Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion” and perhaps one of the best known atheists of our time, is calling on all his fellow atheists to “come out of the closet” and let their voices be heard.
“As far as subjective impressions allow and in the admitted absence of rigorous data, I am persuaded that the religiosity of America is greatly exaggerated,” states the Oxford University professor in his introduction to the recently launched "Out Campaign.” “Our choir is a lot larger than many people realise.”
In a 2005 AP-Ipsos poll on religion, only 2 percent of Americans who responded said they did not believe in God, but Dawkins believes that is only because much of his “choir” remains “in the closet.”
“Religious people still outnumber atheists,” he acknowledges in his statement, “but not by the margin they hoped and we feared.”
Through his campaign, Dawkins is urging atheists to lift up their voices against the “intrusion of religion in our schools and politics” and to express how tired they are of being “bullied by those who would force their own religious agenda down the throats of our children and our respective governments.”
“We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies,” the campaign states.
As prominent evangelical leader Chuck Colson noted in a recent commentary, “Most traditional atheists simply had their own belief system, and if we (Christians) wanted our belief system that was okay.”
Today’s atheists, however, are not just dismissing religion or denying the existence of God; some are making militant efforts to spread their godless message, as if they were given the charge to go and make unbelievers of all nations, immersing them with doubt, realism, and antagonism (the far-from-great commission).
“They’re like the communists who feared religion more than anything else because it was a competing truth claim,” Colson stated.
The Associated Press this year described the all-out assault on religious faith by atheist authors like Christopher Hitchens, who are reaching the top of the best-seller list, as “a sign of widespread resentment over the influence of religion in the world among nonbelievers.”
And Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., said the success of books such as Dawkins' "The God Delusion," Hitchens’ "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," or Sam Harris’ "The End of Faith" reflect a new vehemence in the atheist critique.
"I don't believe in conspiracy theories," Mouw said, according to AP, "but it's almost like they all had a meeting and said, 'Let's counterattack.'"
Regardless of whether or not the current atheist movement is the result of some “conspiracy” or whatnot, and despite how small the movement may be, believers need to be challenged by it.
Going out and making disciples of all nations as Jesus commanded is already a large task as it is, but when you’re up against a group of individuals – again, as small as they may be – that is trying to undo what has been done, spreading faith in God could for some come to resemble a game of Reversi.
Furthermore, as former atheist Anthony Horvath has pointed out, many churches are not doing enough to counter the atheist’s message despite the Truth that they possess. Horvath, who has taught religion to middle school and high school students, also claims that some churches are actually producing atheists by not answering the questions of young people and explaining why they believe in the Bible. Continue >>
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Based on the title of his book, according to Richard Dawkins, the following people were all "delusional": Isaiah, Jesus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, DaVinci, Newton, Einstein, Darwin (yes, even Darwin believed in God), Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Helen Keller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, Rosa Parks, Red Cloud and America's beloved Samuel Clemens.
It doesn't take much of a monkey brain to figure out who is really delusional.
Why would anybody be afraid of someone as ignorant as Richard Dawkins? Oxford University ought to be run up a flag pole and tarred and feathered out of existence for granting him a degree.
Richard Aberdeen
www.FreedomTracks.com
Chocolate, please don't be decieved. There is indeed a God of Abraham but these false teachers do not represent Him. You cannot rely on the teaching of the profiteering pastors and theologians to provide truth in securing your salvation. (There is no money to be made in speaking the truth.) You must work out your own salvation with fear and trembling by your own study and earnest endeavor.
There are thousands of false religions but there is only ONE true faith in Christ. As an example, see this link to just those of the Baptists alone!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Baptist_denominations
The differences mostly expressed are not just trivial matters but of SALVATION itself! These scholars who have devoted their lives to the study of the scriptures in order to lead us pilgrims to God cannot even agree on the very BASICS of Christianity. They do not understand the first basic aspect of a subject they all presume to champion.
When scripture tells us the way is narrow and few are those who will find it, don’t be surprised that FEW WILL FIND IT! Considering their myriad of false teachings, I don’t expect to meet very many preachers, pastors or theologians in Heaven.
BOC560
Chocolate, thanks for responding, now that this article is no longer in the "top most commented" articles we will not get interrupted to any great degree.
