Category Archives: Atheism

As universities reopened this past fall, the educational landscape was significantly altered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The switch to remote classes, discounted tuition and the delay or even cancellation of football season are just a few of the unprecedented changes experienced on college campuses. What is not new, however, is the compromise universities make when faced with financial setbacks. Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., for instance, responded to its $20 million deficit with layoffs, salary cuts and the elimination of nine majors. Though Canisius is a 150-year-old Jesuit school, its eliminations included the religious studies major.

Canisius is not alone in this decision. Elmira College, Hiram College and Connecticut College have either eliminated or expect to eliminate their religious studies programs. The humanities are often the first victims of budget cuts, but the fact that a Jesuit university eliminated religious studies says something about religions place in academia. Religion and, more specifically, Christianity is not only expendable at universities but often actively excluded. From my personal experience in graduate school at the University of Chicago, professors derided religion, students readily signaled their lack of religious views, and I received surprised looks when I shared my Catholic faith. It was as though the study of English literature and Catholicism were incompatible.

I once attended a panel titled Religion, Identity, and the Construction of Faith that had been described as a debate among an atheist and two believers about the future of religion, but I found the believers rather lukewarm in their faith. In fact, during the question and answer period, one attendee called their discussion a secular love fest. One member of the panel, an ordained minister and divinity school professor, expressed an ethic much more existential than Christian.

The evidence for the diminishing place of religion in higher education and for Christianitys diminishing place in academia is overwhelming. In times of financial hardship, religious studies is often the first program to go. This happens at schools that, at least traditionally, have Christian affiliations. Moreover, scholars, even those who study religion, seem reluctant to admit they are religious. Many also hold the assumption that one cannot be religious and intellectual. In part, this could be because the currently most famous intellectuals have divorced religion from rational thought. For instance, Sam Harris (one of the so-called Four Horsemen of Atheism) claims that the conflict between religion and science is inherent.

How we arrived at this moment is not obvious. The problem of the perceived conflict between religion and intellectual pursuits is twofold. This view of the two in conflict emanates from these public intellectuals who proclaim the disconnect between religion and progress. From the bottom up, students and faculty members perpetuate the image of the atheist intellectual. The university is the place where public intellectuals cut their teeth. It is where we cultivate the future Sam Harrises dedicated to completely secular scholarship. This, however, need not be the norm. Society needs to find a way to make it O.K. to be a religious intellectual, to be a Catholic intellectual.

The exclusion of religion from intellectual circles is a relatively recent phenomenon. For much of Western history, religion was not just acceptable in intellectual circles; it was the means for the greatest thinkers to explore the cosmos or ask philosophical questions. The Hellenistic Greeks, for instance, thought Pauline theology amenable to their philosophy. As St. Paul wrote letters to Diaspora Jews in Greek cities like Philippi, his teachings resonated with their Stoic practices.

Christianity built upon this philosophy to develop the ethic that dominated Western thought for centuries. Thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm of Canterbury and St. Thomas More continued the Catholic intellectual tradition. Their writings shaped philosophy, politics and literature. During a time when the vast majority of the population was illiterate, Catholic monks and members of the clergy were the European literati.

The exclusion of Christianity from academia began when religious thinkers became secular thinkers and when thinkers began to distrust institutions. During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther rebelled against the most important institution in Europe, the Catholic Church. From the writing of Luthers 95 theses criticizing the church to the present day, there has been a gradual shift from questioning institutions to outright rejection of them.

The Enlightenment was the next major event that accelerated the rejection of institutions. After Catholicism, religion itself became a target, as many Enlightenment thinkers turned their skepticism toward the Catholic Church to skepticism toward religion, absolute monarchies and rigid class systems.

Though we have this skepticism to thank for the political freedoms we enjoy today, the Enlightenment bolstered the notion that a religious setting was no longer the best place for intellectual inquiry. Even those who invoked God to substantiate the rights of individuals (including some of the founding fathers of the United States) saw God more as a detached creator than the Christian God. Thus, in academic and intellectual circles, religion continued to wane in importance.

While religion enjoyed a meager presence among Enlightenment intellectuals, late 19th and early 20th-century philosophers often completely excluded it. These philosophies, not coincidentally, were the most iconoclastic; they were devoted to undermining institutions. Karl Marx, for instance, called religion the opium of the people. There would be no place for religion, the nation-state or other traditional institutions in a communist social system.

Todays public intellectuals are a product of movements and philosophies, including the Enlightenment, nihilism and post-structuralism. As provocateurs who question every assumption from ethics to politics, many public intellectuals act as if institution-probing were their job description. For many contemporary scholars, institutions like marriage, the mainstream media, capitalism and, yes, organized religion are not to be trusted. Their probing of institutions, however, has gone so far that it is leading to their unraveling.

Instead, in many circles, science has become the hallowed institution that will solve all problems (even moral ones). Though the vast majority of Christians embrace the study of science, a number of prominent scientists see Christianity as inimical to rational, scientific approaches to thinking. Steven Pinker, a psychologist and author of Enlightenment Now and The Better Angels of Our Nature, warns against relying on dogma rather than trusting science to fill in the gaps of human understanding.

Thinkers like Mr. Pinker and the Four Horsemen conform with the archetype of the atheist intellectual (or, to use the softer label, secular humanist). It is an archetype toward which many young students strive and one that shuts down religious approaches in academic spaces. To be a religious student or professor in the pursuit of intellectual inquiry is to not be taken seriously. How could someone, say, criticize patriarchy when his or her beliefs are grounded in an institution as traditional as the Catholic Church?

Signaling a lack of religious views can be about more than just fitting in with fellow students and faculty; it can also be a way of avoiding ridicule. There is a way in which a reference to religion has become a punchline. While all religions face ridicule, the readily visible symbols, practices and leaders of the Catholic Church make it an easy target. The television comedy South Park, for instance, once ridiculed the reverence of Catholics for ritual and authority in an episode that culminated in the Vatican consulting The Queen Spider to amend church law.

Catholics can certainly take a joke. The question is how we contend with the fact that religion is too often treated as a joke or a threat. For many, it is funny to rely on faith when science can dispel its notions. But it is also seen as unscholarly to approach intellectual questions with religion when secular tools are at our disposal. For young people, especially those in an academic setting, the association of religion with the ridiculous (the religulous, as Bill Maher puts it) makes it difficult for them to share their faith when they want their scholarship to be taken seriously.

So how might academia and society at large make space for the religious intellectual? First, we need to stop thinking of religious scholarship as a separate category from other modes of inquiry. Right now, the public is fine with intellectual Catholics weighing in on politics, human rights or culture. People are far less accepting when the opinion comes from a Catholic intellectual. The distinction? Catholics have their fair share of doctors, professors and authorsnot to mention a disproportionate share of Supreme Court justices. Their faith probably influences their work, but their work does not take place within an explicitly acknowledged religious framework.

But where are the public intellectuals who make their inquiries through their Catholic faith? There are Catholic intellectuals everywhere, but their work is often relegated to the realm of the religious and treated as a separate category from secular work. Take, for instance, St. John Paul II. He weighed in on human rights, ethics and politics, often through scholarly writing in books like Love and Responsibility and Person and Act. He was our eras Thomas More. His role as pope, however, made people regard his work as specific to Catholics. His ethics were Catholic ethics, his politics Catholic politics. As a recent graduate student, I can attest that at a secular university, one would be wise not to refer to John Paul II in a philosophy paper.

The task, then, is to use the work of Catholic intellectuals like St. John Paul II to answer questions that secular modes of inquiry cannot. Catholic scholarshiplike the theology of the bodyhas the capacity to argue a sexual ethic that science or secular thought do not make apparent, such as the sacred nature of sex or the value of monogamy. The importance of these questions is by no means limited to Catholics.

If society is to make space for religious intellectuals, for Catholic intellectuals, the work starts at the university. Professors who have tenure and the freedom to pursue the projects they wish should not refrain from using their faith in their projects. A few intellectual Catholics have shown us what that looks like. The Yale law professor and author Stephen Carter, in books like Gods Name in Vain, argues for the productivity of religious belief in political movements. Mr. Carter went from intellectual Catholic to Catholic intellectual when he made a crucial step: He spoke of his faith in his scholarship at a secular elite university while writing a book in a field dominated by secular thought. And he was taken seriously.

But the work of intellectual Catholics begins before they get tenure. Students who may one day assume the name recognition of these lecturers and authors need the courage to use religion. They must overcome the raised eyebrows or ridicule. Moreover, the risks of not finding an advisor, of not landing a tenure-track job in a difficult market and of not being taken seriously as a scholar are real. But the bravery of students and faculty members is what will keep religious studies off the chopping block when times are tough. It is what will make intellectuals sit on a stage and express not lukewarm approval but exuberance for the possibilities of religion in scholarship.

See the article here:
Our religious studies programs are in trouble. Here's what we miss out on if we don't save them. - America Magazine

The argument for Christianity and the Bible is a cumulative one, adding up to the conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism false.

A friendly and fair-minded atheist asked me some good questions underneath one of my blog articles. It became an excellent opportunity to explain the wider goals and motivations of apologetics. In defending the Bible over against atheists (who love to endlessly contend that the Bible is habitually contradictory and immoral), I am writing for:

Christians for their existing faith to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments and the strength of our own;

Christians who are wavering in their faith (who would be adversely affected by the material I refute) and perhaps considering leaving or becoming an atheist to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments;

those wondering about the doctrines of biblical inspiration and infallibility;

fair-minded, honest atheists to show that these atrocious arguments are embarrassing for atheists to put out, and ought to be rebuked from within their own community;

the atheist who actually thinks these are unanswerable arguments;

the atheist who might be on the fence and is considering forsaking atheism;

atheists or anyone else who think that Christian theology is held only by gullible, infantile ignoramuses who hate science and reason;

anyone who thinks that Christianity is fundamentally irrational and opposed to reasonable explanation or defense;

the sake of truth itself (i.e., what I, to the best of my ability, have come to believe is truth);

the sake of open and honest discussion between opposing viewpoints, believing that dialogue is a means to obtain truth.

I write these things to give Catholics support for their beliefs. But Im also offering support for things where Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics are in full agreement. I dont argue about Catholic distinctives when defending Christianity against atheist attacks I dont consider it appropriate or prudent unless they hit upon a specifically Catholic belief.

Nothing in my replies to atheists should cause the slightest pause for any traditional Christian. In fact, I could have written virtually all of them when I was an evangelical Protestant between 1977-1990.

I also write these replies to convince non-Christian theists that Christianity is true (in an indirect, roundabout sense), but its not my direct goal.

I seek to defeat the defeaters, as Alvin Plantinga often says. Any specific effort along these lines is not defending the entire Bible, let alone all of Christianity (or more specifically, Catholicism). Its simply showing that the particular objections I am dealing with fall flat and achieve nothing whatsoever. Its a reactive enterprise. I show how suchobjections fail.

Im not claiming the entire Bible cant be proven false (though I do believe that). Its showing how some particulararguments are a bunch of hot air and are irrational. Its meant to give folks pause who are mightily impressed by these ludicrous pseudo-arguments. Then there are hundreds of other possible arguments and objections to address most of which I have dealt with, in more than 3,200 articles on my blog, and in 50 books. The argument for Christianity and the Bible is a cumulative one, consisting of scores and scores of individual arguments, adding up to the conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism false.

