By courtesy of a very good friend, I am on the e-mail list of PATHEOS PRESS, and today’s edition of Patheos has a piece on Richard Dawkins despisers, “Does Atheism Offer Less Beauty, Mystery, and Transcendence?” by Daniel Fincke.  The piece begins by positing a statement/question that most people probably assume to be true: “Like a religion, atheism can offer community and common cause to its adherents. But it lacks mystery, transcendence and beauty.”

I leaped ahead in my thinking before I went on to read the next paragraph.  Because (Now, dear reader,  I am fully aware of how this tired old dodge sounds) some of my best friends are atheists; and in my experience out in a world populated by religious and non-religious people, I  have found people who are non-religious to be every bit as interested in and enthralled by mystery, transcendence, and beauty as religious people.  

Also before reading the Patheos essay, I recalled that some of the narrowest, most emotionally and spiritually constipated people I have ever known clearly like to be thought of as deeply religious, even pious... And while I like strolling through the Russian icon room of the Timken Museum in San Diego; and I often revisit the upstairs galleries of the San Diego Museum of Art where there are many paintings depicting scenes from the Bible or from Christian history, the paintings depicting religious themes most highly valued are those which emphasize the humanity of the subjects.