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Category Archives: Atheism

Pew study paints a picture of the average US atheist – Aleteia

Posted: February 20, 2024 at 6:54 pm

A new survey measures views of atheists in the US, with data suggesting that not nearly as many "nones" would also consider themselves "atheist."

A survey undertaken by Pew Research Center in the summer of 2023 has shed some light on the portion of US adults who consider themselves atheist. A previous Pew study reported on by Aleteia found that the number of nones, those who do not identify with any particular religion, has surged in recent years. The new survey, however, suggests that not nearly as many of those who fall into the category of none would also fall into the category of atheist.

According to Pew, only 4% of US adults call themselves atheist, a figure that is twice as high as reported in a 2007 Pew study. In the US, men are slightly more likely to call themselves atheist than women, with 6-in-10 self-proclaiming atheists being male. Furthermore, 7-in-10 respondents who said they were atheist reported being aged 49 years or younger.

About three-quarters of self-identified atheists reported having no belief in God or a higher power. This group fits the traditional definition of atheist: as someone who does not believe in the existence of God or gods. There is, however, a considerable portion of self-identified atheists (23%) who say they do believe in some form of higher power, suggesting that there is some discrepancy among atheists as to what constitutes atheism.

Regardless of their beliefs in a higher power, the vast majority of US atheists (98%) responded that religion is not too or not at all important to their daily lives. Still, 79% of US atheists reported a deep sense of wonder about the universe that drives their thoughts at least a few times per year. Of these, however, only 36% reported this line of thought leading to a sense of peace.

US atheists reported high levels of concern with the role religion plays in society. Ninety-four percent of atheist respondents said that religion causes division and intolerance and 91% believe that religion encourages superstition and illogical thinking. Seventy-three percent said that they felt religion does more harm than good to society, but 2-in-5 (41%) said that it helps society by giving life meaning. A further 33% acknowledged the propensity for religion to encourage people to treat others well.

These concerns about religion in society have led many atheists to stay informed about religion. In a 2019 survey on religious knowledge, atheists tended to be among the best-performing groups, on average answering around 18 of 32 questions correctly. For instance, they were most likely to know that there is no religious test required to hold public office, and 8-in-10 also knew that Easter commemorates the Resurrection of Christ.

Read more findings from the 2023 survey at Pew Research Center.

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‘There’s No Science Behind That’: Actor Rob Schneider Passionately Checkmates ‘Bleak’ Worldview Within Atheism – CBN.com

Posted: at 6:53 pm

Comedian Rob Schneider believes having a foundation in God can lead to greater happiness and fulfillment andstudiesconsistently back this assertion.

Listen to them on the latestepisodeof Quick Start

In addition to revealing hope and strength found in faith, Schneider also recently told CBN News he finds the atheistic worldview to be so often devoid of hope.

This idea that things just blew up and the universe is things bumping into things, and expanding, and that we, as human beings, are just this freak accident that happened, he said. [This idea] that this empathy, and compassion, and love that we feel is just this accident that happened, and theres no reason for it, and nothing will come of it,and eventually the universe will just be a series of black holes.

Schneider said he finds such arguments uncompelling and uncorroborated.

I would just go, Well, wait a minute. Theres no science behind that,' he said. And that is a bleak, horrible way to go through life.

Watch Schneider explain:

Schneider said the evidence of love, compassion, and empathy we see in other people exists because it comes from God, the ultimate source of these emotions and expressions.

The actor also said hes spent time of late working on a script about the Shroud of Turin, a famous linen cloth some believe bears the image of Jesus; proponents believe the fascinating apparition was infused on the fabric during his resurrection.

Schneider said his movie about the subject is inching closer to being made, and plans to play a Benedictine monk who helps prove the Shroud is legitimate.

While the films future is still uncertain, one fact is undeniable: the project has built up Schneiders faith.

When you dig into the Shroud of Turin, which is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, you realize that it could not have possibly been, as they say, a medieval forgery, he said. What the Shroud of Turin ultimately is is the receipt. Thats why its such an important thing. Its the receipt of the price that was paid by Jesus Christ forgiveness for all of humanity.

He continued, I couldnt work on this and couldnt see this without being so moved by it.

Read more about Schneiders faithhere.

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Atheists Find God at the Latin Mass: A Review of Mass of the Ages – CatholicCitizens.org – Catholic Citizens of Illinois

Posted: at 6:53 pm

By Jeremiah Bannister, One Peter Five, August 19, 2024

Mass of the Ages, Episode I: Discover the Traditional Latin Mass Directed by Cameron OHearn Produced by Jonathan Weiss and Cameron OHearn Director of Photography Thomas Shannon Original Score by Mark Nowakowsk

Click here to support the project

If its true (and it is) that the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church, then its fair to say thatthe death of director Cameron OHearns fatheris the seed of the greatest Catholic documentary of the decademaybe even of all time.

Mass of the Agesmay have had humble beginningsafter it wasfunded by a grassroots lay initiativebut I can imagine a moment where the team of young men behind the scenes awoke to the realization that this wasnt an ordinary film. Whether Thomas Shannons awe-inspiring cinematography, Christopher Amodios quintessential color grading, or Mark Nowakowskis sensational score, the movies production had all the mixings of something truly great. And if any doubt remained, it was certainly washed away under wave after wave of priests and bishops, scholars, and laypeople telling the tale of how the Traditional Latin Mass totally transformed their lives.

Of course, much can (and should) be said regarding every jot and tittle of the film, but I was particularly moved bysomething said by Dr. Taylor Marshall. For beyond the saddening statistics concerning the shortage of Catholic priests or the tragic loss of faith among the laity, there was (as Marshall so eloquently said regarding the brilliance of the Blessed Sacrament nestled within the setting of the traditional Roman rite) a kind of diamond in this film. This diamond was cut deep by the Great Lapidary, through which the light of Christ seemed to shine most brightthat being, the Mauss family, the central narrative of the film.

The movie began, symbolically enough, with a well-lit scene proceeding toward the illustrious high altar at the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales in St. Louis, Missouri, followed by a descent through the dimly lit sanctuary of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Littleton, Colorado. The optics were captivating, but then, toward the tail end of the departure, the camera gently glides between rows of candlescandles twinkling alongside the black funeral pall of a casket. I shuddered at the sight, and I worried whether this film wasnt what Id expectedor, maybe more accurately, that it was more than I was prepared to handle. The answer came seconds later, witha somber scene at a cemetery, where a family huddled together in prayer.

