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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Reasons to be cheerful The glass is half full By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 800 words Publication date: December 31, 2006 Is there light at the end of the tunnel? After thirty years of relentless Christian activism, is the tide beginning to turn? I’m in an optimistic mood because I suspect that the worst days of religious ignorance and bigotry – at least in America – are behind us. I know, cable tv is littered with evangelists swaying as their overwrought voices worship God, millions of Americans attend Sunday services, and rap artists still thank the Deity for inspiring them to write verses that extol degradation of women and violence. But in the midst of this religious hysteria, Americans may finally be coming to their senses. Look at the evidence. Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion has been twelve weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list. That report reflects not just sales in the Empire State but in almost 4,000 bookstores and by wholesalers serving another 50,000 retailers across the country. Other atheist books have also achieved widespread sales, such as Sam Harris’ Letter to a Christian Nation and The End of Faith. Let’s be honest: Dawkins is by far the better writer but the fact that Harris also sells well tells us that there is a big audience for viewpoints that challenge the prevailing God myth. Atheism is also getting increasing coverage in the opinion columns of the nation’s press. I see mostly the east coast Axis of Moderation – the Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post – but after years of silence these papers are suddenly acknowledging that for a sizeable proportion of their readers the Christian perspective on reality is as false and harmful as Neo’s Matrix. Not surprisingly, theists are hitting back. Accusations include the idea that atheist fundamentalism is as harmful as the religious variety (Nicholas Kristof, NYT December 3, 2006) and atheism is devoid of morality (Jeff Jacoby, Globe, December 13). Rational atheists – aren’t we all? – welcome these attacks, because they both expose the hollowness of the theists’ argument and allow us to respond with the truth. If they read the responses to his article, one day Kristof and those who think like him will understand that fundamentalist atheism is basically peaceful. Unlike Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims, no rationalist has killed in the name of his atheism. And one day Jacoby and his ilk will understand that morality – the protection of human life and well-being – is a concept that exists irrespective of the myth of God, and that Christian morality is a harmful contradiction. The rise of rationalism is not restricted to the printed word. “Christian” may give rise to 333,000,000 pages on Google, compared to 15,300,000 for “atheist”, but it is clear that our presence on the web is widespread and growing. Each time I surf the internet I come across more and more of our diverse population. In addition to generic sites such as atheists.org, atheists.com, atheistempire.com, infidels.org, check out specialist sites such as celebatheists.com, atheistparents.org and theatheistmama.com. And take a long look at The Best of Net Atheism any wet Sunday afternoon. We have even reached such heights of popularity as YouTube. Check out Atheist, which has been viewed 240,000 times and received a four star rating. I also recommend the less popular (30,000 viewings) Atheist Walking for Sunday Schools across the nation. None of this new presence and energy means that atheism will soon recover its central role in American life, as was once envisaged by the Founding Fathers and the Constitution. Political life on both sides of the political spectrum is still dominated by believers and hypocrites (it’s often difficult to tell the difference) proclaiming their faith in God. Religious bigots such as James Dobson are still treated with respect rather than opprobrium by the national media. In much of Middle America atheists are still pariahs (but so too are gays, blacks, Yankees and other minorities). And the picture overseas remains dark. Thanks partly to American action (Iraq…) and inaction (the Middle East), Muslim fundamentalism has yet to reach its peak. Millions of women who once walked free in Baghdad, Cairo, Tehran and other cities in the Islamic world are forced, or are choosing, to cover their hair, bodies and even their faces in deference to their misogynistic God. Old and ignorant men preach the infallibility of a scripture as nauseating in its violence as the Christian Bible while young men in their care turn from sex to murder in the name of the supposedly Compassionate Allah. Nor can we forget the Hindu nationalist killers of India or the Israeli settlers building their houses and wall of hatred across the desert. But we can hope that one day all these believers will see reason. Americans are slowly waking from their nightmare of religious slavery. In time, people across the world will join them in a bright, new rationalist day.
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |