Monthly Archives: April 2017

I had intended to confine my long-jump from Senate controversies and the Carson case to the moth-eaten current state of the Enlightenment in the West to mylast two action-packed columns here. But the scope and vigour of the reaction they elicited obliges me to return to the subject for the last instance for what I promise will be a long time. Many thanks to readers for the approximately three quarters of the messages that I received that were positive and sensible, and betrayed no trace of proselytizing Christian zeal, which is a much too energetic and narrow focus than I am personally comfortable with(though, of course, I respect it, as I do all sane views on this contentious subject). I am less grateful for the unctuous assurances of the self-professed agnostics and atheists at pains to tell me they were law-abiding and civilized. I never implied otherwise, and have no problem with agnostics, who at least imply that their minds are open.

I have had as much as I can take for a while of the belligerent atheists who come crackling through the Internet assuming the airs of prosecutors, declaring ex cathedra that any suggestion of the existence of a supernatural force or that anything is not explicable by applied human ingenuity is medieval superstition. They have a trite little formula that they dont have to prove the existence of anything and so have the high ground in any argument and then lapse into Hitchensesque infantilistic mockery about pink-winged little men in the clouds. They are repetitive and obnoxious and their fervour betrays the vacuity of their position. I am declaring a moratorium for at least afew monthson trying to reason with these self-exalted champions of reason.

Because there was so much misunderstanding and overwrought, misplaced hysteriafrom some readers, I will wind this up by restating key points with mind-numbing simplicity. We have no idea how the universe, or any version of the life and context we know, originated. We have no idea of the infinite, of what was before the beginning or is beyond any spatial limits we can imagine, even with the great exploratory progress of science. Miracles sometime occur and people do sometimes have completely inexplicable insights that are generally described as spiritual. No sane and somewhat experienced person disputes any of this. But there is a cyber-vigilante squad of atheist banshees that swarm like bats over such comments and are hyperactive philistines better responded to with pest control measures than logical argument.

My contention is that it is more logical and reasonable to attribute these phenomena to the existence of a supernatural force or intelligence than either to deny that they exist, or to take refuge in the faith that they are merely aspects of our environment that we will eventually understand as we explore our planet and the contiguous universe.

I made the point that the Enlightenment that produced what is commonly called the Age of Reason started with a fusion of religious exuberance, scientific and intellectual exploration, and artistic and literary originality, all of which elements essentially reinforced each other. But the Enlightenment gradually adopted the position that science, exploration and reason are incompatible with religious faith, although the Judeo-Christian traditionthe role of conscience, the practice of justice, mercy, and forgiveness, along with intellectual curiosity and initiative are the overwhelmingly powerful formative force in our history. Montreals Paul-Emile Cardinal Leger was generally acclaimed when he addressed the scientific and intellectual communities at the Second Vatican Council and described faith as This greatest friend of the human intelligence.

I did not suggest that the probable existence of a supernatural intelligence required anyone to plunge into religious practice or worship of any kind. That is a matter of taste and people should do what works for them and avoid what doesnt. I did not imply for an instant that those who deny the probability of a supernatural intelligence, whom I defined for these purposes as atheists, were incapable of being honest and decent people. Of course, in our society, most people, including most atheists, are reasonably honest and decent and get through their lives without horrible outbursts of sociopathic behaviour. I did write that those atheists who purport to espouse the Judeo-Christian life without admitting the probability of some supernatural force are essentially enjoying the benefits of Judeo-Christian civilization while denying even the least onerous definition of its basic tenets. Thus do schism and hypocrisy raise their hoary heads.

As atheists renounce the roots of our civilization, they are troublesome passengers, and are apt to be less integral defenders of the West in time of challenge. They often dissent so uniformly and strenuously from any theistic notions that they have effectively established a third force that enjoys the society Judeo-Christianity has created while despising Judeo-Christianity and also purporting, generally, to despise the succession of dangerous adversaries that have threatened Judeo-Christianity, including Nazism, international Communism, and radical Islam.