It was jolting, and tears flooded my eyes, as I saw at this moment a reflection of my own experience. And while I was yet unsure where all of this would lead, one thing was certain: Mass of the Ages wasnt a film I could watch on my own. It was, asthe aftermath of my daughters death with childhood brain cancer, a family affair, something we were destined to experience together. So I rushed to the family room and told them that I had something I wanted them to see and, more importantly, I told them that I needed them, through to the end by my side.

And it was true, for scene after scene struck so many heartstrings, composing a kind of chorus involving the most bittersweet of memories and emotions. Things wed seen, things wed felt, things wed loved and lost many of themso agonizingly beautiful, but all of themthings wehadto do. The comparisons were endless, too! The father,Michael Mauss, was diagnosed with a glioblastoma, given only 12 months to live. My daughter Sami, at only 10-years-old, was diagnosed with anaplastic astrocytoma, which took her life after a mere 16 months.

There was the story of Michael, shortly after learning of his diagnosis, smiling on a hospital bed, assuring everyone hell do his best and that everything will be fine. This fit the exact description of avideo Sami madefor her supporters shortly after learning she had cancer. And there wasthe tear-jerking scene of Michael and Kristine renewing their wedding vows, which reminded us of the time a priest prayed a blessing over my daughter, whom he lovingly referred to as Fire Toes.

Watching this was almost overwhelming, and everyone was in tears, but it was the aftermath of Michaels death that hit me most profoundly. Like Kristine after the loss of her husband, the death of our daughter left my family in limbo, unsure of what the future held in store. By that time, I was a Catholic turned apostate, adrift in the raging seas of secular atheism, lacking what Kristine calls the solid foundation of tradition. But like Fr. Illo points out later in the film, Theres a lot of questions that kids normally have, and if those are not addressed theyll go somewhere else to find the answers. Andmy kids had some serious questions!

Who built the universe,Papa? What is right and wrong, Papa? Why dont you ever pray, Papa?

I addressed them, of course, but I knew I was wrong, and they knew it too, so they continued, even asking to see what church looked like. I did my darnedest to distract and dissuade them, even going so far as to show a series of videos from popular Protestant denominations, banking on the idea that theyd find it all very laughable and they did. But it wasnt enough, as one of them quickly replied,But are we Catholic, Papa?It was specific, and with names like Athanasius, Ambrose Louis, and Teresa Avila Lucille, it was definitely a God thing.

As an Atheist, I finally conceded to our childrens request for God.So like any parent in the 21st century does, we showed them YouTube videos of different religions: Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, as well as the Novus Ordo rite. But when we showed them a video of the Latin Mass, my barely-catechized children understood that that was the only place they sought to find God. Their decision was unanimous: we would go to Christmas Vigil at the local parish where Ambroses godmother attended and where, unbeknownst to us, the priest who blessed my daughter just so happened to preside.

At one point in the film, Crisis Magazines Editor-in-Chief Eric Sammons says, The first impression [of the Latin Mass] for some people isnt always a positive one because its so different from anything they experiencedthey really just dont know what to think. Thats true for some people. For others, that foreign feeling of something timeless and transcendent, something set apart in (and beyond) space and time, is just what theyre looking for and exactly what they need. Kristine knows this all too well, insisting, The idea of eternity, it smacks them in the middle of the eyes every day. For the Mauss family, its where their dad is. For us, its where Sami lives, always smiling, dancing care- and cancer-free for all eternity. And Kristines right: its not to make everything about death, but this life is not what we were created forand to walk my children into heaven however I can is the number one priority of my life.

Conveniently enough, our journey played out in a way that can be summed up by different quotes from the film. Theres Fr. Illos story of the woman who recognized, through the quiet and humbling lens of the Latin Mass, her desire (and complete lack) of control. TheresFr. Joshua Caswell, SJC, detailing how the goal of the liturgy is not to evangelize but to worship God, and yet, how

So many atheists, Satanists, and other people wander into the church, knowing little to nothing about the Catholic faith, and yet are seemingly drawn to it because theres an experience of something bigger than themselves.

And Dr. Peter Kwasniewskis description of how the prayers at the foot of the altar start us slowly and carefully, preparing us for the ascent up the Holy Mountain, granting us a sense of our sinfulness and

A chance to wake up to what we are doing, to catch up with what were doingin a way, to slow us down [serving as] a period of preparation, a period of transition that takes us from secular life to this timeless domain of the sacred.

I was an atheist, but I experienced God at the Latin Mass.And just the married couple recalling their humorous first experience at a Latin MassWhats crazy is that we came back, we kept goingsuddenly we found ourselves returning every Sunday to the traditional Roman rite. For now, like Kristine, my goal and number one priority from that point onward was to walk my children into heaven however I can is the number one priority of my life, and that

The way I have been able to reorder my life [as a parent] has come from traditional Catholicism it has completely, radically transformed every aspect of our livesit is a liturgy and a way of lifethat breeds incredible peace and freedom its a refuge from this crazy scary world, and its the space where I can just place the cross down for a little bit.

Kristine finishes that line of thought with a question: where would we be without this? To which I echo her answer, I dont know, adding only, in a sea of sorrow, a desert of despair anywhere (and everywhere) but Rome sweet home.

And this is the story of countless souls across the world whose lives have been transformed by their encounter with God in the Mass of the Ages. Pope Francis seems to have largely hinged his recentmotu proprioon the claim that the Latin Mass is tied more to the desire and wishes of individual priests than to the real need of the holy People of God (Letter Accompanying Traditionis Custodes). From the grassroots funding for the film, to the stories related therein, to our own experience and those of thousands more, this claim of clericalism could not be further from the truth about the liturgy of our forefathers.

