Category Archives: Atheism

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The left-wing thinker Freddie deBoer wrote a provocative little Substack essay about the New Atheism phenomenon, of nearly two decades ago. What interests deBoer is that so often liberal and progressive Christians engaged in debates with New Atheists by specifically avoiding any theological content at all. Sometimes literally refusing to argue that God exists. DeBoer comments:

If a being exists, of whatever nature, who created reality, exists within all of reality, set realitys physical and moral rules, watches over all of reality, judges all of us on how devout and moral we are, and determines reward and punishment based on that judgement, that clearly is the truth that trumps all other truths. Strange to let it slip out of the debate quietly in the night.

Indeed! DeBoer observes that instead a certain kind of believer seemed only to believe that religion was worth practicing because it was socially expedient. In this they seemed to agree with non-believers who have come to a strangely utilitarian appreciation of religion. He writes:

People have commented for centuries on the phenomenon of religious observance carried out by people whose authentic religious belief is dead or dying. But I think the next evolution in religion is to move from the religious believer who sadly watches their faith slowly ebbing away to the religious consumer who sees sincere faith as traditionally conceived as an anachronism. This is the inevitable outcome of perspectives like those of Jonathan Haidt , who advocates for atheists to accept religion as a positive force even as we quietly snicker to each other that its all fake. Haidts belief that we should champion religions forms while quietly marinating in our superior understanding that religions truth claims are bunk can only contribute to the gradual erasure of the metaphysical underpinnings of traditional religion.

DeBoer in some ways welcomes the hypocrisy and evasiveness of progressive believers and comes around to speculating that religion can be defeated by atheism not by confrontation but through abstraction, the abstraction of religious teachings into meaninglessness.

I found the non-engagement of liberal believers with New Atheism as frustrating as deBoer did. It was something Christopher Hitchens remarked on frequently himself. Most of the ministers he debated wanted to argue that religion was socially expedient that it had some good effect not that it was true. One notable exception was the Calvinist pastor Douglas Wilson. I think there were some other good debates too. William Craig Lane took it up with Sam Harris. And Peter Hitchens debated his brother Christopher and later wrote a book that took on the contention that religion poisons everything and then proceeded to make a case that atheism was a handmaiden of totalitarianism.

At one point, deBoer writes that this metaphysical evacuation of religion betrays what religious identity has been for most practitioners for thousands of a year, and later this process of abstraction allows Christianitys teachings to become a pure canvas onto which one can paint whatever one feels like in the moment.

I dont know if this is a uniquely modern phenomenon. It seems to me that for Christianity, at least, many practitioners accepted the metaphysical propositions as their reality, in the same unthinking way most of us accept astrodynamics. One can operate within this reality but still not consciously acknowledge it or take it to heart very often.

And that is why, successive generations of Christians and reformers have noticed that the Church is often captured by putatively Christian societies and that Christian faith is often confused with the reigning ideals of our culture. G.K. Chesterton also identified five deaths of the faith in history times when Christian belief seemed to be fading out of existence, when the world seemed to be moving onto ideas that made the Church irrelevant.

I think we should expect that there will always be people who are lukewarm about the faith, unwilling to defend its propositions, and all-too-willing to pretend that their private projects or cultural taboos constitute the Gospel truth itself.

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The Problem of Non-Theological Religion - National Review

Society has also become increasingly polarized on the churches' role on social, ethical and political matters, the survey found, with few people sitting on the fence on this.

At the same time, general religiosity in Estonia has not seen any significant change in the five years since the last survey on the topic was conducted.

Whereas in 2015, 20 percent of people aged 15-74 said they would describe themselves as religious, this figure stood at 19 percent in the recent survey, conducted by the Estonian Research Center (Eesti Uuringukeskus) on behalf of the Estonian Council of Churches (Eesti Kirikute Nukogu).

Number of convinced atheists rises slightly

Meanwhile the number of people who described themselves as a committed atheist only rose a little, from 7 percent to 9 percent, over the same period.

Nonetheless, the Estonian populace is as a whole a little less certain about the existence of a deity now, than it was in 2015, the survey found in other words the proportion of agnostics has grown, from 10 percent, to nearly three times that, at 28 percent, 2015-2020, the Estonian Research Center said.

This worked the other way too the proportion of respondents who said they did not believe, and had never believed, in the existence of a deity, but did not describe themselves as convinced atheists as such, shrunk from 44 percent in 2015, to 31 percent in 2020.

Estonia is popularly referred to, particularly online and by Estonians themselves, as variously the most atheist, least religious or least god-fearing nation in Europe, or sometimes the entire globe. Upon her inauguration as president in late 2016, Kersti Kaljulaid turned down the offer of a ceremony to mark the occasion and to be overseen by head of the Lutheran Church, Archbishop Urmas Viilma.

Nearly a third are 'spiritual but not religious'

As regards to those who would describe themselves as fitting the popular "spiritual but not religious" motif, in the latest survey, 29 percent described themselves as such, with 26 percent saying they were non-religious and 22 percent that they were indifferent to organized religion.

Nineteen percent, on the other hand and as already noted, said they were religious.

Ten percent described themselves as a religious or spiritual "seeker", nine percent as noted said they were atheist or god-deniers, while 6 percent would not put themselves in any of those categories, the survey found.

Participation in worship has declined, however though this would presumably also need to be seen in the light of coronavirus restrictions, which have banned in-person services at religious buildings, off-and-on for the past year or so.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they had not been to a worship service of any kind in the preceding year, compared with 53 percent in the 2015 survey.

Those who said they had been to church once or twice in the preceding year also fell, halving to 15 percent in the latest survey.

Six percent said they attended church four or five times a year, four percent said they went around once a fortnight and five percent of respondents said they were weekly attenders of church services.

