[ExI] Fw: Re: atheists declare religions as scams.

[spike]

>>> "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> 
>>> ...  I know an inspiring story based on something that 
>>> actually happened, which I could fictionalize to protect the 
>>> identities, and it involves one who came thru a very trying time by 
>>> faith in god.  It really is a good story.  But you know and I know I 
>>> am a flaming atheist now...  Is it ethical for me to write it? spike
> 
>> Of course you wouldn't be lying, not if you know it's a true story.  
>> As for whether you *should* write it, that's another thing.  There are
pros and cons.  One of the cons is providing fuel for the god-squad. Ben

>Why would it be unethical to admit the truth that belief in god, or at
least some applications thereof, can make it easier to get through at least
some types of very challenging times.  That is pretty well known.  Doesn't
mean god is real or that religion is a more good thing than not or anything
like that.  So how would relating such a story in any wise be wrong or a
form of lying?  - samantha

This whole question is filled with maddening paradox.

>It's clearly unethical to write something you know are untrue, or tell
someone a lie, just to give them comfort...

But of course this is fiction story, a novel.

>So you should consider the ramifications of your story, will it be a story
that makes people understand the world, reality and society better?

Depends on how I write it.  But is the end goal to make people understand
better?  Need there be an end goal?

> - or is it just a story that will further fuel an addiction to whatever
fantasy a person have created in their minds? - Sondre

Depends on how I write it.

I can sharpen the question, but first I must define how I am using the term
fundamentalist believer.  A fundamentalist is one who treats religious
theory as equivalent to any other scientific theory.  This works for
fundamentalists of any religion.  The scientist will say every hafnium atom
has exactly 72 protons, not 71, not 73, exactly 72.  If the scientist ever
discovered a form of hafnium with 71 or 73 protons, the entire theory is in
deep trouble.  Likewise every form of fundamentalist religion is adjacent to
atheism.  For the fundamentalist, religion is not just a folklore than forms
the basis for society, or a framework on which to build ethics, rather it is
equivalent to any scientific theory.  If any tenet of that religion makes
incorrect predictions, the theory is wrong, so out it goes.  Fundamentalist
believers and atheists have way more in common than either likes to admit.

I have a secondary character who struggles for years to unify fundamentalist
religion and science, specifically evolution.  The poor chap is buried in
evidence for evolution, he's just swamped by it.  I have the choice of
ending the story while having him still searching searching searching, a
self-admitted lost soul, tortured by cognitive dissonance.  Or I could have
him eventually admit these two theories will never play well together, they
are mutually exclusive, cannot be unified.  He is forced against his will to
reject his own favorite notion, and embrace that which he dreads, but can
see is true.  The latter is what actually happened to the character upon
which the fictional one is based.  

The religion crowd would hate the story if I told the last part of it.  But
it is primarily for that crowd that the story would be written in the first
place.  I don't see how it would be right to disappoint them if they invest
the time in reading the story.  On the other hand, omitting the rest of the
story feels dishonest to me.

I could write it the story in two parts, with the rest of the story as a
sequel.

spike