False Sense of Maturity

If you don’t mind getting frustrated and want to see how “new atheism” can be misinterpreted, read this essay by Clifford Goldstein in Liberty Magazine. Here’s his introduction:

Picture this dystopia: in the name of rationality, reason, and science—religion is severely pro-scribed. Some religious beliefs— beliefs —deemed so dangerous that those holding them should be killed. The concept of religious “tolerance” would also be anathema: persons would not be allowed to hold whatever religious beliefs they chose—this cannot be for beliefs deemed irrational. And parents could be charged with “child abuse” for giving their offspring a religious education.

It all sounds like something from the failed social experiments of the Soviet Union, the Eastern bloc countries, and other now defunct Marxist regimes, perhaps?

Perhaps. Yet that kind of society would be the logical outgrowth of views promoted by an elitist clique of atheist writers, philosophers, scientists, and scholars. Dr. Richard Dawkins, Daniel C. Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris are at the forefront of what’s been dubbed “the new atheism,” a take-no-prisoners, shock-and-awe assault on any theism at all. Richard Dawkins wrote: “I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything super-natural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented.”

Maybe Goldstein read the books of the authors that he attacks, but he certainly didn’t understand them.

Christopher “don’t call me Chris” Hitchens is starting to lash out…I think he was too gung-ho about supporting the “war on terror” but he is a good advocate for anti-theism.

This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just “people of faith” but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity.

Delivering what his campaign billed as his “closing argument”, Obama told a crowd in Canton, Ohio, that “there’s so much at stake” in the week ahead.

“We cannot let up for one day, one minute, or one second in this last week. Not now,” he said.

Obama told voters it was up to them to “give this country the change we need,” as he tried to make the case that Sen. John McCain is too similar to President Bush to bring about that change.