Fewer people want the church involved in social affairs

The share of respondents who would like to see the church more involved in social matters has also fallen; 23 percent wanted the church to take a public stance via the media on issues of morality and ethics, down slightly from 26 percent in 2015.

However, the figure who wanted the church to reduce its public pronouncements on social issues had nearly doubled, to 20 percent (from 11 percent) of respondents during that time.

A recent example of such an issue would be an abortive referendum on whether the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman should be enshrined in Estonian law.

The sections of society who said that it should, as evidenced by a bill presented by the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), climbed down from originally saying such a definition should be mentioned in the constitution (which would reportedly require the assent of two consecutive Riigikogu compositions ed.) to saying it should be worded as such in legislation.

When it became clear that a definition along these lines does in fact appear in the Family Law Act (which can be amended ed.), the referendum was presented more as a much-needed thermometer to take the nation's opinion temperature on the issue.

The bill was ultimately withdrawn in the face of vast numbers of amendments from both opposition and coalition MPs, late last year.

Society more polarized on church role

Society also has become polarized on the position of the church in social and political issues, however, since 2015.

The proportion of those who want an increased role to be played by the church in domestic politics, environmental and national security issues doubled, but so too did the proportion of people who wanted such activity to be toned down. The proportion of uncommitted respondents thus fell significantly.

Similarly, those who opposed same-sex relations and those who supported them was almost split 50-50 and made up the vast majority of respondents on the issue i.e. only a small proportion declared no view on the matter.

The death penalty, too, divided respondents, with 51 percent utterly opposed and 41 percent finding it acceptable.

The death penalty was abolished in Estonia in the 1990s.

From 66 percent who said in 2015 that they though the church should play a larger part in helping the poor (64 percent in 2010), the figure had fallen to 46 percent in the latest survey.

Conversely, the proportion who said the church should provide less assistance to the poor, for whatever reason, rose from 2 percent to 9 percent over the five years.

Exactly a third of respondents said that they had, regardless of their beliefs, experienced unexplained or even supernatural incidents which they found hard to rationalize.

More than half feel 'close' to Christianity

As to actual religions, Christianity of all or any denominations attracted the largest number of respondents, with 34 percent saying they felt "somewhat close" to it and 29 percent saying they felt to a large extent close to that religion.

Twenty-five percent of respondents said they did not feel close to Christianity whatsoever, while 12 percent said they could not answer.

Denominational, theological and other questions were not delved into in the survey. Lutheranism and Eastern Orthodoxy are the largest denominations by attendees in Estonia, and also historically and culturally the dominant strands.

Twelve percent of respondents said they felt very close to atheism, and 19 percent said they felt somewhat close to it or its main perceived tenets.

Of other religions, as many as 20 percent said they felt somewhat close to the two major Dharmic faiths, Buddhism and Hinduism, while 56 percent said they did not feel at all close to them.

By contrast, the figures for Islam were four percent and 75 percent respectively, while the other major Abrahamic faith, Judaism, posted similar figures of 6 percent and 70 percent respectively. Far fewer than 6 percent of the Estonian population is actually Jewish.

Four percent of respondents said they considered themselves to be largely close to some other religion or worldview.

Pandemic only had slight effect

About half of respondents said the pandemic had not affected their interest in or attraction towards religious and spiritual issues; two percent said that it had dampened their enthusiasm towards Christianity.

The proportion of those who thought that the church should bear an increased role in education in fact increased, to 22 percent (from 16 percent in 2015) though the share of "don't knows" also rose on this question.

More than half said that religious education in schools, covering all the world's major religions, should be compulsory, however; 31 percent said it should not or definitely should not.

Among native speakers of Estonian, however, 62 percent supported widespread education on religion, compared with 48 percent for those whose native language is Russian or another language.

Those with higher education tended to favor religious education more, while slightly more women (60 percent) than men (55 percent) were in favor of it.

On other issues, close to 80 percent thought divorce ethically fine, and only slightly fewer, 77 percent, thought unmarried cohabitation was acceptable.

Three-quarters of respondents had no issue with premarital sexual relations, while the proportion who found abortion and euthanasia ethically acceptable were similar, at 71 percent and 69 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, 75 percent of respondents said they opposed human cloning.

The survey was held between November 25 and December 31 2020, and randomly polled 1,000 residents of Estonia, both online and via a postal survey.

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Survey: Church attendance has fallen slightly in past five years - ERR News

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Weve probably all seen pictures of books being burned. In the 1930s, the German Student Union gathered up books they viewed as critical of Nazi thinking and held ritual book-burnings. It was a sure-fire (pun intended) way of keeping the wrong ideas from circulating.

As I have stated here before, my attitude is that we should allow all sorts of views to be published and discussed. A truly educated person is one who can look at both sides of an issue and weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the reasons each side puts forward to support its position. Richard Dawkins should be allowed to write books in favour of atheism, and John Lennox can write on why believing in God makes sense. If you dont like an article written by a smart person, find a better article written by a smarter person. But dont burn the book or blow up the magazines print shop.

(Full disclosure: I once and only once burned a book in my backyard. Out of curiosity I had picked up a used copy of something by the Marquis de Sade, and was so appalled at the cruelty depicted in what turned out to be child pornography that I destroyed the book.)

Todays world doesnt usually hold actual book-burnings, but those who dont like certain ideas still do their best to prevent others from even considering those ideas. Speakers at universities are de-platformed if some deem their opinions to be wrong. Students shout the speaker down or threaten to harm her. In Montreal, I was once part of a peaceful protest (standing in silence with signs) that was disrupted by a group with trumpets, drums and tubas.

Cancel culture can mean that your company fires you just for holding views that are not considered correct.

According to The Interim newspaper, Amazon, the giant online bookseller, has decided that it will not carry the 2018 title, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T Anderson.

Usually, Amazon follows a policy of contacting publishers to discuss the possible removal of controversial books, but for some reason this was not done in this case.

