Is “atheist activism” simply proselytizing in disguise?

Proselytizing is often equated with religious organizations, however, I submit to you that one does not have to be in a religious organization to proselytize. The dictionary offers this definition of proselytizing: “To convert (a person) from one belief, doctrine, cause, or faith to another.” (The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company).

Although atheism is not technically a religion, we believe that it does exhibit religion type qualities and the activism shown by people such as Michael Newdow, Madelyn Murray O’Hair, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and other prominent, out spoken advocates of atheism exhibits proselytizing behavior. There is plenty of evidence to support the proselytizing efforts of prominent atheists in our world. One simply has to watch the evening news and it won’t take long to hear of some atheist activist terrorizing teachers at a local school for allowing a child to bring a Bible to class, or petitioning the US government to discontinue the phrase “under God” in the Flag’s Pledge of Allegiance.

Someone once told me that if it walks like a duck, sounds like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. I say that we stop dancing around semantics and call a spade a spade. Atheism should be considered a religion for the proselytizing efforts of atheists.

In addition, I feel that atheism often hides under the guise of humanism and secularism in an attempt to circumvent the scrutiny that comes with other religions. They call themselves humanists and secularists and meet as such in “humanists churches” and then deny that they are meeting as atheists. If you don’t believe me click here to read more about “The Church of Atheism” here: http://atheismsfallacies.com/blog/2008/01/25/the-church-of-atheism-npr-transcript/. This is how atheism is being “sold” to people. Humanism tries very hard to get away with a religious tone, but we aren’t fooled. Humanism is nothing more that religious atheism in disguise. The same can be said of secularism.

So combine atheist “churches” with the proselytizing efforts of “atheist activists” and you have the making of a religion. Remember, a definition of religion is simply ”a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe…” (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006).   Atheism sets itself apart from other organized groups because it is a world view specifically about the supernatural.   It has beliefs about god and “preaches” (for lack of a better term) those beliefs to others.

Atheism Evangelism, Atheism as a Religion atheist activists

Humanist parents create congregation
Friday, January 2, 2009 3:16 AM
By Robin Shulman
Washington Post
BOSTON — They are not religious, so they don’t go to church. But they are searching for values and rituals to use in raising their children, as well as for a community of like-minded people to offer support.

Dozens of parents came together on a recent Saturday to participate in a seminar on humanist parenting and meet others interested in organizing a kind of nonreligious congregation, complete with family activities and ceremonies for births and deaths.

“It’s exciting to know that we could be meeting people who we might perhaps raise children with,” said Tony Proctor, 39, who owns a wealth-management company and attended the seminar at Harvard University with his wife, Andrea, 35, a stay-at-home mother.

Humanism is both a formal movement and an informal identification of people who promote values of reason, compassion and human dignity. Although most humanists are atheists, atheism is defined by what is absent — belief in God — and humanists emphasize a positive philosophy of ethical living for the human good.

The seminar’s organizers wanted to reach out to people like the Proctors: first-time parents scrambling for guidance as they improvise how to raise their daughter without the religion of their childhood.

“I’m often told that when people have kids, they go back to religion,” said John Figdor, a humanist pursuing a master of divinity degree who helped organize the seminar. “Are we really not tending our own people?”

Religious observance hits a low for people in their mid-20s and steadily increases after that, “in conjunction with marriage and children,” said Tom Smith of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago.

Religious congregations are good at supporting parenting, said Gregory Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard who organized the seminar. Although most humanists do not believe in God, he said, they do believe in sharing their lives with like-minded people.

Most Americans are religious and believe in God, but a growing number have no religious affiliation. In 1990, 8 percent of respondents in the General Social Survey said they identified with no religion. In 2006, the last year for which statistics are available, the figure had doubled to 16 percent.

For the Proctors, especially for Andrea, who grew up in a Catholic household, arriving at the seminar took a lifetime of questioning.

The Proctors found themselves making decisions about religion when they had a daughter last year. Andrea said her parents asked, “Of course you’re going to baptize her, right?” She answered, “Actually, no.”

