How Atheist Values Help Correct Religion's Mistakes | Rob Bell

Spiritual teacher Rob Bell believes that atheism is eroding certain religious teachings, and it's a good thing. Bell's latest book is "How to Be Here: A Guide to Creating a Life Worth Living" ().
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Transcript - The beautiful things about a thinking atheist which I think most atheists are thinking – I should say that again. The beautiful thing about atheism is just the refusal to believe in something that’s destructive or misguided or bad for the world. And some gods should be rejected. What I find so fascinating is how many people I know or how many of my friends who are atheists when we talk about the god that they don’t believe in, I don’t believe in that god either. And some people who when you will ask them so you’re an atheist. Tell me about the god you don’t believe it. And they tell you about the image of god they were handed perhaps growing up. You think the only healthy response to that image of the divine would be atheism. Rejection of that.
So religion has done horrible things in the world. A lot of violence has been done in the name of god. And the atheist says I refuse to participate in something that brings destruction and chaos to the world. Now the really interesting thing to me is what do you do with wonder, mystery and awe? What do you do with all of the fascinating cosmology, quantum physics? What do you do with all of the fascinating things where we keep learning new things or human consciousness? Who is the me that stands of observation of me? What does it mean to be a self? Where is personhood located? So I begin with our great mysteries and the idea of a divine being who is somehow guiding the whole thing takes a leap. Of course it takes a leap. But what I find fascinating is none of us have slaves. And a generation ago we did. So a couple of generations ago in America people did. So what is it about something that was a standard cultural practice that we now say that is wrong and unjust. Or you think about women’s rights or the rights of our LGBT brothers and sisters. How many people do you know offer their children as sacrifice? None. And yet that was a normative practice in the ancient world. So what is it about the human story – we’ve been here what – 13.8 billion years? Read Full Transcript Here: .