religion's death throes?
Jay Tolson’s article “The New Unbelievers” at USN&WR (Thanks to The Revealer for the tip.)
notes that “Books on atheism are hot” and asks, “But do they have anything fresh to say?” The answer to the question is yes, but one has to look beyond Tolson’s “extremist atheist” angle to see it. For example, these two posts (here and here) at God Is for Suckers! mention interesting tidbits from a book not mentioned by Tolson, the Cambridge Companion to Atheism. The book describes the typical atheist as:
“less authoritarian and suggestible, less dogmatic, less prejudiced, more tolerant of others, law-abiding, compassionate, conscientious, and well educated. They are of high intelligence, and many are committed to the intellectual and scholarly life. In short, they are good to have as neighbors.”
Moving from individual to societal analyses, we see that: “High levels of organic atheism are strongly correlated with high levels of societal health, such as low poverty rates and strong gender equality.”
I’m fond of AC Grayling’s piece “Faith’s Last Gasp” in Prospect magazine. Grayling writes that “today’s ‘religious upsurge’ …is a reaction to defeat.”
What we are witnessing is not the resurgence of religion, but its death throes. Two considerations support this claim. One is that there are close and instructive historical precedents for what is happening now. The second comes from an analysis of the nature of contemporary religious politics.[…]
Millions died [in the Counter-Reformation], and Catholicism won some battles even as it lost the war. We are witnessing a repeat today, this time with Islamism resisting the encroachment of a way of life that threatens it, and as other religious groups join them in a (strictly temporary, given the exclusivity of faith) alliance for the cause of religion in general.
As before, the grinding of historical tectonic plates will be painful and protracted. But the outcome is not in doubt. As private observance, religion will of course survive among minorities; as a factor in public and international affairs it is having what might be its last—characteristically bloody—fling. [emphasis added]
Steve Cornell writes “It’s not easy to be an atheist,” but it’s a wingnut piece of pro-religious propaganda rather than a serious effort. Cornell relies on the standard slurs that atheists are purposeless, illogical, immoral, and arrogant. PZ Myers declined to blog about Cornell’s attack, but Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon and Southern Fried Skeptic do quite an admirable job. On the charge of atheist immorality, Marcotte observes that Cornell is “so lacking in empathy and common decency that he can’t understand why murder is wrong without a fictional being telling his so,” and writes that she:
“can’t help but point out that it’s really rich of a person who dismisses mountains and mountains of evidence about evolutionary theory to accuse others of being willfully ignorant. What is increasingly apparent is this guy is utterly unaware of the existence of thousands of years of philosophy.”
Ignorance of history and science are also central to Cornell’s screed, which is similar to the “Christian nation” crowd’s plans to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement next spring. Joseph Conn at American United deplores their poor understanding of American history and exposes their shallow comprehension of pre-Constitutional religious establishment:
…Robertson and the other non-Anglican “dissenters” are, in fact, getting ready to celebrate a centuries-old religious establishment that would have fined, whipped, imprisoned or banished them – or maybe put them to death. Individuals of their religious stripe were persecuted minorities then; today they are politically powerful and they seek to persecute others who fail their religious test.
Peter Nuhn at NoGodBlog also has some great commentary:
If we are to truly celebrate the religious significance of the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown, I say we take all non-Anglicans, such as, Catholics, Baptists, etc. and have them thrown in jail without charges, tortured for their heresy of not being a member of the Church of England and maybe release them next year after the anniversary is over and see if they maybe can't learn a little humility, a little human understanding, and just a little toleration for their fellow humans.
The Christianists are once again conflating the settlement of the colonies with the founding of our nation, and ignoring the wisdom of the Founders in the process. Shame on them.