http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015 09:30 AM CDT
New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
SEAN ILLING

New Atheism's fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
(Credit: HBO/Janet Van Ham/Reuters/Chris Keane/Photo montage by Salon)
Atheism has a storied history in the West. From the irreverent Voltaire to the iconoclastic Nietzsche, the godless have always had a voice. But the New Atheists are different. Religion, they argue, isn’t just wrong; it’s positively corrosive. If you’ve heard people like Bill Maher or Lawrence Krauss speak in recent years, you’re familiar with this approach.

New Atheism emerged in 2004 as a kind of literary and social movement. Led by such luminaries as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, New Atheism became part of the zeitgeist, a well-timed reaction against religious fundamentalism. The New Atheists are notoriously pugilistic. In print or on stage, they never run from a fight. Whatever you think of their tactics, they’ve succeeded at putting fanatics and moralizers on the defensive – and that’s a good thing.

But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief.

It’s perfectly rational to reject faith as a matter of principle. Many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do? If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed. The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful.

The problem is that the New Atheists think of God only in epistemological terms. Consequently, they have nothing to say to those who affirm God for existential reasons. New Atheist writers tend to approach religion from the perspective of science: They argue that a particular religion isn’t true or that the empirical claims of religious texts are false. That’s easy to do. The more interesting question is why religions endure in spite of being empirically untrue. There are, of course, millions of fundamentalists for whom God is a literal proposition. Their claims concerning God are empirical and should be treated as such. For many, though, God is an existential impulse, a transcendent idea with no referent in reality. This conception of God is untouched – and untouchable – by positivist science; asking if God is true in this sense is like asking how much the number 12 weighs – it’s nonsensical.

These sorts of questions pervade literature and philosophy. The existentialist authors, most of whom were atheists, took seriously the problem of meaning and truth. Dostoevsky, for instance, although a Christian, refused to defend Christianity on positivist grounds. He considered God a motive force, not an empirical claim about reality or history. For his part, God was a bridge to self-transcendence, a way of linking the individual to a tradition and a community. The truth of Christ was therefore less important than the living faith made possible by belief in Christ.

Richard Dawkins may find this distinction trivial, but I don’t think it is.

Dostoevsky’s defense of the idea of God has to be reckoned with, especially by critics of religion. The great writer and humanist Albert Camus wrestled with Dostoevsky for most of his life. Camus was an atheist, but he understood the instinct for transcendence. And he knew that God was a solution (however false) to the problem of meaninglessness. Against the backdrop of death, what matters more: truth or a reason for living? “I’ve never seen anyone die for the ontological argument,” Camus wrote, but “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living.” Today is no different; people continue to kill and die in defense of beliefs that give their lives meaning and shape.

The New Atheists don’t have a satisfactory alternative for such people. They argue that religion is false; that it’s divisive; that it’s unethical; that it makes a virtue of self-deception; that it does more harm than good – and maybe they’re right, but if they don’t understand that, for many, meaning is more important than truth, they’ll never appreciate the vitality of religion. To his credit, Sam Harris’ most recent book, “Waking Up,” grapples with these issues in truly fascinating ways. Indeed, Harris writes insightfully about the necessity of love, meaning and self-transcendence. But he’s a fringe voice in the New Atheist community. Most are too busy disproving religion to consider why it is so persistent, and why something beyond science will have to take its place in a Godless world.

The New Atheists have an important role to play. Reason needs its champions, too. And religion has to be resisted because there are genuine societal costs. One can draw a straight line between religious dogma and scientific obscurantism or moral stagnation, for example. That’s a real problem. But if religion is ineradicable, we have to find a way to limit its destructive consequences. Satire and criticism are necessary, but they’re not sufficient.

People like Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens make a powerful case for a more humanistic ethics. Harris writes admirably about the need to be more attentive to the present, to the suffering of other human beings. I agree. But if we want to encourage people to care about the right things, we should spend as much time encouraging them to care about the right things as we do criticizing their faith.

Sean D. Illing is a freelance writer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He teaches political theory at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog at Cosmopoliticsblog.com. Follow him @sean_illing on Twitter.

