Category Archives: Atheism

Sen. Bernie Sanders rallies with supporters in St. Paul, Minn., March 2, 2020.(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)And his own religious faith is indistinguishable from belief in socialism.

Once upon a time, Bernie Sanders would have had another political vulnerability besides his socialism namely, his atheism.

In 2016, a DNC staffer had to apologize after the WikiLeaks hack exposed an email he wrote that suggested using Bernies atheism against him in the primary.

This year, Bernies religion or lack of it has barely made a ripple or even occasioned any comment. It used to be expected that serious presidential candidates would have religious faith and discuss it, in keeping with the religious coloration of the country they sought to govern. Just as the taboo against openly socialist candidates has given way, so has the old norm about religiosity eroded nearly to the vanishing point.

Sanders, a secular Jew, doesnt call himself an atheist. The way he puts it is that hes not actively involved in organized religion, and that he believes in God, just not in a traditional matter. To me, he has said of his religion, it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together.

Asked by Jimmy Kimmel whether he believes in God, he said, I am what I am. And what I believe in, and what my spirituality is about, is that were all in this together.

Functionally, this means his religion is indistinguishable from the vision of solidarity undergirding his socialist politics.

Indeed, the connection to Israel that Sanders touts to prove that he is not anti-Israel had much more to do with a political commitment rather than a religious one.

He lived for a time on a kibbutz in 1963 as a guest of a secular, socialist youth movement. According to the New York Times, the kibbutz saw the Soviet Union as a model, and often flew the red flag at outdoor events. Sanders told a publication called Jewish Currents that it was there that I saw and experienced for myself many of the progressive values upon which Israel was founded.

His brother said of Bernie in a 2016 Washington Post interview that he is quite substantially not religious.

This makes Sanders an outlier in American life, but less of one than he used to be. According to the Pew Research Center, 26 percent of Americans says that they are atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular, up from 17 percent in 2009. The growth of the religiously unaffiliated can be seen across all demographic groups and regions but is especially pronounced among young people who are, of course, disproportionately Bernie supporters. Only 35 percent of Millennials attend religious services weekly or once or twice a month, while 64 percent attend a few times a year, seldom, or never.

The non-religious are Bernies base. A Pew survey in January found that Joe Bidens most supportive religious group was black Protestants, at 44 percent, followed by white Catholics and white evangelicals, at 37 percent each. Bernies best groups were agnostics (36 percent), atheists (30), and the unaffiliated (28).

In New Hampshire, Sanders lost to Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg among voters who attend religious services once a week or more and won among voters who never attend. A rare bright spot for Bernie in South Carolina was beating Biden among voters who never attend church, 36 to 24 percent.

Theres no rule that presidents have to be believers, or Thomas Jefferson never would have occupied the office. But presidential religiosity has advantages. Bill Clinton used it to signal to otherwise politically hostile parts of the county that he understood their values. It fortified George W. Bush under incredible pressure during the War on Terror. Barack Obama tapped the rhetorical power of church oratory.

The Sanders phenomenon is another indication of the weakening of American exceptionalism. When the social scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote about it decades ago, he underlined American religiosity and resistance to socialism. If he captures the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders will test how much either still matters or applies.

2020 by King Features Syndicate

See original here:
Bernie Sanders Is the Candidate of Nonbelievers - National Review

Once upon a time, Bernie Sanders would have had another political vulnerability besides his socialism - namely, his atheism.

In 2016, a Democratic National Committee staffer had to apologize after the WikiLeaks hack exposed an email he wrote that suggested using Bernie's atheism against him in the primary.

This year, Bernie's religion, or lack of it, has barely made a ripple or even occasioned any comment. It used to be expected that serious presidential candidates would have religious faith and discuss it, in keeping with the religious coloration of the country they sought to govern. Just as the taboo against openly socialist candidates has given way, so has the old norm about religiosity eroded nearly to the vanishing point.

Sanders, a secular Jew, doesn't call himself an atheist. The way he puts it is that he's "not actively involved with organized religion," and that he believes in God, just not in a traditional matter. "To me," he has said of his religion, "it means that all of us are connected, all of life is connected, and that we are all tied together."

Asked by Jimmy Kimmel whether he believes in God, he said, "I am what I am. And what I believe in, and what my spirituality is about, is that we're all in this together."

Functionally, this means his religion is indistinguishable from the vision of solidarity undergirding his socialist politics.

Indeed, the connection to Israel that Sanders touts to prove that he is not anti-Israel had much more to do with a political commitment rather than a religious one.

He lived for a time on a kibbutz in 1963 as a guest of a secular, socialist youth movement. According to The New York Times, the kibbutz "saw the Soviet Union as a model, and often flew the red flag at outdoor events." Sanders told a publication called Jewish Currents that "it was there that I saw and experienced for myself many of the progressive values upon which Israel was founded."

