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The humbling of the atheists: How religion survived the progress of science

"Not so long ago, there was a countercultural boldness in standing up for atheism. But religion has survived its attacks

"Today, the humbling of the New Atheists is almost complete, and the strange thing is that no one is really taking their place. Fierce debates about religious belief continue among irreconcilable fundamentalists on all sides, but as a social force, atheism has lost its urgency.

"Sociologically, the expectation was that religion would decline and atheism increase as science literacy increased, and as older people who were raised with religion at home are replaced by younger people who were not.
But that is not what has happened.
It is really only religious institutions that are declining, and they are being replaced by what the University of Waterloo sociologist Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme has called “individually constructed belief systems and personal spiritual practices.”

"So the non-religious are not necessarily atheists, and the unaffiliated are more religious than is often assumed. For the die-hard atheist, this is a problem. It challenges the idea that religion and science are opposites in some kind of zero-sum game, in which a loss for the one is a gain for the other.

"Religion is not a “primitive type of science,” as John Gray puts it. It is a form of life.
This is why religion has survived not only the progress of science, but also the attacks of atheists. Their arrows miss their mark, and as the dangers of religious extremism fall down the list of cultural preoccupations, so too does movement atheism."

From:
[nationalpost.com]

Matias 8 July 9
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11 comments

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0

I am not humbled! how could I be; a non belief is just that ,simply, its not a cause or a battle just a choice. And I have a right to my choice- making it into a competition is crass.

jacpod Level 8 July 10, 2018
0

"Religion is not a “primitive type of science,” as Gray puts it. It is a form of life." This author (whose triumphalist tone is hideous and betrays a less-than-thinly-veiled bias of such magnitude that this article should have been unpublishable) is correct in this statement.

The problem is that many religious forms of life (and belief) get directly in the way of accurate knowledge about reality (science included). And get directly in the way of other forms of life (including other religious ones). And get in the way of good solutions to the problems of life.

It is not a mere "form of life", but a form of life that causes many problems and gets many things wrong. That opens it up to legitimate criticism, with science but a part of that. Science and religion may not be fundamentally in conflict, but in practice they genuinely conflict enough (often at religion's fault) that the statement does capture some truth.

1

The facts are... Young people are abandoning religion, the number of "nones" as counted by Pew is at an all time high, and the US remains one of only a small handful of Western Nations where the religious are still in the majority.

1

I saw this. Everyday I come across a new article in the mainstream media and elsewhere putting the boot into atheism. The recurrent themes are:

Atheism is waning.
The atheist activists, Dawkins et.al. are no longer relevant.
Atheists are kicking the shit out each other these days.
Atheism is hopelessly divided and dying.
Atheism no longer knows what it wants.
Atheism no longer knows what it stands for.
Atheists eat more babies for breakfast than they ever have.

Everyday some new article appears on my iPad magazine with some story about how atheism's time has come and gone. It's unrelenting, and so obvious from religious apologists and their sycophants.

Have we got them that worried?

I've thought about posting on this but I guess those of you who are genuine nonbelievers already know.

I hope they keep it up. It means we are getting somewhere.

1

So who's humble already? (Feel free to read that in a Jewish-sounding voice.)

I'm a proud atheist. I'll put my atheism up against anyone's theism in 10 rounds, last one standing.

Religion! Bah! A lot of fairy tales it is! Who needs it? Nobody, that's who!

@Matias I don't disagree, but the title was about "humbling" of the modern atheist. I was going the humor route. It's late, I'm going to bed now...

0

"Religion is not a “primitive type of science,” as John Gray puts it. It is a form of life.“

IMO this is a very true statement. Many people think that religion is an attempt to explain nature through far fetched magical thinking—that the religious are cowardly people who need a comforting belief in the supernatural in order to face life and death.

While that version of religion might have some presence, that does not tell the whole story. Many deeply religious people exhibit profound courage by maintaining a life of attention, awareness, awe, appreciation and gratitude for existence. For them religion is not about faith or belief in scriptures or trying to be good, and it is not about explaining nature. It is about standing in awe of the unexplainable. It is not about knowing but about wondering.

