Enough Religion

There was a Facebook post this week that bothered me, beyond my usual Facebook-discomfort-level. It was about an article in the Christian Century by Lillian Daniel pointed at people who call themselves "spiritual but not religious". Following the comment line took me to other articles in which "progressive" Christian authors took atheists to task.

My discomfort, first of all, is that these authors think they know enough about atheists or non church attenders to chide them. I guess it's OK for non-judgmental liberals to be judgmental, as long as their criticism is aimed to their left.

Specifically, Rev. Daniel charged that non attenders were making up their religion. When a commentator asked if that were not true of the devout as well, Rev. Daniel replied, "My religion is not made up. It comes directly from the Son of God."

OK then. As I responded to another religion-based Facebook inquiry about our knowledge of God recently, "My Invisible Friend is real. Yours isn't."

Atheists, non-theistics, humanists and their ilk cannot discredit religion, and don't need to. The faithful generally discredit it themselves. If so-called progressives want to defend the rationality of their faith they should turn their ire toward the irrational among their number, and they are legion. Telling me that your Invisible Friend says that my non-theistic position is irrational would be laughable if you weren't so serious. And the seriousness of religionistas is what scares me much more than the rational arguments of atheists.