Atheism redux

I have to write a response to my son's recent (and very excellent) post on atheism. Jordan's blogpost. It is punctuated with a number of cartoons and graphics which I found (for the most part) both helpful and hilarious. Having made a living as a professional religionist for much of Jordan's life, I am not unfamiliar with some of the ridiculous presumptions and behaviors of religious people. I also think that ALL people are "religious". Thus, ALL people behave (to one degree or another) ridiculously, and ALL people hold some ridiculous presumptions. God! What a sweeping and ridiculous generalization! Sure, but permit me to elaborate a bit.
There is some debate concerning where the word "religion" comes from. It has found its most popular use in the 20th century to define the major systems of belief found among the various populations on the planet (Christian religion, Hindu religion, Muslim religion, Jewish religion, etc). Most of these certainly postulate a "transcendent" dimension, a God or pantheon of deities. Those who participate in the rituals or presumptions associated with these systems are "religious". Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish philosopher of the early 19th century, was probably the first to describe the "religious" person in psychological terms. He used the phrase "leap of faith" to describe an individual's psychic development past the limitations of strict ethics or amoebic aesthetics, to arrive at a personal commitment to a chosen way of life.
Today, I often hear "I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual". It would appear that to be labeled "religious" today is considered out of fashion or a social liability. In this context, "religious" means "commited to a ritual practice and prescribed belief system". "Spiritual", it seems, refers mostly to one's openness to new transcendent possibilities, without being attached to any particular system. Thoroughly modern, very American.
I came to my own "faith" after significant ambivolence toward religion in my teen years. I found a kind of love and acceptance among the the people of our family's church that I didn't feel at home or in other settings during that phase of my life. At the same time, I was perplexed by what I judged to be a strange paradox - this love and acceptance seemed to emerge from this community's primary commitment to a big book with odd language, and to certain ritual activities and practices that were difficult to understand. Over the years, I came to trust the book and the rituals, and to acknowledge the comfort and connections they offered.
Which brings me back to why I believe all of us are "religious". The root of the word "religion" is in Latin. "re-" is a prefix meaning "again". "-ligare" means "to connect" (we get "ligament" from that root). We are "religious" to the degree to which we experience disconnection  from our world, and seek to re-connect with it.
Thus, Jordan's injunction that "what matters is that we treat each other according to nature's moral code" is a religious statement. We re-connect with our world when we recognize that we are part of  this world. Formulaic religions too often seem to emphasize the "other" world where we "really" belong, with the consequence that we treat "this world" as expendable. Jordan recognizes that the moral codes created within parochial belief systems have widely missed the true mark of religion: reconnecting humans with our world. In fact, these codes have often served to deepen the gulf between us and "nature". The remedy - to restore the bonds we have broken - is to rid ourselves of the codes of behavior imposed upon us by religious agencies, and obey instead the basic natural impulses religious authorities have taught us to control and silence.
I want to conclude this by saying that "atheism" is not a new phenomenon. It has always had a fairly strong representation in western culture, though muted by the ubiquitous character of Judeo-Christian norms. We are fortunate (in my opinion) that courageous and scholarly voices have come forward in the past decade or two, to make public the atheistic arguments. I respect Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens for stepping up to this task. I am also grateful for comedians like George Carlin, Bill Maher and others who have helped many of us "religious" types not take ourselves so damn seriously. I am actually thrilled to be able to engage in meaningful conversations on the subject of God or not-god these days, and look forward to renewing the tradition of civil debate about issues that matter!