THE INDEPENDENT: Atheist defends critical focus on Islam: Sam Harris, the prominent atheist, has hit back at charges of Islamophobia levelled by fellow non-believers – insisting that some faiths are more "mistaken" than others. » | Jerome Taylor | Sunday, April 14, 2013
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Monday, April 15, 2013
THE INDEPENDENT: Atheist defends critical focus on Islam: Sam Harris, the prominent atheist, has hit back at charges of Islamophobia levelled by fellow non-believers – insisting that some faiths are more "mistaken" than others. » | Jerome Taylor | Sunday, April 14, 2013
Saturday, October 13, 2012
TELEGRAPH – BLOGS – DAMIAN THOMPSON: The strangest thing happened last week, though few people noticed it. America officially ceased to be a Protestant country. According to the Pew Forum, the percentage of Protestants has dropped to 48 per cent, down from 53 per cent in 2007. That’s a huge shift.
But, before Catholics start punching the air, let me point out that the percentage of Catholics has been flatlining for years at 22 per cent. The big jump is in unaffiliated Americans, including atheists – up from 15 to 20 per cent. These “Nones”, as pollsters call them, are laying waste to the religious landscape of the United States. And Britain.
Here’s the question that intrigues me. Once the old, routine churchgoers have died off, and now that “None” is the default position for liberal-minded young people, what will the churches of the future look like?
We’re beginning to find out. More to the point, the clapped-out Anglican and Catholic bishops of the English-speaking world are finding out, too – and it’s giving them nightmares.
Those youngsters who once went to church out of obligation are now spending Sunday mornings in the supermarket or the gym (body worship is a flourishing faith). That means that the only young people in the pews are true believers who really want to be there. Read on and comment » | Damian Thompson | Friday, October 12, 2012
My comment:
The void will surely be filled by Islam. Islam is a growing, vibrant faith; Christianity is on its last legs. Christians, now often mostly nominal, also don't want children. Women would prefer their independence and careers. The result, of course, is a huge decline in the birthrate. Compare this with the Muslim population. Muslims are family people; they give birth to plenty of children. And as soon as they are born, the father whispers the following in the baby's ear: La illah ila Allah wa Muhammadan rasul ullah. With this going on, the future has to belong to them. The Church, by being so wishy-washy, is giving our heritage away. As, indeed, are our politicians. – © Mark
This comment can also be found here
Monday, July 16, 2012
Beneath our advanced 21st-century economy lies a smoke-belching 18th-century economy. For all our sophistication, we still depend on fossil fuels dug from the earth to power our homes and offices. And it is now abundantly clear that this dependence is becoming a lethal threat. From the burning of coal and gasoline, we release into the atmosphere toxic mercury, acidic sulfur and nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter that produces choking smog and causes asthma and other respiratory sicknesses. But more dangerous, because less noticeable, is the invisible gas carbon dioxide, which is released in vast quantities, billions of tons per year, by the burning of all fossil fuels.
Rising into the troposphere, carbon dioxide accumulates in a stifling blanket, trapping the rays of the sun and warming our planet as surely as a hot car left in a parking lot. In the past, feedback mechanisms in the biosphere prevented excessive warming by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere: the oceans absorb it, green plants drink it, rain dissolves it, carbonate rocks sequester it. But we’re pumping it into the atmosphere at a prodigious rate, burning through millions of years’ worth of hydrocarbon reservoirs in decades, driving the climate system relentlessly out of equilibrium. And decade by decade, global temperatures tick upwards, glaciers recede, habitats dwindle, ice caps fragment, sea levels rise, storms gain strength, the extremes of flood and drought worsen, desert spreads, and the powerful and wealthy special interests who stand to profit by mortgaging the planet attempt to denigrate and marginalize the voices crying in the wilderness to warn humanity of the danger.