Sean Illing
Sean Illing is a USAF veteran who previously taught philosophy and politics at Loyola and LSU. He is currently a staff writer for Salon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Read his blog here. Email at silling@salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015 09:30 AM CDT
New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
SEAN ILLING

New Atheism's fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
(Credit: HBO/Janet Van Ham/Reuters/Chris Keane/Photo montage by Salon)
Atheism has a storied history in the West. From the irreverent Voltaire to the iconoclastic Nietzsche, the godless have always had a voice. But the New Atheists are different. Religion, they argue, isn’t just wrong; it’s positively corrosive. If you’ve heard people like Bill Maher or Lawrence Krauss speak in recent years, you’re familiar with this approach.

New Atheism emerged in 2004 as a kind of literary and social movement. Led by such luminaries as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, New Atheism became part of the zeitgeist, a well-timed reaction against religious fundamentalism. The New Atheists are notoriously pugilistic. In print or on stage, they never run from a fight. Whatever you think of their tactics, they’ve succeeded at putting fanatics and moralizers on the defensive – and that’s a good thing.

But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief.

It’s perfectly rational to reject faith as a matter of principle. Many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do? If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed. The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful.

The problem is that the New Atheists think of God only in epistemological terms. Consequently, they have nothing to say to those who affirm God for existential reasons. New Atheist writers tend to approach religion from the perspective of science: They argue that a particular religion isn’t true or that the empirical claims of religious texts are false. That’s easy to do. The more interesting question is why religions endure in spite of being empirically untrue. There are, of course, millions of fundamentalists for whom God is a literal proposition. Their claims concerning God are empirical and should be treated as such. For many, though, God is an existential impulse, a transcendent idea with no referent in reality. This conception of God is untouched – and untouchable – by positivist science; asking if God is true in this sense is like asking how much the number 12 weighs – it’s nonsensical.

These sorts of questions pervade literature and philosophy. The existentialist authors, most of whom were atheists, took seriously the problem of meaning and truth. Dostoevsky, for instance, although a Christian, refused to defend Christianity on positivist grounds. He considered God a motive force, not an empirical claim about reality or history. For his part, God was a bridge to self-transcendence, a way of linking the individual to a tradition and a community. The truth of Christ was therefore less important than the living faith made possible by belief in Christ.

Richard Dawkins may find this distinction trivial, but I don’t think it is.

Dostoevsky’s defense of the idea of God has to be reckoned with, especially by critics of religion. The great writer and humanist Albert Camus wrestled with Dostoevsky for most of his life. Camus was an atheist, but he understood the instinct for transcendence. And he knew that God was a solution (however false) to the problem of meaninglessness. Against the backdrop of death, what matters more: truth or a reason for living? “I’ve never seen anyone die for the ontological argument,” Camus wrote, but “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living.” Today is no different; people continue to kill and die in defense of beliefs that give their lives meaning and shape.

The New Atheists don’t have a satisfactory alternative for such people. They argue that religion is false; that it’s divisive; that it’s unethical; that it makes a virtue of self-deception; that it does more harm than good – and maybe they’re right, but if they don’t understand that, for many, meaning is more important than truth, they’ll never appreciate the vitality of religion. To his credit, Sam Harris’ most recent book, “Waking Up,” grapples with these issues in truly fascinating ways. Indeed, Harris writes insightfully about the necessity of love, meaning and self-transcendence. But he’s a fringe voice in the New Atheist community. Most are too busy disproving religion to consider why it is so persistent, and why something beyond science will have to take its place in a Godless world.

The New Atheists have an important role to play. Reason needs its champions, too. And religion has to be resisted because there are genuine societal costs. One can draw a straight line between religious dogma and scientific obscurantism or moral stagnation, for example. That’s a real problem. But if religion is ineradicable, we have to find a way to limit its destructive consequences. Satire and criticism are necessary, but they’re not sufficient.

People like Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens make a powerful case for a more humanistic ethics. Harris writes admirably about the need to be more attentive to the present, to the suffering of other human beings. I agree. But if we want to encourage people to care about the right things, we should spend as much time encouraging them to care about the right things as we do criticizing their faith.

Sean D. Illing is a freelance writer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He teaches political theory at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog at Cosmopoliticsblog.com. Follow him @sean_illing on Twitter.

Sean Illing
Sean Illing is a USAF veteran who previously taught philosophy and politics at Loyola and LSU. He is currently a staff writer for Salon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Read his blog here. Email at silling@salon.com.

While I agree with Sean, the new atheist movement might be the "tea party" version of philosophy. It isn't philosophical it is physical. Real world, which is where most of us live. Physics, is not intuitive because it breaks down the universe into pieces, an intellectual pursuit as is philosophy. Asking questions that there is no answer or the answer as many facets.

