Category Archives: Atheism

By Kathryn Lopez

President Joseph Biden mentions his Catholic faith frequently. Weve heard him cite both Pope and Saint Francis. At his inauguration, he ran through a litany of promises about love, healing and decency, and other things no one could object to, prefaced by: Before God and all of you I give you my word. But when it came time for his first proclamation for a National Day of Prayer, his administration chose to leave God out of it.

There was mention of racial justice and climate change, but never the three-letter word that acknowledges that there is something more that our country is founded on and is the reason we even exist. Quoting the late Rep. John Lewis, Biden called people the most dynamic link to the divine on this planet. In this framework, the National Day of Prayer then, is about us, not God.

As churches were closed for worship during the COVID-19 lockdowns, the priests and other ministers who kept serving are the uncelebrated heroes essential workers of the pandemic. They went into hospitals. They checked on parishioners. They did everything they were allowed to do to safely give people access to Confession and the Eucharist. After what we as a nation have been through, we should be celebrating prayers, churches and God, not ignoring them or watering them down.

When Pope Benedict XVI, now pope emeritus, was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican, it issued a letter on what prayer is. (P)roperly speaking, it is a personal, intimate, and profound dialogue between man and God. This communion, based on Baptism and the Eucharist, source and summit of the life of the Church, implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from self to the You of God.

Thats powerful stuff though obviously Christian, and in a Catholic context. But doesnt all prayer need to include that kind of humility? And an acknowledgment that our lives are not our own? Isnt that one of the lessons of the past year? We are mutually vulnerable, and we can turn to God for meaning and direction.

But much of Bidens prayer proclamation was all about us, our comfort and our agendas. This is not a Republican vs. Democrat kind of a thing; practical atheism is a plague. President George W. Bush had the right idea in his 2016 proclamation, citing George Washington: It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly implore His protection and favor. Now theres a posture that will get us outside of our heads and false comforts.

Here, for what its worth, is what Mother Teresa said about prayer: Prayer, to be fruitful, must come from the heart and must be able to touch the heart of God. See how Jesus taught His disciples to pray. Call God your Father; praise and glorify his name. Do His will as the saints do it in heaven; ask for daily bread, spiritual and temporal; ask for forgiveness of your own sins and that you may forgive others, and also for the grace not to give in to temptations and for the final grace to be delivered from the evil that is in us and around us.

Humility is key to prayer. A White House proclamation isnt a theological treatise, but I do wonder if this years betrays our warped view of religion. Prayer isnt about us so much as it is about God. Its not about our agendas. Its an acknowledgement that there is so much more to our day and our lives than what is on our calendars.

If we got the National Day of Prayer wrong, today is another day. And always remember the Sabbath.

It could change our lives and the world. Its not all about us; God reorients things when we give Him time.

Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living. She is also chair of Cardinal Dolans pro-life commission in New York. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.

Originally posted here:
Kathryn Lopez: You've got to pray to make it today - Salisbury Post - Salisbury Post

A political scion with engineering and management degrees from top institutes at home and in the US. A top banker who lived and married abroad, and returned to become a popular MLA. An ardent devotee of Goddess Meenakshi in a party that swears by atheism.

Palanivel Thiagarajan, or PTR, as he is better known, is a study in contrasts. However, for once in his long and eventful career, the 55-year-olds life has taken an anticipated turn. New Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin has picked this highly qualified MLA with an engineering degree from NIT Trichy, higher studies in the State University of New York, and an MBA in Finance from the Sloan School of Management at MIT to be his Finance Minister.

Its a fitting progression for PTR, whose grandfather P T Rajan was the chief minister of Madras Presidency in the 1930s, and whose father P T R Palanivel Rajan served as a DMK minister. He takes over as Finance Minister after winning for the second time from Madurai Central, by 34,176 votes.

In these past five years, PTR earned his stripes as a leader. Always available for his constituents, he would put out a report card of his work every six months. If he is given time to deliver, he will deliver. Stalin knows that, says a senior DMK leader also sworn in as minister.

Having left India in 1987 for the US, PTR returned only 20 years later, finishing his studies, joining work there, and marrying an American classmate. Four years later, in 2011, PTR moved to Singapore for a high-profile bankers job. When he returned in 2015, he said it was for good. A year later, he won the Assembly elections from Madurai Central.

Now settled in Chennai with his wife Margaret Rajan, school-going sons Palani Thiaga Rajan and Vel Thiaga Rajan, and five dogs, PTR told The Indian Express after the swearing-in that they were his life. However, he said, he always wanted to work for the people.

One of the top issues on his agenda would be settling Tamil Nadus GST dues with the Centre. PTR, who has been severely critical of the Modi governments financial policies, said, Just like a man is as good as his word, a government must keep its commitments and obligations. It (the GST dues) is a black and white, legal commitment of the Indian government to the states. There is nothing to be discussed.

PTR also alleged the undermining of states under the Modi government. Tamil Nadu is a well-to-do state. You cannot sit in Delhi and make decisions for people Devolution is the basis of governance, not just from the Centre to the state but from the state to local bodies as well. In fact, one of the things we admire most about Kerala is the extent of devolution they have implemented.

With Tamil Nadu differing over other Central policies as well, PTR added, It is clear that we cannot resolve problems in our country with a single solution due to the scale of its diversity and complexity. Why should Delhi tell us when we open our barber shops (during the lockdown)? We have a structural problem, GST is only the financial aspect of it.

A drain on Tamil Nadus resources is its freebie culture, with parties showering sops before the elections. In the recent Assembly elections, the DMK promised increasing maternity leave from six months to a year, free passes for women in city buses, and Rs 4,000 cash assistance for all ration card holders (the latter two were implemented Friday). PTR argued, I dont start with the assumption that all freebies are bad. I would even consider doubling up or delivering certain freebies on a daily basis Should I not give free food to schoolchildren? Should I not give laptops to students?

He himself made three promises to his electorate, PTR said an integrated drinking water scheme, ensuring supply to every individual; an integrated sewage system; and the renovation of Madurai Meenakshi temple.

The connection to the Meenakshi temple goes deep. In 1963, it was his grandfather who had done the Kumbabhishekam (part of the consecration ceremony, done once every 12 years) of the temple, and he hopes to do it at the renovated temple.

PTR sees no contradiction between his faith and the DMKs atheist stand, saying the Kalaignar (the late M Karunanidhi) knew about his devotion to the Goddess. After my father passed away in 2006, I took a vow to visit the temple every week or every month. Wherever I have been, I have kept that promise for the last 15 years, missing only once or twice, and this last year due to Covid-19 restrictions. I even asked for the Madurai Central constituency because of the temple. The Kalaignar knew that.

In fact, PTRs family also has an association with the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, which has been caught up in a row, with his grandfather who headed the Justice Party donating a deity of Lord Ayyappa to it after a massive fire in the 1950s. After the fire, the Pandalam King (the temple caretaker) and the chief priest met an astrologer. He suggested they approach my grandfather, PTR said

Read more from the original source:
A graduate from MIT, former banker, Tamil Nadus finance minister wants Centre to give state its due - The Indian Express

NOW that Labour has lost another English "Red Wall" constituency Darlington to the Conservatives, it seems clear that the right wing is firmly embedded at Westminster.

After so many Brexit lies to the EU and Northern Ireland, the illegal prorogation of Parliament and associated lies to the Queen, the normalisation and acceptance of sleaze within Westminster is surely by now a "truth universally acknowledged", from Brussels to Washington DC and back again to Buckingham Palace. It is also blatant; there is no shame.

Recently, David Edgerton, Professor of History at King's College, London, argued that Scotland's independence would help England "liberate itself from the Anglo-UK state" and move on to a "new democratic settlement".

Another distinguished historian, Sir Max Hastings, has, even more ominously, suggested that the Tory Party is now confident about the acquiescence of its supporters and the English electorate in general. He pointed out the massive propaganda effort which has lulled and subverted the English electorate into acceptance and voting for more. Hartlepool is surely proof of that.

Meanwhile, the "Anglo-UK State" has arrived at a post-Brexit position of international disgrace, isolation and distrust.

The peculiar scandal about furniture for Boris Johnson's flat is dwarfed by Greensill, involving Matt Hancock, David Cameron, Rishi Sunak and, no doubt, many others in secret meetings and exchanges. Until today there was actually no Westminster adviser on the Ministerial Code: Sir Alex Allan resigned when Boris Johnson ignored his finding that Priti Patel had broken that code and paid off her accuser with 340,000 of public money instead. The same silencing has been applied to the planning scandal associated with Robert Jenryck and the outrageous behaviour of Mr Johnson with Jennifer Arcuri. Their arrogant presumption that such conduct will go unchallenged has been proved correct again, horribly, in Hartlepool.

Hercules diverted the Rivers Alpheus and Peneus to clean out the Augean Stables after 30 years of neglect. Prof Edgerton is surely also correct in his assessment that cleaning out the Westminster "skip" will require something at least as momentously and positively constitutional in the form of Scottish, and possibly Welsh, independence.

The recent Calvinistic approach of our own Holyrood Parliament to any suspicion of deviation from the Ministerial Code surely confirms that we are already a separate nation, leading by example.

Our independence will be, as Prof Edgerton says, a positive chance for everyone and the sooner the better.

Frances McKie, Evanton.

I FEAR FOR MY COUNTRY

THE saddest feature of all about the flirtation of so many Scots with nationalism has been the rejection of reason and logic by a large number of them. Even a glance through some of the statements and interviews of nationalist spokespersons, right up to the very top, shows an ignorance of even basic economics and an unshakeable belief in fantasy scenarios that would embarrass a Harry Potter plot.

So, for example, we have for a broken-off Scotland "no border" with England and with our southern neighbours, 10 times our size, apparently having no say in the matter whatsoever and supposed to bow meekly to the will of a broken-off Scotland. Or we have all Scotlands share of the joint debt incurred by the UK "wiped out". We are given suggestions of seamless, virtually instant accession to the EU and all currency problems waved away with the bland "other countries borrow, so can we". We could go on and on. The ability to reason and think things through has deserted so many.

Scotland is on the verge of catastrophe. Whatever the election result, I fear for the future of my country as I never have feared before.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

VOTING SYSTEM INADEQUATE

AT around 2.30 in the afternoon of polling day I cast my vote at box 52 in Jordanhill Church Hall.

After the preliminaries, I joked to the polling steward about the enormous length of the list ballot paper. I was puzzled, though, at my difficulty in pushing it into a nearly full ballot box.

How astonishing to read on your website that two voters, six hours later, were unable to access the same ballot box.

The unfortunate couple were advised to come back by 10pm. Had I received the same advice I would have been effectively disenfranchised due to later family commitments.

Luckily, Nadeem Basharat and his partner Joanne did not suffer that fate. Their experience, however, performs a signal service in highlighting the inadequacy of voting arrangements.

