Video
Twitter
Facebook
RSS Feed
Atheist? Secularist? Both?
There is a memorable scene in the short story “Bloodshed” by the spectacular Jewish-American novelist Cynthia Ozick. A Hasidic Rebbe endowed with the ability to read other people’s minds confronts a visiting nonbeliever seated in his synagogue. After having somehow articulated the innermost thoughts of this troubled voyeur, the Rebbe exclaims: “Despair must be earned.” The following dialogue ensues:
“I’m not in despair” Bleilip objected.
“To be an atheist is to be in despair.”
"I’m not an atheist, I’m a secularist,” but even Bleilip did not know what he
meant by this.
My hunch is that many Americans do not know what is meant by these terms either. Given the hysteria and incivility that characterize discussions about secularism and atheism, permit me to suggest a few basic definitions and distinctions.
Much confusion would be avoided if all kept the following in mind: not all secularists are atheists or agnostics. There are many definitions of the term secular. Some of them are highly nuanced and complex. Some demand familiarity with the history of classic Christian political philosophy. But for now let me offer a very simple (and useful) go-by: a secularist is a person who advocates the strict separation of Church and State.
This brings us to atheists and agnostics. Speak to well educated members of both groups and you will find that they have profound, and often quite fascinating, philosophical disagreements with one another. But if there is one thing atheists and agnostics usually agree on it is the importance of keeping the Wall of Separation “high and impregnable,” to quote Justice Black.
In short, nonbelievers in the United States are almost always secularists. (True, I once had an atheist friend who--crediting Voltaire as her inspiration--preferred theocracy because it kept the “little people” tranquilized, in line, and generally out of her hair. Remarkable person, she was. But clearly an exception to the rule).
Many Americans tend to equate secularism with nonbelief. Yet this equation overlooks a fact of the utmost political importance for the 2008 elections. There are many god-fearing citizens who are secularists as well. You will find these believing secularists among the ranks of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, Mainline Protestants, Mormons, Hindus, Sikhs, and even certain Evangelicals, among others. It is a common fear of being subject to a state-imposed religion (and that religion would be some denominational form of Protestant Christianity) which unites them.
I am going to stop here, but let me close by observing that Democratic strategists too seem to have understood that not all secularists are atheists. It is the believing secularists and non-secular Swing Evangelicals that they are targeting in 2008. The smaller and wildly unpopular cohort of atheists and agnostics are of far less interest to the presidential frontrunners. This is a state of affairs that induces despair among nonbelievers who have come to view the Democratic Party as their home. Soon, I hope to demonstrate that it may create new possibilities for them as well.
By Jacques Berlinerblau |
September 6, 2007; 11:44 AM ET
Save & Share:
Previous: Spiritual Mentors a Must for 2008 |
Next: Fred Thompson Democrats?
Posted by: Brin | December 4, 2007 9:24 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Hello, nice site :)
Posted by: Brin | December 4, 2007 9:23 PM
Report Offensive Comment
From the secular European perspective the USA is frequently caricatured as a kind of unofficial theocracy. A cynical elite can instal an inarticulate religious figurehead to lead prayer meetings and appeal to the mass of ignorant, fairy-tale addled voters.
This is obviously simplistic but there seems to be an acknowledged risk that one version of protestant Christianity, or a coalition perhaps, might achieve a de-facto dominant position. Is that frightening scenario possible?
If it is a possibility then it is also possible that a new record may be set for religio-political casualties. The current record for a single ideologically motivated holocaust is, I believe, held by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. I don't think anybody has mentioned them yet but as a Christian movement they are unfairly overlooked so often.
Posted by: Rod Massey | September 29, 2007 8:29 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Why should somebody who comes to a reasonable conclusion (humanist, tolerant atheist) after decades of honest thinking, who has the courage to formulate this conclusion, have to tolerate attacks like those from Mr. Moderate, aka mulopwepaul? This person is so obsessed with the comparison of murder numbers that he cannot think clearly anymore as to the historical sources and background of this discussion and to the brittle "legs" his arguments stand on.
All of us, the most militant religionists as well as the most tolerant atheists (humanists) are ensnarled in the cultural history of mankind. The very language with which we formulate our arguments is influenced by those inevitable historical superstitions which stem from the limited knowledge of an early phase of development of our race. My profession (I am a classical musician) would not even exist in this form without this cultural heritage.
Richard Dawkin is absolutely right that the default position of any thinking person, who has never been brainwashed (is there such a thing?) or has cleared himself from brainwashing would never in his wildest dreams concoct a sort of insane stories as we have to face them in today's religions, with the preposterous request to believe them. Anybody who honestly tries to reach this initial default position has to do an enormous amount of work first to get rid of this burden, before he can claim to start thinking “freely” from a point zero. Some people achieve this, others don’t. Mr. Moderate aka mulopwepaul, what do you have against free, unconditioned thinking?
The human condition (fear, tribal cohesion, security) then forces people up to this day to stay both within the frame of their old, inherited (cultural) superstitions and in the frame of their group which holds this superstition. 95% of African women have and NEED (?) genital mutilation. It is their cultural background: All women always do it. They have the same "valid" arguments as the western religionists.
History, fortunately, has taken care of the dilution of some of those superstitions, generating hundreds, if not thousands of variations or deviations from those old creeds, so there might be some hope that reason will prevail over faith (= admitted ignorance), by the sheer logical deduction that there cannot be hundreds of contradicting truths. (Unless, of course, your default position is: “I am the only one in the possession of truth”, or lol, Peter Huff who maintains that god invented logic.)
People talk of “eternal truths” in connection with a particular creed that has been patched together well over 300 years after the alleged life of Jesus, for clearly political reasons (we suffer from that setup "Vatican" up to this day). I regret that people are unable to resort even to this basic default position of reason, (the only category that separates us from animals). From this point on upwards we can give it another try as to how to live together and how we might prevent the self-destruction of our species. The present mess we are in clearly has religious roots, Bush and his co-religionists vs. Ahmadinedjad and his co-religionists as token figures.
It is, of course, another debate that religion is always connected to power....
Posted by: Gerry | September 20, 2007 1:17 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"A secularist is a person who advocates the strict separation of Church and State."
Then mark me down as a committed Christian (Baptist, but not Southern Baptist) who is also a committed secularist. When church and state get in bed together, both are compromised. The Wall of Separation - which Jefferson advocated in his letter to the Danbury, Connecticut, Baptist Association - protects both church and state, and keeps both of them free.
Posted by: Bill Jones | September 12, 2007 1:15 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I think there is a misperception about athiests. An athiest does not believe in a supernatural being, God or others. However that does not mean an athiest cannot believe in the moral teachings of Christ, or others for that matter. I have heard many "believers" use the following logic:
-Athiests do not believe in God.
-Therefore they do not follow God's teachings.
-Therefore they are against God's teachings.
-Therefore they are against God.
-Therefore they are bad (evil).
I think believers need to consider that athiests make up a smaller percentage of the prison population than believers do. I think believers need to show the same respect to athiests they demand from athiests. I hear believers asking what Jesus would do in certain situations. They may be surprised that some athiests also ask this question and more importantly, not out of fear for their everlasting life, but out of respect for morality. Maybe on the value of morality we can all agree and maybe even agree that no religion, or lack of one, has a lock on morality.
Posted by: Fate | September 10, 2007 8:55 AM
Report Offensive Comment
I disagree with Berlinerblau that the Democrats are targeting "believing secularists". I haven't heard them come out in favor of separation of church and state; instead they are claiming sincere religious faith as evidence that they are of "good moral character", accepting the common equation of religion with morality.
There have been many religious believers who support separation of C&S, certainly. Most obviously today the head of Americans United for Separation of C&S.
Though I am myself separationist, secHum, and atheist, even stridently so, I notice that some present-day European countries still have an official church, allowing "toleration" of other faiths, and in those countries the percentage of nonbelievers has grown far higher than in the U.S. Perhaps an "official" religion can go two ways; the intolerant/persecuting way, and the mushy/watered down/"minimal consensus"/tolerant way, that ends up immunizing people against religion, in much the way that deliberate infection with cowpox immunizes against smallpox.
I'd like other's thoughts on whether deliberate establishment of such an inoffensive "vaccine religion" might in the long run support widespread nonbelief; and the "free market of religions" such as in the U.S. might in the long run promote those religions that are best at demagogy.
Posted by: John B. Hodges | September 10, 2007 4:32 AM
Report Offensive Comment
This is the Gospel. Human beings are simple creatures. God made it simple. Believe this until you die or Jesus returns for His Church and you will be saved. There is no other way. There is no, "Oh btw's with God." Reject it at your peril.
NEW AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION OF BIBLE:
1 Corinthians
15:1
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand,
15:2
by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.
15:3
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
15:4
and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared (alive)...
THE MESSAGE VERSION OF BIBLE:
1 Corinthians 15
1 Friends, let me go over the Message with you one final time - this Message that I proclaimed and that you made your own; this Message on which you took your stand 2 and by which your life has been saved. (I'm assuming, now, that your belief was the real thing and not a passing fancy, that you're in this for good and holding fast.) 3 The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it; 4 that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again exactly as Scripture says; 5 that he presented himself alive...
NEW INTERNATION VERSION OF BIBLE:
1 Corinthians 15
1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, (alive)
Posted by: JD | September 10, 2007 4:07 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Why separation of church and state is an excellent idea: let's take something simple--say, teacher-led prayer in public schools. I understand quite a few Christians think this is a dandy idea. I attended (okay, I was bused--school desegregation was not a dirty word back then) a school with kids from Mexico and Central America (Catholics), kids of Armenian descent (I'm guessing Orthodox), Vietnamese-American (Buddhist), Chinese & Korean-American (usually nondenominational Christian), plus Jews and well, me, with no religion whatsoever.
If type of school prayer was chosen on one-kid-one-vote basis, everyone would have started the day with an Armenian Orthodox prayer (edging out the Catholics by thismuch).
Posted by: Blue_in_OC | September 10, 2007 3:23 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"No, he is not calling for laws, 'implicitly'. You're putting words in his mouth."
Nearly everything Amnesty does is oriented around the passing and enforcement of laws. Please don't insult our intelligence by pretending that invoking Amnesty as a model doesn't amount to a political programme.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 9, 2007 11:51 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"The problem I have with non believers (and they can not help it) is they are too broad in their term Christianity." - JD
JD,
This problem is fully Christianity's problem, not secularists. I have never found 2 Christians that actually believe the same thing, even within the same denomination. Then take into account the dozens of different denominations, from Catholics to Protestants to Mormons to blah blah blah.
IMO, Christianity completely lacks integrity because you cannot define what a Christian believes. Take a stand, Christian believer, on what it means to qualify as a Christian, and I'll find 100 Christians who vehemently disagree with you.
Posted by: B-man | September 9, 2007 11:19 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I am a secularist. But do I believe in God? Please define God.
I would say that I do believe in "God". But it's not what you think. I do not believe in a vengeful deity up in the clouds.
Cannot God be simply the animating energy of the universe? Why do we have to assign to our concept of God the worst qualities of human behavior? Read the Bible if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Posted by: B-man | September 9, 2007 11:10 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Just so. The observations are quite on.
Posted by: Eli Houm | September 9, 2007 9:57 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Does not Amnesty International advocate the passage and enforcement of laws to protect the innocent? Isn't Dawkins calling for the same, albeit implicitly?"
No, he is not calling for laws, "implicitly". You're putting words in his mouth.
Posted by: Brian Westley | September 9, 2007 8:19 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Well, fiddle. I figure, that if you prefer something supernatural that tinkers with our lives, then I recommend the old Greek or Roman gods. They liked messing with people. They could hold a grudg and make mischief. If you think that the spirit is always with us, then go for animism. My mother prefered that. A lot of Montana people, in touch with the land and the flora and fauna, kind of go for that. Good for tree huggers, too. I can't quite go for the magic and fairy tales and miracles myself. Too much of an engineer.
Posted by: oldman | September 9, 2007 5:48 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Well, fiddle. I figure, that if you prefer something supernatural that tinkers with our lives, then I recommend the old Greek or Roman gods. They liked messing with people. They could hold a grudg and make mischief. If you think that the spirit is always with us, then go for animism. My mother prefered that. A lot of Montana people, in touch with the land and the flora and fauna, kind of go for that. Good for tree huggers, too. I can't quite go for the magic and fairy tales and miracles myself. Too much of an engineer.
Posted by: oldman | September 9, 2007 5:48 PM
Report Offensive Comment
If you want to make it clear how you're using the term "secular", add a qualifier.
A political or governmental secularist would be one who advocates a strict separation between church and state. It says nothing about whether the person is religious or not, but simply indicates that the person recognizes the importance of keeping government separate from religion.
A simple qualifier would avoid a lot of confusion.
Posted by: jay s | September 9, 2007 5:06 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"It is a common fear of being subject to a state-imposed religion (and that religion would be some denominational form of Protestant Christianity) which unites them."
Perfectly put!
Secularism is one thing; atheism is another. The fanatics on BOTH sides of the religious question need to understand this.
Posted by: AMviennaVA | September 9, 2007 3:15 PM
Report Offensive Comment
It is tragic that anyone in America believes that secularism has anything to do with whether one is religious, and has everything to do with the American experiment in protecting all religion (and the small minority of non-believers) from persecution by state sponsored religion. I do not understand how anyone imagines that a state-sponsored religion would not result in persecution of the many minority religious systems in our society. Separation of church from state is the major contribution of the American Constitution to relief from religious persecution for minorities, and it is sad to believe that any American believes otherwise.
Posted by: Paul R Cooper | September 9, 2007 2:16 PM
Report Offensive Comment
It is tragic that anyone in America believes that secularism has anything to do with whether one is religious, and has everything to do with the American experiment in protecting all religion (and the small minority of non-believers) from persecution by state sponsored religion. I do not understand how anyone imagines that a state-sponsored religion would not result in persecution of the many minority religious systems in our society. Separation of church from state is the major contribution of the American Constitution to relief from religious persecution for minorities, and it is sad to believe that any American believes otherwise.
Posted by: Paul R Cooper | September 9, 2007 2:16 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Lots of interesting posts above, but almost nobody really addresses the original point of the article.
I humbly disagree with Prof. Berlinerblau's claim that the Democrats seems to be targeting "religious secularists".
As a secularist, I am annoyed and disgusted by the insistance of the candidates on inserting mentions of God and their faith into every discussion. Secularists, of either the atheistic or theistic flavor, ought to feel the same way. I certainly prefer this to the more overt theocratic steps taken by "the other party" in recent years, but it is still contrary to the basic idea that while religion may be a good thing, and while we certainly want religious freedom, our government is a secular and not a religious institution and ought to be treated that way.
The Democrats are not targeting secularists, they are targeting people who think American government needs to be more visibly religious.
And yes, I do feel abandoned by them. Who can I vote for who thinks that government officials should leave the preaching to the preachers and do their jobs.
-mcc
Posted by: mccorquodale | September 8, 2007 5:48 PM
Report Offensive Comment
First off, thanks to everyone who pointed out the ridiculousness of the term “militant atheist”. Sure the term was used by groups that where peaceful in the past, but they chose that term (so Dawkins used it once, does he now define all atheist?). In this case it is obviously being used as a smear and ad hominem, so as to taint the atheist argument from the beginning. But what I really found interesting was that the example that Mr. Berlinebrblau used implies that atheist are somehow in “despair”. Great here we go again. How come every few months the WaPo does this? They “ask” these questions in the spirit of Neil Cavutto that are loaded in their meaning. So for a question about secularism, we find an example that shows that the atheist lives in despair, and in it’s defense of secularism is that not all of them are atheist?? So what? How does that affect the arguments for or against secularism? Is Mr. Berlinebrblau implying that if only atheist believed in secularism, then it’s something to be feared?
Oh well I really shouldn’t care about this at all since I’m sure in a week or two the group here at “On Faith” will have moved on to some other group of non-Christians and ask loaded questions that imply that they are a 5th column in America too.
Posted by: ElCapitan | September 8, 2007 12:30 PM
Report Offensive Comment
From Dawkins' second article, where he meditates on the abusive nature of religious education:
"Humphrey argues that, in the same way as Amnesty works tirelessly to free political prisoners the world over, we should work to free the children of the world from the religions which, with parental approval, damage minds too young to understand what is happening to them."
Does not Amnesty International advocate the passage and enforcement of laws to protect the innocent? Isn't Dawkins calling for the same, albeit implicitly?
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 8, 2007 10:58 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Considering approx 26 million of the approx 122 million voting population is secular or non religious you folk are screwed if you think your going to accomplish anything. Even if you get the approx 40 million who were eligible to vote but didn't the odds are most of them are religious of one kind or another. Give it up.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 8, 2007 3:50 AM
Report Offensive Comment
I agree w/ Mr. Berlinerblau's definition of secularism. I see no contradiction in believers, particularly believers in minority religions, to also want a strict separation of Church and State, if for no other reason than self-preservation.
Posted by: Neal | September 8, 2007 2:14 AM
Report Offensive Comment
The problem I have with non believers (and they can not help it) is they are too broad in their term Christianity.
THAT must be answered before the 2nd can.
Posted by: JD | September 7, 2007 11:48 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Here's another, and still nothing about using the power of the state; he even states he would be against suing over it, so I don't see how you can honestly construe his remarks to be in favor of government coercion:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,118,Religions-Real-Child-Abuse,Richard-Dawkins
Posted by: Brian Westley | September 7, 2007 8:09 PM
Report Offensive Comment
mulopwepaul: "The bottom line on the tag "militant atheist" is that Dawkins has, in essence, called for the coercive power of the state to be deployed against the religious education of children by labeling it "child abuse.""
Where has Dawkins called for the coercive power of the state to be deployed against the religious education of children?
Here's an article where Dawkins talks about it; absolutely nothing about using the coercing power of the state in it:
http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/articles/dawkins.html
Posted by: Brian Westley | September 7, 2007 8:05 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"As for Thomas Jefferson, he considered himself a deist. He believed in God and was a Christian."
Jefferson respected the moral teachings of Christ, but rejected his miracles, and, consequently the resurrection and divinity of Christ as understood by Christians ("If Christ has not been raised, then we are still in our sins"). He was really more of a Unitarian in that sense.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 6:43 PM
Report Offensive Comment
JD,
So do you believe in "separation of church and state" so your religious freedom is protected, or do you not believe in "separation of church and state" as long as Christianity is the "church" being represented by the "state"?
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 5:13 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Juslie, you can force an unbeliever to pray to anyone. BUT NOT a born again Christian! You can be forced to pray because you are afraid to die. Christians died by the thousands because they refused to bow to Caesar. I'd be willing to bet the two Koreans who the Taliban murdered recently didn't beg for their lives. Conversely, a Christian will not murder anyone as a threat to conversion.
Posted by: JD | September 7, 2007 5:06 PM
Report Offensive Comment
JD,
I am not trying to make anyone do anything. We are having a civilized debate. Please explain yourself more clearly.
JD, you wrote, "Julie, they wouldn't. You couldn't, no matter how hard YOU tried to make them!"
JD, what are you referring too? ...answering a thought question about separation of church and state? ....praying to another "god" other than their own?
JD, unbelievers of "what" are ignorant? ....your interpretation of religion and god?
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 4:51 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Julie, they wouldn't. You couldn't, no matter how hard YOU tried to make them! LOL. Unbelievers are truely ignorant.
Posted by: JD | September 7, 2007 4:32 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Conversely are all secularists cowards? Or are all Muslims secularists? Yes. Yes. What they don't understand they seek remove from public discourse by force if necessary. Thank God for the constitution in this country! How many Christians have died horrible deaths in Muslim countries unnoticed?
Posted by: JD | September 7, 2007 4:21 PM
Report Offensive Comment
mulopwepaul wrote:
"So we have the luxury of indulging tolerance only up to the point where it conflicts with higher values, and we need to be clear in our own minds what those values are. And once we're clear about those values, and come to understand that those values are rooted in a transcendant order of the universe, we have established our own religion, call it what we will."
