Replies

I think this is an interesting comment:

From: “George Murphy”
Subject: Re: [asa] Anti-Creationism Lecture
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:59:15 -0500
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200812/0322.html

2 observations here which suggest that we take a broad view in evaluating today’s attitudes toward Christianity.

1) I’ve started what looks like a decent book on justification by Alexander Miller, The Renewal of Man, that was published in 1955. He begins by comparing the climate of the 50s, in which many intellectuals were taking various forms of religion and spirituality seriously, with the rationalistic atmosphere of the 20s. “Certain it is, at any rate, that a member of the class of ‘57, sniffing the intellecual air of his time, would breathe, not necessarily a pious air, but an air more congenial to piety, than that which caught our Christian lungs in 1929.”

It’s easy to criticize the 50s & to point out what happened in the following decade but that just emphasizes my point, which is that we have no reason to think that the current popularity of militant atheism is more than a passing fad.

2) I’m on the mailing list for the “Center for Inquiry” since I’ve subscribed in the past to Skeptical Inquirer. For those unfamiliar with it, it wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to call the organization the Center for Promotion of Atheism. In the 1st paragraphs of a recent letter Paul Kurtz, the president & chair of the center, says, “I am appealing to you, dear reader, to help us overcome the grave financial crunch that the Center for Inquiry and its affiliates now face. ... [I]f we fail to raise an additional $865,000 by the end of the year, the Center for Inquiry and its affiliates will be compelled to enact harrowing cutbacks ... cutbacks that will spare nothing, not even core operations.”

I.e., any notion that the militant atheists are jogging a victory lap is quite wrong.

George