{"id":2273,"date":"2014-02-09T11:51:35","date_gmt":"2014-02-09T10:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/?p=2273"},"modified":"2015-12-15T21:52:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T20:52:48","slug":"many-kinds-of-atheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/archives\/2273","title":{"rendered":"Many kinds of atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"DSCF0507\"<\/a>I just had my letter to the Guardian Weekly published. I was responding to Zoe Williams<\/a> article “Come on, atheists: we must show some faith in ourselves<\/a>” which took the very narrow view of religion vs atheism that seems to be popular at the moment. You can see my letter on the letters<\/a> page along with others for and against. In it I say:<\/p>\n

Several times a week I bow to a shrine and light incense before sitting in meditation with a small group of other people. I am an atheist, but not the kind that Zoe Williams seems to have in mind in her column (24 January)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I am a Zen Buddhist so I actively cultivate a mind free of the notion of a personal saviour or a distinct soul. Unlike Williams, I follow a precept not to indoctrinate my children into my beliefs, let alone raise them to believe that other people are mad for their beliefs. Strangely, I probably have more in common with contemplatives from theistic religions such as some Sufis and Christians than with what Williams describes.<\/p>\n

The kind of atheism she talks about seems to have a lot in common with the Deobandi Islam described by Jon Boone (Moderate Islam under siege in Pakistan)<\/a>. Her views are characterised by absolute certainty of her position (dogmatism), a presumption of uniformity of view across atheists (intolerance of heresy) and perceived victimhood.<\/p>\n

I think Williams may have been radicalised by the fundamentalist cleric Richard Dawkins and should be watched closely by the NSA, but then she probably already is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just had my letter to the Guardian Weekly published. I was responding to Zoe Williams article “Come on, atheists: we must show some faith in ourselves” which took the very narrow view of religion vs atheism that seems to be popular at the moment. You can see my letter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mindfulness_buddhism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3073,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2273\/revisions\/3073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}