People are convinced by an accumulation of considerations, which they feel all point in one direction the truth of the Bible or of Christianity. If I make them curious here and persuade them of anything, then they will be game for future attempts at persuasion all the way up to a possible conversion to Christianity or Catholicism specifically, or to a serious doubting of atheism, or a strengthening of a weak or wavering Christian faith. Its all good. Its what I was put on this earth to do (what we call a calling or vocation).

I use reason as that common ground that both sides accept. I never say, Accept x, y or z simply because Christians or the popes or Christian tradition says so. I say, Accept it because it appears by virtue of reason to be true, or it may be true, given the weakness of opposing arguments, or it appears to be more plausible than atheist alternatives.

Such articles can strengthen existing faith, and provide support in reason for faith, so it can be held more boldly and confidently, and more efficiently and successfully shared with others. Christians are under attack from all directions. There is a need for certain folks in our community to help support the faithful through efforts like this and many others of a different nature (such as social service or prayer, etc.).

I find these atheist objections generally pathetically and pitifully weak. Nevertheless, they more often than not purport to be academic or semi-academic. Most of them would be laughed off of the stage of any truly academic setting. Im not an academic or scholar myself. But I do claim to engage in semi-academic lay apologetic endeavors for the thinking man. And I have held my own in dialogue with many scholars.

My atheist friend was kind enough to commend my reply and he stated:

Im still looking for evidence that any supernatural realm of any kind exists before I wrestle with the details. Picking apart Christianity as a way to support my position would be pointless, because theres always another tradition or faith to knock down, and another, and another.

Unfortunately, many atheists online are constantly engaged in this very thing picking apart Christianity. They take it upon themselves to critique the Bible and views obtained therefrom day in and day out: frequently casually assuming that they know how to properly interpret the Bible, and that they know how to do so better than the vast majority of Christians.

But they dont know how to interpret the Bible trust me, as one who has debated them many scores of times and are almost always vastly less informed than Christians in how to do biblical hermeneutics and exegesis.

Continued here:
Why Should We Bother Defending the Bible Against Atheists? - National Catholic Register

Kareem* was born in Sydney, raised in a multicultural suburb and educated in the public school system.

He never felt pressured at home to speak Arabic or delve deeper into his family's religious beliefs, and his theological knowledge was limited to the traditions of the holy month of Ramadan and Eid.

I knew that I was a Muslim, but I did not know much about the religion itself, he tells SBS Arabic24.

During the 1990s, before he could enrol in a high school, his parents decided to move the family back to Lebanon.

"I remember at the time there was no war in Lebanon, but problems started in Sydney related to gang crimes and drugs and linking them to the Lebanese community.

I do not know the main reason that prompted them to migrate, but perhaps they wanted to try life in Lebanon again."

His brothers had no say in the matter and recalls experiencing a fear of the unknown.

I did not know anything about Lebanon, and I think it was the first time I got on the plane. When we got to the airport there, I saw members of the army standing everywhere carrying weapons as if they were in a war, which made me wonder, 'Why did we come back here?'

Life in Lebanon during the 1990s, especially living in a village was different to life in Sydney. The village was divided into two parts.

"Islam and Christianity. During this period, after Lebanon's exit from the [civil] war, there was not much integration between Muslims and Christians and there was a lot of sensitivity between them."

Kareem and his family felt that his Arabic was too weak to attend high school, and he was forced to find a way to strengthen it.

"My father advised me to take lessons in the Arabic language and religion to strengthen it, and I really did that because I wanted to integrate and feel that I belonged in the society that was around me."

Bit by bit, he got closer to religion to understand his beliefs, those of his family, and the people around him.

"When I was 14 or 15 years old, I became very religious. I was studying religion and going to the mosque. At the same time, I was also in school, as I was before, loving science, biology and mathematics and excel in it. But I was thinking that I am part of a society, we are right and everyone else were wrong.

"I did not stay in this for long, perhaps for months or a year maximum. Until I started hearing discussions about other religions in a sermon, and I went to know what they meant from my family.

"I did not stop thinking about what I was hearing, and I wondered whether everyone who has created a Muslim will go to Heaven? And whoever created a Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist will go to Hell?"

"All my ideas began to mix together. I could not put a logical or scientific analysis on the matter. When I asked a man of religion, he answered me, 'Yes, if you are not a Muslim, you will go to Hell'.

"This bothered me so much, why would my friends be burned in Hell forever?"

Muslims are not at liberty to change their religion or become atheists, and to do so is punishable in some countries.

pixabay

No one could convince Kareem with their answers. He decided to occupy himself with other activities, and he and his friends created a community in which they felt comfortable together, away from sectarianism and religious discussions.

"I started feeling like there were no boundaries of hatred, and I told myself I shouldn't be part of this problem, maybe I should be part of the solution."

He completed high school moved to Beirut to study medicine.

"I met many people at university from different religions and sects. I began to see a lot of unnecessary discrimination.

"For me, we are all equal. Why differentiate between a Sunni, a Shiite, and a Druze?

"All the questions that puzzled me while in high school came to me again, stronger."

Life in Beirut, its openness and the study of medicine opened a new door for it.

"I became friends with gay and atheist people. During this period, I began to doubt existentialism. I began to think more about scientific issues as I studied medicine and diseases that afflict the human body."

Kareem did not find a convincing reason for the diseases that attack humans and leave them to suffer.

"My thinking began to turn towards agnosticism or atheism, and I was thinking that there is no one or anything to entrust us with, we live alone in this world."

During this period, Kareem's family returned to Australia, but he stayed to complete his university studies in Beirut. He began to turn away from religious beliefs and replaced them with a little bit of spirituality and a lot of humanity.

I read a lot of scientific books and read the Quran and the Bible. I have always had a lot of respect for religions and religious people, but as a person, I was not able to integrate the beliefs that began to form in me with religion.

