At ages 66 and 58, they'll find out out soon enough.
Posted on 10/03/2007 10:15:01 AM PDT by jacknhoo
Religion Must Be Destroyed, Atheist Alliance Declares By Matt Purple CNSNews.com Correspondent October 03, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - Science must ultimately destroy organized religion, according to some of the leading atheist writers and intellectuals who spoke at a recent atheist conference in Northern Virginia. God is a myth, and children must not be schooled in any faith, they said, at the "Crystal Clear Atheism" event, sponsored by the Atheist Alliance International.
Some of the luminaries who spoke at the conference, held at the Crown Royal Hotel in Crystal City, Va., over the weekend, included Oxford professor Richard Dawkins, author Sam Harris and journalist Christopher Hitchens. The Atheist Alliance International describes itself as "the only democratic national atheist organization in the United States."
While most attendees on Friday night were adamant that God was a myth, the convention, attended by hundreds of people, brought into focus a divide among atheists as to their identity as a movement and the nature of the enemy they faced.
In his speech, Dawkins portrayed a black-and-white intellectual battle between atheism and religion. He denounced the "preposterous nonsense of religious customs" and compared religion to racism. He also gave no quarter to moderate or liberal believers, asserting that "so-called moderate Christianity is simply an evasion."
"If you've been taught to believe it by moderates, what's to stop you from taking the next step and blowing yourself up?" he said.
By contrast, Harris's speech was a more tempered critique of the atheist movement itself. While Harris said he believed science must ultimately destroy religion, he also discussed spirituality and mysticism and called for a greater understanding of allegedly spiritual phenomena. He also cautioned the audience against lumping all religions together.
"The refrain that all religions have their extremists is bull-t," Harris said. "All religions do not have their extremists. Some religions have never had their extremists."
Specifically, he noted that radical Islam was far more threatening than any radical Christian sect, adding that Christians had a right to be outraged when the media treated the two religions similarly.
Harris also criticized movement atheism and questioned the use of the word "atheist."
"Atheism is not a philosophy, just as non-racism is not," he said. "It is not a worldview, though it is frequently portrayed as one.
"Rather than declare ourselves atheists, I think we should emphasize reason," Harris added.
While the audience gave Dawkins a standing ovation, Harris received only polite applause. One questioner later declared herself "very disappointed" in Harris's talk.
But whatever differences the speakers had with each other, they were united in their contempt for religion and their belief that religious faith had to be challenged and ridiculed by secularism and reason.
"Religion is not the root of all evil, but it gets in the way of [determining] how we got here and where we find ourselves," Dawkins said. "And that is an evil in itself."
Dawkins was particularly critical of parents who raise their children as a "Catholic child" or "Protestant child." Children must not be labeled as subscribing to a particular religion, he said, and should be allowed to examine the evidence and determine their beliefs for themselves.
"If I said that's a post-modernist child, for example, you'd think I was mad," he quipped.
Other speakers at the convention included philosopher Daniel Dennett, evolutionary scientist Eugenie Scott, and Charles Darwin's great-great-grandson Matthew Chapman. There was also a performance by atheist rapper Greydon Square, who wore a shirt that read "The Black Carl Sagan."
Many of the attendees seemed to have developed an aversion to religion from conservative, Protestant Christians. Several of the atheists Cybercast News Service spoke to complained of living under fundamentalist parents who frowned upon any questioning of the Bible or any activity condemned in Scripture.
"It wasn't easy [telling my parents I was an atheist]," one said. "I still haven't entirely told them. I just say I'm a humanist, which they don't seem to mind."
Further emphasizing the attendees' distaste for conservative religion was the convention gift shop which, in addition to atheist materials, sold politically liberal-themed bumper stickers and pins, including "Impeach Bush" and "Stewart/Colbert '08."
A common decoration at the convention was the red letter "A," which was emblazoned on t-shirts and pins worn by several of the attendees. The "A," an allusion to Hester Prynne's punishment in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, is a symbol of the Out Campaign, a movement started by Dawkins to encourage Americans to proudly display their atheism.
Although Crystal Clear Atheism was well-attended, it received little publicity and media attention. The convention also experienced frequent technical difficulties, particularly during Dawkins' Powerpoint slideshow.
Atheists are still a small minority in America. A Newsweek poll earlier this year found that 91 percent of Americans believe in God. A more recent Pew Research Center poll found that atheists were among the most distrusted people in the nation, with 53 percent of Americans holding an unfavorable opinion of them.
