Poll reveals majority of UK Christians support secular outlook

"Results of a poll carried out by Ipsos MORI for the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) show that UK Christians are overwhelmingly secular in their attitudes on a wide range of issues.

[...]

The poll revealed that, on balance, significantly more Christians:

    agree that the law should apply equally to everyone, regardless of their religion or belief (92% v 2%)
    oppose religion having special influence on public policy (74% v 12%)
    oppose the UK having an official state religion (46% v 32%)
    oppose seats being reserved for Church of England bishops in the House of Lords (32% v 25%)
    support the costs of hospital chaplains being met by the chaplain's religious organisation rather than from NHS budgets (39% v 32%)
    want state-funded schools to teach knowledge about the world's main faiths even-handedly, rather than inculcate beliefs (57% v 15% solely Christian inculcation or 8% inculcate other school faith)
    approve of sexual relations between two adults of the same sex than do not (46% v 29%)
    approve of an adult woman's right to have an abortion within the legal time limit (62% v 20%)
    support the legalisation of assisted suicide in the case of terminally ill adult patients with safeguards (59% v 21%)"

National Secular Society, 14 Feb 2012

See lengthy press releases with lots more numbers here:
RDFRS UK/Ipsos MORI Poll #1: How religious are UK Christians?
RDFRS UK/Ipsos MORI Poll #2: UK Christians oppose special influence for religion in public policy

Here are the full results of the poll (PDF)

See also:

"The kind of conservative religious aggression that claims 'anti-Christian discrimination' every time Christians are asked to treat others fairly and equally in the public square is a threatened response to the loss of top-down religion's social power. So is overbearing 'Christian nation' rhetoric, and the 'culture wars' that some hardline believers and non-believers may seek to launch and win against each other.

[...]

"Likewise, Richard Dawkins may not be a subtle, unbiased or persuasive analyst of religion overall, but it would be entirely unhelpful for believers to dismiss this survey because they disagree with its commissioner in other respects. Its content evidently needs further and deeper analysis, alongside other data, than the initial response to it has allowed."


Ekklesia (Christian think-tank)

Daily Telegraph: Christians don't want religion to 'influence public life'

Charitable Atheist

Pakistan is going through some rough times, and if there is a time to donate money to Pakistan, then it's now.

"Every cent and penny of money donated via Non-Believers Giving Aid will be forwarded to Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders"

Øystein Elgarøy - the Christian defender who became an Atheist

I came across an interesting deconversion story in the Norwegian Fri Tanke magazine( for Norwegian humanists). I briefly translated a short quote from it and posted it at the Richard Dawkins-forum, and then I was asked to do a full translation for the frontpage, and happy to be at service I did so. So now I'll post it here as well.
It seemed to have struck a chord with people. I mean, we all like deconversion stories, but Øystein Elgarøy, professor of astrophysics, isn't the average ex-christian, so the reasoning here is definitely more intellectual than emotional.
The interview was done, and well done at that, by Even Gran.

A short while ago professor of astrophysics Øystein Elgarøy was a profiled liberal Christian who defended his faith in articles and at debates. But then he discovered that he actually agreed more with his opponents.

The first time the undersigned got acquainted with Øystein Elgarøy was at a debate about faith and science at a pub in Oslo, autumn 2005.
Elgarøy sat there with all his ballast as a professor of astrophysics and assured the audience that there are no conflicts between his field of research and God's existence. On the contrary, what we know of the cosmos points to there in fact being a god, he thought. The arguments from the Atheists in the panel, among others professor of biology, Dag Hessen, bounced off.

A little later, in 2006, the book "Tro og vitenskap – sammenheng eller sammenstøt"("Faith and science – connection or conflict") was released by the Christian publisher Lunde Forlag. Elgarøy contributed here too, and there was no doubt that his answer to the title was "connection".

– There is a beautiful symmetry and simple laws that govern nature. [...] Where I see God's hand clearest is in the beauty of these laws of nature, said Elgarøy in the interview he gave together with the nun and astrophysicist Katrina Pajchel in the beginning of the book.

But all this happened before he one Sunday in January this year heard a debate between the Atheist Christopher Hitchens and the theologian Alister McGrath.

Most in agreement with the opponent

– Suddenly I realized that it was much easier to agree with Hitchens than with McGrath. To put it short, I agreed more with the person I should disagree with. I then realised that I had to take the consequence of this. I could no longer live on an illusion. You might say that this Sunday became a turning point of sorts, Elgarøy says to Fritanke.no

He says that this of course had matured within him for quite a while. The disappointment over the book "The Dawkins Delusion" by the same McGrath was one of the factors. In this book McGrath tries to rebut the Atheist Richard Dawkins' attack on faith in the book "The God Delusion".

– I read McGrath's book hoping to find some good answers to the challenges from Dawkins, but the book was a genuine disappointment. While reading it struck me that "is this really the best answer a theologian can come up with?" I don't think he came up with any good arguments. It was a surprisingly weak answer in many ways, says Elgarøy.

Irrational to believe without reason

He adds that even if both Dawkins and Hitchens are imprecise and may not come up with the most sophisticated arguments against religious faith, it's hard for Christians to come up with good answers to the main accusation that there's no empirical evidence for Christianity, or any other religion, being true.

– And that's not enough for me. As a scientist and astrophysicist I am used to rejecting hypotheses that don't cut it. That's what after a while made it hard for me to hold on to the hypothesis about God. I could not support it rationally, and realised in the end that I could not live with that there should be an exception for just this question. That's probably what I realised that Sunday in January, he says.

– So you're not an adherent to the widespread idea that religion and science are "two non-overlapping spheres"?

– I used to think so. But I can't really see any reason to believe that there's anything more than one reality. Religious allegations then becomes allegations about this one reality, and then they will also have to accept critical examination, as well as being rejected if they don't measure up.

– You say that you could not support the faith in God rationally. Are you saying that it is irrational to believe in God?

– Yes, I think so. It is irrational to hold on to something that simply is not the best explanation, and which has no empirical support. When one is examining the Christian notion of God, it just ends up as a fanciful idea, he says.

Elgarøy points out that there are so many other strange things too, that you're forced to accept if you want to be a Christian. A lot of stuff goes with it that makes it even harder to believe.

– Healing and miracles for example. As a scientist I can't believe that things like this happens now, and then it becomes difficult to believe that it might have happened 2000 years ago as well. Another problem is why one isn't instead a Muslim or Hindu. How can Christians say that they are right and the others are wrong, when they don't have any empirical evidence to build upon? When I was a Christian I could not come up with any good answers to this, he says.

The existence of evil was also something that bothered Elgarøy.

– There's so much going on in the world that is inconsistent with the existence of a benevolent and almighty god, and I think the Christian attempts to answer this are far-fetched and hapless, he says.

A relief to be spared from defending the faith

After a while Elgarøy realised that things fall better into place if the starting point is that there's no god, and that everything is created by humans.

– Reality and theory cohere better this way. If humans have created God and religions, and not the other way round, then it explains most of the paradoxes that Christians are struggling with today. As an example, it's not a problem that evil exists if everything around us is a result from natural processes that don't separate between good and evil. All the variations within and between religions, are no mystery either if your starting point is that only humans have created religions. But for a person with a Christian view of life, all of this is a great problem, he says.

– How did you react personally to the loss of faith?

– It was no sad experience. Absolutely not. It felt liberating. Suddenly I was free to use my energy on better things than defending self-contradictory religious dogmas and justify that I still called myself "Christian". It was a relief to let go of this, he says.

He adds that he never really had any strong religious experiences as many other believers report they've had. Therefore, this has not been a loss for him either.

Article in "Kirke og kultur" started the process

Øystein Elgarøy grew up in a family that was active in "Den evangelisk-lutherske frikirke", and during his teens he was a rather conservative Christian.

– In the beginning I found all the answers I needed in the Bible, but as I grew older, and started to study, I realised that conservative Christianity did not measure up. I became more and more liberal, and in the end there wasn't much left other than that I "believed that there perhaps exists a god". And then it starts wearing a little thin, he says.

However, it's only a few years ago that he really got interested in the relationship between faith and science.

– Around 2004-2005 I was asked to write an article for the periodical "Kirke og kultur" ("Church and culture") about the relationship between Christian faith and my field of research, cosmology. Before this I merely separated faith and science into two spheres, and didn't think much more about it. But through the work with this article, I was forced to think about the borders for my field of research and my own faith. The work made me more aware of what one can really know. You might say that this article in Kirke og Kultur was the beginning of my departure from Christian faith, Elgarøy says.

Liberal Christian relativism becomes meaningless

Elgarøy doesn't fancy the liberal Christianity with an abstract concept of God and which says that whether God "exists in reality" really isn't that important.

– That's not enough for me. This relativism that the liberal Christians are up to is just nonsense. Whether or not there's a god, is an important question. That God exists "in the eye", "in the language" and "as a concept" there's no doubt about. But that's after all not what Christianity is about. The question is whether or not there exists a personal god that that has created everything we know. If one can't make oneself to believe in this concrete personal image of God, then one is not Christian, as I see it.

He can't do other than see this as an either/or question.

– Either one believes in this god, or one doesn't. Either Christianity is true, or it's untrue. There's nothing between, Elgarøy says.

– Do you think that liberal Christians' relativisation and abstraction of God is an attempt to make their own faith easier to defend?

– Yes, I think that's true for many of them. It was like this for me at least. I resorted to this strategy to escape from the notion of God that I after a while found more and more difficult to defend rationally, that is the belief in the really existing, personal, creation and conscious god. But one can't get around that this personal notion of God is of vital importance for the Christian faith, he says.

– Mankind is the only source of moral and ethics.On the way out the astrophysicist is asked if he wants the latest paper version of Fri Tanke, that just arrived from the printers. But it's not needed, we learn.

– I probably get it in the mail. You see I just joined Human-Etisk Forbund, he says.

– What made you do it?

– It felt natural. It's very important for me that it's possible to have morality and ethics without God. Not even when I considered myself a Christian I based my morality and ethics in the Bible and the word of God. As I see it, it's only the ethics that starts with humans and human reason that holds water, he says.

Facts

Øystein Elgarøy (born 1972) is a professor in Astrophysics. He was only 27 years old when he did his Ph.D. a work he received H.M. the King's gold medal for. Elgarøy had by then published eleven scientific works. In 2004 he received Fridtjof Nansen's award for younger scientists.
In the 1990s Elgarøy was active in Norges Kristelige student– og skoleungdomslag, and has during the 2000s made a word for himself in the public as a defender of Christian faith.
Now he has abandoned the faith and joined Human-Etisk Forbund.(The Norwegian Humanist association) "

Fri Tanke, 16.06.2008

The necessity of combating relativism

"In saying this, we must note that atheists are not immune from unreasoned dogma. Religion is not the only place where one can go to find doctrines that promote death and human suffering.

Europe, though being more 'atheist' than America, also suffers from the influence of atheist dogmas that are as anti-science as any religion. The list of popular philosophies in Europe include post-modernism and cultural relativism, both of which condemn the idea that we can have actual knowledge of the real world. These dogmas have been as effective at holding the European culture back scientifically and economically as creationism has been in America. Focusing on religious dogmas and their harmful effects is just a part of the problem.

In fact, the philosophies of post-modernism and cultural relativism point to an important case of atheist scapegoating. Many 'new atheists' have accused religious moderates of shielding religious extremists by preventing criticism against the harshest forms of their religion. However, they did not mention the fact that these non-religious philosophies are an even greater obstacle to criticizing fundamentalist religions. It's from these philosophies, not from religious moderates, that we get the idea that no culture may criticize another. Religious moderates, in contrast, still held to the possibility of moral and objective truths."

Atheistethicist.blogspot.com, Mar 6, 2008

This is a very important point being raised.

I don't agree with all sentiments. Relativism is not as retarded as creationism after all, and it's nowhere as widespread in Europe as creationism/ID is in USA. The problem is that relativism is more popular among the elite, instead of among the unedumecated. That makes it dangerous, because these are decision makers.

Further, I need to point out that New Atheists do spend some time criticizing relativism. So it's not true that it's not mentioned. For instance, I'll quote some examples from the the New Atheist books:

"The general retort to relativism is simple, because most relativists contradict their thesis in the very act of stating it. Take the case of relativism with respect to morality: moral relativists generally believe that all cultural practices should be respected on their own terms, that the practitioners of the various barbarisms that persist around the globe cannot be judged by the standards of the West, nor can the people of the past be judged by the standards of the present. And yet, implicit in this approach to morality lurks a claim that is not relative but absolute. Most moral relativists believe that tolerance of cultural diversity is better, in some important sense, than outright bigotry. This may be perfectly reasonable, of course, but it amounts to an overarching claim about how all human beings should live. Moral relativism, when used as a rationale for tolerance of diversity, is self-contradictory."

Sam Harris, The End of Faith (Page 179, The Demon of Relativism)

"It is the source of squirming internal conflict in the minds of nice liberal people who, on the one hand, cannot bear suffering and cruelty, but on the other hand have been trained by postmodernists and relativists to respect other cultures no less than their own. Female circumcision is undoubtedly hideously painful, it sabotages sexual pleasure in women (indeed, this is probably its underlying purpose), and one half of the decent liberal mind wants to abolish the practice. The other half, however, 'respects' ethnic cultures and feels that we should not interfere if 'they' want to mutilate 'their' girls."

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Pages 328-9, Childhood Abuse and Religion)

"The more one learns of the different passionately held convictions of peoples around the world, the more tempting it becomes to decide that there really couldn't be a standpoint from which truly universal moral judgments could be constructed and defended. So it is not surprising that cultural anthropologists tend to take one variety of moral relativism or another as one of their enabling assumptions. Moral relativism is also rampant in other groves of academia, but not all. It is decidedly a minority position among ethicists and other philosophers, for example, and it is by no means a necessary presupposition of scientific open-mindedness.
We don't have to assume that there are no moral truths in order to study other cultures fairly and objectively; we just have to set aside, for the time being, the assumption that we already know what they are."

Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking The Spell (Pages 375-6, Some More Questions About Science)

Also Hitchens briefly calls it the "morally lazy practice of relativism" in "God is not Great". He's hardly one to bend over for relativists anyway. And generally, you'll notice when you read Atheist blogs, and in Atheist forums, that most Atheists are firmly rooted in a mixture of common sense and scientific thinking. The Black Sun Journal has made a number of posts on this issue.
Anyway, with relativism this whole New Atheist thing would be meaningless, and no-one would care.

The question is of course: is it enough?

No, I don't think so.

Consider these facts:

1. The Pope in particular, and a lot of other religious conservatives constantly raise the point about relativism, as a disease of modern society. The underlying (or overt) message is that without God, there's not point in being moral, and that secularism will lead to relativism. Their major gripe with modernity is that morality has become a matter of opinion.

(I subscribe to a Google News feed that gives me a note in the Google Reader whenever there's a news item with the word "relativism" mentioned. The Pope crops up regularly, and most of the others tend to be religious conservatives attacking secularism.)

2. Most of the non-religious criticism levelled at the New Atheists come from relativists. We're angry, militant, while there are "other truths", there should be tolerance, dialogue and so on and so on. They may not identify as relativists, or use that word at all, but they usually have that kind of understanding.

New Atheists then are unfairly attacked for leading everyone into relativism while being attacked by relativists at the same time. Also, relativists are the same people who will appease fundamentalists and Islamic conservatives in general.


It's a triple problem and that's why it must be combated. When the Pope attacks secularism for leading us into relativism, we can't simply deny this. Those of us who aren't relativists will shout straw man!, and while that is true - for most of us - there is still some people who are attracted by it. We can't simply dismiss relativism as a non-problem.

In Sweden, Christer Sturmark of the Humanisterna organisation actually joined forces with an Evangelical called Stefan Swärd. Together they wrote a piece in the Expressen paper against cultural relativism in February, stating among other things that cultural relativism undermines the Human Rights. That's a very good move.

This won't make Atheism seem like a viable option for Evangelicals, but it shows that not all Atheists have the intention of lapsing into Barbary. Constantly criticizing relativists from an Atheist perspective, can show that those fears are not warranted and we can invalidate criticism. Some will continue to claim that without God, there's no point in being moral, but it won't seem to stick as well.

While I believe firmly that we must criticize both the fundamentalists and the moderates (and the liberals) on their respective issues, we must not merely dismiss accusations of relativism. It must be tackled head-on, because right now it is a legitimate complaint when there are other Atheists who keep spreading the idea (along with many religious liberals it must be noted).

There is one more thing I want to add. Conservative and fundamentalist believers are of course making a false dichotomy where you have to chose between their absolutism or relativism. And also defenders of relativism have been using the same logic.

"Since such relativism is intolerable, in their eyes, imperialist universalism must be endorsed. Either we're right and they're wrong, or "right" and "wrong" have no meaning!" Dennett

So make no mistake, there are things in other cultures that are perfectly fine. It's just that the proponents of relativism seem not to separate between FGM and spicy food.

And also, Christian and Muslims all dabble in relativism:
"God's mysterious ways" = "God's culture" in relativist language.

New atheists or new anti-dogmatists?

"What is strange is that, when one actually reads them, one gets the feeling that the real target of the "new atheists" isn't religion at all.
Indeed, they all explicitly say they have little or no problem with deism, or Spinozian pantheism or what Dawkins calls "Einstein-ian religion". Harris, Dennett and Hitchens (and possibly Dawkins) have indicated that they wouldn't necessarily want to see the synagogues, churches and mosques emptied, though they would want to see them abandon their “metaphysical bullshit” (see this video towards the end).
It seems that the new atheists’ real problem is with dogma, and specifically with the dogma of religious faith - with the belief that it is acceptable, even admirable, to believe propositions without logically sound reasons based on good evidence. They aren't really the “new atheists” at all, but the “new anti-dogmatists”."

Benjamin O'Donnell, Onlineopinion.com.au, 25 January 2008

I think this is a good observation. But it still needs some comments. Why is deism less of a problem than Christianity? Simply, because you can't buy yourself favours from God. There's no reason to act in irrational ways to achieve a special place in Heaven or to avoid Hell. And when you can't explain something, it's kind of pointless to say that a non-interfering god had been interfering. So Deism in itself is not much of a problem.
My only gripe with it is that when you actually accept that some god exists, then the next person can say: "Well, then what's stopping God from interfering in our lives?" And then Deism has fueled religion again, because no Deist would be able to prove to other believers that God never interfers. The best thing is therefore if we somehow can rid the world of this superstition.

"Thankfully, Fascist, Nazi and Communist dogmas have been so discredited that almost no one believes them any more. This is a development to be celebrated."

This is true, but he unfortunately he didn't explain why they are discredited. Now they had their obvious flaws, but so do religions and they're still alive. But imagine for a second that Marx didn't simply write books. Imagine that the idea about a Communist paradise was apparently given to him by prophecy. (An angel came down to Marx and gave him the Heimlich Maneuver while telling him weird stories.) This would have made Marxism and Communism religions, and therefore not testable. As it were, communism collapsed due to being a crap system, which it was not supposed to be and the superior nazis lost the war. So they failed the tests. Islam and Christianity are also crap, but they're not testable on earth. You have to die to know if they're wrong or not.

So, if Communism and Nazism were religions that people believed in, and which were "outside" the reach of science, then they most likely wouldn't be gone. All sorts of morons would say: "Oh, we have to respect Nazism. It's their faith that they are superior. Hitler gave them faith.". And so on. (Which reminds my of the brilliant parody on Terry Eagleton: The Fascism Delusion.)

So they were indeed testable and lost the fight with democracy. Thanks to not being religions.

Swedes don't need a book to be moral

I found an interesting Swedish story in the Christian paper Dagen that I translated the gist of:

"A new survey, the Bible barometre 2008, shows that 32 per cent of Swedes think the bible is important for their own morality and ethics.

Krister Andersson, secretary of the Bible company, says that an earlier survey has shown that the golden rule is at the core of Swedish morality.

When the question is more open: "Is there any writing that strongly affected your ethics and morality?" 20 per cent mentioned the bible. Of the other alternatives, the UN Declaration of Human Rights was the most common with 4 per cent.

But most people, 62 per cent, hadn't read any writing at all that made such an impression.
- This is very surprising. I thought more people were going to say that they had some sort of written or scriptural starting point for their moral judgements, says Krister Andersson.

He was also struck by the variation of writings and writers that were mentioned under "Other". On the list there's among others The Diary of Anne Frank, newspapers, Dalai Lama, Fröding, Greek philosophers, the Swedish Law, the catecism, and the scout law. Some of the asked also mentioned the upbringing they were given by their parents: "I try to be honest and fair to people."

As with the Biblebarometre 2006 and 2007 this year's survey shows that about eveyr tenth person reads the bible at least once a month, while four out of read it only rarely.
Those who consider the bible most important are the older generations, 65 years and older."

Dagen.se, 2008-01-17

What I liked about this survey wasn't merely that it showed how many read or didn't read the bible, but it showed that 62 per cent did not pick up their morality from a particular book.

I think it's fair to say that they hardly discovered their moral principles within their own heads, but that they don't simply stick to one book or one type of philosophy. Throughout life most of us read a lot, listen to a lot, and watch a lot and doing this we absorb a lot of moral reasoning. And we stick to the ideas that make sense to us personally instead of being too dependant on one book. Let's say you need advice, would you not preferably want to get it from more than one person?

It also reminded me about something Dawkins wrote in The God Delusion (p. 265):

"First, how is [the moral zeitgeist] synchronized across so many people? It spreads itself from mind to mind through conversations in bars and at dinner parties, through books and book reviews, through newspapers and broadcasting, and nowadays through the Internet. Changes in the moral climate are signalled in editorials, on radio talk shows, in political speeches, in the patter of stand-up comedians and the scripts of soap operas, in the votes of parliaments making laws and the decisions of judges interpreting them."

On the subject of books, I'll plug a new book from Prometheus books that I think could be worthwhile to read. Knowing myself I'm not sure I would get through its 800 pages, but if you're going to read one book this year, then this might be the book.

Successor to the highly acclaimed Encyclopedia of Unbelief (1985), edited by the late Gordon Stein, the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief is a comprehensive reference work on the history, beliefs, and thinking of America’s fastest growing minority: those who live without religion. All-new articles by the field’s foremost scholars describe and explain every aspect of atheism, agnosticism, secular humanism, secularism, and religious skepticism. Topics include morality without religion, unbelief in the historicity of Jesus, critiques of intelligent design theory, unbelief and sexual values, and summaries of the state of unbelief around the world. More than 130 respected scholars and activists worldwide served on the editorial advisory board and over 100 authoritative contributors have written in excess of 500 entries.

In addition to covering developments since the publication of the original edition, the New Encyclopedia of Unbelief includes a larger number of biographical entries and much-expanded coverage of the linkages between unbelief and social reform movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, including the labor movement, woman suffrage, anarchism, sex radicalism, and second-wave feminism.

The distinguished contributors—philosophers, scientists, scholars, and Nobel Prize laureates—include Robert Alley, Joe Barnhart, David Berman, Sir Hermann Bondi, Vern L. Bullough, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Dennett, Paul Edwards, Barbara Ehrenreich, Antony Flew, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Peter Hare, Van Harvey, Susan Jacoby, Paul Kurtz, Richard Leakey, Gerd Lüdemann, Michael Martin, Martin E. Marty, Kai Nielsen, Steven Pinker, Robert M. Price, Richard Rorty, John R. Searle, Peter Singer, Ibn Warraq, Steven Weinberg, George A. Wells, David Tribe, Sherwin Wine, and many others.

With a foreword by evolutionary biologist and best-selling author Richard Dawkins, this unparalleled reference work provides comprehensive knowledge about unbelief in its many varieties and manifestations.

About the Author
Tom Flynn (Amherst, NY) is the editor of Free Inquiry magazine, director of the Center for Inquiry, founding coeditor of Secular Humanist Bulletin, director of the Robert Green Ingersoll Birthplace Museum, and the author of The Trouble with Christmas, Galactic Rapture, and Nothing Sacred.

Strong atheists prepare for battle against religion

I found an interesting story in the Danish paper Kristeligt Dagblad that I translated:

"Strong atheists prepare for battle against religion
Atheism is an increasingly stronger and well organized participant in the political debate in the Western world. This in particular, is due to that Atheists generally have better education and are more involved in politics.

By Morten Rasmussen and Sidsel Nyholm

With conferences, professional debaters and political backing Atheism has in few years become a professional participant in the discussion about science, religion and politics. In Denmark, Ateistisk Selskab experienced an annual doubling of its membership, so the organisation now has 750 members. In Sweden, Riksdagen [the parliament] is discussing a bill about state funding of the Swedish atheists in Humanisterna, that today amounts to 4200 persons and every day get another 10 nye members. In Norway the non-religious Human-Etisk Forbund already state funded and with its 67.000 members [72.000 as of 2008] it is only to be surpassed by the Norwegian [state]church.

In the book "Gudløs"["Godless"], that will soon be out, the religion sociologist Peter Lüchau, at the University of Copenhagen, has taken a closer look at how the atheists scored in a large European value survey. According to him it is in particular the profile of the atheists, that has gained them a lot of ground in the debate in the western world.

– Atheists are not ordinary people. Statistics show that they have a higher level of education, are more left oriented and are clearly more poltically active than the average European. They are used to act when they are not satisfied, and in particular, they have the resources and ability to get in the media, says Peter Lüchau.

Outspoken atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have additionally put their mark on the bestseller lists with their books, that with titles like "The God Delusion" and "The End of Faith" directly attack religion. And with increasing media coverage follows a growing interest, says Morten Warmind, religion sociologist at the University of Copenhagen.

– If you send a TV programme about making candles, more people will start to make candles. And as religion generally fills more debate, it's a natural consequence that atheism also appear in the media and thereby creates more interest, says Morten Warmind and stresses that the increasingly professional atheism corresponds with a growing religiosity.

–The debate on religion has become more polarized during the last few years. It means that there's suddenly an involvement among people whom earlier only had an interest for the subject, but wasn't organized according to their values and outlook. And this goes for both camps, says Morten Warmind.

In an interview with Kristeligt Dagblad today, one of the world's most prominent atheists, Richard Dawkins, is still bent on a direct confrontation with religion.

– I don't care about the non-believers who try to play around with liberal clergy and say that "It doesn't matter all that much, if we believe in God or not, as long as we're all happy and jolly together", he says and urges the world's "closet atheists" to stand up and be counted.

Kristeligt Dagblad, 05. jan 2008

The Triumph of Reason

"Moderate believers simply compound the problem by providing respectability and cover for the extremists of their ilk. Do I appreciate the more accepting people among the faithful? Sure. Ultimately, though, they are still responsible for perpetuating and propagating their worldview. If we could get to the point where the cafeteria Christians and Muslims are taken out of the equation, we could effectively stamp out the religious violence that occurs every day because it would be acceptable to excoriate faith-based belief systems. We could do exactly what Sam Harris talks about in his book, The End of Faith, which describes the effectiveness of ridicule as a tool for social change. As long as it is taboo to criticize religion, that will be impossible.

[...]

If Ms. Pollitt is looking for a one-track route to de-conversion, she'll likely be looking from now until the day that she dies. Every person is different and will respond to the arguments against religion in many ways."

Kelly O'Connor, OpEdNews.com, December 18, 2007

The first part is a familiar line for many that I agree wholeheartedly with. The last part is something that not many of the whiners realize. I keep hearing these funny solutions, like "Scandinavia has a good welfare system, so welfare will make people secular - not angry atheism". Or it may be some other solution (or most likely non-solution) that incorporates everything but honest arguments for Atheism and rational thinking.

To show how silly this is, let me dwell with the welfare state argument a bit: Scandinavia also has had protestant state churches, homogenous populations, was relieved of religious bigots when the religious bigots went to America in the 1800s, was christened so late we still call it Jul (as in Yule) instead of Christmas and we have cool languages.

I don't know, but it seems to me that welfare itself is not some magical formular for secularisation. I'm all for welfare though, but it won't be enough. (Yeah I know I said I was a Libertarian in my previous post but as it goes: "We're all social democrats". I think Post-Libertarian could be a good expression for me. )

Anyway. Most important: it so happens that religious bigotry many places blocks introduction of state welfare either directly or indirectly. What do you do then? I think it's an open question if USA becomes as secular as Norway first or starts using the same welfare state model first. I wouldn't bet that introducing the welfare state in USA is somehow the easier way to making it a godless satanic darwinian country.

Now as Kelly here points out, people are different. The God Delusion or the RRS for that matter does not work with irrational new age hippies who keep crystal pyramids under their beds. But it might work for a guy who just happened to grow up in a religious area without ever making a conscious choice to join the religion that he belongs to and who's generally a rational person.

In short, there are a few billion people in the world who are still not Atheists, and just as all these people have their particular tastes in sex, politics, interior decorating, music etc. - in the same way they will respond quite differently to Atheist arguments. So we need lots of different Atheist or secular arguments. What we don't need is that people shut up.

There's a lot of things that religious conservatives don't like: New Atheism, feminism, LGBT rights, welfare state, science and probably much more. Much, much, more. Think of these things as fronts, like in a war. The more fronts that surround them, the better. That's the perspective we need.
For instance: I'm not a feminist, but I appreciate wholeheartedly the efforts that feminists make to undermine religious conservatives to relieve women of these insane rules.

Religion is not an object with only one side. It can be attacked from many sides, and New Atheism attacks one side that is wide open.

Divorce, Religion, and Circumcision: What A Conflict Tells Us About Parental Rights

"To get a sense of how completely secular people who are not already committed to religious practices [and circumcision] might view things, consider the following analogy:

A couple tells its 5-year-old child at bedtime every night that if he ever feels any anger at his mom and dad, then a monster will come to him at night in his sleep and smother him with a pillow. Each morning, when he wakes up un-smothered, his parents tell him that if he was in fact harboring angry feelings toward them, then the monster in question will save up the smothering and one day come and suffocate him for all of eternity. Imagine, as well, that when the child reaches the age of 6, his parents remove half of their son's left pinky toe. They argue that he can walk adequately without it, and they feel a very strong compulsion to remove what they view as ugly and impure.

Most of us would find this behavior outrageous and even criminal."

Sherry F. Colb, Findlaw.com, Nov. 28, 2007

This article deal in particular with the Boldt case were a divorced father, newly converted to Judaism wants his 12-year-old son to be circumcised, while his mother doesn't.

I'll add her closing words too (regarding the Boldt case):

"It is when parents disagree with each other and ask the courts to step in that we are uniquely able to consider some of the harm to which people expose their offspring. The Boldt case thus may, in this way, help us focus on what is otherwise "routine" in parenting and perhaps become more sensitive to the sorts of harm that we might otherwise continue to take for granted."

