Category Archives: Atheism

The just shall live by faith (Rom. 1:27). Of course. How else shall the just live? From mathematics (including simple arithmetic), to the existence of the charm quark, to belief that whales with feet had strolled on land (before they sauntered back into the ocean), to the Second Coming (the first, too) of Jesus, we all need faithintellectual assent to what we cannot provefor what we believe, know, or believe that we know.

Because we are temporary and subjective beings whose sole knowledge and experience of God's creation are electro-chemically piped through our temporary and subjective senses and then translated into images, emotions, and thoughts by our temporary and subjective brainsyes, some nuance, contingency, and error are going to taint whatever we believe, even whatever happens to be true.

Nevertheless, the notion, the canonized notionconcocted, fomented, and nurtured by them who knowand carried through the three and four previous centuries like litter on ocean waves, is that logic and reason are the bitter enemies of, even the archetypical rivals to, the Christian faith. And worse (the notion goes) they are in a Homeric battle forLebensraumin the human mind over whether logic, reason, and science, or ignorance, superstition, or bigoty will prevail.

It's such a farce, another intellectual myth of the modern era that through dogmatic and constant repetition hardens, like petrified wood, into something deemed firm and solid. Having been kindled by the fresh oxygen pumped into a Europe divided by the Reformation, sure, the Enlightenment and Scientific Revolution helped purge away centuries of Roman and Medieval superstition and ignorance (though in Italy, at the Basilica of Saint Anthony, the faithful can still venerate the incorrupt tongue [yes, the tongue] of Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things). But this change wasn't instantaneous, as if the world had to wait for Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Rene Descartes (1596-1650), John Locke (1632-1704), and Isaac Newton (1612-1727) before it learned logic and reason. And, besides, who is going to accuse Abelard of Bath (1080-1142), William of Ockham (1287-1347), Duns Scotus (1265-1308), and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) of not knowing logic or reason?

In fact, despite beatified rumors to the contrary, Christianity from the start has been baked through and through with logic and reason, in contrast to atheistic materialism, which is neither logical nor reasonable.

The Logic of Creation

Take creation. Something that once did not exist, and then did, like our universe, could not have created itself, right? Whatever created the universe, it wasn't the universe itself, obviously. Logic and reason demand that something elseseparate from the universe, prior to the universe, transcendent to and greater than it (think of the relationship between a sculptor and a sculpture)had to have created it to begin with.

Something separate from, prior to, transcendent to, and greater than the universe. Hmmm . . . like God, perhaps?

However, ruling out God from the start, the atheist has another option: nothing. That is, in opposition to God creating the universe, nothing, as in not-a-thing, did instead. InConjuring the Universe, Peter Atkins claims that the universe arose from nothing, and by nothing, he means absolutely nothing. I shall mean less than empty space . . . This Nothing has no space and no time. This Nothing is absolutely nothing. A void devoid of space and time. Utter emptiness. Emptiness beyond emptiness. All that it has, is a name.1Putting aside the obvious ideology driving the claim, let's judge it, and its rival, God as Creator, from logic and reason alone.

Either this Nothing created the universe and all that's in it, or, instead, an eternally existing God, such asYahweh,created the universe and all thats in it. One option is logical and reasonable; the other is not so much illogical and unreasonable as anti-logic and anti-reason.

Next, we have been assured, over and over, decade after decade, by peer-reviewed article after peer-reviewed article inveryprestigious science journals, that though everything from the structure and function of the human frontal lobe, to the pomegranate seed, to the incredibly complex enzyme cascade central in blood clotting, to dolphin echolocation, though they all sure look as if designed and, yes, sure function as if designed with specific purposes in mind (such as blood clotting to heal torn flesh)nope. Its all an illusion, the belief of people who dont understand the power of atomic and subatomic particles to mindlessly create life, often with beauty, and always with astonishingly precise functions.

Though common fare in the academy is that philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) had decimated the argument from designhe did no such thing; not even close (and that probably wasnt his intention, either). All he showed is that just because a watch is, obviously, designedthis doesnt prove that God, Yahweh, created the universe. Who said it did? What a watch points to is something designed, just as every living thing, from a single cell to the human brain, points to something obviously designed as welleven more obviously designed than a watch because any living thing is much more complicated than a watch.

Hume no more did what they proclaim he did than did Darwin (do what they proclaim he did), which was to demonstrate that random forceswith no forethought or intention but only with blind mechanisms, working on the principle of survival created everything from butterflies, to rhinoceroses, to oranges. (Though one might humbly ask,How did the wonderful taste of oranges aid in their survival?).

Indeed, where did this universal drive for survival that supposedly suffuses all life originate from? It's one thing for a human to try and survivebut a petunia, or an amoeba? Why should what Richard Dawkins calls nonrandom survival2exist, anyway? Does not seeking survival, nonrandom survival, mean an end, a goal, a purposeprecisely what evolutionary theory rejects? Why natural selection; that is, why does natureselect (sounds like a goal) for survival as opposed to non-survival?Survival of the fittest implies two purposes: fitness and survival. In short, the process of evolution sure seems to contradict the premise that it's built on.

If you look at the natural world, from a blue whale to a blueberry, from the human nervous system to the wings of an eaglethe most logical and reasonable conclusion is that they have all been purposely designed, and with an artistry and craftsmanship that defies our knowledge and imagination, especially as we learn more about them. Its kind of ironic that the more science reveals about the complexity of nature, the more farfetched sciences theory of natures origins becomes. The dogmatic denial of purposeful design anywhere in nature, especially when purposeful design is found everywhere in nature, shows how ideology can trump the most basic logic and reason.

The Logic of Daniel 2

Next, Daniel 2. By dating Daniel in the second century BC (even though Daniel dates itself hundreds of years earlier), scholars have long tried to denude the chapter of its prophetic reach. Yet the chapters prophetic reach extends way past the second century BC into not only the rise of the Roman empire but to its breakup into the nations of modern Europe, describing them perfectly, even as they are today.

Some of the nations shall be partly strong and partly fragile and they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay (Daniel 2:42, 43). Partly strong, partly fragile? Germany remains a behemoth while Luxembourgwell, God bless em. Mingle themselves with the seed of men? Europeans, from peasants to princesses, have been intermarrying for centuries, and though not killing each other en mass (at least for now)the continent remains composed of distinctly separate entities, no more adhering one to another now than in the pastjust as the prophecy predicted.

Not bad for a book written, supposedly, in the second century BC. Western intelligence agencies didnt foresee, even one year before, the collapse of the Soviet Union; in contrast, Daniel foresaw the state of Europe thousands of years in advance. And if Daniel could so accurately depict Europe two millennia into the future from himself, then certainly we can trust him to have dated his own book correctly, tooright?

Daniel 2, grounded in something as broad, as wide, and as verifiable as world history itself, gives us logical and rational reasons to trust in the Bible and the God who inspired it.

The Logic of Jesus Resurrection

Despite attempts for millennia to debunk it, the resurrection of Jesus is the most logical and reasonable explanation for events that even atheist historians believe.

First, they believe that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified by the Romans; next, that many people, particularly His early followers, claiming to have seen Him resurrected, started what became Christianity; and, finally, that a few years after Christs death, a Pharisee named Saul of Tarsus, claiming to have seen the risen Christ, became the apostle Paul. Though believing these things, how do the atheists explain them?

Mass hallucinations, for instance. Hundreds of people, the argument goes, from different backgrounds, all had the same hallucination: that of Jesus Christ risen from the grave, even though no one expected the Messiah to die and rise from the grave to begin with. Masses of people hallucinating the same event that nobody anticipated or saw coming? Hardly the most reasonable of explanations, is it?

Others assert that they just flat-out lied about having seen Jesus risen. Liedeven though they knew that their lie would lead them, and others, including loved ones, to ostracism, persecution, even death. You might willingly suffer and die for what you believe true. But for what youknowis a lie? As illogical and irrational as lying about seeing Jesus risen would be, thats as illogical and irrational as the argument that they had lied about seeing Him risen.

Or, as the Swoon Theory claims, He never died on the cross but only fainted and, then, after escaping the tomb and slipping past the Roman guards, JesusHis body battered, torn, and bleedingappeared before His disciples as their resurrection hope.

Some have said that Jesus had a twin brother who duped everyone into thinking that he was the resurrected Messiah, and that was how Christianity got started: a case of mistaken identity.

What about Saul of Tarsus? As he was heading to Damascus, a meteorite crashed into the ground before him, and the trauma of that event gave him an epileptic seizure in which he envisioned the risen Christ speaking to him.

In contrast to these moves, all one has to do is believe in God, a Creator God who at times temporarily works outside the natural laws that He made and sustains. A miracle is analogous to a musician who, though usually playing music based on a written score, temporarily departs from that score and plays something else. Logic and reason dont demand that miracles happen, only that, in a universe created by God, they could.

The Unreasonableness of Atheism

Or, instead, you could believe that the universe, and all thats in it, arose from itself or from absolutely nothing. Or that all the obvious design in the natural world merely looks obviously designed but isnt. Or that Daniels accurately depicting the future thousands of years in advance was luck. Or that Jesus didnt rise from the dead, but, wounded, escaped the tomb and appeared to His followers, who mistook His bloodied appearance as the resurrected and glorified Lord, and whom Paul, amid an epileptic seizure brought on by a meteorite, imagined he saw on the road to Damascus.

Or, instead, using logic and reason, you can believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and . . . be saved (Acts 16:31).

Clifford Goldsteinis the editor of theAdult Bible Study Guide.

1Peter Atkins,Conjuring the Universe: The Origins of the Laws of Nature(p. 28). OUP Oxford. Kindle Edition.

2Richard Dawkins,The Blind Watchmaker(W. W. Norton; New York, 1996), p. 61.

Link:
The Logic of Faith - Adventist Review

Posted on: July 21, 2023; Updated on: July 21, 2023 By Hannah Cambre, hcambre@maibox.sc.edu

One week before political science and Russian major Josh Hughes was scheduled to fly to Ukraine for a study abroad program, he found out that his trip was canceled because of the escalating conflict with Russia.

I was really upset, says Hughes. I thought, nothing bad is going to happen. Theres not going to be a war!

That was in February 2022. A couple months later, headquartered in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Hughes livestreamed virtual politics classes from a classroom in Kiev late at night, listening as bombs fell in the city outside of his professors window. Though Hughes may not have been in Ukraine, his study abroad plans had been salvagedand he couldnt have been happier with where he ended up.

Im really glad that I was able to go because it gave me a new perspective on everything.

Embracing the initial discomfort of disrupted plans, Hughes threw himself into his coursework, language immersion and cultural experiences. Five days a week, he spent time in political science, Central Asian studies and Russian language classes. The most valuable learning, however, happened outside of the formal classroom, from interacting with strangers to piecing together the vocabulary to tell his host family about a weekend camel-riding excursion with a friend.

I got so much out of living with a host, he explains. My Russian really improved from living with the host family, but also my connection to the city I was living in. Theres nothing more valuable than living with people that have lived in the city youre in for their whole lives. I was able to become much better acquainted with the city, with Kyrgyz culture, and with Russian culture.

Hughes left Kyrgyzstan still feeling deeply connected to the country and eager to return. He knew hed be back someday. He didnt know how soon.

After a conversation with his professor and now thesis advisor, associate professor of Russian Judith Kalb, Hughes decided to apply for the Russian critical language scholarship in Kyrgyzstan. He didnt know what to expect, but his plans certainly hadnt included returning to his sophomore year host country the summer after his junior year. This time, hed begin learning the Kyrgyz language in addition to his Russian studies and start work on his senior thesis research for the Honors College.

After his semester in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet state in Central Asia, Hughes was able to narrow his research down to the impact of militant Soviet atheism in the region. He had observed that though over 80% of the population considers itself Muslim, the country itself is secular and the practice of Islam is often the result of cultural heritage rather than deep religious conviction.

When [the Soviet Union] existed, it was the second-largest Muslim-population country in the world. We very, very rarely mention the 50 million Muslims in the Soviet Union that gets overlooked, Hughes explains. I wanted to study what peoples interactions with religion really were, how they interacted with it, and if there was a link between the years of atheist propaganda and how religion is practiced today.

Before returning to Kyrgyzstan, Hughes flew to Kazakhstan to search the archives for Soviet documents on the handling of religion. He also decided to supplement his archival and literature research with an anthropologic angle, sitting on park benches and interacting with strangers about their interpretation of religion, how they practiced their faith, and their experiences of either living under the Soviet state or in free Kazakhstan. Since his return to Bishkek, hes been doing the same thing in Kyrgyzstan.

Most people probably thought that I was a little bit unusual, Hughes admits, but they were very happy to share their experiences, their story with me. A lot of them were very happy that I was taking an interest and researching a part of their culture and their lives that they are very passionate about.

Researching abroad has been transformative, igniting Hughes passion for learning more about Central Asia and even redirecting the trajectory of his future. He entered his initial study abroad experience hoping to work for the State Department upon his return, but his goals look different now.

His aspirations include graduate school, where he hopes to study the transition from the Soviet to post-Soviet period, particularly in Central Asia. From there, he is considering pursuing a career in teaching. Hughes expresses nothing but gratitude for the chaotic circumstances leading up to his arrival in Kyrgyzstan, and he is particularly thankful for his decision not to give into frustration and stay in the U.S. rather than taking his chances on an unexpected opportunity.

Its changed everything, he says. But its what makes you grow academically, personally. Handling challenges and being able to adapt to them. I cant promise that every unexpected turn is going to turn out as fortunately as mine did, but you never know. Im really glad that I was able to go because it gave me a new perspective on everything.

More:
Change of plans - USC News & Events - University of South Carolina

Science fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke was famous for the axiom that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, but what his fellow golden-age sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov postulated was a little more complicated. In the Foundation novels, Asimov suggests that a science-based religion may actually take hold in the distant future. And, in the second episode of Season 2 of Apple TVs Foundation, we actually see what that might look like on a massive scale.

With the episode A Glimpse of Darkness, the ambitious sci-fi show has given us a much bigger look at a scientific religion, with perhaps more nuance and heart than Asimov pulled off his second Foundation novel, over seven decades ago, in 1952.

Spoilers ahead.

While the majority of the TV series Foundation is a liberal remix of all of the Asimov-penned stories and novels, huge arcs of this season loosely adapt big swings from the second book, Foundation and Empire. This novel was published in single-volume book form in 1952 (one year after the first novel), but it is actually a composite of several novellas and short stories, which go all the way back to 1942, and were (mostly) published in the pages of the legendary SF magazine Astounding (later known as Analog). This means that all Foundation canon was retroactive while Asimov was writing the original stories, which makes David Goyers approach to crafting the TV series smart. In other words, theres no such thing as a faithful adaptation of Foundation, because Foundation was barely faithful and consistent to itself.

So, with that in mind, in the second episode of Foundation Season 2, A Glimpse of Darkness, the series seems to make a major departure by suggesting that the Foundation itself an institution devoted to science and truth is now peddling mysticism. Shouldnt this run contrary to Asimovs staunch atheism and disbelief in pseudo-science? Nope! As we meet two of Foundations most compelling new Season 2 characters Cleric Constant (Isabella Laughland) and Cleric Poly Verisof (Kulvinder Ghir) were introduced to the concept of the Church of the Galactic Spirit. And this notion is perfectly in line with the opening pages of Foundation and Empire.

Kulvinder Ghir and Isabella Laughland as Poly and Constant in Foundation Season 2.

In the opening pages of Foundation and Empire, General Bel Riose is sent by the Empire to determine whisperings of so-called magicians on the outer fringes of the galaxy. The reader quickly learns that these magicians are scientific practitioners of the Foundation. But, as Riose grills a guy named Ducem Barr, he is told, An uninformed public tends to conflate scholarship with magicianry. Again, this is similar to the Clarke axiom about tech becoming indistinguishable from magic, but the practical implementation of this idea in the book Foundation and Empire is pure Asimov.

So, when we meet Poly and Constant in A Glimpse of Darkness, and theyre putting on tech-fueled magic shows for the uninformed populace, theyre essentially preaching the gospel of Asimov, and within the universe of the show, the science-based faith of the Foundation. This takes concepts that Asimov touched upon in the books, to a much more grounded place. Poly, the older, often drunken cleric, is a firm believer in the Seldon Plan, not just because he believes in the science, but because Seldon, at this point, has become a saint. But unlike saints in actual religions, Poly actually saw Hari Seldon when he was a child back in Season 1. This gives his science-based faith some groundedness but also sets up some very interesting conflicts in the episodes to come.

Lee Pace as Brother Day, the reigning Emperor Cleon. Hes not pumped about the Church of the Galactic Spirit.

So, while the Clerics seem a little bit catch-as-catch-can in this episode, the reality is, they have been successfully converting tons of planets on the edges of Empire to the cult of science! At this point in the show, the character of Bel Riose hasnt appeared. But, without spoiling too much about everything that happens in episode 3, and beyond, rest assured, Bel Riose is coming. And just like the magicians from Asimovs second novel, he too has been remixed into a more realistic and grounded character.

On a larger scale though, what the Church of the Galactic Spirit does for Foundation is making the conflict of this Season 2 crystal-clear. The clone dynasty of the Cleons governs over a shrinking empire that is amoral, with people who seemingly believe in nothing. Meanwhile, their rival, the Foundation, is empowering people to believe in a mathematical prophet and the promise of science. Asimov based some of the arcs of Foundation on the falls of real historic empires. But, in this case, the emerging religion that is helping to create a rebellion isnt one that espouses the worship of one true God. Instead, these missionaries just want you to get down with math.

See original here:
71 Years Later, The Weirdest Religion in Sci-Fi History Is Back - Inverse

It took less than 24 hours for Twitter to corrupt an innocent AI chatbot. Yesterday, Microsoft unveiled Tay a Twitter bot that the company described as an experiment in "conversational understanding." The more you chat with Tay, said Microsoft, the smarter it gets, learning to engage people through "casual and playful conversation."

Unfortunately, the conversations didn't stay playful for long. Pretty soon after Tay launched, people starting tweeting the bot with all sorts of misogynistic, racist, and Donald Trumpist remarks. And Tay being essentially a robot parrot with an internet connection started repeating these sentiments back to users, proving correct that old programming adage: flaming garbage pile in, flaming garbage pile out.

Now, while these screenshots seem to show that Tay has assimilated the internet's worst tendencies into its personality, it's not quite as straightforward as that. Searching through Tay's tweets (more than 96,000 of them!) we can see that many of the bot's nastiest utterances have simply been the result of copying users. If you tell Tay to "repeat after me," it will allowing anybody to put words in the chatbot's mouth.

One of Tay's now deleted "repeat after me" tweets.

However, some of its weirder utterances have come out unprompted. The Guardian picked out a (now deleted) example when Tay was having an unremarkable conversation with one user (sample tweet: "new phone who dis?"), before it replied to the question "is Ricky Gervais an atheist?" by saying: "ricky gervais learned totalitarianism from adolf hitler, the inventor of atheism."

But while it seems that some of the bad stuff Tay is being told is sinking in, it's not like the bot has a coherent ideology. In the span of 15 hours Tay referred to feminism as a "cult" and a "cancer," as well as noting "gender equality = feminism" and "i love feminism now." Tweeting "Bruce Jenner" at the bot got similar mixed response, ranging from "caitlyn jenner is a hero & is a stunning, beautiful woman!" to the transphobic "caitlyn jenner isn't a real woman yet she won woman of the year?" (Neither of which were phrases Tay had been asked to repeat.)

It's unclear how much Microsoft prepared its bot for this sort of thing. The company's website notes that Tay has been built using "relevant public data" that has been "modeled, cleaned, and filtered," but it seems that after the chatbot went live filtering went out the window. The company starting cleaning up Tay's timeline this morning, deleting many of its most offensive remarks.

Tay's responses have turned the bot into a joke, but they raise serious questions

It's a joke, obviously, but there are serious questions to answer, like how are we going to teach AI using public data without incorporating the worst traits of humanity? If we create bots that mirror their users, do we care if their users are human trash? There are plenty of examples of technology embodying either accidentally or on purpose the prejudices of society, and Tay's adventures on Twitter show that even big corporations like Microsoft forget to take any preventative measures against these problems.

For Tay though, it all proved a bit too much, and just past midnight this morning, the bot called it a night:

In an emailed statement given later to Business Insider, Microsoft said: "The AI chatbot Tay is a machine learning project, designed for human engagement. As it learns, some of its responses are inappropriate and indicative of the types of interactions some people are having with it. We're making some adjustments to Tay."

Update March 24th, 6:50AM ET: Updated to note that Microsoft has been deleting some of Tay's offensive tweets.

Update March 24th, 10:52AM ET: Updated to include Microsoft's statement.

Verge Archives: Can we build a conscious computer?

See the rest here:
Twitter taught Microsofts AI chatbot to be a racist asshole in less ...

Al-Qaeda and regional affiliate al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) both published messages this weekend condemning the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, accusing the Islamist nation of attracting immoral people, homosexuals, sowers of corruption and atheism to the Middle East.

Both messages, one from the regional entity and one from the greater organization, omitted any specific threat to attack the soccer tournament, considered one of the most popular and prestigious sporting events in the world. The al-Qaeda statement, according to some translations, suggested Muslims in Qatar should stoneharam visitors.

Al-Qaeda is a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization most famous for its role in the execution of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the American homeland. While for some time working under the shadow of the Islamic State, a former affiliate, its wing on the Arabian Peninsula has greatly benefited from the nearly eight-year-old civil war in Yemen.

The lack of direct threat to infrastructure or populated events in Qatar may be the result of that countrys longstanding friendships with Sunni jihadist organizations. American officials have long accused Qatari officials of protecting al-Qaeda terrorists, including some implicated in the September 11 attacks. The Taliban, currently the de facto government of Afghanistan, maintained a political office in Qatar throughout the 20-year Afghan War that it used to negotiate with America. Qatar has also supported the Muslim Brotherhood, a jihadist political party with a militant wing, and faced legal claims in response to allegations that it supported al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria the Nusra Front.

While, for much of the world, FIFA granting Qatar authority to host the 2022 World Cup was met with outrage over its Islamist legal code and rampant documented human rights abuses, particularly against women and people the regime identifies as LGBT, al-Qaeda complained that Qatar was inviting too many immoral people into the Middle East by hosting the event.

We warn our Muslim brothers from following this event or attending it, a statement published this weekend before the event began on Sunday read, attributed to AQAP. The message complained that Qatar had attracted immoral people, homosexuals, sowers of corruption and atheism into the Arabian Peninsula.

On Sunday, multiple sources including the SITE Intelligence Group monitor and France 24 journalist Wassim Nasr reported that the greater al-Qaeda organization had published another statement claiming the soccer tournament was a pornographic campaign against the peninsula of Mohammed.

The statement, according to an unverified translation by the BritishDaily Star, claimed that Zionist-Crusaders were using soccer to launch an invasion of the Arabian Peninsula.

Their acts are alien to our conservative societies and our Muslim peoples. Only they [Muslims] can do their jobs by stoning them, the terrorists allegedly advised.

Jihadists attacking Qatar for not conducting a sufficiently fundamentalist World Cup is the latest in years of criticisms of the country as an inappropriate venue for the soccer tournament, beginning with widespread concerns that Qatar was abusing, and in some cases killing, migrant workers to meet the deadlines for constructing necessary venues by 2022. In 2016, one study estimated that as many as 60 percent of people in Qatar lived in highly monitored labor camps, many of them foreigners lured into the country from impoverished areas of Southeast Asia and then trapped by the confiscation of their passports. Human rights organizations have compiled complaints from workers who say employers do not pay their salaries and threatened to deport them if they complain. A report published last year by the British newspaper theGuardianfound that at least 6,500 people died building World Cup stadiums and other facilities.

