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| Two sides of the same coin |
| Two sides of the same coin 18/1/2002 Posted on Google atheist and other newsgroups. I want to recount two true short stories about some real people that I think illuminates the psychology of athesism and which I think demonstrates that atheism and religious belief are two sides of the same coin. A woman who was a member of a Sceptic's society was in conversation with some spiritualists when she mentioned how she stopped believing in anything beyond death when she found out Father Christmas didn't exist. It struck me at the time, in the context of the conversation that this was obviously a pivotal event in her life. It was not flippantly or ironically said, but was said in earnest, in the straightforward, honest way that was characteristic of this woman. The second story came from a U.K. TV Programme 'Video Diaries' which involved people and a camcorder talking about and filming their own life and was absolutely fascinating. This episode was about a man who was a member of a Anti-Fascist group which were involved in disrupting Fascist gatherings. Now ironically, this man was once a menber of such a Fascist group and what was interesting for me was how he changed sides. He explained that a 'coloured' co worker in his day job, whom he liked, pointed out to him that he couldn't separate him from other coloured people. If this man liked him, that means he must like others like him and therefore he couldn't demonise a whole race. With this pointed out to him, the penny dropped and from that moment he became an active Anti fascist instead of an active Fascist. What seems clear to me, from my own personal experiences and as shown in the stories is that some people have a need to believe in something and that if they are shown to be 'wrong' in their belief they can swing completely the other way to some opposing ideology orto a kind of anti belief state. To me this kind of personality is extremist in nature. Things are either black or white in their universe, they will not accept greyness, which is the place where most people inhabit in a kind of intellectually woolly way. I can hear all the Atheists shouting here that they believe what they believe through logic and common sense, so they can't be 'extremists'. But the key argument here to suggest that they are, is that both sides are arguing about a fundametally unprovaable assertion that there is a god. Think about it, no matter how clever your intellectual arguments are there there s no empirical proof of God's non-existence. I'm sorry philosophers don't cut it with me, they are just theories, clever, elegant theories, but they don't fulfill the criteria that Science would constitute as proof. Anyway I don't want to dilute my point with a discussion about the validity of atheism. I'm just trying to answer objections that I can hear in my head. I believe this psychological aspect of atheiests to be true, because I recognise it myself and in other members of my family. Concerning myself, the tendency to see things as either black or white has been countered by an almost chronic tendency to doubt. So I live in greyness and to be honest that world, in it all it's seeming complexity, is where I believe the closest approximation to the 'truth' lies. |
| The Modern Paranormalist |