The world needs nuts and bolts atheism because 99% of most Christians will stand behind the bible as if it's the only book that matters and never ask themselves tough questions because the might upset the "heavenly father" or be banished from their religious sect, which exactly the way the bible must be challenged. It says "A", "B", and "C", which contradict one another. Why is that? Why would a perfect God, use imperfect translators to confuse us? How much repetitive Jewish and Christian history does the world need? Why do some Christians complain that the bible is out of date, so they don't read it, but cling to the Church, their minister or Christian community? Those are nuts and bolts questions...why can't an infinitely powerful God; get it right?

Which wasn't my point, my point was that, Bill Maher was hoping to appeal to the joe six pack that pretends to be a Christian because idiots keep announcing that the US is a Christian Nation. Ya know, like people that declare they are Baptists even though the last time they stepped into a church was Grandma's funeral.

The world speaks in concrete language an: a to b rationality, because that is life experience. If I turn on the stove top, the water gets warm, if it doesn't the stove is broke, or I didn't pay a bill or ...? Many folks on this site, speak that way. The bible verse says this, the result is that, so "you're wrong, Singularity!" That is a parochial way of looking at life, they're not pondering big questions, just quick answers. We don't live in an ephemeral world. We hang pictures on our walls, of our kids; and watch them grow before our eyes. It is concrete and soothing.

Atheism is unAmerican, ignorant, communist. But it is never wrong, because you can always ask a question that a Christian refuses to answer or they'll get back to 'ya.

Why are there two different words then?

Of course they may if they wish.

But can they claim rational proof of their beliefs and activities?

It's ok if they want to fear and worship that which they dont try tounderstand.

But that precludes them from claiming rationality. Many, most perhaps, are fine with that.

It is just that those of that camp who insist on squaring a triangle by claiming they are following a rational course by offering "proof" are doomed to failure of that proof.

If there is nothing wrong with faith as a guide, why the energy to "prove" religious tenants rationally?

If the rules and nature of rational debate are accepted, the very act of entering into a rational debate must be either recognized as futile to begin with or are, knowingly or not understood, still intellectually dishonest because the nature of rational debate cripples and disarms a faith based philosophy!

Because rationality precludes faith, the cornerstone of religious thinking.

I have to take my wife to the doctor, I'll get back to ya. LOL

I wanted to stay out of this based on friendship with you two. However, I must try to interject the need for Christianity in a world that is increasing in population and as cultures begin to clash more and more.

I do not buy into or promote the idea that, "religion is an opiate for the masses", however there is a need for balance in a world or nation whose idea of free choice has gone wild. There must be a way of self-regulating ones actions and not just behavior based on "rights or laws." Honestly, there are questions that deserve answers on both sides of Atheism and Christianity.

I do not believe it was ever expected to be either or, but both and. I shall return. I read that someplace, I think it was spoken by some famous guy once in the military. But also is quoted from guy who is said to be a purveyor of peace and love.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015 09:30 AM CDT
New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
SEAN ILLING

New Atheism's fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
(Credit: HBO/Janet Van Ham/Reuters/Chris Keane/Photo montage by Salon)
Atheism has a storied history in the West. From the irreverent Voltaire to the iconoclastic Nietzsche, the godless have always had a voice. But the New Atheists are different. Religion, they argue, isn’t just wrong; it’s positively corrosive. If you’ve heard people like Bill Maher or Lawrence Krauss speak in recent years, you’re familiar with this approach.

New Atheism emerged in 2004 as a kind of literary and social movement. Led by such luminaries as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, New Atheism became part of the zeitgeist, a well-timed reaction against religious fundamentalism. The New Atheists are notoriously pugilistic. In print or on stage, they never run from a fight. Whatever you think of their tactics, they’ve succeeded at putting fanatics and moralizers on the defensive – and that’s a good thing.

But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief.

It’s perfectly rational to reject faith as a matter of principle. Many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do? If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed. The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful.

The problem is that the New Atheists think of God only in epistemological terms. Consequently, they have nothing to say to those who affirm God for existential reasons. New Atheist writers tend to approach religion from the perspective of science: They argue that a particular religion isn’t true or that the empirical claims of religious texts are false. That’s easy to do. The more interesting question is why religions endure in spite of being empirically untrue. There are, of course, millions of fundamentalists for whom God is a literal proposition. Their claims concerning God are empirical and should be treated as such. For many, though, God is an existential impulse, a transcendent idea with no referent in reality. This conception of God is untouched – and untouchable – by positivist science; asking if God is true in this sense is like asking how much the number 12 weighs – it’s nonsensical.

