{"id":34,"date":"2014-06-26T21:29:44","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T21:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=34"},"modified":"2014-08-11T20:45:04","modified_gmt":"2014-08-11T20:45:04","slug":"with-a-little-help-from-my-atheist-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/with-a-little-help-from-my-atheist-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"With a Little Help from my Atheist Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

Culture and the Death of God<\/em> \u2013 Eagleton<\/p>\n

There are billboards on our interstate highway leading to downtown Grand Rapids that say\u2026\u2026\u201dyou can be good and be atheist.\u201d\u00a0 This is quite the shocker in my very religious Reformed area of the United States (the picture I\u2019ve included is more akin to our area!).\u00a0 Eagleton, in Culture and the Death of God<\/em>, shares that religions is \u201cessentially a desire to invest reality with a degree of meaning into life.\u201d (45)\u00a0 But my billboard suggests differently.<\/p>\n

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The culture of belief and faith in God has changed greatly from the Enlightenment period, when few were really atheists (many were more likely Deists, still believing in an Almighty but limiting God to few activities \u2013 primarily, getting creation rolling and then stepping back to watch) to modern environment in which religion \u2013 at least in the West – is on the chopping block.\u00a0 In the past, breaking away completely from religion was difficult as it was wrapped up in all aspects of life and culture.<\/p>\n

Later, during the idealist and romantics periods, the move to replace religion and God with other cultural activities such as art or philosophy took a broad leap forward but was unable to dislodge the majority from belief.\u00a0 Nietzsche believed that there would never be a change for the masses as \u201cbeliefs are held without reason,\u201d therefore being irrefutable.\u00a0 He continued pointing out that as long as religion brings hope and comfort it is essential to the population at large and therefore important to political will \u2013 as leaders use religion to shape and promote their personal desires.<\/p>\n

We still see this.\u00a0 I see nationalism replacing Christianity in the US but calling it the same thing.\u00a0 There is even an \u201cAmerican Patriots Bible\u201d in the bookstores interlacing scripture with powerful quotes on the right to bear arms and capital punishment, located near scriptures that speak of the opposite. \u00a0In the bookstore, the Patriot\u2019s bible is next to the Duck Dynasty Bible \u2013 but not-surprisingly \u2013 we don\u2019t find an Oprah Bible or an Ellen Bible (two people whom, although might lean toward atheism, have helped more people live better lives than most public figures I know.)<\/p>\n

Is it possible to separate religion and faith \u2013 a structured organization loosely based upon a doctrine compared to a personal relationship or adherence to what and who a faith stands for?\u00a0 As it is harder and harder to do so, there is discontent within the walls of the church.\u00a0 People instead are flocking to culture \u2013 theater, music television and cinema \u2013 replacing God with these new forms of \u201cmythology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Toward the beginning of the book Eagleton writes regarding the trends toward secularization; tolerance, equality, democracy, individual freedom and liberty of expression.\u00a0 These were part of the philosophy of the enlightenment.\u00a0 Conversely, if the opposite would indicate what religion looks like, I would fall on the side of promoting secularism.\u00a0 This is the conundrum many believers find themselves in.\u00a0 We see that the values held by atheists are in many ways more \u201cChristian\u201d than those held by the church.<\/p>\n

As the gospel is deconstructed in each generation by those without belief, certain strains of religion continue to hold the faithful masses together amidst the critiques and reevaluation.\u00a0 Lately, it has been what the author considers \u201cmorality.\u201d\u00a0 The church becomes an organization that only provides culture with what it believes to be best guidelines and ways to live.\u00a0 We see this currently with the moral condemnation of those with same-sex orientation.\u00a0 However, if we want to see religion to be more than a cultural filler, more than a way to harness the masses, more than a morality policeman, we need a new configuration of faith.\u00a0 One the author calls a \u201crebirth into just and compassionate communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe a little help from the atheists will help us get it right this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Culture and the Death of God \u2013 Eagleton There are billboards on our interstate highway leading to downtown Grand Rapids that say\u2026\u2026\u201dyou can be good and be atheist.\u201d\u00a0 This is quite the shocker in my very religious Reformed area of the United States (the picture I\u2019ve included is more akin to our area!).\u00a0 Eagleton, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,24,25,2,17],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-atheism","tag-billboards","tag-culture","tag-dminlgp","tag-eagleton","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1348,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/1348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}