In 2005, Lebanon began to feel the effects of deep-seated divisions, when Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated.

"I remember taking a taxi from those who charge 1000 Lebanese pounds for a single ride, and when he drove me to my destination, I paid him, and I walked away. The driver got out of his car and ran behind me and stopped me to say, 'Here's a thousand pounds, you paid me two thousand'.

"I was amazed and told him, 'It's okay take it'. He said to me, No, this money is Haram (forbidden) for me, and I do not accept to feed my children with unlawful money.

Rafic Hariri was assassinated on 14 February 2005 by a suicide truck bomb in Beirut.

Anadolu

"These things and injustice affected me a lot. There is a big mistake, there is no balance in this world."

Kareem was unable to find a satisfactory answer for the political corruption that speaks in the name of religion, and no answers that justify its ugly results in his homeland and the countries he loves.

"The last period I was in Lebanon, in the early 2000s, hatred and divisions began to reappear strongly.

At that time, if there was something that still brought me close to religion, what happened this year was the last straw.

Kareem completed his medical studies and married a woman who shared similar beliefs and they returned to Australia.

Upon his return, his father was not yet aware of the beliefs Kareem decided to embrace. It was just a matter of time before he decided to confront his family with the truth.

My father used to tell me in more than one situation, read this verse, read this surah, and pray two rak'ahs.

"But one day I told him, 'Never tell me these things again because I really don't believe in religion at all'.

"He told me, 'How can you not believe?'

"I said, 'I have scientific thinking. For me, the world was formed after the Big Bang. I believe in human evolution and animal evolution. I could not relate these things to religion, and I tried a lot in my life, and I could not, and I am a person who does not believe in religion anymore'."

'He asked, 'How are you going to raise your children?'

"I said, 'I will leave them free to choose. They will read books and will be exposed to religion through you and their friends at school. The most important thing for me is that they have scientific analysis and critical thinking that is not subordinate to anyone. I don't want anyone to influence their way of thinking'."

His brothers also had questions.

"My brothers were not upset with me. They felt sad for me. In their thinking, I was going to Hell.

"I remember they asked me, how do I want to be buried. I told them I hadn't thought about this before. But if I go back to faith, I don't have a problem with the Islamic burial method. But this goes back to my thinking at the time. But now, I don't have a plan."

Despite their different ways of thinking, Kareem and his family members remain close.

Kareem has two children and, as he had previously told his father, he decided to leave room for them to choose whether they belong to one religion. Nevertheless, he made sure to enrol them in a school that teaches the Arabic language, as he was keen to introduce them to their cultural roots, which he is proud of.

"My son used to come home and ask us, compared to his classmates, why we are not doing this and that. We explain to him. But this year, he has grown older and wiser, and year after year he feels more comfortable with his way of life.

"He will certainly face a lot of challenges, of course. But we have the option to change the school at any time."

Despite Kareem's pride in and belonging to the Arab culture, and his respect for the religions and beliefs of others, he does not find similar respect and acceptance from the Arab community in Australia. Therefore, he finds himself at times compelled to hide this aspect of his identity.

"Of course, this is a very difficult feeling. Because you are trying to pretend that you are another person around these people, and you feel that you are threatened and threatening to them at the same time."

"I wonder, is it difficult for me to get the same treatment and respect that I give them?"

He feels satisfied and comfortable that he is a better person because of the decisions he's made.

"I live my life in order to be a good human not because I want to enter Heaven or to stay away from Hell, but only because I want to be a better person. I teach my children to be humanists.

"I guess you don't have to believe in a god to be a good person."

*Not his real name

Follow My Arab Identity on yourfavourite podcast platformand listen to a new episode every Wednesday.

Read more here:
Why an Arab Australian chose atheism: 'I don't have to believe in God to be a good human' - SBS

Evangelist Franklin Graham upset his followers last week when he urged them to get vaccinated, so I guess hes trying to win them back over by saying the dumbest possible things.

This time, hes giving God credit for freeing the Ever Given from the Suez Canal:

Did God lend a hand in freeing the Ever Given? After a week of blocking trade, on Monday a higher than normal tide brought on by an old-fashioned Super Moon helped to free the massive container ship. I read that this ship is 20x heavier than the Eiffel Tower! Now the backup of 300 cargo ships can resume passing through the Suez Canal. Thank you God.

I know this is Atheism 101 here, but its telling that Graham credits God with freeing the boat while never blaming God for the boat getting stuck in the first place. Egypt lost an estimated $90 million in toll revenue. $10 billion worth of cargo was delayed, and in some cases (like food), thats just going to waste.

But Graham thinks God sent a Super Moon one which we knew would occur well in advance of the incident due to science to unclog the canal instead of just preventing the boat from causing chaos.

If Grahams God gets credit for the recovery, the Grahams church ought to pay some of the costs associated with the boat getting stuck.

(Featured image via Shutterstock)

Original post:
Franklin Graham: God Sent a Super Moon to Free the Boat from the Suez Canal - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

The secularization of U.S. society the waning of religious faith, practice and affiliation is continuing at a dramatic and historically unprecedented pace. While many may consider such a development as cause for concern, such a worry is not warranted. This increasing godlessness in America is actually a good thing, to be welcomed and embraced.

Democratic societies that have experienced the greatest degrees of secularization are among the healthiest, wealthiest and safest in the world, enjoying relatively low rates of violent crime and high degrees of well-being and happiness. Clearly, a rapid loss of religion does not result in societal ruin.

For the first time since Gallup began tracking the numbers in 1937, Americans who are members of a church, synagogue or mosque are not in the majority, according to a Gallup report released this week. Compare todays 47% to 1945, when more than 75% of Americans belonged to a religious congregation.