Of course, an immense number of atheists, as defined here, fought with great valour over centuries and up to the present to defend our civilization. They certainly found it preferable to the enemies assaulting it.But they pose the difficulties of what Cardinal Richelieu called a state within a state (referring to autonomous 17thcentury Protestants) in renouncing Judeo-Christianity while enjoying and espousing an intellectually neutered version of it.They are effectively setting up a third option between Judeo-Christianity and its mortal enemies. This is an illegitimate option, intellectually, since it is really a hijacking of the West from its origins. It also does not gain any recognition from our enemies: the Islamic militants despise the West not because of the faith at its origins, but because it perceives the West now as a society without any spiritual views or values at all; as a wretched mass of materialist atheists (an understandable misapprehension at times). Presumably, we are all powerfully motivated to resist such an Islamic assault and will all presumably lock arms again and repel boarders when and where necessary, as we have since the rise of the Christian Era.

It is, however, and as I also wrote, a steadily more uneasy alliance between the atheists on one side and the theists and agnostics on the other, precisely because the commanding heights of our society the ranks of government, academia, and the mediaare so heavily dominated by aggressive atheists vocally contemptuous of Judeo-Christianity. The frictions in our own ranks become steadily more aggravated. Our Islamist enemies (which it need hardly be emphasized is far from being all Muslims) do not, when they contemplate us, detect our religious tradition, or any respect for anything except hedonistic and consumerist pleasures and spectacles. Of course, this is to some extent an illusion, as all polls and most experience show that the great majority of people in the West do accept the basic premise cited at the outset of this series of columns, that the most probable source of the inexplicable is a supernatural intelligence.

I also wrote that the atheists are becoming steadily more aggressive, more generally dismissive of the supernatural tradition, while swaddling themselves in commendable precepts that are generally variants of the Golden Rule and other such formulations. These are fine, but they will not in themselves assure a norm of social conduct and they have already led to the ghastly enfeeblement of moral relativism. Alternative scenarios emerge of equal worthiness, as right and wrong are concepts that are diluted by being severed from any original legitimacy. All schools of behavioural conduct compete on a level playing field and disorder gradually ensues. Man is deemed to be perfectible, the traditional matrix for authoritarianism. Where there is deemed to be no God the classic human deitiesor Robespierres Supreme Being, the Nazi Pagan-Wagnerian leaders, or the Stalinist incarnation of the toiling Slavonic masses replace deities. Anyone who imagines that our legal system, unto itself, will assure acceptable social conduct has had little experience of it. The entire apparatus of our society of laws has degenerated into a 360 degree cartel operated by and almost exclusively for the benefit of the legal profession.

Atheists are becoming steadily more aggressive, more generally dismissive of the supernatural tradition

I also wrote that, indicative of our deteriorating societal moral confidence and cohesion is our cowardly indulgence of sociophobic Islamwe both under-react to the outrages committed by Islamists and incite the inference that this is what religion produces. The implication, which was explicit in an exchange in this space last month, is that Islam is not more violent than Christianity, and that once embarked on the idea that any religious or spiritual conceptions at all may be worthy of consideration, that will include terrorist versions of religion. (That exchange had the added flourish that Nazism was deemed by my correspondent to be a discernible outgrowth of Christianity, an unspeakable falsehood and defamation.) There is even an element of this in the mawkish, excessive pandering to and amplification of the grievances of the native people in Canada. They have grievances and we have to address them more generously and thoughtfully than we have. But no one in the official leadership of Canada as an autonomous jurisdiction ever dreamt of imposing any version of genocide on them, and bumping John A. Macdonald off the currency and likening him to Hitler is a profanation made more scandalous and repugnant by its cowardly acceptance of historic lies.

I made all these points in gentle terms, as impersonally as I could, and dealt even with sharpish and laborious correspondence in the same way. These are, however, I submit, facts that have very serious implications for all of us, and we should not, as a culture and as a civil society, sleepwalk around them any longer.

National Post cbletters@gmail.com

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Conrad Black: I put this as simply as possible: Many atheists are excellent, but atheism itself is hurting the West - National Post

Students packed the CUB auditorium on Friday night to hear an atheist and a Christian discuss whether science supports atheism.