Tom Responds:
I agree! My religion is subjective and my own. To me, my values are clear and I am at peace with myself. My religion is tolerant of others beliefs and asks no one else to believe in it. It picks and choses things to believe in, on various moral issues, from other religions that it may agree with. I carry it around with me all the time and never have to refer to a book or ask a religious leader to clarify how I should feel.
Yes...you are correct and very wise to see this and for $20 in my offering plate, I'll let you join....lol
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 4:03 PM
Report Offensive Comment
mulopwepaul wrote:
"So we have the luxury of indulging tolerance only up to the point where it conflicts with higher values, and we need to be clear in our own minds what those values are. And once we're clear about those values, and come to understand that those values are rooted in a transcendant order of the universe, we have established our own religion, call it what we will."
Tom Responds:
I agree! My religion is subjective and my own. To me, my values are clear and I am at peace with myself. My religion is tolerant of others beliefs and asks no one else to believe in it. It picks and choses things to believe in, on various moral issues, from other religions that it may agree with. I carry it around with me all the time and never have to refer to a book or ask a religious leader to clarify how I should feel.
Yes...you are correct and very wise to see this and for $20 in my offering plate, I'll let you join....lol
Posted by: Tom Hart | September 7, 2007 3:59 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I agree that the democratic candidates (at least the ones that have a shot) are pandering to the secularist segment of "believers" in this election. They have learned from the right wing that if you don't come across as a believer, you don't have a chance at getting elected. So, that is suppose to make unbelievers think they have some opportunity? I can tell you personally that it is becoming more difficult for me to get interested in any candidate. I just can't support anyone who claims to believe in the Easter Bunny (or some god, for that matter).
Posted by: Dr.R.P. | September 7, 2007 3:55 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Julie:
The answer is...DRUM ROLLLLL, If they wanted too..fine. I wouldn't care. Read my posts and you will see why.
Posted by: Tom Hart | September 7, 2007 3:36 PM
Report Offensive Comment
mulopwepaul:
but it doesn't dispose one way or another of the truth claims of the various religions.
All religions have "some truth to them". Maybe a lot of truth to them. If you follow a single religion, good for you, IF it makes you a better person versus one who will strap dynamite to his chest in the name of God.
I believe that "religion" is God's way of playing a joke on man. The correct, one true, religion is, of course, your religion...whatever that might be. Most religious people feel this way. I just hate those who are intolerant of others.
Posted by: Tom Hart | September 7, 2007 3:22 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I think we can all agree that the U.S. is a multicultural country with it's citizenry representing many different religions. In order to live in peace with each other, it seems crucial that we must preserve the "separation of church and state".
Since no one has answered my thought question from my previous posting, I am starting to conclude that we might all agree on a secular government to protect "freedom of religion" and as well as "freedom from religion".
Here is my thought question from my previous thread:
(Is there a Christian out there that would not want "separation of church and state" if the religion the state chose to sponsor was Islam, Hinduism or some other non Christian religion?
Would you as a Christian want your kids to pray to another religions God at a school football game?)
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 3:09 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"I don't actually know the percentage, but probably well over 90% of everyone who is religious has the religion of their parents or the region in which they were born. If I had been born in Isreal: odds are I'd be Jewish, Pakistan: Muslim, Rural South: Baptist or Methodist and so on and so on."
This is a testimony to the power of social environment, the appeal of the religious experience and/or filial piety, but it doesn't dispose one way or another of the truth claims of the various religions.
Thuggee or the Aztec cult of Tezcatlipoca both touched on some elements of universally accepted truth in their various claims about the universe, but both were ultimately extirpated because certain of their truth claims were directly opposed, not only to the beliefs, but indeed to the very lives of nonbelievers.
So we have the luxury of indulging tolerance only up to the point where it conflicts with higher values, and we need to be clear in our own minds what those values are. And once we're clear about those values, and come to understand that those values are rooted in a transcendant order of the universe, we have established our own religion, call it what we will.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 2:59 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I consider myself a secularist. I truely belive in the seperation of church and state. I have no particular religious affiliation but yet I have a strong belief in God. Let me explain why.
One of the most profound statements I've ever read was written on a bath room wall at the university where my wife and I attended. It simply said,"Don't blame God for mans mistakes".
Religion was created by man. Regardless of how much anyone believes in their own religion, ultimately it was a human who wrote down the laws that the religion abides by and by most religious beliefs, man is flawed therefore anything written by man must be flawed. Just because someone says, "God told me something", doesn't make it so. It just makes them a good salesman.
Organized religions are simply groupings of people who basically have the same religious beliefs, but even within the religious groupings, no two people have the exact same beliefs. It therefore follows that religion is actually subjective and personal. Organized religions simply allow people to have fellowship with others who have basically the same beliefs.
I don't actually know the percentage, but probably well over 90% of everyone who is religious has the religion of their parents or the region in which they were born. If I had been born in Isreal: odds are I'd be Jewish, Pakistan: Muslim, Rural South: Baptist or Methodist and so on and so on.
Therefore I have adopted the stategy of viewing all religions with equal respect. I have been to the services of many types of religions and take from the services anything that might make me a better person and that I can incorporate in my OWN life.
Some people say that this is a cop out for not having a particular religion, but I don't see it that way. I belive ultimately, all religions attempt to make those who follow it a better and more moral person. All religions fill that requirement to some degree. Therefore they all have something worthwhile to be listened to. I feel that following a single religion closes ones mind to possibilities that other religions may provide.
Therefore to create a government by using the rules of ones religion automatically cuts off many who may follow another religion with different beliefs. That can not be tolerated in an open society where so many religions exist side by side. Therefore, "Don't blame God for mans mistakes" makes perfect sense.
Posted by: Tom Hart | September 7, 2007 2:38 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I consider myself a secularist. I truely belive in the seperation of church and state. I have no particular religious affiliation but yet I have a strong belief in God. Let me explain why.
One of the most profound statements I've ever read was written on a bath room wall at the university where my wife and I attended. It simply said,"Don't blame God for mans mistakes".
Religion was created by man. Regardless of how much anyone believes in their own religion, ultimately it was a human who wrote down the laws that the religion abides by and by most religious beliefs, man is flawed therefore anything written by man must be flawed. Just because someone says, "God told me something", doesn't make it so. It just makes them a good salesman.
Organized religions are simply groupings of people who basically have the same religious beliefs, but even within the religious groupings, no two people have the exact same beliefs. It therefore follows that religion is actually subjective and personal. Organized religions simply allow people to have fellowship with others who have basically the same beliefs.
I don't actually know the percentage, but probably well over 90% of everyone who is religious has the religion of their parents or the region in which they were born. If I had been born in Isreal: odds are I'd be Jewish, Pakistan: Muslim, Rural South: Baptist or Methodist and so on and so on.
Therefore I have adopted the stategy of viewing all religions with equal respect. I have been to the services of many types of religions and take from the services anything that might make me a better person and that I can incorporate in my OWN life.
Some people say that this is a cop out for not having a particular religion, but I don't see it that way. I belive ultimately, all religions attempt to make those who follow it a better and more moral person. All religions fill that requirement to some degree. Therefore they all have something worthwhile to be listened to. I feel that following a single religion closes ones mind to possibilities that other religions may provide.
Therefore to create a government by using the rules of ones religion automatically cuts off many who may follow another religion with different beliefs. That can not be tolerated in an open society where so many religions exist side by side. Therefore, "Don't blame God for mans mistakes" makes perfect sense.
Posted by: Tom Hart | September 7, 2007 2:37 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I consider myself a secularist. I truely belive in the seperation of church and state. I have no particular religious affiliation but yet I have a strong belief in God. Let me explain why.
One of the most profound statements I've ever read was written on a bath room wall at the university where my wife and I attended. It simply said,"Don't blame God for mans mistakes".
Religion was created by man. Regardless of how much anyone believes in their own religion, ultimately it was a human who wrote down the laws that the religion abides by and by most religious beliefs, man is flawed therefore anything written by man must be flawed. Just because someone says, "God told me something", doesn't make it so. It just makes them a good salesman.
Organized religions are simply groupings of people who basically have the same religious beliefs, but even within the religious groupings, no two people have the exact same beliefs. It therefore follows that religion is actually subjective and personal. Organized religions simply allow people to have fellowship with others who have basically the same beliefs.
I don't actually know the percentage, but probably well over 90% of everyone who is religious has the religion of their parents or the region in which they were born. If I had been born in Isreal: odds are I'd be Jewish, Pakistan: Muslim, Rural South: Baptist or Methodist and so on and so on.
Therefore I have adopted the stategy of viewing all religions with equal respect. I have been to the services of many types of religions and take from the services anything that might make me a better person and that I can incorporate in my OWN life.
Some people say that this is a cop out for not having a particular religion, but I don't see it that way. I belive ultimately, all religions attempt to make those who follow it a better and more moral person. All religions fill that requirement to some degree. Therefore they all have something worthwhile to be listened to. I feel that following a single religion closes ones mind to possibilities that other religions may provide.
Therefore to create a government by using the rules of ones religion automatically cuts off many who may follow another religion with different beliefs. That can not be tolerated in an open society where so many religions exist side by side. Therefore, "Don't blame God for mans mistakes" makes perfect sense.
Posted by: Tom Hart | September 7, 2007 2:37 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Religion is an interesting construct used to 1. palliate our understandable fear of eventual dissolution, and 2. quite frequently used as an excuse to do really horrible things to others."
and
3. To mediate our understanding of the inescapable mystery of existence.
Others may add to this list...
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 2:32 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Religion is an interesting construct used to 1. palliate our understandable fear of eventual dissolution, and 2. quite frequently used as an excuse to do really horrible things to others.
Posted by: wileyE | September 7, 2007 2:23 PM
Report Offensive Comment
It's an excellent observation and I think one that helps illumunate why for example a true atheist like Christopher Hitchens -- though he lives and writes here in the states -- is so quintessentially British. His brand of doctrinaire atheism strikes me as a very conscious throwback to classical British and European Enlightenment atheism, which has clearly never gained much of a foothold here.
