Friday, February 11, 2005
"They are not religious"
I'm currently reading Skinny Legs And All by Tom Robbins, a novel that tackles art, politics, and religion with an exceptionally vivid imagination (ex. some inanimate objects get to be character, etc).
There is one passage that I just read that I found interesting. It's an argument between Ellen Cherry Charles, a young female artist who works at Isaac & Ishmael's, a NYC restaurant across the street from the UN run by an Arab and a Jew, and the Reverend Buddy Winkler, her Uncle from her southern hometown, who is preaching the end of days and is one of the many groups of people protesting the I&I's existence. Ellen is currently defending the two owners of the I&I:
I laughed at his assertion, until it dawned on me that it isn't too far from the many people's view of secular humanism. They don't trust it, and they don't trust us. They don't believe people can be good and kind and able to love the world without any reason. I'm sad that they have a lack of faith in their fellow humans.
There is one passage that I just read that I found interesting. It's an argument between Ellen Cherry Charles, a young female artist who works at Isaac & Ishmael's, a NYC restaurant across the street from the UN run by an Arab and a Jew, and the Reverend Buddy Winkler, her Uncle from her southern hometown, who is preaching the end of days and is one of the many groups of people protesting the I&I's existence. Ellen is currently defending the two owners of the I&I:
(Ellen) "They're kind, decent, compassionate---"
(Buddy) "Kind and decent got nothin' to do with it! In the End Times, there're to be many false prophets and false religions. You, little lady, your false religion is art. Verlin, I often suspect, his religion is football. He ain't alone in that one, lemme tell you. Patsy's religion I don't want to speculate on. But the most insidious and dangerous of false religions is secular humanism. It's so crafty, so sneaky, with its kindness and its decency, that only Satan hisself could've come up with it!"
I laughed at his assertion, until it dawned on me that it isn't too far from the many people's view of secular humanism. They don't trust it, and they don't trust us. They don't believe people can be good and kind and able to love the world without any reason. I'm sad that they have a lack of faith in their fellow humans.