The event was presented by the Veritas forum, a non-profit Christian organization that holds discussions across college campuses to ask life's hardest questions, according to their website.

The discussion featured WSU professor Margaret Davis, an atheist, and Washington University in St. Louis professor S. Joshua Swamidass, a self-identified scientist Christian.

Davis said she was raised Christian but began to question it at an early age. She said she became an atheist at age 14 and now also considers herself a humanist.

Swamidass was raised Christian and, like Davis, soon began asking himself if he would still be a Christian had he not been raised that way. It was then that he began to study and try to find something within the Bible that he said was not man-made. It was once he began to study Jesus Christ that he really started believing, Swamidass said.

He said he believed the evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead, pointing to the book More Than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell, as something he read early on that cemented his faith.

Swamidass said the only evidence he could find for the existence of God was Jesus.

Davis said she believes the world is governed by science. She said she lives her life thinking from a rationally scientific point of view, and from that she did not think a creator was the most plausible explanation.

I dont think there is a higher reason for us being here, Davis said.

Swamidass asked Davis if there was any part of her that wondered about the existence of a God, to which she replied that she believed the Christian God was a human creation. She said if there was a God, it may or may not be a cloud, or a giant turtle floating in space.

Davis said she could not imagine an accumulation of evidence which could convince her of the existence of God.

Both discussed how historically natural phenomena such as earthquakes or lightning were said to be Gods doing and now are explained scientifically.

Theology is just the attempt to understand what transcends human understanding, Swamidass said.

Davis said she believes one day science will come close to, or answer, all of life's questions, including those about human consciousness.

Many students described the event as interesting, but also said it was not what they were had expected. Two students said they identified as Christians but did not believe Swamidass accurately represented them in his role.

There is a lot of value in hearing two different perspectives, said Ty Bjornsom, a WSU junior.

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Professors debate relationship between atheism and science - The Daily Evergreen

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. This is not just a lyric in a Lumineers song, but a universal truth that could be applied to loves sister in virtue: faith. The opposite of belief in God is not in fact that long despised enemy of godly people everywhere, atheism. The enemy of belief, rather, is run of the mill indifference. This notion is given credence by Tommy OHavers The Most Hated Woman in America, a recent film from Netflix. The film goes a long way in arguing that atheism isnt the converse of theism, but just another shade on the color wheel of belief, with all the pageantry and chaos which that frequently entails.

The film tells the (true) story of Madalyn Murray OHair (Melissa Leo), a woman who garnered notoriety in the early 1960s for suing the Baltimore public school systema move that ultimately led to a Supreme Court decision banning mandatory bible reading in the public school classroom. OHair then went on to found American Atheists, a national organization dedicated to advocating for the rights of atheists, while continuing to work toward ensuring the separation of church and state.

In the summer of 1995, OHair, along with her youngest son and granddaughter, was kidnapped and murdered by a former employee of American Atheist. Eventually it came to light that the murders were an attempt to seize the substantial amount of money OHair had laundered into offshore accounts throughout her time at American Atheists.

The films primary thrust is exploring the what, the why and the how of OHairs kidnapping and murder. Outside of the Supreme Court case that first brought OHair to the publics attention, OHairs activism on behalf of the atheist agenda is paid little heed by the filmmakers. The audience is left with a paint-by-numbers look at the seemingly inevitable corruption that bubbles to the surface when a grassroots movement turns into an organized institution.

The film is quick to indict OHair as no better than the corrupt religious leaders and institutions that she rails against. As she becomes the public face of unbelief, people start donating money to her and the movement she dubs The Cause, and with that comes the incorporation of American Atheists. OHairs rise to fame includes making the cover of Look magazine, where she was first given the films title phrase. We see her in the guest chair of those late 20th century cultural mainstays, Johnny Carson and Phil Donahue, talking fast and loose at a time when the public did not necessarily want its public figures to tell it like it is.