But they are a proudly elitist and self-certain minority. When asked what the main difference between believers and atheists was, Dawkins had a quick answer: "Well, we're bright."
At ages 66 and 58, they'll find out out soon enough.
I wish them luck on their new religion.
::::Pats Atheist Alliance members on their collective head, hands them a stuffed Dino toy and puts them in the play pen for a nappie::::
These bozos need to watch that 2-parter episode from South Park from last year.
I firmly do not believe in the various religions and I am not a big supporter of the invisible man.
In the same breathe I firmly believe I will not shove my belief down someone's throat. If people want to believe honestly and in good faith in a particular religion then that is great - as long as there is no harm to the other members and the public.
I have all sorts of friends who practice a various religions. I have been invited out to various religious ceremonies and I really don't mind attending.
Group's like this should practice tolerance instead of an us versus them attitude.
You’ve met God personally!!?? WOW!!! What did He look like????
“”Rather than declare ourselves atheists, I think we should emphasize reason,” Harris added.”
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
We should distinguish the “strong” Anthropic Principle from the “weak” one.
The weak one is roughly along the lines of “isn’t it lucky we live just far enough away from the Sun to live”. And similar arguments, like “lucky that humans got a chance to evolve when the Dinosaurs cacked it” etc. It’s weak because this argument can be countered by the “humans are simply self-selecting observers who live on one lucky ball of rock” argument.
The strong version of the Anthropic Principle is the observation that this Universe appears to have been designed to allow life to exist. In any form. At all.
Out of all the infinitely variable boundary conditions of the Universe (the Gravitational constant, the relative strength of the Strong and Weak forces, and many others) the Universe just *happens* to have, or to embody, the exact set of parameters which make matter, space and life itself possible.
Note the emphasis on “possible”. We are not talking about there being a universe which happened to give rise to humans, baboons and bacteria. That would be the weak Anthropic principle.
We are talking about there being a universe where life is possible in any form whatever. If one of the Universe’s constants were to change by a few decimal places then the Universe would consist only of hydrogen, or only of baryons - or it would have lasted only a few millenia before crunching back on itself. The prima-facie odds of getting even carbon-synthesis to work are extraordinarily remote, and everything else has to be “just right” as well
The odds are literally infinitesimal that our Universe just happened to get it right. The religious, supernatural theory that the Universe was designed - and designed for us - is strongly supported by the extraordinary unlikelihood of the Universe being able to support any kind of life.
The usual (materialistic or atheistic) counter-argument against the (strong) Anthropic Principle is the theory that there are quadrillions of parallel Universes, one of which is ours. Ours is only special in that we are in it to observe it’s existence.
This parallel universe theory (apart from being a tired Star-Trek trope) turns out to be a non-disprovable. Any “other” Universe would have to be completely orthogonal to this one, with no interaction of any kind. If a scientist could detect another Universe, he would have - by definition - simply have detected more of ‘the’ Universe. The so-called ‘universes’ of Brane theory, hyperdimensional regions of dark matter interacting weakly with our own - these are part of “the” Universe, which is a multiply-connected region.
Strict materialists would therefore have to adopt the position that there exist unthinkable infinities of rigidly unknowable and undetectable Universes covering the gamut of all possible physical constants in order for us to have become self-selected observers of this “one” Universe - the one that happens to have the right conditions for life.
This position “might” be true - but by its very nature it cannot be proven (”hey I spotted a universe totally different from this one”). Materialists have to move to a position not readily distinguishable from religious belief in order to contest the logical consequence of the (strong) Anthropic Principle - which is that this Universe has been extremely precisely tailored to the existence of life.
Dawkins should really try Jesus. If he doesn’t like the Saviour, Satan will always take him back.
He should try looking up "sophistry" in The Oxford English Dictionary the next time one of these "bright" moods grabs him.
I think theism will fade over time as knowledge about the world accumulates, but anyone who thinks religion can or will be destroyed by force is either delusional or evil.
Well, it actually gets protected as a religion under the constitution, you’re right.
Another "bright" atheist saving the world by exterminating Christianity...in between speed reading and IQ updates.
I thought the same thing, when I read the last statement and then had to glance back to the top to make sure I had remembered it from the same story.
It also has its philosophy of our origins and our end... see my tagline!
That is a great testimony. Good for you!!
Fascinating post, thank you.
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