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Real debates about faith are drowned by the New Atheists' foghorn voices
by Madeleine Bunting - The Guardian
There is certainly much to comment on and disagree with in this article, however I would wager quite a bit that more than 22% of atheists in the US know what Easter is about and would also bet that more than 22% of atheists in the UK know what Easter is about.
Thanks toTerry for the link.
Reposted from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/05/christianity-new-atheism-faith?utm_source=taomail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=523+Communication%2C+Mon+6th+Apr+2009&tmtid=10362-523-6-1-2517
This is Holy Week. It started yesterday with Palm Sunday and continues through Holy Thursday, Good Friday and culminates this Sunday with Easter Day. One can no longer assume most people will be aware of this, let alone the events these days mark; in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating. What other system of belief has collapsed at such spectacular speed as British Christianity? One can only presume that the New Atheists are organising a fabulous party to celebrate. Richard Dawkins could stump up for the crates of champagne out of his sumptuous royalties from The God Delusion.
But I'm curious as to how many of the country's finest minds would join the celebrations. Increasingly, one hears a distaste for the polemics of the New Atheist debate and its foghorn volume, and how it has drowned out any other kind of conversation about religion: what it is, the loss of it, whether it matters, and what happens in a post-religious society? From sometimes surprising quarters there is an anxiety about the evangelical fervour and certainty of the New Atheists: they are so sure they are right, but there are plenty of people - and many of them would not count themselves as believers - who can't share their contempt for religion.
Just this week, AN Wilson announces in a thoughtful cover article for the New Statesman that he has apostated, abandoning his fellow atheists. Or take another example: in the Third Way, a Christian magazine, the poet Andrew Motion reflects wistfully, "I don't believe in God - though I wish I did, and I can't stop thinking about it so who knows what might happen one day?" Wilson and Motion talk of uncertainty, doubt and faith in terms that are probably far more familiar to the vast majority of the British - many of whom still describe themselves as believing in God, whatever they mean by that - than the certitudes used by Dawkins. New
Atheism may come to be regarded as winning a battle but losing the war.
What many argue is that the New Atheist debate has ended up down an intellectual dead end; there are only so many times you can argue that religion is a load of baloney. Ask a philosopher like John Gray or a historian of religion like Karen Armstrong and they are simply not interested in the debate; they bin the invitations to speak on platforms alongside New Atheists. Gray dismisses them as offering "intoxicating simplicity"; Armstrong is appalled by their "display of egotism and arrogance". Both are deeply frustrated by a debate inflated by the media that generates heat but no light. They see the New Atheists mirroring a particular strain of fundamentalist Christianity with no knowledge of the vast variety of other forms of religious faith. In common with their Christian opponents, they share "the inner glow of complete certainty" - as Wilson describes his atheist conversion.
Armstrong and Gray converge again on where they pinpoint the key mistake. Belief came to be understood in western Christianity as a proposition at which you arrive intellectually, but Armstrong argues that this has been a profound misunderstanding that, in recent decades, has also infected other faiths. What "belief" used to mean, and still does in some traditions, is the idea of "love", "commitment", "loyalty": saying you believe in Jesus or God or Allah is a statement of commitment. Faith is not supposed to be about signing up to a set of propositions but practising a set of principles. Faith is something you do, and you learn by practice not by studying a manual, argues Armstrong.
"We need to get away from the endless discussion about wretched beliefs; religion is about doing - and what every faith makes clear is that the doing is about compassion," she argues. To try and shift the debate about faith into more fruitful territory, Armstrong came up with the idea of a global Charter on Compassion for all faiths (and none), which she is drafting and planning to launch later in the year.
From a different perspective, Alain de Botton, the philosopher and writer, has also been trying to broaden the conversation. He has founded a School of Life in London, which runs courses and events reflecting on how to live. He describes himself as "definitely an atheist", but readily admits he borrows plenty from religions. His team have instituted the idea of Sunday sermons, and organise contemporary "pilgrimages". "Even if you're an atheist, there are a huge number of insights in religion," he says. "We're in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater."