The film elevates the Mauss family brilliantly, set in the cinematic Golden Hour, with Kristine standing with her children along the waters edge of a lakeside shore. Whether dusk or dawn, it doesnt matter, for, as had become evident throughout the film, the Mauss family lives, moves, and has their being in the inextinguishable light of an everlasting fire, one that burns brightly in their hearts, shining forth, mysteriously, through the collective twinkle in their smiling eyes for all the world to see. And behind them, almost prophetically, a skyline of heavenly hills, coruscating clouds, and solace, hidden, yet ever-present, distant, but only for a time. And, as it is with faithful Catholics tethered to the Traditional Latin Mass, its saddled on a circuit, providing warmth and light, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, world without end, amen.

Mass of the Agesis a MUST-SEE movie fit for people of all ages. As for me and my family, we give it a resounding 5/5 stars. We are eagerly awaiting the premiere of Episode II which hints at addressing the real history of our liturgical chaos and the crisis in the Church.

Photo credit: provided by the author.

This article first appeared HERE.

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Atheists Find God at the Latin Mass: A Review of Mass of the Ages - CatholicCitizens.org - Catholic Citizens of Illinois

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Is atheism destroying the moral fabric of society? – Big Think

Posted: July 21, 2023 at 5:07 pm

In the time of Elizabeth I of England and Ireland the statesman Francis Bacon published a short essay On Atheism. It is true, he says, that a little philosophy inclineth mans mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth mens minds about to religion.

But atheism is not just intellectually shallow, he thinks; its morally pernicious. They that deny a God destroy mans nobility. Atheism destroys magnanimity and deprives human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty.

That was in 1597 when atheists were pretty much outliers. But now, we live in an increasingly secular, post-metaphysical age, and significant parts of our populations dont reject religion it just isnt part of their mental landscape. This alarms those believers who think that the moral fabric of society is being destroyed by this loss of religion. Secular humanists, on the other hand, assert that moral standards dont depend on religious belief, and many secularists think that religion itself is pernicious fundamentalist, obscurantist, patriarchal, repressive. This mutual antagonism isnt the only possibility, of course, and fruitful conversation does take place, partners in conversation, listening rather than assuming, seeking common ground.

And there is an intriguing recent phenomenon that has become almost commonplace: Im secular rather than religious but Im also spiritual.' But what could this talk of spirituality mean if it is no longer grounded in religion? Maybe, though, theres something to explore here, possible common ground between (some) believers and (some) non-believers.

The German philosopher Jrgen Habermas once talked of an awareness of what is missing in our post-metaphysical age.Perhaps it is this uneasy awareness that leads to the appeal of spirituality.Well, one of the things that has been missing is fairly straightforward: the solidarity and regular gathering of a community.And human beings are ceremonial animals, as Ludwig Wittgenstein said. Humanist ministers are starting to preside at naming ceremonies, weddings, and funerals.

Surely something else is missing, though. Recall the words of King Lears daughter, Regan, about her father: He hath ever but slenderly known himself. Although secular humanism asserts that we can live well without religious belief, we still need to embrace a language of interiority, inwardness, self-awareness, and self-knowledge. This language is diagnostic, but it is also expressive. There is a poetic of the inner life and its relation to demeanor and conduct; it is agonized, despairing, hopeful, and struggling to overcome delusion, double-mindedness, and self-deception.

This language of spirituality has a history and continues to grow. It is anchored in ancient traditions that made theistic sense of the phenomena, but the phenomena survive the demise of the theistic sense. Moral life does not require religious belief, but it can be informed by the religious traditions. As the British philosopher Mary Midgley once said, Genesis is more nourishing than Dawkins, and she wasnt giving voice to a faith position. One thinks here of Sren Kierkegaards talk of the necessity for what he called subjective thinking, the existing individual, a dimension missed by sticking merely to the facts.

But secular humanism is still associated with Bacons picture of atheism, perhaps because the rejection of belief was thought to entail a rejection of a way of life conformed to Gods commandments that is, the rejection of belief being a kind of infidelity, a refusal of that way of life. But perhaps our deepest human impulses themselves inform this conception of God, human impulses that are not always available to us unless we search them out and break through our collective self-enclosure.

Francis Bacon went on in 1613 to serve as Attorney General under King James I, and just over 400 years later, and on another continent, another Attorney General, William Barr, took up a similar cause. In his book Hatchet Man, the legal commentator Elie Honig said somewhat sourly of Barr that he had railed:

about the evils of secularism, opining that the countrys founders believed that to control willful human beings, with an infinite capacity to rationalize, these moral values must rest on authority independent of mens will they must flow from a transcendent Supreme Being.

William Barr is hardly alone in making this kind of assessment and in making this kind of assumption about the role of human will. But I think it is an important error: It abstracts the will from the sensibility that informs it. It is intriguing that Jean-Paul Sartres atheistic existentialism made moral values a product of the human will because they could no longer be thought of as a product of Gods. This proposition lies at the heart of religious criticism of secular humanism, but the issue is also a deeply political aspect of the so-called culture wars.

Barr is obviously right to say that human beings are willful, and it is surely right that we have a prodigious (if not an infinite) capacity to rationalize. But the unreliability of the human will is common ground. The ancients, after all, saw our weakened capacity for virtue along a trajectory from moral turpitude to slow moral improvement, from wanton indifference (akolasia) through weakness of will (akrasia), to self-control (enkrateia), and to the ideal of temperance (sphrosun), in which moral action flows from a person without inner resistance.

But something else is going on here, which is why I mentioned Sartres popular thought that we choose our values.Barrs conservative position seems to be that it must be the case that if moral values dont rest on a transcendent authority independent of the human will, then they must be thought to rest upon this human will with its infinite capacity to rationalize, and the inevitable outcome is precisely systematic rationalization, permissiveness, promiscuity, relativism, and moral instability. Even in the case of apparently shared values, their authority for a secularist must lie in the human will. For the believer, on the other hand, their authority lies in the divine will, the will of the transcendent Supreme Being. If the human will is so wayward, fickle, and unstable, then thats not much of an authority; at least religious people know when they are sinning, whereas the secularist has, allegedly, lost any secure sense of their own sinfulness.

But why are we talking about authority here at all? And why, specifically, of the (weak) authority of the wayward human will? Talk of authority belongs to a language of commandments, imperatives, prohibitions, and requirements. But they relate more readily to what we do rather than to our dispositions. As to our dispositions, human beings are frequently cruel, vindictive, and ruthless in the pursuit of their interests, and these dispositions are only sometimes tempered by quite different dispositions of solidarity, sympathy, compassion, benevolence, cooperativeness, and, to recall Bacon, magnanimity. Autocrats and their admirers tend to treat the latter as weaknesses. The rest of us, however, are merely conflicted, and if we feel remorse, it is not because we have broken a rule but because we have done someone harm.

