Category Archives: Atheism

NEW YORK, April 15, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- On April 13, 2021, Rafael Sanchez filed a federal complaint in the Southern District of New York, alleging New York City Human Rights Law ("NYCHRL") sexual orientation, Atheism, and disability-based harassment and hostile work environment claims, as well as aiding and abetting of discrimination claims, against L'Oreal USA, Inc. ("L'Oreal").

L'Oreal hired Plaintiff as a makeup artist and skincare consultant during approximately December 2017, through staffing company Randstad Professionals US, LLC.

Mr. Sanchez alleges that L'Oreal, through its long-time Business Manager Viviana Nunez ("Nunez"), engaged in discriminatory harassment and created a hostile work environment based on Mr. Sanchez's status as a gay male, non-religious Atheist, and/or disabled person.

Mr. Sanchez's complaint seeks compensatory damages, punitive damages, declaratory relief, injunctive relief, attorney's fees, expert fees, costs, and interest.

The case is Sanchez v. L'Oreal USA, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-03229, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Media Contact: Cyrus E. Dugger, The Dugger Law Firm, PLLC (646) 560-3208 cd@theduggerlawfirm.com

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Cyrus E Dugger, The Dugger Law Firm, PLLC, +1 (646) 560-3208, cd@theduggerlawfirm.com

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The Dugger Law Firm, PLLC Has Filed a Sexual Orientation, Atheism, and Disability-Based Harassment Case Against L'Oreal USA, Inc. on Behalf of Rafael...

"When I was a child, I used to wear a small cross, which I lost about five times, and at some point I decided that either God was turning away from me or he didn't exist. As a teenager, I came to the conclusion that it was simply a misunderstanding, and that there was no need to believe in anyone, and decided to stop believing in God," is how Daniil Istomin from Moscow, an 18-year-old college student and future primary school teacher, explains his drift to atheism.

Daniil's parents have always believed in God and used to go to church almost every day to pray and light a candle. But his father always refused to listen to his son's dissenting opinion - according to Istomin. They don't discuss God in their family "because Dad is very embittered; he believes in God too strongly".

"My parents believe that Jesus Christ brings happiness and that because of this everything is well with them. Fortunately, they no longer take me to church - after all, I am grown up now," says Daniil.

In the course of four years, from 2017 to 2021, the number of atheists in Russia has doubled - from 7 percent to 14 percent, according to an opinion poll by the All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).

"My parents had me baptized when I was three years old, no one asked me about it, and, anyway, at that age I didn't really understand what was happening. How, after that, can I call myself an Orthodox believer?" wonders Tatyana Melnikova, a Year 11 school graduate.

A man wearing a face mask to protect against the coronavirus disease walks past a Russian Orthodox cathedral on Red Square in central Moscow on October 2, 2020

According to VTsIOM, young people between the age of 18 and 24 (22 percent) are most likely to regard themselves as atheists. Tatyana is one of them. Her outlook on life was influenced by her parents' faith and early access to social networks - she realized she didn't believe in God at the age of just 10.

"I don't remember what I had read or watched, but nobody forced this choice on me. Nevertheless, arguments about faith with my parents still arise from time to time, but each of us remains unconvinced," Melnikova complains.

Another 18 percent of atheists among those polled are in the 25-34 age bracket.

"At the age of 14, I read the Bible in full out of interest and found too many inconsistencies. I've read the Q&As on the websites of churches and of the Patriarchate, but they do not stand up to criticism and all their dogmas are too outdated," is how Artyom Belotigrov, a 32-year-old lawyer, explains his journey to atheism.

After he finished school, Artyom developed an interest in the sciences and completely stopped believing in God. True, he still visits churches but he now regards them as architectural monuments.

Another Russian, 34-year-old handyman Boris Serbyanin, became interested in atheism while still at school, often asking his believer mother questions about religion.

"My parents were happy with my range of interests but, when I started questioning the dogmas of Christianity - that is, Why hasn't a single person been resurrected from the dead yet? or Why does God allow war and hunger, which make innocent people suffer? - and later asking them these questions directly, they began to be unpleasantly surprised, which gave me reason to doubt the existence of the supernatural. But until I finished school, my mother's opinion carried a lot of weight with me," says Serbyanin.

A man walks past a metal fence surrounding a construction site near Moscow's Sobornaya mosque on August 7, 2019

At university, Boris studied philosophy, astronomy, physics and chemistry, and there he was almost finally convinced that God didn't exist. In 2011, first his mother and then his grandmother died. For some time after that he used to go to Orthodox churches and sometimes attend services, observe Christian festivals and pray, but he believed it was his reaction to grief.

"No matter how much you pray, you can't bring a person back. No matter how many candles you light, you can't protect yourself against cancer. Having recovered from my grief, I started reading books on collective hypnosis, shamanism and gypsy spells, and realized that God, the Devil, curses, wood-sprites, spirits and ghosts are nothing more than folklore," Serbyanin says in conclusion.

Cars move along a motorway in the Moscow satellite town of Odintsovo on June 17, 2019, as the Cathedral of Saint George the Victorious is seen in the background

Atheists of age 35 years and older also explain their philosophy of life as a considered choice, but some of them admit that life in the Soviet period shaped any belief in God they might have had. It was a time when the church was fully separated from the state, and propaganda promoting scientific atheism was disseminated in the country.

"I was attracted by atheism back in the Soviet period, and then in the 1990s everyone, of course, became a believer. I started studying the history and geography of religions from a scientific viewpoint. It became obvious to me that there are only two genuinely opposing worldviews: the scientific and the religious. My parents, who are Catholics, would like me to be a believer, although they haven't been regular church-goers in recent years," says Alexander Ovsyannikov, an on-line teacher of foreign languages, geography and biology.

Another atheist, Lyubov Fomina, explained her lack of belief in God in the following way: "I was born in 1977. I'm a Soviet person. That's all there is to it."

In the course of four years, from 2017 to 2021, the number of Orthodox Russian Christians has fallen by 9 percent. At the same time, some actually give up their atheism and start believing in God.

"I had just had a baby and my husband had lost his job. We couldn't see how we were to carry on and how to give our child all the essentials for a normal life. At one point, my mother-in-law insisted that I go to a certain church in St. Petersburg to pray to the saints. When I went through the door of the church, I seemed to lose my inner voice. I couldn't even force myself to think of anything, and the tears rolled from my eyes," 38-year-old housewife Yuliya Lareva recalls.

