Atheism in a Postmodern World

[rug]

Modern atheism began about 150 years ago, when all the factors came together to make a lack of belief in a deity seem intellectually sustainable. But at the time, it was part of a diverse group of movements lumped together and called “Freethinkers.” These were movements like deism, unitarianism and pantheism which rejected orthodox Christianity and chose selectively from Christian traditions.

Today, most of our fellow travelers have fallen by the wayside. The rise of Evangelical Christianity pushed deists and pantheists further into the margins, and even unitarians are no longer the vibrant movement they once were.

In their place, a new crop of people that find orthodoxy too confining have arisen: seekers, liberal Christians, postmodern Christians, Christian agnostics and syncretists of every type. Many of these modern groups emerged as a reaction to the same forces that atheism did: science, higher criticism and individualism.

But whereas atheism rejected belief in a deity as unsustainable and even immoral, these other freethinkers just made things more complicated. As Karen Armstrong says, “belief is a red herring.” Religion is no longer just an assent to an intellectual proposition.

http://unreasonablefaith.com/2011/07/22/atheism-in-a-postmodern-world/

[Jim__]

1. Interesting topic. I don't believe that short article does it justice. - n/t

[trotsky]

2. ...

"when all the factors came together to make a lack of belief in a deity seem intellectually sustainable" - No, the timing coincides when you were finally pretty safe from being burned as a heretic for stating such. Lack of belief has ALWAYS been intellectually sustainable. When Person A makes a claim and Person B says "I don't believe you. Prove it.", Person B is in a very sustainable position.

That aside, theologians like Armstrong are simply engaging in the tired and intellectually dishonest tactic of hiding their god where it's safe from reason and examination. I do take heart, though, that perhaps attempts like these to compartmentalize and trivialize faith are the beginning of the end of the old time religion. If more believers can reject the rotten and corrupt institutions that are working AGAINST liberal principles, it's a good thing. It's unfortunate though how many continue to cling to and support those institutions.

[Odin2005]

9. Isn't Armstrong a tool of the Templeton Foundation?

[LeftishBrit]

3. Religion never was 'just an assent to an intellectual proposition'.

For some, it is a strong faith, not based at all on intellect. For many, it is a matter far more of culture than of belief. There are many 'secular Jews', 'lapsed Catholics' and (like Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard) 'non-practising Baptists', who identify with the culture associated with a religion, without having the religious beliefs. Indeed there is often a continuum of identification with a faith, from complete non-identification, to identification with the culture while explicitly rejecting the religion, to identification with the culture and vaguely with the religious beliefs with little or no attendance at religious services, to identification with the religious beliefs but not placing a high priority on them, to very strong religious faith. Thus, it is essentially impossible to give a reliable estimate of how many people in the UK are atheists or religious. 71% say they are Christians but only 15% attend church more than once a month. Depending on exactly how the question is asked, the proportion who claim to believe in God ranges from 40 to 65%.

The identification between religion and culture is probably responsible for a good deal of religious prejudice and conflict. While many Christian-Righties are genuinely concerned that they will go to hell if e.g. they vote for a liberal candidate, for many others 'Christian traditions' are a symbol of and engine for preserving cultural traditions and 'old-fashioned values' against leftists and foreigners. During the Troubles in Northern Ireland, though the struggle was between Catholics and Protestants, it was really much more of a conflict between people of Irish and English descent. Many IRA members and Paisleyites would have been incapable of, or uninterested in, defining the theological differences between Catholics and Protestants.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. "a conflict between people of Irish and English descent"

Completely off topic, but that is massively wrong. First, the protestants of northern ireland are Scottish not English, a distinction that is perhaps pedantic in other circumstances, but not this one, and secondly the history of the conflict goes right back to the religious civil war in Great Britain that traces its origin to when Henry VIII split from Rome and really got going in the 17th century. The reason why ireland was colonized with protestants had everything to do with religion.

[LeftishBrit]

5. You are right that many are of Scottish descent, but by recent times I'd say that the Irish

Republicans have been at least as much against the English as the Scottish. And religion in the theological sense may have indeed had a great deal to do with the *origins* of the conflict; but to *most* nowadays I'd say it was more a conflict between nationalisms and cultures than a theological one. Of course, religious right-wingers like the Rev. Ian Paisley have exploited the theological element for the Protestants, as have some on the Catholic side. But debates and fights have been more about whether N. Ireland should remain part of the UK, than how people should worship.

The same, I would say, goes for many other conflicts over the world. There is often a religious basis to the conflicts, but they are as much about tribalism, culture, nationalism and land as about the detials of theology.

[dynasaw]

6. Modern Atheism

The first line not exactly correct. Modern atheism began earlier in the Enlightenment with some of the era's key thinkers such as Spinoza, Hume, Diderot etc. in the 18th century.

[ZombieHorde]

7. Does the author know there is more to the world than North America and Europe?

Besides, modern atheism is the exact same as ancient atheism.

Weird article.

[rug]

8. From perusing that site, I'd say he's well-informed about atheism.