These sorts of questions pervade literature and philosophy. The existentialist authors, most of whom were atheists, took seriously the problem of meaning and truth. Dostoevsky, for instance, although a Christian, refused to defend Christianity on positivist grounds. He considered God a motive force, not an empirical claim about reality or history. For his part, God was a bridge to self-transcendence, a way of linking the individual to a tradition and a community. The truth of Christ was therefore less important than the living faith made possible by belief in Christ.

Richard Dawkins may find this distinction trivial, but I don’t think it is.

Dostoevsky’s defense of the idea of God has to be reckoned with, especially by critics of religion. The great writer and humanist Albert Camus wrestled with Dostoevsky for most of his life. Camus was an atheist, but he understood the instinct for transcendence. And he knew that God was a solution (however false) to the problem of meaninglessness. Against the backdrop of death, what matters more: truth or a reason for living? “I’ve never seen anyone die for the ontological argument,” Camus wrote, but “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living.” Today is no different; people continue to kill and die in defense of beliefs that give their lives meaning and shape.

The New Atheists don’t have a satisfactory alternative for such people. They argue that religion is false; that it’s divisive; that it’s unethical; that it makes a virtue of self-deception; that it does more harm than good – and maybe they’re right, but if they don’t understand that, for many, meaning is more important than truth, they’ll never appreciate the vitality of religion. To his credit, Sam Harris’ most recent book, “Waking Up,” grapples with these issues in truly fascinating ways. Indeed, Harris writes insightfully about the necessity of love, meaning and self-transcendence. But he’s a fringe voice in the New Atheist community. Most are too busy disproving religion to consider why it is so persistent, and why something beyond science will have to take its place in a Godless world.

The New Atheists have an important role to play. Reason needs its champions, too. And religion has to be resisted because there are genuine societal costs. One can draw a straight line between religious dogma and scientific obscurantism or moral stagnation, for example. That’s a real problem. But if religion is ineradicable, we have to find a way to limit its destructive consequences. Satire and criticism are necessary, but they’re not sufficient.

People like Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens make a powerful case for a more humanistic ethics. Harris writes admirably about the need to be more attentive to the present, to the suffering of other human beings. I agree. But if we want to encourage people to care about the right things, we should spend as much time encouraging them to care about the right things as we do criticizing their faith.

Sean D. Illing is a freelance writer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He teaches political theory at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog at Cosmopoliticsblog.com. Follow him @sean_illing on Twitter.

Sean Illing
Sean Illing is a USAF veteran who previously taught philosophy and politics at Loyola and LSU. He is currently a staff writer for Salon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Read his blog here. Email at silling@salon.com.

http://www.salon.com/2015/05/09/new_atheisms_fatal_arrogance_the_glaring_intellectual_laziness_of_bill_maher_richard_dawkins/

SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2015 09:30 AM CDT
New Atheism’s fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
SEAN ILLING

New Atheism's fatal arrogance: The glaring intellectual laziness of Bill Maher & Richard Dawkins
(Credit: HBO/Janet Van Ham/Reuters/Chris Keane/Photo montage by Salon)
Atheism has a storied history in the West. From the irreverent Voltaire to the iconoclastic Nietzsche, the godless have always had a voice. But the New Atheists are different. Religion, they argue, isn’t just wrong; it’s positively corrosive. If you’ve heard people like Bill Maher or Lawrence Krauss speak in recent years, you’re familiar with this approach.

New Atheism emerged in 2004 as a kind of literary and social movement. Led by such luminaries as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, New Atheism became part of the zeitgeist, a well-timed reaction against religious fundamentalism. The New Atheists are notoriously pugilistic. In print or on stage, they never run from a fight. Whatever you think of their tactics, they’ve succeeded at putting fanatics and moralizers on the defensive – and that’s a good thing.

But there’s something missing in their critiques, something fundamental. For all their eloquence, their arguments are often banal. Regrettably, they’ve shown little interest in understanding the religious compulsion. They talk incessantly about the untruth of religion because they assume truth is what matters most to religious people. And perhaps it does for many, but certainly not all – at least not in the conventional sense of that term. Religious convictions, in many cases, are held not because they’re true but because they’re meaningful, because they’re personally transformative. New Atheists are blind to this brand of belief.