Instead, Epstein officiated at Sienna’s nonreligious ceremony, Andrea said, while both sets of grandparents spoke about their hopes and dreams for the child.

Atheism as a Religion, In The News

The New State Religion: Atheism
by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.

It seems that atheism has become the official stance of America’s school system. One way in which many schools and teachers are attempting to indoctrinate students is by the use of new terms to hide the actual intent of the policy maker. For example, the current euphemism for an atheist is a nontheist or naturalist. Even if a naturalistic explanation is not true, scientists must still try to explain all events from this worldview. That the atheistic belief structure is the norm in science was forcefully brought out by Nobel Laureate Weinberg as follows:

Among today’s scientists, I am probably somewhat atypical in caring about such things [as God]. . . . on matters of religion, the strongest reaction expressed by most of my fellow physicists is a mild surprise and amusement that anyone still takes all that seriously. Many physicists maintain a nominal affiliation with the faith of their parents . . . but few . . . pay any attention to their nominal religion’s theology…. Most physicists today are not sufficiently interested in religion to even qualify as practicing atheists.[1]

In Carl Sagan’s words, the cosmos—the physical universe—”is all that is or ever was or ever will be.”[2] No Gods, angels, devils, or other spirit creatures exist—only that which scientists can measure with their instruments—which means they believe that only the visible, physical, tangible, universe exists. Of course, these scientists have a belief structure, which Harvard’s Stephen J. Gould notes includes the conclusion that humans are “. . . a wildly improbable evolutionary event . . .”[3] and “. . . a cosmic accident . . .”[4] and that if the evolutionary tape were played again and again, humans would not be expected—even if it were replayed a million times or more. This worldview stands in direct contrast to the creationist’s belief that humans were fashioned for a purpose. The dominant view of naturalistic scientists is that we are only “a detail” of history and do not exist for a purpose. [5] The only purpose of life, they teach, is that which we arbitrarily give to it if we so choose. Gould feels that it liberates us to give life any purpose we want which, he believes, is not nihilistic, because it offers us “maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.”[6] The religious worldview, in contrast, believes that some morals and values are superior to others and, in the long run, living a moral God-fearing life is most conducive to happiness. This conclusion has been well documented by empirical research.[7]

Knowing that their functional atheism could hinder them from obtaining grants or public support, scientists often skip around these conclusions in their writing and teaching. Some, though, are open and honestly reveal their atheism. One example is William B. Provine, professor of biological science at Cornell. He notes that at the beginning of his class about 75% of his students “were either creationists or believed in purposive evolution” guided by God or a divine power. Research on his incisive, direct, hard-hitting teaching on origins (how students often describe his lectures) reveals that the number of creationists and those who “believed in purposive evolution” dropped to about 50% by the end of the course.[8] No one has hauled him into court for his openly indoctrinating students in atheism, and indeed, scientists in general have applauded him.

Scientists generally not only support Provine’s one-sided teaching but are determined not to allow the other side in the classroom. Further, scientific orthodoxy teaches that human existence has no God-given purpose, but is a chance event, a blip on the radar screen in the infinity of time. No God had any part in the creation. The authors of one of the leading biology textbooks openly state:

Darwin compiled enough support for his theory of descent with modification to convince most of the scientists of his day that organisms evolve without supernatural intervention. Subsequent discoveries, including recent ones from molecular biology, further support this great principle—one that connects an otherwise bewildering chaos of facts about organisms.[9]

This view has the backing of the scientific community and the state, and attempts by professors to discuss favorably another view, when challenged by the university or state, have in the past proved ultimately futile.[10] [11]

It is obvious that an attempt to censor the teaching of “the other side of atheism” in the college classroom is nothing more than a blatant attempt to insure that only one side of the controversy is presented. Those professors whom the nontheistic naturalistic evolutionists believe will influence the students in a positive direction toward theism are often fired, censored, or “reassigned.”

