Re: atheism


Subject: Re: atheism
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Wed Jan 19 2000 - 03:38:43 EST


    I find amazing - honest injun, no sarcasm - that a technical,
    theological discussion can trigger such an avalanche of informed,
    deeply felt words from such a variety of sincere people.
    Europeans like me are bewildered when we hear how vitally
    religious concerns continue, apparently, to engage the American
    consciousness. Even in these putatively Catholic parts, no one
    gets much exercised, let alone shot, over doctrinal issues such
    as creationism or contraception - or even abortion. (The war
    in the North of Ireland has been more tribal than religious.)
    While, reportedly, American chapels fill up, ours grow rapidly
    empty.

    Yet a considerable fuss is being made of a new film which I haven't
    yet seen - Graham Greene's The End of the Affair - whose central
    issue is the presence or absence of God. Although a cradle agnostic
    who in life runs a mile from the company of believers, I've always
    been considerably more affected by Greene than, for example, Salinger.
    And The End of the Affair seems to me his undoubted masterpiece,
    one of the very few books I never tire of re-reading.

    I wonder why it is that so many of us find a narrative, a story,
    a fable, a parable, so much more haunting & persuasive than
    an argument?

    Scottie B.

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