His brother said of Bernie in a 2016 Washington Post interview that "he is quite substantially not religious."

This makes Sanders an outlier in American life, but less of one than he used to be. According to the Pew Research Center, 26% of Americans say that they are atheist, agnostic or "nothing in particular," up from 17% in 2009. The growth of the religiously unaffiliated can be seen across all demographic groups and regions, but is especially pronounced among young people who are, of course, disproportionately Bernie supporters. Only 35% of millennials attend religious services weekly or once or twice a month, while 64% attend a few times a year, seldom or never.

The nonreligious are Bernie's base. A Pew survey in January found that Joe Biden's most supportive religious group was black Protestants at 44%, followed by white Catholics and white evangelicals at 37% each. Bernie's best groups were agnostics (36%), atheists (30%) and the unaffiliated (28%).

In New Hampshire, Sanders lost to Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg among voters who attend religious services once a week or more and won among voters who never attend. A rare bright spot for Bernie in South Carolina was beating Biden among voters who never attend church, 36% to 24%.

There's no rule that presidents have to be believers, or Thomas Jefferson never would have occupied the office. But presidential religiosity has advantages. Bill Clinton used it to signal to otherwise politically hostile parts of the county that he understood their values. It fortified George W. Bush under incredible pressure during the war on terror. Barack Obama tapped the rhetorical power of church oratory.

The Sanders phenomenon is another indication of the weakening of American exceptionalism. When the social scientist Seymour Martin Lipset wrote about it decades ago, he underlined American religiosity and resistance to socialism. If he captures the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders will test how much either still matters or applies.

Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry

Here is the original post:
The candidate of the nonbelievers | Local News - timessentinel.com

There is a frightening word to which many people in the Church have closed their minds, which is gaining support at a rapid rate of knots and threatens to leave practising Catholics behind in its wake. That word is "humanist".

With that word, humanist, many people now describe not just themselves, but also the things they respect. Often Catholics do not approve of the word. Disapproving, they ignore the change; ignoring it, they drop out of the culture.

Last year the number of humanist funerals soared in Scotland and humanist weddings did so in England and Wales. English couples rushed to use Scotlands more post-Christian arrangements. This Christmas, humanist pastors started work in Northern Ireland.

Christians usually see these trends as events impinging on Christianity, when in fact they are occurring without it and have positive content themselves. Perhaps the feeling of being on the back foot in these culture wars has again made it congenial to Catholics to think institutionally and defensively. But thats no good.

A missionary Church cannot fall behind the things which its audience cares about, especially if it does not want to fall in with them. Yet how many Catholics inquire to see what makes humanism so attractive a term or to wonder if anything in that attraction is Christian?

What is happening is that humanist has become the main way to describe and defend that which is spiritual.

In the Observer, Mark Kermode praised 1917 and The Shawshank Redemption as humanist films because they speak about hope. The website Spiked! defends humanism, and by that means that Spiked! champions agency, the new term for free will and emancipation, and free speech, the sphere of conscience.

The album Humanist has just been released by a songwriter who says he is not religious but does "recognise the need for deities. Humanism is often associated with real feelings rather than formality: its what likeable in Hockney; its how Vox praises the new film Emma.

Not speaking this lingo means tacitly neglecting any defence of conscience, free will, and spirituality, made in terms that todays society can accept: the very concepts at the heart of Gaudium et spes. The very things in papers and websites which Christians should be latching onto as seeds of the Gospel are not being shared or said by them at all. Around us is a renewed culture, and Christians need to appropriate it.

In his book True Humanism (1936), Jacques Maritain argued that philosophers taking the human being as their starting point did not need to reduce reality to the human, or reduce what is human to the simply material.

Maritains thought was that when Christine de Pizan and Pico della Mirandola were flourishing, humanism was Christian humanism, but that by 1936, humanism became short for secular humanism.

If the Church engages at all, it opposes secular humanism with its Christian humanism as though 1936 were the present day. But often, in 2020, humanists recognise the need for the spiritual. The way people use humanism as a term of approval shows that New Atheism (Dawkins neo-Darwinism and so forth) is not now the problem.

Humanism now is not anti-Christian in tone. This is actually worse for the Church. The urgent problem is the currency of strong alternative language for good that the Church cannot hear and will not speak.

Nietzsche is somewhere in this story, too, Maritain was right about that; with the Nietzschean idea that Christianity encourages weakness. Every human sin confirms that bias. Marxism features too, because the Soviet version of the texts was published for a generation before Marx-before-Engels (what Maritain calls the young Marx) was rediscovered. Before long it looked like two forms of un-freedom: religion and politics, church and state.