Qatar is also notoriously abusive towards gay people, suspected LGBT people, and women generally. In a report published this month, interviews with victims of the Qatari criminal system revealed beatings, abuse, and even gang rape at the hands of Qatari police officers for attempting to meet up with same-sex partners for dates. No reports indicate that al-Qaeda issued any statements of approval or addressed Qatars abuse against gay people in its rants about the World Cup inviting homosexuality to the region.

Western free governments have warned fans and tourists traveling to the World Cup that a wide variety of legal behavior in their home countries such as drinking alcohol, eating pork, or possessing sex toys could result in their arrest in Qatar. Religious books, presumably non-Islamic materials, could also result in arrest.

Qatar has alsofaced longstanding accusations, including formal criminal investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice, that it bribed FIFA for hosting rights.

Qatari leaders have responded to global disgust with its government by accusing detractors of racism. Labor Minister Ali bin Samikh Al Marri used the word racism directly in response to the criticism in an interview with the AFP this month.

They dont want to allow a small country, an Arab country, an Islamic country, to organize the World Cup, he said.

Then-FIFA President Sepp Blatter also accused a great deal of discrimination and racism for the criticism and accusations of bribery in 2015, but he has since called allowing Qatar to host a mistake.

The Emir of QatarSheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani called concerns about human rights in his country an unprecedented campaign to tarnish the image of his country in October.

Since we won the honour of hosting the World Cup, Qatar has been subjected to an unprecedented campaign that no host country has ever faced, the emir said. We initially dealt with the matter in good faith, and even considered that some criticism was positive and useful, helping us to develop aspects of ours that need to be developed.

But it soon became clear to us, he concluded, that the campaign continues, expands and includes fabrication and double standards, until it reached a level of ferocity that made many question, unfortunately, about the real reasons and motives behind this campaign.

Follow Frances Martel onFacebookandTwitter.

Read more from the original source:
Al-Qaeda: Islamist Qatar Bringing 'Homosexuals,' 'Atheism' to Middle ...

Political arguments grounded in Christian theology abound in the Opinion section of this paper. As a non-Christian, I tend to skim past. But, Ive noticed over time a distinct revulsion among Christian contributors for atheism and atheists. This is well worth examining, as no religion is the fastest growing religious identity in the world.

I associate with a range of secular humanists, Zen Buddhists, and other godless heathens. They are some of the kindest, most generous people I know. Truth be told, they tend to live in accordance with Jesuss teachings about mercy, compassion, nonviolence and austerity as well as or better than most of the Christians Ive known throughout my life. Christians often claim that atheists lack a moral foundation since they have no god or hell to scare them into behaving ethically. However, the atheists I know are repelled by the idea that people are only good when they fear punishment. Their morality is grounded in basic human goodness: compassion, empathy, love, or failing all that enlightened self-interest.

This isnt to say that atheists are morally superior to the faithful, but neither are they inferior. Morality and religious persuasion just arent that correlated. Throughout history, religions of all flavors have committed evils ranging from slavery and genocide to terrorism and child abuse. While these aberrations do not reflect the basic goodness and decency of most Christians, there is nonetheless zero justification for Christians sense of moral superiority versus atheists or anyone else.

Part of the hostility toward atheism may be because of the fact that young people are currently leaving organized religion in droves, usually for some form of atheism, agnosticism or generic spirituality. But to blame atheists who neither proselytize nor organize for the decline of organized religion is to ignore the fact that people who know what the church has to offer are choosing to leave anyway. Perhaps theyre tired of the hypocrisy and scandals. Maybe the Sunday service is irrelevant, too far removed from the struggles of their daily lives. Perhaps the idea of God has been so trivialized something akin to Santa Claus in the sky that it simply fails to inspire.

Organized religions too often demand blind obedience to symbols in lieu of providing vital engagement with matters of life, death and purpose. Believe is too often synonymous with obey and conform. The innate human longings that lead to the formation of religion in the first place are alive and well, but many now find their expression in political activism, social justice work, online communities, and even in pop music or superhero fandom. Or they just bury those longings with hedonism, distraction and addiction. Theres a need to be filled, and churches are not meeting it, but blaming atheism is futile. If people would rather have nothing at all than what youre offering, its time to reconsider your message.

Ultimately, though, I dont think Christians are afraid of atheists because they consider them to be immoral, dangerous or seductive. Christians are threatened by atheists because theyre afraid they might be right. Atheists mere existence challenges the faith of the faithful and exposes its fragility. To a truly devout Christian, the sight of a nonbeliever should invoke pity. The anger and fear directed at atheists instead suggest insecurity and doubt being projected outward. If youre secure in your faith, the beliefs or lack thereof in others should not faze you.

Questions of where we came from, why were here, and where were going are not really meant to be answered, let alone fought over. They are meant to help us engage ever more deeply with life and the mystery of our being (which is why I refuse to identify as theist, atheist, or agnostic to choose a label and stop exploring is to miss the whole point). Were all just doing our best to make sense out of an existence that is relentlessly ambiguous at best. That we reach different conclusions is inevitable; that none of us has the complete answer to lifes riddle is certain. Instead of seeking conformity with any particular doctrine or label, we ought to live the questions with wonder and mercy for our fellow travelers.

Urie is a lifelong Idahoan and graduate of the University of Idaho. He lives in Moscow with his wife and two children.

See the rest here:
His View: Fear not the atheist; they just might be right - Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Editor's Note: This article is part of the Registers symposium on Vatican II at 60.

In the view of Joseph Ratzinger, Gaudium et Spes three paragraphs on atheism may be counted among the most important pronouncements of Vatican II. Considering that the topic was absent from the preparatory schemata, and that as late as the summer of 1964 the most any draft had to say about it was a passing remark on errors which spring from materialism, especially from dialectical materialism or communism, that is no small feat. So what changed?