<Could you tell me what the theistic moral principals have that a society’s moral principles wouldn’t have? I know they would say something like “don’t kill”, “don’t steal”, “be nice to other people” and the like, in other words, common sense.>
<What belief? In what? So you do not believe that a person could be nice just because he or she was raised that way. While growing up a person was constantly told, taught by parents, school, society what was expected of him/her in terms of behavior, saw how those parents, teachers, and people behaved (which is more important than any words), his brain, his conscience formed. I find this approach is much better than create some character and then constantly try to keep a person in fear >
The root of what I was getting at was, trying to determine Why and how you determine what is right and wrong. For example, I can justify pretty quickly why murder, suicide etc. are wrong. Yet often from an atheistic worldview I am not given any solid ground as to why one thing is right or wrong apart from "how they were brought up" or etc.
Basically what I am asking you is why is for example Murder wrong from an Atheistic worldview? I realize you believe its wrong to harm other people, but why is it wrong to harm other people? I realize you believe that is better to treat other people like you would want to be treated, but Why do you hold to that?
To be honest, I am just simply not seeing how an Atheistic worldview accounts for the existance of morality. Now im not saying this to disprove Atheism, Atheism can potentially be true regardless of whether that worldview can account for morality.
And to be honest, maybe this is just my ignorance, maybe there is something you can tell me about Atheism that I do not know that helps justify the existence of Morality. I just simply do not see it, here are some common examples of reasons I have been given,
The Atheist might say:
"We originate our morals from nature" the problem- some animals eat their young.
"We originate our morals from our culture, or current accepted values" cultures change, slavery (the type that allowed by "Christians") was once considered ok. Does this mean that slavery of that type was Moral?
"We originateour morals from the principle of "as long as it does not harm others"" Where does this principle come from? Certainly not from the evolutionary perspective.
Also Chocolate, if your interested in discussing this more in e-mail (xdannypoox@aol.com) , I would be more than glad to do so. I think I could learn some things form you, maybe you could help me understand your perspective better. etc.
Continuation of my message to DannyPoo
<Therefore, often my conclusion is that Atheists act morally in spite of Atheism, not because of. >
I really don’t understand what you mean here. “Atheists act morally in spite of Atheism”? It doesn’t make sense to me. Atheism is just an opinion that there is no superpower. What does this would have anything to do with morality? I guess you need to live in the society I grew up to understand it. I never was exposed to religion except in books or movies about the past times when my country was very religious.
My grandmothers were believers when they were children but not later. My parents or I have never been religious. Since we lived in a new developed area, we didn’t have any kind of churches for miles around. In other places, if they still had churches, most of them were turned into museums. We lived in a small town. Most people would lock their houses or apartments and put the key under the rug in front of the front door because it was convenient. A family could have one key. Everybody knew that, but we didn’t have any crime. People in all neighboring little towns did the same. But I doubt they did it in big cities. In very big cities people were not afraid to go for a stroll late at night. Crime was not a problem what so ever. I lived in that country for thirty years. Believe me it’s real. All people are atheists which only means they do not believe a superpower exists, and no problems with crime. I guess they found their own reasons to follow the moral principles. Please understand me right. I do not say that we didn’t have any crime what so ever. Yes, we also had crime, and prisons, and prisoners only it was so little that most people didn’t encounter it. Crime was not a problem.
<God is able to provide morals,> You don’t believe that a person can provide morals? It’s hard for me to understand.
<God not only provides it, but has the Authority to make the claim that the act of loving your neighbor is moral.> But ‘god’ is created by Man. How an imaginary character can be an authority?
<An Atheist can certianly teach "love you neighbor as yourself" Yet I am unable to conclude where they get this belief....> What belief? In what? So you do not believe that a person could be nice just because he or she was raised that way. While growing up a person was constantly told, taught by parents, school, society what was expected of him/her in terms of behavior, saw how those parents, teachers, and people behaved (which is more important than any words), his brain, his conscience formed. I find this approach is much better than create some character and then constantly try to keep a person in fear “God is watching… When you die ….” A good behavior should come from your heart and your conscience and not because someone is watching you….
DannyPoo,
<I was intending to say that Atheists claim that theistic moral principals are inferior, therefore atheists believe they don't need theistic moral principals.>
Could you tell me what the theistic moral principals have that a society’s moral principles wouldn’t have? I know they would say something like “don’t kill”, “don’t steal”, “be nice to other people” and the like, in other words, common sense.
<Certainly if there are that few Atheists in America statistically than the group is simply not large enough to get an accurate picture of what Atheists are like morally when they are a majority.>
That’s true, I agree with that.