William McJunkin
Atlanta, GA
Posted by: William McJunkin | September 7, 2007 2:17 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"'An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything in to an empty head.'"
I think most grade school teachers would disagree.
"mulopwepaul: you wouldn't listen to me if I said "most believer are this" or "most believers are that" ... all I can say that is true is that most believers are believers. At least they say they are."
You have no problems making positive statements describing me; will you return the courtesy to me?
"yet this kind of thing doesn't stop you for a second, painting all non-believers as one thing or another in the set of things you despise."
The presumption of despite is something you bring to this conversation.
"Your head is full of rubbish."
Ah; well that's clearly a rational refutation; thanks for the insight into the enlightened mind's eye of things.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 2:17 PM
Report Offensive Comment
As a Christian I look to a leader's or politician's record of action as the definitive guide to their moral compass. Talk is cheap, and anyone can parrot Christian values, or appropriate Christian values for non-Christian ends, duping voters in the process.
Just as I do not go to church for politics, I do not look to politics or politicians for religion.
A recent column in this series argued that faithiness, if you will, is de rigeur among candidates in '08. I would call myself devout about my Christianity, but it is the extent of a candidate's wearing their faith on their sleeve in the election that will turn me OFF to the candidate, not on to them, again, because anyone can parrot Christian values without the burden of actually having to follow through on them.
I vote for a secular government where the twin aspects of religious freedom--freedom for and freedom from religion--are present and preserved. I myself am neither secular nor atheist, but a spiritual and religious person who recognizes the need for a secular realm in the hub where all people meet. Would I like it if all people were Christian, or shared the values of a true and pure Christianity? Sure, but that cannot be forced, and politicians and leaders can't fake it.
Posted by: Lindsay Howerton | September 7, 2007 2:16 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Mr. Berlinerblau's point seems very obvious to a lot of educated people. But to the closed-minded, under-educated fundamentalists, they may not have known this and some may even take exception.
But the two best examples that I can give that all secularists are not atheists would be Thomas Jefferson and the population of the Iran.
In Iran, the majority of the public consider themselves Muslim, but they are appalled by the Theocracy that many of them and their parents supported 28 years ago. Now they long for a government that separates religion from government, where each respects the other but doesn not interfere in each others affairs.
As for Thomas Jefferson, he considered himself a deist. He believed in God and was a Christian. But despised clergy and the church in anyway interfering or influencing the State's affairs. He considered them corrupt. His famous quote which I may have posted once before is:
"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own."
For a lo
Posted by: Robert | September 7, 2007 2:06 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Thinking that a "secularist" is also a believer in some kind of "religion" is a bit naive to me. I have escaped from religion, i.e. Christianity, and am a thorough-going secular humanist. I fail to understand how someone could be an atheist/secular humanist and be a believer. To me it makes no sense. What this appears to be is a case of arguing in circles over semantics, or of one foot in the religion closet.
Posted by: bob semes | September 7, 2007 2:00 PM
Report Offensive Comment
While I rather agree with Berlinerblau's definition of secularist, and I am one, I have a big problem with the term "unbeliever". In the real world all believers are "unbelievers" in whatever is inconsistent with their beliefs, and all "unbelievers" believe in (or have faith in)something, such as reason, science, democracy, ethics, human rights, social justice, etc. What is important is what precisely one believes and especially what one actually does.
Posted by: Edd Doerr | September 7, 2007 1:42 PM
Report Offensive Comment
While I rather agree with Berlinerblau's definition of secularist, and I am one, I have a big problem with the term "unbeliever". In the real world all believers are "unbelievers" in whatever is inconsistent with their beliefs, and all "unbelievers" believe in (or have faith in)something, such as reason, science, democracy, ethics, human rights, social justice, etc. What is important is what precisely one believes and especially what one actually does.
Posted by: Edd Doerr | September 7, 2007 1:41 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything in to an empty head."
mulopwepaul: you wouldn't listen to me if I said "most believer are this" or "most believers are that" ... all I can say that is true is that most believers are believers. At least they say they are.
yet this kind of thing doesn't stop you for a second, painting all non-believers as one thing or another in the set of things you despise.
Your head is full of rubbish.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 1:41 PM
Report Offensive Comment
kendalhick -
Interesting post but I don't think I agree with your parsing of the original idea.
In contrasting belief with non-belief, you say:
"The real difference is Islam and Christianity are religions with cohesive groups of followers believing in specific tenets or dogmas."
A truly outrageous statement on the surface of it but in the context of the rest of your post, I think I understand what you mean.
I would argue that the "common belief" that links atheists together is, by definition, the belief that God does not exist. Beyond that fundamental shared belief, yes, of course, major differences enter into the conversation, just as they do between sects within Christianity and Islam when you go beyond the premise of God's existence. I just don't see the contrast that you're attempting to point out and I think you give credit for "cohesiveness" where it is perhaps undue.
Posted by: michanikos | September 7, 2007 1:32 PM
Report Offensive Comment
agnostics are NOT atheists.
Posted by: pv | September 7, 2007 1:28 PM
Report Offensive Comment
It is always wise to define certain words so an author's audience understands his argument. Then, when you read the following--"There are many god-fearing citizens who are secularists as well. You will find these believing secularists among the ranks of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, Mainline Protestants, Mormons, Hindus, Sikhs, and even certain Evangelicals, among others."--you understand what the author means, even if it is nonsense. And this is nonsense.
Berlinerblau defines "secularist" as a person who advocates strict separation of Church and State. This is wrong; the definition would be true for a "separationist." A "secularist" is a person who is not religious, but not necessarily anti-religion. Secularism is the middle position between pro-religion and anti-religion. Our government institutions are (supposed to be) secular; our Constitution is a secular document. Neither should show favoritism to either religion or non-religion. Secularism is part of Americanism: it defines our country's attitudes toward religions and religious belief. To advocate and promote secularism is to be lawful and American.
In this country, almost all secularists are also atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, and philosophical naturalists, and thus would be anti-most religions (specifically, the supernaturalistic and theistic ones) in feeling and belief, but as a practical matter they respect the right of others to believe in religion, theism, and supernaturalism. I suppose some secularists might be theistic and believe in the supernatural, but that seems like an odd combination to me.
Many religious believers are separationists, and this is one doctrine--indeed, its the law--that unites many individuals with differing religious and philosophical beliefs. But not many religious believers are secularists. In fact, none are.
Posted by: Steven | September 7, 2007 1:27 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Plus, non-believers need a better PR campaign - calling yourself an 'atheist' is like being pro-choice and calling yourself 'pro-abortion.'"
Most non-believers are in fact active disbelievers, like Abram toppling over his father's idols.
If one understands the universe to be a certain way, a person of goodwill would feel an obligation to share and sensitively promote that understanding, unless they believed that existence was subjective to the individual, and the nonexistence of God in their subjective experience of reality did not preclude the existence of God in someone else's.
From that point of view, most non-believers to the extent they're benevolent, being in fact disbelievers, are in fact pro-disbelief rather than pro-choice-to-believe. This is why Dawkins says religious education is child abuse. Tolerance of irrationality is malignant if one believes reason to be the final validator of human existence.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 1:15 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I guess I would be considered an agnostic, but I am not sure. I believe in a great mystery beyond the ability of humans to imagine that created the universe and still exists, doing what I am not sure. Since all these aggressive evangelists have come along and begun trying to turn our country into a Christian state, I find myself identifying with my Christian upbringing and heritage less and less.
I don't want any religious doctrines enshrined in law because they are part of some religion. I believe there is something truly dangerous about religion because it is at the bottom of so many disagreements right up to war. I distrust the religious who don't want their children marrying outside the parents religion. I distrust their certainty of things and most of all their belief that God is speaking to them.
A person who believes s/he is being spoken to by God necessarily believes that his/her way is better than that of others to whom God doesn't speak. This is not democratic and stands every chance of being a form of mental illness.
If there is a God, I can't believe that s/he likes to see people killed or hurt in his/her name. I am disgusted with religions that do not consider women the equal of men. I cannot see that as a godly belief.
I am a strong secularist primarily because I am so sick of evangelists trying to make everyone like themselves and their utter certainty that they are right and we are wrong.
Posted by: Betty | September 7, 2007 1:15 PM
Report Offensive Comment
This is a useful touchstone for defining secularism, though separation of church and state doesn't necessarily mean what some people - school voucher opponents, for example - want it to mean: it means the government can't establish or interfere with individuals entitled freedoms based on religion.
I get exasperated with people who insist America was founded as a Christian nation as they understand both christian and nation. The Founders not only knew about how national religion damaged both civic life and faith in England and throughout Europe, they remembered how it damaged both here, on this continent: the Puritan excesses and persecution of Catholics and Jews and Quakers were still very fresh in their memories.
Politically secularists have failed to understand and publicly articulate the fact that American history began with religious persecution as a means for some people to get their own religious freedom: ears were cut, people were branded, a sort of sharia law enforced by people who wanted to build a new Jeruslem after their own image. The Founders remembered Cromwell, not just the Popes, when they wrote - and readers who are informed about what the Founders knew will read their correspondence and policy musings with a more apposite awareness of their intentions.
Secularists have forgotten religious history in western civilization - at our own peril.
Posted by: Practica | September 7, 2007 1:12 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I think that most secularists are atheists but are too polite or too afraid to say that there is no god. Non-believers need a voice in the discussion but are usually drowned out since non-belief is too politically incorrect or too threatening. Plus, non-believers need a better PR campaign - calling yourself an "atheist" is like being pro-choice and calling yourself "pro-abortion."
Posted by: quinn | September 7, 2007 1:01 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"How do you prove the 'revealed truth of religion'?"
Some truths remain true but unproveable in any rational system. There is by definition no rational way to describe the process by which the mind grasps these truths.
This is the moral of the man who wanted Hillel to teach him the Torah while he stood on one foot. The answer everyone remembers is the Golden Rule, positively or negatively stated, but the full answer recorded in the Talmud was: "That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow, this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and study."
The call to discipline is usually omitted, but is, I submit, as important as the first part.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 12:58 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Jacques says that "Many Americans tend to equate secularism with nonbelief." Yes this seems to be true and of course incorrect. But I would expect that 'MOST Americans tend to equate secularism with Americanism.'
