You’ve heard of a pub with no beer, but a Church with no God?…
An atheist practising minister, in a mainstream church, incumbent with his own congregation, with the backing of both his peers and parishioners. Cloud cuckoo land? Not according to the BBC’s Amsterdam Religious affairs correspondent. Rev Klaas Hendrikse doesn’t believe in God as a ‘supernatural being. The very Rev Hendrikse believes that:
God is not a being at all… it’s a word for experience, or human experience
He goes as far as acknowledging that the Bible is a resource of insight on leading a good life, but clarifies that with his belief that the description of the life of Jesus is a mythical tale and that he may not have existed.
The article also reports that a recent survey by the Free University of Amsterdam has revealed that one in six of the clergy in the main Dutch Protestant Church and several smaller denominations are either atheists or agnostic…
Nunoftheabove,
Completely agree with the point you make about morality – it’s instinctive and we build religion and other things around it. I also agree that there is much that is immoral and wicked to be found in religion and religious texts.
I find myself though less comfortable that humanism/atheism has yet come up with anything to rival religious communities in terms with what they can provide (at their best) to ordinary people in terms of a satisfactory structure for life. I completely understand that it is most unsatisfactory for deep thinkers, but most people frankly don’t particularly want a world view, just something that, say, keeps their kids on the straight and narrow at key stages in their lives and that occupies their time, often productively. Or the avoidance of confronting an ailing and elderly relative with unpleasant truths when a life has already been lived. Many are prepared to forego their own reservations about the truth of it all in order to obtain the benefits that accrue at a more basic level of living.
That’s why the “atheists in church” development is so interesting. Evolution of religious institutions may ultimately be the only option as I don’t see that humanism/atheism is capable of filling the void that the absence of religion would leave in many lives.
It’s the old “blank sheet of paper isn’t available” issue again.
I find it is the deep thinkers who look to a level of existence and direction beyond the material and it was these men who built western science.
On the other hand i find it is usually the superficial thinkers who see nothing more than the material and fail to grasp the inadquecies of that philosophy with regards to modern science.
Abucs,
I used to think something along the lines you suggest … and then I began to think even more deeply. But it is a real challenge to open your mind to the possibility that there is another uncomfortable truth about existence, which once absorbed fits the facts and feels right.
It is however quite possible not to believe in gods and at the same time to be deeply spiritual and not materialistic.
@nunoftheabove,
‘What must also not be off limits is a full and frank recognition of a lot of the immorality within the bible and its other religious ‘rival’ texts. Some of it is positively wicked.’
Indeed and the excuse usually made by the religious is that back at the time the bible or koran or talmud was written what is now seen as positively wicked was not seen as such then. Human slavery was compatible with Christianity into the 19th century and the treatment of women as second class ‘chattels’ or merely ‘property ‘ is still extant in some Islamic societies . Even in Ireland the recent Church scandals have revealed the extent to which women were victimised by a patriarchal church hierarchy .
The good news is that the Dublin Archdiocese is now reported as being close to financial collapse given the financial expenditures re compensation to victims of clerical abuse and the drop in church attendance and revenue collection.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/0817/church.html