<I am sorry that people immediately conclude that because your an atheist that you have no morality.>
No, I was talking about bloggers. I was not talking about me personally. Nobody who knows me would ever say that. One Catholic priest (a very nice person) even said to me one time that I had more morality than some Christians.
<I believe many atheists are moral, yet I fail to understand why Atheists do Moral things when it is my opinion that the belief system fails to produce solid reasons for morality.>
When I read this comment, I was in complete shock. Honestly. I was speechless and was saying, “Wow, wow, wow.” I cannot even comprehend how a person could think so. No, you don’t need to apologies. You just expressed how you were feeling and understanding the situation of “Why would a person obey the rules?” You probably were born and grew up in a religious family in ‘most religious’ country. Your understanding of things formed while you were growing in this environment, with certain ideas put in your head. I was born and grew up in a totally different environment. I was born and grew up in an atheistic family in an atheistic country. You and I have different way of thinking. You cannot imagine that a person can follow moral principals without any fear of a god or other supernatural power. I feel now as if you and I came from different planets. I lived with very nice people around me, helpful, considering, caring. No of my relatives, friends, neighbors, teachers, other people around me believed in any kind of god or superpower. Everybody followed moral rules. I guess they did that because they knew if they were not nice to people around them, the people wouldn’t be nice to them in return. They didn’t need and they still don’t need any superpower supervision. Their conscience is their guide.
Chocolate
In response to my statement of:
<Some Christians do not follow their claimed theistic moral principals,
Therefore, theistic moral principles are inferior, we don't need them.>
You stated:
<You are right about ‘appears’. People see things differently. I never said “we don’t need moral principles”. Do you see the difference? >
I apologize if it appears as though I was saying that Atheists are saying they don't need morals. I was intending to say that Atheists claim that theistic moral principals are inferior, therefore atheists believe they don't need theistic moral principals.
<You said it. I never stated that “Atheists are more moral”. You questioned atheists’ morality. I gave you statistics (numbers), and you concluded this based on statistics. >
Actually, I never questioned whether Atheists were moral. Atheists can certainly be moral. Also, I never concluded that Atheists were More moral. Certainly if there are that few Atheists in America statistically than the group is simply not large enough to get an accurate picture of what Atheists are like morally when they are a majority. As you and I both know, every group, including Christianity produces different results when they are in the Majority.
You stated:
<I’m always puzzled: as soon as a conversation begins about a god, many believers in a hurry switch to ‘morality’ claiming that ‘those nonbelievers have no morality’. I can say that it’s true not just for the believers of this country. As I stated earlier, I do not see the connection between ‘morality’ and the belief in a god.>
I am sorry that people immediately conclude that because your an atheist that you have no morality. I believe many atheists are moral, yet I fail to understand why Atheists do Moral things when it is my opinion that the belief system fails to produce solid reasons for morality.
Therefore, often my conclusion is that Atheists act morally in spite of Atheism, not because of.
The reason believers see a connection between the morality and belief in God. Is because God is able to provide morals, ex: Love your neighbor as yourself. In this way God not only provides it, but has the Authority to make the claim that the act of loving your neighbor is moral. An Atheist can certianly teach "love you neighbor as yourself" Yet I am unable to conclude where they get this belief....
I'm back for one more post. God brought this thought to my mind. Why is Chocolate, a person that does not believe in God, come to a Christian site? We are Christians, we choose to believe their is a God; and you choose to not believe. I prayed about something you said in response to my previous post. God is not simply in my head, HE is in my heart, I have a personal relationship with my Heavenly Father. God is not just some character. Man has no morality apart from God. God is moral and HE is just!
It's amazing to me how the very ones who claim they do not need God or believe in Him, are always at Christian websites, throwing out their stuff, and I just wonder why???
I pray for you Chocolate that Jesus Christ will make Himself known to you in the most real way possible, that's what happened to Saul who then became known as Paul.
If you go throughout HISTORY there is EVIDENCE that demands a verdict and JESUS CHRIST was quite real, He lived, He was crucified and He rose again! That is FACTS!
Read, The Case for a Creator, and The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel. But then, you don't really want to know God by what you've stated here, and God's Okay with that.
You will meet Him face to face one day, as we all shall and then you will discover just how wrong you have been.
Now, this truly is my last post on this line. People give you their own personal testimony, and still you don't believe.