When students grow up, it is more the questions that have been closed down for them that come to define their choices, than the skills which they are meant to have acquired. There is great danger now that atheists are defending agency, free expression and the human spirit, while the Church comes to be associated with cruelty, cover-up and grief.

Look no further than Philip Pullmans celebrity to see that the tables have been turned. Atheists who reject an idea of God that was never worthy of acceptance will defend humanity, they will be the humanists; and Catholics will fail to put across their trust in the God-made-man.

The century now underway is not unlike the fourth century in this respect. Then as well there was a more sympathetic hearing for Christians who presented Christ as divine but human than for Christians who emphasised divinity at the expense of humanity. The successful proselytisers were the Arians.

The fallacies promulgated in schools should be lanced. Before modern science, no one was trying (and failing) to do science. Before natural science existed, people engaged with the same real world, just in different terms. Their sacramental idea of nature, with God as the first, final and primary cause, can co-exist with our success in mastering secondary causes.

What is more important? When you meet someone whom Karl Rahner considers an anonymous Christian, who considers himself not religious; what matters first? To win an argument which to him is theoretical? To speak in your own institutions language? Or to relate to him in what Escriva calls the one same language of the heart? If you thought the natural virtues can be built on by the theological ones, why would you start with theology, bowdlerising theology in the process?

Why would the Church start with that bureaucratic aridity the Pope has rejected when we could achieve dialogue with the mercy Francis commends?

At a time when public discourse is being cut up into echo chambers and silos, when people seek actively to confirm their bias, the Church is another silo: one which does not communicate what it means and seems to say the opposite. So we need to start with the word that means something to others.

The integral humanism Maritain advocated means seeing the transcendent and the individual together, but it is with individuals that all individuals must begin. Catholics and the Catholic clergy should stand up for humanism, and use exactly that word.

Only by using an intelligible language can the Church gain a hearing for its claim to have a longer and deeper view. The Church has "baptised" natural theology before. Christ is the true human being. Humanism is the beginning of a faith that works.

Andrew Macdonald Powney works in publishing but used to teach RS in schools.

Go here to see the original:
Have atheists become defenders of the good? - The Tablet

Worried about COVID-19? Have no fear! A multi-denominational coalition of Christians is uniting today March 3rd, at 7:14 p.m. CST precisely for a global day of prayer to end the virus and you know it has to work, because God called for it.

The vessel through which he has spoken to the Christian community is Cindy Jacobs, co-founder of Generals International. Jacobs says God has spoken to her, telling her in true Old Testament fashion to organize the event. She says the Holy Spirit verbally granted her the authority to decree, albeit only in the event of a global convergence.

Jacobs has quite the track record with the Holy Spirit: They go way back. In her career as a faith healer, shes been able to turn metal into bone, make a grown woman grow taller, control the weather, and even magically inflate her ministrys bank account.

She also thinks that God wants Christians to be rich so the Jews will convert out of jealousy, and that He killed a bunch of blackbirds to condemn the repeal of Dont Ask, Dont Tell. She and her husband also co-signed an open letter slamming Christianity Todays anti-Trump op-ed, in case youre wondering where her politics lie.

We along with other global leaders are calling for a national day of prayer to end the Coronavirus. After seeking wisdom and prophetic counsel from prophets across the nation and world, we believe strongly that since this is a worldwide issue, its going to take the whole church to cry out together for the mercy and healing power of God to contain it.

Jacobs goes on to discuss the importance of a nation aligned with Gods will, invoking Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War to make some sort of flag-waving point about national unity, despite the event being billed as a global day of prayer.

At least shes willing to add that the promise remains the same for each nation enduring the coronavirus. God will heal all of us but only if we ask nicely enough.

Which begs the question: If God knows that we want the coronavirus gone, why does He need all the pageantry of a day of prayer where the whole world begs Him to take it away? Couldnt He just get rid of it?

Is God basically a bank robber, killing hostages until we pay him in the currency of prayers and appeasement?

And to think: Christians call atheism a belief system without hope.

See more here:
Cindy Jacobs: God Told Me to Hold a Global Day of Prayer Against Coronavirus - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

The essay begins by focusing on worrying, an all too common problem and gateway emotion to atheism:

"Every time we take a thought break and begin to wonder about how we will pay the stove oil bill, or the light bill, or what we are going to do if we get laid off from work in six months, we are worrying. We are actually telling the Lord, 'Jesus, you know all that stuff you said in Matthew chapter six about how you will take care of us? I don't believe it. I don't believe that you can do what you promised, so I am taking matters into my own hands; I'm going to worry about it until the situation is taken care of.'"

