By MIRANDA CELESTE HALE - EXQUISITE WITH LOVE [A BLOG]
Added: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:00:00 UTC

This article was written as a parody and relates to an article posted on 28-Dec http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4830 The link was also noted in one of Richard's comments.
http://www.mirandacelestehale.net/?p=1041

Saturday’s edition of The Guardian’s Comment is free ran a piece by Mark Vernon, called “God is the question: What does it mean to accept that God is not the answer to anything, but remains the unanswerable question?” I have zero patience for this kind of rambly, meaningless, intentional obscurantism, this “God is an unknowable mystery that cannot be touched by reason or intellect and that cannot be put into words” ridiculousness espoused by this author, among others. It’s completely nonsensical word salad. It’s a bunch of empty, vague rationalizations for belief in God disguised in language that is intended to seem deep and profound.

Intentional obscurantism is always annoying and intellectually dishonest, but it’s especially troubling when authors use it in an attempt to make their particular form of religious belief immune to criticism. How convenient that their God is unknowable and cannot be put into words! It’s pretty difficult to question and critique the truth claims of and to point out the real-life negative consequences of the belief systems of those who hide behind strings of meaningless phrases and who refuse to provide even a vague explanation of what in the hell they actually believe in.

This type of theologicalbabble also displays these authors’ willful ignorance about the God that most religious individuals believe in and about the horrible actions some believers engage in because of their blind religious faith. The average believer does not perceive God in the way that these authors do, a fact that the authors conveniently avoid acknowledging. By refusing to acknowledge this, they are both protecting themselves from being seen as “just a common believer” and pretending to be blind to the negative consequences of unquestioned religious belief. This type of writing is vacuous, hollow, dishonest, and willfully misleading.

When I first saw Vernon’s ridiculous article, I thought about deconstructing it, paragraph by paragraph, to illustrate just how nonsensical it is. But then I realized that it’s literally meaningless. There’s no substance to it and it’s thus not worth deconstructing. Sometimes, the only effective way to tackle such nonsense is with humor, and this is one of those times. So, voila:
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http://www.mirandacelestehale.net/?p=1041

TAGGED: COMMENTARY, HUMOR, RELIGION