Atheism in America coming out?

[Democritus]

It is the corrupting and illiberal nature of religion when joined with power that creates the backlashes with the most inspiration.

I wonder how you would react to a statement like this directed toward a lack of religious belief? For example, 'It is the corrupting and prideful nature of atheism when joined with power that creates the backlashes with the most inspiration'?

Is there a double standard operating here? You seem to feel that atheists should be free to sweepingly condemn religion, but people who believe in God shouldn't be free to sweepingly condemn atheism? Is that correct?

As to the substance of the above quote, it is people who are corrupting and illiberal, and therefore responsible for the corruption of spiritual truth, not the other way around.


Edited to quote complete sentence, rather than just the part I was intending to focus on, so as not to be accused of deliberately trying to distort another person's statement.

Cerin

My point is that I have long held the view that when power and religion are combined in the same institution it usually corrupts both. History largely bears me out on this and shows the great value of the framers of the constitution seperating church and state. It has often been said that what guarantees religion remaining popular in the US is that it is not state mandated and it is limited in the public and political domain. The backlash currently building against the evangelicals on this matter bears me out. In the UK the Church of England has been declining for a very long time now, a lot of which has to do with it been a state institution and the combination of conservatism, inertia and unearned privilege this inevitably lead to, and which continues to hurt it.

That is the crux of the point I was trying to make.

[Democritus]

demo: Now I said at the top of my initial post that you could easily dismiss the Blasphemy Challenge as a college-level stunt and similarly you could condemn Dawkins for his some of his more extreme comments (as I have done before) but the point I was making in my essay was that there are feelings and concerns amongst American Atheists that have been building for a while. I explored the reasons for those concerns and feelings in my post and how the more extreme reactions can be utilised by other more moderate voices to a positive end over the longer run.

I reacted to the Blasphemy Challenge because that was the most "interesting" part of your post to me. I was unimpressed by your comparisons to women and homosexuals, and didn't feel there was much to comment on there. I may say more later ... just to be clear I'm not suggesting atheists are never discriminated against.

I didn't merely condemn the Blasphemy Challenge in my first post, either. I characterized it for I thought it really is. It's not an atheist affirmation, but rather an anti-theist affirmation, a participation in a strange fetish.

I do not make an equation between the Blasphemy Challenge and a rejection or a criticism of religion, which you seem to think I'm making. You mention a list of films and artworks I'm not familiar with. I can't say if they have anything in common with the Blasphemy Challenge or not.

I really don't see how the Blasphemy Challenge can be of any use to moderate voices. It will just encourage the sort of negative characterization of atheists that you fear. The Challenge is just disrespect for the sake of being disrespectful. I don't think it's justified by past trauma at the hands of disrespectful Christians, either. The motivation for it may be explained by that ...


yov: I'll look into posting on B77 later this evening.


nel: I'll have to get to your post later. I will just say now that there are different senses of rejecting God and Jesus. There is a big difference between rejecting a religion, criticising a religion, being angry at people in a religion who may have wronged you --- and seeking out some way to blaspheme within that religion.

Well if you are unimpressed with my comparison then that is fine with me, though I hope you have been paying attention to how I have expanded on those points subsequently because I don't want to have to repeat myself. I think the point holds because there are similarities all over the place, I think it is just a matter of degree which people will have different perspectives on.

[Aravar]

In the UK the Church of England has been declining for a very long time now, a lot of which has to do with it been a state institution and the combination of conservatism, inertia and unearned privilege this inevitably lead to, and which continues to hurt it.

Is that really true? Or could it be that it has turned from being the "Tory Party" at prayer to being a hotbed of the wooliest kinds of right-on socialism. It no longer ministers to its constituency, and has not gained anything from the groups who were already catered for elsewhere.

[Democritus]

In the UK the Church of England has been declining for a very long time now, a lot of which has to do with it been a state institution and the combination of conservatism, inertia and unearned privilege this inevitably lead to, and which continues to hurt it.

Is that really true? Or could it be that it has turned from being the "Tory Party" at prayer to being a hotbed of the wooliest kinds of right-on socialism. It no longer ministers to its constituency, and has not gained anything from the groups who were already catered for elsewhere.

Given that it was the reputation of it being the "Tory Party at Prayer" that began all the rot, what with all images it conjured of self-satisfied, state sanctioned paternalism and prejudice. Given the thrusting, multi-cultural, bursting at the seams country that Britain has become is it any wonder that successive generations are beginning to reject the Jam and Jerusalem brigade in favour of more engaging and relevant Church movements (some of which are undoubtedly more odious in their views that the CoE).

[yovargas]

For nel:

...the stereo- type of scientists being scruffy nerds with rows of pens in their top pocket is just about as wicked as racist stereotypes.

(That's a quote he put up on his website.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Democritus]

For nel:

...the stereo- type of scientists being scruffy nerds with rows of pens in their top pocket is just about as wicked as racist stereotypes.

(That's a quote he put up on his website.)

LOL, that's too funny.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I'm not sure I see what is funny about that, Demo. Can you explain?

[Cerin]

Perhaps he meant that he thought Dawkins must be joking?

[Primula Baggins]

It's pretty revealing about Dawkins.

[Democritus]

I'm not sure I see what is funny about that, Demo. Can you explain?

Yes, I have met Richard Dawkins a few times, the last time as recently as a fortnight ago (I've promised Jewel she can meet him). Richard in person has the professorial, polite and earnest air of a parish vicar and he even goes out of his way to see your point of view when you disagree and I have disagreed with him over a number of things. You wonder where the Dawkins of repute is hiding but then he has his moments from time to time where it is like he swallowed a lack of irony pill and that quote is such a Dawkins moment that it made me laugh.