That is don't we Americans embrace the idea that another individuals valued belief need not be the same as my belief. Our founders understood that the Europeans came here to get away from being told what to believe by their governments or others. This requires separation of state and individual belief. Religous belief or non-religous "belief".
Posted by: Richard Sitter | September 7, 2007 12:56 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The post by ATHEIST above writes, "Btw, agnostics are also atheists."
I do not agree. There are multiple definitions of atheism, and you choose negative atheist (lack of belief), while I think most people who call themselves atheists are positive atheists (an active disbelief). I consider myself an empirical agnostic, and it is a different (though similar) world view than virtually every person I've ever met who calls themselves an "atheist."
Additionally, the culture of "New Atheism" (e.g., Harris, Hitchens, Meyers, etc.) have adopted a position and a set of tactics regarding how to treat theism and theists that I do not find productive and do not support. Moreover, my experience has been that any non-theist disagreement with these tactics receives similar punishment from that group ... which hardly suggests any underlying unification in these groups.
Frankly, the more I hear from such views, the more comfortable I am keeping our terms distinct. Though, I am amused that I am pejoratively labeled "accomodationist" or "framer" by the same group that wants to include me in their numbers when discussing the "growing unbelief" in the US.
So I will continue to separate these two terms, no matter how many times some atheist posts a comment on a blog to tell me what I "really am". Fortunately for me, I get to choose my own label, and it is most certainly not "atheist."
Posted by: RPW | September 7, 2007 12:55 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I am a secularist.
I am NOT an athiest.
The problem with religion in politics has 100% to do with the individuals leading the church and those leading the government who would leverage religion for power and it is DISGUSTING.
"Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's"
RELIGION HAS NO PLACE IN POLITICS!
Posted by: jbe | September 7, 2007 12:52 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Or a feckless president who has put a Christian army into the heart of the Muslim world and expects good results."
Yes; clearly Jefferson had no notion of the proper boundaries between religions when he went after the Barbary pirates.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 12:46 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Mulopwepaul,
I do not take offense, I take full responsibility for myself in this life and in the next life....if there is an afterlife.
How do you prove the "revealed truth of religion"?
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 12:46 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I believe that most secularists are atheists, but are too polite or too afraid to admit that god doesn't really exist. Non-believers need a voice in the discussion but are usually drowned out - only by being obnoxious (I refer to people like Christopher Hitchens here) do we get some input. I think that with time a more-nuanced and socially acceptable form of atheism can develop. (Even if nuanced atheism seems oxymoronic).
Posted by: quinn | September 7, 2007 12:45 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Equal opportunity is the name of the game when it comes to government's role in religion--to include as many of us as possible."
This a laudable sentiment, but it cannot be the supreme good, or we'll have to permit temple prostitution of children and human sacrifice.
Given that we do value some things more highly than tolerance, lines are inevitably going to be drawn casting some people out due to conflicts of prerational values.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 12:43 PM
Report Offensive Comment
You don't have to be a "secularist" or an "atheist" to see the madness in fundamentalism, for example, the daft General William Boykin, former head of the Pentagon's Mideast intelligence section, who declaims, in uniform, "The enemy we are fighting in the Mideast is Satan!" and "My God is bigger than their god". Or the Christian Dominionists who wish to take control of the Pentagon, the U.S. military, and the U.S. Government and wage holy wars throughout the world to bring their version of Christianity, by force, to the entire world. Or a feckless president who has put a Christian army into the heart of the Muslim world and expects good results. These people want to turn every basic tenet of the American system, as conceived by the Founding Fathers, on its head. They must be resisted and eliminated from the places of power into which they are insinuating themselves, particularly the U.S. military. We must recognize them for what they are, and what Jefferson, and Madison, and Washington warned us about. Their way leads to folly and destruction of America as we've known it for two centuries.
Posted by: almaden | September 7, 2007 12:38 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Victor,
It seems so easy to respond emotionally if someone questions our own beliefs. You have every right to believe in "god" and your interpretation of "god". I would never want that right taken away from you.
Do you believe in the "separation of church and state"? Why or why not?
My argument is that "separation of church and state" protests "freedom from religion" as well as "freedom of religion". It is a win/win for both sides.
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 12:30 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"I am not perfect, but have always tried to live by the 'golden rule'."
I don't mean this personally, so please don't be offended, but one of the truths of revealed religion not susceptible to rational proof is that anyone who says what you wrote above is lying or deceiving himself.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 12:23 PM
Report Offensive Comment
militant Muslims = Muslims who...
militant Christians = Christians who...
militant atheists = atheists who...
Not quite. The real difference is Islam and Christianity are religions with cohesive groups of followers believing in specific tenets or dogmas. Atheists are not linked by any common belief (even their non-belief) and have widely disparate views. So while some generalizations could hold for Muslims or Christians, generalizations about atheists are significantly less valid.
I have a good friend who considers himself an atheist and to his mind, I am one as well. On the other hand, I believe that my friend is in fact a believer who chooses on the whole not to practice religion while I am a believer in God - but not one endorsed by any particular religion. What's the deal?
I believe in God in the sense that the universe has order and scientific laws that are immutable and that God is the universe. You and I are in fact one in the same and a part of the universe that is God. What I don't believe in is God in the image of man who watches over you and me, cares about our lives, and listens to anr answers our prayers. My friend says this does not qualify as God. Therefore, to him I am an atheist, while in my opinion, I am not.
My friend, on the other hand, still practices religious rituals and has an aversion to cremation. To me, these seem at odds with atheism. What possible benefit from religious ritual if a non believer? What problem does cremation have for a non-believer? I believe his need for ritual and disdain for cremation are at odds with his suppressed God belief.
My real point here is that it is easy to put Muslims and Christians in groups that identify and believe in specific ways. They put themselves in these groups and identify as such. Grouping non-believers and non-religious believers is entirely different. They do not self identify, they do not have consistent beliefs or non beliefs and may not even agree with one another as to whether what they each believe constitutes belief in God.
Comparing religious believers and atheists is not even apples to oranges...more like apples and minerals.
Posted by: kendalhick | September 7, 2007 12:22 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I see my link on "Numbers from Nowhere" doesn't seem to work, so anyone curious about pre-Columbian population and its collapse can review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_American_indigenous_peoples
for insights as to why the 100 million pre-Columbians notion doesn't hold up.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 12:19 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I am a God-loving secularist. I want the government to stay as far away as possible from the imposition of any religious beliefs on our public institutions because I look at all the pain an suffering caused by governments who DO interfere in religion. Equal opportunity is the name of the game when it comes to government's role in religion--to include as many of us as possible. I never want to hear another elected official express outrage that a beautiful Hindu prayer was presented at the opening of Congress, nor another question the patriotism of a fellow congressman who is Muslim. And even more, I wish we would never hear the beautiful words of Christianity contorted falsely to effect a political outcome by the likes of Karl Rove.
Posted by: Ella | September 7, 2007 12:16 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"The Chinese famine was caused by colossal communist stupidity - converting all agricultural equipment into low grade steel among other things - but it was not the same deliberate extermination of people like the Ukraine - in China, there was in fact no food."
These deaths still lie at the doorstep of scientific materialism, because the possibility of famine was not discounted by the CCP, merely considered an acceptable risk of crash industrialisation. The brave new world was well worth a few million dead peasants, and that has proven to be the ultimate ethical position of all officially atheist governments.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 12:11 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Julie types:
"If after I die, I find out there is a "god"
Is that like:
"Darwin's Very Bad Day" ?
Posted by: victor | September 7, 2007 12:07 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"This logic starts from the assumption that the human mind is capable of perceiving all natural (as opposed to supernatural) forces in the world--that strikes me as a flawed premise."
It can rationally be demonstrated that no rational system can rationally deduce the truth of all true statements contained within it. This is the essence of Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem.
The limitation is that of reason, not the human mind. The human mind uses reason, but also operates independently of it. Attempting to hobble the mind to reason alone makes a liar of it, because reason cannot account for its own existence or utility rationally.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 12:01 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Ending separtaion of church and state is the best way to destroy religion. So ironically, it is the secularists who are the real protectors christianity.
Posted by: Andrew Schmitz | September 7, 2007 11:56 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"No, the greatest holocaust in human history is European Christian extermination of indigenous peoples in the Americas from 1492 to the present - 120+ million and still counting."
I simply must demand a source for this fantastic figure or assert my right to dismiss this as ridiculous:
http://www.amazon.com/Numbers-Nowhere-American-Contact-Population/dp/080613044X.
Leaving aside the ridiculous notion that the Spaniards wanted the Indians dead, disease was not a general policy, and, in the few Anglo cases where it can be shown to have likely been deliberate, the actions occurred so late after initial contact that blaming them for the demographic collapse of the pre-Columbian population is either astonishingly ignorant, credulous or dishonest.
PVO
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 11:52 AM
Report Offensive Comment
I think that all religious and non religious people probably agree that hypocrisy is wrong.
Let's try and stay on topic.
Do you believe in "separation of church and state"?
If your answer is no, then what if the "church" represented by the "state" did not represent your religion? Would you want that religion forced on you by the state?
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 11:38 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Mulopwepaul-
"Attempting to dismiss the immaterial merely because it is not empirically quantifiable subordinates actual, lived human experience to an ideological construct, and makes liars of us all.
In these cases, it is the strict rationalists who are the obstacles to human enquiry and attempts to understand the human condition, demanding that we put our hands in our pockets and walk away merely because their toolkit has been found inapplicable to the questions at hand."
You're right, it is incredibly arrogant for a scientist to conclude that, just because his microscope cannot see a thing, the thing must not exist.
However, it is equally arrogant to believe that simply because humans cannot explain a phenomenon like consciousness, it must be unexplainable, and attributed to "God." This logic starts from the assumption that the human mind is capable of perceiving all natural (as opposed to supernatural) forces in the world--that strikes me as a flawed premise.
I would count myself as an agnostic, in the purest sense of the word--I believe that whatever higher power may exist is not just unknown, but unknowable. The human brain is, after all, a very limited instrument.