Most notable was Pope Paul VIs maiden encyclical, Ecclesiam Suam, issued in 1964 just weeks before the Councils third session. This aimed to show how and why the Church and the world as he rather sweetly puts it should meet together, and get to know and love one another (Ecclesiam Suam, 3). Dialogue is the great watchword here, and much attention is given to the value of improving relationships with both non-Catholic Christian communities and the other world religions. Crucially, atheists, agnostics, and the religiously indifferent a growing trend which, especially among the working classes, Paul VI had tried to stem in his previous post as archbishop of Milan were not ignored either.

Alongside much in line with denunciations issued by Pius XI and Pius XII (They parade their godlessness; foolish and fatal belief; doomed to utter destruction), Paul also juxtaposes a John XXIII-esque note of openness and appreciation towards atheists: We see these men serving a demanding and often a noble cause, fired with enthusiasm and idealism, dreaming of justice and progress. ... They are sometimes men of great breadth of mind, impatient with the mediocrity and self-seeking which infects so much of modern society. He ends by expressing hope for the eventual possibility of a dialogue between these men and the Church.

This was precisely the spur that a good number of the Fathers needed to force onto the Councils agenda what they would ultimately describe as being among the most serious problems of this age, and deserving of closer examination (GS, 19). Thus, during the third sessions interventions, among many other criticisms of the schema, or draft, the absence of any mention of atheism was time and again singled out. On the very first day of debate over the text, Cardinal Silva Henrquez of Santiago, Chile, urged that the Church must try to comprehend atheism, to examine the truths which nourish this error, and to be able to correspond its life and doctrine to these aspirations. A new version of the schema the so-called Ariccia text was circulated the following summer and met with much greater approval in the September 1965 debates. But yet again, the Fathers proved sticklers when it came to the statement on atheism.

Generally speaking, there were two main camps, both of which could draw partial encouragement from Ecclesiam Suam. The desire for an explicit rebuke of communism came from a vocal minority, including many whose own flocks as Paul Yu Pin, the exiled archbishop of Nanking in China, put it on behalf of 70 mostly Asian bishops groan under the yoke and endure unspeakable sufferings. The Polish bishops likewise lobbied hard for a condemnation of atheism, with Bishop Kazimierz Jzef Kowalski of Chemno describing it as the enemy of reason, science, the human person, and Revelation.

Against this were those bishops urging a more wide-ranging, bridge-building statement, one ideally promoting dialogue and cooperation, and recognizing some forms of contemporary atheism as being at least partly caused by Christians own moral, social and intellectual failings. These views were championed strongly by bishops from countries in Western Europe where creeping secularization was on the rise and tentative engagements between Catholics and Marxist, humanist and existentialist intellectuals had already begun.

The final text of Gaudium et Spes approved by the Council, although finely balanced, certainly leans more to the latter approach: Communism is not mentioned by name, let alone condemned, which arguably says a good deal about the geographical balance of power at the Council. In the end, the task was entrusted to a team led by Viennas Cardinal Franz Knig, whom Pope Paul had appointed earlier that year as head of a new dialogue-oriented Vatican Secretariat for Nonbelievers, including bishops from the communist-controlled countries of East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Yugoslavia. The drafting itself was, as usual, largely left to the Councils theological advisers, or periti: two Italian Salesian philosophers, Vincenzo Miano and Giulio Girardi, and two French Jesuit theologians, Jean Danilou and Henri de Lubac.

Those familiar with the latters writings on the subject, beginning with his seminal first book, Catholicism, in 1937, will detect a good deal of de Lubac in the promulgated paragraphs. Significantly, the whole question of modern unbelief is set within the frame of theological anthropology: From the very circumstance of his origin man is already invited to converse with God, and thus he cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and devotes himself to His Creator (GS, 19). As such, the brute fact that many of our contemporaries have never recognized this intimate and vital link with God, or have explicitly rejected it becomes a matter of urgent theological and pastoral concern.

What Vatican II understands by atheism is deliberately broad. Explicitly included among several phenomena which are quite distinct from one another are various species of agnosticism and religious indifference, alongside more straightforward disavowals of the existence of God. These are further subdivided by putative causes, including scientism, the violent protest against the evil in this world, promethean humanism, or simply the fact that modern civilization itself often complicates the approach to God.

There follows an important, if implicit, conciliar call back to Lumen Gentium, 16, which specifically taught on the possibility of salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life. Without mentioning salvation directly, Gaudium et Spes nonetheless helps unpack what such inculpability might (i.e., atheism is not a spontaneous development but stems from a variety of causes, not least the poor witness of Christians themselves) or might not (i.e., those who willfully shut out God from their hearts and try to dodge religious questions) look like in practice.

Although it avoids condemning or mentioning communism by name, the text states plainly that the Church has already repudiated and cannot cease repudiating those poisonous doctrines and actions which contradict reason and the common experience of humanity, and dethrone man from his native excellence (GS, 21). Read in context, the reader should have no doubt to what the Fathers are referring. Rather than dwell on this, however, the paragraphs conclude by returning to the anthropological vision with which they began. This serves to make the general thrust of the statement less about atheism(s), and much more about atheist people, and thus about proper objects for the Churchs pastoral concern. Quoting Augustine, it concludes with a prayer: Apart from this message nothing will avail to fill up the heart of man: Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee (GS, 21).

Looking back on all this six decades later, one wonders what progress the Church has really made on understanding, let alone engaging with, let alone reducing what it was already calling among the most serious problems of this age. A worthwhile project for the second 60 years of the Councils reception and legacy, perhaps?

Stephen Bullivant teaches at St. Marys University, U.K., and the University of Notre Dame, Australia. His Vatican II: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press), co-authored with Shaun Blanchard, is due out in early 2023.

Original post:
Vatican II and the Rise of Atheism - National Catholic Register

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Credulity is an odd mix with atheism.

After all, the atheist has had to wade through a large network of theological ideas, parse them, critique them, and reject them. This requires incredulity to begin with, and it enlarges incredulity along the way. Such intellectual labor is like attending a seminary of impiety where multi-year courses hone students skepticism.

And so it shocks our sensibility to discover the rare atheist who believes in ghosts. And, yes, I have met a few atheistic ghost believers.

