Kevin Smith’s tongue-in-cheek answer to the Ottawa Citizen‘s “Ask the Religion Experts” question, “How does your faith regard inter-religious dialogue?” deserves a response.
Kevin says,
feel some sympathy for me. Maybe even say a little prayer. The odd complaint I receive is not always from the religious. It’s not God I’m worried about; the extreme atheists are a much more frightening force to be reckoned with.
In 1966, John Lennon remarked that The Beatles had become “more popular than Jesus”; on Sunday, June 3, Kevin Smith implied that atheists are scarier than God.
Well Kevin, God is only one person1, and there are, as you point out, millions of Canadian atheists. Atheists are not monolithic. We are as different as the contents of a box of Smarties; in fact, we are not always in the same box. Furthermore, many of us are extremely critical. Sometimes it appears that the only thing we have in common is atheism. However, while we won’t “say a little prayer” for you, we do “feel some sympathy for” you. Participating in inter-faith discussions is a tough job: you feel you have to please everybody. So Kevin, here is some advice from Ricky Nelson:
You see you can’t please ev’ryone so
You got to please yourself
Veronica