Banning a book could have the effect of making people want to read it all the more, so this could backfire. However the title is apparently becoming scarce if the price of second-hand books is any indicator. Bookfinder.com is charging hundreds of dollars for a copy. My favourite is the dealer who will sell you one for $23, 930.58! (Its the 58 cents that really gets me.) Fear not, you can obtain a copy for a reasonable price if you look in the right places.

Amazons action raises the question of whether there is only one possible, respectable view of gender dysphoria, the feeling of being confused about whether one is male or female. Is only one view now allowed? Can we no longer talk about this topic? Are we to shut down those who say trans-women should not compete in female sports because their essentially male bodies give an unfair advantage?

Why cant we have books that give different perspectives on issues like this?

Anderson says that his is not a bomb-throwing book of red meat and heated rhetoric. Instead, he claims it is rigorous and civil, and presents facts.

If Amazon had its way readers wouldnt be able to check for themselves. They would not be able to make up their own minds whether Anderson has written bigoted nonsense or a scientifically convincing argument.

I pray well have a society in which people want to hear different sides of important subjects, not a world where the public is protected from Christian viewpoints (or any alternative ideas).

John Vaudry is a retired minister, living in Pembroke.

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VALLEY PULPIT: Don't burn the book - The Kingston Whig-Standard

Ever since the ancient Romans decided to honor the agricultural goddess Flora with lewd spectacles in the Circus Maximus, the beginning of May has signaled the coming of spring, a time of revival after a long, dark winter.

In Europe, the holiday usually celebrated on May 1 became known as May Day. Though traditions varied by country and culture, celebrants often erected maypoles and decorated them with long colorful ribbons. Townspeople, while indulging in food and drink, would frolic for hours. These rituals continue today in parks and on college campuses across the U.S. and Europe.

Throughout history, millions have embraced the holiday except for the Puritans of early modern England. Though we tend to lump them together, the term Puritans included different groups of religious dissenters. Among them were the Pilgrims, who eventually decided to migrate to North America to create new communities according to their religious vision.

It is tempting to attribute the Pilgrims hostility toward the holiday to the doom-and-gloom stereotype of the Puritans as humorless and overly pious the same tendencies that led them to ban Christmas festivities. But their attack on a maypole in Plymouth Colony in 1628 reveals much about their approach toward those who didnt conform to their vision for the world.

Before they arrived in New England, some Pilgrims must have read the diatribe against May Day penned by a moralist named Philip Stubbes, who lamented the mayhem that erupted in communities across England each year as the holiday approached.

Stubbes described how eager participants would select one of the men among them to be the Lord of Misrule, who then led them into pits of debauchery. They would sing and dance in church, much to the consternation of devout ministers. And the participants in these rites always dragged a large tree from a nearby forest to be erected in the town, which became a symbol of their irreligious behavior.

But most in England didnt see the holiday in such a poor light. For many, these maypoles simply represented raucous, good-natured fun. King James, who reigned from 1603 to 1625, believed that erecting such poles was harmless and he castigated Puritans efforts to quash the holiday.

In England, Puritans needed to abide by national laws, so there was little they could do to stop the celebrations outside of voicing their disapproval. More effective protests would need to wait.

Once in New England, the Puritans believed they needed to be exemplars of proper Christian behavior. Everyone in their towns had to abide by their rules, and they punished colonists whose actions seemed to undermine devout religious practice.

As the future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop allegedly declared the Puritans would build their city on a hill. Citing language from the Book of Matthew, he claimed that all of the Puritans actions would be visible to the entire world, including most importantly their God. Any departure from strict obedience to Scripture could threaten their entire mission.

The Pilgrims established their community of Plymouth on the site of the Wampanoag town of Patuxet in 1620. In the years that followed, other English migrants arrived in the region, though many eschewed the Pilgrims strict teachings. They came to make money from trading, not escape persecution for their beliefs.

A small group of these colonists moved about 25 miles northwest of Plymouth. A lawyer named Thomas Morton, who had arrived in New England in 1624 or 1625, eventually became the unofficial leader of this camp, which came to be known as Merrymount. In 1628, with Mortons blessing, the colonists set up an 80-foot maypole crowned with deer antlers in preparation for May Day.

The maypole immediately drew the attention of Plymouth authorities. So did Mortons antics. According to William Bradford, then the colonys governor, Morton had become the Lord of Misrule. The assembled at Merrymount sang bawdy songs and invited Native American women to join them. The colonists in the small community, the governor wrote, had revived and celebrated the feasts of the Roman goddess Flora, which he linked to the beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians.

Morton was running, in Bradfords words, a School of Atheism.

Bradford claimed that Morton and his followers had fallen to great licentiousness and led dissolute lives. Rather than allow them their fun, the Pilgrims sent a group of armed men to arrest their leader. Soon they exiled Morton back to England.

The next year, John Endecott, a recent immigrant who shared many of the Pilgrims beliefs, chopped down the maypole, much to Bradfords satisfaction.

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Why, one might ask, would it matter that stern Puritans would want to quash a good-natured holiday? After all, given many of their other actions, felling a tall tree topped with deer antlers hardly seems worth mentioning.

But as a historian of early New England, I see Bradfords condemnation of Morton and the destruction of the maypole as a harbinger of future violence.

When they chopped down the maypole, the Puritans believed that they were cleansing the landscape, making it more suitable for pious colonists to occupy. It was their way of demonstrating that they could live up their ideals.

Since they believed in predestination, the conviction that everything that occurs is part of a divine plan, they must have figured that God had sent Morton to test them. By exiling him and destroying the maypole, they confirmed what they saw as the righteousness of their cause.

A decade later, with tensions rising between colonists and Indigenous people, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, along with the Puritans of Massachusetts, saw themselves confronting a new test. This time the threat came not from a maypole, but instead from a Native American community that seemed, as Bradford wrote using language that echoed his condemnation of Morton proud and insulting.

