Because of the Notre Dame cathedral blaze and the Israel Folau imbroglio these are intellectually-stimulating, emotion-churning days for the thinking, brainy atheist.
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How is it that the thinking atheist feels such angst and sadness at the news of the damage to a hulking Parisian place of worship of a deity, God, the atheist knows is only an invention of simpletons' superstitious minds?
Why does the thinking atheist feel some almost Christian sympathy for Folau, the Christian simpleton? Why does the charitable atheist doubt that it is fair to describe his daft, declared extreme Christian ideas about homosexuals (and other sinners) as "hate speech"?
First to the vilified Folau.
It is a shame that be believes the biblical balderdash he does believe in and it is a tragedy that what he believes about homosexuals' fates (Hell, unless they repent) may make matters worse for those already oppressed by prejudice.
But the characterisation of Folau as a bigoted fiend is unfair.
His actual nature is expressed in his mild-mannered explanation of his beliefs in his 2018 op ed I'm A Sinner Too. Simple, sincere, and eloquently ignorant, there is not a ranting, deliberately hate-stoking word in it.
The argument that he should keep his Christian ideas (about sinners being at risk of eternal hellfire) to himself misunderstands things. Busy-minded, Bible-respecting Christians know that they are commanded to speak up. Lazy, do-nothing Christians choose to just quietly wallow in the warm bath of their Christianity (its waters warmed by comforting promises of forgiveness of one's sins and of a five-star Heavenly afterlife). But busy Christians, like Israel Folau, know that the Bible tells them again and again that they as believers MUST actively spread the word.
Indeed, we read in the often hair-raising Book of Ezekiel (and I bet busy Israel Folau knows this passage, Ezekiel 3:17-19, chapter and verse) that failing to intervene by explaining to sinners how they may save their imperiled souls is wicked and is itself a mortal sin. God tells Ezekiel, in a booming voice, that if believers don't warn sinners how they may avoid Hell and those sinners duly go there because you didn't coach them in true repentance, those derelict believers too will go to Hell.
Insofar as anything about Christian thinking makes sense this (the insistence we have a Christian obligation to warn our fellow creatures of terrible risks) sounds quite reasonable. Folau loves us sinners so much he wants to save us from the wrath to come.
I'm saying (I think, because these are head-muddling issues for thinking folk) that Israel Folau's sheer sincerity in what he says about sinners and Hell is somehow a defence against teeth-gnashing accusations that he is a hatemonger.
No, he's wrong about everything. There is no Heaven and no Hell, and gay people are not as free to be straight as he is free (although Folau's mind is not as agile and supple as his wondrous body and one can't imagine him reading any of Richard Dawkins' books) to be irreligious.
Meanwhile, because as Socrates insisted, the unexamined life is not worth living, millions of thinking atheists are examining why the news of the Notre Dame blaze filled them with such dismay.
First news reports of the fire suggested then cathedral was utterly destroyed. Hosts of us found that item of news, about catastrophe befalling a building, somehow eclipsing the importance of news stories reporting catastrophes befalling our flesh-and-blood brothers and sisters. Subsequent news, reporting that lots of the cathedral was saved, was a source of great relief and great joy.
Some of our bewilderment about all this must be due to the way in which we are not at all used to responding to news of catastrophes befalling great things. News of terrible atrocities inflicted on people (by war, say, by Sri Lankan terrorism, by accidents and earthquakes) is usual. We somehow understand (because the victims and the grieving are flesh and blood, like us) what it is we are feeling.
But the destruction (we thought at first) of a dear building, in a beloved city, somehow sent unfamiliar feelings scurrying round the mind looking for appropriate places to perch.
Why has it felt so tragic? Why did it smite some of us as powerfully, in its own different way, as the first news of the Sri Lankan atrocities?
Did we feel Notre Dame's was a tragedy for our species, for civilisation? Was it essential to know Paris and the cathedral (this shaken columnist has been to and marveled at both) for feelings to be so acute?
Were our horrified feelings unique to that fabled building in that gabled city? Or do any of us live in a city similarly blessed with a structure that so represents that city, that its sudden destruction would so shake and dismay us?
Does an example leap to mind, thinking citizens of Australia's cities? If not, why not? Is that our cities are somehow too prosaic, not Parisian enough?
Australians in general and Sydneysiders in particular, what if a fire suddenly destroyed the Sydney Opera House? Would that cause you a variety of distress identical to what's so hurt France and the Parisians?
Or is it crucial to the horror we (atheists and believers alike) feel at the French fire that what was burned was a Christian cathedral, a pillar of our species' spiritual side?