This is very true. I know that a lot of people will almost always prefer that the parents decide everything for the children, rather than the state. But as we can see, it's not so clear cut when parents disagree. Suddenly the question isn't about the parents' rights (because both parents have rights and they have different preferences), but about the boy's rights. And then one have to ask: Why aren't we always thinking about the rights of the children?

I've always considered myself a bit of a libertarian, or "liberalist" which is the word used here around. They are not entirely the same, and I'm in danger of mixing things here. Worse, I'm not a true libertarian, I assume. It's just the skewed perspective I have since I'm living in the Norwegian welfare state. Wanting longer opening hours to buy alcohol makes me feel like a libertarian while in USA I'd be Liberal I guess. Exhibit A: My score at the Political Compass.

Nevermind, I'm thinking about a very specific thing here that is probably common, that the state should stay out of parenting.
The idea has a flaw that sometimes becomes very ugly. It's a bit like the flaw of pacifism. It works fine as long as people won't try to kill you or torment you. But it's utter shit the moment there are malevolent murderers on your door. I'm with Sam Harris all the way on that issue.
Now, libertarianism holds that people are smart enough to chose for themselves. Perhaps. But another thing is that they also should be allowed to make their own decisions, even bad ones. I'm not optimistic about everyone's decisions, least of all my own, but not all decisions are cause of concern. Who cares if Boldt Senior chops of a piece of his dick? But should Boldt Senior be allowed to make a bad decision for Boldt junior? In general: do parents have an unalienable right to screw up their kids' life?

Among libertarians, there's always an appreciation for the individual. And I share that. But the boy who is circumcised is an individual. The girl who must wear a hijab is an individual. The children who are sent off to a loony religious school to be brainwashed are individuals. Children of Jehovas Witnesses who die because they don't get blood are individuals. The family, however, is not an individual.

Consequently: state interference is perfectly fine when it protects the rights of the children to avoid getting tortured for religious reasons by parents or getting their brains dumbed down to accept that the earth is 5000 years old.

Atheist History Month?

"Dawkins has also suggested that atheists, like gays, should come out of the closet. Well, what if they don't want to? I doubt that Dawkins would support "outing" atheists. But can an atheist "rights" group be far behind? Hate crimes laws to protect atheists? Affirmative action for unbelievers? An Atheist Annual Parade, complete with dancers and floats? Atheist History Month?
Honestly, I think the whole atheist-gay analogy is quite absurd. It seems strange for Dawkins to urge atheists to come out of the closet in the style of the all-American boy standing up on the dining table of his public high school and confessing that he is a homosexual? Dawkins, being British, doesn't seem to recognize that this would not win many popularity contests in America."

Dinesh D'Souza, Townhall.com, November 12, 2007

It's an interesting thought that D'Souza has stumbled upon here: "Hate crimes laws to protect atheists? Affirmative action for unbelievers? An Atheist Annual Parade, complete with dancers and floats? Atheist History Month?" I must admit I take a liking to this. But as D'Souza says: "this would not win many popularity contests in America.". Damn right, it wouldn't. Which is probably why it's needed.

Atheist History Month: One equivalent is Black History Month. According to stats posted earlier, 4 % says they are less likely to vote for a black presidential candidate in USA, while 63% are less likely to vote for non-believer. There's also National Hispanic Heritage Month, and 14% would not vote for a Hispanic candidate
Atheist Annual Parade: The equivalent is the gay parades. 46% would not vote for a homosexual. That's a lot, but 63% is more.
Hate crimes laws: Obviously needed, although I suspect Atheists are already covered (unless for a change they don't count Atheism as a religion)
Affirmative Action for unbelievers: This usually covers race and gender. Stats for Black and Hispanics have been mentioned, and only 11% would reject a female candidate. 7% would reject a disabled candidate. Again: 63% would reject an Atheist candidate.

OK, so let's see which group is most reviled among Americans:

63% do not want an Atheist candidate
46% do not want a homosexual candidate
14% do not want a Hispanic candidate
11% do not want a female candidate
7% do not want a disabled candidate
4% do not want a black candidate

I think Atheists are presently the most hated group. Please inspect the stats below if you disagree. Now, I'm not one to argue for parades or affirmative action, not for Atheists nor anyone else, but Atheist History Month would probably be very useful in USA, considering that a lot of the bigotry stems from ignorance!

Terror: Can We Blame Religion?

"In the wake of recent terror attacks, Western society has jumped to an easy and, it might seem, obvious conclusion. [blabla] [Sam Harris] contends that religion propagates myths that are dangerous, and that the world would be far better off without them. [blabla] What both Harris and Dawkins seem to overlook, however, is that religion has never been the unique instigator of violence. [blabla] The Soviet Union was a professedly secular society. [blabla] And there are more recent examples. Saddam Hussein led an Iraqi nation that “was thoroughly secular, [ruled] by a western-style legal code,” according to Gray."

Donald Winchester, Vision, Summer 2007 issue

Heard it all before right? Neither Harris nor Dawkins ever "overlooked" this straw man. It has been repeatedly rebutted, and just as often repeated again by believers. Here, Mr Donald Winchester, take a look at the famous "Problem with Atheism"-speech of Sam Harris.

"So too with the “greatest crimes of the 20th century” argument. How many times are we going to have to counter the charge that Stalin, Hitler, and Pol Pot represent the endgame of atheism? I’ve got news for you, this meme is not going away. I argued against it in The End of Faith, and it was immediately thrown back at me in reviews of the book as though I had never mentioned it. So I tackled it again in the afterword to the paperback edition of The End of Faith; but this had no effect whatsoever; so at the risk of boring everyone, I brought it up again in Letter to a Christian Nation; and Richard did the same in The God Delusion; and Christopher took a mighty swing at it in God is Not Great.

Did they overlook it? No, Donald Winchester overlooked it.
In a surprisingly (for him) nuanced comment he writes this:

"Does this mean that atheism or secularism is to blame for such slaughter? It would be hard to argue this. It simply shows that in these cases religion is not the cause of violence and terror. The absence of religion did not equal the absence of violence; the Jacobin Terror and Stalin’s purges demonstrate as much. On the other hand, the Spanish Inquisition and Islamic terrorism show that atheism is not the sole cause either. Indeed, many religionists are largely peaceful, as are many secularists. To ascribe the urge to violence to either is plainly unreasonable. Instead, we must search deeper."

