Julia Sweeney on God & Non-belief

[sarahmichigan]

You may know Julia Sweeney as an ex-SNL member and not know much more about her. Well, she's an atheist who has written a one-woman show about losing her faith in god, a cancer survivor, and the single mother of an adopted child as well.

She gave a speech at a "Freedom From Religion Foundation" convention not too long ago, and there are excerpts on the FFRF website. I love some of the points she makes about religion and belief (and she's funny, too).

#1. People Want to be good. "When I talk to [my friends] about religion, they don't say, "Oh, did I feel good yesterday thinking how Mary was a virgin and conceived Jesus!" They don't say anything about Catholicism. They talk about the community work that they've done. And that's what they connect with their church. They assign that good feeling to their church."

#2. A code of behavior is often necessary.

#3. People want to be in a club.

#4. People love to hate. "People feel closer to other people if they have a common person they don't like. Come on, everybody knows that's true! And it's true for us, too. Religion delivers on that, too! It gives people an instant common enemy, whether it's Islamic fundamentalists or secularists, that's immediately there and provided. At Saturday Night Live, we were never closer than when Steven Seagal hosted--because we hated him so much!"

Read the whole piece here.

Comments

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Even with this distinction, I feel there are non-trivial cases where atheists act illogically.

Christopher Hitchens on Bill Maher last week, for instance, had quite a few fallacies (such as his argument for Hussein's protection of al Qaeda in Iraq before our invasion, which appeared to be "Because I'm an editor of Vanity Fair and I said so!").

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not going to dispute that. We're all prone to fallacious thinking, as the article I linked to in my previous post about the "Myth of Consistent Skepticism" noted.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Aye.

Dawkins has, in my view, descended from a past foundation of calm, measured scientific writing into the most horribly illogical, theologically ill-informed screeds on religion, which do more to discredit religious criticism than to advance it.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm particularly unbiased on the issue myself, since I loved his earlier writings and had been looking forward to his wider criticisms. I feel almost personally betrayed!

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

Dawkins' "The God Delusion" got a mostly positive review in my Skeptical Enquirer in one issue, but a few issues later, they also published a critical look at the places where Dawkins veers out into some unsupportable views and claims in the book, too. He's definitely not as logical on all points as he'd like to think he is.

[bernmarx.livejournal.com]

Dawkins I think has fallen victim to a common celebrity phenomenon, allowing himself to pander to the self-righteously spiteful among his audience. Hate is a powerful force for group cohesion, sadly more powerful than any of the positive emotions, and once the spark of "let's burn the witches!" takes hold, it's difficult to keep the fire from overpowering the core message.

That doesn't mean he should be excused for letting himself get where he is, of course. He should definitely be held accountable for it.

[guttaperk.livejournal.com]

Exactly so!