Religious Wrong: Do 'New Atheists' and Old Evangelists Play the Same Game?

Why should we atheists respect anyone's religion when they have worked hard (and successfully) for centuries to deny us a voice in the public forum? Respect must be earned and I cannot respect superstitious nonsense without a shred of evidence to support it. Science is not a "belief system", it is conclusions based on physical phenomena tested and proven numerous times by independent scientists. Religious people are sheep brainwashed from the cradle into doing exactly what the powers that be want them to and I, as a member of the U.S.A.'s largest minority, will not accept religion as legitimate under any circumstances.

....in that I am not a "true believer" in either extreme. I find myself criniging while listening to Hitchens as well as Tony Perkins or Pat Robertson. I have studied the scriptures of quite e few religions, philosophies, beleif systems and practices. I see the wisdom in all of them. I also see how anyone of them can be misued and abused on people in such incredibly cruel ways. That can be said of almost anything, can it not?

We all have a belief system whether we like it or not.

The thing is that change, with a capital "C," is upon us and Obama did not bring it.The very idea that he did is laughable.

This change has been coming for quite sometime. There is no turning back and there never has been. To be blunt, lots of people are scared witless about that. All of us will, to some extent, rely on our belief systems and support system duing the trying times ahead.

However, the more rigid and extreme the doctrines and aplastic the brains that cling to them, the worse off we all are. Scared people have been known to do stupid things. As an old friend of mine used to say, "adrenalin really is stupid juice, isn't it?"

Therefore, now is really not the time to scare anyone unnescessarly, especially about things they either really do worship (need desperately for life) or say they do. Prosylethyzing is a real problem, admittedly. Some christian sects believe that it is their holy obligation to convert other people to their belief system. Under our constitution, they have a right to speak with anyone who agrees to listen. They do not have a right to codify their belief system and insist that others believe and act as they do (or believe they should) under penalty of law. It is the latter for which we need be watchful.

Judaism has never prosylethized to my knowledge, as most Islamic sects do not. I have never been acosted by a Hindhu or a Buddhist attempting to brainwash me, although I know quite a few and have met quite a few Hindus and Buddhists over the years.

Talking about screeching "new athiests" and foaming-at-the-mouth prophets of doom for everyone but them? Both leave me queazy at best, truly nauseous at worst. In those, as well as other instances of lewd social/political discourse, while I understand where it comes from, cause me to fear for my country and long for the quiet of solitude.

While we ponder the obvious opposites and the splits within the splits regarding "God Almighty," The high prients of the temple of capatalism have been terribly corrupted, just in case no one noticed. (snark). Religions, dear Buzzers, are not found only in buildings denoted as religious in nature, like churches, temples, mosques, ashrams and the like.

Free marketeers have more zeel for their belief system than most evangelicals I've encountered. Not all of us worship the same god. Not by a long shot.  

That could be described as a metaphysical belief I'm willing to put effort toward that has no more grounding than religion.  Happily, it carries none of the superstious and barbaric baggage of religion.  And as much as the religious like to fight the advance of knowledge tooth and nail, I firmly believe it is religion's moral baggage that is most caustic. I don't want to live in Saudi Arabia and attend the Saturday night stonings of Old Testament literalism.  Unfortunately, a majority of Americans have probably been Sunday schooled in the ethics of some primitive sheep herding tribes of millennia ago but know next to nothing of the Enlightenment ethical writings of Kant, Locke, Rousseau, Paine or Jefferson.  A pity to believe technology can advance but ethics cannot.  It creates such demonic barbarians.

I found the article generally good but a bit off. For example the following statement towards the end.

"Her inability to see the merits atheism is just as blind as Christopher Hitchens' insistence that all religion is based upon "totalitarian belief" and "the wish to be a slave." In the end, both make the mistake of the presumptive, inflexible evangelist."

The actual core of Western religions is exactly what Hitchens states. The act that not all religionists think of it that way does not change the nature of the source. It is not being inflexible to point out the essence of Western religion. Also what has flexibility have to do with it? Adjusting one's argument to fit the evidence is simply doing what is right and reasonable. I wouldn't call that flexibility. Flexibility implies being easily persuaded and adaptable. It would be presumptive to say everyone thinks of religion that way or that everyone wants that kind of religion, but at the core God is supposed to be the master and we are his minions.

I would go further than what Meg White wrote.  I would submit that all believers in religion are superstitious and unreasonable.  One cannot argue with them.  Their beliefs are irrational.

It seems rather amusing and ironic that, in a world in which religionists have been intensely proselytizing their dogma for literally thousands of years, while non-believers have been mostly quiescent (other than the occasional Bertrand Russell) a handful of non-believers are attacked for expressing antithetical views.  The outrage against the likes of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens seems to me to provide further evidence of the disruptive nature of intolerant religion and substantiates many of the points that were made by Harris in discussing the effect of religion in the modern world.   

"... the Palestinians and Israelis would be fighting over water resources instead of God."

... the basic question would be: "Why then are there Israelis here on this land arguing over that?"

Canaanites ought have a right of return.

Good article. It's worth noting that atheism, science, and any religious tradition are all belief systems, and all depend on definitions which are abstract mental constructs and do not reflect the actuality of what they are they trying to describe. Atheists who rant and rave sound alot like religous fundamentalistis with the way they claim to know the one true truth and the way it really is. It might do them both well to explore the philosophy of taoism which notices that the way that is is not the only way, after all, definitions are based on perspective and perspectives are varied and constantly shifting. Perhaps recognizing this might help them to relax a little so they could have peace within themselves which would do more than any of them are doing now to create peace on the outside.

As a declared atheist for over 50 years, since about age 14, I have been inundated with religious claims professed as the only way to achieve meaning, everlasting life, etc.  As a scientifically trained professional, sceptic and undergrad anthropology major I have read widely over the years on evolution, cosmology, and physics and, like Dawkins and Stenger, have to agree that the universe as we see it requires no god/supernatural extraterrestrial being for it to be the way it is, including the accident we are--mankind.  

The reason I now voice my position is to focus peoples' attention on the idea that Bronze Age, tribal gods have almost nothing to say about the times we live in and that the attached dogma in what the religious have to say is without merit.  The biggest abortionist is and has always been the natural process that rejects a lot of fetuses, for instance.  One could call it Nature's morning after pill.

In every area one looks, like wars that have a religious context, ancient beliefs that create a lot of suffering and political stands that don't recognize scientific knowledge, some of us have to complain or at least resist that wrongheadedness.  So, nowadays, I speak out, whether it be about equality, including for gays and women's rights, wrongheaded wars, or the need for an afterlife.  Religion's theses don't have the answers we need in our time.  It's no longer OK to remain passive, so I speak out.