RE: Does atheism inspire people?
May 31, 2012 at 2:05 pm
(This post was last modified: May 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm by Whateverist.)
(May 31, 2012 at 11:41 am)StatCrux Wrote:whateverist Wrote:Did you have a point or did you just want to share the way the world looks to you?
My point is that belief in the existence of God has been a source of inspiration for many great works of art, poetry, music etc. If you take away that belief you a losing a source of inspiration, would a prevalently atheist culture produce as much great works of art? Whenever I listen to atheists arguments, they always strike me as being a harsh, gloomy and empty way of seeing reality, Christopher Hitchens even admitted as much in one debate. This view of existence doesn't appear to be a good basis for inspiring great art.
You've got to remember that we atheists have much less in common than you Christians do. Atheism is a default category for those who don't believe in any of the particular gods that you all do. Atheism doesn't identify anything we have in common, just what we mutually lack. That doesn't mean we don't have anything going on or are dead inside, shocking as that may be to you. People here have myriad political positions, hobbies, jobs and passions. The only thing we have in common really is being inconvenienced occasionally by your lot.
Hitchens can't speak for me any more than any other atheist can. That job is best left to me. I approach many aspects of my life creatively as does my atheist-from-birth wife who makes her living as an artist. If there is any impediment to embracing both atheism and creativity/art, we just haven't found it.
Perhaps what you are thinking of is a kind of reverence that makes you feel very small and insignificant. I experience reverence and humility but nothing I experience makes me want to 'turn it all over to a higher power'. Self abdication is not the upshot of my reverie. So perhaps it is the sense that you are so unworthy and self-debasing which inspires a certain kind of art among theists which atheists are not drawn to make.
Upon further reflection I wonder how much more you Christians really have in common. After all, it seems any Christian you ask will reject roughly half of all other Christians as not being the genuine, 'true' kind. Still nearly all of you think the bible lays out what you can expect from your genie, including an afterlife. Only the artistic among you seem to give any thought to how wondrous and mysterious your God is. Few of you tremble in fear. Most of you act like you have Him by the balls based on your acceptance of the terms of some contract which you think your 'belief' entitles you to.
