Posted on 10/07/2009 10:10:01 PM PDT by Schnucki
A “triumphalistic, self-righteous atheism” inspired by the work of Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris is winning a following among American young people, leading to “atheist clubs” in high schools, according to Cardinal Francis George of Chicago.
The cardinal, who is President of the US Catholic Bishops’ Conference, says that unbelief among young people is more than a question of stopping going to church: it is part of a fashionable “new atheism” which is every bit as intolerant as Christian fundamentalism. He told John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter:
“In Chicago, we now have atheist clubs in high schools. We didn’t have those five years ago. Kids I would have confirmed in the eighth grade, by the time they’re sophomores in high school say they’re atheists. They don’t just stop going to church, they make a statement. I think that’s new. That’s perhaps a bit more like Europe.”
The Cardinal agreed with Allen’s suggestion that that the atheism of Dawkins and Harris was “highly evangelical”:
“Yes it is, sure. Everybody has said that, and it’s true. It’s the mirror image of a kind of fundamentalism, because it’s very restrictive in its use of reason. It’s also very triumphalistic and self-righteous.”
The Cardinal’s comments will be hard to dismiss as scaremongering. YouTube is crawling with videos by articulate, friendly American teenagers and university students proclaiming their uncompromising atheism; indeed, atheism is one of the fastest-growing movements in the 18-25 age group, casting doubt on old assumptions that the religious impulse is somehow hard-wired into the American psyche.
Yet, as Cardinal George says, there is something strongly akin to religious fundamentalism in the evangelical commitment it arouses in its adherents. He, and the whole of the American Church, must be praying that the certainty of unbelief wears off as the “new atheists”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
So they do what?
Gather in dim rooms, contemplating the meaning of Nothing?
Heated discussions over what doesn’t happen when you die?
That’ll get boring fast.
Being on your death bed is a cure for the above problem. Atheists only find God after prolonged illnesses.
Atheists have never been the problem.
Anti-theists, however, are the problem.
The dialogue is no longer “I personally find no evidence to believe in God” or “I don’t believe in God”. The slogans now being uttered are “God does not exist”, “God is a delusion”, “Only the ill-minded believe in an invisibly sky wizard”, “If you keep your religion out of my government, I’ll keep my thinking out of your church.”
Not good, folks. Many subgroups receive some blame in the radicalization of atheism amongst the American youth: indifferent “religious” parents, government schools, entertainment/fashion industries, feel-good/ liberal Christianity, the young earth creationists (”Hey, God put dinosaur bones here to test our faith!”), and a spineless Catholic Church that is some times poor in teaching Scripture and Catechetics.
God help us!
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a “religious crutch.”
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”
Intellectual matirity indeed.....some people fancy themselves to be of greater intellect than GOD.
Bump for later reading
“some people fancy themselves to be of greater intellect than GOD.”
There are no dead atheists.
Placemark.
“There are no dead atheists.”
Touche’.
I don’t know
and
I don’t care
Discuss.
Cheers!
When atheism makes the leap from "there is nothing" (a step beyond agnosticism's "don't know") into "and others should NOT be following the FALSE ..." it has become a full fledged religion in its own right.
This type of Atheist is not without a religion.
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