It is perfectly reasonable to point out that biblical myths are unscientific. It is commendable to criticize organizations that promote such myths. It is not reasonable IMO to attack religion in general.

1

I don't appreciate the tone this has towards atheism. Atheists aren't asserting anything. Atheism isn't a belief that people choose or don't choose. It is simply the lack of belief. If it wasn't for religion dominating the world since the dawn of time we wouldn't even need a label to describe it. Just as there isn't a label for nonbelievers in Santa, the tooth fairy, or Thor, simply they are just people that have grown away from believing unsupported claims. I despise that we must be placed in a group as opposed to just existing without the imposition of religion, but it is the unfortunate truth of our society. There is no "missed mark" of atheism. It isn't a counterculture nor a movement. We all ascribe to many movements and cultures as atheists, but atheism isn't one.

You just characterized religion as having belief in unsupported claims. That is an assertion, so you do indeed assert things.

@WilliamFleming
If I state that the speed of light is 186,000 miles per second, is that also an assertion?

Religions (and religious people) do believe in unsupported claims. There is no support or substantiation beyond the biblical account for the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, Jesus rising bodily to heaven, yet these are central to the Christian religion. It's not an "assertion" on my part to say this, it's a statement of fact.

@Paul4747 I would agree with your second paragraph if you insert “some”, except that it really is an assertion to say that. It is a well supported assertion however.

Where we differ is in your previous comment where you seemed to define religion as belief in unsupported claims. It’s like defining Scots as those who eat oatmeal.

Atheists make all kinds of assertions about their religious opinions. Often they say that they are simply withholding belief and have no burden of proof, but they proceed to argue anyway.

@WilliamFleming Name a religion supported by scientifically supported evidence, and then I'll go along with you. But then, that wouldn't be a religion, it would be simply facts.

The definition of religion, as given by religionists, is "belief based on faith". That is by definition unsupported.

@Paul4747 Unitarianism, New Thought Churches, Quakers require no faith or belief, therefore no evidence is necessary. Think of it as something like art. We don’t need evidence for art. Religion is not a body of knowledge. It is a way of life.

@WilliamFleming I do assert things, but that's not atheism leading me to these assertions. That's based on my independent research and experiences that there isn't any substantiated evidence for a God. I was born an Atheist I didnt need evidence that there "wasnt a God" because the concept of God isn't instilled in us at birth. It comes with much dogma and indoctrination later to "believe'. Atheism makes no assertions, humans do, religion does, but not Atheism.

1

Excellent point. Many of the "New Atheists" never really understood the religious except from a narrow literal viewpoint and so had limited success.

1

Atheism is amorphous. We who don’t believe don’t prosthelise, or try to convert. We don’t stand on street corners and berate those who believe in god. We don’t organise into groups and wield political power. We don’t wage wars in the name of atheism. We are quite passive in the face of hostility and sometimes downright hatred from the religious. We have never really made a concerted effort to make the believers change from their superstition. I personally don’t want to change into a militant atheist, I just want my views to be respected and the religious to keep their views out of politics. No you are right, atheism hasn’t made much of an impression in debunking religious belief despite scientific proof that contradicts biblical texts, but was that ever an objective?

@Matias I think percentage wise the number of organised atheists is small. I can see where you are coming from with some of the polemicists, some who have made quite a lucrative career out of pushing the atheist line. They are not the typical nonbeliever in my experience.

2

Certainly the idea of a personal spirituality seems to be the 'new church' and it can take many forms. If it involves personal communion then it can only be beneficial.

Personally, I don't feel that science should be involved in a conflict arena with religion per se as science, to my mind, is about unveiling and exploring.not confronting. Science's undeniable strength is proof, not force. Religion will always be with the human mind. Religion is not the problem. The problem is with the manner in which many individuals are moulded and manipulated by institutionalised selfishness.

History shows that religious ideas cannot be suppressed and enquiring minds will not allow science to go away so best to work together to find points of similarity instead of difference

Beautifully stated, and so true!

3

Yeah, that's a load of horseshit.
The actual numbers tell a MUCH different story.
The more believers that die off, the fewer younger ones are there to take their places.

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