Showing posts with label Religion-free zone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion-free zone. Show all posts

6.22.2017

"Fundamentalist atheist"?



This morning, on my Twitter account, I wrote about a topic that upsets me a little: Is there such a thing as "fundamentalist atheists"? With some small changes, here's what I posted on Twitter * :


I usually get kinda confused when I hear or read the expression "fundamentalist atheist".

OK, fine, I must admit that atheist people (like me) can be obnoxious, condescending, wannabe intellectuals and a little bit authoritarian sometimes. BUT, definitely,  we're not fundamentalists.

In my opinion, fundamentalist atheist sounds like a contradiction in terms because, strictly speaking, we, atheists, don't follow a so-called holy book that would be the fundament of our beliefs and thoughts.

So, if you want to criticize, irritate or simply offend atheists (no problem; it's part of the democratic coexistence), I suggest calling us "sectarian", or "intolerant", or "narrow-minded". (How about "pompous fucking bastards"?)

"Fundamentalist", however, is quite inaccurate in this case, I think.

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* I posted a thread of tweets, of course!

2.13.2017

Poor one single book readers!



How many books do you read a year? (Hey, relax. It's just a rhetorical question, okay?).

To tell you the truth, books are not in vogue these days -  come to think of it, they've never been popular before. Ordinary people couldn't afford to buy them. (Just consider the situation in the 1800s or even in the first half of the 20th century, not to mention that a book could cost more than 40 sheep in the Middle Age!).

Things seem different now in many ways. Books have become cheaper than ever and the literacy rates have been increasing globally, which doesn't necessarily mean that we live in a sort of "Readers Era" or something like that. We do not. Definitely. In the USA, for instance, only 5 hours and 42 minutes are spent with reading per week per person. Here in Brazil, it's even worse: 5 hours and 12 minutes. Moreover, each american has read 5.5 books on average a year (brazilians have been reading 4.96). It's disappointing, don't you think?

As if it weren't already bad enough, many people are one-single-book readers. They think it's a big, huge deal - "wow, we've been reading the Book!" - but, in my opinion, it closes their minds and becomes them more bigoted, more intolerant.

As the actor Billy Connoly once said, "Never trust people who've only got one fucking book".