why is it that our contemporary version of aetheism is so mean, so parsimonious, so righteous?

I remember, in Chile, talking to a man about what it was like to grow up in a country so dominated by religion. He said that being agnostic was considered a more radical position, because the negation of aetheism merely affirms organised religion through its binary sum. The agnostic admits to not-knowing or not-caring -- and, I would hope, allows other ways of being the world to flourish.

I should listen to this guy again ...
Terry Eagleton 'The God Debate' (you tube)
Download audio here (ABC Radio)

I have been troubled by this graffiti for some weeks. It irritates and saddens me in turn. Not only because the observation is somehow superfluous, and not only because there is a self satisfied quality to it. Perhaps because there is something deadeningly predictable in exactly this type of naive and idealistic comment being freshly sprayed on the walls of urban buildings each summertime. Do we need reminding that there are no ordinary moments? What have we done to deserve such ugly yellow lettering? If no moment is ordinary, and they are all extraordinary, where does that leave us? ... back in the repetitive, relentless parade of one moment after another, undifferentiated apart from the annoyingly bright observation that it is up to us to make them somehow 'special'.

... America is understood as the place in which freedom is construed as a matter centrally, perhaps exclusively, of individual liberty (as opposed to the achievement of the power to do or be something in particular - for example, to be more fully human or more properly faithful). Most Americans exercise their liberty by pursuing happiness and satisfaction in the private spheres of family life, consumption, and enjoyment. Larger workplace and public identities are taken to be instrumental to satisfactions in these more private spheres, unless, of course, some people just happen to enjoy political work or quasi-familial workplace friendships or workplace activities. The business of politics in America is the fair reconciliation of competitive individual and factional interests. There are not enough goods to go around to enable everyone to satisfy every preference. Government hence properly sets up rules of fair competition, including centrally the laws of property and person and the laws of contract, fair trade, workplace safety, and nonexploitativeness.

Richard Eldridge
Cavell on American Philosophy and the Idea of America
in "Stanley Cavell" Cambridge University Press, 2003