Free Republic

FP: Tell us about some of the vital contradictions you have found in the atheist position. Alexis: Let us start with Richard Dawkins, because he claims to follow logic and reason. In chapter two of The God Delusion, he writes, “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Those are interesting words—coming from the pen of a person who believes that God does not exist,...

Postmodern Epistemologies by: Bethany Stotts, February 19, 2008 ...How does style affect our perception of the text, and does style itself impart its own distinct meaning?...Modern Language Association (MLA) professors attempted to answer these questions by drawing upon postmodern academics who remain skeptical of absolute knowledge, one of whom belongs to the radical “naturalist” Brights movement. Among the scholars mentioned were Donald Freeman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Mark Turner, Daniel Dennett, and Noam Chomsky.... Instead, Chodat referred the audience to the works of radical atheist and Brights Movement member Dennett, who is listed on the site as one of the movement’s “enthusiastic...

In the darkest hour of despair, when all hope seemed lost, the communal leader called together his counsel of the faithful and uttered ritual sayings. Sounds like something out of the eighth century, doesn't it? Just this past week, however, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, facing a massive and seemingly unrelenting drought, declared that "The only solution is rain, and the only place we get that from is from a higher power." He then sent out responses to leaders of several faiths to take part in a prayer service. The potential establishment clause violations inherent in state sponsored prayer are disturbing....

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...

(IsraelNN.com) Professor Richard Dawkins, a senior British evolutionary scientist and outspoken atheist, drew fire on Monday for saying that Jews “more or less monopolize American foreign policy.” Religious Jews are a small group, Dawkins said, but are “fantastically successful” in lobbying the US government. Dawkins, who is currently in the US in an attempt to promote atheism and fight religious influence, expressed hope that atheists would be similarly successful in determining government policy. A number of Jewish leaders responded immediately, with ADL head Abe Foxman calling Dawkin’s remarks “classic anti-Semitism.” Malcom Hoenlein, a senior official in the Conference of Presidents...

Atheists are coming out of the closet. Today, some 5 million Americans claim to be atheists. Throw in agnostics and you have 20 million. Five books making the case for atheism have become bestsellers. The 9/11 attacks have sparked a backlash against "fundamentalism" of every sort, painting conservative Christians with the same brush as Islamofascists. Atheists would seem to be poised for growth, but they have a public-relations problem. A University of Minnesota poll last year found that atheists were America's most distrusted group. According to a recent Newsweek poll, 62 percent of Americans would refuse to vote for an...

The God that whined Barbara Kay, National Post Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 Back in the day, the many atheists I knew went about their unbelieving lives in a quietly sardonic, but non-combative way: They'd abandoned organized religion, but sought no quarrel with those who stayed. They explained their non-belief to their children, but let them join the boy scouts. Everything old is new again, but ? different. Yesterday's live-and-let-live atheism has morphed into today's truculent "atheism with attitude," where God is not only dead, but --postmodern glee having replaced Nietszchean gloom regarding His demise -- with good riddance...

What do people call themselves if they aren't religious? Many things, in fact, with slight distinctions of meaning; atheists, agnostics, nonbelievers, skeptics, freethinkers, secular humanists. Not a really positive term among them (except when said people are talking to each other). And then there are words that other people use about them, which are even less positive: heretics, infidels, irreligious, unbelievers, godless. Certain persons of this description, having decided they won't get proper respect until they get a better name, and taking as their model the adoption of the term "gay" for homosexual, have decided to call themselves "brights." That's...

<p>"We have always had atheists among us," the philosopher Edmund Burke wrote in his "Reflections on the Revolution in France," "but now they have grown turbulent and seditious." It seems that in our own day some prominent atheists are agitating for greater political and social influence. In this connection, leading atheist thinkers have been writing articles declaring that they should no longer be called "atheists." Rather, they want to be called "brights."</p>

Not Such a Bright Idea: Atheists Try a New NameAlbert Mohler Daniel Dennett claims that atheism is getting a bad press. The world is filled with religious believers, he acknowledges, but a growing number of atheists lack the respect they deserve. It's time for a new public relations strategy for the godless, Dennett argues, and he has just the plan. The central point of Dennett's strategy is to get rid of the word "atheist." It's too, well, negative. After all, it identifies an individual by what he or she does not believe--in this case the individual does not believe...

Meanwhile: Brights of the world, stand and be counted Daniel C. Dennett NYT Tuesday, July 15, 2003 BLUE HILL, Maine The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny - or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic - and life after death. The...