Posted on 07/20/2010 5:50:28 PM PDT by AustralianConservative
Reza Aslan is no stranger to controversy:
Iraq should look to Israel for a model that combines democracy and religious belief.
But now the Daily Beast columnist is taking on the “new atheists” and their “peculiarly evangelistic” sermons. On The Washington Post’s website he states:
There is, as has often been noted, something peculiarly evangelistic about what has been termed the new atheist movement. The new atheists have their own special interest groups and ad campaigns. They even have their own holiday (International Blasphemy Day). It is no exaggeration to describe the movement popularized by the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens as a new and particularly zealous form of fundamentalism–an atheist fundamentalism.
Or look at it this way: Militant atheists (read: anti-free speech zealots) are against Christian evangelists but that’s not to suggest that they’re against all forms of evangelism (read: hypocrisy). They’re for free speech when they’re selling Darwin’s controversial theories. They’re often against free speech when they’re being challenged with alternative views that don’t compliment or fuel their zealous faith in a God-free universe.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
Aslan is Turkish for Lion.
Sounds like a Bon Jovi song I heard some where a long time ago.
Atheism "can offer no hope of personal immortality, no threats of divine chastisement, no promise of eternal recompense for injustices suffered, no blueprints to sure salvation... A tragic view of live is thus an uneliminable ingredient in atheistic thought.
I know that there are a lot of atheists here. Hold off on the flamethrowers. This is an "if the shoe fits, wear it" post.
Same as the old atheism.
Atheism is belief in nothing. Science offers nothing on the origin of the universe or the origin of life from inanimate matter. What do atheists believe in? That the universe magically sprang into existence from nothingness? That live magically sprang forth from dust? They can’t believe in such magical theories, they have to believe one day there was nothing, and the next day there was something. What crazy, superstitious fool believes such things?
Pointlessness is just so compelling. /s
> Pointlessness is just so compelling. /s
Good one! :)
While there is no shortage of atheists who are annoying assholes, I can’t say that I’ve had one knock on my door shoving their 10 yr old kid at me to try to convert me to their line of thought.
Nor can I recall any atheist televangelist closet homosexuals bilking old ladies out of their Social Security checks. Nor have I seen an atheist offer to lay hands on someone to heal them (donations accepted, of course).
I get to tar all Christians as wack jobs like Benny Hinn, Jimmy Swaggart, and Jim Baker, right? It seems the MO around these parts.
New atheism - same old devil behind it.
Well, they believe that that nothing had potential, you see. It was nothing, but it was an energetic nothing that spontaniously erupted into energy and then matter because it followed the mathematical laws of chaos and complexity.
As for where the mathematical laws and potential energy came from, they will say that the two are actually combined into an innate nothingness that is completely devoid of anything except it's potential.
So it's like, potential potential.
In India, at this point, the sages will look at the atheists and say, "yes, you're very close, that is God before Creation, who then expands into manifestation."
But the hippies get pissed and say, "No, it's just potential potential that doesn't exist until it exists."
And the Indian sages look at each other and say, "What are they talking about?"
And the hippies look at each other and say: "C'mon, let's go back to America, teach at a university, and get involved in democratic politics."
No, but you have seen crusading atheists killing millions (Pol Pot, Stalin, Chairman Mao, Castro. . .)
I prefer the door to door evangelists, even of cults, myself.
Let’s get some perspective here.
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