One possible theology conceives a good God as creating human beings with an innate capacity for goodness, their constant and willful straying from which is represented by the myth of the Fall. Believers will not be happy with the idea that this conception of the Supreme Being is a projection of our own liberated impulses and dispositions, nor that imperatives about behavior are attempts to recall us to our own stifled dispositions. But whether we are believers or non-believers, the phenomena remain roughly the same, and spirituality includes a methodology of moral renewal. Moral values naturally dissolve into patterns of disposition, demeanor, and conduct. We are so formed that we are motivated by considerations we might summarize as a natural ethic of care. As the American poet Stephen Crane wrote:

The voice of God whispers in the heart So softly That the soul pauses, Making no noise, And strives for these melodies, Distant, sighing, like faintest breath, And all the being is still to hear.

There is a Buddhist echo in these final lines. We have to still the clamor of greed, hatred, and delusion if we are to hear and then see the world as it were for the first time. Perhaps Cranes stillness is precisely the grace of nature that is a condition of hearing our own inner voice protesting against our own hardness of heart. Francis Bacon said that atheism depriveth human nature of the means to exalt itself above human frailty. But maybe it has nothing to do with whether you are a believer or not: The long discipline of learning to listen, both to oneself and to others,may release a passion for justice and a care for our suffocating planet. This is ground, beyond the fray of the culture wars, on which believers and non-believers can stand together.

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The Logic of Faith – Adventist Review

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The just shall live by faith (Rom. 1:27). Of course. How else shall the just live? From mathematics (including simple arithmetic), to the existence of the charm quark, to belief that whales with feet had strolled on land (before they sauntered back into the ocean), to the Second Coming (the first, too) of Jesus, we all need faithintellectual assent to what we cannot provefor what we believe, know, or believe that we know.

Because we are temporary and subjective beings whose sole knowledge and experience of God's creation are electro-chemically piped through our temporary and subjective senses and then translated into images, emotions, and thoughts by our temporary and subjective brainsyes, some nuance, contingency, and error are going to taint whatever we believe, even whatever happens to be true.

Nevertheless, the notion, the canonized notionconcocted, fomented, and nurtured by them who knowand carried through the three and four previous centuries like litter on ocean waves, is that logic and reason are the bitter enemies of, even the archetypical rivals to, the Christian faith. And worse (the notion goes) they are in a Homeric battle forLebensraumin the human mind over whether logic, reason, and science, or ignorance, superstition, or bigoty will prevail.

It's such a farce, another intellectual myth of the modern era that through dogmatic and constant repetition hardens, like petrified wood, into something deemed firm and solid. Having been kindled by the fresh oxygen pumped into a Europe divided by the Reformation, sure, the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution helped purge away centuries of Roman and Medieval superstition and ignorance (though in Italy, at the Basilica of Saint Anthony, the faithful can still venerate the incorrupt tongue [yes, the tongue] of Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things). But this change wasn't instantaneous, as if the world had to wait for Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), John Locke (1632-1704), and Isaac Newton (1612-1727) before it learned logic and reason. And, besides, who is going to accuse Abelard of Bath (1080-1142), William of Ockham (1287-1347), Duns Scotus (1265-1308), and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) of not knowing logic or reason?

In fact, despite beatified rumors to the contrary, Christianity from the start has been baked through and through with logic and reason, in contrast to atheistic materialism, which is neither logical nor reasonable.

The Logic of Creation

Take creation. Something that once did not exist, and then did, like our universe, could not have created itself, right? Whatever created the universe, it wasn't the universe itself, obviously. Logic and reason demand that something elseseparate from the universe, prior to the universe, transcendent to and greater than it (think of the relationship between a sculptor and a sculpture)had to have created it to begin with.

Something separate from, prior to, transcendent to, and greater than the universe. Hmmm . . . like God, perhaps?

However, ruling out God from the start, the atheist has another option: nothing. That is, in opposition to God creating the universe, nothing, as in not-a-thing, did instead. InConjuring the Universe, Peter Atkins claims that the universe arose from nothing, and by nothing, he means absolutely nothing. I shall mean less than empty space . . . This Nothing has no space and no time. This Nothing is absolutely nothing. A void devoid of space and time. Utter emptiness. Emptiness beyond emptiness. All that it has, is a name.1Putting aside the obvious ideology driving the claim, let's judge it, and its rival, God as Creator, from logic and reason alone.

Either this Nothing created the universe and all that's in it, or, instead, an eternally existing God, such asYahweh,created the universe and all thats in it. One option is logical and reasonable; the other is not so much illogical and unreasonable as anti-logic and anti-reason.

Next, we have been assured, over and over, decade after decade, by peer-reviewed article after peer-reviewed article inveryprestigious science journals, that though everything from the structure and function of the human frontal lobe, to the pomegranate seed, to the incredibly complex enzyme cascade central in blood clotting, to dolphin echolocation, though they all sure look as if designed and, yes, sure function as if designed with specific purposes in mind (such as blood clotting to heal torn flesh)nope. Its all an illusion, the belief of people who dont understand the power of atomic and subatomic particles to mindlessly create life, often with beauty, and always with astonishingly precise functions.

Though common fare in the academy is that philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) had decimated the argument from designhe did no such thing; not even close (and that probably wasnt his intention, either). All he showed is that just because a watch is, obviously, designedthis doesnt prove that God, Yahweh, created the universe. Who said it did? What a watch points to is something designed, just as every living thing, from a single cell to the human brain, points to something obviously designed as welleven more obviously designed than a watch because any living thing is much more complicated than a watch.

Hume no more did what they proclaim he did than did Darwin (do what they proclaim he did), which was to demonstrate that random forceswith no forethought or intention but only with blind mechanisms, working on the principle of survival created everything from butterflies, to rhinoceroses, to oranges. (Though one might humbly ask,How did the wonderful taste of oranges aid in their survival?).