[JewelSong]

Yes, I have met Richard Dawkins a few times, the last time as recently as a fortnight ago (I've promised Jewel she can meet him).

I'll hold you to that one, Demo, especially now that you are obviously on a first name basis with him!

Richard in person has the professorial, polite and earnest air of a parish vicar and he even goes out of his way to see your point of view when you disagree and I have disagreed with him over a number of things. You wonder where the Dawkins of repute is hiding but then he has his moments from time to time where it is like he swallowed a lack of irony pill and that quote is such a Dawkins moment that it made me laugh.

I have told Demo that Dawkins reminds me in many ways of John Silber, the President (or former President) of Boston University. Silber has many good and valuable ideas, and has done some incredibly positive things for BU. However, he has a habit of interspersing idiotic, mean-spirited and just plain nasty comments into his conversation and speeches...so often his pertinent and positive message gets lost in the shuffle. All anyone remembers is the negativity.

I know several people who know Silber personally and all attest to his basic decency, his sense of humanity, his positive plans...in other words, he is a good man. But his public persona belies it to the point where even his friends and supporters sometimes cringe. Dawkins seems much the same in many ways. It's like they just can't help themselves.

[Aravar]

Given the thrusting, multi-cultural, bursting at the seams country that Britain has become is it any wonder that successive generations are beginning to reject the Jam and Jerusalem brigade in favour of more engaging and relevant Church movements (some of which are undoubtedly more odious in their views that the CoE).

Spare me the Cool Britannia stuff. It's so 1997.

[Pearly Di]

Yes, I have met Richard Dawkins a few times, the last time as recently as a fortnight ago (I've promised Jewel she can meet him). Richard in person has the professorial, polite and earnest air of a parish vicar and he even goes out of his way to see your point of view when you disagree and I have disagreed with him over a number of things.

I find that easy to believe, especially since someone can be a Rottweiler in debate and a teddy bear at home - but does Dawkins's tolerant 'parish vicar' persona extend to Christians, I wonder?

I'm not talking about shouting matches, e.g. the Christians who tell Dawkins he is going to hell - such folk are wonderful grist for his mill! I mean the sort of Christian who is neither a scientist nor a brilliant intellectual but an averagely intelligent person who can say why they believe what they do in a calm manner without bopping Dawkins over the head with a big black Bible. I would fit into that category: I'm intelligent but I am hardly a high-brow intellectual. (I'm on my firmest ground when discussing literature ... philosophy goes right over my head). And I am certainly not a scientist.

Judging from my very brief peep at The God Delusion (one of my colleagues was reading it) the impression I get is that Dawkins thinks that all religious people - not just the fundies and loony tunes but also the moderate, balanced folk - are suffering from a mental delusion that needs to be cured.

If that is the case, he is justified in his mission to convert the deluded.

My tongue is firmly in my cheek, btw.

[Democritus]

Given the thrusting, multi-cultural, bursting at the seams country that Britain has become is it any wonder that successive generations are beginning to reject the Jam and Jerusalem brigade in favour of more engaging and relevant Church movements (some of which are undoubtedly more odious in their views that the CoE).

Spare me the Cool Britannia stuff. It's so 1997.

Okay, so long as you spare me the snorting Tory class warrior as its so 19th Century. :-)

[Democritus]

Yes, I have met Richard Dawkins a few times, the last time as recently as a fortnight ago (I've promised Jewel she can meet him). Richard in person has the professorial, polite and earnest air of a parish vicar and he even goes out of his way to see your point of view when you disagree and I have disagreed with him over a number of things.

I find that easy to believe, especially since someone can be a Rottweiler in debate and a teddy bear at home - but does Dawkins's tolerant 'parish vicar' persona extend to Christians, I wonder?

I'm not talking about shouting matches, e.g. the Christians who tell Dawkins he is going to hell - such folk are wonderful grist for his mill! I mean the sort of Christian who is neither a scientist nor a brilliant intellectual but an averagely intelligent person who can say why they believe what they do in a calm manner without bopping Dawkins over the head with a big black Bible. I would fit into that category: I'm intelligent but I am hardly a high-brow intellectual. (I'm on my firmest ground when discussing literature ... philosophy goes right over my head). And I am certainly not a scientist.

Judging from my very brief peep at The God Delusion (one of my colleagues was reading it) the impression I get is that Dawkins thinks that all religious people - not just the fundies and loony tunes but also the moderate, balanced folk - are suffering from a mental delusion that needs to be cured.

If that is the case, he is justified in his mission to convert the deluded.

My tongue is firmly in my cheek, btw.

Oh I agree with you, I think his tendency (along with Sam Harris) to lump in liberal, moderate, even lacksaidasial Christians with bible bashing, homophobic fundamentalists to be the biggest flaw in his arguments. It is precisely what him and I have disagreed over. I also object to his analogy as religious indoctrination as a virus. I think that is a very unfortunate analogy.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

One thing I have been meaning to mention that happened recently also probably is best placed in this thread (I could swear that this subject came up somewhere, but for the life of me I can't find it). 18-term Rep. Pete Stark of the East Bay community of Fremont (about 40 minutes from San Francisco) "came out" as an Atheist (actually what he said was that he is "a Unitarian who does not believe in a Supreme Being''). He thus 'crossed what some are calling "one of the last frontiers" in politics' (does anyone else remember talking about this some time not that long ago, or am I completely crazy). I was happy to see this, although I don't expect that it would be likely to happen with a politician outside the San Francisco Bay Area.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... OKV111.DTL

[yovargas]

V-man, I believe you're looking for this thread:
http://www.thehalloffire.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=946

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I didn't think it was in that thread, but I guess it was. (I'll move these posts over there.)