By SUSAN JACOBY - THE WASHINGTON POST
Added: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 23:00:00 UTC

Thanks to Richard P for the link.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/susan_jacoby/2009/10/thanks_but_no_thanks_from_a_happy_atheist.html

Q:What makes the best 'case for God' to a skeptic or non-believer, an open-minded seeker, and to a person of faith and Why?

1) The message of scripture?
2) The scientific evidence for an Intelligent Designer?
3) The 'words' that God has 'spoken' - Torah, Jesus, the Qur'an?
4) A compassionate lifestyle?
5) Personal, subjective experience?

-- Karen Armstrong


None of the above. There is no "scientific evidence" of the existence of an intelligent designer. And the fact that there are many Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, and atheists whose lives are models of concern for their fellow humans--and many whose lives are sinkholes of selfishness--suggests that religious belief, or the lack of it, has little to do with our daily decisions on behalf of good, evil, or apathy.

One might as well try to cut one's way through fog with a sword as attempt to engage Karen Armstrong's "case for God" with rational discourse. In the end, her arguments for the divine always boils down to "it's a mystery." She tells atheists that they are wasting their time by "magisterially weighing up the teachings of religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life." Only if atheists "translate these doctrines into ritual or ethical action" will they discover "the truth or falsehood of religion."

In other words, even if religion makes no sense to you, just go ahead and act as if you were religious and you'll see what I mean. Or: try it, you'll like it. I could say the same thing about atheism, and my statement would be as meaningless as Armstrong's dictum. What is it about this "religious way of life," anyway, that necessarily differs from the ethical precepts of a nonreligious person? What there is to learn from the golden rule is no mystery, and one need not believe in any any transcendent power to understand that doing unto others as you would have them do unto you it is a better way of living than "do unto others before they do unto you."
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TAGGED: COMMENTARY, MORALITY