People walk at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War at Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow on October 30, 2020

She says that shortly after that trip her husband found a good job with a very decent salary, and then Yuliya started studying the Bible and attending church services.

"And we have absolutely no doubt that a saint interceded for us. Now my husband and I are expecting a new addition to our family. We are happy with everything and thank the Lord for everything!" Lareva says delightedly.

Thirty-five-year-old Sergey Rogozhkin did not particularly believe in God at a young age, but became convinced of the existence of God during his school years. He says that when a certain proportion of his classmates were "chasing after girls", his own friends were interested in theories of the origin of the universe, and the idea that the world was created by God seemed to him the most logical one.

"Youthful maximalism and the injustice of reality are more conducive to religiosity," Rogozhkin says. "I even made Mom learn the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed off by heart, but I didn't try to convince Dad. He's a Soviet atheist with a good anti-religious training."

Fifty-year-old Anzhelika Praslova from Veliky Novgorod didn't start believing in God straight away, either. She went to church for the first time in the 1990s when she wanted to become pregnant.

"I had a child seven years later, but only decided to become a church-goer after the death of my husband - this wasn't out of grief, however, but because of my release from an unhappy marriage. God continues to support, tolerate and instruct me to this day, revealing different angles and new feelings. It is a new and very interesting period of growing up," is how Praslova puts it.

In her opinion, there is no such thing as an atheist: "They are not atheists, just halfwits", she says.

The growing number of atheists in Russia is primarily bolstered by the development of science and technology, according to religious affairs expert Denis Batarchuk.

"Statistics show that the more educational establishments a country or even a city have, the lower are the attendances at church services. I think the issue is that while science actuallyworks, religion merely promises. Science simply provides more tangible answers to questions, and young people like that," Batarchuk said in a Channel 360 television interview.

A woman gives a prayer in the Saint Peter and Saint Paul church in Kazan

Rushan Taktarov, deputy chairman of Russia's only registered society of atheists - its name is just that: Atheists of Russia - says that the Russian Orthodox Church is excessively determined to drum its religion into ordinary citizens and that this puts off a certain portion of Russians.

"It's all taking place in full view of ordinary citizens. Too many churches are being built, and the Russian Orthodox Church itself is attempting to impinge on the secular status of the state - for instance, it is proposing a ban on abortions. And then we mustn't forget that we live in the information age and people have access to all kinds of information, and that is why we have the results that we see," according to Taktarov.

Another religious affairs expert, Vyacheslav Terekhov, believes that the growing number of atheists is not at a critical level and is not an indicator of the collapse of the church as an institution.

"Young people are always looking for a philosophy of life. They are prone to changing their worldview more frequently than people of maturer years. <...> This can subsequently change. It is possible that 10 years hence a proportion of young atheists will see things differently," Terekhov believes.

Moreover, in his view, today's Orthodox Church really does have a negative image, and many Russians don't want to be associated with this image.

"The media frequently present the church in an exclusively negative context, and, apart from that, it's possible that the church itself is under pressure from the authorities, who want to make Orthodoxy part of a state ideology - opposition-minded Russians can see this and don't want to have anything to do with the Church," Terekhov says.

Russian Orthodox believers take part in a Palm Sunday procession outside Saint Petersburg's Saint Isaac's Cathedral on April 21, 2019

Nikolay Babkin, a priest, agrees that there are more atheists now - but, in his view, this is just a vagary of fashion that can be challenged if more is said about the life of the church from the inside.

"We need to enlighten and inform people about the work the Russian Orthodox Church does. It is difficult but necessary to change the stereotype that church is merely a place where people pray and dress strangely, a place of golden cupolas and incomprehensible chanting in an esoteric language. Such notions are formed on the basis of films, primarily Western ones," the priest believes.

Russia Beyond sent a request for comment to the Russian Orthodox Church, but there has been no reply as of the date of publication.

If using any of Russia Beyond's content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original material.

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More and more Russians are becoming atheists - why? - Russia Beyond

Mare of Easttown

Miss Lady Hawk Hersel

Season 1 Episode 1

Editors Rating 4 stars ****

Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO

Is it a prestige cable crime drama if a young woman doesnt die in the first episode? Im sorry to be so cynical, but Mare of Easttown begins with an upsetting amount of familiarity. One young woman disappeared a year ago in Easttown, Pennsylvania. To the day, another girl is found dead. Easttown is in free fall no economy to speak of, opioid addiction on the rise, a pervasive kind of malaise but nothing jolts a community quite like a murder. And now Easttown has two, with detective Mare Sheehan (Kate Winslet) in the middle.

Mare is a difficult woman, no doubt. The chip on her shoulder is a mountain range, and every person seems to irritate her. Her family and friends, her co-workers and boss and most gallingly, the mother of the missing girl who Mare failed to find the year before. The woman who has cancer and whose daughter has disappeared into thin air is somehow the focus of Mares ire and defensiveness. Its bad! And Winslet, who returns to HBO a decade after starring in Todd Hayness Mildred Pierce adaptation and who increasingly in her career has chosen these kind of brittle, inflexible characters (Ammonite is not a love story, people!), excels here, imbuing all of Mares physicality and facial expressions with some degree of annoyance. Can a person limp or vape exasperatedly? You wouldnt assume so, but Winslet does it. She carries her body like Ben Affleck did in Mare of Easttown creator Brad Ingelsbys film The Way Back: with a kind of bone-deep exhaustion and a claustrophobic hunching-in. Would I pay to watch a game of HORSE between Affleck and Winslet in their respective basketball-playing Ingelsby characters? Yes, I would.

Silliness aside, the Mare of Easttown premiere sets the table with tragedies past and present, and hints at even more to come. Ingelsby and director Craig Zobel, who will helm all seven episodes, immediately communicate how the small-town tidiness of Easttown ordered brick townhomes, the rows of headstones in a cemetery, the billowing smoke coming from an industrial skyline mask a community in crisis. Is anyone who lives here happy? Hard to say. When we meet Mare, theres an immediate cause for her displeasure: Shes been woken up by a neighbor whose granddaughter saw a Peeping Tom in their backyard, and shes peeved, as a detective, to be dealing with this low-level stuff. Maybe others would be swayed by Mrs. Carrolls (Phyllis Somerville) I trust you, and I dont know who the station will send over, but not Mare. Shes too busy investigating all the really bad crap that goes on around here, she admonishes Mrs. Carroll, and when she gets to the police station, we learn what that entails.