That absence of religion does not mean absence of violence is pretty clear. We do not promise a world without violence. But what makes religions particularly dangerous when it comes to violence is that they are not falsifiable. Communism, as horrible as it was, is de facto falsified. We have all seen that it didn't work. While Christianity and Islam both promise an afterlife, Marx promised a paradise on here on Earth. And while there are lots of comparisons between religion and Marxism, the fact is that all communist regimes quickly turned sour. The experiment didn't work, and we have seen it with our own eyes. No such experiment will satisfy religious people, because their evidence will only come after death. The fact that living in the Middle East is probably worse than living in the USSR does not mean anything to them, because they expect a better life when they're dead.
So while Atheists can and will start wars in the future, they can not rest upon strange beliefs that can't be rationally discussed. Silly ideas won't last 2000 years.
Further, the argument about Stalin has magnitude as one aspect. But I think Winchester knows all too well that if the Spanish Inquisition had all the fancy new weapons of Stalin, they'd kill a lot more people. The crusades would have been much more effective too. I'm not sure, but I think that 911 probably set some world record as well. Not anywhere near the damage of the nuclear bombs dropped by the (so I hear) Christian country of USA, but you get the point. So as time passes, terrorists or religious fanatics in power are armed with better weapons and can inflict much more damage than the Spanish Inquisition could ever dream of(and I'm sure they did). I don't know what kind of nukes Iran are working on, but I bet they'll be more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
But let's hear more from Winchester:

"Stalin and Hussein aimed for unbridled power; the Jacobins, like today’s al-Qaeda, hoped to convert the world to their own worldview. Even Dawkins’s and Harris’s recent tomes fall inside this tradition, belonging to a genre of books that is among the most ideologically violent in modern publishing."

Yeah, right. How many people have Dawkins and Harris killed? Ideologically violent... al-Qaeda blabla. This is simply nonsense, and it shows how dishonest the anti-Atheist bigotry is. (Sorry, if this blog post equals an attack by al-Qaeda)

In the end, I refer everyone to this brilliant story I posted earlier:

"Then there's the problem on the other side -- among the atheists such as Richard Dawkins who have been labelled "fanatics." Now, it is absolutely true that Dawkins' tone is often as charming as fingernails dragged slowly down a chalkboard. But just what is the core of Dawkins' radical message?

Well, it goes something like this: If you claim that something is true, I will examine the evidence which supports your claim; if you have no evidence, I will not accept that what you say is true and I will think you a foolish and gullible person for believing it so.

That's it. That's the whole, crazy, fanatical package."

Dan Gardiner, The Ottawa Citizen, May 05, 2007

On Atheism and Hope

"Surprisingly, I actually agree with Pope Benedict about [Marx]. His essay rightly points out that Marx never offered anything like a blueprint for a just society, assuming that problem would resolve itself once the overthrow of the upper class was complete.
That said, to use the misguided ideas of a single man as a sweeping excuse to dismiss all non-religious philosophies is a most dishonest tactic. Communist regimes undoubtedly committed terrible crimes, but for the pope to attack communism as if it constituted the entire spectrum of atheist thought is irresponsible and deceptive. Like many religious apologists, Pope Benedict is stuck in the past, repeatedly attacking an obsolete historical doctrine rather than address the views held by the majority of atheists today."

Daylight Atheism, December 2, 2007

Yes, the Pope did not attack Atheism, but a straw man. It's an argument I've heard too many times. He tied Atheism to Marxism and by attacking the pretty dead ideology of Marxism, he thought he attacked Atheism, but that's far from the truth. Think of Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens... who of them is a Marxist? None. Hitchens used to be, but is not anymore as most of his former fans will know all too well.

So until "New Atheists" actually try to spread Marxism, it's futile and dishonest to misrepresent Atheism as Marxism.

The Exploitation of Antony Flew

"Have you heard the shocking news? The world's most notorious atheist has converted!
No, it's not Richard Dawkins.
Or Sam Harris.
Or Christopher Hitchens.
Or Dan Barker.
Or Michael Newdow.
Or Julia Sweeney.
No, this world-famous, notorious atheist convert is the philosopher Antony Flew.

[...]

Mark Oppenheimer of the Times went to Reading to interview Flew. Oppenheimer found that he was polite and agreeable, but suffering from serious memory gaps. Flew could not define terms like "abiogenesis" and was unfamiliar with the arguments advanced in the book. He freely admitted, and Varghese confirmed, that Varghese wrote all the original content of the book ["There is a God"]. Flew was simply persuaded to sign his name to it after it had been written for him."

Dayligth Atheism, Nov 6, 2007

Sickening.
I insert a small excerpt of a long piece by Richard Carrier:

"I'm well known for my correspondence with Flew on the matter of his conversion from weak atheism to strong Deism, and anyone who wants the full story about that can read my article on the subject (which has numerous subsequent updates appended to it): Antony Flew Considers God...Sort Of (2004). Now, after reading "Flew's" new book, I was appalled at how badly argued it was, and how obviously it was not written in his style or idiom, but in that of contemporary Christian apologetics (like someone attempting a poor imitation of the style and approach of a Lee Strobel or Gary Habermas). Moreover, from crucial omissions (and distortions of history) it was clear the author could not have been Flew. Unless Flew had gone completely insane."

Ellen Johnson Responds to "The End of Atheism"

"Mr. Harris cannot see why we need a name for a group of people who are "against" something, or who don't believe in something. Take racism he says. There isn't any term for people who are against racism. We give ourselves a name because we are proud of who we are. A group needs to be identified in some way. And we want to be a "group." We aren't just against something. We are something.
Is the American Cancer Society just "against" something because they fight against cancer? Are they a "negative" organization? Is Greenpeace a negative organization because they are against pollution? Sounds silly doesn't it? Yet we buy into this nonsense when it is said about us.

[...]

From my experience, Christian fundamentalists are more concerned about our "activism" than what we call ourselves. They will attack anyone, Atheist or Theist, who challenges their privileged position in society. Remember Lisa Herdahl in Mississippi? She challenged organized school prayers there and she was a Christian. She was viciously attacked by the religious community for her efforts. Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong has received sixteen death threats in the last 30 years because of his liberal religious views. Trying to distance ourselves from our Atheism is not the answer."