If naturalistic evolution is true, why do its true believers have to use political or bullying tactics to quiet creationists (as this author knows from personal experience)? Why do they censor evidence in favor of creationism in textbooks, and intimidate creationist students and teachers to accept the evolutionist party line under penalty of failure, dismissal, or worse? The reason must be that nontheists have determined (for deeply held philosophical reasons) that others must be taught to believe as they do and accept only atheism or naturalism in science.

Another more important reason may be their intolerance toward creationists. Those who criticize creationists rarely define the term. A creationist is one who believes that God created or directed the creation of the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. [12] The core of the opposition of universities and the state is against any theistic worldview. The writer has yet to find, in a review of dozens of college biology textbooks for class selection, a single one in the past decade or more that espouses or objectively discusseseven theistic evolution in a positive way, let alone special creation. Even the idea of progress is anathema in biology:

If evolution is held to be progressive, then it is all too easy to see it as being directed, following an arrow of improvement through time. And that is all too redolent of the notion of “divine” design of pre-Darwinian days…. “There is a profound unwillingness to abandon a view of life as predictable progress . . . because to do so would be to admit that human existence is nothing but a historical accident. That is difficult for many to accept.” [13]

And as Gould stresses, the very idea of progress is a “noxious” idea in biology that must be avoided, because it hints that God exists, something that the science establishment cannot stomach. Conversely, he views human consciousness as a “quirky accident” that just happened. [14] No wonder one who believes that life has a divine purpose and that a creator God exists is so poorly tolerated and not to be trusted in the classroom. An unbiased viewpoint forces the conclusion that America has now adopted a state religion, supported by billions of tax dollars and enforced by the power of law. That state religion is atheism.

Many scientists are decidedly not neutral on the topic of God. Eminent scientist, Oxford University zoologist, and author Richard Dawkins openly says that his best selling book, The Selfish Gene,

. . . brings home to people the truth about why they exist, something they previously took for granted. No one had given them such a ruthless, starkly mechanistic, almost pointless answer. “You are for nothing. You are here to propagate your selfish genes. There is no higher purpose to life.” One man said he didn’t sleep for three nights after reading The Selfish Gene. He felt that the whole of his life had become empty, and the universe no longer had a point. Another way of putting it is of people losing religious faith. People now felt they understood what it was all about, where previously they had been fobbed off with religious pseudo-answers. [15]

And as to the effect of evolution on the development of Dawkins’ ideas, he makes it clear:

It was a mind-blowing experience to discover Darwinism and realize there were alternative explanations for all the questions with traditional religious answers. I became irritated at the way the religious establishment has a stranglehold over this kind of education. Most people grow up and go through their lives without ever really understanding Darwinism. They spend enormous amounts of time learning church teachings. This annoys me, out of a love of truth. To me, religion is very largely an enemy of truth. [16]

Dawkins is very open about his views—all theism is to be condemned, including theistic evolution. How effective has been what now amounts to a relentless campaign to banish any support of the theistic worldview in our public schools and colleges? Eugenie Scott, the leader of the world’s largest organization dedicated to advancing naturalism and counteracting the work of creationists bemoaned, “. . . maybe there is something we can do to raise our esprit de corps. . . . it’s tough out here in the trenches where 49% of American adults think man was created in his present form 10,000 years ago.”[17]

While some allege that there is no conflict between theism and Darwinism, the fact is that the majority of leading evolutionists are atheists, or at best nontheists for whom God is irrelevant to their daily lives and their views about the natural world and the universe.[18] In an extensive study of scientists, Roe found in her sample of sixty-four eminent scientists that only three were actively involved in a church and “all of the others have long since dismissed religion as any guide to them, and church plays no part in their lives….”[19]

Probably a majority of evolutionists would agree with Julian Huxley’s pronouncement that “Darwinism removed the whole idea of God as the Creator of organisms from the sphere of rational discussion.” Others might go further and accept the Dawkinsian view that the idea of a Creator is refuted by our human inability to account for His origin. A minority might echo Ashley Montagu’s statement that “There is no incompatibility between belief in God and the belief that evolution is the means by which all living things have come into being.” But I suspect they would, in some cases at least, echo it with more than trace of tongue-in-cheek![20]