A year before, Katie Bailey disappeared. A body was never found, and the case went nowhere, and now her mother Dawn is giving interviews to the local news about how the police bungled the case. She doesnt exactly say Mare Sheehan fucked this up, but the implication is heavy. Mare, for her part, is defensive rather than sympathetic. She blames the victim, complaining to her boss Chief Carter (John Douglas Thompson) that Katie was a known drug user and had a history of prostitution: Shes probably lying at the bottom of the Delaware River right now. Still, Chief Carter isnt backing down, since Dawns interview is putting so much pressure on the force. Go back to the file. Were starting over here, he decrees, but Mare looks at the file only once in the next few hours. On one hand, lifelong Easttown resident Mare is so ingrained in the community that people just keep calling her for help, as Mrs. Carroll did; on the other hand, Mares personal life is an unbelievable mess. It all might be impossible to balance, and it makes you wonder if Katies disappearance really got Mares full attention last year.

In the present, though, we see Mare on the job, and in every altercation, shes tough but fair. When her longtime friend and former basketball teammate Beth Hanlon (Chinasa Ogbuagu) calls the police on her opioid addict brother Freddie (Dominique Johnson), and Mare injures herself chasing him back to his house, she doesnt react in anger. She talks to Freddie calmly but directly and insists that the gas company reconnect heat to Freddies house because its illegal in Pennsylvania (and various other states) to cut off utilities for low-income families between December and March. She reacts to Beths admission that she wishes Freddie were dead without judgment. And as a mentor to new cop Officer Trammell (Justin Hurtt-Dunkley), she initially scoffs at his discomfort with blood but ultimately asks if hes okay.

Its kind of strange, then, to see how much Mare changes after interacting with her family. Of course, all families have some kind of friction, and how we behave in our relationships with our parents, siblings, cousins, and kids does not immediately sync up with how we act at work. But how offended Mare gets over her ex-husband Franks (David Denman) engagement to his new fiance, Faye (Kate Arrington), and the fact that everyone in her life seemed to know before she did bleeds into her job, doesnt it? Mares mother Helen (Jean Smart) knew, her and Franks daughter Siobhan (Angourie Rice) knew, her best friend Lori (Julianne Nicholson) knew, her cousin Father Dan Hastings (Neal Huff) knew. And when all of Mares relatives choose to attend Frank and Fayes engagement party rather than attend the 25th-anniversary ceremony for Mareshigh-school basketball triumph, they knock her off her axis enough that she behaves horrendously toward Dawn. What type of person accosts the mother of a missing child? What type of person thinks its appropriate to scold the mother of a missing child with If you dont think Im doing my job, I wish youd come to me first? Im amazed that Dawn didnt slap Mare, Miss Lady Hawk herself, in the face, and I wish she had.

While this premiere episode spends a good amount of time asking us to decide whether Mare makes life difficult for herself or is the victim of others doing that for her, it also introduces the girl whose murder Mare is tasked with investigating: Erin McMenamin (Cailee Spaeny), who is living the life Mare doesnt want for her own daughter Siobhan. Erin has a 1-year-old son with Dylan (Jack Mulhern), who barely tolerates her, and her father Kenny (Patrick Murney) is domineering and verbally abusive. She doesnt have many friends since birthing her son, her mother is gone, and she spends most of her time either cooking and cleaning for Kenny or arguing with Dylan. Erins circumstances are already overwhelming, and then Dylans new girlfriend Brianna (Mackenzie Lansing) turns out to be a catfishing asshole who sets Erin up for a vicious physical attack. What would have happened if Siobhan hadnt stepped in? Its impossible to say. But what did happen after Siobhan interrupted Briannas beatdown was that the injured Erin wandered off the trail alone and wound up abandoned, bloody, and blue in the river the next morning. (Zobel positioning Erins dead body in the same splayed-out way as he introduced her while playing with her son was a morbidly effective touch.) Another girl dead in this small town, and theres nothing Mare Sheehan loves more than being the hero, her daughter Siobhan had said. Can Mare solve the mystery this time, or will Erin join Katie in weighing upon Mares conscience?

Did Mares son Kevin, who she imagines in her grandson Drews (Izzy King) bedroom, die from a drug overdose? That would certainly fit thematically.

Where does Richard Ryan, Mares once-and-perhaps-future lover (played by Guy Pearce, reuniting with Winslet after Mildred Pierce), fit in? I dont think hes a suspect, but Im not sure hes a genuine, long-term love interest, either. Maybe a Chris Messina in Sharp Objects type?

He looked like a ferret is actually a pretty good description, no? That immediately conjures a certain kind of rodent-like face and sniveling energy, and Im curious if Mrs. Carrolls granddaughters description will turn out to be accurate (if the Peeping Tom is even found).

Remember when the impossible happened was the newspaper headline celebrating the 25th anniversary of Mares high-school basketball triumph. Sounds like a tagline for that new Disney+ show Big Shot.

The county shithead joining Mare to look into the disappearance of Katie and the murder of Erin will be played by Evan Peters. His next role? Jeffrey Dahmer in Ryan Murphys miniseries about the serial killer. Peters has the range, etc.

Money is tight everywhere in Easttown: Mare is carrying around a cellphone with a heavily busted screen and buys the cheapest aquarium she can for grandson Drews new turtle. Erins father complains about his job, while her ex-boyfriend Dylan doesnt have the $1,800 to pay for their sons ear surgery and refuses to ask his parents for it. Things are bleak, and its no wonder that the opioid crisis seems to have firmly taken hold here.

Kate Winslet saw Margot Robbies love affair with that Birds of Prey breakfast sandwich and refused to let an acting challenge pass her by; her shoving that bagel in her mouth while driving and squeezing cheese spread on a cheese puff were both aspirational. Two other great moments of physicality on Winslets part: how she waves away Officer Trammels drawn gun when they go into Freddies house and her exaggerated Welcome! to Officer Trammell before he drives Freddie to the local shelter.

Meanwhile, Winslets best line delivery: Her utterly unenthused Oh. Congratulations, to Frank.

If you recognized Neal Huff from The Post, Spotlight, and The Wire, as I did, uh do you also have a journalism degree? Solidarity!

Mares atheism sticks out in a community where an older woman like Mrs. Carroll has crosses all over her home and her cousin Dan is the local priest. Our idea of God tells us more about ourselves than about him, Dan had said to Mare, but what does it say if our idea of God is nothing at all?

