Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Atheism on CNN

I missed these videos the first time around. The first is a panel "discussion" of atheism in which atheists are trashed in a way that would be intolerable were it another group. There was no atheist on the panel.

The second video is a response to the mail CNN received in objection to the first discussion. So they interviewed, briefly, Richard Dawkins to get the "atheist" point of view.

As I've mentioned, I think we need to really keep an eye on this movement. To me it represents a movement away from the mythic worldview -- which is good and necessary. But the downside is that it rejects ALL notions of spirit -- which results in a flatland with no vertical orientation in spirituality.

CNN Panel:

Via: VideoSift

Richard Dawkins:

Via: VideoSift


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bill, you committed the exact same error here that the people on CNN - and our culture in general - commits. Atheism does not necessarily entail a "flatland" view. First, some atheists DO practice a form of nontheistic spirituality, such as Buddhism. Second, you can build some lovely systems of secular humanism on top of atheism, where value is constructed in some form by man as opposed to being instilled in the Universe by God/dess.

william harryman said...

Hey Jay,

I actually agree with you completely. I am, as far as religious folk are concerned, an atheist.

The problem as I see it is that the people who are getting the most news coverage right now -- Dawkins, Harris, and others -- DO deny any form of spirit. As far as anyone can see who is not familiar with the deeper aspects of atheism, these people "represent" all atheists. This is a problem to me.

The whole issue would benefit by including more diverse views on atheism rather than the purely science driven folks who negate all faith in something greater than human rationality.

Peace,
Bill