When one compares the pessimistic, nihilistic worldview that evolution teaches—that life has no purpose or reason—with the Judeo-Christian worldview that men and women are a special creation of a loving, caring God who provides for them and will guide them through the trials and travails of life, a God whose love for us is so great that He created the universe and all of its wonders specifically for our benefit and has given us the opportunity of everlasting life in paradise, it is obvious why most Americans prefer the latter view. In Scott’s words, “I have been saying for years that the reason creationists can win the allegiance of some of the general public is that all we scientists do is present evidence, but creationists go after the heart and soul. In the words of Tom Lehrer, ‘They have all of the good songs.’” [21]

References:

• S. Weinberg, Dreams of a Final Theory; The Search for the Fundamental Laws of Nature (Pantheon Books, New York, 1992), pp. 256-257.
• [C. Sagan, Cosmos (Random House, New York, 1980) p. 4.
• [S. Gould, Wonderful Life; The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History (W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1989), p. 291.
• Ibid., p. 44.
• Ibid., p. 291.
• Ibid., p. 323.
• Harold Cox and Andre Hammonds, “Religiosity, Aging, and Life Satisfaction” in Journal of Religion and Aging 5(1/2) 1-21 (1989).
• [W. Provine, Creation/Evolution 32, 62-63 (1993).
• N. Campbell, L. Mitchell and J. Reece. Biology: Concepts and Connections (Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Co., Redwood City, CA, 1994), p. 258.
• Bishop V. Aaronov, 723 F. supp. 1562 (ND Ala 1990).
• P. Johnson, “The Creationist and the Sociobiologist: Two Stories About Illiberal Education,” California Law Review 80 (4) 1071-1090 (1992).
• P. E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial (Regnery Gateway, Washington, D.C., 1991).
• R. Lewin, “A Simple Matter of Complexity” in New Scientist 141 (1994) 40.
• Ibid., p. 40.
• R. Dawkins, “Interview” in Omni 12 (4) (Jan. 1990) 60-61.
• Ibid., p. 87.
• E. Scott, “Good Songs” in Science 263 (5154) Jan. 21, 1994), 310.
• Gilson, Robert J., Evolution in a New Light: The Outworking of Cosmic Imaginism (Pelegrin Trust, Norwich, England, 1992), 68.
• Roe, Anne, The Making of a Scientist (Dodd, Mead, and Company, New York, 1953), 62.
• Ref. No. 18, p. 68.
• Ref. No. 17, p. 310.

*Dr. Bergman is on the science faculty at Northwest State College, Ohio.

This article was found at: http://www.icr.org/article/new-state-religion-atheism/

Atheism as a Religion, Science

Dolan Cummings: Count me out of atheism’s creed

The desire to belong has made atheism into its own religion. But non-belief is no basis for a group identity

Richard Dawkins’s campaign urging atheists to ‘come out’ and be counted, is oddly reminiscent of an evangelical rally where born-again Christians are implored to rush down to the stage. Closet atheists in the pious USA and worldwide are to be welcomed with open arms into the sceptical fold. And if sales of Dawkins’s The God Delusion and other recent books like it are anything to go by, there is no shortage of people ready to join up. While some critics have labelled Dawkins and co ‘atheist fundamentalists’, the real similarity between atheism and religion today is less fanaticism than a palpable yearning to belong. There is nothing wrong with this very human impulse, but non-belief is an odd basis for belonging.

Of course, the resurgence of interest in atheism is a reaction to the perceived rise of religion, whether in the form of Islamic fundamentalism or US-style Christian conservatism. But in taking their cue from resurgent religions, atheists also adopt something of their inward-looking focus. From attempts to popularise the term ‘bright’ as a positive identity to calls for atheists to be included on the roster of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’, it seems that some want to establish atheism as an alternative, non-religious camp for people to belong to. But atheism itself ought to be the least interesting thing about atheists, who surely have various and often conflicting beliefs and passions of their own.