Ellen Johnson, (president of American Atheists), HumanistNetworkNews.org, Oct. 3, 2007

There was another article posted at Sam Harris' site (Caspar Melville, Guardian, October 5, 2007):

"Among the distinguished audience listening to Harris’ speech were all the A-list A-thiests including Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Dawkins himself. Asked afterwards what he thought of the speech Dawkins replied: “I think he was making a very interesting point, and I’m still thinking about my reaction to it.” Perhaps he thinking it’s not too late to rebrand the Out project. He could say that the “A” doesn’t stand for “atheist” after all, but for something else entirely. Any suggestions?"

It would have to stand for Anonymous.

Norway flourishes as secular nation

"Rev. Rick Mason notes that atheism is on the rise. He blames Christian fundamentalism. Certainly the ineptness, dishonesty and lack of ethics of the overtly God-fearing Bush administration may be turning people off on God.
A case study shows what this could mean for America. Norway has embraced secularism at the expense of its Christian roots. A 2005 survey conducted by Gallup International rated Norway the least religious country in Western Europe.
In Norway, 82.9 percent of the population are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (they are automatically registered at birth and few bother to be unregistered). However, only approximately 10 percent regularly attend church services and identify themselves as being personally Christian.
A 2006 survey found: 29 percent believe in a god or deity; 23 percent believe in a higher power without being certain of what; 26 percent don't believe in God or higher powers; 22 percent have doubts.
Depending on the definition of atheism, Norway thus has between 26 percent and 71 percent atheists. The Norwegian Humanist Association is the world's largest humanist association per capita.
And what has secularism done to Norway? The Global Peace Index rates Norway the most peaceful country in the world. The Human Development Index, a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standard of living, has ranked Norway No. 1 every year for the last five years.
Norway has the second highest GDP per capita in the world, an unemployment rate below 2 percent, and average hourly wages among the world's highest.

David N. Miles, Montgomery Advertiser (letters), October 5, 2007 (also at Dawkins.)

While I knew this already, this pleased me no end to read! And I have to say that in the early 90s I never thought I'd sit here 15 years later and cheer that religion is on the retreat here.
Of course, the case of Norway doesn't say that secularisation leads to prosperity(there's the oil and everything), but it says firmly that secularisation does not lead to immoral chaos, which is what many Christians want you to believe.
And just so there's no jealousy, it has to be said that Norways neighbours fare no worse. ;)

See also: Norway: 68 percent skeptical to religious organisations

Logical Path from Religious Beliefs to Evil Deeds

"It is easy for religious faith, even if it is irrational in itself, to lead a sane and decent person, by rational, logical steps, to do terrible things [because of religious texts]. There is a logical path from religious faith to evil deeds. There is no logical path from atheism to evil deeds. Of course, many evil deeds are done by individuals who happen to be atheists. But it can never be rational to say that, because of my nonbelief in religion, it would be good to be cruel, to murder, to oppress women, or to perpetrate any of the evils on the Hitchens list."

Richard Dawkins, On Faith, October 2, 2007

Monkeys show sense of justice

"Researchers taught brown capuchin monkeys to swap tokens for food. Usually they were happy to exchange this "money" for cucumber.

But if they saw another monkey getting a grape - a more-liked food - they took offence. Some refused to work, others took the food and refused to eat it.

Scientists say this work suggests that human's sense of justice is inherited and not a social construct.

[...]

The researchers were not surprised that the monkeys showed a sense of fairness, but they were taken aback that they would turn down an otherwise acceptable reward.

"They never showed a reaction against their partner, they never blamed them," Sarah Brosnan said."

BBC.co.uk, 17 September, 2003

A few years old story, but it was recently posted at Dawkins' site and is no less important now.

Methinks the believers complain too much

"John Humphrys has commissioned a poll from Yougov to help him sell his new book, In God We Doubt. It shows that 16% of the 2,200 people who responded defined themselves as atheists, 9% agnostics, 28% said they believed in God and 26% said they believed in some undefined “something”.
That comes to a total of 79%. The article reporting the poll didn’t say where the other 21% stood on the belief/non-belief spectrum.
42% thought religion harmful, a statistic which Humphrys explains away with a remark so obvious one wonders why he bothered to make it: “One reason might be the publicity attracted by a handful of mad mullahs and their hate-filled rhetoric.”

[...]

And when spokespeople for the 35% who don’t believe begin to emerge – people like Richard Dawkins, Peter Hitchens, AC Grayling and others – they are denounced from the pulpits and the newspaper columns as “fanatics” and “extremists”. There is a positive library of newspaper articles accumulating expressing this opinion.

[...]

What started out as a campaign by fundamentalist Christians to make the word “atheist” into a term of abuse, which could not be uttered without the addition of an adjective such as “extremist” or “fundamentalist”, has now been taken up big time by the establishment intelligentsia who have never been able to shake off their childhood indoctrination. It’s clear they feel guilty when they even try."

Terry Sanderson, National Secular Society, 7. September 2007

An excellent comment!

Islamic evolution

"Animals engage in a struggle for existence; for resources, to avoid being eaten and to breed. Environmental factors influence organisms to develop new characteristics to ensure survival, thus transforming into new species. Animals that survive to breed can pass on their successful characteristics to offspring."

Encounter (ABC Radio transcript) 11 June 2006

So who wrote this? Darwin? Dawkins? No, an Islamic scholar called al-Jahiz (781–868/869) in the book Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals). The Islamic golden age was surely impressive and is quite a contrast to the appalling conditions that Muslims today live under. The worst thing is that many Muslims today seem to think that the Golden Age mysteriously will come back with a little more Koran reading. But it wasn't Muhammed who made the Golden Age. He thought humans were made out of clay.

The OUT campaign

As observant readers will notice, I've slapped that A of The OUT Campaign on the blog.

Being a typical Atheist cat (one that can't be herded) I don't feel so strong about neither the A nor the actual campaign itself in its current shape, but I am feeling strongly about spreading the message of Atheism. And I therefore reckon that the more A's that are around, the better.

Richard Dawkins & co have made a tremendous effort in pushing Atheism. Dawkins could probably have chosen to be just an uncontroversial professor in a dusty office with lots of books on biology, writing the occasional piece on the problems of Creationism. Instead, he has taken on the world religions with full force!

In appreciation of this effort, and in the interest of mankind, I urge all blogs to say: