| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Unsound of Strumpet" |
| Date: |
18 Oct 2006 04:13:00 AM |
| Object: |
Is God dead? Atheism finds a market in US |
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=3D21921
Is God dead? Atheism finds a market in US
Chicago (ANTARA News) - A fresh wave of atheistic books has hit the
market this autumn, some climbing onto best-seller lists in what
proponents see as a backlash against the way religion is entwined in
politics.
"Religion is fragmenting the human community," said Sam Harris, author
of "Letter to a Christian Nation," No. 11 on the New York Times
nonfiction list on Oct. 15.
There is a "huge visibility and political empowerment of religion.
President George W. Bush uses his first veto to deny funding for stem
cell research and scientists everywhere are horrified," he said in an
interview.
Religious polarization is part of many world conflicts, he said,
including those involving Israel and Iran, "but it's never discussed. I
consider it the story of our time, what religion is doing to us. But
there are very few people calling
a spade a spade."
His "Letter," a blunt 96-page pocket-sized book condensing arguments
against belief in quick-fire volleys, appeared on the Times list just
ahead of "The God Delusion," by Richard Dawkins, a scientist at Oxford
University and long-time atheist.
In addition, Harris' "The End of Faith," a 2004 work which prompted his
"Letter" as a response to critics, is holding the No. 13 Times spot
among nonfiction paperbacks.
Publishers Weekly said the business has seen "a striking number of
impassioned critiques of religion -- any religion, but Christianity in
particular," a probably inevitable development given "the super-soaking
of American politics and culture with religion in recent years."
Free thought and seculer humanism
Paul Kurtz, founder of the Council for Secular Humanism and publisher
of Free Inquiry magazine, said, "The American public is really
disturbed about the role of religion in U.S.government policy,
particularly with the Bush administration
and the breakdown of church-state separation, and secondly with the
conflict in the Mideast."
They are turning to free thought and secular humanism and publishers
have recognized a taste for that, he added.
"I've published 45 books, many critical of religion," Kurtz said. "I
think in America we have this notion of tolerance ... it was considered
bad taste to criticize religion. But I think now there are profound
questions about age-old hatreds."
The Rev. James Halstead, chairman of the Department of Religious
Studies at Chicago's DePaul University, says the phenomenon is really
"a ripple caused by the book publishing industry."
"These books cause no new thought or moral commitment. The arguments
are centuries old," he told Reuters. Some believers, he added, "are no
better. Their conception of God, the Divine-Human-World relationship
are much too simplistic and
materialistic."
Too often, he said, the concept "God" is misused "to legitimate the
self and to beat up other people ... to rehash that same old theistic
and atheistic arguments is a waste of time, energy and paper."
Dr. Timothy Larsen, professor of theology at Wheaton College in
Illinois, says any growth in interest in atheism is a reflection of the
strength of religion -- the former being a parasite that feeds off the
latter.
That happened late in the 19th century America when an era of intense
religious conviction gave rise to voices like famed agnostic Robert
Ingersoll, he said.
For Christianity, he said, "It's very important for people of faith to
realize how unsettling and threatening their posture and rhetoric and
practice can feel to others. So it's an opportunity for the church to
look at itself and say 'we
have done things ... that make other people uncomfortable.' It is an
opportunity for dialogue."
Larsen, author of the soon-to-be-published "Crisis of Doubt," added
that in some sense atheism is "a disappointment with God and with the
church. Some of these are people we wounded that we should be handling
pastorally rather than with
aggressive knockdown debate."
These are also probably some of the same people Harris says he's
hearing from after his two books.
"Many, many readers feel utterly isolated in their communities," he
said. "They are surrounded by cult members, from their point of view,
and are unable to disclose their feelings."
"I get a lot of e-mail just expressing incredible relief that they are
not alone ... relieved that I'm writing something that couldn't be
said," Harris added. (*)
Copyright =A9 2006 ANTARA
October 18, 2006
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| User: "Mike Painter" |
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| Title: Re: Is God dead? Atheism finds a market in US |
18 Oct 2006 12:24:12 PM |
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Unsound of Strumpet wrote:
http://www.antara.co.id/en/seenws/?id=21921
<snip>
"I get a lot of e-mail just expressing incredible relief that they are
not alone ... relieved that I'm writing something that couldn't be
said," Harris added. (*)
Copyright © 2006 ANTARA
October 18, 2006
The Chico - Paradise area of Butte County, CA has a lot of churches and for
many years it was said that Paradise had a gas station on one corner and a
church across the street on every intersection.
The 2000 census asked a new question. How many do not claim any religion?
147,520 claimed no religion - and "other" was one of the choices.
That's more than 72% of the population.
Maybe that population is realizing that they are the real silent majority.
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