Indeed, where did this universal drive for survival that supposedly suffuses all life originate from? It's one thing for a human to try and survivebut a petunia, or an amoeba? Why should what Richard Dawkins calls nonrandom survival2exist, anyway? Does not seeking survival, nonrandom survival, mean an end, a goal, a purposeprecisely what evolutionary theory rejects? Why natural selection; that is, why does natureselect (sounds like a goal) for survival as opposed to non-survival?Survival of the fittest implies two purposes: fitness and survival. In short, the process of evolution sure seems to contradict the premise that it's built on.

If you look at the natural world, from a blue whale to a blueberry, from the human nervous system to the wings of an eaglethe most logical and reasonable conclusion is that they have all been purposely designed, and with an artistry and craftsmanship that defies our knowledge and imagination, especially as we learn more about them. Its kind of ironic that the more science reveals about the complexity of nature, the more farfetched sciences theory of natures origins becomes. The dogmatic denial of purposeful design anywhere in nature, especially when purposeful design is found everywhere in nature, shows how ideology can trump the most basic logic and reason.

The Logic of Daniel 2

Next, Daniel 2. By dating Daniel in the second century BC (even though Daniel dates itself hundreds of years earlier), scholars have long tried to denude the chapter of its prophetic reach. Yet the chapters prophetic reach extends way past the second century BC into not only the rise of the Roman empire but to its breakup into the nations of modern Europe, describing them perfectly, even as they are today.

Some of the nations shall be partly strong and partly fragile and they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay (Daniel 2:42, 43). Partly strong, partly fragile? Germany remains a behemoth while Luxembourgwell, God bless em. Mingle themselves with the seed of men? Europeans, from peasants to princesses, have been intermarrying for centuries, and though not killing each other en mass (at least for now)the continent remains composed of distinctly separate entities, no more adhering one to another now than in the pastjust as the prophecy predicted.

Not bad for a book written, supposedly, in the second century BC. Western intelligence agencies didnt foresee, even one year before, the collapse of the Soviet Union; in contrast, Daniel foresaw the state of Europe thousands of years in advance. And if Daniel could so accurately depict Europe two millennia into the future from himself, then certainly we can trust him to have dated his own book correctly, tooright?

Daniel 2, grounded in something as broad, as wide, and as verifiable as world history itself, gives us logical and rational reasons to trust in the Bible and the God who inspired it.

The Logic of Jesus Resurrection

Despite attempts for millennia to debunk it, the resurrection of Jesus is the most logical and reasonable explanation for events that even atheist historians believe.

First, they believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans; next, that many people, particularly His early followers, claiming to have seen Him resurrected, started what became Christianity; and, finally, that a few years after Christs death, a Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus, claiming to have seen the risen Christ, became the apostle Paul. Though believing these things, how do the atheists explain them?

Mass hallucinations, for instance. Hundreds of people, the argument goes, from different backgrounds, all had the same hallucination: that of Jesus Christ risen from the grave, even though no one expected the Messiah to die and rise from the grave to begin with. Masses of people hallucinating the same event that nobody anticipated or saw coming? Hardly the most reasonable of explanations, is it?

Others assert that they just flat-out lied about having seen Jesus risen. Liedeven though they knew that their lie would lead them, and others, including loved ones, to ostracism, persecution, even death. You might willingly suffer and die for what you believe true. But for what youknowis a lie? As illogical and irrational as lying about seeing Jesus risen would be, thats as illogical and irrational as the argument that they had lied about seeing Him risen.

Or, as the Swoon Theory claims, He never died on the cross but only fainted and, then, after escaping the tomb and slipping past the Roman guards, JesusHis body battered, torn, and bleedingappeared before His disciples as their resurrection hope.

Some have said that Jesus had a twin brother who duped everyone into thinking that he was the resurrected Messiah, and that was how Christianity got started: a case of mistaken identity.

What about Saul of Tarsus? As he was heading to Damascus, a meteorite crashed into the ground before him, and the trauma of that event gave him an epileptic seizure in which he envisioned the risen Christ speaking to him.

In contrast to these moves, all one has to do is believe in God, a Creator God who at times temporarily works outside the natural laws that He made and sustains. A miracle is analogous to a musician who, though usually playing music based on a written score, temporarily departs from that score and plays something else. Logic and reason dont demand that miracles happen, only that, in a universe created by God, they could.

The Unreasonableness of Atheism

Or, instead, you could believe that the universe, and all thats in it, arose from itself or from absolutely nothing. Or that all the obvious design in the natural world merely looks obviously designed but isnt. Or that Daniels accurately depicting the future thousands of years in advance was luck. Or that Jesus didnt rise from the dead, but, wounded, escaped the tomb and appeared to His followers, who mistook His bloodied appearance as the resurrected and glorified Lord, and whom Paul, amid an epileptic seizure brought on by a meteorite, imagined he saw on the road to Damascus.

Or, instead, using logic and reason, you can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and . . . be saved (Acts 16:31).

Clifford Goldsteinis the editor of theAdult Bible Study Guide.

1Peter Atkins,Conjuring the Universe: The Origins of the Laws of Nature(p. 28). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

2Richard Dawkins,The Blind Watchmaker(W. W. Norton; New York, 1996), p. 61.

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Change of plans – USC News & Events – University of South Carolina

Posted: at 5:07 pm

Posted on: July 21, 2023; Updated on: July 21, 2023 By Hannah Cambre, hcambre@maibox.sc.edu

One week before political science and Russian major Josh Hughes was scheduled to fly to Ukraine for a study abroad program, he found out that his trip was canceled because of the escalating conflict with Russia.

I was really upset, says Hughes. I thought, nothing bad is going to happen. Theres not going to be a war!

That was in February 2022. A couple months later, headquartered in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Hughes livestreamed virtual politics classes from a classroom in Kiev late at night, listening as bombs fell in the city outside of his professors window. Though Hughes may not have been in Ukraine, his study abroad plans had been salvagedand he couldnt have been happier with where he ended up.

Im really glad that I was able to go because it gave me a new perspective on everything.

Embracing the initial discomfort of disrupted plans, Hughes threw himself into his coursework, language immersion and cultural experiences. Five days a week, he spent time in political science, Central Asian studies and Russian language classes. The most valuable learning, however, happened outside of the formal classroom, from interacting with strangers to piecing together the vocabulary to tell his host family about a weekend camel-riding excursion with a friend.