Thomas McLaughlin, Glasgow.

WHY REVERT TO OLD ENMITIES?

ISN'T Brexit great?

It has enabled Boris Johnson to relive past British glories by sending in the gunboats, this time to protect the tax haven Jersey ("EU in Brexit blast amid bitter feud on fishing", The Herald, May 7) rather than into the River Yangtze to enforce Britain's imperial will during the Opium Wars. And the fishermen of France, of course, had to follow the revolutionary pleading of the soldier-poet Augustin Louis de Ximnz: Attaquons dans ses euax la perfide Albion!

Is it any wonder that I gave both my votes to the SNP in the hope of rejoining the mainstream of European civilisation? What's wrong with "an ever-closer union"? Surely it's better than reverting to ancient antagonisms?

Peter Martin, Muir of Ord.

THE FISCAL STUMBLING BLOCK

RUTH Marr (Letters, May 7) challenges my assessment (Letters, May 5) of it taking around 20 years from the decision to hold a referendum to Scotland achieving membership of the European Union as an independent state.

She refers to the views of the Scottish Centre on European Relations but chooses not to address the issue of monetary policy sovereignty. Chapter 9 of its March 2020 report, An Independent Scotland in the EU: Issues for Accession, addresses the EUs fiscal criteria indicating that it may be problematic for Scotland to join the EU without control of its own monetary policy, that is, while using the pound sterling.

The book Scotlands New Choice; Independence After Brexit published in March of this year by the Centre on Constitutional Change based at the University of Edinburgh devotes four chapters to setting out issues pertaining to the economy.

It is clear that significant time is required to meet the required EU economic entry criteria.The SNP's own Sustainable Growth commission indicated that it would take around 10 years to "secure monetary policy sovereignty".

Incidentally, and not related to the timescale but to the need to reduce the budget deficit, the same report from the Scottish Centre on European Relations questions "whether the Scottish polity, let alone the populace, is aware of how severe the spending squeeze would have to be".

Ms Marr clearly has a different view to me but I note that she has not accepted my challenge to give an alternative timescale or comment upon any economic challenges that she might anticipate during the process.

George Rennie, Inverness.

THE HIGH COST OF NUCLEAR

WHILE there are some truths in Brian Wilson's comments in his article disparaging the Green agenda on power generation ("Theres nothing green about dividing Britain or closing down the North Sea", The Herald, May 5) there are things in his remarks that are for the less knowledgeable.

In particular he champions nuclear power, and while there are highly skilled careers in this industry many will transfer to the safe decommissioning of nuclear power plants in the years ahead.

Radioactivity takes thousands of years to reduce and the safety of that comes at a cost. Think of Chernobyl.

In my working life I was involved in the design of, amongst other systems, enclosures to enable safe dismantling of enriched materials at Sellafield. At one stage about 20 years ago my company's production was put on hold as radioactivity was detected in a working area. This took, from memory, more than six months to deal with before manufacture and supply could be resumed.

Dounreay demonstrates the timescale of such safe decommissioning. Who is paying for this?

Mr Wilson states that the cost of renewables is being spread among UK consumers without too many complaints. I would complain if it would make any difference, having seen my all electric house bills doubling in under 10 years.

What governments allowed the Central Electricity Generating Board, SSEB and the like to be privatised and acquired by Spanish, French and German utilities? And if the French carry out their threat to cut off Jersey, is it a short step to up their perceived grievances over Brexit by threatening to ration their export of power to the UK?

Mr Wilson needs to get real and instead of having a go at the Greens, think about where the Westminster establishment have taken the UK to.

Ian Gray, Croftamie.

DEBATE ON ATHEISM AND RELIGION

I WAS interested to read that Northern Ireland's possible replacement as First Minister, Edwin Poots, holds a "young Earth" world view ("The danger of Northern Ireland comparisons", The Herald, May 3). Perhaps he sees a conflict between science and a belief in a Creator?

Brian Chrystal (Letters, May 6) doesn't tell us his own world view, but he doesn't mention that most mainline Protestants, Catholics and some other religions see no such conflict. There are many different beliefs on this, from "young Earth creationism" (or "special creationism") through theistic evolution to atheism. There are many eminent scientists such as John Polkinhorne and John Lennox, who believe there is a God, as well as many who do not.

As for Mr Chrystal's fear that schoolchildren in Northern Ireland may be taught fringe views such as young Earth creationism, I think they would get a wider education if they were taught a range of views, rather than that they were only told about the current dogma that science can explain absolutely everything.

I would recommend a look at graspingthenettle.org, where many respectful debates are taking place between those of a religious faith, and those whose faith is atheism.

William Campbell, Lenzie.

WINTERS' TALE

I APPRECIATE William Shakespeare is widely regarded as Englands national poet and the worlds greatest dramatist, but had never seen him as a rival to Scotlands Brahan Seer, predictor of the future, gifted with the sight.

However, recent correspondence in The Herald on Glasgows Empire Theatre (Letters, May 5, 6), notorious as the graveyard for English comics, particularly Mike and Bernie, clears up the mystery of The Bard of Avons Now is the Winter of our discontent (Richard 111, Act 1, scene 1).

R Russell Smith, Largs.

Go here to see the original:
Letters: Hartlepool shows the right will not be budged at Westminster - HeraldScotland

In our latest podcast, Jessica and I discussed the past week in politics and atheism.