The most promising term used by some atheists to describe a more positive outlook is humanism, evoking a rich tradition going back to the Renaissance. But this won’t serve as a label for the non-religious for the simple reason that humanism does not preclude religious faith. Indeed, those of us with a positive belief in the human potential do not especially need to distinguish ourselves from others who share that belief while also identifying with a religious tradition. Certainly we will object to religious bigotry, but then so do most avowedly religious people. And equally, we will share opposition to antihuman ideas propagated by some atheists, such as biological determinism: the idea that humans are little more than fleshy machines.

The desire to establish atheism as an alternative identity is ultimately conservative. Rather than joining together with others who share a positive vision of the future, self-styled atheists define themselves against an external threat. Worse, it is no longer the conservatism of religion that worries non-believers, but its radicalism, its seemingly irrational passion. Where once religion was disdained as “the opium of the people”, today it is seen as more akin to the alcopop of the people: a dangerous and toxic influence that makes people behave in irrational ways. If coming out as an atheist means subscribing to an ersatz religion with the fire taken out, atheists can expect to remain in the cold.

—

Dolan Cummings is the research and editorial director at the Institute of Ideas. He is also the editor of Debating Humanism.

Atheism as a Religion, In The News

Notice the strong Religious “flavor” of this article…

Dawkins to preach atheism to US

Maurice Chittenden and Roger Waite
The Times Online

RICHARD DAWKINS, the British scientist who has become the high priest of atheism, is launching a crusade in America to win new recruits to the church of nonbelievers.

He is to embark on a lecture tour of 2,000-seater halls in the Bible Belt and the Midwest in the wake of the presidential primary season, which reaches its climax in early February.

Dawkins, whose book The God Delusion has sold 1.5m copies in the English language, has teamed up with Robin Wight, the man behind some of Britain’s most memorable advertising campaigns, to make it respectable to admit to being an atheist.

No presidential candidate could hope to survive in the polls in America if he or she admitted to doubts about the existence of God.

Wight, who was behind the slogan “The future’s bright, the future’s Orange”, is helping to rebrand atheists in a less negative light.

Wight, 63, chairman and co-founder of the WCRS advertising agency said: “We need a different name.” Alternatives that have been considered on Dawkins’ internet forum include “brights”, “fact fighters”, “realists” and “the faithless”.

The American tour is being organised by a charitable foundation set up by Dawkins in the United States to push his agenda after a year-long struggle with the tax authorities. The campaign will go global in 2009 to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and the 150th anniversary of his book, On the Origin of Species.

Dawkins, 66, the professor for public understanding of science at Oxford University, will release the paperback version of The God Delusion in the US early next year.

The scientist, who is married to his third wife, Lalla Ward, the actress who once played Dr Who’s sidekick Romana, expects a hostile reception in some places but claims there are as many atheists (20m) as any one religion in the US.

“They are not burning my books yet. It would be rather fun if they did,” he said last week.

Dawkins, who sometimes lectures in T-shirts bearing the slogan “Evolution – the greatest show on earth”, said: “America has a problem with evolution. There is an astonishing level of sheer ignorance fomented by religious prejudices.

“The Bible Belt is a lot less monolithic than it portrays itself. I have a feeling that there is rather a large groundswell of people who agree with me. I may be preaching to the choir but I think the choir is larger than many people realise.

“People thank me for speaking out. They are grateful that I articulate what they wish to say but can’t because they live there.”

He added: “We have the ‘Out’ campaign. We do see an analogy with gay rights. There are a lot of people in the closet in America.”

One convert is Dawkins’s daughter Juliet, who was sent by her mother to be, as Dawkins puts it, “indoctrinated” into the Catholic church. Friends of the family say she too is now an atheist.

Religious leaders in America dismissed Dawkins and his followers. The Rev David Cox, of the First Southern Methodist Church, Charleston, South Carolina said: “I would certainly like to protest. [Dawkins] is a tool of Satan, of the AntiChrist it sounds to me. All God-fearing people will be opposed to an atheist touring.”

Atheism Evangelism, Atheism as a Religion, In The News