I recently saw a blog post on one of the gazillions of anti-religion blogs on the net with a title that read “Atheism is Freedom”. The blog author didn’t write anything. He just posted a video of a cartoon episode entitled “The Case of the Cola Cult”. The video amounted to nothing more than a strawman and since the author didn’t post anything but the video it was difficult to understand what he wanted to communicate with the video.

It could be easily inferred, however, given the context of the blog, that this blogger is against religion and sees adherence to religion as nothing more than mental prison.

I also saw another blog, recently, displaying a popular video from Sam Harris “preaching” (for lack of a better term) to an audience telling them that “atheism is freedom from mental slavery”. He goes on to admit that atheist are free to recognize that we don’t know all that we can know about the universe (I’m paraphrasing here).

These blog posts got me thinking. Ever since I saw them I’ve been wondering if atheism really is freedom. In my mind, becoming an atheist is not much more than trading one dogma for another, one set of beliefs for a completely different set of beliefs.

The trouble is that atheists, in general, refuse to put their beliefs under the same scrutiny that they expect people of other religions. The atheists I meet typically put religions like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. under a high powered microscope, and then go over it with a fine tooth comb. When it comes to atheism, however, they follow the crowd of Dawkinites and bow to the idol of Hitchens without so much as a raised eyebrow.

The hue of glowing light around Dawkins and his ilk is nothing more than the blinding call of “follow me and I will lead you a utopia of freedom”. Atheists jump on the band wagon and never look back or scrutinize the fallacies of the Dawkins religion. They blindly follow what the “leaders” of their faith (yes, I said faith) tell them. Is that freedom? Not hardly.

Freedom in this respect is really a misnomer. Following atheism isn’t freedom. Those who believe it is are seriously deceived.

Freethinkers? Freedom

Despite pressure from Newdow and his ilk, Barak Obama took his presidential oath of office by placing his right hand on the Bible – the very same Bible that President Lincoln used in 1861. I for one am glad Obama wasn’t deterred by Newdow’s latest series of lawsuits against the US government in an attempt to stop all references to religion and god at the inauguration.

I didn’t know this but according to an article found at http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=154337 the new president is not required by the US to swear in on a Bible. Even so, Obama proudly took the oath of office on the Bible and also allowed prayer and mentioned God’s name several times during his speach. I’m sure Obama has a political agenda for what he did during his inauguration, but I’m glad that we have a president who isn’t deterred by pressure from those who would deprive us of our rights and religious freedoms.

In The News

I’m sitting here reading about Michael Newdow’s latest lawsuit against “Chief Justice John Roberts in federal court for an injunction barring the use of ['so help me God'] in the inaugural oath.” (read the full story here) and I’m thinking to myself, ‘why can’t atheists just be satisfied to not believe and leave those who want to believe alone?’ Do all atheists feel this way? Please tell me they don’t and that Newdow is nothing more than a fundamentalist (for lack of a better term) in atheism!!!

This attempt by atheists to remove all references to God in public is simply absurd. How ridiculous to spend time and energy fighting for the removal of every mention of God in public simply because YOU don’t believe. How selfish!!! Get over yourself. In case you didn’t know Newdow also has a lawsuit pending to stop the President from taking the oath on the Bible. What a pathetic life it must be to have nothing better to do than bring a lawsuit against everyone that mentions God in public.

I’ve said it time and time again. This only goes to show how hypocritical atheists can be. Atheists are notorious for their complaints about the intolerance and proselytizing behaviors of believers in God, but then go out and show their intolerant towards believers.

I usually don’t get so emotional about this topic, but something just struck me with this latest lawsuit. Enough already! I admonish atheists to leave believers alone and ‘live and let live’ as atheists are always so ready to tell me. Atheists would appear much more credible should they followed their own code – or ‘practiced what they preach’ – pun intended.