De Botton argues that the decline of religious faith has left behind a real and widespread need for wisdom and insight; the media offers only a "cruel sentimentality" and gives little space to the most difficult of our life experiences, such as failure, death or envy, nor does it offer ways to deal with them. The author Mark Vernon teaches on some School of Life courses. A former priest and atheist, he now advocates a principled agnosticism rooted in an understanding of the limits of human knowledge. He argues that the most interesting conversations about faith are among those just outside religious traditions and those just inside - along the borders of belief, if you like.
It's a perspective that Gray shares. Describing himself as a sceptic, he looks to another border of belief for deeper insight into the nature of faith: the dialogue between the theistic and non-theistic. Intriguingly, where Gray, Armstrong and Vernon all end up is with the apophatic tradition of theology. Apophatic is a word no longer even in my dictionary, but it's a major tradition of Christian thought, and central to the thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas: it is the idea that God is ineffable and beyond powers of description. S/he can be experienced by religious practice, but as Armstrong puts it: "In the past, people knew we could say nothing about God. Certain forms of knowledge only come with practice." It makes the boundary between belief in God and agnosticism much more porous than commonly assumed.
But the modern distortion was to make God into a proposition in which you either did or did not believe. He was turned into an old man in the sky with a long white beard or promoted as a cuddly friend named Jesus. Arguing about the existence of such human creations is akin to the medieval pastime of calculating how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.
So the media has been promoting the wrong argument, while the bigger question of how, in a post-religious society, people find the myths they need to sustain meaning, purpose and goodness in their lives go unexplored. What worries Gray is that we forget at our peril that all systems of thought rely on myth. By junking the Christian myths, the danger is that the replacements are "cruder, less tested, less instructive". At times of crisis - such as the economic recession - the brittleness of a value system built on wealth and a particular conception of autonomy becomes all too apparent, leaving people without the sustaining reserves of a faith to fall back on. The consequences of that will certainly not be cause for celebration, he warns.
Thanks toTerry for the link.
Reposted from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/05/christianity-new-atheism-faith?utm_source=taomail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=523+Communication%2C+Mon+6th+Apr+2009&tmtid=10362-523-6-1-2517
This is Holy Week. It started yesterday with Palm Sunday and continues through Holy Thursday, Good Friday and culminates this Sunday with Easter Day. One can no longer assume most people will be aware of this, let alone the events these days mark; in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating. What other system of belief has collapsed at such spectacular speed as British Christianity? One can only presume that the New Atheists are organising a fabulous party to celebrate. Richard Dawkins could stump up for the crates of champagne out of his sumptuous royalties from The God Delusion.
But I'm curious as to how many of the country's finest minds would join the celebrations. Increasingly, one hears a distaste for the polemics of the New Atheist debate and its foghorn volume, and how it has drowned out any other kind of conversation about religion: what it is, the loss of it, whether it matters, and what happens in a post-religious society? From sometimes surprising quarters there is an anxiety about the evangelical fervour and certainty of the New Atheists: they are so sure they are right, but there are plenty of people - and many of them would not count themselves as believers - who can't share their contempt for religion.
Just this week, AN Wilson announces in a thoughtful cover article for the New Statesman that he has apostated, abandoning his fellow atheists. Or take another example: in the Third Way, a Christian magazine, the poet Andrew Motion reflects wistfully, "I don't believe in God - though I wish I did, and I can't stop thinking about it so who knows what might happen one day?" Wilson and Motion talk of uncertainty, doubt and faith in terms that are probably far more familiar to the vast majority of the British - many of whom still describe themselves as believing in God, whatever they mean by that - than the certitudes used by Dawkins. New
Atheism may come to be regarded as winning a battle but losing the war.
What many argue is that the New Atheist debate has ended up down an intellectual dead end; there are only so many times you can argue that religion is a load of baloney. Ask a philosopher like John Gray or a historian of religion like Karen Armstrong and they are simply not interested in the debate; they bin the invitations to speak on platforms alongside New Atheists. Gray dismisses them as offering "intoxicating simplicity"; Armstrong is appalled by their "display of egotism and arrogance". Both are deeply frustrated by a debate inflated by the media that generates heat but no light. They see the New Atheists mirroring a particular strain of fundamentalist Christianity with no knowledge of the vast variety of other forms of religious faith. In common with their Christian opponents, they share "the inner glow of complete certainty" - as Wilson describes his atheist conversion.
Armstrong and Gray converge again on where they pinpoint the key mistake. Belief came to be understood in western Christianity as a proposition at which you arrive intellectually, but Armstrong argues that this has been a profound misunderstanding that, in recent decades, has also infected other faiths. What "belief" used to mean, and still does in some traditions, is the idea of "love", "commitment", "loyalty": saying you believe in Jesus or God or Allah is a statement of commitment. Faith is not supposed to be about signing up to a set of propositions but practising a set of principles. Faith is something you do, and you learn by practice not by studying a manual, argues Armstrong.
"We need to get away from the endless discussion about wretched beliefs; religion is about doing - and what every faith makes clear is that the doing is about compassion," she argues. To try and shift the debate about faith into more fruitful territory, Armstrong came up with the idea of a global Charter on Compassion for all faiths (and none), which she is drafting and planning to launch later in the year.
From a different perspective, Alain de Botton, the philosopher and writer, has also been trying to broaden the conversation. He has founded a School of Life in London, which runs courses and events reflecting on how to live. He describes himself as "definitely an atheist", but readily admits he borrows plenty from religions. His team have instituted the idea of Sunday sermons, and organise contemporary "pilgrimages". "Even if you're an atheist, there are a huge number of insights in religion," he says. "We're in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater."
De Botton argues that the decline of religious faith has left behind a real and widespread need for wisdom and insight; the media offers only a "cruel sentimentality" and gives little space to the most difficult of our life experiences, such as failure, death or envy, nor does it offer ways to deal with them. The author Mark Vernon teaches on some School of Life courses. A former priest and atheist, he now advocates a principled agnosticism rooted in an understanding of the limits of human knowledge. He argues that the most interesting conversations about faith are among those just outside religious traditions and those just inside - along the borders of belief, if you like.
It's a perspective that Gray shares. Describing himself as a sceptic, he looks to another border of belief for deeper insight into the nature of faith: the dialogue between the theistic and non-theistic. Intriguingly, where Gray, Armstrong and Vernon all end up is with the apophatic tradition of theology. Apophatic is a word no longer even in my dictionary, but it's a major tradition of Christian thought, and central to the thinking of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas: it is the idea that God is ineffable and beyond powers of description. S/he can be experienced by religious practice, but as Armstrong puts it: "In the past, people knew we could say nothing about God. Certain forms of knowledge only come with practice." It makes the boundary between belief in God and agnosticism much more porous than commonly assumed.
But the modern distortion was to make God into a proposition in which you either did or did not believe. He was turned into an old man in the sky with a long white beard or promoted as a cuddly friend named Jesus. Arguing about the existence of such human creations is akin to the medieval pastime of calculating how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.
So the media has been promoting the wrong argument, while the bigger question of how, in a post-religious society, people find the myths they need to sustain meaning, purpose and goodness in their lives go unexplored. What worries Gray is that we forget at our peril that all systems of thought rely on myth. By junking the Christian myths, the danger is that the replacements are "cruder, less tested, less instructive". At times of crisis - such as the economic recession - the brittleness of a value system built on wealth and a particular conception of autonomy becomes all too apparent, leaving people without the sustaining reserves of a faith to fall back on. The consequences of that will certainly not be cause for celebration, he warns.
Comments 1 - 50 of 382 | | View Alternate Comment Thread
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers2. Comment #360863 by AllanW on April 6, 2009 at 8:41 am
Yep, typical crap from Mad Bint but at least she's getting her arse kicked in the CiF comments attached to this article. Other Comments by AllanW
3. Comment #360864 by JAMCAM87 on April 6, 2009 at 8:42 am
She was a good journalist when she wrote about feminism but at the moment she seems obsessed about New Atheism (see all of her recent work). She has a chip on her shoulder about Dawkins making her look like an intellectual lightweight on the radio. She's trying to be contrarian to an emerging movement and publicises herself as a martyr for moderate religion. The article comes across as whining and snide. I'm sure Dawkins gives the most of the royalties from his book straight to charity (or his foundation) so she's really a dishonest, manipulative, winge. She implies that society will fall into anarchy if christianity is removed too quickly. One look at Denmark, Sweden and Finland says otherwise.
I won't waste my time reading her anymore until she has something new to say.
Other Comments by JAMCAM87
4. Comment #360865 by nervouswreck on April 6, 2009 at 8:42 am
By junking the Christian myths, the danger is that the replacements are "cruder, less tested, less instructive".
Why stop at Christian myths? Junk them all and replace them with atheism that is "less crude, more tested, more instructive."
Other Comments by nervouswreck
5. Comment #360866 by CaptainMandate on April 6, 2009 at 8:44 am
ffs Other Comments by CaptainMandate
6. Comment #360867 by JAMCAM87 on April 6, 2009 at 8:47 am
Allan,
I think I remember you commenting on her article last time, am I right£ Am I right to say that this is virtually indistinguishable from the last article she wrote£ She must be running out of ideas if she has to shallow her old shite and regurgitate it.
Other Comments by JAMCAM87
7. Comment #360869 by hungarianelephant on April 6, 2009 at 8:50 am
in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating
Something about chocolate rabbits, right?
Other Comments by hungarianelephant
8. Comment #360870 by AllanW on April 6, 2009 at 8:53 am
See for yourself. http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/madeleinebunting
It's a useful facility to see a developing trend of articles by one author (I use the same facility on the Times website to monitor Matthew Parris' articles). Just go to 'comment' on the Guardian website then 'contributors' and search the alphabetical listings.
Other Comments by AllanW
9. Comment #360871 by Quetzalcoatl on April 6, 2009 at 8:54 am
There's nothing like reading a Madeleine Bunting article to make you yawn cavernously.
There's really nothing new. I do like the way the economic crisis is used as a reason that we need faith all of a sudden. After all, the faith that was around prior to the economic crisis hasn't exactly done a great deal of good, so it's a mystery as to why Bunting feels that things will be any different now.
Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl
10. Comment #360872 by Ardiem on April 6, 2009 at 8:56 am
What the hell is new athiesm anyway and how is it distinguishable from old athiesm? Presumably it's just a term coined to make it look like a new breed of fundamentalism that needs stamped out.And as for this being 'holy week' is this because the whole resurrection story has so many holes in it, it looks like a pair of Mad Bint's fishnet stockings?
Other Comments by Ardiem
11. Comment #360873 by mitch_486 on April 6, 2009 at 8:57 am
Richard Dawkins could stump up for the crates of champagne out of his sumptuous royalties from The God Delusion.
One cheap-shot too many for the likes of me. A serious waste of time, this article.
Other Comments by mitch_486
12. Comment #360876 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 8:59 am
This article is one of many breaths of fresh air we can anticipate, as the genuinely thoughtful people increasingly dismiss the New Atheist agenda.Other Comments by Old Sarum
13. Comment #360877 by HenryFord on April 6, 2009 at 9:00 am
So ... much ... stupid.It's genuinely hard to know where to start.
"in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating."
Pagan springtime fertility festivals that were hijacked by a virus like religion?
Or is it the one where we paint each others faces, throw the kids on a bouncy castle and spend the weekend in a beer garden?
Yeah, the true spirit of easter.
Other Comments by HenryFord
14. Comment #360879 by blitz442 on April 6, 2009 at 9:00 am
"What "belief" used to mean, and still does in some traditions, is the idea of "love", "commitment", "loyalty": saying you believe in Jesus or God or Allah is a statement of commitment. Faith is not supposed to be about signing up to a set of propositions but practising a set of principles. Faith is something you do, and you learn by practice not by studying a manual, argues Armstrong."So back to this again. The religious propositions turn out to be indefensible nonsense, so the religious say that it was never about the propositions in the first place. Did she learn nothing from her browbeating from Dawkins£
Madeline, if it is only about compassion and love, why the need for the imaginary friends£
Atheism will dutifully go away as soon as people stop making claims about God that they cannot back up.
Other Comments by blitz442
15. Comment #360880 by glenister_m on April 6, 2009 at 9:01 am
Re: Comment #360869 by hungarianelephantReminds me of Richard Jeni's routine when he does the abbreviated church service: "So this guy Jesus gets whacked, that's Christmas, buy a tree. Three days later, he rises from the dead, that's Easter, get a hat."
I'm curious how many believers know why they have a tree and yule log at christmas, and a rabbit bringing chocolate eggs at easter...
Other Comments by glenister_m
16. Comment #360881 by Ardiem on April 6, 2009 at 9:01 am
in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating
Something about chocolate rabbits, right?
And here I was thinking it was celebrating the multitude of ways you can eat a Cadbury's Cream Egg.
How do you eat yours?
Other Comments by Ardiem
17. Comment #360882 by agn on April 6, 2009 at 9:03 am
Using Karen Armstrong as a voice of reason or morality is simply perverse.That lady fully endorses that Mohammad ordered the assassination of two poets who wrote disparaging poems about his so-called "religion".
She says he was involved in a "grave intellectual struggle" that concerned the "survival of Islam", and hence, inexplicably, Ms. Armstrong concludes he was entitled to kill those two.
Other Comments by agn
18. Comment #360884 by Quetzalcoatl on April 6, 2009 at 9:04 am
Old Sarum-
Madeleine Bunting is a christian, not an atheist. So of course she's going to dismiss the "New Atheist agenda" whatever you imagine that mythical beast to be.
Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl
19. Comment #360885 by g-21-lto on April 6, 2009 at 9:05 am
"But the modern distortion was to make God into a proposition in which you either did or did not believe."I'm sorry, is this supposed to mean something? Unless I'm misreading, she's just defined "true" religion as a vague form of agnosticism in which practitioners think warm fuzzy thoughts about a postulated being that may or may not actually exist (and about which we couldn't actually say anything meaningful anyway, if it did), but its existence or not is missing the point, you silly atheists.
Methinks it's not just the atheists who will have a problem with this definition.
Other Comments by g-21-lto
20. Comment #360886 by siflrock on April 6, 2009 at 9:06 am
Wow. A 1300 word admission that religion is bunk, but necessary for people to be able to sleep better. Talk about an own goal. She could have saved herself a lot of time by simply writing, "I know gods don't exist, but that makes my tummy hurt. Therefore, I believe."Other Comments by siflrock
21. Comment #360887 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 9:07 am
Madeline, if it is only about compassion and love, why the need for the imaginary friends£I think she made it clear that she's not concerned with imaginary friends (or at least imaginary friends who are not acknowledged to be imaginary). She's focused on the creation of cosmologies that are both humanly meaningful and consciously mythical, and recognising the many important roles such imaginitive transformations have played in human affairs, not as static tenets of dead belief systems, but dynamic ways of interacting with the world and with other people.
Other Comments by Old Sarum
22. Comment #360888 by mitch_486 on April 6, 2009 at 9:09 am
12. Comment #360876 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 8:59 am
"New Atheist agenda".
I don't know what this is, nor do I care. It was formulated by the religious for the religious, and stamped onto atheists. What a crock of shit.
Other Comments by mitch_486
23. Comment #360889 by 3ddm on April 6, 2009 at 9:09 am
"One can only presume that the New Atheists are organising a fabulous party to celebrate."
I might open a bottle of sparkly stuff later, but I'll hang fire on the party for when we finally get religion out of schools, politics and public life thanks.
We'll be nailing a bunny to a cross this weekend just like everbody else.
Other Comments by 3ddm
24. Comment #360891 by Quetzalcoatl on April 6, 2009 at 9:10 am
Old Sarum-
She's focused on the creation of cosmologies that are both humanly meaningful and consciously mythical
I'm sorry, but this is just a florid way of saying "making stuff up".
Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl
25. Comment #360892 by Vaal on April 6, 2009 at 9:11 am
Oh Madeleine What a load of trite, banal gumph. while the bigger question of how, in a post-religious society, people find the myths they need to sustain meaning, purpose and goodness in their lives go unexplored
Why would you need to rely on a myth to sustain meaning, purpose, and (what?) goodness, in your life? To be free of supersticion and myth is liberating and fulfilling. Sucking at religions empty nipple is no answer to anything, other than abject intellectual capitulation.
in times of crisis - such as the economic recession - the brittleness of a value system built on wealth and a particular conception of autonomy becomes all too apparent, leaving people without the sustaining reserves of a faith to fall back on
More mewling. Madeleine, religion thrives on peoples misfortunes. I expect that their lips are slavering with the prospect of proselytizing the unfortunate. I went to a friends christening, against my better judgement, shortly after the Tsunami, and was disgusted by the pastors unconcealed relish at the opportunity for their missionaries to convert the local population. Praying isn't going to help people; help, support and confidence will.
I wonder if Madeleine is aware that Easter has its origins in Paganism...
The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe
Didn't include that in your article, did you Madeleine?
Other Comments by Vaal
26. Comment #360893 by Caudimordax on April 6, 2009 at 9:11 am
David Sedaris takes a French class in which the students discuss Easter:The Italian nanny was attempting to answer the question when the Moroccan student interrupted, shouting, "Excuse me, but what's an Easter?"
Despite her having grown up in a Muslim country, it seemed she might have heard it mentioned once or twice, but no. "I mean it," she said. "I have no idea what you people are talking about."
The teacher then called upon the rest of us to explain.
The Poles led the charge to the best of their ability. "It is," said one, "a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and . . . oh, shit."
She faltered, and her fellow countryman came to her aid.
"He call his self Jesus, and then he be die one day on two . . . morsels of . . . lumber."
The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
"He die one day, and then he go above of my head to live with your father."
"He weared the long hair, and after he died, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples."
"He nice, the Jesus."
"He make the good things, and on the Easter we be sad because somebody makes him dead today."
From Jesus Shaves
Other Comments by Caudimordax
27. Comment #360894 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 9:12 am
I don't know what this is, nor do I careHave a read of people like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc.
The New Atheist agenda is essentially concerned with the re-establishment of a Western monoculture, completely dominated by science and intolerant of imaginitive thinking.
Other Comments by Old Sarum
28. Comment #360895 by Colwyn Abernathy on April 6, 2009 at 9:12 am
One can no longer assume most people will be aware of this, let alone the events these days mark;
What? The Vernal Equinox, as well as the first Sunday after the first full moon after said celestial event? I mean, you DO know that's how we determine Easter Sunday, yes? Which is, oh how do I say this, uh...PAGAN! Every Christian holiday has Pagan roots. How many of y'all know that, then?
Other Comments by Colwyn Abernathy
29. Comment #360896 by rickmbari on April 6, 2009 at 9:14 am
'...how, in a post-religious society, people find the myths they need to sustain meaning, purpose and goodness in their lives...'I go for Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Seriously, Madeleine, maybe you need myths but I don't. I find the Prisoner's Dilemma sufficient to convince me of the benefits of altruism. What goes around comes around.
Other Comments by rickmbari
30. Comment #360897 by NMcC on April 6, 2009 at 9:15 am
Old Sarum says:I think she made it clear that she's not concerned with imaginary friends (or at least imaginary friends who are not acknowledged to be imaginary). She's focused on the creation of cosmologies that are both humanly meaningful and consciously mythical, and recognising the many important roles such imaginitive transformations have played in human affairs, not as static tenets of dead belief systems, but dynamic ways of interacting with the world and with other people.
Christ! You could have fooled me. I was under the impression that it was a pile of crap, largely consisting of, at best, unsubstantiated claims and, at worst, out and out lies.
Oh, and the names of a few non-entities thrown in to try and make it look as if she isn't the only whining fraud.
Other Comments by NMcC
31. Comment #360898 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 9:16 am
I'm sorry, but this is just a florid way of saying "making stuff up".Yes, not an activity that's tolerated in the New Atheist world. The imagination must be reserved for entirely inconsequential activities, such as sit-com cartoons and TV ads.
Other Comments by Old Sarum
32. Comment #360899 by JAMCAM87 on April 6, 2009 at 9:17 am
Old Sarum,
It not a breath of fresh air. It's one of Madeleines old stale farts.
Other Comments by JAMCAM87
33. Comment #360900 by Quetzalcoatl on April 6, 2009 at 9:18 am
Old Sarum-
"Consciously mythical" assumes that humans are incapable of functioning without some kind of sustaining mythological framework. Why should we be?
And you're getting a bit silly now, although I must congratulate you on managing to avoid mentioning PZ Myers thus far.
Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl
34. Comment #360901 by Colwyn Abernathy on April 6, 2009 at 9:19 am
The imagination must be reserved for entirely inconsequential activities, such as sit-com cartoons and TV ads.
And art, and scientific study, and theatre, and music, and games, and...etcetera ad nauseum.
Other Comments by Colwyn Abernathy
35. Comment #360902 by weesam on April 6, 2009 at 9:20 am
Guardian = failOther Comments by weesam
36. Comment #360903 by Ardiem on April 6, 2009 at 9:20 am
Old SarumThe New Atheist agenda is essentially concerned with the re-establishment of a Western monoculture, completely dominated by science and intolerant of imaginitive thinking.
What a crock of shit. I take exception to 'intolerance of imaginative thinking'. How can you possibly justify that statement in the light of the technological advances made in the last few years in nearly every prominent scientific field? Take stem cell research for example, do you think someone read the premise in a book in order to come up with it? No. that took a bit of knowledge AND imagination.
Other Comments by Ardiem
37. Comment #360904 by JAMCAM87 on April 6, 2009 at 9:20 am
Comment #360884 by Quetzalcoatl
More specifically - a Catholic - who takes a semi-literalist reading of the Bible. She believes in the virgin birth and resurrection for example.
Other Comments by JAMCAM87
38. Comment #360905 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 9:21 am
It's getting late here on the isle of Tasmania, so I'll leave the converted to preach unto themselves, and depart with a further welcome to all the fresh airs that will soon be invigorating an atheist worldview that's been growing ever more stale and pointless.:)
Other Comments by Old Sarum
39. Comment #360906 by Vaal on April 6, 2009 at 9:21 am
Old SarumThe New Atheist agenda is essentially concerned with the re-establishment of a Western monoculture, completely dominated by science and intolerant of imaginitive thinking
Ah, woo woo. Why didn't you just say so?
EDIT: Fresh air? The only air produced from your direction is loud and empty flatulence.
Other Comments by Vaal
40. Comment #360907 by Caudimordax on April 6, 2009 at 9:22 am
The New Atheist agenda is essentially concerned with the re-establishment of a Western monoculture, completely dominated by science and intolerant of imaginitive thinking.Is there anything more lacking in imagination than living as though every word of an old book is literally true? Please.
Other Comments by Caudimordax
41. Comment #360908 by Inside centre on April 6, 2009 at 9:22 am
Comment #360898 by Old SarumIf you had ever tried to work on a problem using the scientific method, you would realise that imagination plays a key role. What is the issue? How do can it be accounted for? How can I test this hypothesis? etc. etc.
BTW are you suggesting that as a world without religion is devoid of imagination, that religion is by it's very nature imagination?
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42. Comment #360909 by phasmagigas on April 6, 2009 at 9:22 am
perhaps madeline should simply adjust a bit and join the new religion of evangelistic atheism and be done with it. Other Comments by phasmagigas
43. Comment #360910 by Colwyn Abernathy on April 6, 2009 at 9:22 am
Take stem cell research for example, do you think someone read the premise in a book in order to come up with it?
Not to mention other advances we find mundane now, like wireless communication & connectivity. Without Tesla imagining of a way to transmit energy (his ultimate goal) we wouldn't have had radio, and from radio the evolution of wireless. Nikola Tesla, I salute you, Sir.
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44. Comment #360911 by beanson on April 6, 2009 at 9:23 am
"We need to get away from the endless discussion about wretched beliefs; religion is about doing - and what every faith makes clear is that the doing is about compassion,"
Ah- that's what religion is- nothing to do with Jeebus or pedo Mo at all
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45. Comment #360912 by rokeisland on April 6, 2009 at 9:24 am
I grew up religious like most in the US. I went to church every Sunday until I turned 15 and got a job. I read the bible, from cover to cover, which is something a lot of christians can not claim to have honestly done. And I spent a lot of time in the youth groups of my church. You know what I found' Very few christians know of the true history of not just easter, but nearly all Christian holy days.St. Valentine's day was the early Catholic way of taking a Roman festival of sex and downplaying it. Easter was the holiday of renewal of nature. Speaking of Easter, I have met maybe a dozen people that can tell me the connection between the rabbit and the eggs, and only one was Christian. Christmas was actually a compromise date that was chosen specifically to fall on the old days of winter festivals.
I don't hold religion and its followers in contempt. I fear them. Religion is the ultimate cop-out. Religion lets you justify suicide bombing. Religion justifies bloody combat and wars of expansion. People commit horrific child abuse in the name of following religious beliefs, and then have the gall to accuse athiests of bad behavior.
Most athiests promote reason. We demand explanations for behaviors, not simple justifications. We demand reasoned discourse about why, what, where, and how things are the way they are. And how are we answered' with scorn, derision, and often with shouts to drown out our words. Calling god 'unknowable' is ducking the question about faith. 2000 years ago the weather was 'unknowable' and yet now we predict it, and have even taken our first steps towards controlling it.
As for an 'athiest agenda', the only agenda an atheist has is to live his life with reason. Some are inspired to bring that life to others, while some are content to live it out quietly. It is not athiests that seek to control lives, we want each and every member of the human race to have the freedom of thought and choice that we have. It is the religious members of the world that seek control and authority.
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46. Comment #360914 by JAMCAM87 on April 6, 2009 at 9:25 am
Comment #360905 by Old Sarum
How often do you say anything new£ Why don't you do something constructive and show us why Madeleines article is so great rather than just spewing more ad homs£ As someone who I used to enjoy reading, I think you've become a real bore recently.
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47. Comment #360915 by Quetzalcoatl on April 6, 2009 at 9:26 am
Old Sarum-
It's getting late here on the isle of Tasmania, so I'll leave the converted to preach unto themselves, and depart with a further welcome to all the fresh airs that will soon be invigorating an atheist worldview that's been growing ever more stale and pointless.
Sigh. "You're all converts to the religion of New Atheism". How original. What was that you were saying about lack of imagination?
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48. Comment #360922 by Raiko on April 6, 2009 at 9:31 am
in a recent UK poll, only 22% could identify what Easter was celebrating
Oh, come on - Pagan fertility festivals are pretty hard to remember!!
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49. Comment #360924 by mitch_486 on April 6, 2009 at 9:32 am
27. Comment #360894 by Old Sarum on April 6, 2009 at 9:12 am
Have a read of people like Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens etc.
Sure, I'll look them up...
The New Atheist agenda is essentially concerned with the re-establishment of a Western monoculture, completely dominated by science and intolerant of imaginitive thinking.
The "New Atheist Agenda" as you say, is made up by people similar to you, for you, against people like me. Some sort of defense mechanism.
Intolerant of imaginative thinking? Please revise, that is sheer stupidity. I'm not going to ramble on about it, unless, of course, you really do stand by it.
edit: grammar
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50. Comment #360925 by firstelder_d on April 6, 2009 at 9:33 am
But the modern distortion was to make God into a proposition in which you either did or did not believe. He was turned into an old man in the sky with a long white beard or promoted as a cuddly friend named Jesus
How do you half believe in a god? And how is the old man modern? What the hell is the Sistine Chapel ceiling then. Or maybe 1500 is modern when you're trying to live in the 1st century.
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1. Comment #360860 by JAMCAM87 on April 6, 2009 at 8:32 am
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