₦airaland Forum

Another and quite a very interesting case study.

From http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/conversion-experience-atheism

Why I believe again

A N Wilson writes on how his conversion to atheism may have been similar to a road to Damascus experience

By nature a doubting Thomas, I should have distrusted the symptoms when I underwent a "conversion experience" 20 years ago. Something was happening which was out of character - the inner glow of complete certainty, the heady sense of being at one with the great tide of fellow non-believers. For my conversion experience was to atheism. There were several moments of epiphany, actually, but one of the most dramatic occurred in the pulpit of a church.

At St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London, there are two pulpits, and for some decades they have been used for lunchtime dialogues. I had just published a biography of C S Lewis, and the rector of St Mary-le-Bow, Victor Stock, asked me to participate in one such exchange of views.

Memory edits, and perhaps distorts, the highlights of the discussion. Memory says that while Father Stock was asking me about Lewis, I began to "testify", denouncing Lewis's muscular defence of religious belief. Much more to my taste, I said, had been the approach of the late Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey, whose biography I had just read.

A young priest had been to see him in great distress, saying that he had lost his faith in God. Ramsey's reply was a long silence followed by a repetition of the mantra "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter". He told the priest to continue to worship Jesus in the Sacraments and that faith would return. "But!" exclaimed Father Stock. "That priest was me!"

Like many things said by this amusing man, it brought the house down. But something had taken a grip of me, and I was thinking (did I say it out loud?): "It bloody well does matter. Just struggling on like Lord Tennyson ('and faintly trust the larger hope') is no good at all . . ."

I can remember almost yelling that reading C S Lewis's Mere Christianity made me a non-believer - not just in Lewis's version of Christianity, but in Christianity itself. On that occasion, I realised that after a lifetime of churchgoing, the whole house of cards had collapsed for me - the sense of God's presence in life, and the notion that there was any kind of God, let alone a merciful God, in this brutal, nasty world. As for Jesus having been the founder of Christianity, this idea seemed perfectly preposterous. In so far as we can discern anything about Jesus from the existing documents, he believed that the world was about to end, as did all the first Christians. So, how could he possibly have intended to start a new religion for Gentiles, let alone established a Church or instituted the Sacraments? It was a nonsense, together with the idea of a personal God, or a loving God in a suffering universe. Nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

It was such a relief to discard it all that, for months, I walked on air. At about this time, the Independent on Sunday sent me to interview Dr Billy Graham, who was conducting a mission in Syracuse, New York State, prior to making one of his journeys to England. The pattern of these meetings was always the same. The old matinee idol spoke. The gospel choir sang some suitably affecting ditty, and then the converted made their way down the aisles to commit themselves to the new faith. Part of the glow was, surely, the knowledge that they were now part of a great fellowship of believers.

As a hesitant, doubting, religious man I'd never known how they felt. But, as a born-again atheist, I now knew exactly what satisfactions were on offer. For the first time in my 38 years I was at one with my own generation. I had become like one of the Billy Grahamites, only in reverse. [b]If I bumped into Richard Dawkins (an old colleague from Oxford days) or had dinner in Washington with Christopher Hitchens (as I did either on that trip to interview Billy Graham or another), I did not have to feel out on a limb. Hitchens was excited to greet a new convert to his non-creed and put me through a catechism before uncorking some stupendous claret. "So - absolutely no God?" "Nope," I was able to say with Moonie-zeal. "No future life, nothing 'out there'?" "No," I obediently replied. At last! I could join in the creed shared by so many (most?) of my intelligent contemporaries in the western world - that men and women are purely material beings (whatever that is supposed to mean), that "this is all there is" (ditto), that God, Jesus and religion are a load of baloney: and worse than that, the cause of much (no, come on, let yourself go), most (why stint yourself - go for it, man), all the trouble in the world, from Jerusalem to Belfast, from Washington to Islamabad.[/b]

My doubting temperament, however, made me a very unconvincing atheist. And unconvinced. My hilarious Camden Town neighbour Colin Haycraft, the boss of Duckworth and husband of Alice Thomas Ellis, used to say, "I do wish Freddie [Ayer] wouldn't go round calling himself an atheist. It implies he takes religion seriously."