I know this isn’t much of a logical argument, but I just needed to vent. I wish some of those religious lawyers out there would wake up and fight back. I wish Christians would stop being so passive and stop allowing people like Newdow to use them as door mats to walk all over. Isn’t there someone with legal knowledge who can bring a lawsuit against Newdow and the people like him to stop him from wasting the tax payer’s money on frivolous lawsuits like this?

I would do it myself, but I lack the resources. If there is someone reading this who wants to step up to the plate contact me and lets see what we can get going. I for one am tired of the games. Lets put a stop to Newdow and his ilk once and for all.

In The News Newdow

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

[A few years ago] the World Congress of the International Academy of Humanism [took] place in upstate New York.  Its theme? “Toward a New Enlightenment”.

To judge from the publicity, the conference organisers have no doubt of the urgency of their theme. Religion is regaining the ascendancy. We are facing a new dark age. Only a return to the Enlightenment can save us. We need to create a road map for a New Enlightenment throughout the world.

Speakers such as Richard Dawkins, Britain’s best-known atheist, will address issues such as the “God Delusion” — one of the many barriers that need to be swept away if humanity is to finally come of age.

It is a fascinating glimpse of the crisis of confidence which is gripping atheism. Belief in God was meant to have died out years ago. When I was an atheist, back in the late 1960s, everything seemed so simple. A bright new dawn lay just around the corner. Religion would be relegated to the past, a grim and dusty relic of a bygone age. God was just a cosy illusion for losers, best left to very inadequate and sad people. It was just a matter of waiting for nature to take its course.

I was in good company in believing this sort of thing. It was the smug, foolish and fashionable wisdom of the age. Like flared jeans, it was accepted enthusiastically, if just a little uncritically.

Everyone knows it has not worked out like that. In The Twilight of Atheism, I try to find out what went wrong for atheism in the past 40 years. There’s lots to find. Hopelessly overstated arguments that once seemed so persuasive — such as “science disproves God” — have lost their credibility. Anyway, our culture’s criterion of acceptability is not “Is it right?” but “Does it work?” And the simple fact is that religious belief works for many, many people, giving direction, purpose and stability to their lives — witness the massive sales and impact of Rick Warren’s The Purpose-Driven Life. Atheism, already having failed to land the knockout punch by proving that God does not exist, has not even begun to engage with this deeper question; instead it mumbles weary platitudes about mythical “God-viruses” or mass “Goddelusions”.

It may once have been bold, brave and brilliant to argue that religion was an infantile delusion or a pernicious superstition. Now, atheism seems arrogant and uncomprehending; incapable of even the most basic act of intellectual empathy that tries to grasp why intelligent, articulate people might choose to believe something which we disagree with — and which might even be right.

The real issue, however, has to do with atheism being trapped in a time warp. Atheism is a superb example of a modern metanarrative — a totalising view of things, locked into the world view of the Enlightenment.

So what happens when this same Enlightenment is charged by its postmodern critics with having fostered oppression and violence, and having colluded with totalitarianism? When a new interest in spirituality surges through Western culture? When the cultural pressures that once made atheism seem attractive are displaced by others that make it seem intolerant, unimaginative and disconnected from spiritual realities?

The obvious answer would be for atheism to undertake a reformation — to examine itself in the light of its failings, and direct towards itself the negative criticism it has until now automatically fired off at anything religious.

The Enlightenment is over, the world has changed, and atheism must change as well. But that is not the answer they are looking for in upstate New York. Instead, they want the Enlightenment all over again.

I’m not an atheist any more. As a Christian, however, I still retain a deep respect for the serious, reflective, intensely moral atheism I find in writers like Ernst Bloch. Religion needs to be criticised, both internally and externally, to remain true to its roots and its heart. Yet its critics need to be credible.

Atheism has, quite simply, lost much of its moral and intellectual cutting edge in recent decades. And unless it sorts itself out, it is not going to regain it.

Alister McGrath is professor of historical theology at Oxford University, and author of The Twilight of Atheism and Dawkins’ God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life

This article found at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article583993.ece

Is Atheism Feasible Alister McGrath, Enlightment, Humanism