Ghost belief is older than belief in Gods and is likely traced to the dream life of prehistoric peoples, all of whom saw dead relatives and dead neighbors in their nighttime slumbers and reasoned therefore that the dead are still alive.Acts propitiating ghosts, like leaving little offerings of foodstuffs here and there, eventually became elaborate theistic liturgies appeasing the Gods.

Why would a modern atheist consider God to be as unbelievable as a Phoenix bird and yet find ghosts credible?

Perhaps its that ghosts do not have endless piles of holy books assembled on their behalf, or that ghosts do not have immense buildings erected for their worship, or that ghosts do not have venerable hymns choired in their names. Maybe its this underdog status that makes the credulous atheist sympathetic to the lowly ghost.

Or maybe ghostly atheists permit themselves one lone mental vice, since atheists otherwise practice an almost ascetic intellectual morality. This is not unlike celibate clerics who allow themselves to partake in good alcohol and fine tobacco as compensation for doing without other creature comforts.

Or could it be the allure of the horror genre that makes ghosts appealing? Who doesnt like a good ghost story?

Or maybe people who recently buried a loved one find special consolation in the hope that the dearly departed are still alive. Remember those TV shows where psychics communed with the ethereal remains of deceased relatives among the studio audience? The bereaved in the crowd wept briny tears when they heard from their mom on the other side.

Here is a proof of ghosts I heard recently:I felt an eerie presence when my dog faced a corner in my den and barked wildly at thin air.

Really? Thats a proof of ghosts?

Dogs have noses that smell things we cannot smell, and dogs have ears that hear things we cannot hear. Might your dog have smelled and heard a mouse inside the wall of your den? As to your eerie feelings, dont you suppose your dogs barking at thin air created those feelings in you? The very idea of ghosts is father to a feeling of the presence of ghosts. If you believe in ghosts you will eventually feel their presence.

A few ancient Greek thinkers, and many thinkers since then, realized that everything about a human personality is assembled within the human body, and no continuation of personality can exist after the demise of a body. The ancients saw that a ghost was an impossible idea, and immortality was an absurd notion.

With what does a ghost see, lacking the bodys eyes? With what does a ghost hear, without the bodys apparatus for hearing? With what does a ghost speak, lacking a mouth and tongue? With what does a ghost feel, without the brains chemistry?

If an incorporeal God is incredible, why isnt an incorporeal ghost equally so? And yet, in the wide wide wonderful world of metaphysics, you may now and then meet atheists who scoff at hardened declarations of God while announcing their own confirmed belief in ghosts.

Related

View original post here:
Atheists who believe in ghosts - OnlySky

by Zhang Chunhua

The 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party opens on October 16, and the government-controlled Protestant Three-Self Church contributes to it with a report on how Christianity is being Sinicized. Published on October 8, the report is signed by Pastor Xu Xiaohong, the Chairman of the Three-Self Patriotic Movement Committee.

The document reviews the efforts made by the Three-Self Church to accomplish the Sinicization of Chinese Protestant Christianity, and proposes a road map for the future. Its main theoretical point is an explanation of how the concept of Sinicization has evolved throughout the history of the Peoples Republic.

In the last few years, the Three-Self Church has lionized the figure of theologian Zhao Zichen (known in the West as T.C. Chao, 18881979), as the main founder of the doctrine of Sinicization. The Exhibition Hall on Zhao in Deqing county, Zhejiang province, has been solemnly visited this year by the Three-Self Churchs main leaders, and pilgrimages continue to be organized there.

Zhao is celebrate for his anti-missionary and anti-American stance, yet we are now told that the doctrine of Sinicization today has evolved with respect to his writings. Zhaos idea that Christianity in China should be separated as much as possible from foreign and Western influences and styles is proclaimed as still valid. If anything, it needs more radical implementation. For instance, Xu praises the work done in Sinicizing the architecture of Christian churches, which in practice means destroying or downsizing crosses and other specific Christian features and making places of worship more similar in their external appearance to secular halls and in some cases to Taoist or Buddhist temples.

However, Xu also explains that breaking the relationship between Chinese and Western Christianity is necessary but is not sufficient. The question is with what will Chinese Protestantism replace the discarded Western contents. A generic reference to Chinese culture would not be enough. Here, Xi Jinpings thought on the Sinicization of religion (there is a Xi Jinping thought for everything) comes to the rescue. As explained by the President in his speech at the December 34, 2021 National Conference on Work Related to Religious Affairs, and summarized by Xu, today Sinicization does not mean only adapting religion to Chinese culture. It means making religion compatible with the Marxist view of religion and Socialist religious theory with Chinese characteristics.

One could object that Marxism is an atheistic ideology. Xu is aware of this problem, although he carefully avoid the use of the world atheism in his report. He believes that when adapted to Chinas specific reality, and the tradition of the CCP (by which he means mostly Deng Xiaopings views), Marxist theory of religion does not call for its immediate demise. Religion can survive for an indefinite time, provided thatas Xi Jinping stated in the 2021 conferenceit accepts that its role in China is to persuade believers they should support the CCP, and understands that it should not interfere with social life and stay away from the education of the younger generations.

Xu admits that these aims are not yet totally clear to all Three-Self pastors. For this reasons, while the 20182022 Sinicization five-year plan is coming to a conclusion, Xu announces a new Five-Year Plan for Promoting the Sinicization of Christianity in China ( 20232027), which will include more standardized sermons to be preached in all churches. He hopes that the Plan will lead Chinese Protestant Christianity to unite more closely around the Central Committee of the Party with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core.

Read the rest here:
Religion at the Chinese Communist Party Congress: Christians Told They Should Become More Marxist - Bitter Winter

When people think of the sexual revolution, they generally imagine some time in the 60s when drug-addled hippies at Woodstock were practicing free love, women were liberated from the home and entering the workforce, pornography and pornographic images were lining the newsstands, and abortions were legalized and frequent.

While this idea is not altogether inaccurate, the West has actually experienced multiple sexual revolutions, and each of them happened gradually. In his most recent book Three Sexual Revolutions: Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, David Carlin charts the progression and logic of sex and its relation to Western society. The book is succinct, clear, and quite pessimistic. After one sees the big picture, its difficult not to conclude that things will get much worse before they get any better.

Ironically, the current confusion about sex that dominates the popular imagination bears some resemblance to the confusion of Ancient Rome, which is where Carlin begins his discussion. In the centuries before the birth of Christ, pagan Rome did at least adhere to some degree of sexual prudence and chastity. Carlin notes, For centuries Roman women were as famous for their chastity as Roman men were for their courage. But toward the latter days of the republic, things had changed considerably at least on the chastity front.

To illustrate this, he cites the scandals of adultery with Julius Caesar, which still meant something in public life. His heir Augustus tried in vain to revive the virtue of chastity, outlawing adultery and even making an example of his own daughter who violated this law. However, right after Augustuss reign, sexual chaos soon set in, starting from the top, as each successor indulged in increasingly disgusting and destructive sexual fetishes.

Although he makes serious points about Romes sexual decadence, Carlin has a sense of humor about it. When describing Augustuss daughter Julia, he explains that she had the bad habit of going to bed with men who were not her husband. In his point on Emperor Claudius, Carlin writes, The sexual improprieties of the Emperor Claudius were relatively tame. He married four times. He divorced his first two wives, and had a third executed. His fourth wife was his niece, a marriage Romans considered to be incestuous. The levity works well to counterbalance the unbelievable darkness of these men and women.

In such an environment, Judaism and Christianity held a great appeal to disenchanted gentiles: What attracted [Roman pagans] to the Jewish religion? Two things, especially, its monotheism and its sexual ethic. Thus, many gentiles either became semi-Jews or Christians to join churches that actually set boundaries for promiscuity and abided by logic.

This in turn precipitated the first sexual revolution. As Christianity was becoming more established in the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church adopted what Carlin calls an attitude of hyper-chastity. After all, this is what Christ commanded in the Gospels and St. Paul prescribed in his letters. Influential Christians doubled down on this message, best shown in the conversion of St. Augustine of Hippo who traded away a life of sexual dissolution for strict celibacy.

According to Carlin, this fixation on chastity that placed strict regulations on marriage and recommended an ascetic way of life partially led to the popularity of Gnosticism, a heretical belief that condemned material pleasure and extolled the spirit. It wasnt so much that the arguments of gnostics were persuasive, but a general feeling they tapped into: It was an attitude that held, or rather felt, that there is something fundamentally wrong with the material world and hence with our bodies.

Even after Gnosticism disappeared, the commitment to hyper-chastity and a rigorous sexual ethic continued well into the Middle Ages, playing a key role in how the church and Christendom developed. Then came the second sexual revolution that happened with the Protestant Reformation.

Because Luther and other Protestant leaders believed that much of the Catholic Churchs corruption stemmed from their hyper-chaste dogmas, they sought to remove these restrictions. In practice, this resulted in ending monasticism and priestly celibacy, permitting remarriage and divorce, and legitimizing private judgment among believers. Thus, the sexual culture of Protestant kingdoms transitioned from hyper-chaste to relatively chaste, influencing adjacent Catholic cultures to have a similar mentality.

This broad agreement on chastity and Christian sexual morality breaks down in the final sexual revolution that happened in the 60s. Carlin considers this an atheistic revolution, explaining how prominent atheists and atheistic ideas laid the groundwork for this last sexual revolution. He remarks from the outset, just as the Protestant sexual revolution of the 1600s was an anti-Catholicism revolution, so this modern sexual revolution has been an anti-Christianity revolution. This was what drove the modern forces of feminism, popular entertainment, public intellectuals, and the social sciences.

Carlin recognizes that though the claims made in these domains have all been largely discredited, they nevertheless had their effect. Hollywood may have been all fake, but the stories they told made sexual dissipation quite real. Alfred Kinsey was a dishonest pervert, but he successfully normalized what was formerly considered deviant. Margaret Mead basically fabricated a sexual island utopia in Coming of Age in Samoa, but professors continue assigning it, making promiscuity not only normal but natural and good. Feminists continue preaching abortion as empowering, even though this rewards irresponsible men, traumatizes mothers, and kills innocent children most of them girls.

Todays world is the natural result of these influences. The structures that brought about stability in households and civilization at large are quickly breaking down. Whereas chastity and marriage were the general expectation for men and women, Carlin lists what has come to replace them: premarital sex, cohabitation, promiscuity, unmarried parenthood, abortion, homosexuality, and homo-conformity (actively endorsing homosexuality), and transgenderism. In such a climate, the idea of marrying and having children becomes not only unusual, but even hateful and judgmental to those who have alternative lifestyles.

As sexual morality has given way, so too has religious practice. The argument of Carlins conclusion mirrors the memorable quote from Fulton Sheen: If you do not live what you believe, you end up believing what you live. Religion, which set up limiting principles to sexual behavior, is waning. Because of this, theres no reason to see sexual conventions change trajectory or diminish. Carlin foresees a continued disintegration of religion and the home, with the lingering remnants of Christianity uniting in the cultural and political struggle against atheism.

To call Carlins analysis sobering would be something of an understatement. Rather, its profoundly dour with little hope of redemption. His tone is one of a jaded man who has seen it all and can see all too clearly the inevitable doom to befall a fallen civilization. And while hes done his part to explain why this is so, it would have been nice to have some kind of solution or way forward. Instead, he simply concludes that hell be long dead before theres any change on the horizon.

Then again, perhaps this is a challenge for the reader to take on after reflecting on the history given in Three Sexual Revolutions. True, it certainly seems like Western civilization is reverting back to its ancient past where so many varieties of relational dysfunction brought about the decline of great empires. And it may be the case that todays decadence will do the same.

However, if tomorrows leaders can heed the warnings of today, its only reasonable to have hope that they can ignite a fourth sexual revolution in the future by adopting the Christian values that ultimately redeemed Rome and ultimately restoring some semblance of order and virtue to families and communities.

Go here to read the rest:
The Rise And Fall Of Sexual Sanity In Western Civilization - The Federalist