The 'New Atheists' shovel sand against the tide

Madeleine Bunting writes:

But perhaps New Atheism's publishing success is a case of winning a battle and losing the war. John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge point out in God is Back that the main religions are currently experiencing massive expansion across most of the world. One of the biggest drivers of growth is China; by 2050 it could be the biggest Muslim nation, and the biggest Christian one. What numerous countries are now demonstrating from the US to Asia, from Africa to the Middle East and Latin America, is that modernisation, far from entailing secularisation, is actually leading to increased and intensified forms of religiosity. According to Micklethwait and Wooldridge, the future across most of the globe is going to be very religious.

To the sceptical European, this is a lonely and unintelligible prospect. So, scanning my stuffed bookshelf, which of these defences of God are going to help explain this enduring appeal? Start with Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth: "we are meaning-seeking creatures" who "invent stories to place our lives in a larger setting … and give us a sense that, against all the depressing and chaotic evidence to the contrary, life has meaning and value". That helps explain why the bestselling religious book in the US is The Purpose Driven Life (the first chapters of which are published on the net as What on Earth Am I Here For?). The faithful are not mugging up on critiques of reason for an argument with New Atheism, but turning to religion to offer meaning and purpose.

Read the entire piece here.

Holy Smoke! Richard Dawkins flamed the pope

Byzantine ship using Greek fire in the late 11th century: from the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript.

Asked at WaPo's On Faith if Pope Benedict XVI's outreach to Anglicans was "poaching" disaffected Anglicans, atheist Richard Dawkins burst into flame.

Among other things, he wrote:

Poaching? Of course it is poaching. What else could you call it? Maybe it will succeed. If estimates are right that 1,000 Anglican clergymen will take the bait (no women, of course: they will swiftly be shown the door), what could be their motive? For some it will be a deep-seated misogyny (although they'll re-label it with a mendacious euphemism of some kind, which they'll call 'an important point of theological principle'). They just can't stomach the idea of women priests. One wonders how their wives can stomach a husband whose contempt for women is so visceral that he considers them incapable even of the humble and unexacting duties of a priest.
For some, the motive will be homophobic bigotry, and a consequent dislike of the efforts of decent church leaders such as the Archbishop of Canterbury to accept those whose sexual orientation happens to deviate from majority taste. Never mind that they will be joining an institution where buggering altar boys pervades the culture.

Yes, and he was just getting his flamethrower adjusted.

Holy Smoke (Damian Thompson) billowed back from the London Telegraph, blazing:

Richard Dawkins’s latest attack on the Catholic Church is worthy of a dribbling loony on the top of a bus. He calls the Church “the greatest force for evil in the world”, “an institution where buggering altar boys pervades the culture” and describes it “dragging its skirts in the dirt and touting for business like a common pimp”. (Pimps in skirts – that’s a new one.) And all in The Washington Post.
The peg for this piece? The Pope's offer to make special arrangements for Anglicans converting to Rome, a matter I would have thought was none of Prof Dawkins's business. But I'm not going to bother to argue with any of his points, because these are the ravings of a man who appears to have lost all sense of proportion. Seriously: is there something wrong with him?

Atheist PZ Myers responded with blistering deconstruction. along the way answering Holy Smoke author Damien Thompson's question:

Why, no, Damian! What's wrong with you?

Among those muttering from the pews is New Zealand Conservative, who sees in Dawkins' response evidence that "forces of darkness are gathering" against the pope's outreach.

Change Arkansas' Constitution?

Don Byrd blogging for The Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty reports:

Believe it or not, a few states still have constitutional provisions disallowing atheists from holding office, completely - of course, at odds with the US Constitution's guarantee that there can be no religious test. An effort is under way in Arkansas to do something about it.

Atheist Bus ads run into heavy Genoa, Italy, traffic

Booted off Genoa, Italy, buses earlier this month after heated Catholic and Muslim protest, the atheist bus ads will run in drastically toned-down form on perhaps one bus for two weeks in February.

The new ad approved by advertising licensing agency IGP Decaux, reads: "The Good News Is There Are Millions of Atheists In Italy; The Excellent News Is They Believe In Freedom Of Expression."

Originally the message was "The Bad News Is God Doesn't Exist, The Good News Is You Don't Need Him."