The consequences in 1637 were far worse than at Merrymount. The colonists set a Pequot town aflame and shot those who tried to escape. Historians estimate that at least 400 Native Americans lost their lives in a single night.

Like other English colonizers, the Pilgrims believed they needed to displace Native Americans to create their own communities. But before they did so, they had to get their own houses in order. They could not tolerate any who crossed them, attacking those deemed a threat.

Colonial leaders like Winthrop and Bradford believed any sign of disobedience had to be punished. Clearing Merrymount of its maypole was a dress rehearsal for what was to come.

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The Pilgrims' attack on a May Day celebration was a dress rehearsal for removing Native Americans - The Conversation US

William Shakespeares role as a religious guide is not an obvious one.

While the work of the bard, whose birthday is celebrated on April 23, has been scoured at various times over the past four centuries for coded messages about Catholicism, Puritanism or Anglicanism, the more common view is that his stunning explorations of humanity leave little space for serious reflection on divinity. Indeed, some Shakespeare scholars have gone further, suggesting that his works display an explicit atheism.

But as a scholar of theology who has published a book exploring Shakespeares treatment of faith, I believe the playwrights best religious impulses are displayed neither through coded affirmations nor straightforward denials. Writing at a time of great religious polarization and upheaval, Shakespeares greatest pronouncements on faith are more like curious whispers and, like whispers, they require deep listening to be heard.

I see an invitation to this deep listening in one of Shakespeares most unusual plays, The Tempest. Be not afeared, the half-man, half-beast Caliban tells his companions as they arrive on the island where the play is set, the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

It is a striking passage, made all the more so coming from a foul-smelling creature accused of attempted rape and repeatedly called monster. But in it, Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that there are dimensions of reality that many of us miss and we might be surprised to find out who among us is paying attention.

Subtleties like this show up differently across Shakespeares plays. Romeo and Juliet is not in any overt sense a theological play. But as the tragedy comes to a somber denouement, we have the line See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

While there is no clear naming of gods or fates, Shakespeare implies that some great power transcends the destructive feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families of the two lovers. He calls into question the earthly power of the two houses heaven, he implies, is also at work here.

Shakespeare was, I believe, in constant search of subtle ways to imagine divine intervention within the human realm. This is all the more impressive given the fraught religious times in which he lived.

The late 16th century witnessed religious and political polarization greater, even, than our own. Decades earlier, King Henry VIII had separated the Anglican church from Rome and created a Protestant England. His daughter Elizabeth, who sat on the throne for the first half of Shakespeares writing career, was excommunicated by Pope Pius V for continuing in her fathers footsteps. The queen responded by making the practice of Catholicism a crime in England.

So even before Elizabeths successor, James I, outlawed overt theological humor or criticism on stage, artists hoping to engage in religious themes were under considerable restrictions.

These upheavals affected Shakespeare directly. Shakespeares family had deep ties to Roman Catholicism, as likely did some of his closest associates. For any one of them to express doubts about the Anglican prayer book, or even to avoid the Anglican parish on Sunday, was to put themselves under suspicion of treason.

There is little in the way of biographical detail to help scholars looking for Shakepeares religious beliefs. Instead, they have generally relied on explicit references to familiar religious language or character types the Catholic priest in Romeo and Juliet, for instance in speculating about Shakespeares faith. Some have suggested that clues and codes in his play suggest the playwright was a closeted Catholic. But to me it is more in what he doesnt say, or where he finds new ways of saying something old, that Shakespeare is theologically at his most interesting.

Shakespeares faith and how he expresses it are explored in a 2017 play by poet Rowan Williams, a theologian and former head of the Church of England. In it, Williams imagines a young Shakespeare in search of a new language for things religious, and dissatisfied with the heavily politicized options before him.

In a pivotal scene, young Will explains to his Jesuit mentor that, despite the attractiveness of their radical Catholic cause, he cannot join: The old religion is the only, the only picture of things that speaks to me, yes, but its as if there were still voices all around me wanting to make themselves heard and they dont all speak one language or tell one tale, and all that it would haunt me if I tried what you do, and it would make me turn away from the pains and the question, because Id know that thered always be more than the old religion could say and it still had to be heard.

In other words, while Catholicism speaks to young Will, he believes there is more that still had to be heard.

The voices that Williams Shakespeare wants to hear are similar, I believe, to those that Caliban talks of in The Tempest. So young Will does not join the Catholic cause; instead, he goes off in search of ways to stay with the pains and the question. Williams is suggesting that Shakespeares subsequent plays are an attempt to let all these complex and difficult voices be heard.

They are his attempt to give voice to religious noise beyond the range of the religious certainty of his age.

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We see this in King Lear. Lear spends the entire play cursing the gods for the lack of love and respect his children show him. But when the heaven-cursing rants finally subside, the play gives its audience a beautiful and painful reconciliation scene with his daughter Cordelia. He discovers in his daughters forgiveness a kind of higher vantage point, one from which they might both take upons the mystery of things, As if we were Gods spies.

Like Caliban in The Tempest, Lear learns to hear those voices just out of human range.

Similarly, Shakespeare asks his audience to listen and watch differently, as if we too are Gods spies or Earths monsters.

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Shakespeare's musings on religion are like curious whispers they require deep listening to be heard - The Conversation US

Richard Dawkins is surely just as known for his militant atheism as for his scientific genius. He is loved by some and loathed by others for his zealous crusades against religion and his savage mockery of the sacred. But this week, he was excommunicated by those you might least expect: his fellow atheists.

Dawkinss act of blasphemy was not against any religious doctrine. He did not voice scepticism of transubstantiation, but of transgenderism. He did not query whether bread and wine can become the body and blood of Christ, but whether a man can become a woman and vice versa.

