Atheists Home & Abroad

Judy Warner tipped me off to this story at NRO's blog (John Derbyshire) about religious faith making some kind of a comeback in Russia. The situation there is not good, but if the story published in Izvestia (Russian only) is to believed, "the only way it can go from here is up" seems to be the case in Russia. While a majority of Russians, when asked, call themselves "Orthodox", still a minority are actually "churched." But both groups, according to polls, have grown, from 34 to 63 percent and from 4 to 10-12 percent respectively, since the early 1990s. The average age of Orthodox church worshippers has fallen in the same period from 60 to 48. The country as a whole: is it recovering from official atheist doctrine, and if so, how long will it take?

As part of the same message, I found this link to this exchange with Heather MacDonald at a site called Gene Expression. Ms. MacDonald, a known conservative operating in cahoots with the Manhattan Institute, stirred up some controversy last August in the American Conservative with a piece questioning religious belief and its connection with conservatism. In the exchange at Gene Expression she explains a bit more why she wrote the American Conservative piece. Well, it's provocative, anyway, for a uncloseted atheist conservative.

Atheism: more will be written and debated on this topic in the months and years ahead. Is the world a gift or an accident? Those who see it as a gift can still abuse it; those who think it an accident or simply inexplicable can still treat it with respect, Ms. MacDonald notes. To what extent might the latter do so based on habit, using capital from religious belief of the past? To what extent might it come from a deeper instinct? And to what extent might the former, the religious, confess the world to be a gift but have no genuine gratitude? One thing is for sure: when we meet our Maker, many will be surprised, even those who call him rightly, "Lord, Lord!"

On the first day of 2007, twenty centuries later, we're talking about God, many of us descendants of those who at the time of his appearance in the flesh worshipped stones, trees, springs and mountains, even sacrificing humans to what we intimated were divine demands. How much has the world changed since that Birth in Bethlehem?

Comments

[Gintas]

It's pretty clear that Mac Donald is a hard-core materialist in thrall to rationalism. She breathlessly states, "We are reaping a whirlwind of unfathomable benefits from scientific research."

She has met the enemy, and it is Christianity. We are in her way.

[LAbriAlumn]

Shouldn't the final sentence have an exclamation mark, and not a question mark?

Circa 1910, at any rate.

On the other hand, Did Canaan sacrifice more babies to Moloch than do America and Europe? Was Sodom worse than San Francisco? God has sent warnings to this country, and America did not heed. How many more mere warnings dare we hope for?

[GL]

On the other hand, Did Canaan sacrifice more babies to Moloch than do America and Europe? Was Sodom worse than San Francisco? God has sent warnings to this country, and America did not heed. How many more mere warnings dare we hope for?

God who gave us life, gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever....

Thomas Jefferson

[Bobby Winters]

It seems to me she is confusing religion with magic, not an uncommon pitfall for atheists.

[Annie]

An interesting note about Thomas Jefferson that nonetheless does not invalidate your quote, GL: He was a firm naturalist and rewrote the New Testament without any mention of the miracles of Christ, the Resurrection, or angels and demons.

[GL]

Annie,

I light of our earlier offline exchange regarding D. James Kennedy and my concerns over his methods, I thought it best to reply to your post via a private email to you. Let me just say here that I don't believe my use of the Jefferson quote is comparable to what Dr. Kennedy does.

[Annie]

See my response. ;)

It was just a note that I found interesting: the way Jefferson talked, and then what he actually believed. That quote could have come from an orthodox mouth, and yet Jefferson was anything but.

[Bobby Winters]

I've gone back and read her interview through cynical glasses. Is it just barely possible that she has "come out" as an atheist to carve out her own little niche? Sort of an atheistic Anne Coulter?

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

"Suffice it to say that, to many of us, Western society has become more compassionate, humane, and respectful of rights as it has become more secular. Just compare the treatment of prisoners in the 14th century to today, an advance due to Enlightenment reformers. A secularist could as easily chide today’s religious conservatives for wrongly ignoring the heritage of the Enlightenment."

This, from the keyboard of a woman in whose country 45 million babies have been slain by abortion.

Another point: She criticizes the president for his reliance on God's guidance, because "According to believers, the Almighty’s actions are only intermittently scrutable; using them as a guide for policy, then, would seem reckless. "

God's actions, indeed, may often seem beyond our ken. The Pslamist noted that evil men prosper and lead easy lives, compared to the hardships suffered by many believers.

Yet, though God's actions may be less than transparent, we have plenty of information about His nature and His principles. Those offer anyone a clear path to follow. Is this error on her part tendentious, or is she merely unaware of the difference between revelation and observation?