[Vision2020] Atheists Fight Back

[Paul Rumelhart]

I don't like "militant" atheism any more than I like "fundamentalist" 
Christianity or Islam.

We have got to strike a balance somewhere.  I have a lot of respect for 
the atheist camp that basically says "there is no reason to believe in a 
God or gods or angel or faeries or unicorns, so I won't - and I suggest 
you don't either".  This differs from the "every person on this earth 
who believes this tripe needs to be taught that it is all crap" camp.  
Freedom of religion is an important foundation of our country, we must 
respect it. 

I think atheism suffers from the same problem that some fundamentalist 
religions do.  Atheists (like fundies) think they *know* the answers.  
The atheists should know better.  They respect science, and should be 
aware of it's limitations.  There's a massive gulf between data not 
leading in a given direction and data proving something unmeasurable and 
unknowable is false.

What I can get behind is enforcing the barriers where they ought to be.  
Keep religion out of science.  If you don't like what science comes up 
with as scientists observe nature and pose hypotheses and test them, 
that's your prerogative.  But watering down science to fudge the answers 
you want is not the answer.  On the flip side, don't try to dictate (or 
even pressure or browbeat into people) what you think they ought to 
believe. 

Paul

Tom Hansen wrote:
> >From today's (June 9, 2007) Spokesman Review -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/yojg6g
> "Essayist Christopher Hitchens' book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion
> Poisons Everything," climbed to the best-seller lists soon after it was
> published last month, and his debates with clergy are drawing crowds at
> every stop."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Atheists fight back 
> Books critical of faith climb best-seller list
>
> Rachel Zoll 
> Associated Press
> June 9, 2007
>
> The time for polite debate is over. Militant, atheist writers are making an
> all-out assault on religious faith and reaching the top of the best-seller
> list - a sign of widespread resentment among nonbelievers over the influence
> of religion in the world.
>
> Christopher Hitchens' "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything"
> has sold briskly ever since it was published last month - reaching No. 1 on
> The New York Times' nonfiction list last week - and his debates with clergy
> are drawing crowds at every stop.
>
> Sam Harris was a little-known graduate student until he wrote the
> phenomenally successful "The End of Faith" and its follow-up, "Letter to a
> Christian Nation."
>
> Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion" and Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the
> Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" struck similar themes - and sold.
>
> "There is something like a change in the Zeitgeist," Hitchens says, noting
> that sales of his latest book far outnumber those for his earlier work that
> had challenged faith.
>
> "There are a lot of people, in this country in particular, who are fed up
> with endless lectures by bogus clerics and endless bullying."
>
> Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, a prominent
> evangelical school in Pasadena, Calif., says the books' success reflect a
> new vehemence in the atheist critique.
>  
> "I don't believe in conspiracy theories," Mouw says, "but it's almost like
> they all had a meeting and said, 'Let's counterattack.' "
>
> The war metaphor is apt. The writers see themselves in a battle for reason
> in a world crippled by superstition. In their view, Muslim extremists,
> Jewish settlers and Christian right activists are from the same mold, using
> fairy tales posing as divine scripture to justify their lust for power.
>
> Bad behavior in the name of religion is behind some of the most dangerous
> global conflicts and the terrorist attacks in the United States, London and
> Madrid, the atheists say.
>
> As Hitchens puts it: "Religion kills."
>
> The Rev. Douglas Wilson, senior fellow in theology at New Saint Andrews
> College, a Christian school in Moscow, Idaho, sees the books as a sign of
> secular panic. Nonbelievers are finally realizing that, contrary to what
> they were taught in college, faith is not dead, he says.
>
> Indeed, believers far outnumber nonbelievers in America.
>
> In a 2005 AP-Ipsos poll on religion, only 2 percent of U.S. respondents said
> they did not believe in God. Other surveys concluded that 14 percent of
> Americans consider themselves secular, a term that can include believers who
> say they have no religion.
>
> Religious challenges to teaching evolution are still having an impact, 80
> years after the infamous Scopes "Monkey" trial. The dramatic growth in home
> schooling and private Christian schools is raising questions about the
> future of public education. Religious leaders have succeeded in putting some
> limits on stem-cell research.
>
> And the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding a national ban on a
> procedure critics call "partial-birth abortion" - the first federal curbs on
> an abortion procedure in a generation - came after decades of religious
> lobbying for conservative justices.
>
> "It sort of dawned on the secular establishment that they might lose here,"
> says Wilson, who is debating Hitchens on christianitytoday.com and has
> written the book "Letter from a Christian Citizen" in response to Harris.
>
> "All of this is happening precisely because there's a significant force that
> they have to deal with."
>
> Some say liberal outrage over President Bush's policies is partly fueling
> sales of the latest books, even though Hitchens famously supported the
> invasion of Iraq.
>
> To those Americans, the nation's born-again president is the No. 1
> representative of the religious right activists who helped put him in
> office. Bush's critics see his Christian faith behind some of his worst
> decisions and his stubborn defense of the war in Iraq.
>
> Fuller's Mouw says conservative Christians are partly to blame for the
> backlash. The rhetoric of some evangelical leaders has been so strident, he
> says, they have invited the rebuke.
>
> "We have done a terrible job of presenting our perspective as a plausible
> world view that has implications for public life and for education,
> presenting that in a way that is sensitive to the concerns of people who may
> disagree," says Mouw.
>
> "Whatever may be wrong with Christopher Hitchens' attacks on religious
> leaders, we have certainly already matched it in our attacks."
>
> Given the popularity of the anti-religion books so far, publishers are
> expected to roll out even more in the future.
>
> Lynn Garrett, senior religion editor for Publishers Weekly, says religion
> has been one of the fastest-growing categories in publishing in the last 15
> years, and the rise of books by atheists is "the flip-side of that."
>
> "It was just the time," she says, "for the atheists to take the gloves off."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> ******************************************
>
> "People walking up to you
> Singing glory hallelujah
> And they're trying to sock it to you
> In the name of the Lord."
>
> - Joe South (from "Games People Play")
>  
> ******************************************
>
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