And so the American Humanist Association has stripped Dawkins of its 1996 Humanist of the Yearaward. The AHA had initially honoured Dawkins for his extraordinary contributions to communicating science to the public. But 25 years later, the AHA has accused him of abusing "scientific discourse"to "demean marginalised groups".

The AHA alleged that Dawkins had "accumulated a history"of offensive statements, but singled out one tweet for condemnation: "In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss."

Of course, Dawkins said nothing demeaning or bigoted in that tweet. He merely raised a question about the inconsistency of modern identity politics.

Its a good question, in fact. Why is it that racial boundaries are today more likely to be viewed as fixed, but gender as fluid? After all, you dont have to go full Rachel Dolezal and try to live life as a black person to fall foul of the modern racial gatekeepers. In recent years, white people have been denounced for "cultural appropriation"over acts as trivial as practising yoga, braiding their hair in cornrows or writing fiction from the perspective of non-white characters.

At the same time, the belief that gender can simply be a matter of self-declaration has been placed beyond question. "Trans women are women"is now a foundational woke commandment. Clearly, it has even become an article of faith for self-professed "humanists".You might think that humanists and atheists would be the first to recognise how dogmatism hinders the search for truth. But there are greater forces at work, which Dawkins has himself picked up on.

At the end of last year, writing in the Spectator, Dawkins warned that scientific truth was coming increasingly under attack. Most insidiously, truth was being undermined in academia, in the very institutions set up to discover and uphold the truth. A school of thought that claims there is "no objective truth... no natural reality, only social constructs"has come to dominate, he said. This worldview also prioritises the so-called lived experience and identity of the speaker over empirical reality. Proven scientific facts, Dawkins complains, are too often dismissed as products of "patriarchal domination".

In his Spectator piece, Dawkins switches frequently between attacking the nascent woke ideology and the theologians he has been battling for decades. Although he does not make the link explicitly, the similarities between the two groups are too great to ignore.

In fact, Dawkins has personal experience of them converging. Last year, Trinity College Dublin rescinded his invitation to address its Historical Society. And in 2017, a radio station in California cancelled an event he was due to speak at. Both de-platformed Dawkins because the world-famous atheist had fiercely criticised Islam and not just Christianity. Criticism of Islam is prohibited by the woke not on theological grounds, but because critcising the beliefs of a "marginalised group"is considered bigoted (or Islamophobic,in this instance).

But no deity or dogma whether formed in the 7th century or the 21st should be so sacred as to be beyond question. As the woke orthodoxy becomes more powerful and resistant to challenge, well need far more heretics like Richard Dawkins.

Fraser Myers is assistant editor of Spiked

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We'll need champions of science like Richard Dawkins to win the war on woke orthodoxy - Telegraph.co.uk

NEW YORK, April 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- On April 13, 2021, Rafael Sanchez filed a federal complaint in the Southern District of New York, alleging New York City Human Rights Law ("NYCHRL") sexual orientation, Atheism, and disability-based harassment and hostile work environment claims, as well as aiding and abetting of discrimination claims, against L'Oreal USA, Inc. ("L'Oreal").

L'Oreal hired Plaintiff as a makeup artist and skincare consultant during approximately December 2017, through staffing company Randstad Professionals US, LLC.

Mr. Sanchez alleges that L'Oreal, through its long-time Business Manager Viviana Nunez ("Nunez"), engaged in discriminatory harassment and created a hostile work environment based on Mr. Sanchez's status as a gay male, non-religious Atheist, and/or disabled person.

Mr. Sanchez's complaint seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, declaratory relief, injunctive relief, attorney's fees, expert fees, costs, and interest.

The case is Sanchez v. L'Oreal USA, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-03229, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Media Contact: Cyrus E. Dugger, The Dugger Law Firm, PLLC (646) 560-3208 cd@theduggerlawfirm.com

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Cyrus E Dugger, The Dugger Law Firm, PLLC, +1 (646) 560-3208, cd@theduggerlawfirm.com

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The Dugger Law Firm, PLLC Has Filed a Sexual Orientation, Atheism, and Disability-Based Harassment Case Against L'Oreal USA, Inc. on Behalf of Rafael...

"When I was a child, I used to wear a small cross, which I lost about five times, and at some point I decided that either God was turning away from me or he didn't exist. As a teenager, I came to the conclusion that it was simply a misunderstanding, and that there was no need to believe in anyone, and decided to stop believing in God," is how Daniil Istomin from Moscow, an 18-year-old college student and future primary school teacher, explains his drift to atheism.

Daniil's parents have always believed in God and used to go to church almost every day to pray and light a candle. But his father always refused to listen to his son's dissenting opinion - according to Istomin. They don't discuss God in their family "because Dad is very embittered; he believes in God too strongly".

"My parents believe that Jesus Christ brings happiness and that because of this everything is well with them. Fortunately, they no longer take me to church - after all, I am grown up now," says Daniil.

In the course of four years, from 2017 to 2021, the number of atheists in Russia has doubled - from 7 percent to 14 percent, according to an opinion poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).

"My parents had me baptized when I was three years old, no one asked me about it, and, anyway, at that age I didn't really understand what was happening. How, after that, can I call myself an Orthodox believer?" wonders Tatyana Melnikova, a Year 11 school graduate.

A man wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus disease walks past a Russian Orthodox cathedral on Red Square in central Moscow on October 2, 2020

According to VTsIOM, young people between the age of 18 and 24 (22 percent) are most likely to regard themselves as atheists. Tatyana is one of them. Her outlook on life was influenced by her parents' faith and early access to social networks - she realized she didn't believe in God at the age of just 10.

"I don't remember what I had read or watched, but nobody forced this choice on me. Nevertheless, arguments about faith with my parents still arise from time to time, but each of us remains unconvinced," Melnikova complains.

Another 18 percent of atheists among those polled are in the 25-34 age bracket.

"At the age of 14, I read the Bible in full out of interest and found too many inconsistencies. I've read the Q&As on the websites of churches and of the Patriarchate, but they do not stand up to criticism and all their dogmas are too outdated," is how Artyom Belotigrov, a 32-year-old lawyer, explains his journey to atheism.

After he finished school, Artyom developed an interest in the sciences and completely stopped believing in God. True, he still visits churches but he now regards them as architectural monuments.

Another Russian, 34-year-old handyman Boris Serbyanin, became interested in atheism while still at school, often asking his believer mother questions about religion.

"My parents were happy with my range of interests but, when I started questioning the dogmas of Christianity - that is, Why hasn't a single person been resurrected from the dead yet? or Why does God allow war and hunger, which make innocent people suffer? - and later asking them these questions directly, they began to be unpleasantly surprised, which gave me reason to doubt the existence of the supernatural. But until I finished school, my mother's opinion carried a lot of weight with me," says Serbyanin.

A man walks past a metal fence surrounding a construction site near Moscow's Sobornaya mosque on August 7, 2019

At university, Boris studied philosophy, astronomy, physics and chemistry, and there he was almost finally convinced that God didn't exist. In 2011, first his mother and then his grandmother died. For some time after that he used to go to Orthodox churches and sometimes attend services, observe Christian festivals and pray, but he believed it was his reaction to grief.

"No matter how much you pray, you can't bring a person back. No matter how many candles you light, you can't protect yourself against cancer. Having recovered from my grief, I started reading books on collective hypnosis, shamanism and gypsy spells, and realized that God, the Devil, curses, wood-sprites, spirits and ghosts are nothing more than folklore," Serbyanin says in conclusion.

Cars move along a motorway in the Moscow satellite town of Odintsovo on June 17, 2019, as the Cathedral of Saint George the Victorious is seen in the background

Atheists of age 35 years and older also explain their philosophy of life as a considered choice, but some of them admit that life in the Soviet period shaped any belief in God they might have had. It was a time when the church was fully separated from the state, and propaganda promoting scientific atheism was disseminated in the country.

"I was attracted by atheism back in the Soviet period, and then in the 1990s everyone, of course, became a believer. I started studying the history and geography of religions from a scientific viewpoint. It became obvious to me that there are only two genuinely opposing worldviews: the scientific and the religious. My parents, who are Catholics, would like me to be a believer, although they haven't been regular church-goers in recent years," says Alexander Ovsyannikov, an on-line teacher of foreign languages, geography and biology.

Another atheist, Lyubov Fomina, explained her lack of belief in God in the following way: "I was born in 1977. I'm a Soviet person. That's all there is to it."

In the course of four years, from 2017 to 2021, the number of Orthodox Russian Christians has fallen by 9 percent. At the same time, some actually give up their atheism and start believing in God.

"I had just had a baby and my husband had lost his job. We couldn't see how we were to carry on and how to give our child all the essentials for a normal life. At one point, my mother-in-law insisted that I go to a certain church in St. Petersburg to pray to the saints. When I went through the door of the church, I seemed to lose my inner voice. I couldn't even force myself to think of anything, and the tears rolled from my eyes," 38-year-old housewife Yuliya Lareva recalls.

People walk at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War at Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow on October 30, 2020

She says that shortly after that trip her husband found a good job with a very decent salary, and then Yuliya started studying the Bible and attending church services.

"And we have absolutely no doubt that a saint interceded for us. Now my husband and I are expecting a new addition to our family. We are happy with everything and thank the Lord for everything!" Lareva says delightedly.

Thirty-five-year-old Sergey Rogozhkin did not particularly believe in God at a young age, but became convinced of the existence of God during his school years. He says that when a certain proportion of his classmates were "chasing after girls", his own friends were interested in theories of the origin of the universe, and the idea that the world was created by God seemed to him the most logical one.

"Youthful maximalism and the injustice of reality are more conducive to religiosity," Rogozhkin says. "I even made Mom learn the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed off by heart, but I didn't try to convince Dad. He's a Soviet atheist with a good anti-religious training."

Fifty-year-old Anzhelika Praslova from Veliky Novgorod didn't start believing in God straight away, either. She went to church for the first time in the 1990s when she wanted to become pregnant.

"I had a child seven years later, but only decided to become a church-goer after the death of my husband - this wasn't out of grief, however, but because of my release from an unhappy marriage. God continues to support, tolerate and instruct me to this day, revealing different angles and new feelings. It is a new and very interesting period of growing up," is how Praslova puts it.

In her opinion, there is no such thing as an atheist: "They are not atheists, just halfwits", she says.

The growing number of atheists in Russia is primarily bolstered by the development of science and technology, according to religious affairs expert Denis Batarchuk.

"Statistics show that the more educational establishments a country or even a city have, the lower are the attendances at church services. I think the issue is that while science actuallyworks, religion merely promises. Science simply provides more tangible answers to questions, and young people like that," Batarchuk said in a Channel 360 television interview.

A woman gives a prayer in the Saint Peter and Saint Paul church in Kazan

Rushan Taktarov, deputy chairman of Russia's only registered society of atheists - its name is just that: Atheists of Russia - says that the Russian Orthodox Church is excessively determined to drum its religion into ordinary citizens and that this puts off a certain portion of Russians.

"It's all taking place in full view of ordinary citizens. Too many churches are being built, and the Russian Orthodox Church itself is attempting to impinge on the secular status of the state - for instance, it is proposing a ban on abortions. And then we mustn't forget that we live in the information age and people have access to all kinds of information, and that is why we have the results that we see," according to Taktarov.

Another religious affairs expert, Vyacheslav Terekhov, believes that the growing number of atheists is not at a critical level and is not an indicator of the collapse of the church as an institution.

