personally am less surprised that it comes from an aetheist--if you're not beholden to one particular faith, I would imagine making up faiths becomes easier.
Because generally speaking, one doesn't usually think of atheists as being as interested/educated in religion as JMS probably is (he has to be to have come up with all the things he did--you just can't make that stuff up in a vacuum, at least not to that level of detail). Thus I wouldn't say I agree with you exactly, but I do think that it's easier for an atheist to look at a variety of different faiths for what they are, without bias, and to see what's good about them all, what's useful, etc. Still, it's more of a general perception thing, which in my case may come from growing up in a town where the local atheist regularly sent inflammatory letters to the editor to piss all the religious folks off. When I think "atheist," that's the first image that pops into my mind, right or wrong. It's a shame the term has such a stigma when the simple lack of belief in a deity doesn't automatically mean you're an asshole.
And I poked around YT this afternoon and found that bit pretty easily, so no need for the DVDs right this minute (though I'm tempted to get them out and spend next week mainlining as much as I can, from the beginning, until I can't see straight...).
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-06-08 11:45 pm (UTC)Absolutely!!
personally am less surprised that it comes from an aetheist--if you're not beholden to one particular faith, I would imagine making up faiths becomes easier.
Because generally speaking, one doesn't usually think of atheists as being as interested/educated in religion as JMS probably is (he has to be to have come up with all the things he did--you just can't make that stuff up in a vacuum, at least not to that level of detail). Thus I wouldn't say I agree with you exactly, but I do think that it's easier for an atheist to look at a variety of different faiths for what they are, without bias, and to see what's good about them all, what's useful, etc. Still, it's more of a general perception thing, which in my case may come from growing up in a town where the local atheist regularly sent inflammatory letters to the editor to piss all the religious folks off. When I think "atheist," that's the first image that pops into my mind, right or wrong. It's a shame the term has such a stigma when the simple lack of belief in a deity doesn't automatically mean you're an asshole.
And I poked around YT this afternoon and found that bit pretty easily, so no need for the DVDs right this minute (though I'm tempted to get them out and spend next week mainlining as much as I can, from the beginning, until I can't see straight...).