LAW OF THE LAND
Court rules atheism a religion
Decides 1st Amendment protects prison inmate's right to start study group
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Posted: August 20, 2005
1:00 a.m. Eastern
A federal court of appeals ruled yesterday Wisconsin prison officials violated an inmate's rights because they did not treat atheism as a religion.
"Atheism is [the inmate's] religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being," the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals said.
Staying a Christian Upon Leaving (cont.)
by serotonin_wraith 76 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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writetoknow
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serotonin_wraith
Atheism is a religion in the same way 'off' is a TV channel or bald is a hair colour.
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writetoknow
Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
A woman prayed at Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai, where many worshipers new to religious expression seemed uncertain about how to act.
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By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: March 4, 2007
SHANGHAI, March 3 — Qin Fangyi’s religious moment came after a walk in the pouring rain two years ago to a nunnery for a ceremony that her mother had urged her to attend.
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Ryan Pyle for The New York Times
More young people now visit the temple, where a man burned incense.
Ms. Qin’s mother converted to Buddhism two years earlier despite her husband’s open hostility to religion, and quietly nudged her daughter into having a look for herself.
“I got there at about 8 a.m. and was told the ceremony was delayed by an hour,” said Ms. Qin, a 21-year-old design student. “At about 8:55, all of the sudden the sky grew clear and the sun came out and people began cheering and screaming that the real Buddha was about to appear in the sky. Although I didn’t see the Buddha myself, I was amazed, and I began to feel the power of God.”
Ms. Qin’s story, although unique in its details, has an ending that is fast becoming commonplace, as Chinese by the tens of millions shed decades of state-imposed atheism. The phenomenon has gained momentum so fast that it appears to have taken the government by surprise.
A recent poll by East China Normal University estimated that 31.4 percent of Chinese 16 or older are religious, putting the number of believers at roughly 400 million.
In recent years, official estimates have placed the number of believers at around 100 million, but the fact that the new survey’s results were not only made public but were also reported by the government-controlled Chinese news media suggests that the survey has been given at least some official credence.
Perhaps the most popular time of the year for Chinese to engage in public worship is the traditional Chinese New Year, which began last month. Buddhist and Taoist temples, in particular, overflowed with visitors who prayed for ancestors or the health of their own households.
As Ms. Qin spoke on the eve of the holiday at the Jade Buddha Temple in central Shanghai, scores of worshipers strolled through the temple complex. Many were well-dressed office workers who often seemed uncertain about how to act as they entered the central pavilion and bowed or knelt in prayer.
Many other visitors were older Chinese who may have privately clung to their religion through decades of official hostility. Some accompanied grandchildren, tutoring them in the rituals of prayer as they worked their way around the pavilion, with its giant golden Buddha.
Others, meanwhile, burned thick clutches of incense in the temple’s large, open courtyard, bowing to the cardinal points of the compass and then depositing the burning sticks in huge iron urns.
“There was no way for me to do this with my own daughter,” said Zhang Li, 62, who escorted her smiling granddaughter through the complex, stopping here and there for prayer. “The temples were closed, and this sort of thing simply wasn’t allowed.”
Official attitudes toward religion have gradually loosened in China in recent years, enabling the resurgence of popular belief. Places of worship for the five officially recognized faiths — Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam — have been restored or built anew, and public worship allowed again amid signs that the government sees limited religiosity as a useful component of its drive to build what it calls a “harmonious society.”
Chinese experts say the growing popularity of religious belief has been driven by social crises involving corruption and the expanding gap between rich and poor.
“People feel troubled as they ponder these issues and wonder how they’ll be resolved,” said Liu Zhongyu, a professor of philosophy at East China Normal University and the principal author of the new religion survey. “People think, I don’t care what others do or what their results are, but I want something to rely upon.”
Asked about the government’s evolving attitudes toward the growing popularity of religion, He Guanghu, a professor of philosophy at People’s University in Beijing, said, “I hope the government will look at the zeal in religion positively, and see that it can help restore social order and harmony, that it helps governance and is not a threat.”
Strict limitations on religion remain, however. Beijing handpicks senior clergy for each of the authorized faiths and frequently persecutes believers in unauthorized religions, from Falun Gong to underground Protestant churches that meet in homes. The government also severely restricts religious education and prohibits proselytizing.
Membership in the Communist Party, meanwhile, remains a major avenue for individual advancement, but the party does not permit members to practice religion. Many employers and even universities also look askance at believers.
A result of these mixed signals is that many people still do not feel altogether comfortable being recognized as believers.
Many, however, say they are increasingly up front about their beliefs. “I usually make it clear to people that I’m a Catholic at the beginning,” said Zhu Zhaofeng, 27, a salesman at a French-owned luxury goods company who attends services at an unofficial Catholic church. “I don’t want other people to feel strange if I go to worship in churches or on pilgrimage. On the other hand, it is not something I promote.”
Mr. Zhu’s situation represents almost a reversal from that of his father, who spent seven years in prison and in labor camps in the 1950s because his religious beliefs were considered “antirevolutionary.”
His father, Zhu Dafang, now 74 and suffering from Parkinson’s disease, now passes his days in a tiny bedroom in an old house in central Shanghai, surrounded by Catholic reliquaries.
“We don’t hate anyone, and I have no regrets,” he said, of the suffering he endured. Struggling to speak through his tremors, he added, “One must try not to focus on the hardships you endure for faith.”
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writetoknow
"The world needs to wake up from its long nightmare of religious belief ... ." "Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done and may in the end be our greatest contribution to civilization."--Stephen Weinberg in "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," by George Johnson, Science Times, November 21, 2006.
"[Dawkins] wants to make respect for belief in God socially unacceptable ... ." "I'm quite keen on the politics of persuading people of the virtues of atheism ... ." "Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists."--Richard Dawkins
"Harris argues that unless belief in God is eradicated, civilization is likely to end in a murderous sea of religious warfare ... ." "At some point, there's going to be enough pressure that it is just going to be too embarrassing to believe in God."--Sam Harris
Reference for last two quotes on page 7: "The New Atheism?" The Christian Post, http://www.christianpost.com/article/20061125/23675_The_New_Atheism%3F.htm by Albert Mohler, Jr.
These quotes are not from obscure, uneducated, unpublished authors. Stephen Weinberg is a Nobel laureate in physics. Sam Harris is the author of two books on the best seller list--The End of Faith: Religion and Terror and the Future of Reason, and Letter to a Christian Nation. Richard Dawkins is a professor of biology at Oxford University and author of The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion, both best selling books. Dawkins claims "the number of nonreligious people in the United States is something near to 30 million ... . That's more than all the Jews in the world put together. I think we're in the same position the gay movement was in a few decades ago. There was a need for people to come out. The more people who came out, the more people who had the courage to come out. I think that's the case with atheists. They're more numerous than anyone realizes." Some atheists are now proposing that parents who indoctrinate their children with belief in God need to be prosecuted for child abuse.
Gary Wolf in the November 2006 issue of WIRED magazine writes "Religion is not only wrong; it is evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking." Wolf goes on to say that "Bad ideas foisted on children are moral wrongs." Wolf maintains that evangelism by atheists "is a moral imperative."
The Does God Exist? program began in 1968, and we began this journal in 1972. In 1968 we were saying to the Church that there was a need to wake up to what was happening as religious error and inconsistency was producing atheists at an accelerated rate. It has now gotten to the point where we would hope that even the most isolated of religious writers and teachers would realize we have to start responding openly to the challenges of atheism. Sitting in church buildings and entertaining ourselves with social activities and entertaining musical performances is not going to meet the challenges being forced upon us by atheism. Education is the only answer to what is happening, and people like Dawkins, Harris, Wolf, and Weinberg are the darlings of the mass media, so the battle to get people to hear the messages to counteract overt atheism is going to be increasingly difficult.
Much of what is being said by atheists is simply a misrepresentation of the facts. Much of what they say attempts to avoid evidence. Some of what they say is absolutely true, but applies to atheists as well as to religionists. We would like to try and address a few of these ideas here with the hope that our readers will do their own study and make their own responses to the growing atheist attacks in their own communities, schools, and periodicals.
The first problem with these kinds of statements is that they are profound exaggerations of the real situation. We frequently hear the Salem Witch Trials held up as an example of the horrors of religion, but how many people died in those trails--thousands? In reality, fewer than 25. How many died during the Spanish Inquisition? The answer is around 5,000. The number killed during the Crusades is debated to be anywhere from 100,000 to 500,000, depending upon who one listens to. The fact is that none of these terrible things that happened in the religious conflicts of history numbered in the millions. We do not want to minimize the terrible things that have happened or are happening. Any kind of war is terrible, and it is tragic that people will not place a premium on human life and stop the killing.
How many have been killed in the name of atheism, or by political figures that justified their killing of enemies in atheistic beliefs? Diniesh D'Souza, the Rishwain Research Scholar at Stanford University says that over 100 million people were murdered in the name of a religion-free utopia by Mao Tse Tung, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Adolf Hitler. Harris and Dawkins attempt to blame medieval Christianity for Hitler, and try to dismiss Stalin and Mao as "little more than a political religion." This does not work well at all since no one like Hitler arose in the 2,000 years before Nazi Germany and all of these leaders espoused the destruction of religion as a part of their belief system.
The point here is that the war in Ireland and in fact most of these kinds of wars are not predominantly about religion. My friends who live in Ireland tell me that in reality a large percentage of people on both sides are atheists. Religion is not popular among most of the youth in this area--a fact I can support from the programs we have presented in the United Kingdom. Rival claims to territory, power, self-determination, and ethnic rivalry are the sources of the conflicts. This is even true of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If you could remove the "God gave us this land" mentality of the Hamas and orthodox parties in Israel, the battle would still go on. I have had a number of students who are atheists but who are of Jewish heritage go back to Israel to fight the battle over Palestine, and certainly in their minds the battle is not a religious one.
The fact of the matter is that there is a wealth of scientific evidence for the existence of God. The Does God Exist? ministry attempts to organize and offer a small part of that evidence. None of the statements by the atheists we have been quoting deals with the issue of evidence. Denigrating someone or some system is not a response to what that system offers as evidence. We would agree that indoctrinating a child with a religious viewpoint is unwise and frankly in today's world will usually be unsuccessful. That is true of atheistic belief systems just as it is of religious systems. What needs to be done is to offer the evidence in such a way that the child can make his own choice about what the evidence supports. The atheists we have quoted are just like the religious fundamentalists in that they want only their view presented and no other options given. Doing a distorted history lesson is not an exercise in offering evidence to aid in making decisions.
What is the cosmological evidence for the existence of God? What are the moral arguments for God's existence? What has to be the nature of God, and what evidence do we have that this nature in reality does exist? What is the result of following a system that is based on belief in God? These are the fundamental issues--not the question of whether the war in the Middle East is bad or not.
What the teachings of Christ do is to move us to serve others. When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples he told them to do likewise, and the good done by Christians following the commands of Jesus is massive. We have reviewed several books in this journal in recent years that explore all the positive things that have been done in the name of Christianity: Under the Influence (March/April 2003) and What Has Christianity Ever Done for Us? (November/December 2006).
Jesus also commanded Christians not to be the aggressors in personal conflict. Even the skeptics of Christianity know about such teachings as turning the other cheek, going the second mile, and loving your enemies (see Matthew 5-7). Statements of violence may be found in the writings of other religious figures, but not in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Where does atheism and atheistic theories lead? Dawkins states outright that in his view evolutionary theory must logically lead to atheism. Francis Collins strongly refutes this in his book The Language of God (see March/April 2007 issue, page 21). If survival of the fittest is your mantra, why would you do anything to support and ensure the survival of the less fit? Neil deGrasse Tyson recently presented a slide show to an atheist group with heartbreaking photographs of newborns misshapen by birth defects. He suggested that these terrible pictures were testimony to the belief that nature was blind and that there is no intelligent overseer in control. The question of what causes both these defects was never broached, and the big question of who is caring for these babies and their families was never discussed. Some atheists have viewed abortion as the only answer to this question, a position we have discussed in our series of books on pain and suffering (see our catalog) The fact is that atheism offers no solution and no help to these kinds of problems other than killing them. Christianity offers those of us who have suffered a child born with birth defects (as your author has) not only help in dealing with the problem, but with a world-view that helps us accept it.
The new atheism and its war on religious belief may be a good thing. In the nearly forty years we have been involved in this ministry we have been phenomenally unsuccessful in awakening the Church to the challenges of disbelief. This has been true even though most churches and families have experienced the loss of children due to the challenges of faith. Perhaps the abusive and vitriolic nature of the attacks by Harris, Dawkins, Wolf, Weinberg, and others will finally wake us up. The big question is how many of our children will we have to lose to atheism and the consequences of rejecting faith in the meantime.
--John N. Clayton -
serotonin_wraith
Much of what they say attempts to avoid evidence.
LOL
The fact of the matter is that there is a wealth of scientific evidence for the existence of God.
Where?
The atheists we have quoted are just like the religious fundamentalists in that they want only their view presented and no other options given.
A lie. Believe what you wish, but don't be so shocked if we ask for evidence to back up your ridiculous claims.
Some atheists are now proposing that parents who indoctrinate their children with belief in God need to be prosecuted for child abuse.
If you tell a child you'll stick their hand in a fire if they're naughty, that's mental abuse. If you tell a child they'll burn forever if they don't agree with your religion, that's fine? Oh. Okay.
We frequently hear the Salem Witch Trials held up as an example of the horrors of religion, but how many people died in those trails--thousands? In reality, fewer than 25.
That was ONE trial. There were thousands of trials.
The fact that atheism has done even worse things does not negate the problems of religion.
This one again? Yawn.