I got so much out of living with a host, he explains. My Russian really improved from living with the host family, but also my connection to the city I was living in. Theres nothing more valuable than living with people that have lived in the city youre in for their whole lives. I was able to become much better acquainted with the city, with Kyrgyz culture, and with Russian culture.

Hughes left Kyrgyzstan still feeling deeply connected to the country and eager to return. He knew hed be back someday. He didnt know how soon.

After a conversation with his professor and now thesis advisor, associate professor of Russian Judith Kalb, Hughes decided to apply for the Russian critical language scholarship in Kyrgyzstan. He didnt know what to expect, but his plans certainly hadnt included returning to his sophomore year host country the summer after his junior year. This time, hed begin learning the Kyrgyz language in addition to his Russian studies and start work on his senior thesis research for the Honors College.

After his semester in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet state in Central Asia, Hughes was able to narrow his research down to the impact of militant Soviet atheism in the region. He had observed that though over 80% of the population considers itself Muslim, the country itself is secular and the practice of Islam is often the result of cultural heritage rather than deep religious conviction.

When [the Soviet Union] existed, it was the second-largest Muslim-population country in the world. We very, very rarely mention the 50 million Muslims in the Soviet Union that gets overlooked, Hughes explains. I wanted to study what peoples interactions with religion really were, how they interacted with it, and if there was a link between the years of atheist propaganda and how religion is practiced today.

Before returning to Kyrgyzstan, Hughes flew to Kazakhstan to search the archives for Soviet documents on the handling of religion. He also decided to supplement his archival and literature research with an anthropologic angle, sitting on park benches and interacting with strangers about their interpretation of religion, how they practiced their faith, and their experiences of either living under the Soviet state or in free Kazakhstan. Since his return to Bishkek, hes been doing the same thing in Kyrgyzstan.

Most people probably thought that I was a little bit unusual, Hughes admits, but they were very happy to share their experiences, their story with me. A lot of them were very happy that I was taking an interest and researching a part of their culture and their lives that they are very passionate about.

Researching abroad has been transformative, igniting Hughes passion for learning more about Central Asia and even redirecting the trajectory of his future. He entered his initial study abroad experience hoping to work for the State Department upon his return, but his goals look different now.

His aspirations include graduate school, where he hopes to study the transition from the Soviet to post-Soviet period, particularly in Central Asia. From there, he is considering pursuing a career in teaching. Hughes expresses nothing but gratitude for the chaotic circumstances leading up to his arrival in Kyrgyzstan, and he is particularly thankful for his decision not to give into frustration and stay in the U.S. rather than taking his chances on an unexpected opportunity.

Its changed everything, he says. But its what makes you grow academically, personally. Handling challenges and being able to adapt to them. I cant promise that every unexpected turn is going to turn out as fortunately as mine did, but you never know. Im really glad that I was able to go because it gave me a new perspective on everything.

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71 Years Later, The Weirdest Religion in Sci-Fi History Is Back – Inverse

Posted: at 5:07 pm

Science fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke was famous for the axiom that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but what his fellow golden-age sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov postulated was a little more complicated. In the Foundation novels, Asimov suggests that a science-based religion may actually take hold in the distant future. And, in the second episode of Season 2 of Apple TVs Foundation, we actually see what that might look like on a massive scale.

With the episode A Glimpse of Darkness, the ambitious sci-fi show has given us a much bigger look at a scientific religion, with perhaps more nuance and heart than Asimov pulled off his second Foundation novel, over seven decades ago, in 1952.

Spoilers ahead.

While the majority of the TV series Foundation is a liberal remix of all of the Asimov-penned stories and novels, huge arcs of this season loosely adapt big swings from the second book, Foundation and Empire. This novel was published in single-volume book form in 1952 (one year after the first novel), but it is actually a composite of several novellas and short stories, which go all the way back to 1942, and were (mostly) published in the pages of the legendary SF magazine Astounding (later known as Analog). This means that all Foundation canon was retroactive while Asimov was writing the original stories, which makes David Goyers approach to crafting the TV series smart. In other words, theres no such thing as a faithful adaptation of Foundation, because Foundation was barely faithful and consistent to itself.

So, with that in mind, in the second episode of Foundation Season 2, A Glimpse of Darkness, the series seems to make a major departure by suggesting that the Foundation itself an institution devoted to science and truth is now peddling mysticism. Shouldnt this run contrary to Asimovs staunch atheism and disbelief in pseudo-science? Nope! As we meet two of Foundations most compelling new Season 2 characters Cleric Constant (Isabella Laughland) and Cleric Poly Verisof (Kulvinder Ghir) were introduced to the concept of the Church of the Galactic Spirit. And this notion is perfectly in line with the opening pages of Foundation and Empire.

Kulvinder Ghir and Isabella Laughland as Poly and Constant in Foundation Season 2.

In the opening pages of Foundation and Empire, General Bel Riose is sent by the Empire to determine whisperings of so-called magicians on the outer fringes of the galaxy. The reader quickly learns that these magicians are scientific practitioners of the Foundation. But, as Riose grills a guy named Ducem Barr, he is told, An uninformed public tends to conflate scholarship with magicianry. Again, this is similar to the Clarke axiom about tech becoming indistinguishable from magic, but the practical implementation of this idea in the book Foundation and Empire is pure Asimov.

So, when we meet Poly and Constant in A Glimpse of Darkness, and theyre putting on tech-fueled magic shows for the uninformed populace, theyre essentially preaching the gospel of Asimov, and within the universe of the show, the science-based faith of the Foundation. This takes concepts that Asimov touched upon in the books, to a much more grounded place. Poly, the older, often drunken cleric, is a firm believer in the Seldon Plan, not just because he believes in the science, but because Seldon, at this point, has become a saint. But unlike saints in actual religions, Poly actually saw Hari Seldon when he was a child back in Season 1. This gives his science-based faith some groundedness but also sets up some very interesting conflicts in the episodes to come.

Lee Pace as Brother Day, the reigning Emperor Cleon. Hes not pumped about the Church of the Galactic Spirit.

