be pretty tough for me to be an Orthodox atheist or a Muslim atheist or a Catholic atheist since I never grew up in any of those particular religious cultures.
I could never be an atheist anyhow. It takes way too much faith to believe there is no God.
You make a good point, Blog Fodder-- Protestant or Catholic atheist. What makes the answer challenging is the amount of "stuff" we carry around with us, in our heads and hearts.
ReplyDeleteYou can run but you can't hide.
ReplyDeleteI tell people I am a dyslexic agnostic insomniac. I lay awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.
I know WHAT I believe but am not sure WHOM to believe.
"I know WHAT I believe but am not sure WHOM to believe."
ReplyDeleteAnd what would be the difference? The medium is the message.
I just wish I could go back in time to when I truly believed. Then, as time passed and I did much, too much, interrogation of the bible, it all started to seem more like organized superstition.
ReplyDeleteWhether there is a God or not is not as important as the peace I felt when I thought there was one.
Dana, there is a God. He made the universe in His own way with His own plan and for His own purpose, which humankind will know in His own good time. We are in His hands.
ReplyDeleteThe organized superstition is not the Word of God but the way that religions have twisted it to suit their own aims, trying to claim it as the exact words of God .