We talked about:

Josh Duggar is in jail! But for what? (2:10)

This is one wild letter to the editor from a self-described WASP. (9:00)

A Canadian politician defended conversion therapy by talking about a woman who wanted to escapelesbian activity. It spawned a hashtag. (26:00)

An Alaska GOP Senate candidate thinks church/state separation is a hoax. (30:10)

Catholic bishops dont want Joe Biden to receive communion so the rules may change. (38:48)

If this is your criticism of Kamala Harris, maybe keep it to yourself. (46:53)

Newt Gingrich is very botheredby rainbow flags at U.S. embassies. (56:33)

Australias prime minister said hes doing Gods work inoffice. (59:48)

Christian Prophets want some standards! (1:05:49)

Wed love to hear your thoughts on the podcast. If you have any suggestions for people we should chat with, please leave them in the comments, too.

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Google Play, stream all the episodes on SoundCloud or Stitcher, or just listen to the whole thing below. Our RSS feed is here. And if you like what youre hearing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon and leaving us a positive rating!

(Image via Shutterstock)

Continued here:
Podcast Ep. 372: The WASP Who Wants Sexetarys at Work - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

(Juan Carlos/Reuters)

The left-wing thinker Freddie deBoer wrote a provocative little Substack essay about the New Atheism phenomenon, of nearly two decades ago. What interests deBoer is that so often liberal and progressive Christians engaged in debates with New Atheists by specifically avoiding any theological content at all. Sometimes literally refusing to argue that God exists. DeBoer comments:

If a being exists, of whatever nature, who created reality, exists within all of reality, set realitys physical and moral rules, watches over all of reality, judges all of us on how devout and moral we are, and determines reward and punishment based on that judgement, that clearly is the truth that trumps all other truths. Strange to let it slip out of the debate quietly in the night.

Indeed! DeBoer observes that instead a certain kind of believer seemed only to believe that religion was worth practicing because it was socially expedient. In this they seemed to agree with non-believers who have come to a strangely utilitarian appreciation of religion. He writes:

People have commented for centuries on the phenomenon of religious observance carried out by people whose authentic religious belief is dead or dying. But I think the next evolution in religion is to move from the religious believer who sadly watches their faith slowly ebbing away to the religious consumer who sees sincere faith as traditionally conceived as an anachronism. This is the inevitable outcome of perspectives like those of Jonathan Haidt , who advocates for atheists to accept religion as a positive force even as we quietly snicker to each other that its all fake. Haidts belief that we should champion religions forms while quietly marinating in our superior understanding that religions truth claims are bunk can only contribute to the gradual erasure of the metaphysical underpinnings of traditional religion.

DeBoer in some ways welcomes the hypocrisy and evasiveness of progressive believers and comes around to speculating that religion can be defeated by atheism not by confrontation but through abstraction, the abstraction of religious teachings into meaninglessness.

I found the non-engagement of liberal believers with New Atheism as frustrating as deBoer did. It was something Christopher Hitchens remarked on frequently himself. Most of the ministers he debated wanted to argue that religion was socially expedient that it had some good effect not that it was true. One notable exception was the Calvinist pastor Douglas Wilson. I think there were some other good debates too. William Craig Lane took it up with Sam Harris. And Peter Hitchens debated his brother Christopher and later wrote a book that took on the contention that religion poisons everything and then proceeded to make a case that atheism was a handmaiden of totalitarianism.

At one point, deBoer writes that this metaphysical evacuation of religion betrays what religious identity has been for most practitioners for thousands of a year, and later this process of abstraction allows Christianitys teachings to become a pure canvas onto which one can paint whatever one feels like in the moment.

I dont know if this is a uniquely modern phenomenon. It seems to me that for Christianity, at least, many practitioners accepted the metaphysical propositions as their reality, in the same unthinking way most of us accept astrodynamics. One can operate within this reality but still not consciously acknowledge it or take it to heart very often.

And that is why, successive generations of Christians and reformers have noticed that the Church is often captured by putatively Christian societies and that Christian faith is often confused with the reigning ideals of our culture. G.K. Chesterton also identified five deaths of the faith in history times when Christian belief seemed to be fading out of existence, when the world seemed to be moving onto ideas that made the Church irrelevant.

I think we should expect that there will always be people who are lukewarm about the faith, unwilling to defend its propositions, and all-too-willing to pretend that their private projects or cultural taboos constitute the Gospel truth itself.

Read this article:
The Problem of Non-Theological Religion - National Review

Society has also become increasingly polarized on the churches' role on social, ethical and political matters, the survey found, with few people sitting on the fence on this.

At the same time, general religiosity in Estonia has not seen any significant change in the five years since the last survey on the topic was conducted.

Whereas in 2015, 20 percent of people aged 15-74 said they would describe themselves as religious, this figure stood at 19 percent in the recent survey, conducted by the Estonian Research Center (Eesti Uuringukeskus) on behalf of the Estonian Council of Churches (Eesti Kirikute Nukogu).

Number of convinced atheists rises slightly

Meanwhile the number of people who described themselves as a committed atheist only rose a little, from 7 percent to 9 percent, over the same period.

Nonetheless, the Estonian populace is as a whole a little less certain about the existence of a deity now, than it was in 2015, the survey found in other words the proportion of agnostics has grown, from 10 percent, to nearly three times that, at 28 percent, 2015-2020, the Estonian Research Center said.

This worked the other way too the proportion of respondents who said they did not believe, and had never believed, in the existence of a deity, but did not describe themselves as convinced atheists as such, shrunk from 44 percent in 2015, to 31 percent in 2020.

Estonia is popularly referred to, particularly online and by Estonians themselves, as variously the most atheist, least religious or least god-fearing nation in Europe, or sometimes the entire globe. Upon her inauguration as president in late 2016, Kersti Kaljulaid turned down the offer of a ceremony to mark the occasion and to be overseen by head of the Lutheran Church, Archbishop Urmas Viilma.

Nearly a third are 'spiritual but not religious'

As regards to those who would describe themselves as fitting the popular "spiritual but not religious" motif, in the latest survey, 29 percent described themselves as such, with 26 percent saying they were non-religious and 22 percent that they were indifferent to organized religion.

Nineteen percent, on the other hand and as already noted, said they were religious.

Ten percent described themselves as a religious or spiritual "seeker", nine percent as noted said they were atheist or god-deniers, while 6 percent would not put themselves in any of those categories, the survey found.

Participation in worship has declined, however though this would presumably also need to be seen in the light of coronavirus restrictions, which have banned in-person services at religious buildings, off-and-on for the past year or so.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents said they had not been to a worship service of any kind in the preceding year, compared with 53 percent in the 2015 survey.

Those who said they had been to church once or twice in the preceding year also fell, halving to 15 percent in the latest survey.

Six percent said they attended church four or five times a year, four percent said they went around once a fortnight and five percent of respondents said they were weekly attenders of church services.

Fewer people want the church involved in social affairs

The share of respondents who would like to see the church more involved in social matters has also fallen; 23 percent wanted the church to take a public stance via the media on issues of morality and ethics, down slightly from 26 percent in 2015.

However, the figure who wanted the church to reduce its public pronouncements on social issues had nearly doubled, to 20 percent (from 11 percent) of respondents during that time.

A recent example of such an issue would be an abortive referendum on whether the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman should be enshrined in Estonian law.

The sections of society who said that it should, as evidenced by a bill presented by the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), climbed down from originally saying such a definition should be mentioned in the constitution (which would reportedly require the assent of two consecutive Riigikogu compositions ed.) to saying it should be worded as such in legislation.

When it became clear that a definition along these lines does in fact appear in the Family Law Act (which can be amended ed.), the referendum was presented more as a much-needed thermometer to take the nation's opinion temperature on the issue.

The bill was ultimately withdrawn in the face of vast numbers of amendments from both opposition and coalition MPs, late last year.

Society more polarized on church role

Society also has become polarized on the position of the church in social and political issues, however, since 2015.

The proportion of those who want an increased role to be played by the church in domestic politics, environmental and national security issues doubled, but so too did the proportion of people who wanted such activity to be toned down. The proportion of uncommitted respondents thus fell significantly.

Similarly, those who opposed same-sex relations and those who supported them was almost split 50-50 and made up the vast majority of respondents on the issue i.e. only a small proportion declared no view on the matter.

The death penalty, too, divided respondents, with 51 percent utterly opposed and 41 percent finding it acceptable.

The death penalty was abolished in Estonia in the 1990s.

From 66 percent who said in 2015 that they though the church should play a larger part in helping the poor (64 percent in 2010), the figure had fallen to 46 percent in the latest survey.

Conversely, the proportion who said the church should provide less assistance to the poor, for whatever reason, rose from 2 percent to 9 percent over the five years.

Exactly a third of respondents said that they had, regardless of their beliefs, experienced unexplained or even supernatural incidents which they found hard to rationalize.

More than half feel 'close' to Christianity

As to actual religions, Christianity of all or any denominations attracted the largest number of respondents, with 34 percent saying they felt "somewhat close" to it and 29 percent saying they felt to a large extent close to that religion.

Twenty-five percent of respondents said they did not feel close to Christianity whatsoever, while 12 percent said they could not answer.

Denominational, theological and other questions were not delved into in the survey. Lutheranism and Eastern Orthodoxy are the largest denominations by attendees in Estonia, and also historically and culturally the dominant strands.

Twelve percent of respondents said they felt very close to atheism, and 19 percent said they felt somewhat close to it or its main perceived tenets.

Of other religions, as many as 20 percent said they felt somewhat close to the two major Dharmic faiths, Buddhism and Hinduism, while 56 percent said they did not feel at all close to them.

By contrast, the figures for Islam were four percent and 75 percent respectively, while the other major Abrahamic faith, Judaism, posted similar figures of 6 percent and 70 percent respectively. Far fewer than 6 percent of the Estonian population is actually Jewish.

Four percent of respondents said they considered themselves to be largely close to some other religion or worldview.

Pandemic only had slight effect

About half of respondents said the pandemic had not affected their interest in or attraction towards religious and spiritual issues; two percent said that it had dampened their enthusiasm towards Christianity.

The proportion of those who thought that the church should bear an increased role in education in fact increased, to 22 percent (from 16 percent in 2015) though the share of "don't knows" also rose on this question.

More than half said that religious education in schools, covering all the world's major religions, should be compulsory, however; 31 percent said it should not or definitely should not.

Among native speakers of Estonian, however, 62 percent supported widespread education on religion, compared with 48 percent for those whose native language is Russian or another language.

Those with higher education tended to favor religious education more, while slightly more women (60 percent) than men (55 percent) were in favor of it.

On other issues, close to 80 percent thought divorce ethically fine, and only slightly fewer, 77 percent, thought unmarried cohabitation was acceptable.

Three-quarters of respondents had no issue with premarital sexual relations, while the proportion who found abortion and euthanasia ethically acceptable were similar, at 71 percent and 69 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, 75 percent of respondents said they opposed human cloning.

The survey was held between November 25 and December 31 2020, and randomly polled 1,000 residents of Estonia, both online and via a postal survey.

--

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Go here to see the original:
Survey: Church attendance has fallen slightly in past five years - ERR News

Article content

Weve probably all seen pictures of books being burned. In the 1930s, the German Student Union gathered up books they viewed as critical of Nazi thinking and held ritual book-burnings. It was a sure-fire (pun intended) way of keeping the wrong ideas from circulating.

As I have stated here before, my attitude is that we should allow all sorts of views to be published and discussed. A truly educated person is one who can look at both sides of an issue and weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the reasons each side puts forward to support its position. Richard Dawkins should be allowed to write books in favour of atheism, and John Lennox can write on why believing in God makes sense. If you dont like an article written by a smart person, find a better article written by a smarter person. But dont burn the book or blow up the magazines print shop.

(Full disclosure: I once and only once burned a book in my backyard. Out of curiosity I had picked up a used copy of something by the Marquis de Sade, and was so appalled at the cruelty depicted in what turned out to be child pornography that I destroyed the book.)

Todays world doesnt usually hold actual book-burnings, but those who dont like certain ideas still do their best to prevent others from even considering those ideas. Speakers at universities are de-platformed if some deem their opinions to be wrong. Students shout the speaker down or threaten to harm her. In Montreal, I was once part of a peaceful protest (standing in silence with signs) that was disrupted by a group with trumpets, drums and tubas.

Cancel culture can mean that your company fires you just for holding views that are not considered correct.

According to The Interim newspaper, Amazon, the giant online bookseller, has decided that it will not carry the 2018 title, When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T Anderson.

Usually, Amazon follows a policy of contacting publishers to discuss the possible removal of controversial books, but for some reason this was not done in this case.

Banning a book could have the effect of making people want to read it all the more, so this could backfire. However the title is apparently becoming scarce if the price of second-hand books is any indicator. Bookfinder.com is charging hundreds of dollars for a copy. My favourite is the dealer who will sell you one for $23, 930.58! (Its the 58 cents that really gets me.) Fear not, you can obtain a copy for a reasonable price if you look in the right places.

Amazons action raises the question of whether there is only one possible, respectable view of gender dysphoria, the feeling of being confused about whether one is male or female. Is only one view now allowed? Can we no longer talk about this topic? Are we to shut down those who say trans-women should not compete in female sports because their essentially male bodies give an unfair advantage?

Why cant we have books that give different perspectives on issues like this?

Anderson says that his is not a bomb-throwing book of red meat and heated rhetoric. Instead, he claims it is rigorous and civil, and presents facts.

If Amazon had its way readers wouldnt be able to check for themselves. They would not be able to make up their own minds whether Anderson has written bigoted nonsense or a scientifically convincing argument.

I pray well have a society in which people want to hear different sides of important subjects, not a world where the public is protected from Christian viewpoints (or any alternative ideas).

John Vaudry is a retired minister, living in Pembroke.

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VALLEY PULPIT: Don't burn the book - The Kingston Whig-Standard

Ever since the ancient Romans decided to honor the agricultural goddess Flora with lewd spectacles in the Circus Maximus, the beginning of May has signaled the coming of spring, a time of revival after a long, dark winter.

In Europe, the holiday usually celebrated on May 1 became known as May Day. Though traditions varied by country and culture, celebrants often erected maypoles and decorated them with long colorful ribbons. Townspeople, while indulging in food and drink, would frolic for hours. These rituals continue today in parks and on college campuses across the U.S. and Europe.

Throughout history, millions have embraced the holiday except for the Puritans of early modern England. Though we tend to lump them together, the term Puritans included different groups of religious dissenters. Among them were the Pilgrims, who eventually decided to migrate to North America to create new communities according to their religious vision.

It is tempting to attribute the Pilgrims hostility toward the holiday to the doom-and-gloom stereotype of the Puritans as humorless and overly pious the same tendencies that led them to ban Christmas festivities. But their attack on a maypole in Plymouth Colony in 1628 reveals much about their approach toward those who didnt conform to their vision for the world.

Before they arrived in New England, some Pilgrims must have read the diatribe against May Day penned by a moralist named Philip Stubbes, who lamented the mayhem that erupted in communities across England each year as the holiday approached.

Stubbes described how eager participants would select one of the men among them to be the Lord of Misrule, who then led them into pits of debauchery. They would sing and dance in church, much to the consternation of devout ministers. And the participants in these rites always dragged a large tree from a nearby forest to be erected in the town, which became a symbol of their irreligious behavior.

But most in England didnt see the holiday in such a poor light. For many, these maypoles simply represented raucous, good-natured fun. King James, who reigned from 1603 to 1625, believed that erecting such poles was harmless and he castigated Puritans efforts to quash the holiday.

In England, Puritans needed to abide by national laws, so there was little they could do to stop the celebrations outside of voicing their disapproval. More effective protests would need to wait.

Once in New England, the Puritans believed they needed to be exemplars of proper Christian behavior. Everyone in their towns had to abide by their rules, and they punished colonists whose actions seemed to undermine devout religious practice.

As the future governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop allegedly declared the Puritans would build their city on a hill. Citing language from the Book of Matthew, he claimed that all of the Puritans actions would be visible to the entire world, including most importantly their God. Any departure from strict obedience to Scripture could threaten their entire mission.

The Pilgrims established their community of Plymouth on the site of the Wampanoag town of Patuxet in 1620. In the years that followed, other English migrants arrived in the region, though many eschewed the Pilgrims strict teachings. They came to make money from trading, not escape persecution for their beliefs.

A small group of these colonists moved about 25 miles northwest of Plymouth. A lawyer named Thomas Morton, who had arrived in New England in 1624 or 1625, eventually became the unofficial leader of this camp, which came to be known as Merrymount. In 1628, with Mortons blessing, the colonists set up an 80-foot maypole crowned with deer antlers in preparation for May Day.

The maypole immediately drew the attention of Plymouth authorities. So did Mortons antics. According to William Bradford, then the colonys governor, Morton had become the Lord of Misrule. The assembled at Merrymount sang bawdy songs and invited Native American women to join them. The colonists in the small community, the governor wrote, had revived and celebrated the feasts of the Roman goddess Flora, which he linked to the beastly practices of the mad Bacchanalians.

Morton was running, in Bradfords words, a School of Atheism.

Bradford claimed that Morton and his followers had fallen to great licentiousness and led dissolute lives. Rather than allow them their fun, the Pilgrims sent a group of armed men to arrest their leader. Soon they exiled Morton back to England.

The next year, John Endecott, a recent immigrant who shared many of the Pilgrims beliefs, chopped down the maypole, much to Bradfords satisfaction.

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Why, one might ask, would it matter that stern Puritans would want to quash a good-natured holiday? After all, given many of their other actions, felling a tall tree topped with deer antlers hardly seems worth mentioning.

But as a historian of early New England, I see Bradfords condemnation of Morton and the destruction of the maypole as a harbinger of future violence.

When they chopped down the maypole, the Puritans believed that they were cleansing the landscape, making it more suitable for pious colonists to occupy. It was their way of demonstrating that they could live up their ideals.

Since they believed in predestination, the conviction that everything that occurs is part of a divine plan, they must have figured that God had sent Morton to test them. By exiling him and destroying the maypole, they confirmed what they saw as the righteousness of their cause.

A decade later, with tensions rising between colonists and Indigenous people, the Pilgrims of Plymouth, along with the Puritans of Massachusetts, saw themselves confronting a new test. This time the threat came not from a maypole, but instead from a Native American community that seemed, as Bradford wrote using language that echoed his condemnation of Morton proud and insulting.

The consequences in 1637 were far worse than at Merrymount. The colonists set a Pequot town aflame and shot those who tried to escape. Historians estimate that at least 400 Native Americans lost their lives in a single night.

Like other English colonizers, the Pilgrims believed they needed to displace Native Americans to create their own communities. But before they did so, they had to get their own houses in order. They could not tolerate any who crossed them, attacking those deemed a threat.

Colonial leaders like Winthrop and Bradford believed any sign of disobedience had to be punished. Clearing Merrymount of its maypole was a dress rehearsal for what was to come.

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The Pilgrims' attack on a May Day celebration was a dress rehearsal for removing Native Americans - The Conversation US

William Shakespeares role as a religious guide is not an obvious one.

While the work of the bard, whose birthday is celebrated on April 23, has been scoured at various times over the past four centuries for coded messages about Catholicism, Puritanism or Anglicanism, the more common view is that his stunning explorations of humanity leave little space for serious reflection on divinity. Indeed, some Shakespeare scholars have gone further, suggesting that his works display an explicit atheism.

But as a scholar of theology who has published a book exploring Shakespeares treatment of faith, I believe the playwrights best religious impulses are displayed neither through coded affirmations nor straightforward denials. Writing at a time of great religious polarization and upheaval, Shakespeares greatest pronouncements on faith are more like curious whispers and, like whispers, they require deep listening to be heard.

I see an invitation to this deep listening in one of Shakespeares most unusual plays, The Tempest. Be not afeared, the half-man, half-beast Caliban tells his companions as they arrive on the island where the play is set, the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.

It is a striking passage, made all the more so coming from a foul-smelling creature accused of attempted rape and repeatedly called monster. But in it, Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that there are dimensions of reality that many of us miss and we might be surprised to find out who among us is paying attention.

Subtleties like this show up differently across Shakespeares plays. Romeo and Juliet is not in any overt sense a theological play. But as the tragedy comes to a somber denouement, we have the line See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.

While there is no clear naming of gods or fates, Shakespeare implies that some great power transcends the destructive feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families of the two lovers. He calls into question the earthly power of the two houses heaven, he implies, is also at work here.

Shakespeare was, I believe, in constant search of subtle ways to imagine divine intervention within the human realm. This is all the more impressive given the fraught religious times in which he lived.

The late 16th century witnessed religious and political polarization greater, even, than our own. Decades earlier, King Henry VIII had separated the Anglican church from Rome and created a Protestant England. His daughter Elizabeth, who sat on the throne for the first half of Shakespeares writing career, was excommunicated by Pope Pius V for continuing in her fathers footsteps. The queen responded by making the practice of Catholicism a crime in England.

So even before Elizabeths successor, James I, outlawed overt theological humor or criticism on stage, artists hoping to engage in religious themes were under considerable restrictions.

These upheavals affected Shakespeare directly. Shakespeares family had deep ties to Roman Catholicism, as likely did some of his closest associates. For any one of them to express doubts about the Anglican prayer book, or even to avoid the Anglican parish on Sunday, was to put themselves under suspicion of treason.

There is little in the way of biographical detail to help scholars looking for Shakepeares religious beliefs. Instead, they have generally relied on explicit references to familiar religious language or character types the Catholic priest in Romeo and Juliet, for instance in speculating about Shakespeares faith. Some have suggested that clues and codes in his play suggest the playwright was a closeted Catholic. But to me it is more in what he doesnt say, or where he finds new ways of saying something old, that Shakespeare is theologically at his most interesting.

Shakespeares faith and how he expresses it are explored in a 2017 play by poet Rowan Williams, a theologian and former head of the Church of England. In it, Williams imagines a young Shakespeare in search of a new language for things religious, and dissatisfied with the heavily politicized options before him.

In a pivotal scene, young Will explains to his Jesuit mentor that, despite the attractiveness of their radical Catholic cause, he cannot join: The old religion is the only, the only picture of things that speaks to me, yes, but its as if there were still voices all around me wanting to make themselves heard and they dont all speak one language or tell one tale, and all that it would haunt me if I tried what you do, and it would make me turn away from the pains and the question, because Id know that thered always be more than the old religion could say and it still had to be heard.

In other words, while Catholicism speaks to young Will, he believes there is more that still had to be heard.

The voices that Williams Shakespeare wants to hear are similar, I believe, to those that Caliban talks of in The Tempest. So young Will does not join the Catholic cause; instead, he goes off in search of ways to stay with the pains and the question. Williams is suggesting that Shakespeares subsequent plays are an attempt to let all these complex and difficult voices be heard.

They are his attempt to give voice to religious noise beyond the range of the religious certainty of his age.

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We see this in King Lear. Lear spends the entire play cursing the gods for the lack of love and respect his children show him. But when the heaven-cursing rants finally subside, the play gives its audience a beautiful and painful reconciliation scene with his daughter Cordelia. He discovers in his daughters forgiveness a kind of higher vantage point, one from which they might both take upons the mystery of things, As if we were Gods spies.

Like Caliban in The Tempest, Lear learns to hear those voices just out of human range.

Similarly, Shakespeare asks his audience to listen and watch differently, as if we too are Gods spies or Earths monsters.

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Shakespeare's musings on religion are like curious whispers they require deep listening to be heard - The Conversation US

Richard Dawkins is surely just as known for his militant atheism as for his scientific genius. He is loved by some and loathed by others for his zealous crusades against religion and his savage mockery of the sacred. But this week, he was excommunicated by those you might least expect: his fellow atheists.

Dawkinss act of blasphemy was not against any religious doctrine. He did not voice scepticism of transubstantiation, but of transgenderism. He did not query whether bread and wine can become the body and blood of Christ, but whether a man can become a woman and vice versa.

And so the American Humanist Association has stripped Dawkins of its 1996 Humanist of the Yearaward. The AHA had initially honoured Dawkins for his extraordinary contributions to communicating science to the public. But 25 years later, the AHA has accused him of abusing "scientific discourse"to "demean marginalised groups".

The AHA alleged that Dawkins had "accumulated a history"of offensive statements, but singled out one tweet for condemnation: "In 2015, Rachel Dolezal, a white chapter president of NAACP, was vilified for identifying as black. Some men choose to identify as women, and some women choose to identify as men. You will be vilified if you deny that they literally are what they identify as. Discuss."

Of course, Dawkins said nothing demeaning or bigoted in that tweet. He merely raised a question about the inconsistency of modern identity politics.

Its a good question, in fact. Why is it that racial boundaries are today more likely to be viewed as fixed, but gender as fluid? After all, you dont have to go full Rachel Dolezal and try to live life as a black person to fall foul of the modern racial gatekeepers. In recent years, white people have been denounced for "cultural appropriation"over acts as trivial as practising yoga, braiding their hair in cornrows or writing fiction from the perspective of non-white characters.

At the same time, the belief that gender can simply be a matter of self-declaration has been placed beyond question. "Trans women are women"is now a foundational woke commandment. Clearly, it has even become an article of faith for self-professed "humanists".You might think that humanists and atheists would be the first to recognise how dogmatism hinders the search for truth. But there are greater forces at work, which Dawkins has himself picked up on.

At the end of last year, writing in the Spectator, Dawkins warned that scientific truth was coming increasingly under attack. Most insidiously, truth was being undermined in academia, in the very institutions set up to discover and uphold the truth. A school of thought that claims there is "no objective truth... no natural reality, only social constructs"has come to dominate, he said. This worldview also prioritises the so-called lived experience and identity of the speaker over empirical reality. Proven scientific facts, Dawkins complains, are too often dismissed as products of "patriarchal domination".

In his Spectator piece, Dawkins switches frequently between attacking the nascent woke ideology and the theologians he has been battling for decades. Although he does not make the link explicitly, the similarities between the two groups are too great to ignore.

In fact, Dawkins has personal experience of them converging. Last year, Trinity College Dublin rescinded his invitation to address its Historical Society. And in 2017, a radio station in California cancelled an event he was due to speak at. Both de-platformed Dawkins because the world-famous atheist had fiercely criticised Islam and not just Christianity. Criticism of Islam is prohibited by the woke not on theological grounds, but because critcising the beliefs of a "marginalised group"is considered bigoted (or Islamophobic,in this instance).

But no deity or dogma whether formed in the 7th century or the 21st should be so sacred as to be beyond question. As the woke orthodoxy becomes more powerful and resistant to challenge, well need far more heretics like Richard Dawkins.

Fraser Myers is assistant editor of Spiked

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We'll need champions of science like Richard Dawkins to win the war on woke orthodoxy - Telegraph.co.uk