So, while the Clerics seem a little bit catch-as-catch-can in this episode, the reality is, they have been successfully converting tons of planets on the edges of Empire to the cult of science! At this point in the show, the character of Bel Riose hasnt appeared. But, without spoiling too much about everything that happens in episode 3, and beyond, rest assured, Bel Riose is coming. And just like the magicians from Asimovs second novel, he too has been remixed into a more realistic and grounded character.

On a larger scale though, what the Church of the Galactic Spirit does for Foundation is making the conflict of this Season 2 crystal-clear. The clone dynasty of the Cleons governs over a shrinking empire that is amoral, with people who seemingly believe in nothing. Meanwhile, their rival, the Foundation, is empowering people to believe in a mathematical prophet and the promise of science. Asimov based some of the arcs of Foundation on the falls of real historic empires. But, in this case, the emerging religion that is helping to create a rebellion isnt one that espouses the worship of one true God. Instead, these missionaries just want you to get down with math.

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Twitter taught Microsofts AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less …

Posted: January 2, 2023 at 6:33 am

It took less than 24 hours for Twitter to corrupt an innocent AI chatbot. Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled Tay a Twitter bot that the company described as an experiment in "conversational understanding." The more you chat with Tay, said Microsoft, the smarter it gets, learning to engage people through "casual and playful conversation."

Unfortunately, the conversations didn't stay playful for long. Pretty soon after Tay launched, people starting tweeting the bot with all sorts of misogynistic, racist, and Donald Trumpist remarks. And Tay being essentially a robot parrot with an internet connection started repeating these sentiments back to users, proving correct that old programming adage: flaming garbage pile in, flaming garbage pile out.

Now, while these screenshots seem to show that Tay has assimilated the internet's worst tendencies into its personality, it's not quite as straightforward as that. Searching through Tay's tweets (more than 96,000 of them!) we can see that many of the bot's nastiest utterances have simply been the result of copying users. If you tell Tay to "repeat after me," it will allowing anybody to put words in the chatbot's mouth.

One of Tay's now deleted "repeat after me" tweets.

However, some of its weirder utterances have come out unprompted. The Guardian picked out a (now deleted) example when Tay was having an unremarkable conversation with one user (sample tweet: "new phone who dis?"), before it replied to the question "is Ricky Gervais an atheist?" by saying: "ricky gervais learned totalitarianism from adolf hitler, the inventor of atheism."

But while it seems that some of the bad stuff Tay is being told is sinking in, it's not like the bot has a coherent ideology. In the span of 15 hours Tay referred to feminism as a "cult" and a "cancer," as well as noting "gender equality = feminism" and "i love feminism now." Tweeting "Bruce Jenner" at the bot got similar mixed response, ranging from "caitlyn jenner is a hero & is a stunning, beautiful woman!" to the transphobic "caitlyn jenner isn't a real woman yet she won woman of the year?" (Neither of which were phrases Tay had been asked to repeat.)

It's unclear how much Microsoft prepared its bot for this sort of thing. The company's website notes that Tay has been built using "relevant public data" that has been "modeled, cleaned, and filtered," but it seems that after the chatbot went live filtering went out the window. The company starting cleaning up Tay's timeline this morning, deleting many of its most offensive remarks.

Tay's responses have turned the bot into a joke, but they raise serious questions

It's a joke, obviously, but there are serious questions to answer, like how are we going to teach AI using public data without incorporating the worst traits of humanity? If we create bots that mirror their users, do we care if their users are human trash? There are plenty of examples of technology embodying either accidentally or on purpose the prejudices of society, and Tay's adventures on Twitter show that even big corporations like Microsoft forget to take any preventative measures against these problems.

For Tay though, it all proved a bit too much, and just past midnight this morning, the bot called it a night:

In an emailed statement given later to Business Insider, Microsoft said: "The AI chatbot Tay is a machine learning project, designed for human engagement. As it learns, some of its responses are inappropriate and indicative of the types of interactions some people are having with it. We're making some adjustments to Tay."

Update March 24th, 6:50AM ET: Updated to note that Microsoft has been deleting some of Tay's offensive tweets.

Update March 24th, 10:52AM ET: Updated to include Microsoft's statement.

Verge Archives: Can we build a conscious computer?

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Al-Qaeda: Islamist Qatar Bringing ‘Homosexuals,’ ‘Atheism’ to Middle …

Posted: December 18, 2022 at 3:35 pm

Al-Qaeda and regional affiliate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) both published messages this weekend condemning the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, accusing the Islamist nation of attracting immoral people, homosexuals, sowers of corruption and atheism to the Middle East.

Both messages, one from the regional entity and one from the greater organization, omitted any specific threat to attack the soccer tournament, considered one of the most popular and prestigious sporting events in the world. The al-Qaeda statement, according to some translations, suggested Muslims in Qatar should stoneharam visitors.

Al-Qaeda is a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization most famous for its role in the execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the American homeland. While for some time working under the shadow of the Islamic State, a former affiliate, its wing on the Arabian Peninsula has greatly benefited from the nearly eight-year-old civil war in Yemen.

The lack of direct threat to infrastructure or populated events in Qatar may be the result of that countrys longstanding friendships with Sunni jihadist organizations. American officials have long accused Qatari officials of protecting al-Qaeda terrorists, including some implicated in the September 11 attacks. The Taliban, currently the de facto government of Afghanistan, maintained a political office in Qatar throughout the 20-year Afghan War that it used to negotiate with America. Qatar has also supported the Muslim Brotherhood, a jihadist political party with a militant wing, and faced legal claims in response to allegations that it supported al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria the Nusra Front.

While, for much of the world, FIFA granting Qatar authority to host the 2022 World Cup was met with outrage over its Islamist legal code and rampant documented human rights abuses, particularly against women and people the regime identifies as LGBT, al-Qaeda complained that Qatar was inviting too many immoral people into the Middle East by hosting the event.

We warn our Muslim brothers from following this event or attending it, a statement published this weekend before the event began on Sunday read, attributed to AQAP. The message complained that Qatar had attracted immoral people, homosexuals, sowers of corruption and atheism into the Arabian Peninsula.

On Sunday, multiple sources including the SITE Intelligence Group monitor and France 24 journalist Wassim Nasr reported that the greater al-Qaeda organization had published another statement claiming the soccer tournament was a pornographic campaign against the peninsula of Mohammed.