As it turns out, God plans his days around your dilemmas and will get to them in due course. So, if you are bothered about not being sure where your rent is coming form this month, you're doubting the Lord. Concerned about things like climate change? You're practically an iconoclast. Anxious at the thought that you aren't a good enough Christian? According to this, that exact worry is a sign that you aren't!

Are you feeling even more worried now? Oh, that isn't a good sign at all. You ought to be worried about that.

According to Lindley:

"I have only sworn two times since receiving the Holy Ghost. The Lord has the power to change our attitudes and habits. I wish I could say that I never get angry anymore either, but that is not the case. Just like you, I struggle with atheistic tendencies.

"Every time something doesn't go the way we want it to and we get angry, we are telling the world, 'I am losing my temper, because this problem is so messed up that not even God can sort it out.' When we slam doors, swear, yell, break dishes, speed, or shake our fist at somebody we are in the grip of an atheism attack.

"You see the Bible very clearly states that there is nothing too hard for God to fix. 'And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.' (Romans 8:28 NKJV) This is why a person who has been born again can hit their thumb with a hammer and not swear. This is why the sincere Christian can look at a flat tire and say, 'I guess God needs to slow me down, because he has someone he needs me to cross paths with today.' Swearing and getting angry only says, 'There is absolutely no way that God can turn this flat tire into a blessing!'"

Well, shit. It seems that being angry with things, including things that might seem to be perfectly reasonable things to be mad at, is admitting that you think God is useless.

How exactly this reconciles with Jesus getting pissed off at the moneylenders in the temple and healers that refused to save lives on Sunday is unclear. Neither of these incidents seem to be the things that happen to somebody without bursts of anger, though I do suppose it is possible Christ had fits of atheism multiple times in his life.

Sometimes I don't believe in myself either.

Lindley points out the final, most advanced symptom of atheism last: Not sending God money. He writes:

"Some people are so greedy that they actually rob God. 'In what way have we robbed God? In tithes and offerings.' (Malachi 3:8 NKJV)) To those who would hold back the tithe the Lord has a challenge: 'Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this' says the Lord of hosts, 'If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.' (3:10 NKJV)"

While the God of Abraham is well known not to need money on account of his transcendental nature, it seems that he is still owed ten percent of everybody's earnings. This is not paid to him, of course, but to his helpers. In exchange for this, God will make good things happen. If you don't send money in addition to swearing or occasionally being grouchy, the minister assures us that "you are at extreme risk for very serious complications from your atheism."

While this may look remarkably similar to a concept used by the mafia, the protection racket, it is an utterly different operation. In the case of the mob, the threat of punishment is used as a way to force people into paying part of their earnings to a larger organization. In return, they are promised the protection of that organization from vague threats, often including that organization.

In this holy case, vague are threats used to show people the wisdom of paying part of their earnings to the church. In exchange for their payments, they are offered kickbacks from God and protection from vague threats made by the people telling them they need to send in money.

Luckily, Lindley suggests a solution for all three problems, especially the last one: Don't be an atheist! In particular, start praying and sending God money. This will resolve the third symptom automatically and the first two eventually.

It's an offer you can't refuse.

While it is fun to mock the often-ludicrous positions of those who misunderstand atheism, that very misunderstanding is an all too common and all too real issue for the millions of Americans who are not religious. Atheists in the United States face discrimination, are not trusted, and are barred from running for office in several states.

In my experience, many of these tend to come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what atheism is. I, at various times, have been accused of being a Satanist, a pagan, or an amoralist, among other things. It is little wonder why a person who doesn't understand what atheism is would find a variety of issues arising from it.

The minister in this case makes a similar mistake: He begins by thinking that atheism is something other than the proposition that there are no gods and then works forward. In this case, he seems to presume it is some kind of psychological condition which manifests as a hybrid of anxiety, Tourette's syndrome, and kleptomania. His use of the word "symptoms" is revealing.

While it is true that atheism can be anxiety-inducing, this falls more under the category of "existential dread" than psychosis. John-Paul Sartre, the atheistic philosopher who made Existentialism popular, wrote on this extensively. In his essay "Existentialism is a Humanism," he explains:

"What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the worldand defines himself afterwards. If man as the existentialist see him is not definable, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. Thus, there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of himself what do we mean by anguish? The existentialist frankly states that man is in anguish. His meaning is as follows: When a man commits himself to anything, fully realizing that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankindin such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility."

If choosing what you are and what meaning your life will have doesn't give you anxiety, Sartre would suggest you're doing something wrong.

However, this anxiety isn't necessarily cured by belief. Soren Kierkegaard, the founder of Existentialism, wrote extensively on the topics of angst, dread, anxiety, and regretting all of your life choices while being a thoroughly devoted Christian. While he argues that the leap of faith can help, he also argues that we are still fundamentally alone and responsible for our choices when it comes to making that anxiety-inducing leap.

The minister's point about swearing as a result of lacking faith is bizarre enough to be left alone. Ten minutes in any bar in the middle section of the country on a Friday night should be enough to convince anybody that any sincere believer can swear while remaining a believer.

Furthermore, the minister presumes that a believer is going to be of the kind that thinks God is very engaged in human life. While he may suppose God was involved in his tire going flat, many other approaches to the divine reject that idea. Deists, who tend to think that there is a God who created the cosmos but leaves it alone, would be an example.

All in all, the essay described above is an unintentionally hilarious look at what some people think being an atheist is like. It is hardly the first, and it won't be the last. Anxiety about atheism has a history going back to ancient Greecestudies demonstrate the continued existence of Christian anxiety about atheistsand this essay is another example of people being unduly concerned about it.

I'd accuse the minister of worrying too much about atheism, but then he'd be one of us.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

More here:
3 "symptoms" of atheism, as described by a Christian minister - Big Think

AnaRose Hart-ThomasStaff Writer

Each week, the Mavericks Atheist/Agnostic Secular Students gather in the basement of Armstrong Hall to discuss topics of interest presented by its club members.

Dalton Campbell, a third-year finance major, explained a typical meeting as, We have a rotation of officers who make their own PowerPoints about a particular subject. Last week we did one on where morality comes from.

Meetings are conducted in an open forum fashion where members can openly discuss their minds. The club participates in Ask an Atheist Day as well that happens twice a year. On those days, anyone can ask questions about atheism to atheists.

John Arsenault, a senior studying history, said, For me, it is a place of free thought. It is not so much about one thing like atheism, but a place to openly discuss religion and theology.

Frank Vondura, a sophomore transfer student studying music industry and theater design, added, It is a group of people to see each week that are different from the norm who have interesting mindsets and views on things.

MASS has existed in some way on campus for roughly 10 years, but was revamped two years ago to be the group it is today. When I came here, I was looking for an atheist club but there was nothing. There were 20-plus religious organizations, so the goal was to have something for secular people, so they didnt have to feel ostracized, Raghen Lucy, the club president, said.

Michael Diercks, an MNSU alumni, said, The one thing I always liked about this club is the sense of community. Sometimes it feels like Im he only non-religious person but then I come here and there is a whole group of like-minded individuals.

Campbell defined atheist and agnostic as, Atheist to me, deals with the lack of the belief in God, whereas agnostic deals with the knowledge of something meaning you dont know something for a fact.

Information on how to join can be found on posters throughout the campus. Weekly meetings are held Thursdays at 7 p.m. in Armstrong Hall 39.

We are open to anyone of any religious faith as long as you bring an open mind, Arsenault said.

Header photo: Students exchange their views on the extinction of dinosaurs at the Mavericks Atheist/Agnostic Secular Students Features meeting in Armstrong Hall Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020 in Mankato, Minn. (Mai Tran/MSU Reporter)

Like Loading...

Continue reading here:
MNSU's atheist club believes in the right to not believe - MSU Reporter

BY ALEX RYRIEBELKNAP PRESS272 PP.; $27.95

In his book Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt, author Alec Ryrie, a professor of the history of Christianity at Durham University in England, sets out to give a broad history of unbelief based not so much on logic as on emotionsmore specifically, anger and anxiety. This works on some levels, but on others Ryrie fails to draw a large enough picture of the emotional history. Still, he brings an enlightened and erudite touch to his argument after he confesses to being a believer with a soft spot for atheism.

Unbelievers begins in 1239 with the pope accusing Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, of being an atheist for calling Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad charlatans and deceivers. The pontiff also charges that one of Fredericks advisors had written a book called The Three Impostors arguing this same position.

As would be the case over the next five hundred years, the truth seems to have fallen far short of the charge. There is evidence that Frederick II may have been at least asking uncomfortable questions of his advisors, but whats more in evidence is that the pope and Frederick II were bitter political rivals. And there is (unfortunately) no evidence that The Three Impostors ever existed, although its rumored existence and changing authorship over five centuries was regularly repeated as evidence by accusatory officials. (Some enterprising Frenchmen did write a book with this title in the early 1700s, apparently hoping to benefit from its already infamous reputation.)

Emperor Frederick II being excommunicated by Pope Innocent IV

This outlines a problem Ryrie has to deal with throughout the bookthat the history of unbelief is one written by devout believers, so atheist is a term thrown about quite liberally as an attack against specific individuals with whom they had disagreements, and is used as a general bogeyman. The hard evidence of unbelief must be gleaned from those many instances where atheism is alleged but rarely admitted. In fact, most charged with atheism admit rather to different beliefs on the nature of God, not no belief at all.

