Posted by SamLowry at cdm-66-12-131-tyrd.cox-internet.com on February 13, 2003 at 13:32:06:
In Reply to: Dogma Chat posted by ScreamingMonkeys on February 13, 2003 at 12:49:41:
"Frederick Buechner says that a true atheist is one who is willing to face the full consequences of what it means to say there is no God (Wishful Thinking: A Seekers ABC pgs. 3-4). What are those consequences? Looking at things like rape, murder, 9/11, and the like and not being allowed to be angry because if there is no God, then there is no measuring stick with which to say that these things are wrong. To be a true atheist, one must watch the Twin Towers fall, with those thousands of lives, and then they must go on about their business, just the way that the hijackers went about theirs, because if there is no God, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with what they did."
-- http://www.denverchurch.org/weblog/03-04-02.htm
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Was looking for the Buechner quote and found this, which pretty much sums it up. I don't know anything about this particular church, so don't consider it an endorsement. But I have read Buechner, and this is pretty much what he was saying. The actual "definition" can be found in "Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC".