We’re All Born Atheists - A Religious Person Defends Non-Belief.
« on: 2010-06-18 18:16:35 »
Later in his article this guy mentions his work with Unitarian Universalism. Having been raised UU myself I appreciated the PoV. Although UU has Protestant origins, many other Christians do not consider them Christian, and indeed many UU's do not consider themselves Christians either. Every UU church I've ever attended always seems to include several openly atheist members, who are very comfortably viewed by the rest of the membership as "one of us" - I've even known atheist and agnostic UU ministers.
Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought that a belief in God was the foundation of morality, that Christians were superior to others and that atheists were a threat to believers. I didn’t, however, reach this conclusion consciously after weighing the facts and examining the issue independently. But rather it was something so ingrained within the culture that it permeated the social conscience. And of course atheists were just one group among many targeted by some Christians. But for several years now there have been movements both religious and secular that have championed the rights of other marginalized groups such as gays, people of color and women. Now it’s time for religious and spiritual people to take a stand for non-believers of all varieties.
Re:We’re All Born Atheists - A Religious Person Defends Non-Belief.
« Reply #1 on: 2010-06-18 19:13:07 »
In the article he mentions how the number of self-identified atheists has grown so much lately. I causes me to wonder if it isn't at least somewhat in context of 9-11 and the catastrophic "war on terror" response the overtly Christian US administration took. I think people almost implicitly assume that the roots of all of those tragedies lie in religious thinking and conflicts of all stripes. I was certainly a bit godless myself before all that took place, but I notice how I've become many many times more critical of the follies of religion than I ever was before these things came to pass. Before I was a bit less enthusiastic about these "new atheists" like Dawkins, Hitchens etc. but now I feel quite supportive of them. I think they've managed to connect with some rapidly growing extremely critical anti-religious elements in the western population who are not going away any time soon. If someone had told me about this ten years ago, I'd have thought they were a bit high or out of touch with reality.
In the article he mentions how the number of self-identified atheists has grown so much lately. I causes me to wonder if it isn't at least somewhat in context of 9-11 and the catastrophic "war on terror" response the overtly Christian US administration took.
The aftermath of 9/11 was almost certainly a significant factor in the writing, publication, and subsequent popularity of the books of the Four Horsemen. This in turn led to a veritable outing campaign for atheists, even an explicit one.
Re:We’re All Born Atheists - A Religious Person Defends Non-Belief.
« Reply #3 on: 2010-06-18 20:38:05 »
I do remain ever more committed to "dogmatism" as the actual sin and not "faith", in the ever Greater Faith Wars, on grounds of simple accuracy. Those happened before 9-11 but even post 9-11 it still makes sense. Other than that, I've accumulated nothing but contempt for political religion of all stripes since.
Re:We’re All Born Atheists - A Religious Person Defends Non-Belief.
« Reply #4 on: 2010-06-18 21:06:07 »
I guess it wouldn't really be so interesting for some of us to "come out" of the closet as atheists when we already have been out to our families from the beginning. We just have lived in a larger society where we and our families know how much ill will being blasphemous can earn you. All that given I support the blasphemy challenge as well as the Draw Muhammed Day. If we can't protect blasphemy then we can't really protect anything as far as I'm concerned. And sure if you just wanna "come out" as an atheist that's fine too.
Re:We’re All Born Atheists - A Religious Person Defends Non-Belief.
« Reply #5 on: 2010-07-06 09:59:49 »
Here's a video I found on point with this discussion. ZJ counters the claim by Ron Rosenbaum that atheists - like religious people - have faith and that only agnostics lack faith.
Rosenbaum misses the point of faith (belief) that it doesn't really depend on actual knowledge (evidence). Hence a person can consistently hold any combination of answers on these two issues. So we can have people who are gnostic atheists, agnostic atheists, gnostic theists, or agnostic theists.
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