Still, Ryries history is fascinating for the insights those trials and charges do provide. For instance, a recurring theme is the suspicion of doctors for harboring disbelief. This is due chiefly to their development of the scientific method through observation, correlation of symptoms with certain environmental factors (rather than with demons), and their reporting on those results, placing undue emphasis upon nature inopposition to faith. A seventeenth-century proverb states: where there are three physicians, there are two atheists.

Things really start to percolate during the Renaissance, especially with the discovery of previous lost manuscripts of Cicero, Pliny the Elder, and especially Lucretiuss On the Nature of Things. These works suggest a world view governed by nature or chance and the notion that there is no life after deatha truly revolutionary blow the church rightly saw as undercutting its whole theological system. That these ideas were even advanced became a source of concern to church authorities.

On the heels of the Renaissance came the Reformation, where questioning the church took on a new immediacy. Ryrie does a nice job of outlining how, while most of the Reformations push was to reform rather than reject, the types of questions being raised by reformers were inevitably taken farther than even those reformers meant them to go.

Ryrie hits his full stride as a storyteller in going through the many different forms of unbelief that came about in the period following the Reformation, especially in his home country of England. He is a capable writer with a good eye for the illustrative detail. Unfortunately, for those looking more for a history of atheism, almost all of the stories he tells are of people who still believed in God, although their God was very different from the God of either Catholicism or Anglican Protestantism. Things became especially vicious during the English Civil Wars of the mid-1600s, where each side, convinced that their interpretation of Christianity was correct, routinely accused the other of a sort of atheism, although both sides agreed that if you didnt take a side, you were definitely an atheist since anyone who had no opinion about the nations divisions evidently believed in nothing at all.

Later in the book, Ryrie starts to corral his historical review in favor of his thesis that most unbelief came about as a result of two things; either anxiety, brought on by the believer who tried to reconcile the word of God as read with the word of God as it was being preached, or anger at the obvious hypocrisy they saw around them in terms of corrupt priests and church officials, or religion being used by political forces for their own political ends.

While this is a useful construct, it also seems to leave out an even more fascinating strain that Ryrie usefully identifies in the introduction but leaves largely unaddressed throughout his main argument. In defining an atheist, he quotes the seventeenth-century essayist Thomas Fuller, who states that a practical atheist is not someone who thinks there is no God, but someone who thinks not there is a God. Within this small difference, a huge world of unbelief seems to dwell. A practical atheist doesnt deny God but rather finds the idea of God not to be a useful one. Instead, this persons ethics are shaped by their simple experiences in the daily world.

Its an idea that Ryrie does seem to come back to in his last few pages. Here he summarizes the world of the last century or so, and traces the Wests movement away from religion to a more generalized humanist ethic. This ethic, he argues, is based in a strangely perverse way on Adolf Hitler, who came to personify what humanism and ethics should NOT bea sort of negative definition. In doing so, society has left behind the Bible and religion as a guide to what ethics should be, adopting by default a stance that a practical atheist would recognize. This example of a negative figure whose views of ethics must be rejected is being retold today in fictional characters like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, Darth Vader in Star Wars, and Voldemort in Harry Potter.

This is fascinating stuff, but not explored beyond a summary few pages. One gets the sense that if hed started off with this thesis, the interesting history he uncovered would have a different flow and nuance and would have given a more satisfying result. Still, this is a good book for the interested reader, and in examining the story of unbelief through the centuries we can explore a side of history that has largely been ignored.

Read the original post:
Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt - The Humanist

By NICHOLAS KOMUMore by this Author

Atheists have rejected census data showing that 700,000 Kenyans do not believe in deity insisting they are twice as many.

Following the release of detailed census data, Atheists In Kenya (AIK) now claims that the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) deliberately failed to count atheists and the actual number of non-religious Kenyans is 1.5 million.

According to the detailed report on the Kenyan population based on their religious beliefs, 755,750 Kenyans do not believe in any religion. That is about 1.6 per cent of the total Kenyan population.

Kilifi County leads in the number of nonbelievers with 146,669, more than double the number of atheists in Nakuru which stands at 67,640.

Nairobi has the third highest atheist population with 54,841 followed by Narok (45,617), Kiambu (30770), Kitui (23,778), Meru (20,985) and Mombasa (11,148).

However, AIK now insists that the data is inaccurate and that KNBS enumerators deliberately failed tally atheists during the 2019 census.

We find these statistics to be grossly inaccurate and not fit for purpose. We contend that we have well over 1.5 million atheists in Kenya, and the number is growing steadily. An independent survey of our members has revealed that some KNBS employees deliberately skipped asking whether one is an atheist during the 2019 census. We have evidence that many atheists were undercounted and miscounted, AIK said in a statement on Saturday.

