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<span style="font-style: italic">Interesting article..and I agree with aspects of writer's thoughts on this matter. </span>
<span style="color: #000099"><span style="font-weight: bold">PART 1</span></span>
Atheists and evangelicals often find themselves on opposite sides of the cultural battle line -- and those battles are becoming more frequent. The rise of "New Atheism" via best-selling books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and the emergence of what I call "Constitutional Evangelicalism" comprised of Christians more likely to know the Second Amendment than the Second Commandment, has inflamed the tensions between the two groups.
But the new breed of atheists and evangelicals may have more in common than they'd like to admit.
For example, some within New Atheism are proselytizing their beliefs with the fervor, and in come cases anger, more often associated with evangelicals. From an international ad campaign on buses dismissing belief in God, to rallies at universities inviting students to exchange their Bibles for pornography, atheists are no longer content with a live-and-let-live approach to those adhering to religion. Instead, they are actively trying to convert (or is the word un-convert?) the masses.
Last October NPR reported that Christopher Hitchens told a packed crowd at the University of Toronto, "I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right." He told NPR, "If I said to a Protestant or Quaker or Muslim, 'Hey, at least I respect your belief,' I would be telling a lie."
Of course not all atheists agree with Hitchen's evangelistic approach. Paul Kurtz, a more traditional atheist, worries that the rhetoric of Hitchens, Dawkins, and others will actually set the movement back:
"I consider them atheist fundamentalists," Kurtz says. "They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, they're very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good."
<span style="font-weight: bold">I can't help but see the irony. It appears some New Atheists are incorporating the very traits they've often condemned about evangelicals</span> -- intolerance, dogmatism, and now even the church's penchant for schism. It seems anything can be turned into a religion, even anti-religion.
<span style="color: #000099"><span style="font-weight: bold">PART 1</span></span>
Atheists and evangelicals often find themselves on opposite sides of the cultural battle line -- and those battles are becoming more frequent. The rise of "New Atheism" via best-selling books by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, and the emergence of what I call "Constitutional Evangelicalism" comprised of Christians more likely to know the Second Amendment than the Second Commandment, has inflamed the tensions between the two groups.
But the new breed of atheists and evangelicals may have more in common than they'd like to admit.
For example, some within New Atheism are proselytizing their beliefs with the fervor, and in come cases anger, more often associated with evangelicals. From an international ad campaign on buses dismissing belief in God, to rallies at universities inviting students to exchange their Bibles for pornography, atheists are no longer content with a live-and-let-live approach to those adhering to religion. Instead, they are actively trying to convert (or is the word un-convert?) the masses.
Last October NPR reported that Christopher Hitchens told a packed crowd at the University of Toronto, "I think religion should be treated with ridicule, hatred and contempt, and I claim that right." He told NPR, "If I said to a Protestant or Quaker or Muslim, 'Hey, at least I respect your belief,' I would be telling a lie."
Of course not all atheists agree with Hitchen's evangelistic approach. Paul Kurtz, a more traditional atheist, worries that the rhetoric of Hitchens, Dawkins, and others will actually set the movement back:
"I consider them atheist fundamentalists," Kurtz says. "They're anti-religious, and they're mean-spirited, unfortunately. Now, they're very good atheists and very dedicated people who do not believe in God. But you have this aggressive and militant phase of atheism, and that does more damage than good."
<span style="font-weight: bold">I can't help but see the irony. It appears some New Atheists are incorporating the very traits they've often condemned about evangelicals</span> -- intolerance, dogmatism, and now even the church's penchant for schism. It seems anything can be turned into a religion, even anti-religion.
</span> What drives many who buy into such an approach is not love for one's Creator, but a desire to control God as a means of survival and advancement. Whether an ancient culture sacrificing a virgin in the volcano, or contemporary conservative evangelicalism, the "life under God" view inevitably results in human attempts to control the divine through ritual, morality, and dogmatic manipulation of others.
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