Many man-made systems call themselves Christian and contradict the teachings of Christ. The Crusades were in diametric opposition to the teachings of Christ. No one following the teachings of Jesus would bomb an abortion clinic, support the Ku Klux Klan, or support woman or child abuse.
Depends where you cherry pick from really.
If survival of the fittest is your mantra, why would you do anything to support and ensure the survival of the less fit?
There's more to evolution than that narrow view.
Some atheists have viewed abortion as the only answer to this question
Being atheist doesn't automatically make you pro-choice. It's a lack of belief in a god, that's it. Everything is open to discussion.
The big question is how many of our children will we have to lose to atheism and the consequences of rejecting faith in the meantime.
What consequences would this be? The Biblical hell doesn't exist.
What were the consequences of leaving behind belief in other disproven gods? Humanity progressed.
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writetoknow
Am I suppose to take your word on it because you post on a public forum?
Who are you and by what authority do you speak what are your credential?
What scholarly work and research have you done?
Which college can I go to too read your work?
Forums are full of people making unfounded statements am I to take you seriously and reject people that actual know something about the subject?
What have you proven? Because you said it on a forum Yawn!
Where your facts?
You have not posted an artical yet that proves anything except people can interpret science anyway they want to prove a point. Yawn - how do you think dictators come to power because they love of truth or by changing the record?
Isn't that what you do here reject anything that doesn't fit into your belief.
Still waiting for you to make a valid point!
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serotonin_wraith
Ehh, I give up with you. There's only so many times I can say 'here is the proof- look at it.'
As for my research - I do plenty. Most days in fact. It doesn't matter that I'm not religious. You don't need to be Egyptian to understand Egyptian beliefs.
My credentials? Show me the credentials that show why not believing in Thor is the right position to take and I'll show you my credentials.
Tell me what you made of the proof I gave, and I'll have a conversation with you. Right now, you're just wasting my time and I'll ignore you. Have the last word now if you like...
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writetoknow
I have none just like you.
But I don't make a pretense that I have all the facts like you do.
Your the one that started this thread the one attacking and putting people down because they don't agree.
Who are you why should I believe you?
You want people to prove there a God or no God because they can make a little thread up and come across with put downs( according to you this is the greatest service every done for the human race arguing on a post) I don't think so...
Actually anything that doesn't fit into your agenda is a waste of time for you. You think because you can argue a point and put down people your intellegent and that proves your point.
History is replete with people that took lives and gave lives for the lastest truth the very thinking you hate religion over. Just to find out another idea a better idea replaced it. You ask people to trust humans to give them the whole truth and nothing but the truth that like asking you to believe God's word is from God.
I don't trust what you post why should I if I can't trust God's word according - to you it is the the world greatest fraud ever put on the human race. Ok! Thats cool - now I am to trust your statements. Yawn - dishonest people with another agenda another belief that they think if they hid the word "belief" its not another religion - Yawn sounds like the same old word game in the name of misleading the masses to promote their agenda.
Rewrite the history of religion to prove your point discredit all the facts with put downs argue the point and produce no real credentials. Ask people to put faith in your statement because you believe them strongly. Sounds and smell like the old religion I got out of. Call people arrogant because that write a verse from the bible on the posted it sounds like an intellectual discussion to me. My way or the highway!
Dud do you take yourself too seriously are you one of those ex-witnesses that believes they are anointed to save the world?
You right about one point we are finally in agreement on - the whole things is a waste of time just like I stated from the first post that you put me down in!
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writetoknow
What is Hate?
Most definitions of hate focus on the ways in which hate-mongers see entire groups of people as the "Other."
For example, U.S.-based Tolerance.org argues that "All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."
Raymond A. Franklin, author of The Hate Directory, focuses on groups that "advocate violence against, separation from, defamation of, deception about, or hostility towards others based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation."
Canadian communications scholar Karim Karim points out that the "Other" is one of a number of human archetypes common to all cultures. When people transfer their fears and hatred to the "Other," the targeted group becomes less than human. Hate-mongers can then "justify" acts of violence and degradation because they have denied the humanity of their victims. -
Anti-Christ
What is Hate?
Most definitions of hate focus on the ways in which hate-mongers see entire groups of people as the "Other."
For example, U.S.-based Tolerance.org argues that "All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics."
Raymond A. Franklin, author of The Hate Directory, focuses on groups that "advocate violence against, separation from, defamation of, deception about, or hostility towards others based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation."
Canadian communications scholar Karim Karim points out that the "Other" is one of a number of human archetypes common to all cultures. When people transfer their fears and hatred to the "Other," the targeted group becomes less than human. Hate-mongers can then "justify" acts of violence and degradation because they have denied the humanity of their victims.Sorry but I didn't see any hate in what sero. wrote, just comments and questions about the god of the bible.
