Following on from my long winded diatribe yesterday, I was reading some more of the comments on the Times Online article about Richard Dawkins. I may have briefly touched on it yesterday, but one thing which intrigues me today is the assertion by several commenters (both Theist and Atheist if I am reading it correctly) that Atheism has had its day or words to that effect. Why didn’t I get the memo? How dare Atheism neglect to tell me it is over…

I talked about Joshua‘s barely sane comment yesterday where he says “Atheism is struggling for breath at the moment. It does not have the answers we seek. It has had its day, it’s a spent force and, for most of us, basically boring” and I mentioned that was news to me. It seems I am out in the wilderness on this topic. Now it seems a new poster, who writes comment so long it would embarrass even me!, has joined in. A poster called Jim Rodgers competes with War and Peace with his comment, but it has some interesting bits. Fortunately most of the good stuff is at the beginning 🙂 He starts with this: “I recently read Alistair Mcgrath’s book, The Twilight of Atheism, and enjoyed it.” Well, that pretty much stunned me! Each to their own I suppose. Next comes the odd bit:

I agree that violent atheism has had its day in liberal western society.

When on Earth was that? From the rest of his comment, part of me feels Jim is an Atheist, but I am not sure. Later on he writes:

Few atheists or agnostics would argue against the sentiment that violent atheism should be left behind us, in the bastilles and gulags of history, along with violent, religious intolerance. That is a “no brainer”. Whether Nazism was religious or atheist based is irrelevant. It was evil. As you know, Germany was not an atheist society at the time.

Well, I agree with some of what he has said, but still don’t see any examples of violent Atheism. Unless he is implying violent actions by non-Theists is violent Atheism. Strikes me as an unusual way of defining the term though. Further on he writes:

Atheism is less politically aggressive now because the secular age is with us. McGrath bemoans the decline of extremist atheism, despite having shown its flaws and fallacies.

And again, I am confused. When was this “golden age” where Atheists were politically aggressive if not now? What flaws and fallacies are there in Atheism?

Still, as it seems I missed the boat and Atheism is now dead, I think I need to have a lie down…

[tags]atheism, belief, culture, dawkins, philosophy, religion, richard-dawkins, society, theism[/tags]