Thank You VERY Much for your post, Alexis.Alexis wrote:One of the slanders some ancient Romans directed at Christians was to call them Atheists.Endovelico wrote:Emptiness is a very apt religious concept...Ibrahim wrote:Perhaps because the entire point of Christianity is that the Divine became physical and mortal? Emptiness is not a suitable analogy for such a feat.
Made sense: these people refused to adore natural forces as gods, mountains as gods, stones as gods, concepts as gods, nature as god.... and what have you. The most basic tenent of Judaism, then of all religions which in some way derive from Judaism is "God is not....what I can see / what I can perceive / what I can conceptualize"
I sometimes wonder if modern Atheists could be described as extremist Christians* ... they go the full way towards the arguably extreme "God is not"
Do they have the moral courage to continue while others have floundered and stopped in the way?
Or should they stop to listen to the signs left by the one who cannot be known?
Looking up 1 Kings 19:10-1310 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”
11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
* or Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Bahais, Mormons... any religion centered around a transcendant and one God
I remember Bertrand Russell making that claim in one of his books.I sometimes wonder if modern Atheists could be described as extremist Christians* ... they go the full way towards the arguably extreme "God is not"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell
IIRC Russell also classified some atheists as liberty loving 'Protestant' atheists like him who took Protestant iconoclastic tendencies all the way....
And other atheists as liberty hating 'Catholic'/"Orthodox' atheists like for example Stalin who try to recreate the hierarchy & dominion of the Church which they had in some cases rejected.
Mind that this is Russell's opinion not necessarily mine