The secretary of the Italian Union of Atheists, Agnostics and Rationalists (UAAR), Raffale Carcano, said the UAAR was working to get the original message approved in cities where IGP doesn't control advertising.

Heaven only knows whether they'll succeed.

Unholy moly: Complaints against atheist bus ads rejected in the UK

Complaints have been filed against atheist bus ads have been rejected by the United Kingdom's Advertising Standards Authority.

The ASA news release said:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has concluded that the “There’s probably no God” bus ad campaign by the British Humanist Association is not in breach of the advertising code. The ASA will therefore not launch an investigation and the case is now closed.

The ASA carefully assessed the 326 complaints it received. Some complained that the ad was offensive and denigratory to people of faith. Others challenged whether the ad was misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God “probably” does not exist.

The ASA Council concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertiser’s opinion and that the claims in it were not capable of objective substantiation. Although the ASA acknowledges that the content of the ad would be at odds with the beliefs of many, it concluded that it was unlikely to mislead or to cause serious or widespread offence.

Probably the end of it in the UK. Or so we believe.

Atheist bus ads' 'Probably' is allegedly required

It probably doesn't please most atheists to have their disbelief qualified as it is in the text of the bus ads. And philosopher A.C. Grayling makes it unequivocally clear that he is among the unhappy.

He wrote:

I would question the rationality of anyone who thought that there is probably no Father Christmas, or probably no fairies at the bottom of the garden, etcetera, and since such beliefs and beliefs in the gods of Olympus and Ararat and all other religions are on a par, there is no "probably" about it.

Atheist Bus Ad campaign innovator Ariane Sherine told him, however, that bus companies would not accept their ad sans "probably."

Well oh my, er ... probably goodness, it's true. As Grayling learned and reported:

According to Tim Bleakley, marketing director of CBS Outdoor, which handles advertising for the bus networks, "advertising guidelines" require the word "probably"; to say that there is no God, he said, "would be misleading … So as not to fall foul of the code, you have to acknowledge that there is a grey area".

Parity, Grayling demands. Parity requires something like inserting the word "allegedly" into every ad assertion which suggests "the existence of supernatural agencies."

Results might include "Jesus allegedly saves," "God is allegedly king," and so on.

Uh huh..

I probably can't stand that for any religion or other belief. Can you? Really? No. The outdoor advertising regulators were and are just probably wrong to make that alleged requirement.

Unholy moly! Atheist buses are rolling

Atheist outreach is having its say via ads on 800 United Kingdom buses.

They answer Jesus Said ads which ran on London buses in June. The "Jesus Said" ads pointed to a Web site which warns that failure to accept Christ will invoke God's wrath:

God's wrath includes the prospect of eternal punishment -- it is appointed to men to die once and then comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). You will rise from the dead and will face the Judge and know that you rejected His kind and merciful answer. You will be condemned to everlasting separation from God and then you spend all eternity in torment in hell. Jesus spoke about this as a lake of fire which was prepared for the devil and all his angels (demonic spirits) (Matthew 25: 41).

Comedy wrinter Adriane Sherine found that offensive and, supported by the British Humanist Association and Professor Richard Dawkins, led the campaign to raise £135,000.

This iteration of the campaigin was launched on Oct. 21, and is the successor to a failed campaign which was launched and closed in midsummer after Sherine wrote a blog post, Atheists -- gimme five, in resonse to the Jesus Said ads on the sides of London buses.

The atheists' ads say (as in the picture above):

There's probably no God.

Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

Inspired by the British, the American Humanist Association bought ads during the Christmas season in and on 200 Washington, D.C., buses. The ads said:

Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake.

The Pennsylvania Friends of Christ responded in D.C. with ads which said:

Believe in God. Christ is Christmas for goodness' sake.

Another group, started by a stay-at-home Catholic housewife with lobbying experience who partnered with the Catholic nonprofit Center for Family Development in Bethesda, MD., quickly raised the money to run D.C. bus ads which said:

Why believe? I created you and I love you, for goodness’ sake. – God.

We don't know about the British, but in overview, U.S. atheists are more confused than evangelistic. The Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape survey found that 21% of U.S. atheists professed a belief in God.

Mayhap they're mostly backsliders who, despite the bus ads, may readily be persuaded to return to church. Or if unbaptised, to begin their walk.