The statement dated February 23 was signed by the group's President Harrison Mumia and recently elected Assistant Secretary Kio Kinuthia, questioned the statistics bureau credibility in the 2019 census. Now the atheists society is questioning the entire census data, terming it as inaccurate.

According to the 2009 population census report released by the same institution, the number of Kenyans who said that they were not affiliated to any religion was said to be 922,128.

We find it odd that the 2019 census report indicates that the number of atheists has declined by almost 200,000 in a span of 10 years, yet the population of Kenyans has increased by 10 million over the same period. This undermines the accuracy of not just the atheist data, but the entire KNBS 2019 census report," AIK said.

While Christianity and Islam are the predominant religions in Kenya, atheism has been attracting quite a following in the past few years.

This has, however, been a tough rise in popularity for the movement under the leadership of Mr Mumia, an Information Technology specialist.

AIK was registered on February 17, 2016 but, just two months later, it was suspended by Registrar of Societies.

The final census report shows there are 15,777,473 Protestants in Kenya, the majority religious group.

Catholics are 9,726,169 in total while 9,648,690 people attend evangelical churches.

About 3,292,573 go to African Instituted Churches, Orthodox (201,263) and other Christian (1,732,911).

Islam has a following of 5,152,194, while Hindu has 60,287. About 318,727 Kenyans are traditionalists.

Atheists in Kenya now wants a review of the census data by KNBS.

"We reject the figure of 755,750 atheists reported by the KNBS 2019 census report. We call for an independent review of how the KNBS collects, analyses, and reports census data," the society leadership said.

The rest is here:
Atheists dismiss census data, say they have1.5m members - Daily Nation

Atheists in Kenya have come up with a list of proposals which they want to be added to the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) report to help broaden the countrys democratic values.

The society acknowledged that it supports the BBI initiative. However, they are of the view that the report has not put into consideration certain factors that affect the secular, free thinkers and humanist organisations.

REMOVE GOD

For instance, they are demanding to have the word God expunged from the National Anthem, since not all Kenyans share a religious belief of a supernatural being.

They also want the word God erased from the constitution of Kenya.

The Preamble of the Kenyan Construction 2010 states:We, the people of Kenya Acknowledging the supremacy of the Almighty God of all creation:

Kenyan identity and traditions should also be promoted. This should include persons to have three African names without a western name to restore our Kenyanness, explained Harrison Mumia Chairman of Atheists in Kenya.

The society is wants the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission (IEBC) to allow any Kenyan above 18 years with an identification card to vote during elections.

According to the society the existence of a voter register is one of the reasons the country has divisive elections in Kenya.

LGBT RIGHTS

Neither the government nor our Constitution should be seen to be promoting any religion, or certain religious ideas.That is why Kadhi Courts should be abolished. Since it also opens a pandora box for many other religions groups to demand inclusion of their religious practices into the Constitution,the society said.

Religious education did not fail to make the list.

Christian, Islamic and Hindu religious education is outdated and should be replaced with a new subject.Religion, Belief and Values (RBV) is what should be taught in schools that will focus more on the history of African Traditional Religion, Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Atheism, Humanism, Spiritualism and any other religion, including Greek Mythology, Mumia said.

The society also wants lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals, should be recognised in the constitution and allowed the freedom to marry and their familys protected by law.

Article 45 of our Constitution establishes the family is the natural and fundamental unit of society and the necessary basis of social order. The family enjoys protection of the state. Article 45 (2) states as follows: Every adult has the right to marry a person of the opposite sex, based on the free consent of the parties.We recommend that Article 45 (2) of our Constitution be amended as follows: Every adult has the right to marry any other person, based on the free consent of the parties, said Mr Mumia.

Read more here:
Here is what Kenyan Atheists want included in the BBI report - Nairobi News

I had an unusual childhood for an American. Members of my extended family were union organizers and left-wing radicals, and my parents had even been members of the American Communist Party. My indoctrination in the dogmas of communism and atheism was deep and long lasting. At the same time, my father gave me a love of science and reason, and he taught me the importance of asking questions. These gifts, along with my training in scientific thought and research, eventually cracked open the prison cell that held my soul captive during those early years.

Breaking free was a slow process, akin to chipping away at a dungeon door with a dull spoon. Early on in life, my curiosity led me to ask questions. I saw contradictions in some of what I had been taught. If humans were a blind product of evolutionary chance, with no special purpose or significance, then how could the stated goals of socialismto advance human dignity and valuemake sense? And if religion, particularly Christianity, was really such a terrible historical evil, then why were so many Christian clergy members involved in the civil rights movement?

