Seeing as I don't think too many people go back and re-read posts here (and they don't simply fall below the current post as on most blogs) I'd like to repost a comment in responst to my last post in which I, somewhat humorously/hyperbolically, posited my fantasy/hope that the President of the United States of America is a big ole atheist.
Andy, in response, wrote:
I dunno, Jamie – I'd like to posit that there is more room for complication and ambiguity in Christianity (and faith in general) than a simple question of whether there is or is not a big guy on a cloud waiting to whack us with a stick or smite people we disapprove of. I think it's important to resist a "let's get 'em all on our team" mentality regarding religion, even when we are talking about rejecting it. I do think that Obama presents a much needed example of a graceful way of dealing with faith, something that has been almost entirely absent from the media for at least the past 8 years, and that is a good thing to see. Whack-job fundies get so much coverage it's easy to get the idea that it's not possible to believe in god without being a dick. I like your bumper sticker. Try CafePress.
And I responded (with a few little edits and additions for this repost):
Andy, while I think you make a kinda good and certainlty well-intentioned point, you're coming, I take it, from the perspective of a an at least somewhat religious Christian. The non-religious in the U.S. have been beaten down (somehow I find the more casual "beaten down" more palatable than, say, "persecuted," which, while it fits the bill, is perhaps a bit too loaded for use here) in so many ways in this country, esp. since the days of the Evil (atheist) Soviet Empire, that it's hard to not want my "team" to win one. In general, though, I do hate teams (be they religious, nationalistic . . . ), and, of course, I was having a bit of fun in the post, but I must admit I really really don't want to believe that Obama has some new, more progressive, inclusive, ambiguous faith, be it Christian, Muslim, Buddhist what-have-you, I want to believe that he knows that this one life on earth all each of us gets, that scientific phenomena are all that created said life, and that doing good is something that should be done without regard for/ fear of judgment from a higher power, that it's an end in itself.
Readers? What say you?
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