It’s perfectly rational to reject faith as a matter of principle. Many people (myself included) find no practical advantage in believing things without evidence. But what about those who do? If a belief is held because of its effects, not its truth content, why should its falsity matter to the believer? Of course, most religious people consider their beliefs true in some sense, but that’s to be expected: the consolation derived from a belief is greater if its illusory origins are concealed. The point is that such beliefs aren’t held because they’re true as such; they’re accepted on faith because they’re meaningful.

The problem is that the New Atheists think of God only in epistemological terms. Consequently, they have nothing to say to those who affirm God for existential reasons. New Atheist writers tend to approach religion from the perspective of science: They argue that a particular religion isn’t true or that the empirical claims of religious texts are false. That’s easy to do. The more interesting question is why religions endure in spite of being empirically untrue. There are, of course, millions of fundamentalists for whom God is a literal proposition. Their claims concerning God are empirical and should be treated as such. For many, though, God is an existential impulse, a transcendent idea with no referent in reality. This conception of God is untouched – and untouchable – by positivist science; asking if God is true in this sense is like asking how much the number 12 weighs – it’s nonsensical.

These sorts of questions pervade literature and philosophy. The existentialist authors, most of whom were atheists, took seriously the problem of meaning and truth. Dostoevsky, for instance, although a Christian, refused to defend Christianity on positivist grounds. He considered God a motive force, not an empirical claim about reality or history. For his part, God was a bridge to self-transcendence, a way of linking the individual to a tradition and a community. The truth of Christ was therefore less important than the living faith made possible by belief in Christ.

Richard Dawkins may find this distinction trivial, but I don’t think it is.

Dostoevsky’s defense of the idea of God has to be reckoned with, especially by critics of religion. The great writer and humanist Albert Camus wrestled with Dostoevsky for most of his life. Camus was an atheist, but he understood the instinct for transcendence. And he knew that God was a solution (however false) to the problem of meaninglessness. Against the backdrop of death, what matters more: truth or a reason for living? “I’ve never seen anyone die for the ontological argument,” Camus wrote, but “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others getting killed for ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living.” Today is no different; people continue to kill and die in defense of beliefs that give their lives meaning and shape.

The New Atheists don’t have a satisfactory alternative for such people. They argue that religion is false; that it’s divisive; that it’s unethical; that it makes a virtue of self-deception; that it does more harm than good – and maybe they’re right, but if they don’t understand that, for many, meaning is more important than truth, they’ll never appreciate the vitality of religion. To his credit, Sam Harris’ most recent book, “Waking Up,” grapples with these issues in truly fascinating ways. Indeed, Harris writes insightfully about the necessity of love, meaning and self-transcendence. But he’s a fringe voice in the New Atheist community. Most are too busy disproving religion to consider why it is so persistent, and why something beyond science will have to take its place in a Godless world.

The New Atheists have an important role to play. Reason needs its champions, too. And religion has to be resisted because there are genuine societal costs. One can draw a straight line between religious dogma and scientific obscurantism or moral stagnation, for example. That’s a real problem. But if religion is ineradicable, we have to find a way to limit its destructive consequences. Satire and criticism are necessary, but they’re not sufficient.

People like Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens make a powerful case for a more humanistic ethics. Harris writes admirably about the need to be more attentive to the present, to the suffering of other human beings. I agree. But if we want to encourage people to care about the right things, we should spend as much time encouraging them to care about the right things as we do criticizing their faith.

Sean D. Illing is a freelance writer based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He teaches political theory at Louisiana State University. Read more from him at his blog at Cosmopoliticsblog.com. Follow him @sean_illing on Twitter.

Sean Illing
Sean Illing is a USAF veteran who previously taught philosophy and politics at Loyola and LSU. He is currently a staff writer for Salon. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Read his blog here. Email at silling@salon.com.

Instruct me master. For those who have within their heads and hearts that there is a higher 'thing" looking down upon us, but also know, without a doubt that it is not the "God" described in the Bible, where do we stand in the world?

I have all my life had instances which I could only explain as someone watching over me or trying to send a message of sorts. Could be just coincidences but man, it happens a lot. No magic, but just things.

So, I can't say there is no God or higher thing. I also can't say as I thing the Universe was created, or designed, or what not.

LOL! I'm so lost so I just say, I know what I know and don't know what I don't know. Hell, I don't know!!