The statement, according to an unverified translation by the BritishDaily Star, claimed that Zionist-Crusaders were using soccer to launch an invasion of the Arabian Peninsula.

Their acts are alien to our conservative societies and our Muslim peoples. Only they [Muslims] can do their jobs by stoning them, the terrorists allegedly advised.

Jihadists attacking Qatar for not conducting a sufficiently fundamentalist World Cup is the latest in years of criticisms of the country as an inappropriate venue for the soccer tournament, beginning with widespread concerns that Qatar was abusing, and in some cases killing, migrant workers to meet the deadlines for constructing necessary venues by 2022. In 2016, one study estimated that as many as 60 percent of people in Qatar lived in highly monitored labor camps, many of them foreigners lured into the country from impoverished areas of Southeast Asia and then trapped by the confiscation of their passports. Human rights organizations have compiled complaints from workers who say employers do not pay their salaries and threatened to deport them if they complain. A report published last year by the British newspaper theGuardianfound that at least 6,500 people died building World Cup stadiums and other facilities.

Qatar is also notoriously abusive towards gay people, suspected LGBT people, and women generally. In a report published this month, interviews with victims of the Qatari criminal system revealed beatings, abuse, and even gang rape at the hands of Qatari police officers for attempting to meet up with same-sex partners for dates. No reports indicate that al-Qaeda issued any statements of approval or addressed Qatars abuse against gay people in its rants about the World Cup inviting homosexuality to the region.

Western free governments have warned fans and tourists traveling to the World Cup that a wide variety of legal behavior in their home countries such as drinking alcohol, eating pork, or possessing sex toys could result in their arrest in Qatar. Religious books, presumably non-Islamic materials, could also result in arrest.

Qatar has alsofaced longstanding accusations, including formal criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, that it bribed FIFA for hosting rights.

Qatari leaders have responded to global disgust with its government by accusing detractors of racism. Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri used the word racism directly in response to the criticism in an interview with the AFP this month.

They dont want to allow a small country, an Arab country, an Islamic country, to organize the World Cup, he said.

Then-FIFA President Sepp Blatter also accused a great deal of discrimination and racism for the criticism and accusations of bribery in 2015, but he has since called allowing Qatar to host a mistake.

The Emir of QatarSheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani called concerns about human rights in his country an unprecedented campaign to tarnish the image of his country in October.

Since we won the honour of hosting the World Cup, Qatar has been subjected to an unprecedented campaign that no host country has ever faced, the emir said. We initially dealt with the matter in good faith, and even considered that some criticism was positive and useful, helping us to develop aspects of ours that need to be developed.

But it soon became clear to us, he concluded, that the campaign continues, expands and includes fabrication and double standards, until it reached a level of ferocity that made many question, unfortunately, about the real reasons and motives behind this campaign.

Follow Frances Martel onFacebookandTwitter.

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His View: Fear not the atheist; they just might be right – Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Posted: October 17, 2022 at 10:01 am

Political arguments grounded in Christian theology abound in the Opinion section of this paper. As a non-Christian, I tend to skim past. But, Ive noticed over time a distinct revulsion among Christian contributors for atheism and atheists. This is well worth examining, as no religion is the fastest growing religious identity in the world.

I associate with a range of secular humanists, Zen Buddhists, and other godless heathens. They are some of the kindest, most generous people I know. Truth be told, they tend to live in accordance with Jesuss teachings about mercy, compassion, nonviolence and austerity as well as or better than most of the Christians Ive known throughout my life. Christians often claim that atheists lack a moral foundation since they have no god or hell to scare them into behaving ethically. However, the atheists I know are repelled by the idea that people are only good when they fear punishment. Their morality is grounded in basic human goodness: compassion, empathy, love, or failing all that enlightened self-interest.

This isnt to say that atheists are morally superior to the faithful, but neither are they inferior. Morality and religious persuasion just arent that correlated. Throughout history, religions of all flavors have committed evils ranging from slavery and genocide to terrorism and child abuse. While these aberrations do not reflect the basic goodness and decency of most Christians, there is nonetheless zero justification for Christians sense of moral superiority versus atheists or anyone else.

Part of the hostility toward atheism may be because of the fact that young people are currently leaving organized religion in droves, usually for some form of atheism, agnosticism or generic spirituality. But to blame atheists who neither proselytize nor organize for the decline of organized religion is to ignore the fact that people who know what the church has to offer are choosing to leave anyway. Perhaps theyre tired of the hypocrisy and scandals. Maybe the Sunday service is irrelevant, too far removed from the struggles of their daily lives. Perhaps the idea of God has been so trivialized something akin to Santa Claus in the sky that it simply fails to inspire.

Organized religions too often demand blind obedience to symbols in lieu of providing vital engagement with matters of life, death and purpose. Believe is too often synonymous with obey and conform. The innate human longings that lead to the formation of religion in the first place are alive and well, but many now find their expression in political activism, social justice work, online communities, and even in pop music or superhero fandom. Or they just bury those longings with hedonism, distraction and addiction. Theres a need to be filled, and churches are not meeting it, but blaming atheism is futile. If people would rather have nothing at all than what youre offering, its time to reconsider your message.

Ultimately, though, I dont think Christians are afraid of atheists because they consider them to be immoral, dangerous or seductive. Christians are threatened by atheists because theyre afraid they might be right. Atheists mere existence challenges the faith of the faithful and exposes its fragility. To a truly devout Christian, the sight of a nonbeliever should invoke pity. The anger and fear directed at atheists instead suggest insecurity and doubt being projected outward. If youre secure in your faith, the beliefs or lack thereof in others should not faze you.

Questions of where we came from, why were here, and where were going are not really meant to be answered, let alone fought over. They are meant to help us engage ever more deeply with life and the mystery of our being (which is why I refuse to identify as theist, atheist, or agnostic to choose a label and stop exploring is to miss the whole point). Were all just doing our best to make sense out of an existence that is relentlessly ambiguous at best. That we reach different conclusions is inevitable; that none of us has the complete answer to lifes riddle is certain. Instead of seeking conformity with any particular doctrine or label, we ought to live the questions with wonder and mercy for our fellow travelers.

Urie is a lifelong Idahoan and graduate of the University of Idaho. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two children.

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