This creed that religion can be despatched in a few brisk arguments (outlined in David Hume's masterly Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) and then laughed off kept me going for some years. When I found myself wavering, I would return to Hume in order to pull myself together, rather as a Catholic having doubts might return to the shrine of a particular saint to sustain them while the springs of faith ran dry.

[b]But religion, once the glow of conversion had worn off, was not a matter of argument alone. It involves the whole person. Therefore I was drawn, over and over again, to the disconcerting recognition that so very many of the people I had most admired and loved, either in life or in books, had been believers. Reading Louis Fischer's Life of Mahatma Gandhi, and following it up with Gandhi's own autobiography, The Story of My Experiments With Truth, I found it impossible not to realise that all life, all being, derives from God, as Gandhi gave his life to demonstrate. Of course, there are arguments that might make you doubt the love of God. But a life like Gandhi's, which was focused on God so deeply, reminded me of all the human qualities that have to be denied if you embrace the bleak, muddled creed of a materialist atheist. It is a bit like trying to assert that music is an aberration, and that although Bach and Beethoven are very impressive, one is better off without a musical sense. Attractive and amusing as David Hume was, did he confront the complexities of human existence as deeply as his contemporary Samuel Johnson, and did I really find him as interesting?

Watching a whole cluster of friends, and my own mother, die over quite a short space of time convinced me that purely materialist "explanations" for our mysterious human existence simply won't do - on an intellectual level. The phenomenon of language alone should give us pause. A materialist Darwinian was having dinner with me a few years ago and we laughingly alluded to how, as years go by, one forgets names. Eager, as committed Darwinians often are, to testify on any occasion, my friend asserted: "It is because when we were simply anthropoid apes, there was no need to distinguish between one another by giving names."

This credal confession struck me as just as superstitious as believing in the historicity of Noah's Ark. More so, really.
[/b][b]
Do materialists really think that language just "evolved", like finches' beaks, or have they simply never thought about the matter rationally? Where's the evidence? How could it come about that human beings all agreed that particular grunts carried particular connotations? How could it have come about that groups of anthropoid apes developed the amazing morphological complexity of a single sentence, let alone the whole grammatical mystery which has engaged Chomsky and others in our lifetime and linguists for time out of mind? No, the existence of language is one of the many phenomena - of which love and music are the two strongest - which suggest that human beings are very much more than collections of meat. They convince me that we are spiritual beings, and that the religion of the incarnation, asserting that God made humanity in His image, and continually restores humanity in His image, is simply true. As a working blueprint for life, as a template against which to measure experience, it fits.

For a few years, I resisted the admission that my atheist-conversion experience had been a bit of middle-aged madness. I do not find it easy to articulate thoughts about religion. I remain the sort of person who turns off Thought for the Day when it comes on the radio. I am shy to admit that I have followed the advice given all those years ago by a wise archbishop to a bewildered young man: that moments of unbelief "don't matter", that if you return to a practice of the faith, faith will return.[/b]

When I think about atheist friends, including my father, they seem to me like people who have no ear for music, or who have never been in love. It is not that (as they believe) they have rumbled the tremendous fraud of religion - prophets do that in every generation. Rather, these unbelievers are simply missing out on something that is not difficult to grasp. Perhaps it is too obvious to understand; obvious, as lovers feel it was obvious that they should have come together, or obvious as the final resolution of a fugue.

I haven't mentioned morality, but one thing that finally put the tin hat on any aspirations to be an unbeliever was writing a book about the Wagner family and Nazi Germany, and realising how utterly incoherent were Hitler's neo-Darwinian ravings, and how potent was the opposition, much of it from Christians; paid for, not with clear intellectual victory, but in blood. Read Pastor Bonhoeffer's book Ethics, and ask yourself what sort of mad world is created by those who think that ethics are a purely human construct. Think of Bonhoeffer's serenity before he was hanged, even though he was in love and had everything to look forward to.

My departure from the Faith was like a conversion on the road to Damascus. My return was slow, hesitant, doubting. So it will always be; but I know I shall never make the same mistake again. Gilbert Ryle, with donnish absurdity, called God "a category mistake". Yet the real category mistake made by atheists is not about God, but about human beings. Turn to the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - "Read the first chapter of Genesis without prejudice and you will be convinced at once . . . 'The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life'." And then Coleridge adds: "'And man became a living soul.' Materialism will never explain those last words."

I appreciate the candor of any atheist willing to admit their desire for God.

Ah ha! This is a very interesting and important issue and I think moreso in the case of the evangelical atheists or specifically for this context evangelical atheist religionists.

I think, in many cases, it is reasonable to say that there is a search within for something and, interestingly, the search might be hastened and made easier by a little dose of humility.

Anyway here is one (in fact two in the end) interesting case study. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/atheist-blogger-stuns-secular-community-with-announcement-shes-converting-to-catholicism/

Atheist blogger Leah Libresco shocked the secular community this week when she announced on her Patheos blog that she has converted to Christianity. Her article, entitled, “This is my last post for the Patheos Atheist Portal,” explained her conversion to Catholicism, which has sent shock-waves through the atheist blogosphere.

In her post, Libresco details her personal struggles with understanding the root of moral law. Obviously, non-believers don’t see morality as coming from a central source. Instead, they see humanity as living on its own, disconnected from any fertile source of knowledge and goodness. For Libresco, this ideal has come full-circle, as she inevitably arrived at an understanding that aligns with a Christ-centered world-view.

(Related: Blaze Exclusive: Atheist Activist Answers Your Questions About ‘Repulsive’ Bible Scriptures & the 10 Commandments)

Debate after debate and discussion after discussion, the non-believing blogger details how she found herself constantly exploring this paradigm — that is, until she finally accepted the notion that truth and moral goodness come from God. She explains:

I believed that the Moral Law wasn’t just a Platonic truth, abstract and distant. It turns out I actually believed it was some kind of Person, as well as Truth. And there was one religion that seemed like the most promising way to reach back to that living Truth. I asked my friend what he suggest we do now, and we prayed the night office of the Liturgy of the Hours together (I’ve kept up with that since). Then I suggested hugs and playing Mumford and Sons really, really loudly.

After I changed my mind, I decided to take a little time to make sure I really believed what I thought I believed, before telling my friends, family, and, now, all of you. That left me with the question of what to do about my atheism blog. My solution was to just not write anything I disagreed with. Enough of my friends had accused me of writing in a crypto-Catholic style that I figured no one would notice if I were actually crypto-Catholic for a month and a half (i.e. everything from “Upon this ROC…” on).

Despite making this major announcement, Libresco admits that there are some elements of the Christian faith — and Catholicism in particular — that she’s still not sure about.

And on the same site, you will see reference to the second case study I alluded to.

On his “Friendly Atheist” blog, Hemant Mehta wrote the following about the conversion:

It happens. Far less frequently than the other way around, but it happens. (A few years ago, a popular blogger called The Raving Atheist announced he was a Christian and changed his site to The Raving Theist.)

I won’t pretend to understand whatever she’s going through. But whenever you make a big announcement like that, it’s like a huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders. It’s even harder to do that when you talk about religion so publicly. Anyway, I wish Leah the best.

Kay 17: ^^
Why do you say so?? Despite the fact that the Catholic Church is responsible for the creation, compilation and protection of the Bible. The Bible existed after the Church.

Note that the Church here is the followers of Christ.

I am assuming you mean the Roman Catholic Church. It is very common to see such a statement as yours nowadays, especially in the Internet age when false information is so easily and widely spread and preferred by many people at the expense of a rigorous examination of the truth.

First of all, the Roman Catholic church is certainly not responsible for the creation of the Bible.

Secondly when it comes to compilation, where the misleading impression that it was the action of the Roman Catholic Church is more common, you will have to deal with a number of important points on the history of the universal* Christian Church. {*Note that 'catholic' simpliciter really means 'universal' --- again an important point you will have to address}

Questions you will have to address include:

- What is the Roman Catholic Church?
- When did the Roman Catholic Church come into existence?
- Is the Roman Catholic Church, which is also called the C[/i]atholic Church (note the capital 'C'), the same thing as the c[/b]atholic Church (note the small 'c')?
- Was it really the [i]Roman Catholic Church aka the C[/i]atholic Church that preserved and "compiled" the Bible or was it the [b]c[/b]atholic Church?
- What is the effect of the East-West Schism that finally eventuated in the [b]11th century on our understanding of that which is known as the [i]Roman Catholic Church or the [i]C[/i]atholic Church?

@ Nuke

I think you are referring to the estrus cycle in elephants (female, I believe) and musth (in males)?

@Kay17

Bear in mind also that Jesus was addressing people who came to listen to Him --- i.e. people who believed in Him at least in some way.

Thus He was addressing the 'love thy neighbour as yourself' statement to people who already had a decent idea of goodness and a decent conscience.

Thus it would be unreasonable to think that the statement should be construed with the background of the conceptions of perverts and people with a seared conscience about love.

OLAADEGBU: A fool, according to Psalm 14:1, is an atheist.

Indeed! And add the following to it too.

Romans 1

18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Posted elsewhere previously.

I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level—preschool, daycare, or large state university. The classroom must and will become an arena of conflict between the old and the new—the rotting corpse of Christianity, together with all its adjacent evils and misery, and the new faith of humanism, resplendent with its promise of a world in which the never-realized Christian ideal of “love thy neighbor” will finally be achieved.

Then perhaps we will be able to say with Tom Paine that “the world is my country, all [hu]mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” It will undoubtedly be a long, arduous struggle replete with much sorrow and many tears, but humanism will emerge triumphant. It must if the family of humankind is to survive.

John Dunphy, “A Religion for a New Age,” in The Humanist (1983)

EDITED: Initially a double-post but I might as well use the opportunity to make another point.

Even evangelical atheists themselves know that they are fools!

This is why they play the trick that "atheism is merely a lack of belief in God" which if of course they are right means they are in good company with dogs, cows and monkeys who also lack a belief in God.

In truth, atheism proper is a positive belief and statement that there is no God. The only problem is that there are really only two types of people who can legitimately make that statement: (a) an omniscient person or (b) a fool.

Since the evangelical atheists know that they are not omniscient and since also they don't want to be called the fools that they are, they resort to the chicanery that atheism is merely a lack of belief in Gods -----yes, as with dogs, cows, monkeys etc.

edicolove: . . .
Take for example, Darwinism. That is the most incoherent, disjointed, fabricated and clumsy theory in science yet it is taught in schools. It has absolutely no valid or logical bases. It is completely flawed at its core. The very simple question to ask is what banged the big b.ang and what created the matter that caused the big b.ang to b.ang! At that point, Darwinsim becomes a big bundle of contradiction and speculation.

They will try to argue that Darwinism is to be distinguished form theories/speculations on the 'origin of the universe'. Nevertheless on the point about Darwinism as speculation, see "world expert" or "world leading" Darwinians fighting now on erm, well, in the final analysis, speculation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sloan-wilson/richard-dawkins-edward-o-_b_1588510.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/jun/24/battle-of-the-professors

edicolove: That is why the bible says the f00l has said in his heart there is no God. Because saying ther is know God doesn't give answers, it only breeds questions.

This is an all time truth. Francis Bacon rephrased it rather nicely - "nothing can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools than this: 'there is no God'."

^^ Whatever, mate.

^^ Do as it suits you, Jenw, erm jagunlabi.

Good night, well, good morning Kay. It was actually a pleasure and I thoroughly enjoyed the exchange.

By the way we had/have unfinished business on one other thread like that and if you are game, I'm up for contnuing that one too.

^^ God bless.

@cyrexx

One way is this: don't hold the shortcomings of us Christians against God; regard that as the shortcomings of weak human beings.

Challenge us, criticise us --- leave God out of it. You may even choose not to worry about him.

The funny thing is this: God Himself is looking for you and if you let Him, He will find you!

Kay 17: You still haven't shown why SC's definition is unusual and broader and more expansive than the general definition along with restrictions.

On my part I have accepted the decision of the court and its implications --- that (evangelical) atheism is a religion as much as other religions.

You are the one who have problem with it in your position that "(evangelical) atheism is a religion but not a religion".