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Mare of Easttown Premiere Recap: Being the Hero - Vulture

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

We talked about:

Jerry Falwell, Jr. just got sued by Liberty University. (0:59)

The problems with Richard Dawkins comments about trans people. (7:23)

A West Virginia lawmaker sank a sensible life-saving suicide prevention bill by blaming the teaching of evolution. (24:56)

The Bible makes way more sense as a series of Florida Man stories. (32:39)

The Melania-loving misogynistic pastor is back. (33:59)

I think this pastor just threatened me. (43:33)

A Polish town that declared itself free of LGBT now wants to take it back. (45:00)

The Mormon Church is on the verge of excommunicating a sex therapist who puts science over dogma. (48:12)

An atheist is suing LOreal for being subject to offensive slurs and proselytizing at work. (54:12)

The MyPillow guys new free speech app restricts anti-Christian speech. (57:26)

Iowas GOP governor used her position to raise over $30,000 for a private Christian school. (1:02:13)

Secular Democrats outnumber White Evangelical Republicans. (1:04:51)

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!

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Podcast Ep. 370: The Bible is Just a Collection of Florida Man Stories - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

As universities reopened this past fall, the educational landscape was significantly altered by the Covid-19 pandemic. The switch to remote classes, discounted tuition and the delay or even cancellation of football season are just a few of the unprecedented changes experienced on college campuses. What is not new, however, is the compromise universities make when faced with financial setbacks. Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y., for instance, responded to its $20 million deficit with layoffs, salary cuts and the elimination of nine majors. Though Canisius is a 150-year-old Jesuit school, its eliminations included the religious studies major.

Canisius is not alone in this decision. Elmira College, Hiram College and Connecticut College have either eliminated or expect to eliminate their religious studies programs. The humanities are often the first victims of budget cuts, but the fact that a Jesuit university eliminated religious studies says something about religions place in academia. Religion and, more specifically, Christianity is not only expendable at universities but often actively excluded. From my personal experience in graduate school at the University of Chicago, professors derided religion, students readily signaled their lack of religious views, and I received surprised looks when I shared my Catholic faith. It was as though the study of English literature and Catholicism were incompatible.

I once attended a panel titled Religion, Identity, and the Construction of Faith that had been described as a debate among an atheist and two believers about the future of religion, but I found the believers rather lukewarm in their faith. In fact, during the question and answer period, one attendee called their discussion a secular love fest. One member of the panel, an ordained minister and divinity school professor, expressed an ethic much more existential than Christian.

The evidence for the diminishing place of religion in higher education and for Christianitys diminishing place in academia is overwhelming. In times of financial hardship, religious studies is often the first program to go. This happens at schools that, at least traditionally, have Christian affiliations. Moreover, scholars, even those who study religion, seem reluctant to admit they are religious. Many also hold the assumption that one cannot be religious and intellectual. In part, this could be because the currently most famous intellectuals have divorced religion from rational thought. For instance, Sam Harris (one of the so-called Four Horsemen of Atheism) claims that the conflict between religion and science is inherent.

How we arrived at this moment is not obvious. The problem of the perceived conflict between religion and intellectual pursuits is twofold. This view of the two in conflict emanates from these public intellectuals who proclaim the disconnect between religion and progress. From the bottom up, students and faculty members perpetuate the image of the atheist intellectual. The university is the place where public intellectuals cut their teeth. It is where we cultivate the future Sam Harrises dedicated to completely secular scholarship. This, however, need not be the norm. Society needs to find a way to make it O.K. to be a religious intellectual, to be a Catholic intellectual.

The exclusion of religion from intellectual circles is a relatively recent phenomenon. For much of Western history, religion was not just acceptable in intellectual circles; it was the means for the greatest thinkers to explore the cosmos or ask philosophical questions. The Hellenistic Greeks, for instance, thought Pauline theology amenable to their philosophy. As St. Paul wrote letters to Diaspora Jews in Greek cities like Philippi, his teachings resonated with their Stoic practices.

Christianity built upon this philosophy to develop the ethic that dominated Western thought for centuries. Thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Anselm of Canterbury and St. Thomas More continued the Catholic intellectual tradition. Their writings shaped philosophy, politics and literature. During a time when the vast majority of the population was illiterate, Catholic monks and members of the clergy were the European literati.

The exclusion of Christianity from academia began when religious thinkers became secular thinkers and when thinkers began to distrust institutions. During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther rebelled against the most important institution in Europe, the Catholic Church. From the writing of Luthers 95 theses criticizing the church to the present day, there has been a gradual shift from questioning institutions to outright rejection of them.

The Enlightenment was the next major event that accelerated the rejection of institutions. After Catholicism, religion itself became a target, as many Enlightenment thinkers turned their skepticism toward the Catholic Church to skepticism toward religion, absolute monarchies and rigid class systems.

Though we have this skepticism to thank for the political freedoms we enjoy today, the Enlightenment bolstered the notion that a religious setting was no longer the best place for intellectual inquiry. Even those who invoked God to substantiate the rights of individuals (including some of the founding fathers of the United States) saw God more as a detached creator than the Christian God. Thus, in academic and intellectual circles, religion continued to wane in importance.

While religion enjoyed a meager presence among Enlightenment intellectuals, late 19th and early 20th-century philosophers often completely excluded it. These philosophies, not coincidentally, were the most iconoclastic; they were devoted to undermining institutions. Karl Marx, for instance, called religion the opium of the people. There would be no place for religion, the nation-state or other traditional institutions in a communist social system.

Todays public intellectuals are a product of movements and philosophies, including the Enlightenment, nihilism and post-structuralism. As provocateurs who question every assumption from ethics to politics, many public intellectuals act as if institution-probing were their job description. For many contemporary scholars, institutions like marriage, the mainstream media, capitalism and, yes, organized religion are not to be trusted. Their probing of institutions, however, has gone so far that it is leading to their unraveling.

Instead, in many circles, science has become the hallowed institution that will solve all problems (even moral ones). Though the vast majority of Christians embrace the study of science, a number of prominent scientists see Christianity as inimical to rational, scientific approaches to thinking. Steven Pinker, a psychologist and author of Enlightenment Now and The Better Angels of Our Nature, warns against relying on dogma rather than trusting science to fill in the gaps of human understanding.

Thinkers like Mr. Pinker and the Four Horsemen conform with the archetype of the atheist intellectual (or, to use the softer label, secular humanist). It is an archetype toward which many young students strive and one that shuts down religious approaches in academic spaces. To be a religious student or professor in the pursuit of intellectual inquiry is to not be taken seriously. How could someone, say, criticize patriarchy when his or her beliefs are grounded in an institution as traditional as the Catholic Church?