This decline in religious affiliation aligns closely with many similar secularizing trends. For example, in the early 1970s, only one in 20 Americans claimed none as their religion, but today it is closer to one in three. Over this same time period, weekly church attendance has decreased, and the percentage of Americans who never attend religious services has increased from 9% to 30%.

In 1976, nearly 40% of Americans said they believed that the Bible was the actual word of God, to be taken literally. Today only about a quarter of Americans believe that, with slightly more decreeing the Bible is simply a collection of fables, history and morality tales written by men. And the percentage of Americans who confidently believe in Gods existence, without a doubt, has declined from 63% in 1990 to 53% today.

Fears that this rise of irreligion might result in the deterioration of our nations moral fiber and threaten our liberties and freedoms are understandable. Such concerns are not without historical merit: The former Soviet Union was a communist country deeply rooted in atheism and was one of the most corrupt, bloody regimes of the 20th century. Other atheistic authoritarian regimes, such as the former Albania and Cambodia, were equally crooked and vicious.

But heres the thing they were all godless dictatorships that tried to forcibly destroy religion by persecuting the faithful, actively oppressing religious institutions, and making a demagogic cult out of their thuggish rulers. Such coercive secularization is, indeed, something to dread.

However, there is another, alternative kind of secularization, one that emerges organically, amid free and open societies where human rights, including religious freedom, are upheld and respected. Many societies qualify for this label including those in Japan, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Australia, Canada and Uruguay, among many others. In these places, religion is not actively repressed, nor do governments promote secularization. And yet, it occurs simply because the people living in these societies lose interest in the whole religious enterprise.

Organic secularization can occur for many reasons. It happens when members of a society become better educated, more prosperous, and live safer, more secure and more peaceful lives; when societies experience increases in social isolation; when people have better healthcare; when more women hold paying jobs; when more people wait longer to get married and have kids. All of these, especially in combination, can decrease religiosity.

Another major factor is the ubiquity of the internet, which provides open windows to alternative worldviews and different cultures that can corrode religious conviction and allows budding skeptics and nascent freethinkers to find, support and encourage one another.

In the United States, these factors are further compounded by strong backlashes against the religious right, the evangelical-Republican alliance, conservative religions anti-gay agenda and the Catholic Churchs sexual-abuse scandals. This has resulted in the winds of secularization swirling like never before, Ryan P. Burge, a political scientist, recently said.

Fears of atheistic authoritarianism aside, some may worry about religious organizations fading away because they do so much good. They do engage in a tremendous amount of charitable work that includes holding food drives and setting up soup kitchens and homeless shelters. However, such welcomed charity is ultimately an altruistic response to symptoms, not a structural cure for root causes.

This is why highly secular democracies do a much better job of ameliorating homelessness and poverty by employing decidedly secular solutions, such as responding with rational social policies and wise economic strategies, and setting up more responsive institutions. Affordable housing and subsidized healthcare do a far better job of alleviating the suffering of the poor and the sick than faith-based charities.

Secularity is highly correlated with a host of moral orientations that will markedly improve our nation. For instance, secular people when compared to their religious peers are far more likely to understand and respect the scientific method, which results in their increased willingness to get vaccinated, for instance, and adhere to empirically grounded health recommendations, a rational orientation that saves lives. Secular people are also more supportive of sex education, which reduces unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Research shows that secular people are more likely to support womens reproductive rights, universal healthcare, gay rights, environmental protections, death with dignity, gun safety legislation and treating drug abuse as a medical rather than criminal problem all of which will serve to increase dignity, liberty and well-being in America.

The organic secularization we are experiencing in the United States is a progressive force for good, one that is associated with improved human rights, more protections for planet Earth and an increased sociocultural propensity to make this life as fair and just as we can in the here and now rather than in a heavenly reward that fewer and fewer of us believe in.

Phil Zuckerman is associate dean of Pitzer College and author of Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment.

Read the original post:
Op-Ed: Why record godlessness in the U.S. is good news - Los Angeles Times

SOME weeks ago I argued onThe Conservative Womanthat it is a human trait to believe without evidence. With the proper stimuli, people can be made to believe practically anything. I also said that if this were not so, belief in God would not exist.

This comment drew a surprising number of responses from people who felt their faith had been derided and who asserted that I was wrong. They made the usual arguments for the existence of God, with the usual expectation of educating the godless and of course the usual result: no meaningful change in anybodys belief system. This is the essence of faith, the human capacity for asserting a belief based on an internal system of logic which cannot be adjusted or effectively challenged. It is this capacity for a kind of mental inertia that makes the Covid-19 project possible by exploiting the human tendency towards faith, a belief system which engenders hope in the face of hopelessness.

I decided at the age of ten that there was, quite simply, no evidence for the existence of God. I have never found a good reason to change that belief: Ive examined it thoroughly and had it challenged albeit indirectly by many voices and sources. I have, over time, struggled with expressions such as atheist or agnostic and finally have settled for humanist, the epithet I feel most comfortable with. None of this means I think there is anything wrong with believing in God. Some of my friends are devout Christians, or Buddhists. They are intelligent, often humble people whom I admire beyond measure. Nor would I attempt to convince believers in God that their faith is a mistake. Why should I? Of what possible benefit could this be? All I can do is to assert my own understanding of the universe in its own terms, and my own faith in the capacity of humanity to grow beyond the kind of thinking and reasoning that ends up with a cycle of self-referential logic. Quite possibly, the end result of such thinking is only endless questioning. Towards the end of his life, Stephen Hawking was questioning the Big Bang theory of the universe which he had supported when younger; Hoyles Steady State theory is being re-examined having previously been consigned to the dustbin of scientific history.

