{"id":79,"date":"2006-04-03T14:08:54","date_gmt":"2005-10-16T12:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/uncategorized\/antagagnosticism\/"},"modified":"2006-04-03T14:08:54","modified_gmt":"2006-04-03T21:08:54","slug":"antagagnosticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/the-atheists-pulpit\/antagagnosticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Antagagnosticism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a chance encounter with a colleague recently. Waxing philosophic, <\/p>\n

he began to address great issues of creation. I didn’t object; I like him and he’s no bible-thumper. But, there came a point when I had <\/p>\n

to say, somewhat to his surprise: I am an atheist. I don’t say that very often, though I’m not ashamed of it.<\/p>\n

I have a friend<\/a> who is probably the most literate person I know on matters of the <\/p>\n

bible. She asked me recently, in effect, what do atheists believe, in the sense of what satisfies our common human need to understand or <\/p>\n

explain difficult things.<\/p>\n

Sometimes I half-jokingly refer to myself as an “antagagnostic” (antagonist + agnostic), defining such <\/p>\n

as one who doubts there is a god but hates him just the same. Indeed, I hate the god of the bible, it is true. I have expressed that in <\/p>\n

far stronger language on many occasions.<\/p>\n

I don’t mind if you are a believer, even though I know many believers mind very much <\/p>\n

that I don’t believe. I don’t seek to change believers, though many seek to change me. Doesn’t quite seem fair, but that’s just a <\/p>\n

trivial bit of evidence that there either isn’t a god or s\/he is extremely distant or heartless and unjust. There is far greater <\/p>\n

evidence everywhere you look.<\/p>\n

Oh, but what of all the good people I love, some of whom have faith? What of my sweet dog, Lucky, <\/p>\n

who is the nicest person I know. What of those glorious morning glories that so inspire me, the mammoth mountains, waterfalls, <\/p>\n

rainstorms, everything I love in the world. I do love it all, but I have no need to thank a god I don’t believe in for it. I’m grateful <\/p>\n

and feel lucky — I just believe it was random chance that brought me here and will sweep me out of all memory in time. Misfortune and <\/p>\n

sorrow are just part of the balance, as are joy and gratitude. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a chance encounter with a colleague recently. Waxing philosophic, he began to address great issues of creation. I didn’t object; I like him and he’s no bible-thumper. But, there came a point when I had to say, somewhat to his surprise: I am an atheist. I don’t say that very often, though I’m … Continue reading Antagagnosticism<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-atheists-pulpit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}