But combustible hydrocarbons aren’t the only product of the Middle East that shapes the face of the world today. From those desert sands comes another fuel. Like oil and coal, this fuel has its origins in the distant past; unlike oil and coal, this one is invisible, intangible. Rather than being transmitted through drills and pipelines, it travels through the air, leaping from one mind to the next, igniting conflagrations figurative and literal. Our economy runs on the fossil fuels of oil, gas and coal, but our society runs on the fossil fuel of religion.
Instead of the compressed remains of long-dead living things, the religions that dominate our world today are made up of fossilized dogmas, shaped in the cauldron of a long-gone world and compressed by time and tradition into a rock-hard mass. Religion, too, has its impurities, but instead of sulfur and mercury, humanity’s beliefs are contaminated with impurities of tribalism and xenophobia, fractions of hate and fanaticism and glorification of martyrdom. And when they burn in human minds, instead of smog and acid rain, they give us suicide bombers exploding in crowded streets, the suffocating darkness of fundamentalism, bloodthirsty mobs in the streets screaming for holy war, armies marching forth to conquer under the red banners of crescent and cross, the Twin Towers collapsing in flame.
I’m not claiming that religious belief is uniformly harmful. At its best, religion can inspire human beings to perform acts of great charity and compassion and create works of wondrous beauty. But these good works have been endlessly reported and praised, and they need no additional documentation from me. If anything, people who report on religion have a tendency to only report its good effects, while sweeping the bad ones under the rug or blithely dismissing them as perversions of “true” faith. I seek to provide some balance to these choruses of praise by reminding people that religion has also directly caused many acts of terrible bloodshed, cruelty and destruction.
Worse, many of these evil deeds come about not by twisting or distorting the teachings of scripture, but by obeying them. There is much material in every religious tradition that teaches violence, intolerance and hatred of the infidels. Modern theologians who recognize the savagery of these passages have either ignored them altogether or else have elaborate schemes of reinterpretation aimed at convincing themselves and others that these verses don’t mean what they say. Unfortunately, there will always be believers who see through this charade and interpret the violent verses with the frightening simplicity which their context suggests. These people are a threat, and so long as we persist in believing in books that contain these sorts of dangerous messages, they will always be a threat. It will be one of the major themes of this chapter that people become irrational and dangerous to the precise degree in which they truly believe their religion and take its claims seriously. » | Adam Lee | Saturday, July 14, 2012
Editor’s Note: The following is an excerpt from Adam Lee’s new book, Daylight Atheism.
This article originally appeared on AlterNet
Monday, April 16, 2012
GAY NEWS NETWORK: Gay Kiss at Atheist Convention: The Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne on the weekend attracted some 5,000 attendees to see speakers including Richard Dawkins, A.C. Grayling, Lawrence Krauss, Geoffrey Robertson and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. ¶ On Saturday, star attraction Richard Dawkins, speaking on the merits of religion, said Islam was “more evil” than Christianity in terms of its moral code. ¶ Self-described “infidel” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who spoke before Dawkins on the rights of Muslim women, said Saudi Arabian women were protected from harm in the afterlife, "because it was impossible to go to hell twice”. ¶ Fiona Patten from the Australian Sex Party, which champions the rights of queer Australians, spoke on a panel about the dangers of allowing religion to interfere with politics. » | Andrew Shaw | Monday, April 16, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
THE WASHINGTON POST: WASHINGTON — Atheists and nonbelievers gathered on the National Mall Saturday (March 24) in a bid to show politicians, voters and even themselves that they have grown into a force to be recognized and reckoned with.
“We are here to deliver a message to America,” David Silverman, president of American Atheists, one of the rally’s sponsors, told the crowd. “We are here and we will never be silent again.”
Indeed, thousands came out for what organizers dubbed The Reason Rally and billed as the largest-ever gathering of nonbelievers in one place. They stood in a steady and sometimes heavy rain as speakers, singers, writers, comedians and activists charged them with channeling their common rejection of God into a force for political change.