Its often assertedthat belief in God has been at the root of atrocities throughout history, such as religious wars or Islamic terrorism. I dont altogether agree with this. I contend that bad people will always find compelling reasons to do and justify doing bad things. Its also said that secularism, a society not founded on religious belief, is harmful and pernicious, denying us our basic humanity. Again, I disagree. A belief system founded on essentially decent values cannot be used as a justification for doing bad things. It is true that secularism has, for many of us, forced us to see the world through a confusing lens and to build entire political constructs out of our insecurities, grudges, fears and hatreds. But religious belief permitted the same things. Both religion and secularism can be corrupted for bad ends.

There is a need for faith in all of us, a point at which we no longer feel impelled to provide evidence for our fundamental view of the world. The alternative, endless scepticism, is the privilege only of a few with the discipline to embrace this.

My point is that belief in a religious faith, even one that atheists like myself reject, does not make one a fool. But if the same mental processes lead us to believe absolutely in the goodness of those in power as we are continually programmed to embrace life-destroying measures in the names of health or the environment, it is time we grew up.

History teaches us, only too well, that powerful people will do bad things and find good reasons for doing them. To ignore this is to embrace mindless reflexes as a way of life. As the evidence becomes overwhelming that the Covid-19 project is a monstrous disaster for which those responsible are continually finding good reasons to justify, we must understand that to find hope, we must challenge ourselves to ask each other some difficult questions. As Ive tried to explain, its only by asking questions that our understanding grows. I cannot understand what it must be like to be someone who thinks that if we all wear masks, get the jab, keep following the rules, everything is somehow going to be all right. Perhaps this makes them happy. I dont know. But its time we claimed, as part of our growing up, the right to be unhappy.

Faith in government is a fallacy proven again and again throughout history. The truth, whether you want to believe it or not, is that the Covid project is being forced on us by powerful people, for reasons which are becoming increasingly difficult to understand unless we assume that its a good reason for bad people to do bad things. If your faith lies in government and the powerful, take the time to question it, just as I questioned my atheism over the years. Many people who believe in God do not seem to believe in the virus. This is a good thing, because it means that there is a difference between faith and the capacity to believe without evidence when your own experience tells you something is wrong. Maybe thats what we should all be thinking about.

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Of all the things I don't believe in, this government comes top - The Conservative Woman

As a legislator, columnist/blogger, educator, and quasi-raconteur, I enjoy back-and-forth regarding sports, politics, movies and more. But I generally avoid getting into religion. Still, as someone who feels that vibrant religious communities with their associated values and activities are important parts of a healthy society, I sometimes get cognitive dissonance about avoiding the topic.

Some might call it conscience.

Which brings me to a friend Ill call Ed. Hes a non-believer with whom I have conversed about religion. Being a former Marine, I once asked Ed if he believed Marines had esprit de corps.

Of course, said Ed.

What does it mean?

French expression meaning spirit of the corps, replied Ed. A common feeling of pride and purpose that motivates a group. Sure, Marines have it in spades.

Can other groups have it?

Sure. Teams, clubs, organizations. If they have good leadership and common goals.

So you believe in this esprit, or spirit? Even though you cant see or touch it?

Yes, laughed Ed. Of course.

Can a religious group also be animated or motivated by an esprit de corps, like Marines or teams or clubs?

Why not? said Ed.

So what if religious folks claim theyre motivated by a special esprit de corps that they refer to as a holy spirit?

Ed is silent. Having already acknowledged the existence of an intangible esprit, he wont use the English word for it. He saw where I was going. To admit the existence of a Holy Spirit which is what some religious folks refer to as an animating esprit that inspires themis essentially to admit the existence of God, in that some Christian doctrines describe the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity, or God as spiritually active in the world.

Without listing names, there are many transformative figures throughout human history who, clearly inspired by a certain esprit (Holy Spirit?) have provided humankind with lessons, parables, belief structures, and inspiration to live good and productive lives. And happy ones too.

Countless surveys and research document that the religious are more generous and happier than non-religious. With exceptions of course. But the data is out there. Google away.

I ask Ed to consider the incredible good work that programs like Catholic Charities do around the world effectively and efficiently. What do atheist charities do? Might Ed be happier if he donated wherewithal or energy to one of the many wonderful religious charities?

I pay taxes, says Ed. The government does a lot of good work.

Of course.

And I dont need to go to church for a spiritual experience. I can get that by climbing a mountain.

But isnt that a bit narcissistic? Isnt there strength in numbers and value to being part of a group or community animated by an esprit/spirit to do public good and help people?

Ed laughed.

But at least he didnt get personal. A challenge for some of us when we summon up the nerve to talk about religion or values is that we must brace for personal criticism.

Who are you to talk about this stuff, given all your foibles, flaws, and sins? And what about all the hypocritical religious people who do bad things?

Sigh. Some require an unattainable measure of perfection from the inherently imperfect before engaging about religion a measure not expected from others.

But we drift away from our historical religious roots at our own peril. Witness the growing coarseness, alienation and violence that seem to accompany Americas increasing secularization. New Hampshire is rated as the least religious state. It also features about the highest rate of substance abuse. A correlation?

History is replete with religious conflict. True. As well as plenty of anti-religious violence. After the horrific French Revolution, Pariss Notre Dame Cathedral was converted by the secular to what they called a Temple of Reason. After the horrific Russian Revolution, official atheism shut down the churches. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ridiculed religious influence, asking How many divisions can the Pope deploy?

Funny thing though. Notre Dame Cathedral eventually returned to religious splendor. And churches are now open all over Russia even if some are closing in Concord. The Holy Spirit can be ridiculed, quashed, or denied, but its apparently eternal as it provides hope and inspiration for individuals and communities to pursue kinder, gentler paths.

Easter Sunday is April 4. A chance for Ed to pick out a church and perhaps witness some real esprit first-hand!

(State Rep. Mike Moffett of Loudon is a retired professor and former Marine Corps officer.)

