Posted on 04/10/2024 3:01:43 PM PDT by GulliverSwift
Many years ago, I read a quite rational atheist commenter online who said that while he didn’t believe in God, he feared what a de-Christianized West would bring. Now, a couple of decades later, he’s perhaps joined in that sentiment by the man who’s probably the world’s most famous living atheist, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
On British talk-radio station LBC recently, Dawkins admitted that he enjoys living in a Christian society and considers himself a “cultural Christian.” While this isn’t exactly a road-to-Damascus moment, it’s nonetheless quite an admission from a once staunchly militant atheist most famous for writing the 2006 book The God Delusion.
Yet Dawkins now exhibits the have-your-cultural-cake-and-eat-it-too delusion. His contradiction, however, is many people’s — and his story holds a lesson we ignore at our peril.
As The Telegraph’s Madeline Grant wrote last week in “Christianity’s decline has unleashed terrible new gods”:
Before we start preparing the baptismal font, it’s worth noting that Dawkins says he remains “happy” with the UK’s declining Christian faith, and that those beliefs are “nonsense”. But he also says that he enjoys living in a Christian society. This betrays a certain level of cultural free-riding. The survival of society’s Christian undercurrent depends on others buying into the “nonsense” even if he doesn’t...
Grant proceeds to say that the biologist is getting closer to admitting that the “New Atheism” has been, in important respects, a terrible mistake. “First, in its almost touching naivety that a post-Christian world would give way to a values-neutral space, rooted in reason,” she writes. “Second, in its semi-adolescent diagnosis of Christianity as a retardant upon cultural and intellectual progress.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...
Atheists benefit from living in Christian societies. I notice that there are not any vocal atheists in islamic countries.
Nietzsche said that one hundred fifty years ago.
What these stupid bastards don't understand is that this system only works if people believe in it. If you teach people that it's false, you get them to stop believing, and then you lose the virtues you get from people behaving as if there is a God who punishes them for wrongdoing.
People are only virtuous so long as they believe in divine punishment. Take that away, and it becomes a predatory society where might makes right.
This is in large part why things are falling apart now. These idiot Atheists have undermined the system which kept people's passions and avarice in control.
It's fair to say there was more than just a lust for gold or even power behind the Spanish drive for power - there was a very real sense of horror and that they had to stop that horror if they possibly could, no matter the risk to themselves. And now that horror is returning day by day.
“People are only virtuous so long as they believe in divine punishment. Take that away, and it becomes a predatory society where might makes right.”
I’d say that’s generally true, although divine punishment isn’t really part of the Shinto or Buddhist traditions and Japan is extremely low crime.
The difference for America is that you cannot turn from God’s full truth and expect to maintain moral order. Satan doesn’t attack societies that are non-Christian.
These atheists are Peter Pan boys who never grew up.
Dawkins is realizing there are consequences to playing the cheeky boy all his life.
They are puerile and took western civilization for granted.
The Islamic Allah.
Just wait till he wakes up in islamic society.
allah is just another brand name for satan, lucifer, etc...
I wonder if any of them will ever come to the conclusion that the benefits they enjoy of a Christian culture give validity to the claims of Christ.
Contemporarily to Bernal Diaz, torture was not uncommon in medieval and post-medieval times; the Spanish Inquisition is known for the torture methods employed; it was practiced in the Crusades as well.
from the website - ancient-origins.net:
The Medieval period is often called (rightly or wrongly) one of the most brutal eras in European history. One of the most notorious features of the Middle Ages was the use of torture. Although torture had already been used by various societies since ancient times, Medieval Europe is particularly infamous for it. This may be partially due to the assortment of devices the medieval torturer had at his disposal, some of which have survived to this day, and are now displayed in museums.
Many of the Euorpean explorers who landed in Mexico wrote of the barbaric behavior they encountered. It's interesting that we accept this premise so easily, completely forgetting that Europeans could engage in just as much savagery.
Exactly. Ideas have consequences. You can’t turn from God’s truth and expect that Satan will not put something in its place.
What does torture have to do with my post? It looks like you are trying to whitewash human sacrifice by saying “everybody does it” on another topic.
Yup
Kind of odd that so many non-believers want to believe in their last moments. I really think most of us want to continue somehow, somewhere in another existence, or perhaps in the future. It’s hard to believe that when you die, it’s just lights out, forever, so don’t hedge your bets, the odds of a higher being are just as great as not, imho higher.
However, nothing about how to curb or deal with criminal behavior. Nothing about free riders, sociopaths, or people willing to engage in violence, to the point of war, to get what they want.
Christianity has many things going for it, especially the recognition of the sinful nature of Man. Something that humanists, socialists, and other "ists" refuse to acknowledge would crop up in their systems as much as it does in our "evil" capitalist system.
“But this will not work unless Christianity is enshrined by law.”
You’re so wrong. You can pass all the laws you want but if Christianity isn’t enshrined in peoples hearts those laws won’t matter one little bit. Maybe that’s what should be focused on.
L
Many profess to follow the “golden rule” yet this itself presumes a foundational morality so as to know what one should want for themselves. For instance, a parent who loves the pleasure of eating - and being given food - so much they end up obese (42% of Americans are) and yet consider this to be worth it, would be acting consistent with the golden rule in treating children with the same self-indulgence.
And since they are rebels by nature against God, then in the West at least, they overwhelmingly support homosexual relations (historically responsible for approx. 80% of new HIV cases among men, and which condition has cost about 800,000 lives in the US)
For atheists tend to be overwhelmingly are liberal.
• Only 18% believe that there are clear standards for what is right and wrong.
• The majority (45%) look to common sense for moral guidance more than anything else.
• Most seldom or never frequently have feelings of spiritual peace and wellbeing.
• 94% say homosexuality should be accepted.
• 92% favor homosexual marriage.
• 87% support abortion being legal in all or most cases.
• 10% ID as conservative; 15% are Republican.
• Most (53%) favor larger government and services.
• 68% are male.
• The majority (40%) were never married.
• 78% are non-parents of children under 18.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/religious-family/atheist/
However, atheism itself is a position of faith. For to believe that an exceedingly vast, systematically ordered universe, exquisitely finely tuned for corporeal life with its profound intricate complexity and extensive diversity, can be all a result of purely natural processes requires much faith, more so than that the universe logically testifies to design, requiring a First Cause (at the least), that of a powerful being of supreme intelligence being behind the existence of energy and organization of matter.
Exactly.
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