Signaling a lack of religious views can be about more than just fitting in with fellow students and faculty; it can also be a way of avoiding ridicule. There is a way in which a reference to religion has become a punchline. While all religions face ridicule, the readily visible symbols, practices and leaders of the Catholic Church make it an easy target. The television comedy South Park, for instance, once ridiculed the reverence of Catholics for ritual and authority in an episode that culminated in the Vatican consulting The Queen Spider to amend church law.

Catholics can certainly take a joke. The question is how we contend with the fact that religion is too often treated as a joke or a threat. For many, it is funny to rely on faith when science can dispel its notions. But it is also seen as unscholarly to approach intellectual questions with religion when secular tools are at our disposal. For young people, especially those in an academic setting, the association of religion with the ridiculous (the religulous, as Bill Maher puts it) makes it difficult for them to share their faith when they want their scholarship to be taken seriously.

So how might academia and society at large make space for the religious intellectual? First, we need to stop thinking of religious scholarship as a separate category from other modes of inquiry. Right now, the public is fine with intellectual Catholics weighing in on politics, human rights or culture. People are far less accepting when the opinion comes from a Catholic intellectual. The distinction? Catholics have their fair share of doctors, professors and authorsnot to mention a disproportionate share of Supreme Court justices. Their faith probably influences their work, but their work does not take place within an explicitly acknowledged religious framework.

But where are the public intellectuals who make their inquiries through their Catholic faith? There are Catholic intellectuals everywhere, but their work is often relegated to the realm of the religious and treated as a separate category from secular work. Take, for instance, St. John Paul II. He weighed in on human rights, ethics and politics, often through scholarly writing in books like Love and Responsibility and Person and Act. He was our eras Thomas More. His role as pope, however, made people regard his work as specific to Catholics. His ethics were Catholic ethics, his politics Catholic politics. As a recent graduate student, I can attest that at a secular university, one would be wise not to refer to John Paul II in a philosophy paper.

The task, then, is to use the work of Catholic intellectuals like St. John Paul II to answer questions that secular modes of inquiry cannot. Catholic scholarshiplike the theology of the bodyhas the capacity to argue a sexual ethic that science or secular thought do not make apparent, such as the sacred nature of sex or the value of monogamy. The importance of these questions is by no means limited to Catholics.

If society is to make space for religious intellectuals, for Catholic intellectuals, the work starts at the university. Professors who have tenure and the freedom to pursue the projects they wish should not refrain from using their faith in their projects. A few intellectual Catholics have shown us what that looks like. The Yale law professor and author Stephen Carter, in books like Gods Name in Vain, argues for the productivity of religious belief in political movements. Mr. Carter went from intellectual Catholic to Catholic intellectual when he made a crucial step: He spoke of his faith in his scholarship at a secular elite university while writing a book in a field dominated by secular thought. And he was taken seriously.

But the work of intellectual Catholics begins before they get tenure. Students who may one day assume the name recognition of these lecturers and authors need the courage to use religion. They must overcome the raised eyebrows or ridicule. Moreover, the risks of not finding an advisor, of not landing a tenure-track job in a difficult market and of not being taken seriously as a scholar are real. But the bravery of students and faculty members is what will keep religious studies off the chopping block when times are tough. It is what will make intellectuals sit on a stage and express not lukewarm approval but exuberance for the possibilities of religion in scholarship.

See the article here:
Our religious studies programs are in trouble. Here's what we miss out on if we don't save them. - America Magazine

The argument for Christianity and the Bible is a cumulative one, adding up to the conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism false.

A friendly and fair-minded atheist asked me some good questions underneath one of my blog articles. It became an excellent opportunity to explain the wider goals and motivations of apologetics. In defending the Bible over against atheists (who love to endlessly contend that the Bible is habitually contradictory and immoral), I am writing for:

Christians for their existing faith to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments and the strength of our own;

Christians who are wavering in their faith (who would be adversely affected by the material I refute) and perhaps considering leaving or becoming an atheist to be strengthened by seeing the weakness of opposing arguments;

those wondering about the doctrines of biblical inspiration and infallibility;

fair-minded, honest atheists to show that these atrocious arguments are embarrassing for atheists to put out, and ought to be rebuked from within their own community;

the atheist who actually thinks these are unanswerable arguments;

the atheist who might be on the fence and is considering forsaking atheism;

atheists or anyone else who think that Christian theology is held only by gullible, infantile ignoramuses who hate science and reason;

anyone who thinks that Christianity is fundamentally irrational and opposed to reasonable explanation or defense;

the sake of truth itself (i.e., what I, to the best of my ability, have come to believe is truth);

the sake of open and honest discussion between opposing viewpoints, believing that dialogue is a means to obtain truth.

I write these things to give Catholics support for their beliefs. But Im also offering support for things where Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics are in full agreement. I dont argue about Catholic distinctives when defending Christianity against atheist attacks I dont consider it appropriate or prudent unless they hit upon a specifically Catholic belief.

Nothing in my replies to atheists should cause the slightest pause for any traditional Christian. In fact, I could have written virtually all of them when I was an evangelical Protestant between 1977-1990.

I also write these replies to convince non-Christian theists that Christianity is true (in an indirect, roundabout sense), but its not my direct goal.

I seek to defeat the defeaters, as Alvin Plantinga often says. Any specific effort along these lines is not defending the entire Bible, let alone all of Christianity (or more specifically, Catholicism). Its simply showing that the particular objections I am dealing with fall flat and achieve nothing whatsoever. Its a reactive enterprise. I show how suchobjections fail.

Im not claiming the entire Bible cant be proven false (though I do believe that). Its showing how some particulararguments are a bunch of hot air and are irrational. Its meant to give folks pause who are mightily impressed by these ludicrous pseudo-arguments. Then there are hundreds of other possible arguments and objections to address most of which I have dealt with, in more than 3,200 articles on my blog, and in 50 books. The argument for Christianity and the Bible is a cumulative one, consisting of scores and scores of individual arguments, adding up to the conclusion that Christianity is true and atheism false.

People are convinced by an accumulation of considerations, which they feel all point in one direction the truth of the Bible or of Christianity. If I make them curious here and persuade them of anything, then they will be game for future attempts at persuasion all the way up to a possible conversion to Christianity or Catholicism specifically, or to a serious doubting of atheism, or a strengthening of a weak or wavering Christian faith. Its all good. Its what I was put on this earth to do (what we call a calling or vocation).