Posted by: timtheviking2 | September 7, 2007 11:34 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Im tired of the juvenile arguments that revolves around this central theme:"Religious hypocrites abound so religion must be wrong"
One of many examples where the Bible denounces hypocrisy:
You, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law?
Romans 2:21-23
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 11:14 AM
Report Offensive Comment
I would love an answer to my previous thread. Any takers? See below:
A secular government is the safest way to preserve the choice of being religious, or not.
A thought question? Is there a Christian out there that would not want "separation of church and state" if the religion the state chose to sponsor was Islam, Hinduism or some other non Christian religion?
Would you as a Christian want your kids to pray to another religions God at a school football game?
I assume the answer would be "no", but I could be wrong. If your answer is no, then please explain why.
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 11:10 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Professor Berlinerblau,
You're absolutely right in what you say.
Best wishes.
Posted by: Norrie Hoyt | September 7, 2007 11:04 AM
Report Offensive Comment
I am so sick of each discussion being turned into a debate over atheism etc. Why not just stay on the subject -- is separation of church and state good for America? There are those that want to have religion taught in schools or to have religious tests for government. How do they justify that position. That is the question, not some repeated (and now trite) debate over whether or not to be religious or whether or not there is a God. I am just sick of the constant drivel.
Posted by: jenna | September 7, 2007 11:03 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Mulopwepaul:
No, the greatest holocaust in human history is European Christian extermination of indigenous peoples in the Americas from 1492 to the present - 120+ million and still counting. Second, the so-called black book is filled with BS. The numbers are so awful that it would seem unnecessary to fudge the numbers, but the anti-communist revisionists aren't satisfied with facts. As an example, the revisionists equate the Stalin-created famine in the Ukraine with the huge famine in China in 1957. Not remotely true. Stalin created that atrocity deliberately even though there was adequate food. The Chinese famine was caused by colossal communist stupidity - converting all agricultural equipment into low grade steel among other things - but it was not the same deliberate extermination of people like the Ukraine - in China, there was in fact no food. In fact, the only equivalent atrocities to the Ukraine are the Irish famine of 1855 where the British moved all food out of Ireland and allowed more than 1 million to die or the British induced Bengali famine of 1933 where 7 million died even though food was available in other parts of India..
Posted by: Andrew from OR | September 7, 2007 11:03 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Good discussion. Here are my points:
-- Don't confuse two different things as being one. There is a world of difference between an evil act of religious militancy and an evil act excused for religious reasons.
-- The U.S. has a strong history of separation of church and state, but the U.S. Supreme Court decisions can be misleading. While today those words are regarded as safeguarding liberty, most SCOTUS decisions about the establishment clause were originally intended to limit the growth of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. Protestant establishmentarians love the Establishment Clause when they use it to keep tax dollars from providing books in parochial schools. They forget about it when they want to have public worship at the opening of Congress or printed on money.
Posted by: Ego Nemo | September 7, 2007 10:59 AM
Report Offensive Comment
mulopwepaul:
I understand what you are trying to say, but that does not prove that any religion is correct.
Just because we can not prove the nonexistence of a "God", does not mean that one exists.
I am an agnostic atheist for this reason. I don't believe in any of what I call "man made" religions/gods, but if some sort of "proof" all of a sudden appears, then I will be open to examining it.
Stories told from ancient books do not count as proof to me. For others, I realize this is enough.
If after I die, I find out there is a "god" I will have no problem being judged on my actions in this world. I am not perfect, but have always tried to live by the "golden rule". If that is not good enough for "god" then "god" is no more than a cruel dictator.
Posted by: Julie | September 7, 2007 10:59 AM
Report Offensive Comment
I agree fully with Julie, and note the absence so far of anyone rising to her challenge -- any Christian's that would like to suggest another religion they would like to have as the official state religion? Or to ask the question differently, how would you feel about a government agency determining what prayers are ok and what are not? That goes along with the idea of an established church.
Posted by: jenna | September 7, 2007 10:57 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Of course not all secularists are atheists, in America I willing to bet the precentage of strong secularists that are atheists is less than 30%. The majority of the people I know are Secularists, but not Atheists. By secularists I mean by the standard definition of a secularist believes in strict seperation of church and state, and a strict secularists would extend that seperation to seperation of religion and political or other logical arguments. In other words, rational arguments only in the public (non-religious) sphere. I have never heard of another definition outside of the Religious Rights propaganda tracks
Posted by: Muddy | September 7, 2007 10:50 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"More people have been killed in the name of "god" than for any other reason. If there is a god why doesn't he/she/it make it a point to say "stop killing in my name", or perform some sort of miracle as they seem to be so abundant in the bible/Koran etc... to prove his/her/its existence. "
The Black Book of Communism documents the death of over 100 million people in the last century in pursuit of scientific materialism. That's more people than lived on the entire planet during the height of the Crusades. Even taking Islam's bloody pillage of India into account, the theistic killers have proven to be mere amateurs compared to their scientific materialist masters.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 10:49 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Fuji:
I hate to break it to you, but Robespierre was not an atheist nor were the majority of Jacobins. They were Deists. There was a minority group of atheist Jacobins led by Hebert and Chaumette, and they were a quite nasty little group, but Robespierre executed them in April and May of 1794. Moreover, on June 8, 1794, Robespierre proclaimed the Deist Supreme Being as an integral component of the Revolution.
According to Harvard Divinity School studies, there are at least 10 million Americans today who can be considered dominionists (compared to about 12 million atheists), and they do want to overthrow our somewhat secular government and replace it with a theocracy.
Finally, neither Stalin nor Mao killed a single person in the name of atheism. All were killed in the name of communism which is, in the end, just another religion. BTW, seveal million of those killed by Stalin and Mao were in fact atheists.
If you want to pontificate here, that's fine, most everyone does, but get your facts straight first.
Posted by: Andrew from OR | September 7, 2007 10:48 AM
Report Offensive Comment
when you bring G_D into politics, you denigrate G_d.
Posted by: barb | September 7, 2007 10:45 AM
Report Offensive Comment
The bottom line on the tag "militant atheist" is that Dawkins has, in essence, called for the coercive power of the state to be deployed against the religious education of children by labeling it "child abuse."
Unless you believe there are socially acceptable forms of child abuse.
That is a militant position.
And, indeed, we have seen throughout the history of the enlightenment the perfect willingness of rational atheists, speaking in similarly absolutist terms, to break as many eggs (or skulls) as necessary to make their rationalist utopia omelet.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 10:45 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Such beauty, set beside so brief a season, suggests to our stunned reason his bleak surmise: the world was made to hold no end or telos and if-as some would tell us - there is a goal, it's not ourselves.
-Josehp Brodsky
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 10:45 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Is there a god? That is something that should be decided on an individual basis and in a perfect world not be spread or pushed on any other individual. Sadly this is not the case, especially in our present times, and what makes the matter even worse is the shear hypocrisy that stems from all religions. More people have been killed in the name of "god" than for any other reason. If there is a god why doesn't he/she/it make it a point to say "stop killing in my name", or perform some sort of miracle as they seem to be so abundant in the bible/Koran etc... to prove his/her/its existence.
Just my two cents.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 7, 2007 10:41 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Brian Westley:
I'd like to point out:
militant Muslims = Muslims who fly airplanes into buildings, call for Rushdie's death, etc
militant Christians: murder abortion doctors, call for a theocracy
militant atheists: argue that theism is wrong and atheism is correct
-- Yeah, all of those church-going Christians trying to overthrow our secular government so they can establish a theocracy ...
If they really want to be effective, they should take up the methods of those loveable state-supported atheists Chairman Mao and Josef Stalin (millions upon millions upon millions dead) and Robespierre (hundreds sacrificed at the alter of "reason").
Posted by: Fuji | September 7, 2007 10:14 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Brian Westley:
I'd like to point out:
militant Muslims = Muslims who fly airplanes into buildings, call for Rushdie's death, etc
militant Christians: murder abortion doctors, call for a theocracy
militant atheists: argue that theism is wrong and atheism is correct
--- Yeah, um, and there was also the slaughter of millions by Mao and Stalin ... those loveable state-supported atheists.
Posted by: Fuji | September 7, 2007 10:11 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Brian Westley:
I'd like to point out:
militant Muslims = Muslims who fly airplanes into buildings, call for Rushdie's death, etc
militant Christians: murder abortion doctors, call for a theocracy
militant atheists: argue that theism is wrong and atheism is correct
--- Yeah, um, and there was also the slaughter of millions by Mao and Stalin ... those loveable state-supported atheists.
Posted by: Fuji | September 7, 2007 10:11 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"What stops me being religious is that there is no evidence of a god or a heaven, or in fact,anything remotely supernatural or magic. It makes no sense."
It's fine to say "I have no evidence," but most serious religions disavow a God who performs parlour tricks to impress skeptics.
That being the case, the remaining question is how one deals with the subjective reality of mystery.
Why did time come to be? How does consciousness emerge from the electrochemical cocktail of the human nervous system? These are questions which are by definition outside of the ability of scientific observation to answer, since they involve frames of reference outside of physical measurement and observation. Attempting to dismiss the immaterial merely because it is not empirically quantifiable subordinates actual, lived human experience to an ideological construct, and makes liars of us all.
In these cases, it is the strict rationalists who are the obstacles to human enquiry and attempts to understand the human condition, demanding that we put our hands in our pockets and walk away merely because their toolkit has been found inapplicable to the questions at hand.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 7, 2007 10:07 AM
Report Offensive Comment
"that to blame religion for the recent geopolitical events is at best SIMPLISTIC, at worst MORONIC. "
--------------
Not to see how the Christian vote enabled the President/Vice President to launch a war of aggression for oil, is not just Moronic, but extremely dangerous.
==============
the rest of us will not let it happen again.
==============
"Schlozman told one recently hired attorney that it was his intention to drive these attorneys out of the Appellate Section so that he could replace them with 'good Americans.'"
--------------
The insinuation that if you're not an Evangelical Christan, you're not a good American, is quite UnAmerican, completely wrong, & downright insulting.
==============
This is what we got from a Christian administration.
It was a conjob.
Posted by: pv | September 7, 2007 10:05 AM
Report Offensive Comment
Good Sides James:
I think US law provides a pretty good guideline for this. It is really about context and intent. If a public speech denigrating another person is in the context of advocating a course of action, and the intent is to incite that action, then that is illegal. If an idiot like Mel Gibson makes drunken racial slurs, or Mike Richards makes ignorant racist comments in a failed attempt to be funny, then they can't be illegal, or every time Chris Rock uses the 'N' word he'd be guilty of a race hate crime.
Those types of 'small bigotries' are usually handled in the appropriate manner, by the weight of social pressure. Blacks in America are beginning to put tht pressure on other Blacks to stop that petty racism that hurts them even though they haven't recognized it until recently.
Posted by: ender | September 7, 2007 8:29 AM
Report Offensive Comment
What stops me being religious
is that there is no evidence of a god or a heaven,
or in fact,anything remotely supernatural or magic.
It makes no sense.
What makes sense is that people make these things up,
because we know they always have done.
Mythology is crowded with hasbeen gods and goddesses,
and all manner of other imaginary creatures from our superstitious past.
None of those old gods were real,so why would the current one be real.
Ridiculous,right?
Posted by: yoyo | September 6, 2007 11:00 PM
Report Offensive Comment
A secular government is the safest way to preserve the choice of being religious, or not.
A thought question? Is there a Christian out there that would not want "separation of church and state" if the religion the state chose to sponsor was Islam, Hinduism or some other non Christian religion?
Would you as a Christian want your kids to pray to another religions God at a school football game?
I assume the answer would be "no", but I could be wrong. If your answer is no, then please explain why.
Posted by: Julie | September 6, 2007 10:33 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Ratzinger's views resonate through the Pope's recent encyclical The Splendor of Truth, which sharply defined right and wrong. It also sought to instill a militant obedience in Catholics"
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,162845,00.html
"Conservatives and hard-liners in the church will have been given a boost" by Cardinal Ratzinger's election as pope, says Graham Watson, leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament. "We can expect them to be more militant now. It's going to be even more important to build a secular force to drive that agenda forward."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0421/p01s03-woeu.html
Life is hard; get a helmet.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 9:54 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Brian Westley
I see you carry your displeasure re the labelling "militant atheist" in many threads in On Faith now.
As I've said in another thread, the US media also called gays and feminists who are "strident", "militant gays" and "militant feminists". They don't resort to arms too, but of course, they do resort to interesting and/or disruptive tactics in the public square to draw attention to their cause or for their cause. I have yet to see atheists doing that, hence, your objection is understandable when atheists are called called "militant" for arguing, stridently sometimes.:)
From what I read and see of usage, the term "militant" is applied to Muslims who are strident in their beliefs, not necessarly just for their taking up arms. Muslim fundamentalists can be militant too, and also applied to Muslims who are conservative.
Some Muslim states use the term "insurgents" to describe armed Muslim militants who seek to undermine the states they are against and/or remove and impose their rule. The preferred and most common usage used by everyone is "terrorists". As to whether they are terrorists or freedom fighters, that would depend on whom they are fighting against and why. And that, my friend, is another story.
Right. Argue away. Rest assured I won't call you "militant", never did and never will for anyone arguing against and disagreeing with me. We can agree, or we can agree to disagree, no?
Regards
J
Posted by: Jihadist | September 6, 2007 8:32 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Someone who calls religious education child abuse is going beyond mere ideological argument--that is a political position as radical as Catholics arguing for universal catechesis."
Radical? Maybe.
When the person decides to bomb religious education cites or kill religious education instructors, then they are militant.
Militant Muslims kill because they believe their religion calls them to do so.
Militant Christians kill because they believe their religion calls them to do so.
Arguing in a book and in briefings that such indoctrination of the youth represents child abuse is not in the same league.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 6, 2007 8:10 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"Someone who calls religious education child abuse is going beyond mere ideological argument--that is a political position as radical as Catholics arguing for universal catechesis.
Such a Catholic would not be surprised by being branded "militant.""
Well, you'll have to point out where mainstream media (which calls Dawkins a militant atheist) has called the Pope a militant Catholic.
From where I sit, believers only get called "militant" if they advocate killing people or overthrowing the government to install a theocracy; atheists get called "militant" for arguing.
Posted by: Brian Westley | September 6, 2007 8:05 PM
Report Offensive Comment
On "Kudlow and Company" house tax committee chair Charley Wrangle said they were looking into "taxing charities" and his GOP minority leader member didn't blink. Could the message that the Bible is a prove hoax have made it's way to Washington? I don't think he was talking about taxing the Red Cross and Kudlow quickly changed the direction of the conversation.
Posted by: BGone | September 6, 2007 6:57 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Mr. Jacques Berlinblau
Innteresting and informative essay again.
And thank you for relating on your atheist friend who preferred theocracy because it kept the “little people” tranquilized, in line to keep them out of her hair. Quite amusing.
Perhaps you may wish to have some fun with her in stating some other possibilities:
- The secularists are the most pro-status quo, most pro-state in a secular state, hence they are pro-establishment
- The "little people", the religious types who want to imbue state policies with their religious values are the insurgents, the rebels against the secular state
- The "little people" are not really so little with their organisation, funds, networks and energy and determination to influence state policies with their values and objectives.
- There are more "little people" than there are secularists of all stripes and personal religious or non-beliefs.
- As the meek are said to shall inherit the earth, the "little people" can grow in size and influence and inherit the earth too.
In keeping a state secular, the successful implementation of seperation of church and state, the more multi-cultural and multi-religious a country becomes, the more intense the fight for ensuring seperation for church and state. This is, perhaps, the best checks and balances against domination and prevent the primacy of any religious group in state affairs.
It is possible that it is not secularists of any persuasion that finally ensure seperation of church and state, but "little people" through their religiously affiliated organisations checkmating any other from dominating in state affairs.
Thank you and best regards
J
Posted by: Jihadist | September 6, 2007 5:52 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Garak, you posted a very interesting comment:
"... religious freedom is a purely secular concept. Freedom of religion is antithetical to religion. If only your religion possesses the truth, other religions need no freedoms."
The Christian religion is a perfect example of a religious group that has ZERO interest in religious freedom. It's inherent in their religion to proselytize and convert others. The Jews don't proselytize ... but they believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong, they just don't care about the ones who are wrong. :-)
Posted by: Atheist | September 6, 2007 5:37 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Unfortunately the line between secularism and atheism is lost to much of the masses.
Btw, agnostics are also atheists. Both lack belief in gods. So it's only really necessary to refer to them all as "atheists", to differentiate them from believers. Because that's really what everyone wants to know, right ? Do you believe or don't you ? Theist or atheist ?
Posted by: Atheist | September 6, 2007 5:33 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Side track Ender:
Your comment:
"? Freedom of religion and speech together means equal opportunity of satirical attack for the religious and atheist alike. When they legally stop a cartoon posting of the pimp mohammed, or the imaginary jewish carpenter, I go to war with my own nation."
You raise an interesting point. When is it OK to censor "offensive" speech? You state that it is not OK to censor religious satire and insults. Fine. What about recent incidents in the media regarding the N-word against African Americans and the F-word against gay Americans? Wouldn't that constitute free speech free from censoring? Why or why not. Who deems one expression as offensive and censorable while another not?
The question is, would you, as you put it, go to war with your own nation if it censors those you disagree with?
Enjoy the brain food.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 6, 2007 4:56 PM
Report Offensive Comment
James:
There is a very thin line between allowing free religious expression and Separation of Church and State. Freedom to worship according to the beliefs of most of Islam mean that Muslims are subject to sharia law. In many nations, leaving the religion is punishable by death. Any woman showing her body is a whore offending the religion. In the fundamentalist Christianity of the US, freedom of worship means that publically funded school systems should either not teach generally accepted scientific theory on genetics and evolution, or also teach the creation myths of the bible, but not those of Native Americans or Hindus.
I don't appreciate persons proselytizing to me. It is their right, as it is mine to ridicule them if they do.
Please show up at my door with pamplet in hand. I promise to answer the door naked, and invite you to a vernal equinox orgy to celebrate springtime.
Should America curtail freespeach as they have in much of Europe? Freedom of religion and speech together means equal opportunity of satirical attack for the religious and atheist alike. When they legally stop a cartoon posting of the pimp mohammed, or the imaginary jewish carpenter, I go to war with my own nation.
Posted by: ender | September 6, 2007 4:20 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"How about only calling atheists who kill people over religious differences "militant" atheists, and just call people like Richard Dawkins an atheist."
Someone who calls religious education child abuse is going beyond mere ideological argument--that is a political position as radical as Catholics arguing for universal catechesis.
Such a Catholic would not be surprised by being branded "militant."
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 4:07 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Sorry for the near duplicates--the first post is incorrect. Connecticut disestablished the Congregational Church in 1818; the date 1833 is correct for Massachusetts.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 4:03 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"The part in the first amendment about religion was to protect religions - note the plural. If the state chose one, meaning, in the case of America, one denomination of Christianity, then all other sects of Christianity and all other religions would be threatened."
To a point, yes, but it's important to remember that six of the 13 original states still had established churches at the time of their ratification of the Constitution, and that ratification was not understood to affect these laws. Massachusetts did not fully disestablish the Congregationalist Church until 1833, for instance.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 4:01 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"The part in the first amendment about religion was to protect religions - note the plural. If the state chose one, meaning, in the case of America, one denomination of Christianity, then all other sects of Christianity and all other religions would be threatened."
To a point, yes, but it's important to remember that six of the 13 original states still had established churches at the time of their ratification of the Constitution, and that ratification was not understood to affect these laws. Connecticut did not fully disestablish the Congregationalist Church until 1833, for instance.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 4:00 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Some people objecting to my comparison of militant Muslims & Christians vs. militant atheists have completely missed the point.
Violent Muslims are often called "militant" Muslims
Violent Christians are often called "militant" Christians
Non-violent atheists like Dawkins are often called "militant" atheists, even though all they are doing is arguing their views on religion.