You take a good long look around this world, and you can see the Planet DYING! This is a dead planet, and only life in Jesus can bring life! Those are the facts, the Lord wanted me to present today and for the those who have an ear to HEAR what The Spirit is saying...Keep your eyes on the EASTERN skies! Come Lord Jesus Come! -- For His Glory, In His love and service, Annie
Dear DannyPoo,
<To be fair, you must admit Atheists are not able to stand completely innocent in their actions towards human kind as well.>
Yes, I agree. I’ve always said that no one or anything is perfect. People make mistakes. It’s human to make mistakes. It’s normal for people to make mistakes, but we should learn from our mistakes and try not to make the same mistakes again and again.
<we must not follow Hasty Generalizations.>
I completely agree with this statement, and I want to add: we must be CAREFUL when we generalize. We shouldn’t use ‘ALL’ since practically anything has exceptions. We shouldn’t generalize from one case we see or hear. For example, Christianpost.com in its article ‘America most religious country…’ generalizes but it doesn’t use ‘ALL’. After the poll it generalized that women were more religious than men. That doesn’t mean that ‘all’ women are believers.
<In the case of the argument by Chocolate, his argument appears to be:
Some Christians do not follow their claimed theistic moral principals,
Therefore, theistic moral principles are inferior, we don't need them.>
You are right about ‘appears’. People see things differently. I never said “we don’t need moral principles”. Do you see the difference? Many different religions have about the same ‘theistic’ moral principles that are not that much different from a society’s moral principles where those religions exist. A society apart from religion has its moral principles. What I said was: I don’t need a god or a bible to tell me common sense. People live in a society, and they make rules of behavior. They don’t claim that someone else made the rules of behavior for them. My point is that we don’t need to create a character in order to be good people.
<His other basic fallacy is one he is applying to himself
Percentage wise, fewer atheists are criminals in America.
Therefore, Atheists are more moral.>
You said it. I never stated that “Atheists are more moral”. You questioned atheists’ morality. I gave you statistics (numbers), and you concluded this based on statistics.
If you read all of my comments on this site but not necessarily on this particular web page, you should have seen that I said earlier: There are a lot of good people. Some of them are believers, and some of them are not. There are bad people out there too. Some of them are believers, and some of them are not. I have many friends. Some of them are believers, and some of them are not.
I’m always puzzled: as soon as a conversation begins about a god, many believers in a hurry switch to ‘morality’ claiming that ‘those nonbelievers have no morality’. I can say that it’s true not just for the believers of this country. As I stated earlier, I do not see the connection between ‘morality’ and the belief in a god.
It will be interesting to see where the future leads as far as church attendance. Something that the article you posted doesn't take into account however, is house churches. As a church goer myself I have many friends who have decided to leave the traditional church and instead attend a house-church.
Alot of what has happened in main-stream denominations is fluff without stuff. People, like myself are tired of Just hearing funny antecdotes, interesting quotes etc. from their Pastoral sermons (those items are fine, but we need More than that).
Instead, some people want "hardcore" bible study, they want to learn to defend their faith, they want to learn to evangelize, and are going to smaller churches or house churches to find that. This is something that I am excited about as I am finding it far more common in just the last 6 or 7 years (since becoming a Christian)
Instead of worrying about the atheists taking away believers from the cause, you should be more concerned with what's causing the loss of your young adults:
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070808/28813_Survey%3A_Reasons_Why_Young_Adults_Quit_Church.htm
In Europe less than 50% of the population believe in a monotheistic deity. Don't think it won't happen here as well.
I think it is a fair argument that you mention that Christians, or at least a certain populace that claims be Christian. I looked at several of the examples that you mentioned, yet I could not find where their actions were in alignment with Christian moral principles.
Therefore, I come to the conclusion that those people were not aligning with the Christian theistic moral principles, and are not applicable to your argument that Christianity is producing these obviously sinful events.
To be fair, you must admit Atheists are not able to stand completely innocent in their actions towards human kind as well. I can and will cite examples if you request it.
However, I am aware of the fallaciousness of such an argument, we must not follow Hasty Generalizations. Simply because specific members of a Religious group do not follow the Moral tradition of their founder (in this case Jesus) does not invalidate those principles.
I am sure you are aware of the Fallacy of Hasty generalization but for the sake of the reader, this is an example of a Hasty generalization:
Some of the Christians I met are hypocritical.
Therefore, all Christians are hypocrites.
An atheist I met made some very irrational arguments.
Therefore, most atheists are irrational.
In the case of the argument by Chocolate, his argument appears to be:
Some Christians do not follow their claimed theistic moral principals,
Therefore, theistic moral principles are inferior, we don't need them.
His other basic fallacy is one he is applying to himself
Percentage wise, fewer atheists are criminals in America.
Therefore, Atheists are more moral.
I apologize if I am mis-representing your argument in any way. This is simply what I drew from your statements, and it concerns me that this could potentially be your line of reasoning against theistic moral principles.
Dear DannyPoo,
Christianpost.com posted an article titled ‘America the most religious country among its allies’ (http://www.christianpost.com/article/20050606/21140_Poll:_America_Most_Religious_Among_its_Allies.htm):
America is the most religious country among its allies with only two percent of its citizens saying they do not believe in God, according to a recent Associated Press poll.
So, 98% of Americans are religious people, and we should assume with a lot of ‘theistic Moral elements’ in them. Am I right? And 2 % of Americans, we can say, are atheists without ‘theistic Moral elements’. Right?
Now, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/prisons.htm) in 2006 there were over two million (2,245,189 to be exact) prisoners held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails. Do you think all of these prisoners were atheists with no ‘theistic Moral elements’? What percentage of prisoners do you think were atheists with no ‘theistic Moral elements’?
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has statistics on religious affiliations of inmates. The following are total number of inmates per religion category:
Catholic - 29,267(39.164%)
Protestant- 26,162 (35.008%)
Muslim - 5,435 (7.273%)
Jewish - 1,325 (1.773%)
Church of Christ - 1,303 (1.744%)
Buddhist - 882 (1.180%)
Adventist - 621(0.831%)
Mormon - 298 (0.399%)
Scientology - 190 (0.254%)
Atheist - 156 (0.209%)
Hindu - 119 (0.159%)
And so on, go to the site (http://holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm) to see the whole table if you are interested.
Note that atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%). Are you surprised? Or don’t want to believe the numbers? What do you think these believers with a lot of ‘theistic Moral elements’ in them are doing in prison?
See? There are plenty of criminals who are believers. I don’t believe that morality could be measured by whether that person believes in an imaginary character or not. I don’t want my son to be nice to other people because he is in FEAR that otherwise ‘god’ will punish him after he dies. I want my son to be nice to other people because it’s the right thing to do; it’s a good thing to do, because you should treat others the way you want to be treated. It’s common sense. I don’t need a god or a bible to tell me that.
Dear DannyPoo,
What ‘theistic Moral elements’ are you talking about? Have you heard of the scandal of clergy sexually abusing children? Do you know that Church pays millions of dollars in court to defend its ‘holy’ clergy filled with ‘theistic Moral elements’ from head to toe? Take into account that Church worked very hard to keep it a secret, but there have been so many cases of this kind that it was unable to hide it from the world. They kept popping up all over the place.
BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/130456.stm
The Roman Catholic Church in the American city of Dallas has agreed to pay nearly $31million to 12 former altar boys who were sexually abused by a former priest.
The Church, which had earlier agreed a multi-million dollar settlement with three other claimants, had been ordered to pay the victims nearly $120 million by a court last year.
FACTnet: http://www.factnet.org/?p=140
Catholic Church pays 660 million dollars to victims of its religious abuses.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/01/05/news/abuse.php
Church pays $100 million over abuse.
http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/page120-Garchow-Moloney.html
Church pays big money to lawyers to fight criminal charges.
Are you talking about these ‘theistic Moral elements’?
Let’s look at Chuck Colson. He cheated. He lied. He served his term in prison for that. Now he is a prominent religious figure…. preaching ME morality? How not to lie and cheat?
<You like the idea of a god. It makes you feel good about yourself and the world.>
This may or may not be a valid statement about Art, yet I have met atheists as well who "like" the idea of there being No God, it allows them to live a life free of the theistic Moral elements and makes them "feel good".
I'm not sure whether you meant your statement as an argument against the belief system of Art, or it was simply a comment. I will assume the latter, but I simply wanted to clarify that even Atheists sometimes choose atheism because they "feel good" about it without sorting through facts to come to the intellectual rather than emotional conclusion. This emotional conclusion is not limited to theistc worldviews.
Chocolate,
Looks like you've got things well in hand here. Guess I'm redundant. On the upside, I have managed to get four thumbs down (and no thumbs up) for a comment on "The Four Questions Christians Must Answer" (even though they only bring up two of them). So that's pretty sweet.