“We are here to celebrate our belief in reason, science and the power of the human mind,” comedian Paul Provenza said from the podium as raindrops fell. “We are here to say to elected politicians ... that there is a base for them to stand on to stand up to the religious right.” » | Kimberly Winston| Religion News Service | Saturday, March 24, 2012
reason.tv »
Saturday, February 04, 2012
When he was a child growing up in Plano, Texas - a place he describes as the "oversized, goofy buckle on the Bible belt" - he would bring his bible to science class and debate his teachers on the finer points of evolution.
"In my head, I won every time," says Mr Griffith, now 29.
But somewhere along the way, his penchant for picking ideological fights with the non-religious got him in trouble. He found it harder and harder to argue with the points they were making. At 13, he suffered a crisis of faith.
"It was so painful. I lost my religion before I lost my first girlfriend. Nothing that big had ever happened to me, and I didn't have any coping skills," he says.
Mr Griffith found peace with his atheism, but he is not done sparring with the opposite team.
As an active-duty sergeant in the US Army, he's leading the charge to get atheists more respect in the armed forces. In the process he is earning attention, both positive and negative, from around the world. » | Kate Dailey, BBC News Magazine | Friday, February 03, 2012
Sunday, January 22, 2012
BBC: The president of a London university atheist society has resigned over a row about an image of the Prophet Muhammad.
The society at University College London (UCL) published an image on its Facebook page showing "Jesus and Mo" having a drink at a bar.
The atheist group was asked by the UCL union to remove it, but refused and started a petition defending its freedom of expression.
A student Muslim group began a counter-petition asking for its removal.
UCL's Atheist, Secularist and Humanist society said its president Robbie Yellon was stepping down to be replaced by former vice president Michael Thor.
"Robbie stepped aside because he signed up as president to organise events and run a student society," said Michael Paynter, secretary for the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies.
"He did not appreciate the stress he would be under when dealing with a controversy like this, so he wanted to make way for someone else." » | Catrin Nye and Athar Ahmad, BBC Asian Network | Thursday, January 19, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: An Indonesian civil servant who posted a Facebook message asserting that God did not exist was taken into protective custody after being badly beaten by a mob, some of them his colleagues.
The atheist identified as Alexander, who goes by just one name, now faces five years imprisonment for blasphemy after police officially arrested and charged him on Friday.
The Indonesian Council of Ulema, the Islamic religious authority, reported him over his remarks on a Facebook page he moderated which said: "God does not exist" Mr Alexander, 31, turned up at his government planning offices in Dharmasraya, western Sumatra, on Wednesday to be confronted by a group of men who beat him and then took him to the police. » | Ian MacKinnon in Bangkok | Friday, January 20, 2012
Saturday, May 28, 2011
The Richard Dawkins Foundation (For Reason and Science) »
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
MAIL ONLINE: Pope addresses 65,000 Catholics at open-air Mass in Glasgow / Queen and Prince Philip welcome Pope in Scotland / He invokes Nazi Germany in attack on 'atheist extremism' / Aide axed from trip after ill-judged comments about UK / Pope: 'I was shocked and saddened by sex abuse scandal' / Staunch Catholic Susan Boyle sings ahead of Papal Mass
The Pope tonight urged Catholics to speak out in defence of their faith amid a 'dictatorship of relativism' which 'threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about man's nature, his destiny and his ultimate good'.
Speaking to a crowd of 65,000 in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park, Benedict XVI argued that the 'evangelisation of culture is all the more important in our times'.
Just hours earlier he had controversially likened the rise of atheism in Britain to Nazi Germany and warned against 'aggressive forms of secularism' as he began his historic state visit.
Risking sparking a new row after one of his aides likened the UK to the 'Third World', the former member of the Hitler Youth invoked Nazi Germany in an attack on 'atheist extremism'.
Tonight he addressed the crowd from almost exactly the same spot in Bellahouston Park as Pope John Paul II in 1982 - albeit to a much smaller crowd of 65,000, compared to 250,000 then.
