|
This speaks to atheism. And I agree: atheism isn't a set of beliefs--not in the sense of a religion. What we look at instead, is the individual atheist, and then ask: What is his or her set of beliefs? This is the difference between the religious and the non-religious. The religious belong to a unified belief system, whereas the non-religious base everything on individual experiences and thoughts. This is not to say that the religious have no independence, nor does it mean the non-religious do not belong to any groups that share similar beliefs. What it means is that the priorities are different; the balance shifts in the direction of where each person finds their foundation: in the religious, it is in the community cohesiveness based on religious texts/dogma; in the non-religious, it is in the individual observances based on community interaction.
__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön
Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot
|