Posted on 04/22/2008 8:07:48 AM PDT by forkinsocket
The fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church.
It seems unlikely that many of the 850 or so people at the Society for Ethical Culture on a recent Saturday night believed that God was still extant. But evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and possibly the most famous atheist in the world, was not taking any chances. He gave a PowerPoint presentation driving home that religion does not meet any of the standards of basic scientific inquiry, before casually flicking away a few of His last crutches. Doesn’t God provide people some solace? asked an audience member. “Isn’t that a little childish?” Dawkins replied. “Just because something is comforting doesn’t mean it’s true.” Then someone asked about death, and Dawkins quoted Mark Twain: “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born.”
The room erupted in loud applause. God had definitely left the building—if he were ever here at all. Dawkins and his colleagues had helped to produce a kind of atheist big bang, a new beginning. But what kind of new structures might evolve?
The Society for Ethical Culture was formed in 1877, eighteen years after Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species and made the religious universe wobble on its axis. But godlessness can be a little scary, even for an atheist. Ethical Culture’s imposing 1910 edifice on Central Park speaks to its patrons’ wealth, as well as their concern that society might fall apart if it didn’t have a church. But for all the grandeur of its secular cathedral, Ethical Culture peaked at maybe 6,000 members, with only about 3,000 today.
Now, once again, nonbelievers have a fresh sense of mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at nymag.com ...
My problem is not with God but with an anthropomorphic God. We can choose to refer to God in ways that are cartoonish or in ways that reflect the true nature of the Laws of the Universe. I happen to believe that science gives us a more accurate idea about how an infinite Universe composed of matter, energy, space and time can produce sentient minds (us).
We are Christ-like in that we can discover how the Universe is constructed and appreciate the miracle of existence. All other considerations about God are metaphor projections of aspects of our own subconscious- God as just, avenger, parental, guiding, having a “plan”, etc.; these are all human attributes.
The Universe seen through a telescope is anything but human, however we are derived from it- that is the God/Christ connection. The problem with metaphor religions is that they require ministers and imams to tell us what it all means or we have personal epiphanies guided by ministers and imams which seal the fate of our minds.
The God revealed by science is a god for free beings, accessible to all as originally conceived. The laws and patterns of the Universe discoverable by sentient minds may not press us to mama’s bosom, but they sure make life more sensible and allow us to make further discoveries and advance civilization rather than trap it in a feudal hell like them Aztecs and Hindus and Islamics.
God may never be but if He is, He always will be. He can not die.
Please speak for yourself. Racism and slavery were also justified once, on a Biblical basis.
| If one of evil life turn in his thought | |
| Straightly to Me, count him amidst the good; | |
| He hath the highway chosen; he shall grow | 120 |
| Righteous ere long; he shall attain that peace | |
| Which changes not. Thou Prince of India! | |
| Be certain none can perish, trusting Me! | |
| O Prithâ’s Son! Whoso will turn to Me, | |
| Though they be born from the very womb of Sin, | 125 |
| Woman or man; sprung of the Vaisya caste | |
| Or lowly disregarded Sudra,—all | |
| Plant foot upon the highest path; how then | |
| The holy Brahmans and My Royal Saints? | |
| Ah! ye who into this ill world are come— | 130 |
| Fleeting and false—set your faith fast on Me! | |
| Fix heart and thought on Me! | |
| Make me your supremest joy! and, undivided, | |
| Unto My rest your spirits shall be guided. |
- Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita, Chptr. IX.
Agnosticism is a lack of faith. Atheists are dead certain in their belief that there is no god.
Some atheists are antitheists and gather to ridicule those with religious beliefs, the current wave specifically targets all of their arguments to attack Christianity.
INTREP for the DOOMED
Isn't it a bit of a logical leap to go from the statement "there is no proof for the existence of a god" to "there is no god"?
I don’t approve of atheism. It’s a particularly rigid and fundamentalist religion.
With acquittal of the officers charged in the Sean Bell trial, one is reminded again of the difference between real issues, such as the two systems of justice we have in this country and ‘media’ issues such as setting up atheist churches ( and gay marriage ).
In the usual deceitful manner of atheists, McManus neglects to disclose that of the 16.1 percent who are Religiously Unaffiliated, only 1.6 percent are atheists. 2.4 percent are Agnostic and the remaining 12.1 are ‘Nothing in Particular’.
Also, another LIE in the New York Magazine print version table of contents: ‘With anti-religion polemics toppings the book charts…’ according to the New York Times, only one of the bestsellers today is an ‘anti-religion’ book: The God Delusion, at # 12 on the NY Times Paperback Nonfiction Best Sellers. ’90 Minutes in Heaven’ is # 8.
The NY Times Nonfiction Best Sellers also include: Grace ( Eventually ), and The Reason for God.
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