OHair quickly discovers the financial benefits that come with being the face of a beliefor non-belief movement, as it were. Most Hated makes a point of highlighting her collaboration with televangelist Bill Harrington, which consists primarily of their questionably authentic debates for and against religion, put forth for public consumption in the style of P. T. Barnum, andmore importantlydesigned for profit.

Melissa Leo as the hard-to-love OHair gives integrity and complexity to a character who could have easily been played for laughs. She never condescends to OHair and gives authenticity to a volatile and larger-than-life woman without overplaying or veering into camp. It is unfortunate that the rest of the film cannot live up to Leos incredible work, as the production values are shoddy and the writing is strictly TV-movie-of-the-week. The remainder of the casts talentwhich includes Peter Fonda, Juno Temple, Josh Lucas and Adam Scottis wasted in a film that primarily plays like a poorly done imitation of a Coen brothers film.

OHairs story does, however, raise questions worth investigating. The most significant: Can a deeply embedded commitment to unbelief avoid mirroring the very thing it opposes? It would seem that any cause worthy of faith and commitment cannot help but become organized, incorporated and hierarchical. An ideology, a faith, a movement, always begins rather formless, even chaotic, necessitating a leader to give it shape, be it Jesus, Lenin or Madalyn Murray OHair.

As dark a gloss as Most Hatedtries to put on organized movements, the fundamental reality seems to be that we need some kind of hero, or vaunted ideal (be it Jesus or Never Jesus) to give some sort of shape to our existence. And we like to run in packs, or prides, groups, coteries, sects, denominations, religions, take your pick; but whatever you call them, we like to be a part of them. We like to be a part of.

The reality is that people need something to believe in, even if that very thing just happens to be unbelief.

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Renowned atheist is hated, murdered, revived in new Netflix film ... - America Magazine

Apr 5, 2017 at 3:50 pm | Print View

DES MOINES An atheist urged members of the Iowa House to invoke the holy trinity of science made up of reason, observation and experience as they went about their work Wednesday.

The trinity, Justin Scott of Waterloo said in offering the opening prayer, would allow lawmakers to address issues before them without allowing confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance or intellectual dishonesty to blindly guide positions and votes.

Scott, believed to be the first atheist to offer the morning invocation in the House, said his trinity isnt rooted in dogma or doctrine and doesnt care what our feelings are or what our deeply held beliefs are.

Scott, the guest of Rep. Timi Brown-Powers, D-Waterloo, said he put a lot of thought into preparing for the invocation but it didnt hit him until about 4 a.m. that the message should be about process, because at the end of the day, we are all humans and when we face challenges, all we can count on is ourself, the abilities weve been born with, the talents weve developed.

Science, he said, is all about thinking about something, analyzing it, processing it and being open to the fact that what you thought about Subject A may not be what the evidence actually tells you.

Thats something lawmakers deal with every day as they come to the Capitol with preconceived notions not even on a religious level, he said.

Scott, a professional photographer and social media consultant, said he was representing not only atheists but freethinkers, skeptics and humanists. He hopes his appearance before lawmakers helps normalize what atheism is, what atheism isnt.

Theres a negative connotation to the word atheist, he said, as well as an image of the angry atheist.

But by coming in here and being really calm, really happy, cheerful, smiling as we walk around shaking hands, there wasnt any pushback, said Scott, who was accompanied by his wife, Brandi, and their three children. It was just a respectful conversation about religious freedom. Am I as an atheist allowed the same religious freedom as everyone else in the state?

Scotts appearance did not attract the same attention or reaction as the invocation offered in 2015 by Cedar Rapids Cabot witch Deborah Maynard. Several people came to the Capitol to protest her prayer. A lawmaker turned his back during the invocation and many legislators stayed away.

About half the representatives were in the chamber for the invocation Wednesday, far fewer than usual, but it was not clear that was in response to Scott or that they had debated until 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Scott closed his invocation in a prayerful style.

Let this trinity guide you and protect you, he said. May this trinity inspire you and be honest to you ... lift up the truth upon you and give you peace.

l Comments: (319) 398-8375; james.lynch@thegazette.com

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Atheist calls on 'holy trinity of science' in Iowa House invocation ... - The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines