The service on October 26, 2008 was
a panel discussion on the topic "Athiesm: The Epitome of
Integrity. Some days later, reporter Rob Cullivan from The
Outlook interviewed three members of that panel and wrote an article.
Because we cannot follow the changing URLs during the archiving of a
newspaper, we have made our own page on our own website. However, the
Outlook's page for this article is
http://www.theoutlookonline.com/features/story.php?story_id=122610921038695100 The
content of the "real thing" page belongs to the Outlook --
Copyright 2008 Pamplin Media Group, 6605 S.E. Lake Road, Portland, OR
97222 • 503-226-6397
By Rob Cullivan
The Gresham Outlook, Nov 7, 2008
Photo: Annie Tuppan, Bill Smythe and Carol Knox are members of the Eastrose
Unitarian Church and are open to discussions of atheism, agnosticism
and religion in general. Jim Clark/Gresham Outlook
Annie Tuppan, Bill Smythe and Carol Knox are members of the Eastrose
Unitarian Church and are open to discussions of atheism, agnosticism
and religion in general.
Gresham resident Bill Smythe knows what your faithful mind is thinking.
Which is why he’s wearing his new favorite T-shirt, stating he’s your
“Friendly Neighborhood Atheist.”
Smythe says people tend to believe atheists are “evil” because they
don’t acknowledge a deity. However, he and fellow atheist, Happy Valley
resident Annie Tuppman, believe just the opposite – with no deity to
whom they must answer, their morality is based on something more
fundamental – themselves.
“We take the whole responsibility for who we are and what we do,”
Tuppman says, adding she is a humanist who rejects supernatural
explanations for anything. “We don’t have a god telling us what to do.”
Smythe adds he believes religion, particularly of the fundamentalist
variety, can blind people to such scientific insights as evolution.
Indeed, he’s formulated his own “creation” story of sorts.
“Everything started at the cellular level,” he says. “It’s bottom up creation, not top down creation.”
Divining truth
Smythe attends Eastrose Fellowship Unitarian Universalist Church, 1133
N.E. 181st Ave., where he and other similarly minded folks held a panel
discussion in late October on atheism and related issues.
Eastrose is well known for its Sunday discussions on a variety of
faiths and beliefs, as well as social issues. The congregation is home
to a number of people who value insights from all religions and
philosophies developed over the centuries. The panel leader was Gresham
resident and Eastrose member Carol Knox, who says she’s actually more
of an agnostic.
“I believe that anything that is in the imagination is possible,” she
says. “Maybe there is no god. Maybe there are many gods. Maybe the
Christian god is the truth of the matter.”
Indeed, she says, if you subscribe to the theory there are parallel
universes enabling an infinite number of beliefs and outcomes to exist,
anything is possible.
However, she and her atheist companions agree on one thing – morality doesn’t depend on theism.
“What keeps a society safe and running smoothly is what morality is all
about,” Knox says. “I think what we have to answer to is our society
and how much you want to be part of that society.”
Like Tuppman and Smythe, Knox questions relying on a higher power to make oneself a good person.
“When you do not have daddy in the sky telling you what to do and
waiting for you to be responsible, you take responsibility for
yourself,” she says.
‘Religulous’
To varying degrees, all three people enjoyed comedian Bill Maher’s film
“Religulous,” still in theaters. Maher’s movie takes satirical aim at
Western monotheistic religions as well as such beliefs as Scientology.
On the other hand, they all took issue with Maher’s ridicule of
believers.
“As a Unitarian, I think we would not ridicule somebody else for their
beliefs,” Knox says. “We’re humanitarian. We believe in compassion.”
Which is one reason why Tuppman, for example, says she’s never liked
the Christian story of a loving God sending Jesus to die on the cross
for our sins, nor for that matter, the doctrine of original sin, the
idea humans are conceived in a state lacking holiness resulting from
Adam and Eve’s fall.
“I didn’t ask to be born, and I thought why should I have guilt on top of it,” Tuppman says.
Although all three believe humans suffer because of ignorant religious
beliefs and have chafed under theocratic governments, they acknowledged
that when militant atheists are in control – for example, in the former
Soviet Union – humanity doesn’t always advance either.
Knox adds she opposes coercion in general, whether in the name of God or the name of no god.
“Separation of church and state is the best approach in the world,” she says.
Because we cannot follow the changing URLs during the archiving of a
newspaper, we have made our own page on our own website. However,
the Outlook's page for this article is
http://www.theoutlookonline.com/features/story.php?story_id=122610921038695100
The content of the page is -- Copyright 2008 Pamplin Media Group, 6605 S.E. Lake Road, Portland, OR 97222 • 503-226-6397
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