As I studied science and began my research career in biochemistry and molecular biology, I formed a passionate attachment to a life of knowledge rooted in the scientific worldview. I found comfort and joy in the beauty, complexity, and wisdom of the scientific description of reality. But I also began wondering whether there might be something more to human existence than science and pure reason.

At this point, the question of faith was off the table. I knew that evolution was true and the Bible (which I hadnt actually read) was false. I knew that a supernatural god living in the sky was a fairy tale. I knew that science held the keys to unlock all mysteries. Or did it?

I was disturbed to learn that, according to science, some things are actually unknowable. It is impossible to know, for instance, the position and speed of an electron simultaneously. This is a critical feature of quantum mechanics, even though it makes little rational sense. If the uncertainty principle is true (and it must be, since so much modern technology is based on it), then how valid is the idea of a purely deterministic and predictable world?

I also began to contemplate other questions. Where did the universe come from? How did life begin? What does it mean to be a human being? What is the source of our creativityof art, poetry, music, and humor? Perhaps, I thought, science cannot tell us everything.

Now I was beginning to seriously wonder about the whole religion thing. I met Christians who were smart and scientifically minded, and for the first time I attended a church service. I was surprised at what I found. Nobody glared at me with suspicion, and I heard no thundering condemnation of sinners. The pastor spoke about the power of love. The people next to me shook my hand and wished me peace. It was all quite beautiful, and I decided to return.

Then I read the Gospels and had another shock: I found them beautiful and inspiring. So far as I could tell, they carried the ring of truth. And the Book of Acts struck me as actual history, not at all like a fictional account concocted to enslave the massesthe kind of reading my Marxist upbringing would have conditioned me to affirm.

The door to my prison cell was swinging open, and I stood there gazing out onto a new world, the world of faith. Yet I was afraid to fully leave. Suppose I was being fooled, misled into a trap? I remained stuck in that place of indecision for several years. And then the Holy Spirit pulled me over the threshold.

It happened one day while I was traveling alone on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the rural middle part of the state, with a long way to go. Turning the radio on, I heard the unmistakable voice of an evangelical Christian preacher, the kind I used to mock and avoid. But this preacher was really good. I have no idea what he was saying, but his voice and inflection were mesmerizing and I listened for a few minutes before turning the radio off. Driving in silence for a while, I began wondering how I would sound if I ever tried preachingafter all, I always liked to talk. I laughed a bit, thinking about what I could possibly say. The first thing that came to my mind was something about sciencehow, if there were a God, he might have used science to create the world.

And then something happened. I felt a chill up and down my spine and could hear myself speaking in my mindpreaching, in fact. I could see an audience in front of me, people in an outdoor stadium, dressed in summer clothing. I pulled the car over to the right lane and slowed down. It was not a vision exactly, but it was intense. I knew I wasnt making the words upI was listening just as much as the audience.

I talked about knowing that Jesus loves me. With a voice full of passionate emotion, I assured the crowd that whatever their sins might be, they were no worse than my own, and that because of Christs sacrifice on the cross we could all be saved. I explained that Gods love is more powerful than any other kind and that anyone can have it without deserving it.

At some point during this experience, I had pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, where I sat behind the wheel crying for some time. I had never considered the things I had been saying. Some of the concepts were unfamiliar. The only explanation I could fathom was that the Holy Spirit had entered into my life in dramatic fashion. Thank you, Lord, I said out loud in between sobs. I believe, and I am saved. Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ.

When I recovered my composure, I was aware of a great feeling of joy and release. I had no more doubts, no trace of hesitationI had crossed over, stepping over the ruins of my prison cell into my new life of faith. From that day onward, my life has been devoted to the joyful service of our Lord.

Today, I am an active member of my church and have served as lay leader for several years. I am a fellow of the American Scientific Affiliation, the largest organization of Christians in the sciences, and the vice president of its metropolitan Washington, DC, chapter. I also serve as editor in chief of the ASAs online magazine God and Nature. I assist my wife, who is codirector of a local charity that distributes food to the needy. I am an active online evangelist.

Along the way, I made many discoveries. I learned about the power of the Bible as a guide from God to the central questions of our existence. I learned that the true purpose of science is to describe how things are, not to engage in misplaced speculation about why the world is the way it is. I learned that modern atheist taunts about the purposelessness and meaninglessness of the universe and our own existence are not only false but destructive. Most importantly, I learned that nothing I have learned came through my own merit, but only from the grace of our Lord, whose love and mercy are beyond understanding.

Sy Garte is a biochemist who has taught at New York University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Rutgers University. He is the author of The Works of His Hands: A Scientists Journey from Atheism to Faith (Kregel Publications).

See the original post:
I Assumed Science Had All the Answers. Then I Started Asking Inconvenient Questions. - ChristianityToday.com