Tag Archives: criticism of atheists

In defense of religious ‘brainwashing’

Posted on by
29

I’ve enjoyed several of the videos produced by The Thinking Atheist. The following video, however, should make them reconsider their (already rather smarmy) name.

In the video, several atheists relate their Christian upbringing, which they now not-so-fondly remember as ‘brainwashing’. Dawkins has sometimes gone so far as to claim that religious education is a form of child abuse. It can be, but the complaints made by the atheists in the video struck me as petty. There are too many grave injustices in this world for me to care about your being dragged to church every Sunday as a child. (Though I’ll admit that my religious upbringing wasn’t very strict, and I generally don’t regret my experience in Mormonism.)

Continue reading →

Dr. Huenemann on atheism and morality

Posted on by
12

Will Holloway, everyone’s favorite metalhead, was kind enough to record the lecture Dr. Charlie Huenemann gave before SHAFT last week. Huenemann is a philosophy professor here at Utah State University. He spoke about the difficulty atheists face in grounding their morality, especially in the wake of Friedrich Nietzsche.

The reason for his lecture was not disabuse SHAFTers of their disbelief. Dr. Huenemann is an atheist who doesn’t consider theism “a live option.” Rather, Huenemann worries that many atheists (and people in general) aren’t very thoughtful about their basis for morality.

If you weren’t able to attend the lecture, or—like me— you just want to listen to it again, the lecture and the question/answer period are provided below.

Huenemann’s lecture

Q&A

Bad atheist arguments (continued)

Posted on by
6

On Wednesday, SHAFT met to discuss the worst arguments for atheism and against religion. We had an incredible turnout despite the poor weather (40+ people) and a lively discussion. You missed out if you weren’t able to make it. Hopefully you’ll join us for future events.

For those who weren’t in attendance, I want to briefly share a couple of the arguments that I presented at the meeting.

First, I challenged the popular belief that Jesus wasn’t a historical person and was instead cheap plagiarism of pagan gods like Horus, Mithra, Dionysus, and others. This theory isn’t new. It originated with shoddy 19th century scholarship, namely the work of James Frazer. But the theory has enjoyed a resurgence, having been showcased in several atheist documentaries, including The God Who Wasn’t There, Zeitgeist, and Religulous. Here is a video promoting a link between Jesus and Horus:

Continue reading →

Secularists: Choose your battles wisely!

Posted on by
7

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is urging its members (which would include me) to boycott the recently-announced Mother Teresa commemorative stamp. Ugh. As Fox News reports:

Freedom from Religion Foundation spokeswoman Annie Laurie Gaylor says issuing the stamp runs against Postal Service regulations.

“Mother Teresa is principally known as a religious figure who ran a religious institution. You can’t really separate her being a nun and being a Roman Catholic from everything she did,” Gaylor told FoxNews.com.

Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts expressed surprise at the protest, given the long list of previous honorees with strong religious backgrounds, including Malcolm X, the former chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a Baptist minister and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Gaylor said the atheist group opposed Father Flanagan’s stamp but not those for King and Malcolm X, because she said they were known for their civil rights activities, not for their religion.

Martin Luther King “just happened to be a minister,” and “Malcolm X was not principally known for being a religious figure,” she said.

Gaylor said Mother Teresa infused Catholicism into her secular honors — including an “anti-abortion rant” during her Nobel Prize acceptance speech — and that even her humanitarian work was controversial.

I’m actually somewhat sympathetic to the FFRF’s concerns. I think secular humanitarians are underappreciated, and I have also been very critical of Mother Teresa and her charity. Moreover, I know and like the people at the FFRF. They often do good work—and no, I’m not saying that because they’ve given me scholarship money.  :p

But why incur all this negative press over a stamp? These rather petty complaints only serve to eclipse secularists’ more legitimate grievances.

To their credit, the FFRF isn’t litigating this issue. I think they realize that they either don’t have a strong legal case or it’s not worth the effort. Again, though, does a stamp really merit a press release, let alone a boycott? From at least a PR perspective, I vote “no.”

Tell me I’m wrong.

The credulity of some so-called skeptics

Posted on by
13

The Wall Street Journal points out the log in our own eye:

From Hollywood to the academy, nonbelievers are convinced that a decline in traditional religious belief would lead to a smarter, more scientifically literate and even more civilized populace.The reality is that the New Atheist campaign, by discouraging religion, won’t create a new group of intelligent, skeptical, enlightened beings. Far from it: It might actually encourage new levels of mass superstition. And that’s not a conclusion to take on faith — it’s what the empirical data tell us.

“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.

The WSJ article goes on to cite another, equally distressing poll:

According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s monumental “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” that was issued in June, 21% of self-proclaimed atheists believe in either a personal God or an impersonal force. Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven.

Yes, you read that right. “Atheists” who believe in god, heaven, and the power of prayer. Let’s just hope that these are the same “atheists” who in the other survey report believing in palm readings and astrology!

Ugh. Articles like these make me wonder whether my faith in human rationality is just that—faith. It just goes to show that religion is not the source of irrationality, but is rather a symptom. Many manifestations of that irrationality aren’t even religious in nature. Consider Bill Maher. While criticizing people’s unscientific religious beliefs on his HBO show and in his film Religulous, Maher himself peddles discredited anti-vaccination arguments. Famed “debunker” James Randi is also at odds with the scientific community, as he recently expressed doubts about anthropogenic global warming.

The relationship between atheism and superstition is not necessarily causal. Confounding factors abound. But if nothing else, we should take these findings as a challenge to be better skeptics and as a reminder that a more reasonable society demands more than mere secularism.