Read this article:
My Turn: Educating Ed on Easter - Concord Monitor

The very real controversies of Americas 2021 have conjured up the fictional dystopia of George Orwells1984. The right condemns Big Tech as an incipient Big Brothersurveying citizens and suppressing disapproved thought. The left replies that Donald Trump is the true Orwellian threat. After all, he lies!

These spirited disagreements conceal an important consensus. Most Americans agree that the totalitarianism depicted in1984is bad and that we must beware of letting that nightmare vision become a reality in our own country. Our commitment to preserving freedom, then, invites us to consider the basis of this totalitarianism. In other words, we need to ask: what must the citizens be like to permit such a tyranny to arise?

In Orwells classic novel, Oceanias totalitarianism rests on compulsory atheism. Oceania is ruled by the Party, which forbids religion to its members. Religious belief is one of the crimes to which Winston Smith, the hero of1984, confesses under torturealong with sexual perversion and admiration of capitalism. The Party has to forbid religious belief because atheism is both the moral and metaphysical basis of its absolute power.

Atheism is the moral basis of the Partys unlimited hold on its own members because it makes them terrified of death as absolute nonexistence. Like any government, the Party in1984has the power to kill disobedient subjects. Party members, however, view death not just as the end of bodily life, but as a complete erasure of their beingtheir thoughts, their words, their affections, their deeds. Winston Smith muses that the terrible thing about the Party is its ability to make you vanish, such that neither you nor your actions were ever heard of again. You were lifted clean out of the stream of history.

Yet the Party does not demand atheism of everybody. The prolesthe proletarians, the workersare permitted religious belief. As the Party teaches, proles and animals are free. Being free from dogmatic atheism, the proles are also free to believe in the intrinsic value of their own intentions and actions, even in the face of death. For the proles, as for the people who had lived before the revolution that ushered in Oceanias totalitarian state, a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man, could have value in itself. Thus the proles, Winston observes, had stayed human.

In contrast, members of the Party view death as absolute defeat, from which the only escape is total submission to the Party, which alone is immortal. This, as the Party official OBrien instructs Winston, is the basis of the Partys seemingly contradictory slogan, freedom is slavery. As an individualalone and freethe human being is always defeated, because every human being is doomed to die, which is the greatest of failures. The only path of salvation, then, is complete, utter submission to the Party. Only if an individual can escape from his identity, only if he can merge himself into the Party so that heisthe Party, can he become all-powerful and immortal.

Atheism is also the metaphysical basis of1984s totalitarian regime. It underwrites the philosophic understanding of reality on which the Partys unlimited power rests.

The Party insists on teaching its members that there is no external, objective reality apart from subjective human consciousness. This is the lesson Winston has to learn the hard way (under torture) after trying to think for himself. Trying to think for yourself implies that there is something out there for you to think about, some truth that you might be able to find, on the basis of which you might be able to critique approved opinion.

This the Party strenuously denies, as OBrien labours to teach Winston. Nothing exists except through human consciousness. Outside man there is nothing. Reality is inside your skull. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about the laws of nature. We make the laws of nature.

Because there is no external, objective reality to which all human beings must conform, the Party gets to decide what is real. Sanity, Winston comes to believe, is statistical. That is, sanity means not seeing what is actually there but seeing what everybody else sees, which is what the Party is able to make them see. Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.

Unbelief in any external, objective reality gives the Party absolute power over the minds of its members. Or, to put it another way, this unbelief secures the abject intellectual slavishness of Party members, their willingness to accept whatever the Party hands out to them, however absurd it may be on its face, however obviously it contradicts what the Party has said previously. This philosophy is the basis of one of the Partys other famous slogans: Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.

Since there is no objective reality, the past has no real existence, and the Party can make it be whatever it decides it to be. As OBrien forces Winston to concede, the past does not exist in any place where one could go and confirm its characteristics. You could try to say that it exists in records, but the Party can revise all records. You could try to say that it exists in peoples memories, but the Party can falsify peoples memories through misinformation and intimidation.

1984 thus confronts us with a radical and very significant suggestion: without God as the eternal, omnipotent observer, there is no objective reality. Many have argued that without God there can be no fixed moral principles. Orwells great work goes further, raising the possibility that without God there cannot even be facts in any meaningful, reliable sense.

Think about it. Suppose I spill some water on the pavement on a hot summer day. It is gone in just a few momentsevaporated. Can I insist that it was really there? Where is the evidence of it now? If there is no eternity, if there is nothing but ceaseless flux, then every human lifeand, indeed, every human civilisation and the whole human pastis on the level of that quickly evaporated water. These things appear for a moment and, once gone, no longer exist. Thus we may claim them to be whatever we want, or even deny that they existed at all. Or, to be more accurate, those who have power can impose these claims and denials on the rest of us.

For decadesfor centuries, in factmany allegedly profound thinkers have proclaimed to the world that they were promoting enlightenment and the liberty of the mind by discrediting belief in God and the afterlife. Orwells1984, however, invites us to consider whether such thinkers have really been destroying the basis of freedom and laying the groundwork for unprecedented despotism.

This article has been republished with permission from thePublic Discourse online journal.

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Orwell, atheism, and totalitarianism MercatorNet - MercatorNet

LONDON, March 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Since the first reported case of COVID-19 in the USA in January 2020 more than 525,000 people have lost their lives to the pandemic.

For many, including those with religious affiliations, suffering and death raise many profound questions around the existence of God.

So, in light of the momentous happenings of the past 15 months, is it Christianity or atheism which makes best sense of who we are? That's the topic for the first episode of Season 3 of The Big Conversation a series of video debates featuring some of the world's biggest thinkers from a religious and atheistic perspective.

Available from Friday 2ndApril (1pm Eastern and 10am Pacific) the opening episode will explore whether human suffering and tragedy leave room for a caring, loving God.

In the first of the 6 episode Big Conversation series, Brierley welcomes Los Angeles-based Bishop Robert Barron(founder of Word on Fire) whose popular YouTubeand social media ministry reaches hundreds of thousands of skeptics along with Alex O'Connorwho is a Philosophy & Theology student at Oxford University. As a well-known voice in online atheistic circles O'Connor's YouTube channel Cosmic Skepticboasts more than 400,000 subscribers.

In the discussion O'Connor presses Bishop Barron on the problem of suffering in light of the pandemic saying "100,000 people who have died of COVID [in the UK] have done so because God allowed it."

Bishop Barron says that to blame God would itself require "a God-like perspective on all of space and time".

He responds: "Like anybody who's lived more than two years on planet earth I've suffered in my life and wondered 'why?' I totally get the emotional power of that.

"I think we hardly ever see the reason why, but we might get glimpses. As a pastoral minister, I've seen lots of examples of beautiful expressions of love that have occurred in the midst of this pandemic. Now is that the reason? No. I might get one little hint of one move on the chessboard of a good that has come from this. Yet in faith I can place suffering within the context of God's purposes."

You can watch a short promotional video here.

The series is produced by Premier Christian Radio in partnership with the John Templeton Foundation.

LINK TO IMAGES HERE

SOURCE Premier Christian Radio

Excerpt from:
Premier Christian Radio asks: How can we reconcile more than 525,000 COVID-related deaths in the USA with the concept of a loving God? - PRNewswire

Image Credit: Small Magellanic Cloud, by NASA/CXC/JPL-Caltech/STScI.

In 1973 physicist Brandon Carter noted that it is remarkable that many of the fundamental constants of physics are of just the right value to permit the emergence of man. Even slight differences in these constants would make intelligent life in the universe impossible. It is, he noted, as as if someone were expecting us. This observation came to be known as the anthropic principle, or the fine-tuning of the universe.

Its meaning and implications have been much debated, and of course it has caused considerable angst to atheists. If youre hard-set at denying the existence of God, fine-tuning of the cosmos to allow the existence of man is not an easy observation to elide.

Deniers of Gods existence have clung to one main gambit to avoid the design implications of the fine-tuning of the universe the multiverse. The multiverse is a theoretical inference drawn from the mathematical description of the early moments of the Big Bang. The equations of relativity imply the possible existence of many companion universes to ours. It seems that we cannot observe them, which makes their status as scientific observations dubious. But the multiverse has, for atheists, played a much more important role than that ordinarily played by untestable inferences from equations.

Atheists acknowledge the obvious: the likelihood that chance can account for the constellation of physical parameters that lead to the emergence man in our universe is vanishingly small. Instead, atheists argue that if the laws of physics differ slightly in each universe in the multiverse, then the probability across all of the universes the multiverse that the values of forces in one universe would permit life to arise becomes much higher.

There are innumerable variations to this argument, but all use a few quite clever yet misleading tactics.

The idea of a vast set of universes a multiverse is unintelligible. Universe means all that exists, for which multiplicity is senseless. Multiple everything is nonsense. Furthermore, even if desperate logic-parsing could impart meaning to multiverse (it cant), it is meaningless to apply probability arguments across disconnected universes you cannot meaningfully speak of the probability of something happening somewhere in Chicago, Endor, or Tatooine. Drawing statistical inferences from unobservable universes only makes sense in a script from Star Wars. It is no part of astrophysics.

Atheists extend the probability range of fine-tuning across countless universes in a way such that the probabilities in other universes cannot be observed. Because all universes except ours are unobservable, we cannot actually either measure the probability or confirm that or how the laws of physics vary in the other universes.

What atheists have done is invoke a concept of multiverse that is conceptually unintelligible and scientifically unobservable. This unintelligible unobservable probability landscape is convenient for atheists, who can merely assert that it accounts for fine-tuning without providing even a shred of evidence or logic. The multiverse theory frees atheists from real science, which is the only condition in which atheism can survive.

It tells us two things exemplified by fine and by tuning.

The universe is exquisitely fine-tuned for the existence of man, and the multiverse myth is a debating tactic, not science. But how are to understand the fine-tuning of the cosmos? What does it really tell us?

The fact that the universe is tuned that is, the fact there is any consistency at all in the laws of physics demonstrates Gods existence. This is Aquinas Fifth Way, which is the proof from design. St. Thomas used the example of arrows. If we were to see arrows flying through the air, one after another, and noted that they consistently tended to land at or near a specific spot, we would correctly infer that they were shot by an archer (rather than, say, blown by the wind). Any consistency in nature implies a Mind that draws consistency out of chaos. A targeted arrow implies an archer. Note that this is not an argument from complexity. The simplest consistency in nature a pencil falls down and not up, winter is colder than summer demonstrates Gods existence.

The second thing that fine-tuning tells us is exemplified by fine. Fine refers to the accuracy of the laws of nature, which reveals the Archers purposes. By observing the precision of targeting of the shot arrows, we can discern the Archers motives. If the arrows are merely flying into an open field, we may infer that the archer is just testing his bow. If the arrows are consistently hitting a bulls-eye target, we may infer that the archer is practicing his accuracy. If the arrows are hitting animals in the forest, we may infer that the archer is hunting. If the arrows are hitting soldiers encircling the area, we may infer that the archer is defending from an invasion.

The tuning of nature points to God, and the fineness of His tuning points to His purpose. The anthropic fine-tuning of our universe tells us that we are Gods purpose in creation.

This scientific reality has atheists in a panic, hence their need to fabricate countless fantasy universes and nonsensical probabilities. The fact that God created the universe and holds it in existence for us is a scientific fact unequivocally demonstrated by modern astrophysics.

Link:
Multiverse Myth Frees Atheists from Real Science - Discovery Institute