Posted on 09/29/2003 7:09:06 AM PDT by DittoJed2
Not Such a Bright Idea: Atheists Try a New Name Albert Mohler Daniel Dennett claims that atheism is getting a bad press. The world is filled with religious believers, he acknowledges, but a growing number of atheists lack the respect they deserve. It's time for a new public relations strategy for the godless, Dennett argues, and he has just the plan.
The central point of Dennett's strategy is to get rid of the word "atheist." It's too, well, negative. After all, it identifies an individual by what he or she does not believe--in this case the individual does not believe in God. A more positive approach would be helpful to advance the atheist anti-supernatural agenda.
Dennett, joined by Richard Dawkins, thinks he has found the perfect plan. Two atheists in California have suggested that the anti-supernatural crowd should take a page from the homosexual rights movement's handbook. Homosexuals renamed themselves "gays" and changed the terms of the debate, they argue.
As Richard Dawkins explains, "A triumph of consciousness-raising has been the homosexual hijacking of the word 'gay'.... Gay is succinct, uplifting, positive: an 'up' word, where homosexual is a down word and queer [and] faggot . . . are insults. Those of us who subscribe to no religion; those of us who rejoice in the real and scorn the false comfort of the unreal, we need a word of our own, a word like 'gay'."
The word chosen to be the atheists' version of 'gay' is bright. That's right, they want unbelievers to call themselves brights. Give them an "A" for arrogance.
Of course, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins are already specialists in the highest form of intellectual snobbery. Dennett, a professor of philosophy at Tufts University, and Dawkins, a scientist at Oxford University, are well known for their condescending dismissal of all belief in the supernatural. Both address their scorn to anyone who believes in God or dares to question naturalistic evolution.
Their plan, if successful, would put believers in God in the unenviable position of being opposed to "brights" who deny belief in God. This is, no pun avoidable, a diabolically brilliant public relations strategy. The real question is: Will it work?
In "The Bright Stuff," an op-ed column published in The New York Times, Dennett simply declared, "It's time for us brights to come out of the closet." Now, that's an invitation sure to get attention.
He continued, "What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny--or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic--and life after death."
Brights are all around us, Dennett claims. Brights are "doctors, nurses, police officers, schoolteachers, crossing guards and men and women serving in the military. We are your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters. Our colleges and universities teem with brights. Among scientists, we are a commanding majority." Had enough?
Dennett wants to be the Moses of the atheist cause, leading his people out of bondage to theists and into the promised land of atheistic cultural influence--a land flowing with skepticism and unbelief.
The most absurd argument offered by Dennett is that brights "just want to be treated with the same respect accorded to Baptists and Hindus and Catholics, no more and no less." Those familiar with the work of Dennett and Dawkins will be waiting for the laughter after that claim. The same respect? These two militant secularists show no respect for religious belief.
Philosopher Michael Rea of the University of Notre Dame couldn't let Dennett and Dawkins get away with such hogwash. 'The fact is," he asserts, "the likes of Dennett and Dawkins aren't the least bit interested in mutual respect." Dennett has suggested that serious religious believers should be isolated from society in a "cultural zoo." Dawkins has argued that persons who reject naturalistic evolution are "ignorant, stupid or insane." Well, now--is that their vision of "mutual respect?"
As for the anti-supernaturalists calling themselves "brights," Rea argues, "The genuinely tolerant atheist will refuse the label; for the the very respect and humility that characterize her tolerance will also help her to see that in fact their are bright people on both sides of the theist/atheist divide." [See Rea's exchange with Dennett]
Timothy K. Beal, professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, notes that the brights demonstrate "an evangelical tone" in their writings. Beal perceptively notes that, in their determination to be irreligious, these atheists have just established a new anti-religious religion. But what they really want is not only respect, but cultural influence.
Dennett's New York Times column decried "the role of religious organizations in daily life," contrasted with no such public role for secularists. Of course, this claim is sheer nonsense. Dennett and Dawkins boast that most scientists and intellectuals are atheists. They are without influence?
G. K. Chesterton once identified atheism as "the most daring of all dogmas," since it is the "assertion of a universal negative." As he explained; "for a man to say that there is no God in the universe is like saying that there are no insects in any of the stars."
The Psalmist agreed, and spoke in even more dramatic terms: "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'." [Psalm 14:1] The atheists are caught in a difficult position. They reject belief in God, but draw attention to God even as they shout their unbelief. In the end, they look more foolish than dangerous.
This call for a new public relations strategy will likely backfire. Hijacking the term bright shows insecurity more than anything else. A movement of secure egos would not resort to calling itself "brights."
Atheism may try to change its name, but it cannot succeed in changing its nature. This bright idea doesn't look so bright after all.
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Now, I think it is fair that we would scorn those who scorn us. Maybe two wrongs don't make a right, but (to use another cliche), you have to fight fire with fire.
I respect your personal belief, even if I diagree with it. The thing is that you respect my belief system, as you noted, these leftists don't. If I have found and believe in God and you haven't, in my opinion, that's your loss. However, it is also my duty to bring the word of the Lord to you and others.
Read the Bible and you are likely to find the foundations for which your "faith" (however, you have chosen to define it) is based. It is likely that you have a personal faith which propels you through life and while you think that it is based on some the aspects of your personality or your intelligence (and, indeed, some of it may), it is based on one of the universal movers of faith: love. Love from your parents, perhaps? Maybe your spouse, your friends, etc? Someone around you is helping you be the person that you are and, typically, it is done from love. It is done from an inner feeling that there is something that is greater than you.
You know (maybe, feel is a better word) this love at different points in your life. Perhaps when you look at nature? Perhaps when you gazed into your spouse's eyes for the first time? Perhaps when you looked at your newborn?
Perhaps the easiest way to feel and know this is to go to church. There is nothing (NOTHING) like hearing the silence of personal confession. There is nothing like hearing common voices sing hymns. The simple (Aaronic) benediction ("May the Lord bless you and keep you; may He make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you; may He lift up His countenance [smile] on you and give you peace.") is one of the greatest "moral pit stops" ever known or written. Every time I hear those words and gaze at a stained-glass of the Lord, every hair on my body stands on end. To know that you are loved, even if you don't know it, is the greatest gift ever given to man. In my belief, that love was given by the Father in the form of his Son and his Son's sacrifice.
The good "stuff" has been written in the Bible for thousands of years in hundreds of languages. If you believe in the ideas, but don't know that it is in the Bible, is that the Bible's (or Christianity's) fault?
Needless to say, we all have a purpose. If you are still searching for purpose and understanding, I applaud the search. I hope that you find the same grace that I have found.
What a repulsive rant. You certainly don't speak for this theist.
We try to convert you because we want you to go where we are going, and not have a destiny worse than death.
Anger can be a part of the equation for some one with a "solid" faith, though. It usually is borne out of frustration (which is sinful) or an anger at watching one person trying to persuade another person to get on the wrong side of Almighty God. The last kind of anger was the type that Christ showed in driving the moneychangers out of the Temple, or with his blistering verbal jabs at the Pharisees and Lawyers.
To most of us (me especially), anger is a real "handle with care" item. A christian indulging in anger is akin to a monkey with a loaded gun...
Do you really want me to take apart your entire post, and expose it for the emotion-driven, hateful spew that it is?
I don't think this is necessary. The character of you and your posts are self-evident.
hahaha. Bitterness? In the atheist world, bitterness is nothing more than a mindless, random, chemical reaction in the brain, and has nothing to do with the heart...if you are going to argue from the atheist side, at least stick to the materialist philosophy.
Fantastic. You must have certainly thought "what would Jesus do?" before you typed that response.
Yes, take it apart, if you can. I can prove that atheism spews lies and revisionism and dictatorships, and is morally relativistic. Anytime you are ready...
Your attempts at guilting me won't work. I am not interested in what god-haters think about what Jesus would do. If you have a counter-point to my post, then post it.
Clearly you are an angry and bitter man.
I am without deities, so I am an atheist. It's very simple.
The missing distinction is in the "-ist" which denotes advocacy or commitment. In a discourse about beliefs, atheist could mean what you say. But in a general context, I think one would no more define himself as an "atheist" than as an a-child-ist - a person without children.
Typical...
(From the secret teachings of Jesus, revealed only unto exmarine)
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
Which the prefix "a-" negates.
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