The 1982 gathering was the largest crowd in Scottish history.
Pope Benedict said: 'The evangelisation of culture is all the more important in our times, when a "dictatorship of relativism" threatens to obscure the unchanging truth about man's nature, his destiny and his ultimate good.
'There are some who now seek to exclude religious belief from public discourse, to privatise it or even to paint it as a threat to equality and liberty.
'Yet religion is in fact a guarantee of authentic liberty and respect, leading us to look upon every person as a brother or sister.
'For this reason I appeal in particular to you, the lay faithful, in accordance with your baptismal calling and mission, not only to be examples of faith in public, but also to put the case for the promotion of faith's wisdom and vision in the public forum.
'Society today needs clear voices which propose our right to live, not in a jungle of self-destructive and arbitrary freedoms, but in a society which works for the true welfare of its citizens and offers them guidance and protection in the face of their weakness and fragility. Read on and comment >>> Daily Mail Reporter | Thursday, September 16, 2010
Monday, September 28, 2009
WELT ONLINE: Mit seiner Tschechien-Reise versuchte das Kirchenoberhaupt, das weitgehend entchristianisierte Land zurückzuerobern. Mit Erfolg: Selbst der ausgewiesen liberale Staatspräsident Václav Klaus entdeckte einen Wertekonsens mit dem Papst. Einmal mehr gelang es Benedikt XVI. zudem, die Jugend zu begeistern.
Ginge es allein nach den Übertragungszeiten des tschechischen Fernsehens, dann müsste Papst Benedikt XVI. in den zurückliegenden drei Tagen eine Hochburg des Katholizismus besucht haben. Kein Schritt des Oberhauptes der katholischen Kirche in der Öffentlichkeit, der nicht direkt übertragen wurde. Zwischendrin Expertenrunden, die sich bemühten, die Reden und Predigten des Papstes zu erläutern und einzuordnen.
Doch der Pastoralbesuch in Tschechien galt einem der am meisten säkularisierten Länder der Welt und war für den Papst in jeder Hinsicht anstrengend. Bei einer großen Messe im Wenzel-Wallfahrtsort Stara Boleslav, zu der vor allem Zehntausende junger Menschen gekommen waren, lächelte Benedikt XVI. ein ums andere Mal befreit. „Mit euch bin ich wieder jung“, rief er den Jugendlichen zu, die zum großen Teil eine eiskalte Nacht in Zelten hinter sich hatten. „Ihr, liebe Jugendliche, seid die Hoffnung der Kirche“, sagte der Papst, der anschließend die Einladung zum Weltjugendtag in Madrid im August 2011 aussprach.
Der Papst nutzte seinen Besuch vor allem, um an den Sturz des Kommunismus vor 20 Jahren zu erinnern, den er einen „Scheidepunkt in der Weltgeschichte“ nannte. Er beklagte die Leiden der Kirche während jahrzehntelanger „skrupelloser politischer Unterdrückung“. Die Katholiken in der damaligen Tschechoslowakei hätten „unbeugsames christliches Zeugnis angesichts der Verfolgung“ gegeben, erkannte er an. Vor dem Hintergrund der nun erreichten Religionsfreiheit sollten die Tschechen die christlichen Traditionen, die ihre Kultur geprägt hätten, wiederentdecken. >>> Von Hans-Jörg Schmidt | Montag, 28. September 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
WELT ONLINE: Die Evangelische Kirche hat ein Netzwerk von Missionszentren an den Standorten Dortmund, Greifswald und Stuttgart gegründet. Damit dürfte sie für interreligiöse Spannungen sorgen. Missionsleiter Hans-Hermann Pompe erklärt WELT ONLINE, warum sich Atheisten, Moslems und Buddhisten für Jesus öffnen sollten. >>> Von Till-Reimer Stoldt | Mittwoch, 23. September 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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