"Young people are always looking for a philosophy of life. They are prone to changing their worldview more frequently than people of maturer years. <...> This can subsequently change. It is possible that 10 years hence a proportion of young atheists will see things differently," Terekhov believes.

Moreover, in his view, today's Orthodox Church really does have a negative image, and many Russians don't want to be associated with this image.

"The media frequently present the church in an exclusively negative context, and, apart from that, it's possible that the church itself is under pressure from the authorities, who want to make Orthodoxy part of a state ideology - opposition-minded Russians can see this and don't want to have anything to do with the Church," Terekhov says.

Russian Orthodox believers take part in a Palm Sunday procession outside Saint Petersburg's Saint Isaac's Cathedral on April 21, 2019

Nikolay Babkin, a priest, agrees that there are more atheists now - but, in his view, this is just a vagary of fashion that can be challenged if more is said about the life of the church from the inside.

"We need to enlighten and inform people about the work the Russian Orthodox Church does. It is difficult but necessary to change the stereotype that church is merely a place where people pray and dress strangely, a place of golden cupolas and incomprehensible chanting in an esoteric language. Such notions are formed on the basis of films, primarily Western ones," the priest believes.

Russia Beyond sent a request for comment to the Russian Orthodox Church, but there has been no reply as of the date of publication.

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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More and more Russians are becoming atheists - why? - Russia Beyond

Mare of Easttown

Miss Lady Hawk Hersel

Season 1 Episode 1

Editors Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO

Is it a prestige cable crime drama if a young woman doesnt die in the first episode? Im sorry to be so cynical, but Mare of Easttown begins with an upsetting amount of familiarity. One young woman disappeared a year ago in Easttown, Pennsylvania. To the day, another girl is found dead. Easttown is in free fall no economy to speak of, opioid addiction on the rise, a pervasive kind of malaise but nothing jolts a community quite like a murder. And now Easttown has two, with detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) in the middle.

Mare is a difficult woman, no doubt. The chip on her shoulder is a mountain range, and every person seems to irritate her. Her family and friends, her co-workers and boss and most gallingly, the mother of the missing girl who Mare failed to find the year before. The woman who has cancer and whose daughter has disappeared into thin air is somehow the focus of Mares ire and defensiveness. Its bad! And Winslet, who returns to HBO a decade after starring in Todd Hayness Mildred Pierce adaptation and who increasingly in her career has chosen these kind of brittle, inflexible characters (Ammonite is not a love story, people!), excels here, imbuing all of Mares physicality and facial expressions with some degree of annoyance. Can a person limp or vape exasperatedly? You wouldnt assume so, but Winslet does it. She carries her body like Ben Affleck did in Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsbys film The Way Back: with a kind of bone-deep exhaustion and a claustrophobic hunching-in. Would I pay to watch a game of HORSE between Affleck and Winslet in their respective basketball-playing Ingelsby characters? Yes, I would.

Silliness aside, the Mare of Easttown premiere sets the table with tragedies past and present, and hints at even more to come. Ingelsby and director Craig Zobel, who will helm all seven episodes, immediately communicate how the small-town tidiness of Easttown ordered brick townhomes, the rows of headstones in a cemetery, the billowing smoke coming from an industrial skyline mask a community in crisis. Is anyone who lives here happy? Hard to say. When we meet Mare, theres an immediate cause for her displeasure: Shes been woken up by a neighbor whose granddaughter saw a Peeping Tom in their backyard, and shes peeved, as a detective, to be dealing with this low-level stuff. Maybe others would be swayed by Mrs. Carrolls (Phyllis Somerville) I trust you, and I dont know who the station will send over, but not Mare. Shes too busy investigating all the really bad crap that goes on around here, she admonishes Mrs. Carroll, and when she gets to the police station, we learn what that entails.

A year before, Katie Bailey disappeared. A body was never found, and the case went nowhere, and now her mother Dawn is giving interviews to the local news about how the police bungled the case. She doesnt exactly say Mare Sheehan fucked this up, but the implication is heavy. Mare, for her part, is defensive rather than sympathetic. She blames the victim, complaining to her boss Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson) that Katie was a known drug user and had a history of prostitution: Shes probably lying at the bottom of the Delaware River right now. Still, Chief Carter isnt backing down, since Dawns interview is putting so much pressure on the force. Go back to the file. Were starting over here, he decrees, but Mare looks at the file only once in the next few hours. On one hand, lifelong Easttown resident Mare is so ingrained in the community that people just keep calling her for help, as Mrs. Carroll did; on the other hand, Mares personal life is an unbelievable mess. It all might be impossible to balance, and it makes you wonder if Katies disappearance really got Mares full attention last year.

In the present, though, we see Mare on the job, and in every altercation, shes tough but fair. When her longtime friend and former basketball teammate Beth Hanlon (Chinasa Ogbuagu) calls the police on her opioid addict brother Freddie (Dominique Johnson), and Mare injures herself chasing him back to his house, she doesnt react in anger. She talks to Freddie calmly but directly and insists that the gas company reconnect heat to Freddies house because its illegal in Pennsylvania (and various other states) to cut off utilities for low-income families between December and March. She reacts to Beths admission that she wishes Freddie were dead without judgment. And as a mentor to new cop Officer Trammell (Justin Hurtt-Dunkley), she initially scoffs at his discomfort with blood but ultimately asks if hes okay.