Kay 17: I will accept that IF you consider Roe vs Wade, an authority in medicine and history.

You provide a basis for atheism as an "innate conscientious position" i.e. your "philosophical" basis; the courts accept it i.e. they accept and use your "philosophical" basis - pace your quote from the court which you said should conclude (or settle?) it; but they then say that means atheism is a religion. That is what you have to deal with.

Kay 17: Given you ppl' layman idea of human rightsn, such is understandable.

You who did not know the distinction between freedom of expression/speech and freedom of religion ---- now want to say other people have layman's idea of human rights! Yeah right, lol.

[quote author=petres_007]. . . this section, which really is 99% Nairaland for me, is no longer what it used to be.[/quote]You too see am so, my brother?

Anyway, greetings oh!

Pastor AIO: I have a funny feeling that Enigma won't turn up here, in fact he'll avoid it like the plague.

Oh just in the way you avoided this post of mine (and others elsewhere) like the plague?


From here: https://www.nairaland.com/934799/reasons-why-obama-not-christian/14#11043223

Enigma: . . . There is "criticism" and there is idiocy.

When someone says that "Jesus was a bastard" for example you can call it "criticism" if you like, just recognise that others are also free and entitled to see it differently.

Nice.

Kay 17: Prior to that, you had never mention an alternate justification/ground for atheism.

I'm not quite sure what you are referring to, my discussion with you has been on the decision of the courts that atheism is a religion. This arose because you said Uyi turned logic on its head in calling evangelical atheism a religion.

I have now shown you incontrovertibly that not only Uyi (or I) "turn logic on its head" when we say evangelical atheism is a religion. The American Supreme Court thinks 'does' so too.

You then said the court's decision had no philosophical value. I have now 'discombobulated'* that one.

See, my own position is clear and was summarised earlier but since I'm having to repeat myself so much in the company on this particular thread:

Look in one of the older debates, Jesoul said something that I agree with: ordinarily we would not dignify atheism or even evangelical atheism with the status of religion. For me, however, the present intellectual, political and legal realities as well as the statements, actions and activities of evangelical atheists themselves (including the fundamentalists among them) mean I must accept the situation that evangelical atheism is indeed a religion --- no matter how unpalatable I and others may find that.

(* Thanks to Uyi )

Kay 17: I said the freedom of speech and expression are in the 1st Amendment!!

And the reason you said that was because I pointed out to you that atheists' freedoms could be protected under those provisions without seeking to have atheism declared a religion. You assumed that the provisions were lumped with the freedom of religion provisions.

Now you have confirmed that in that case i.e. of separation of freedom of expression/speech from freedom of religion you prefer to pursue atheists' rights under freedom of religion.

No problem: the consequence is the ruling that atheism is a religion ---- as with any other religion.

As I have pointed out earlier, it is rather an absurd position to have to say: "(evangelical) atheism is a religion but is not a religion."

You will just have to live with it.

Kay 17: The Ghanaian constitution, the Nigerian constitution, the European Charter and many other countries all separate the right to free thought and conscience from freedom of speech and expression.

Freedom of speech covers outward expression, articles of communication, sharing of information. It involves a second party, a transfer of information.

Whereas conscientious beliefs are innate, thinking, sometimes communal union, even status to which one is associated to. A man who believes life in any form is sacred and in accordance practices that, he inevitably stands out from others, and unfortunately freedom of speech can't adequately cover it.

A law can prohibit Christians from holding public offices, or enjoying marriage privileges and that would inhibit free speech.

Ah ha, my dear friend!

Do you realise that you have shifted ground once again?

Earlier you assumed and suggested that freedom of speech and freedom of expression were lumped together with freedom of religion in the 1st Amendment ---- with the further consequent assumption that atheists' freedom could only be protected necessarily by recognising it as a religion.

I see now that after I corrected you on that you have now conceded the separation of freedom of speech/expression from freedom of religion. That is at least a good start.

Now your new suggestion is that the appropriate place to protect atheism is to classify it in terms of 'innate conscientious belief' etc separate from freedom of speech/expression.

Ok then, the Supreme Court agreed with you. The difference is that they say this means that atheism amounts to a religion as with any other whether it be Wicca, Kabbalah, Scientology etc.

Again I repeat what they saw as amounting to religion:

. . . we have suggested in the past that when a person sincerely holds beliefs dealing with issues of “ultimate concern” that for her occupy a “place parallel to that filled by . . . God in traditionally religious persons,” those beliefs represent her religion. . . . . We have already indicated that atheism may be considered, in this specialized sense, a religion. . . . . (“If we think of religion as taking a position on divinity, then atheism is indeed a form of religion.”).

Do you see their outlining of what they consider to amount to religion? And do you want to say that is not "philosophical"?

Finally, do you see what they regard atheism, evangelical atheism to be, to make them conclude that it is a religion ---- as any other religion?

Oh and of course the court declared atheism a religion.

This is the third time I will post the below ----- incredibly!

Using excerpts from material I have posted elsewhere --- from the court judgment itself:

Wisconsin inmate James Kaufman {i.e. the atheist} filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming as relevant here that prison officials violated his First Amendment rights. He raises three unrelated issues. Of the three, the one that has prompted the issuance of this opinion is his claim that the defendants infringed on his right to practice his religion when they refused to allow him to create an inmate group to study and discuss atheism.

While at Waupun, Kaufman {i.e. the atheist} submitted an official form titled “Request for New Religious Practice,” in which he asked to form an inmate group interested in humanism, atheism, and free speaking.

And court said further:

The Establishment Clause also prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another without a legitimate secular reason. . . .

The district court went astray when it evaluated Kaufman’s claim on the assumption that he wanted to form a nonreligious group. . . .

The problem with the district court’s analysis is that the court failed to recognize that Kaufman was trying to start a “religious” group, in the sense we discussed earlier. Atheism is Kaufman’s religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being. . . .



But the defendants have not answered Kaufman’s argument that by accommodating some religious views, but not his, they are promoting the favored ones. Because the defendants failed even to articulate—much less support with evidence—a secular reason why a meeting of atheist inmates would pose a greater security risk than meetings of inmates of other faiths, their rejection of Kaufman’s request cannot survive . . . .

Pastor AIO: You know full well that I am Not going to read the John Gray piece. . . .

Below is the first question you directed to me after I posted the John Gray line ---- a single line

Pastor AIO: Does this make Communism a religion? And does belonging with a religion make something necessarily a religion.

Murderers belong with violent 'jihadists'. Does this make murder a religion?

That question implies that you think that a case can be made that Communism and murder can be established to be a religion ---- following the arguments that I've presented on this thread.

I have even done better by providing additional materials including a link to the Kaufman case.

If you can prove that Communism or murder is a religion on the basis of the arguments that I've presented in respect of evangelical atheism, I very much welcome you to go ahead.

On the other hand, if it is to prove that Communism or murder is a religion on the basis of what John Gray said, there really cannot be a basis for a meaningful discussion until you have read the John Gray piece.

^^ Amen!

I'm sure Kay17 will be back at some point; at least that is one person who has genuinely tried to engage.

^^^ Look let those who have some ability and cojones come and continuing addressing the relevant points.

^^^ Point proven. QED.

^^^ Just admit you are an airhead with nothing to say on the debate - other than cheerleading from the sides.

Otherwise point to where I am wrong.

Put up or shut up.

In fact, I double-dare you.

^^^ Look since you have nothing worthwhile to say on the debate, just step aside or continue with the cheerleading from the sides.

Repeated post; it will help those whom it will help.

Using excerpts from material I have posted elsewhere --- from the court judgment itself:

Wisconsin inmate James Kaufman {i.e. the atheist} filed this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming as relevant here that prison officials violated his First Amendment rights. He raises three unrelated issues. Of the three, the one that has prompted the issuance of this opinion is his claim that the defendants infringed on his right to practice his religion when they refused to allow him to create an inmate group to study and discuss atheism.

While at Waupun, Kaufman {i.e. the atheist} submitted an official form titled “Request for New Religious Practice,” in which he asked to form an inmate group interested in humanism, atheism, and free speaking.

And court said further:

The Establishment Clause also prohibits the government from favoring one religion over another without a legitimate secular reason. . . .

The district court went astray when it evaluated Kaufman’s claim on the assumption that he wanted to form a nonreligious group. . . .

The problem with the district court’s analysis is that the court failed to recognize that Kaufman was trying to start a “religious” group, in the sense we discussed earlier. Atheism is Kaufman’s religion, and the group that he wanted to start was religious in nature even though it expressly rejects a belief in a supreme being. . . .



But the defendants have not answered Kaufman’s argument that by accommodating some religious views, but not his, they are promoting the favored ones. Because the defendants failed even to articulate—much less support with evidence—a secular reason why a meeting of atheist inmates would pose a greater security risk than meetings of inmates of other faiths, their rejection of Kaufman’s request cannot survive . . . .

Kay 17: Ok.

This should conclude it.

Hmm, this is interesting. You do not realise that you are simply repeating and making my point with the statement you quoted!

The point of the statement is simply that atheism is to be and has been accorded protection under the freedom of religion provision of the 1st Amendment. Is that not the same point as I've been making all this time?

Let me simplify things for you again and maybe you'll get it this time.

1. Atheism has been and is currently granted protection under the freedom of religion provision of the first amendment.

2. To secure this protection the courts had to agree and rule, at the behest of atheists, that atheism is a religion.

3. Thus atheism is a religion under the American Constitution and law generally.

4. To avoid being labelled as a religion, atheism could have sought and obtained the protection it desired adequately under the separate freedom of expression and freedom of speech provisions in the same First Amendment.

5. That way atheism would have avoided being legally and constitutionally declared to be a religion.

6. If you want to insist that atheism is declared a religion "for First Amendment purposes" only, then here is what I told you earlier (read it again carefully and maybe this time you will get the implications:

What your "for first amendment purposes" argument means when expressed properly and truthfully is that: atheism is as much a religion as any other religion under the American Constitution and in particular the First Amendment and this has been confirmed by both the American Supreme Court and Court of Appeal.

These matters are really very simple for those who don't have excessively great difficulties of comprehension.

As I said before the absurdity of your position amounts to this: "(evangelical) atheism is a religion but is not a religion."

Pastor AIO: This is not what I asked you. You quoted John Gray . . .



I presumed that you were using John Gray to buttress your point cos you agreed with him. So I ask you, is 'belonging' with a religion mean that something is a religion itself? A simple yes or no answer will suffice.

^^^ Go and read the John Gray piece; when you understand it come and tell us what you get from it.

Purist: lol. . why don't you just address me directly?

I did not need to address you directly to make the point I made in the post you referred to. With that type of daft and nonsensical post I only expend the minimum effort and energy - if I bother to respond at all

Purist: You have been shown by different people here to be wrong, but you still insist on harping on your fraudulent manipulations for reasons best known to you.

Like I'm about to be bothered by the uninformed opinions of people who have not read the relevant cases let alone the literature.

Purist: Typical religionist.

Typical obtuse and duplicitous evangelical atheist.

Purist: I repeat, I am entitled to quote whoever expresses my thoughts best; yes, even if they are an American id[i]i[/i]ot. Even idiots make sense sometimes. If you cannot see the sheer absurdity of you comparing my use of an American's quote to buttress a point, with your own use of a US court judgment to impose a universal definition, then I really have a serious cause to question your intellect. Also, I find it wholly ironical that you of all people would call anyone an id[i]i[/i]ot, going your arguments on this thread.

You are of course free to quote all the American id[i]i[/i]ots in the world. But of course you cannot see the duplicity of at the same time criticising someone for using the decision of American courts to buttress a point. Typical, indeed.

Purist: Does anyone else find it interesting that this Enigma fellow tags any atheist that disagrees with him as "evangelical"? Of course, he normally intends to use the word derogatorily. It's fast becoming banal though.

An evangelical atheist proves himself so by his words and actions.

Purist: Trust me, he's got the point already. But his pride won't allow him to admit, at least, not publicly.

Take the advice I gave to one of your colleagues some time ago: self-deceit is not good for your health.

Gone fishing, I may be some time.