I use reason as that common ground that both sides accept. I never say, Accept x, y or z simply because Christians or the popes or Christian tradition says so. I say, Accept it because it appears by virtue of reason to be true, or it may be true, given the weakness of opposing arguments, or it appears to be more plausible than atheist alternatives.

Such articles can strengthen existing faith, and provide support in reason for faith, so it can be held more boldly and confidently, and more efficiently and successfully shared with others. Christians are under attack from all directions. There is a need for certain folks in our community to help support the faithful through efforts like this and many others of a different nature (such as social service or prayer, etc.).

I find these atheist objections generally pathetically and pitifully weak. Nevertheless, they more often than not purport to be academic or semi-academic. Most of them would be laughed off of the stage of any truly academic setting. Im not an academic or scholar myself. But I do claim to engage in semi-academic lay apologetic endeavors for the thinking man. And I have held my own in dialogue with many scholars.

My atheist friend was kind enough to commend my reply and he stated:

Im still looking for evidence that any supernatural realm of any kind exists before I wrestle with the details. Picking apart Christianity as a way to support my position would be pointless, because theres always another tradition or faith to knock down, and another, and another.

Unfortunately, many atheists online are constantly engaged in this very thing picking apart Christianity. They take it upon themselves to critique the Bible and views obtained therefrom day in and day out: frequently casually assuming that they know how to properly interpret the Bible, and that they know how to do so better than the vast majority of Christians.

But they dont know how to interpret the Bible trust me, as one who has debated them many scores of times and are almost always vastly less informed than Christians in how to do biblical hermeneutics and exegesis.

Continued here:
Why Should We Bother Defending the Bible Against Atheists? - National Catholic Register

Kareem* was born in Sydney, raised in a multicultural suburb and educated in the public school system.

He never felt pressured at home to speak Arabic or delve deeper into his family's religious beliefs, and his theological knowledge was limited to the traditions of the holy month of Ramadan and Eid.

I knew that I was a Muslim, but I did not know much about the religion itself, he tells SBS Arabic24.

During the 1990s, before he could enrol in a high school, his parents decided to move the family back to Lebanon.

"I remember at the time there was no war in Lebanon, but problems started in Sydney related to gang crimes and drugs and linking them to the Lebanese community.

I do not know the main reason that prompted them to migrate, but perhaps they wanted to try life in Lebanon again."

His brothers had no say in the matter and recalls experiencing a fear of the unknown.

I did not know anything about Lebanon, and I think it was the first time I got on the plane. When we got to the airport there, I saw members of the army standing everywhere carrying weapons as if they were in a war, which made me wonder, 'Why did we come back here?'

Life in Lebanon during the 1990s, especially living in a village was different to life in Sydney. The village was divided into two parts.

"Islam and Christianity. During this period, after Lebanon's exit from the [civil] war, there was not much integration between Muslims and Christians and there was a lot of sensitivity between them."

Kareem and his family felt that his Arabic was too weak to attend high school, and he was forced to find a way to strengthen it.

"My father advised me to take lessons in the Arabic language and religion to strengthen it, and I really did that because I wanted to integrate and feel that I belonged in the society that was around me."

Bit by bit, he got closer to religion to understand his beliefs, those of his family, and the people around him.

"When I was 14 or 15 years old, I became very religious. I was studying religion and going to the mosque. At the same time, I was also in school, as I was before, loving science, biology and mathematics and excel in it. But I was thinking that I am part of a society, we are right and everyone else were wrong.

"I did not stay in this for long, perhaps for months or a year maximum. Until I started hearing discussions about other religions in a sermon, and I went to know what they meant from my family.

"I did not stop thinking about what I was hearing, and I wondered whether everyone who has created a Muslim will go to Heaven? And whoever created a Christian, Jew, Hindu or Buddhist will go to Hell?"

"All my ideas began to mix together. I could not put a logical or scientific analysis on the matter. When I asked a man of religion, he answered me, 'Yes, if you are not a Muslim, you will go to Hell'.

"This bothered me so much, why would my friends be burned in Hell forever?"

Muslims are not at liberty to change their religion or become atheists, and to do so is punishable in some countries.

pixabay

No one could convince Kareem with their answers. He decided to occupy himself with other activities, and he and his friends created a community in which they felt comfortable together, away from sectarianism and religious discussions.

"I started feeling like there were no boundaries of hatred, and I told myself I shouldn't be part of this problem, maybe I should be part of the solution."

He completed high school moved to Beirut to study medicine.

"I met many people at university from different religions and sects. I began to see a lot of unnecessary discrimination.

"For me, we are all equal. Why differentiate between a Sunni, a Shiite, and a Druze?

"All the questions that puzzled me while in high school came to me again, stronger."

Life in Beirut, its openness and the study of medicine opened a new door for it.

"I became friends with gay and atheist people. During this period, I began to doubt existentialism. I began to think more about scientific issues as I studied medicine and diseases that afflict the human body."

Kareem did not find a convincing reason for the diseases that attack humans and leave them to suffer.

"My thinking began to turn towards agnosticism or atheism, and I was thinking that there is no one or anything to entrust us with, we live alone in this world."

During this period, Kareem's family returned to Australia, but he stayed to complete his university studies in Beirut. He began to turn away from religious beliefs and replaced them with a little bit of spirituality and a lot of humanity.

I read a lot of scientific books and read the Quran and the Bible. I have always had a lot of respect for religions and religious people, but as a person, I was not able to integrate the beliefs that began to form in me with religion.

In 2005, Lebanon began to feel the effects of deep-seated divisions, when Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated.

"I remember taking a taxi from those who charge 1000 Lebanese pounds for a single ride, and when he drove me to my destination, I paid him, and I walked away. The driver got out of his car and ran behind me and stopped me to say, 'Here's a thousand pounds, you paid me two thousand'.

"I was amazed and told him, 'It's okay take it'. He said to me, No, this money is Haram (forbidden) for me, and I do not accept to feed my children with unlawful money.

Rafic Hariri was assassinated on 14 February 2005 by a suicide truck bomb in Beirut.

Anadolu

"These things and injustice affected me a lot. There is a big mistake, there is no balance in this world."

Kareem was unable to find a satisfactory answer for the political corruption that speaks in the name of religion, and no answers that justify its ugly results in his homeland and the countries he loves.