Its kind of strange, then, to see how much Mare changes after interacting with her family. Of course, all families have some kind of friction, and how we behave in our relationships with our parents, siblings, cousins, and kids does not immediately sync up with how we act at work. But how offended Mare gets over her ex-husband Franks (David Denman) engagement to his new fiance, Faye (Kate Arrington), and the fact that everyone in her life seemed to know before she did bleeds into her job, doesnt it? Mares mother Helen (Jean Smart) knew, her and Franks daughter Siobhan (Angourie Rice) knew, her best friend Lori (Julianne Nicholson) knew, her cousin Father Dan Hastings (Neal Huff) knew. And when all of Mares relatives choose to attend Frank and Fayes engagement party rather than attend the 25th-anniversary ceremony for Mareshigh-school basketball triumph, they knock her off her axis enough that she behaves horrendously toward Dawn. What type of person accosts the mother of a missing child? What type of person thinks its appropriate to scold the mother of a missing child with If you dont think Im doing my job, I wish youd come to me first? Im amazed that Dawn didnt slap Mare, Miss Lady Hawk herself, in the face, and I wish she had.

While this premiere episode spends a good amount of time asking us to decide whether Mare makes life difficult for herself or is the victim of others doing that for her, it also introduces the girl whose murder Mare is tasked with investigating: Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny), who is living the life Mare doesnt want for her own daughter Siobhan. Erin has a 1-year-old son with Dylan (Jack Mulhern), who barely tolerates her, and her father Kenny (Patrick Murney) is domineering and verbally abusive. She doesnt have many friends since birthing her son, her mother is gone, and she spends most of her time either cooking and cleaning for Kenny or arguing with Dylan. Erins circumstances are already overwhelming, and then Dylans new girlfriend Brianna (Mackenzie Lansing) turns out to be a catfishing asshole who sets Erin up for a vicious physical attack. What would have happened if Siobhan hadnt stepped in? Its impossible to say. But what did happen after Siobhan interrupted Briannas beatdown was that the injured Erin wandered off the trail alone and wound up abandoned, bloody, and blue in the river the next morning. (Zobel positioning Erins dead body in the same splayed-out way as he introduced her while playing with her son was a morbidly effective touch.) Another girl dead in this small town, and theres nothing Mare Sheehan loves more than being the hero, her daughter Siobhan had said. Can Mare solve the mystery this time, or will Erin join Katie in weighing upon Mares conscience?

Did Mares son Kevin, who she imagines in her grandson Drews (Izzy King) bedroom, die from a drug overdose? That would certainly fit thematically.

Where does Richard Ryan, Mares once-and-perhaps-future lover (played by Guy Pearce, reuniting with Winslet after Mildred Pierce), fit in? I dont think hes a suspect, but Im not sure hes a genuine, long-term love interest, either. Maybe a Chris Messina in Sharp Objects type?

He looked like a ferret is actually a pretty good description, no? That immediately conjures a certain kind of rodent-like face and sniveling energy, and Im curious if Mrs. Carrolls granddaughters description will turn out to be accurate (if the Peeping Tom is even found).

Remember when the impossible happened was the newspaper headline celebrating the 25th anniversary of Mares high-school basketball triumph. Sounds like a tagline for that new Disney+ show Big Shot.

The county shithead joining Mare to look into the disappearance of Katie and the murder of Erin will be played by Evan Peters. His next role? Jeffrey Dahmer in Ryan Murphys miniseries about the serial killer. Peters has the range, etc.

Money is tight everywhere in Easttown: Mare is carrying around a cellphone with a heavily busted screen and buys the cheapest aquarium she can for grandson Drews new turtle. Erins father complains about his job, while her ex-boyfriend Dylan doesnt have the $1,800 to pay for their sons ear surgery and refuses to ask his parents for it. Things are bleak, and its no wonder that the opioid crisis seems to have firmly taken hold here.

Kate Winslet saw Margot Robbies love affair with that Birds of Prey breakfast sandwich and refused to let an acting challenge pass her by; her shoving that bagel in her mouth while driving and squeezing cheese spread on a cheese puff were both aspirational. Two other great moments of physicality on Winslets part: how she waves away Officer Trammels drawn gun when they go into Freddies house and her exaggerated Welcome! to Officer Trammell before he drives Freddie to the local shelter.

Meanwhile, Winslets best line delivery: Her utterly unenthused Oh. Congratulations, to Frank.

If you recognized Neal Huff from The Post, Spotlight, and The Wire, as I did, uh do you also have a journalism degree? Solidarity!

Mares atheism sticks out in a community where an older woman like Mrs. Carroll has crosses all over her home and her cousin Dan is the local priest. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him, Dan had said to Mare, but what does it say if our idea of God is nothing at all?

Keep up with all the drama of your favorite shows!

Visit link:
Mare of Easttown Premiere Recap: Being the Hero - Vulture

In our latest podcast, Jessica and I discussed the past week in politics and atheism.

We talked about:

Jerry Falwell, Jr. just got sued by Liberty University. (0:59)

The problems with Richard Dawkins comments about trans people. (7:23)

A West Virginia lawmaker sank a sensible life-saving suicide prevention bill by blaming the teaching of evolution. (24:56)

The Bible makes way more sense as a series of Florida Man stories. (32:39)

The Melania-loving misogynistic pastor is back. (33:59)

I think this pastor just threatened me. (43:33)

A Polish town that declared itself free of LGBT now wants to take it back. (45:00)

The Mormon Church is on the verge of excommunicating a sex therapist who puts science over dogma. (48:12)

An atheist is suing LOreal for being subject to offensive slurs and proselytizing at work. (54:12)

The MyPillow guys new free speech app restricts anti-Christian speech. (57:26)

Iowas GOP governor used her position to raise over $30,000 for a private Christian school. (1:02:13)

Secular Democrats outnumber White Evangelical Republicans. (1:04:51)

Wed love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you have any suggestions for people we should chat with, please leave them in the comments, too.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Google Play, stream all the episodes on SoundCloud or Stitcher, or just listen to the whole thing below. Our RSS feed is here. And if you like what youre hearing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon and leaving us a positive rating!

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Read more:
Podcast Ep. 370: The Bible is Just a Collection of Florida Man Stories - Friendly Atheist - Patheos