In the Book of Acts, while Paul was giving his testimony to King Agrippa, he was interrupted by Festus, who said to Paul “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.” (Acts 26:24) Now, perhaps, it is time to turn that around and level it at some of today’s learned men. More radical atheists on the march
(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.
Richard Dawkins, indeed. Evolutionary biologist, author, and outspoken militant atheist. A man of great learning, driven mad by his hatred of God, and growing increasingly vocal about it as he draws closer to the day he will know the truth. Although he might not admit to hating God, no doubt because it’s illogical to hate what doesn’t exist. Now the Church, on the other hand…
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.
Look out everyone, because I’ve gone way past a so-called moderate belief in God and Christianity. Who knows when I’m going to blow myself up? Wait a minute… that’s Islam that does that, isn’t it? Whew, we were all worried there for a minute, weren’t we? Seriously though, how can we take this man seriously after a ridiculous statement like that? Implying that Christianity is guilty of the same kind of atrocities one finds in Islam is simply BS. Even one of Dawkins co-antireligionists (to butcher a phrase) seems to have called him on it…
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.
I find it interesting that Harris was given only polite applause, while Dawkins got a standing ovation. Radical Islam is not on these folks’ radar screens it seems, but I’ll bet they don’t have atheists in Iran either. The modern atheist movement in the West has grown more vocal and visible in the last few years, pushing back against growing religious faith, and trying hard to lift itself out of the marginal place it has had in the cultural debate. They believe humanism, secularism, and pure reason must be brought to bear against religion and religious belief, in order to fully realize human potential and set the species on a rational path.
One of the interesting points about this article was the mention that many of the atheists in attendance came from religious families, and even “fundamentalist” families…
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.”
You poor child… your parents know exactly what and who you are, and I can assure you, if they know the Lord then they mind very much. But this raises the point that so many Christians have found to be true, and that is that many folks are “inoculated” against belief and the Church, some at a very young age, Dawkins himself included. It is a fact that we cannot explain, one of those painful places we believers have to prayerfully leave in God’s hand to change. But with great learning also often comes great conceit, and the human species that Dawkins and his buddies are so confident in can easily become the object of worship in the Creator’s place. Reason, they assume, can tell you all you need to know, in fact, all there is to know. As it is said, “your great learning has driven you mad”.
…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.”
Conceit. “You shall be as gods”… since the beginning of time, t’was ever thus.
Entries (RSS)