"The last period I was in Lebanon, in the early 2000s, hatred and divisions began to reappear strongly.

At that time, if there was something that still brought me close to religion, what happened this year was the last straw.

Kareem completed his medical studies and married a woman who shared similar beliefs and they returned to Australia.

Upon his return, his father was not yet aware of the beliefs Kareem decided to embrace. It was just a matter of time before he decided to confront his family with the truth.

My father used to tell me in more than one situation, read this verse, read this surah, and pray two rak'ahs.

"But one day I told him, 'Never tell me these things again because I really don't believe in religion at all'.

"He told me, 'How can you not believe?'

"I said, 'I have scientific thinking. For me, the world was formed after the Big Bang. I believe in human evolution and animal evolution. I could not relate these things to religion, and I tried a lot in my life, and I could not, and I am a person who does not believe in religion anymore'."

'He asked, 'How are you going to raise your children?'

"I said, 'I will leave them free to choose. They will read books and will be exposed to religion through you and their friends at school. The most important thing for me is that they have scientific analysis and critical thinking that is not subordinate to anyone. I don't want anyone to influence their way of thinking'."

His brothers also had questions.

"My brothers were not upset with me. They felt sad for me. In their thinking, I was going to Hell.

"I remember they asked me, how do I want to be buried. I told them I hadn't thought about this before. But if I go back to faith, I don't have a problem with the Islamic burial method. But this goes back to my thinking at the time. But now, I don't have a plan."

Despite their different ways of thinking, Kareem and his family members remain close.

Kareem has two children and, as he had previously told his father, he decided to leave room for them to choose whether they belong to one religion. Nevertheless, he made sure to enrol them in a school that teaches the Arabic language, as he was keen to introduce them to their cultural roots, which he is proud of.

"My son used to come home and ask us, compared to his classmates, why we are not doing this and that. We explain to him. But this year, he has grown older and wiser, and year after year he feels more comfortable with his way of life.

"He will certainly face a lot of challenges, of course. But we have the option to change the school at any time."

Despite Kareem's pride in and belonging to the Arab culture, and his respect for the religions and beliefs of others, he does not find similar respect and acceptance from the Arab community in Australia. Therefore, he finds himself at times compelled to hide this aspect of his identity.

"Of course, this is a very difficult feeling. Because you are trying to pretend that you are another person around these people, and you feel that you are threatened and threatening to them at the same time."

"I wonder, is it difficult for me to get the same treatment and respect that I give them?"

He feels satisfied and comfortable that he is a better person because of the decisions he's made.

"I live my life in order to be a good human not because I want to enter Heaven or to stay away from Hell, but only because I want to be a better person. I teach my children to be humanists.

"I guess you don't have to believe in a god to be a good person."

*Not his real name

Follow My Arab Identity on yourfavourite podcast platformand listen to a new episode every Wednesday.

Read more here:
Why an Arab Australian chose atheism: 'I don't have to believe in God to be a good human' - SBS

Evangelist Franklin Graham upset his followers last week when he urged them to get vaccinated, so I guess hes trying to win them back over by saying the dumbest possible things.

This time, hes giving God credit for freeing the Ever Given from the Suez Canal:

Did God lend a hand in freeing the Ever Given? After a week of blocking trade, on Monday a higher than normal tide brought on by an old-fashioned Super Moon helped to free the massive container ship. I read that this ship is 20x heavier than the Eiffel Tower! Now the backup of 300 cargo ships can resume passing through the Suez Canal. Thank you God.

I know this is Atheism 101 here, but its telling that Graham credits God with freeing the boat while never blaming God for the boat getting stuck in the first place. Egypt lost an estimated $90 million in toll revenue. $10 billion worth of cargo was delayed, and in some cases (like food), thats just going to waste.

But Graham thinks God sent a Super Moon one which we knew would occur well in advance of the incident due to science to unclog the canal instead of just preventing the boat from causing chaos.

If Grahams God gets credit for the recovery, the Grahams church ought to pay some of the costs associated with the boat getting stuck.

(Featured image via Shutterstock)

Original post:
Franklin Graham: God Sent a Super Moon to Free the Boat from the Suez Canal - Friendly Atheist - Patheos

The secularization of U.S. society the waning of religious faith, practice and affiliation is continuing at a dramatic and historically unprecedented pace. While many may consider such a development as cause for concern, such a worry is not warranted. This increasing godlessness in America is actually a good thing, to be welcomed and embraced.

Democratic societies that have experienced the greatest degrees of secularization are among the healthiest, wealthiest and safest in the world, enjoying relatively low rates of violent crime and high degrees of well-being and happiness. Clearly, a rapid loss of religion does not result in societal ruin.

For the first time since Gallup began tracking the numbers in 1937, Americans who are members of a church, synagogue or mosque are not in the majority, according to a Gallup report released this week. Compare todays 47% to 1945, when more than 75% of Americans belonged to a religious congregation.

This decline in religious affiliation aligns closely with many similar secularizing trends. For example, in the early 1970s, only one in 20 Americans claimed none as their religion, but today it is closer to one in three. Over this same time period, weekly church attendance has decreased, and the percentage of Americans who never attend religious services has increased from 9% to 30%.

In 1976, nearly 40% of Americans said they believed that the Bible was the actual word of God, to be taken literally. Today only about a quarter of Americans believe that, with slightly more decreeing the Bible is simply a collection of fables, history and morality tales written by men. And the percentage of Americans who confidently believe in Gods existence, without a doubt, has declined from 63% in 1990 to 53% today.

Fears that this rise of irreligion might result in the deterioration of our nations moral fiber and threaten our liberties and freedoms are understandable. Such concerns are not without historical merit: The former Soviet Union was a communist country deeply rooted in atheism and was one of the most corrupt, bloody regimes of the 20th century. Other atheistic authoritarian regimes, such as the former Albania and Cambodia, were equally crooked and vicious.

But heres the thing they were all godless dictatorships that tried to forcibly destroy religion by persecuting the faithful, actively oppressing religious institutions, and making a demagogic cult out of their thuggish rulers. Such coercive secularization is, indeed, something to dread.

However, there is another, alternative kind of secularization, one that emerges organically, amid free and open societies where human rights, including religious freedom, are upheld and respected. Many societies qualify for this label including those in Japan, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Australia, Canada and Uruguay, among many others. In these places, religion is not actively repressed, nor do governments promote secularization. And yet, it occurs simply because the people living in these societies lose interest in the whole religious enterprise.

Organic secularization can occur for many reasons. It happens when members of a society become better educated, more prosperous, and live safer, more secure and more peaceful lives; when societies experience increases in social isolation; when people have better healthcare; when more women hold paying jobs; when more people wait longer to get married and have kids. All of these, especially in combination, can decrease religiosity.

Another major factor is the ubiquity of the internet, which provides open windows to alternative worldviews and different cultures that can corrode religious conviction and allows budding skeptics and nascent freethinkers to find, support and encourage one another.

In the United States, these factors are further compounded by strong backlashes against the religious right, the evangelical-Republican alliance, conservative religions anti-gay agenda and the Catholic Churchs sexual-abuse scandals. This has resulted in the winds of secularization swirling like never before, Ryan P. Burge, a political scientist, recently said.

Fears of atheistic authoritarianism aside, some may worry about religious organizations fading away because they do so much good. They do engage in a tremendous amount of charitable work that includes holding food drives and setting up soup kitchens and homeless shelters. However, such welcomed charity is ultimately an altruistic response to symptoms, not a structural cure for root causes.

This is why highly secular democracies do a much better job of ameliorating homelessness and poverty by employing decidedly secular solutions, such as responding with rational social policies and wise economic strategies, and setting up more responsive institutions. Affordable housing and subsidized healthcare do a far better job of alleviating the suffering of the poor and the sick than faith-based charities.

Secularity is highly correlated with a host of moral orientations that will markedly improve our nation. For instance, secular people when compared to their religious peers are far more likely to understand and respect the scientific method, which results in their increased willingness to get vaccinated, for instance, and adhere to empirically grounded health recommendations, a rational orientation that saves lives. Secular people are also more supportive of sex education, which reduces unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.

Research shows that secular people are more likely to support womens reproductive rights, universal healthcare, gay rights, environmental protections, death with dignity, gun safety legislation and treating drug abuse as a medical rather than criminal problem all of which will serve to increase dignity, liberty and well-being in America.

The organic secularization we are experiencing in the United States is a progressive force for good, one that is associated with improved human rights, more protections for planet Earth and an increased sociocultural propensity to make this life as fair and just as we can in the here and now rather than in a heavenly reward that fewer and fewer of us believe in.

Phil Zuckerman is associate dean of Pitzer College and author of Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment.

Read the original post:
Op-Ed: Why record godlessness in the U.S. is good news - Los Angeles Times

SOME weeks ago I argued onThe Conservative Womanthat it is a human trait to believe without evidence. With the proper stimuli, people can be made to believe practically anything. I also said that if this were not so, belief in God would not exist.

This comment drew a surprising number of responses from people who felt their faith had been derided and who asserted that I was wrong. They made the usual arguments for the existence of God, with the usual expectation of educating the godless and of course the usual result: no meaningful change in anybodys belief system. This is the essence of faith, the human capacity for asserting a belief based on an internal system of logic which cannot be adjusted or effectively challenged. It is this capacity for a kind of mental inertia that makes the Covid-19 project possible by exploiting the human tendency towards faith, a belief system which engenders hope in the face of hopelessness.

I decided at the age of ten that there was, quite simply, no evidence for the existence of God. I have never found a good reason to change that belief: Ive examined it thoroughly and had it challenged albeit indirectly by many voices and sources. I have, over time, struggled with expressions such as atheist or agnostic and finally have settled for humanist, the epithet I feel most comfortable with. None of this means I think there is anything wrong with believing in God. Some of my friends are devout Christians, or Buddhists. They are intelligent, often humble people whom I admire beyond measure. Nor would I attempt to convince believers in God that their faith is a mistake. Why should I? Of what possible benefit could this be? All I can do is to assert my own understanding of the universe in its own terms, and my own faith in the capacity of humanity to grow beyond the kind of thinking and reasoning that ends up with a cycle of self-referential logic. Quite possibly, the end result of such thinking is only endless questioning. Towards the end of his life, Stephen Hawking was questioning the Big Bang theory of the universe which he had supported when younger; Hoyles Steady State theory is being re-examined having previously been consigned to the dustbin of scientific history.

Its often assertedthat belief in God has been at the root of atrocities throughout history, such as religious wars or Islamic terrorism. I dont altogether agree with this. I contend that bad people will always find compelling reasons to do and justify doing bad things. Its also said that secularism, a society not founded on religious belief, is harmful and pernicious, denying us our basic humanity. Again, I disagree. A belief system founded on essentially decent values cannot be used as a justification for doing bad things. It is true that secularism has, for many of us, forced us to see the world through a confusing lens and to build entire political constructs out of our insecurities, grudges, fears and hatreds. But religious belief permitted the same things. Both religion and secularism can be corrupted for bad ends.

There is a need for faith in all of us, a point at which we no longer feel impelled to provide evidence for our fundamental view of the world. The alternative, endless scepticism, is the privilege only of a few with the discipline to embrace this.

My point is that belief in a religious faith, even one that atheists like myself reject, does not make one a fool. But if the same mental processes lead us to believe absolutely in the goodness of those in power as we are continually programmed to embrace life-destroying measures in the names of health or the environment, it is time we grew up.

History teaches us, only too well, that powerful people will do bad things and find good reasons for doing them. To ignore this is to embrace mindless reflexes as a way of life. As the evidence becomes overwhelming that the Covid-19 project is a monstrous disaster for which those responsible are continually finding good reasons to justify, we must understand that to find hope, we must challenge ourselves to ask each other some difficult questions. As Ive tried to explain, its only by asking questions that our understanding grows. I cannot understand what it must be like to be someone who thinks that if we all wear masks, get the jab, keep following the rules, everything is somehow going to be all right. Perhaps this makes them happy. I dont know. But its time we claimed, as part of our growing up, the right to be unhappy.

Faith in government is a fallacy proven again and again throughout history. The truth, whether you want to believe it or not, is that the Covid project is being forced on us by powerful people, for reasons which are becoming increasingly difficult to understand unless we assume that its a good reason for bad people to do bad things. If your faith lies in government and the powerful, take the time to question it, just as I questioned my atheism over the years. Many people who believe in God do not seem to believe in the virus. This is a good thing, because it means that there is a difference between faith and the capacity to believe without evidence when your own experience tells you something is wrong. Maybe thats what we should all be thinking about.

Original post:
Of all the things I don't believe in, this government comes top - The Conservative Woman