[extropy-chat] Atheism in Decline

[Samantha Atkins]

On Mar 5, 2005, at 12:20 PM, Mike Lorrey wrote:

>

> Not just that. The degree of theological sophistication of most
> atheists reminds me of 12 year old sunday school dropouts, no matter
> which religion they grew up in. Those who grew up without any tend to
> be even worse off. Kids who primarily stopped believing in God about
> the same time they figured out that Santa Claus wasn't real, or when
> their grandpa or grandma died, as if such an event couldn't be allowed
> by Charlton Heston or Kris Kringle if he/they were real.

Many atheists you run into hereabouts are a great deal more 
sophisticated.  Generally speaking it takes more caring about these 
topics than many fundies achieve to become atheist in a culture like 
ours.
>
> The fact is that some of the best science in history has come from
> religious people: Mendel's research in plant genetics (he was a monk),
> des Chardins Omega Point Theory (long before the modern transhumanist
> movement) and this site:
> http://libraries.luc.edu/about/exhibits/jesuits/ provides a significant
> history of Jesuit priests who have contributed to the sciences since
> 1540. Muslim, Jewish, and Catholic scholars preserved knowledge through
> dark ages in spite of illiterate destruction of secular authorities.

The Church also destroyed a great deal of knowledge and locked away 
much of the rest.  in the middle ages you were either publicly 
religious or dead.   If you were religious but had views the Church 
disapproved of it might still be the stake for you.  Do you really see 
much to speak positively of Christianity from this period?

>
> Someone who is a true believer in god really can't have any doubt about
> truth found by science, if the believer believes god is the creator of
> the universe that science examines. Someone with a sophisticated
> theological grounding would understand this implicitly.

Then by your lights the majority of religious leaders are not 
theologically sophisticated.   I agree.

>
> In this respect, the sort of fundamentalism and orthodox reliance on
> the literal word of scripture that atheists rebel against is just as
> poorly grounded and lacking in sophisticated theological grounding. To
> quote Neal Stephenson, such people live by a theology "written by a
> febrile two year old".
>
> Where atheists err is in their ignorant assumption that all persons of
> faith are as poorly grounded as the scriptural literalists.

Whoops.  You forgot your qualifiers and ended up with a simplistic 
over-generalization accusing all atheists of simplistic 
over-generalization.  hmm..

>
> Finally, claims by atheists to be the sole mantle bearers and
> protectors of science just isn't historically accurate. In the 20th
> century alone, atheists were particularly heinous in the destruction of
> knowledge and denial of scientific truth, from the Lysenkoism of the
> USSR, socialist denials of the superiority of free markets, the Nazi
> denials of 'jewish science', to the anti-intellectual and anti-science
> pogroms of Mao and Pol Pot, to the much more tame anti-science
> mysticism of the "age of aquarius" it can credibly be said that
> atheists actions against science in the 20th century have at least
> equalled or exceeded the actions by the faithful against science in
> previous centuries.

The Nazis were not atheists.  Lysenkoism had nothing to do with 
atheism.  Just because one does or does not believe in god is no proof 
against still being all manner of damn idiot.