Ok, it took me a while to reply again, both because I wanted to allow the discussion flow a while first, but mainly, because I had other fish to fry.
That said, I need to say that I think the article, while interesting and well-written, is in fact completely flawed and not insightful at all, giving little less than a well-made presentation of a series of miss concepts that are common in this sort of debate.
The most fundamental of them is the authors absolute inability to perceive atheism as anything else different than
competition to organized religion, allowing him to compare the merits of it under the same criteria you would compare the movement of other religions thorough the last decades.
Well, obviously it would not do well in such judgments. Religions are much better at being religions than atheism can ever be.
Anyway, for the points raised:
Hotpoint said:
This is a nicely written article but its analysis of Atheism in the "West" often seems to be largely based upon looking upon the American model. As an example "For 30 years O'Hair was the most visible atheist. What O'Hair did and said was atheism to the public, and it was nasty" well this just isn't the case except in the US. For the most part the legions of Atheists and Agnostics in Europe just don't care about religion.
Yeah, the article smells of regionalism quite a lot, but this is a fact that never concerned me because I had no problem in limiting the scope of the analysis to the area preferred by the articles author the US of A in that case.
Hotpoint said:
Also if as the article itself contends "what propels people toward atheism is above all a sense of revulsion against the excesses and failures of organized religion. Atheism is ultimately a worldview of feara fear, often merited, of what might happen if religious maniacs were to take over the world" is true then surely the current rise of Religious Fundamentalism (Muslim, Hindu and Christian) will strengthen the Secular Humanist cause?
And of course it is wrong because this assumption simply
isnt the true. It is particularly clear in this article that the author bases itself in an assumption that is almost as common in analysis of atheism made by less articulate religionists that simply does not meet with reality the idea that atheism is some form of revolt against organized religion.
Perhaps some people (and please note
some, Im not generalizing) think its more comfortable that the atheism is a antithesis to their religions than that it is what it is a
independent way of thinking, whichs antagonizing with religion is incidental. The only feasible reason I can think of that is that it may be better to feel actively confronted than to fell ruled out and ignored; if ones dislike something, he is recognizing that such think is important enough to be hated; now, turning your back on something because its unimportant, quite another deal
BasketCase said:
Atheism isn't on the decline. It has simply passed the phase where it was:
once new, exciting, and liberating
and is now....well....ordinary. People no longer get burned at the stake for doing it.
Just because something's lost its luster and is now taken for granted as "just part of life" doesn't mean it's declining.
To tell the truth, I dont think that is quite it.
While less vocal lately, and while a minority and a tendency with little to none political importance, atheism does not seen to have lost terrain. There is no evidence that there are less atheists now than that there once were in Christianity
quite the contrary.
Now the thing I concede to the article, and where it has a point, is that Atheism have showed no advance as a institution
but therein lies the error that I mentioned, isnt there? Who have ever said that atheists
want it to be institutional? I personally do not wish to join a support group in which we tap each others backs about how smart we are on our choices
particularly considering how little in common with me such people would likely have.
Anyway, this lack of will to
organize does create difficulties for us to defend our interests (and add to this that deciding which are these interests is an enormous task to begin with), while, on the other hand, the organization that is common on religions for it being an integral part of belonging to a religion makes it easy to form groups, and with such groups, be loud and dominant.
I think, unlike the article says, that atheism is alive and well, but that the voices of atheists cant be heard because of the everlasting chants of the sheeps among us. The fact he dealt with the non-advancement of a official atheism is a correct assertion
but very, very poorly dealt with in the article.
ybbor said:
It seems funny to me the way the article takes great strides to avoid the issue of community provided by the church as a direct result of Christianity telling it's followers to love (the word 'love' never appears in the article). When it's talking about Christians it seems to say, 'since there's people, there's community' while when talking about atheism it seems to say 'where there's people, their boredom'. I don't attribute the difference in the communities to some coincidence, where a role of the dice placed Christianity as a more loving community than the atheistic one, but rather, as a direct result of the beliefs held.
Indeed. A nice example of doublethink, to use Orwells vocabulary. The text presumes a very nihilistic and misanthropic form of atheism as its axioms, and never deviates from it. Its labeling a group, for crying out loud. Who said that a bunch of atheists cant have fun together? Only that we dont feel the need to gather up
because we are atheists that would be pointless indeed. But not, as the article suggests, for the supposed incapacity it has of offering anything, but exactly because a large chunk of what it offers is a prevalence of individuality, both in terms of ideas and tastes.
Lambert Simnel said:
What I read of the article was sufficiently nonsense that I didn't read the rest. Wishful thinking, and (as is often the case when Christians decide to talk about and "understand" atheism) quite, quite patronizing.
Indeed. And my largest issue with the text is that it speaks about the wonders of religion, mainly describing the utility of it to society, and only marginally, of whether it is right or not.
I use to say that if everybody truly believed that thieves were instantly stroke down by lightening, it would be useful, for nobody would steal
but nevertheless, it would also be untrue, regardless its utility.
(I am not affirming that religion is false; Im just exemplifying the fallacy of supporting itself in a utility whichs connection to facts is uncertain/doubtful)
Regards
.
They're about as much fun at a party when they get wound up as someone who just "met Jesus" recently.