If "militant" was applied to Muslims & Christians with the same abandon, nearly every Muslim and Christian would be saddled as "militant". How about only calling atheists who kill people over religious differences "militant" atheists, and just call people like Richard Dawkins an atheist.
Posted by: Brian Westley | September 6, 2007 3:55 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Garak, you said:
"Your biased post failed to mention that religious freedom is a purely secular concept. Freedom of religion is antithetical to religion."
Horse poop. The part in the first amendment about religion was to protect religions - note the plural. If the state chose one, meaning, in the case of America, one denomination of Christianity, then all other sects of Christianity and all other religions would be threatened.
Contrary to popular thought, only a few of the Founding Fathers were out-and-out deists. Jefferson and Franklin were the best known. Others were not particularly religious, but did not really deny their faith.
Posted by: Arminius | September 6, 2007 3:46 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I consider myself a secularist though I believe in God. I believe that a secular society allows more freedom of religion than (obviously) a theocracy, or any "God In Government" construct. A true secularist, however, must also believe in the value of the right to freely express the public expressions of faith of others. Keeping God out of government protects religion as well as government. But also allowing people to worship freely protects us all. That's why when I see someone standing on the steps of the courthouse preaching, "Witnessing," or cajoling "non-believers" I feel good about our secular-and-tolerant system.
Posted by: James | September 6, 2007 3:44 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"More importantly, atheists do not delude themselves by relying on science, reason, and rationality in refusing to accept the existence of any god. How can one delude oneself by embracing these ideals?"
The irrational component of scientism (or, less perjoratively, the prerational component) is the faith-based certainty of many rationalists that reason is the sole basis for knowledge, or that it provides an exhaustive understanding of reality--in fact, it can be rationally demonstrated that it cannot--see Goedel's Theorem of Incompleteness.
Given this fact, it is in fact irrational to dismiss alternate forms of knowledge solely on the basis of their prerationality.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 3:03 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I am a long time member of the local freethought/atheist society. I am a secularist, and an ethical humanist. I believe in a loving God, and my Knowlege of that God is that IT has nothing to do with any of the organized religions. Ethical Humanism is as close as humans are likely to come to finding a way for group survival and advancement of the human consciousness. Jesus and Buddha may have been enlightened souls that helped a few persons of their time achieve enlightenment. Any cults that were built around them that survived their physical death are perversions created by men to control men.
I find no contradiction in this, but many atheist and almost all christians do. It's not my problem. I don't expect anyone to have shared my spiritual experiences. I do expect humans to act ethically toward each other dispite religious or tribal affilitation.
Religions inhibit the advancement of that ethical development by culturally locking in humans to ancient tribal religions that believe in unprovalble suppositions and jealous dieties that only gave the correct answer to their group.
In contrast, the Abrahamic religions arrogantly proclaim unique correctness for not just their main creed, but even down into sub groupings, and that all others are outside of gods plan, therefore of the devil. Those claims of sole correctness were what first led me to understand the evil and incorrectness of the Big Three and there myriad sub species. I realized if any of them were correct, then I would rather be on the other side as all would have to be the product of an evil deity.
Religions are the biggest obstacle to human social, ethical and yes, spiritual advancement
in the world today.
Posted by: ender | September 6, 2007 3:02 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Garak, I refer you to Anon's post below yours to make my point on the convoluted rationality of some of the anti-Christian arguments.
Nuff said.
Posted by: Bobby | September 6, 2007 2:52 PM
Report Offensive Comment
BGone: posted this on another thread. It fits well here. Religion is a land mine waiting to be stepped on by one or more candidates. It won't stand the test and in turn the candidate won't either. BTW Mr Mark is correct, Jesus went to hades upon his death according to the sacred scriptures. He went to release the non baptized good people whiting for the Messiah.
WHAT?:
You wrote, "This world is in turmoil because mankind as a whole thinks he knows all...been that way since Eden."
How right can you be. Lucifer attempted to take over paradise. Moses made a deal with him, sold his soul to become the most important person that ever lived. All that confusion is the chaos of hell right here and now, the product of Moses followers.
Gospel according to Luke 23:40ff
But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
42Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.[f]"
43Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
According to Mr Mark, Jesus descended into hell after dying on the cross. Luke 23:43 allows us to locate paradise. That would be where the ministry is leading us, to the place that Jesus went after His crucifixion? It also says the kingdom of Jesus and His Father, (Jesus is of one being with His Father) is hell.
http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul is correct, one way or the other. Either the story is a hoax, best possible case or all the "born agains" are headed for hell at light speed and dragging the USA along in the draft.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 6, 2007 2:46 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Bobby:
You forgot to mention the Holocaust, the culmination of 2000 years of militant christian anti-semitism. You also forgot to mention the militant US christian defense of slavery and segregation (the "sons of Ham" and all that).
Your biased post failed to mention that religious freedom is a purely secular concept. Freedom of religion is antithetical to religion. If only your religion possesses the truth, other religions need no freedoms. To quote the Pope, error has no rights. And every religion-based gov't has embraced this to some extent.
Some, and in this country many if not most, religious people realize this. Unfortunately, other religious people, the non-secular, insist on twisting and distorting history in arguing that the US is a "christian" nation, one in which their version of christianity is to supersede all other sects.
As for Iraq, the religious right was a driving force in getting us to turn our backs on al Qaeda. They lobbied hard to invade. They helped drive our country into war. They may not have been the primary force, but as part of the GOP base, they had a real impact.
More importantly, atheists do not delude themselves by relying on science, reason, and rationality in refusing to accept the existence of any god. How can one delude oneself by embracing these ideals?
Posted by: Garak | September 6, 2007 2:45 PM
Report Offensive Comment
hey brian, look up Stalin's violent persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church. Sure it wasn't in the NAME of atheism, but it was done in the name of attacking an "imaginary, irrational" belief system (sounds familiar?)
BY the way, your biased post fails to describe militant Christians whose militancy resulted in working closely with the poor (Mother Teresa for example), preaching incessantly (Billy Graham) or giving one's life for refusing to disavow Jesus Christ (pick anyone of the millions of Christian martyrs from 2000 years ago to present day).
Disgusted's comment that includes the ridicule "If you have been awake during the past 6 years" ignores the possibility that I WAS awake, and observed all of the events of the past 6 years in a CALM, RATIONAL manner and surmised that to blame religion for the recent geopolitical events is at best SIMPLISTIC, at worst MORONIC.
Oh and the comment"why on earth would you think something is bad that furthers your belief?" is also SIMPLISTIC. What has happened that further's my belief. You think invasion of Iraq is somehow advancing the Christian agenda, what utter nonsense. Perhaps you may disagree with the Bush tax cuts or the extremes of the counter terrorism initiatives by Homeland Security, or the narrow partial abortion ruling (that some atheists actually agree with, not to mention the fact that some atheists are pro-life) but to lay the blame on Christianity for these things reflects a blind intransigence and is poles apart from the rationalism that you atheists claim to champion.
See? Some religious people may indeed delude themselves in thinking they know the absolute truth vis-a-vis God. But then again, many atheists also delude themselves regarding the soundness of the reasons that make them not believe in His existence.
Peace.
Posted by: Bobby | September 6, 2007 2:25 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"militant atheists: argue that theism is wrong and atheism is correct"
Or conspire to overthrow governments and launch reigns of terror...
There's been enough blood spilled to give more credence to the idea that murder is a human failing, not an ideological or religious one.
We have left the murderous militant atheists out of the discussion because we, unlike some, prefer not attempt to use the crimes of third parties as rhetorical blunt instruments to shift the debate onto sensationalist grounds.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 2:02 PM
Report Offensive Comment
I'd like to point out:
militant Muslims = Muslims who fly airplanes into buildings, call for Rushdie's death, etc
militant Christians: murder abortion doctors, call for a theocracy
militant atheists: argue that theism is wrong and atheism is correct
One of these things is not like the others...
Posted by: Brian Westley | September 6, 2007 1:53 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Mr Mark and Anonymous: thanks for pointing out how bad atheists are. Ever meet one?
Bobby - christianity has painted a negative picture of all other religions (especially catholic dogma). If you have been awake during the past 6 years, or have listened at all, you would realize that yes, religion has had a negative effect on politics. No doubt about that. Because you are in the majority, of course you don't think the influence of religion on our political system is bad - why on earth would you think something is bad that furthers your belief? and in the process, demonizes those of us that don't believe in your imaginary friend.
Posted by: Disgusted | September 6, 2007 1:39 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Interesting article. It pretty much adds cold water to the militant atheist (aka anti-theist) alarmism regarding the influence of religious believers on the political system.
Guess what, most of us religious people understand the role of government in our earthly lives and the role of God in our earthly and eternal lives.
But Im sure militant atheists will start their all-knowing comments describing how the religious think and behave.
The ignorant caricature that militant atheists paint of Christianity and theists is quite amusing. And then they have the audacity to accuse us of concocting a lie and firmly believing it. Brother.....
Posted by: Bobby | September 6, 2007 1:03 PM
Report Offensive Comment
"It is a common fear of being subject to a state-imposed religion (and that religion would be some denominational form of Protestant Christianity) which unites them."
Actually, the state of affairs in pre-Everson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everson_v._Board_of_Education) United States indicates that the unofficial, unestablished operational creed of the U.S., when it was still believed legitimate to fight out politically, was in fact a sort of watery, lowest-common-denominator-nondemominational Protestantism.
This predictable progressive disintegration of theological rigour was a more common criticism of the pre-Everson understanding of church-state relations by committed Protestants of that time than fear of the Lutherans succeeding in writing the Augsburg Confession or the Anglicans the 39 Articles into the U.S. Code of Law.
Posted by: mulopwepaul | September 6, 2007 12:58 PM
Report Offensive Comment
yes it does.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 6, 2007 12:46 PM
Report Offensive Comment
Like Christopher Hitchens, I call myself an anti-theist as it more represents my position in regards to religion.
I imagine that makes me even worse than being an atheist.
Posted by: Mr Mark | September 6, 2007 12:18 PM
Report Offensive Comment
The comments to this entry are closed.
Hello, nice site :)