Just watched the TED talk. I certainly didn't agree with all of it (particularly the parts about Art), but I think it raises some interesting points about bringing in aspects of organized religion into secular settings, such as the academy. I'm not really seeing anything that suggests the speaker is an asshole/jackass, though perhaps I'm missing something?
Man, the answer to this is depressing, long, and honestly just gonna piss me off. but I'll give a short answer. Back in the 90's the atheist and skeptic movements began to take off, slowly on message boards, alt.religion, alt.atheism and alt.skepticism newsgroups. The community was small, tight, and fought like family. When I came back from Alaska after an adventure, there were meet ups and conferences. By the later 2000's the "Four Horsemen" were writing books giving speeches and raising hell. In all but the most backward parts of the US and Canada, saying that you don't believe in god was met with a "meh" instead of violence. I've had conversations with people who had windows smashed, bullets fired through the walls of their homes etc and this was a HUGE shift. Then, atheism got popular. This kills a movement, sadly. The hanger's on and profiteers jumped all over the movement and guys like de Botton were starting to look at the atheism and skeptic communities as a new, secular faith. They were trying to turn atheism into a church. A sizeable group of the influx were real Marxist/Communist types, and they did nothing but stir shit with the Libertarians and rally didn't care about reducing the roles of religion in our schools and governments. TAM7, the one I went to had over 2000 people! The one in 2015 I don't think hit 1000, which is sad as Randi is one of the great good people out there. He himself is not the full blame, but the people like him that jumped onto the train as it was gaining steam ended up derailing the momentum. Fortunately it is very hard to kill and idea, and there is still an active atheist community in the West.
I don't really understand why this is such a terrible thing. I mean, I wouldn't be part of an atheist church, but if others do, what's wrong with that? Surely there are enough atheists nowadays that there's room for more than one varietal/expression of atheism. guys like de Botton were starting to look at the atheism and skeptic communities as a new, secular faith. They were trying to turn atheism into a church.
Honestly, its more of a "you had to be there" thing. The problem with churches is that you get into building dogmas that cannot be challenged, holy books of faith and unquestionable prophets. I started to get a real weird vibe about this time where they did not want us to worship god anymore, but we have this stuff over here to bow towards instead. Myself and a few others in the friend circle who grew up in very religious families all had the same shudder when they started getting prominent. It's ancient history now, but in the wake of that era, there are millions of people out there without a faith or religion who now know they are not crazy, they are not alone and that there are places to go and talk. That is the most important thing in all of this.I don't really understand why this is such a terrible thing.
That's fair. I don't think this is necessarily the case at all churches, though I could see that it would be at some. That's fair, I definitely wouldn't disagree that this is a good thing. I do also think that atheism needs to move forward from always seeing itself as having to do battle with organized religion, although I'm sure that many would disagree. Honestly, its more of a "you had to be there" thing
The problem with churches is that you get into building dogmas that cannot be challenged, holy books of faith and unquestionable prophets.
there are millions of people out there without a faith or religion who now know they are not crazy, they are not alone and that there are places to go and talk. That is the most important thing in all of this.
I've not met a Unitarian yet that has been an asshole. Anyone asking me about a church, I tell them to go find a UU group in their city. If I had to go to a church, that is the one I would pick. And this is the diversity we need: diversity of opinion. There are people now in the 'atheist' movement who have had real violence done against them; I'm talking bullets through windows etc. Those folks have a different take on the argument than we do. In many parts of the country being an open atheist is a social death sentence and the courts have to get involved to let these people raise their kids and go to schools. The latest crapfest, just to show you a glimmer of what is sort of going on, there is going to be another reason rally in 2016. They have a code of conduct that prohibits the mockery of organized religion I think they are talking about Tim Minchin's screeds here where he basically called religious people idiots. Interesting to me, is the Issues page. Note that there is LGBT issues and Climate change, but no separation of church and state. I saw a few people talking about this elsewhere but have not had time to digest, and honestly, I don't care. Well, I care a little bit. It's one of the reasons I stopped giving money to the ACLU and dumped my cash into the EFF instead. Gay issues are still (sadly) needed to be talked about and acted upon. So are Women's reproductive rights. I'm still in shock that we are having this fucking fight still in 2016. But, the ACLU went full on gays and abortion because those issues generate donations, and spent the last 20 years forgetting that the 1st, 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments are being shredded and turned into toilet paper. If you want to support free speech today, join the EFF and give them money. I'd love to see the ACLU fight asset forfeiture laws, and if they started working on the insane parts of the drug war that would be nice too, I'd even start giving them money again. I've gone on a ramble again, sorry. The point in there is that in the US, roughly 40 million people claim "no faith" and they fit every political and cultural box you can think of. And every year it gets better for them.I don't think this is necessarily the case at all churches, though I could see that it would be at some.
That's fair, I definitely wouldn't disagree that this is a good thing. I do also think that atheism needs to move forward from always seeing itself as having to do battle with organized religion, although I'm sure that many would disagree.
The Reason Rally Coalition recognizes that mockery of religion occurred at Reason Rally 2012, and we welcome such discussion. However, the harassment of individuals for their religious beliefs will not be tolerated.
All that stuff is true, but I think the atheist activism loosing steam has a lot to do with religion in politics and to a lesser extent backwards evangelical sects being on the decline. I'm sure there are people who really want to eliminate religion entirely as if that were possible, but for the most part atheism became attractive because of intelligent design nuts, socially conservative legislation, and the like and a president probably wasn't, but gave a good impression of being, the bad crazy making their faith a burden if not outright threat to the rest of us, and is becoming less attractive as they loose influence. As for the A+ thing, who were mostly just liberal activists and not communists, meh, most activist communities have ties to each other as an artifact of the two party system, so when you need numbers you can get people who don't care very much about your thing to back you up anyway. New Atheism was weird in not wanting to do that.
Oh, god don't get me started on the whole A+ thing. No, the influx that I am talking about was about 1-2 years before that. I was gone by the time A+ happened; being the angry Atheist ass on the internet was no longer what I wanted to be when I grew up. And yea, Obama, no matter what you may think of him as President, really put a damper on the wacky religion in government stuff. Most of that activism is at the state level now, fighting school boards, etc. We still have Cruz, Santorum, Brownback, Rand Paul et al to deal with, but the national stuff in the last few years has thankfully gone nowhere. There are still hard core groups here in Kentucky not on the margins, but their power seems to be waning. At least the guys calling Catholics sodomites and brides of Satan are not able to win primaries this year.
Oh, I'm aware the fight's not over at the state level, I live in a red state too. But even there, there's a desperation to it. Wingnuts have become bad for business, they're not useful idiots anymore. The bathroom brouhaha is a joke and everyone knows it, dinosaurs giving the finger to the oncoming asteroid.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2016/04/public_schools_are_visiting_ken_ham_s_creation_museum.html I think we are winning the war, but the battles are many. My tax dollars are going to this abortion of a museum to build a life-sized ark park. With the new governor, the hope is that the state runs out of cash and they have to recall the tax breaks they are trying to hand them.