Category Archives: Atheism

Upon learning of the drowning of Percy Bysshe Shelley in 1822, the London Courier took a shot at the deceased poets atheism by writing, now he knows whether there is a God or no. Shelleys wife, Mary, who had published Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus only four years prior, probably didnt enjoy the jab at her late husband, victim of a sudden storm in the Gulf of Spezia.

Percy Shelley never achieved widespread fame during his lifetime. After death his writing spreadThe Cenci, Prometheus Unbound, and Hellas became classics. Along the way the poet penned essays and journal entires describing his transition from mystical pantheism to atheism. In 1811he published The Necessity of Atheism, for which he received flack from the religiously-inclined. Two years later, while writing his poem, Queen Mab, he expanded and revised the essay.

Shelley was living during Englands golden age of scientific discovery. As a student at Oxford he fell in love with the new technology of ballooning. He equated the epic flights of silk balloons, which would soon carry humans, with liberation, himself once securing a revolutionary pamphlet on a number of balloons that he launched from a Lynmouth beach.

Shelleys poetry was filled with scientific wonder. He studied under James Lind, the Scottish physician most famous for conducting the first experimental method by treating sailors with citrus to cure scurvy. While many of Shelleys contemporaries were searching for metaphysical explanations of the growing fields of biology and chemistry, Shelley recognized poetry in the processes of nature.

The young poet found Christianity detestable, infusing his thoughts on psychology with scientific ideas. His amalgam of speculative journalinghe shared diaries with Marylaid the foundation for her to dream up Frankenstein and usher in a new form of literature, the science fiction novel. Just as Shelley was influenced by researchers around him, those same scientists drew inspiration from the poetic materialism expressed in his verses.

In The Necessity of Atheism, Shelley writes that man first feared then adored the elements, paying homage to the planet by learning to control them. Humans then started to simplify categorieswhich is true in light of modern neuroscience as well as the historical evolution from polytheism to monotheismand imagined a single agent as the source of all of nature.

Mounting from cause to cause, mortal man has ended by seeing nothing; and it is in this obscurity that he has placed his God; it is in this darksome abyss that his uneasy imagination has always labored to fabricate chimeras, which will continue to afflict him until his knowledge of nature chases these phantoms which he has always so adored.

It is our ignorance, he continues, that forces our minds to fill in gaps by invoking divinity. Through study we dispel this ignorance, a phenomenon Shelley witnessed firsthand with the discovery of numerous elements, gases, and compounds. Previously our ignorance kept us from unraveling natures secret process; when the process is understood knowledge replaces mysticism. He sums this up succinctly:

If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction.

An educated man turns away from superstition in Shelleys estimation. Education is essential because religion is effectively a struggle for power. Nations are built on the belief of a god. If a handful of men claim to communicate with and through this deity they seize power from the populace. Since God is invented by man, it is through man that he is made known. Make people believe in your story and you can write whatever narrative youd like.

Our pride keeps us believing, our vanity constructed in such a way so that we stiffen before difficulties. Best to invoke a metaphysical explanation and pre-ordained destiny than face the indifferent realities of biology. This indifference confuses Shelley: a being that we endow with all the goodness in the world while turning a blind eye to endless atrocities. What man receives in return for his adoration is silence, which Shelley expresses in a sentence that has formed the basis of skepticism throughout the ages:

If God wishes to be known, cherished, thanked, why does he not show himself under his favorable features to all these intelligent beings by whom he wishes to be loved and adored?

If this deity were so all-powerful as to demand of us our complete subjugation, Shelley continues, he would have made himself known to require our fear and respect. In one of the essays most poetic lines, he lays out the scenario:

Instead of hanging the sun in the vault of the firmament, instead of scattering stars without order, and the constellations which fill space, would it not have been more in conformity with the views of a God so jealous of his glory and so well-intentioned for mankind, to write, in a manner not subject to dispute, his name, his attributes, his permanent wishes in ineffaceable characters, equally understandable to all the inhabitants of the earth?

His omnipotence is disproven by the need for prayer and the necessity of temples. How can humans offend or resist something all-powerful? If he is truly inconceivable why do we bother wasting time contemplating him? Even Shelley knew the power of the caps lock:

IF HE HAS SPOKEN, WHY IS THE UNIVERSE NOT CONVINCED?

Atheism is a necessity to the thinking mind, Shelley concludes. He was watching the greatest minds of his generation cure longstanding diseases, create new compounds, and harness the powers of chemistry. Carl Linnaeuss coding system was leading to progress in evolutionary theory. Religion was being exposed as the governing system that it is. If man need pay tribute to nature and not ether, why continue to to make manipulative men more powerful?

The mind of Shelley has held up in the two centuries since his drowning. He discovered firsthand, however briefly before he succumbed, the extraordinary forces of nature. Toward the end of The Necessity of Atheism his ignorance of whether we exist before and after death. It just wasnt that important to him. He knew that life is too full of wonder without the need of invoking divinity. We still profit from such advice to this day.

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Derek's next book,Whole Motion: Training Your Brain and Body For Optimal Health, will be published on 7/4/17 by Carrel/Skyhorse Publishing. He is based in Los Angeles. Stay in touch onFacebookandTwitter.

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The Necessity of Atheism - Big Think

A new study has suggested that atheism is doomed because religious people have higher rates of reproduction.

Due to their lack of belief in contraception, religious believers are having more children than atheists, which could ultimately result in the end of atheism, the study suggests.

The findings fly in the face of popular discourse - and scientists predictions - which implies fewer and fewer people are religious nowadays.

What marriage would be like if we followed the bible

But the new research claims religion is actually at no risk of dying out and the reverse is in fact the case.

Scientists from the US and Malaysia studied over 4,000 students, asking them about their religious beliefs and how many siblings they had.

They found that Malaysian atheists had 1.5 fewer siblings than the average.

The gap was narrower in the US, where students unaffiliated with any religion had 0.16 fewer siblings than average - non-religious couples had 3.04 children, whereas the average for the whole population is 3.2.

It is ironical that effective birth control methods were developed primarily by secularists, and that these methods are serving to slowly diminish the proportional representation of secularists in forthcoming generations, the researchers said.

Although one might argue that just because someone has religious parents it doesnt necessarily mean they will grow up with the same beliefs, further studies haveshown that religion does in fact appear to be heritable.

And it appears both nature and nurture play a role - it may seem obvious that how youre brought up will influence your worldview, but it turns out theres a genetic base too.

Those with a higher capacity to believe in a god have certain genes.

The researchers of the study explain that before the 19th century, there was probably little difference in reproduction rates regardless of whether you had the genes or not.

However this then changed: By the mid-19th century, scientific discoveries had moved to a point that human reproduction was sufficiently well understood that fertility rates began to be impacted, especially in the emerging industrial countries, the scientists explain.

And just as the discovery of evolution was made, the genes that make someone more likely to be religious gained a reproductive advantage - and were better able to spread through the population, The Times reports.

Does religion divide London?

This was a time when effective and safe means of birth control were yet to be developed.

However, research indicates that the individuals who were most successful in curtailing their fertility during this time were the most highly educated and the least religious, the researchers explain.

Thus, for the first time in human history, secularists began to curtail their reproduction much more than the highly religious segments of these countries.

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Atheists at risk of dying out due to belief in contraception, study ... - The Independent

Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

On Tuesday a High Court Judge in Pakistans capital Islamabad reiterated in a hearing that blasphemers are terrorists, as a petitioner sought a ban on social media pages allegedly uploading derogatory posts against Islam and Prophet Muhammad.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, who has broken down in tears in every single one of the three hearings on the case this week, on Wednesday asked the government to put blasphemers on the Exit Control List (ECL).

On Thursday, Siddiqui, who has represented Islamic State-sympathizing Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz in the past, said he would summon the prime minister if no action is taken against social media pages that post blasphemous content.

The Islamabad police have since registered a case against the owners of these pages. The Senate has approved a resolution demanding strict action against blasphemous content online. Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency has published ads in national dailies asking citizens to help identify blasphemers on Facebook.

During the hearing this week, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge, implied that murder would be inevitable if the pages arent blocked. He went on to add that liberal secular extremism is a bigger threat than Islamic extremism.

Pakistans interior secretary assured Justice Siddiqui that the entire government machinery would be set in motion to address the issue. This was followed by the interior minister vowing to block social media completely if the issue isnt resolved.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman, in his defense, said that similar social media pages have recently been blocked and that it takes time to convince the Facebook administration to take action.

These blocked pages include Bhensa, Mochi, and Roshni, which have either been blocked or taken over by the Elite Cyber Force of Pakistan.

In January, secular bloggers and activists, many of whom were accused of being affiliated with these pages, were abducted from various parts of the country, with the well-coordinated maneuver accused of being a state-backed operation by many quarters.

While many were subsequently recovered, some fled the country immediately. One of these activists revealed on Thursday how the state had tortured him beyond limits.

Almost parallel to the activists release, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Chief Hafiz Saeed, accused of masterminding the Mumbai Attacks, was put under house arrest. Many believe the states long overdue action against Kashmir-bound jihadists is being pushed by China, as it seeks security for the much touted economic corridor.

With the current ruling party forging political alliances with many of these jihadist groups, and the Army using them as strategic assets for proxy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan, only external pressure can lead to decisive counterterror action.

But what this has meant is that both the civilian and military leaders now have to appease their heretofore Islamist allies to avoid collective backlash, as action against jihadist groups becomes inevitable. Pakistans overt war against freethinkers might just give the state the respite that it needs.

Last year, Pakistan also passed its cybercrime law, which upholds identical punishments for Penal Code violations in the cyber-sphere. This means that blasphemy would be punishable by death, even if committed online.

The immediate impact of Januarys abductions was a mass exodus of anonymous secular bloggers from the web. Satirical publication Khabaristan Times was also banned by the PTA, while a shift in editorial policies has been visible in many online and mainstream liberal publications.

This is why Justice Siddiquis juxtaposition of liberal secular extremists and radical Islamists is critical. All state institutions echoing apologia for Islamists, and slamming secularists, is menacing for an already endangered species: the Pakistani atheist.

Delineating the ideological divide, which would result in any liberal ideals being thrown to the wolves, couldve instigated Bangladesh-like violence had Pakistani freethinkers been a quasi-significant demographic. As it is, a few abductions, and banned web pages, were enough to silence many of us.

Ironically, it is the states appeasement of radical Islam that has caused an upsurge in the number of atheists in Pakistan. This is why an official discourse on atheism has been going on in Pakistan, resulting in many expressing non-belief online, most doing so anonymously.

While one still cant officially register as an atheist, or opt for No Religion as identity for the national database, the number of atheists is believed to have increased following the advent of Internet and social media allowing isolated nonbelievers to connect.

Muslims abandoning Islam even if not their Muslim identity is a global phenomenon, and the apostasy wave is upsetting the Islamist cart in Pakistan as well.

In 2015, the hashtag #___ or Aik crore Pakistani mulhid (10 million Pakistani atheists) trended around Darwin Day, with thousands of Twitter users tweeting both for and against atheism. It trended around February 12 last year again. But we didnt see a repeat last month.

While 10 million might be significant exaggeration, a Gallup poll of 50,000 people found that 2 percent of Pakistanis self-identified atheists in 2012, which had doubled from the 1 percent in 2005.

Pakistani atheists a broad term encompassing agonistics, the irreligious, deists, and humanists alike have been lazily painted by the Islamists as liberals and seculars, despite the fact that many believing and practicing Muslims identify as such as well.

Muslims openly identifying as atheist in Pakistan would be an open invitation to violence, considering the states blasphemy laws are interpreted to outlaw apostasy, coupled with the National Database and Registration Authoritys (NADRA) refusal to let citizens officially change Islam as their religion. Hence, the aforementioned secular liberal label also provides refuge to the atheists.

Even so, in websites and social media pages that are critical of Islamic theology, the Islamists at the helm of state institutions have found the filter to sift atheists. Justice Siddiqui himself was quick to clarify that non-Muslims shouldnt be considered in the ongoing case against blasphemers, clearly underscoring apostates as the intended target.

And while these atheists of Muslim heritage arent an organized political entity as is the case in Bangladesh the IHCs verdict, and the capital police registering a case weeks after action against secular activists had already been taken, smacks of a thirst for blood.

Whether the episode is being staged to mollify Islamists amidst the crackdown on jihadists, or if theres a genuine clampdown against free-thought, remains to be seen. But the state seems more than willing to sacrifice its nonbelievers at the altar of its security failures.

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Pakistan's War on Atheism - Northlines - The Northlines

This is an ambitious book. Lively and well written, it tries to convince readers that the turn to atheism, also referred to as de-conversion and the rise of no religionism, is closely connected to the Western cultural shift of the 1960s and the rise of mass unbelief since the 1990s.

Callum Brown describes himself as a cultural and social historian informed by the social scientific method. Unlike a sociologist, however, he does not present a vast array of detailed statistics and comparative data. Building on his earlier work, The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000 (2001) and Religion and the Demographic Revolution: Women and Secularisation in Canada, Ireland, UK and USA since the 1960s (2013), he bases this study on wide-ranging archive material and interviews with 85 people from 18 countries. Their oral history provides valuable and provocative information about individuals in Europe and North America of Christian, Jewish and other backgrounds, who explain how they have come to be without a religious faith.

The narratives of these individuals create a richly quilted pattern of belief and unbelief, from the atheist child to the maturation of atheism, and from the silent and indifferent atheist to womens and mens atheistic profiles, followed by a discussion of atheism and ethnicity. Each chapter examines important themes disclosing different experiences, insights and questions. Many are addressed with subtlety and concern, but much remains that is controversial, unacknowledged and misrepresented. Browns imaginative treatment certainly provides rich material for lively debates among fellow scholars and students of history, philosophy, religion and ethics. Yet his lack of discernment or should I say blindness? regarding more perceptive analyses of both atheism and religion is shocking. No reference is made to existing histories of atheism among the ancient Greeks, Jews and Christians that show that atheism is not a new invention but as old as religion itself. Nor does Brown discuss why he refers to both god and God, and what this difference might imply. There is also no recognition of the different goals of professional religious education offered in British schools, and the religious nurturing transmitted by the family and religious places of worship.

Readers must ask whether this books sometimes astounding generalisations are not based on far too slender and unrepresentative evidence, especially as the condensed interview descriptions deal primarily with the stories of one African American, one Jew, four Hindus, one Muslim, and some white Westerners. Much is made of the links between modern feminism and atheism without any acknowledgement of the equally strong feminist voices of faith now active in all major religions, and so brilliantly described by Durre Ahmed as the gendering of the Spirit and by others as a truly silent revolution.

The most rewarding chapter is the last, The humanist condition, which explores a more inclusive vision of an atheism with a heart. Unsurprisingly, people men more than women are now twice as likely to call themselves humanist as atheist. What is needed is honest, open dialogue among humanism, atheism and religion, not another dogmatic defence of atheism.

Ursula King is emeritus professor of theology and religious studies, University of Bristol.

Becoming Atheist: Humanism and the Secular West By Callum G. Brown Bloomsbury, 248pp, 80.00 and 21.99 ISBN 9781474224499 and 4529 Published 12 January 2017

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Becoming Atheist: Humanism and the Secular West, by Callum G. Brown - Times Higher Education (THE)

On Tuesday a High Court Judge in Pakistans capital Islamabad reiterated in a hearing that blasphemers are terrorists,as a petitioner sought a ban on social media pages allegedly uploading derogatory posts against Islam and Prophet Muhammad.

Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui, who has broken down in tears in every single one of the three hearings on the case this week, on Wednesday asked the government to put blasphemers on the Exit Control List (ECL).

On Thursday, Siddiqui, who has represented Islamic State-sympathizing Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz in the past, said he would summon the prime minister if no action is taken against social media pages that post blasphemous content.

The Islamabad police have since registered a case against the owners of these pages. The Senate has approved a resolution demanding strict action against blasphemous content online. Meanwhile, the Federal Investigation Agency has published ads in national dailies asking citizens to help identify blasphemers on Facebook.

During the hearing this week, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) judge, implied that murder would be inevitableif the pages arent blocked. He went on to add that liberal secular extremism is a bigger threat than Islamic extremism.

Pakistans interior secretary assured Justice Siddiqui that the entire government machinery would be set in motionto address the issue. This was followed by the interior minister vowing to block social media completely if the issue isnt resolved.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman, in his defense, said that similar social media pages have recently been blocked and that it takes time to convince the Facebook administration to take action.

These blocked pages include Bhensa, Mochi, and Roshni, which have either been blocked or taken over by the Elite Cyber Force of Pakistan.

In January, secular bloggers and activists, many of whom were accused of being affiliated with these pages, were abducted from various parts of the country, with the well-coordinated maneuver accused of being a state-backed operation by many quarters.

While many were subsequently recovered, some fled the country immediately. One of these activists revealed on Thursday how the state had tortured him beyond limits.

Almost parallel to the activists release, the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) Chief Hafiz Saeed, accused of masterminding the Mumbai Attacks, was put under house arrest. Many believe the states long overdue action against Kashmir-bound jihadists is being pushed by China, as it seeks security for the much touted economic corridor.

With the current ruling party forging political alliances with many of these jihadist groups, and the Army using them as strategic assetsfor proxy wars in Kashmir and Afghanistan, only external pressure can lead todecisive counterterror action.

But what this has meant is that both the civilian and military leaders now have to appease their heretofore Islamist allies to avoid collective backlash, as action against jihadist groups becomes inevitable. Pakistans overt war against freethinkers might just give the state the respite that it needs.

Last year, Pakistan also passed its cybercrime law, which upholds identical punishments for Penal Code violations in the cyber-sphere. This means that blasphemy would be punishable by death, even if committedonline.

The immediate impact of Januarys abductions was a mass exodus of anonymous secular bloggers from the web. Satirical publication Khabaristan Times was also banned by the PTA, while a shift in editorial policies has been visible in many online and mainstream liberal publications.

This is why Justice Siddiquis juxtaposition of liberal secular extremists and radical Islamists is critical. All state institutions echoing apologia for Islamists, and slamming secularists, is menacing for an already endangered species: the Pakistani atheist.

Delineating the ideological divide, which would result in any liberal ideals being thrown to the wolves, couldve instigated Bangladesh-like violence had Pakistani freethinkers been a quasi-significant demographic. As it is, a few abductions, and banned web pages, were enough to silence many of us.

Ironically, it is the states appeasement of radical Islam that has caused an upsurge in the number of atheists in Pakistan. This is why an official discourse on atheism has been going on in Pakistan, resulting in many expressing non-belief online, most doing so anonymously.

While one still cant officially register as an atheist, or opt for No Religion as identity for the national database, the number of atheists is believed to have increased following the advent of Internet and social media allowing isolated nonbelievers to connect.

Muslims abandoning Islam even if not their Muslim identity is a global phenomenon, and the apostasy wave is upsetting the Islamist cart in Pakistan as well.

In 2015, the hashtag #___ or Aik crore Pakistani mulhid (10 million Pakistani atheists) trended around Darwin Day, with thousands of Twitter users tweeting both for and against atheism. It trended around February 12 last year again. But we didnt see a repeat last month.

While 10 million might be significant exaggeration, a Gallup poll of 50,000 people found that 2percent of Pakistanis self-identified atheists in 2012, which had doubled from the 1percent in 2005.

Pakistani atheists a broad term encompassing agonistics, the irreligious, deists, and humanists alike have been lazily painted by the Islamists as liberals and seculars, despite the fact that many believing and practicing Muslims identify as such as well.

Muslims openly identifying as atheist in Pakistan would be an open invitation to violence, considering the states blasphemy laws are interpreted to outlaw apostasy, coupled with the National Database and Registration Authoritys (NADRA) refusal to let citizens officially change Islam as their religion. Hence, the aforementioned secular liberal label also provides refuge to the atheists.

Even so, in websites and social media pages that are critical of Islamic theology, the Islamists at the helm of state institutions have found the filter to sift atheists. Justice Siddiqui himself was quick to clarify that non-Muslims shouldnt be considered in the ongoing case against blasphemers, clearly underscoring apostates as the intended target.

And while these atheists of Muslim heritage arent an organized political entity as is the case in Bangladesh the IHCs verdict, and the capital police registering a case weeks after action against secular activists had already been taken, smacks of a thirst for blood.

Whether the episode is being staged to mollify Islamists amidst the crackdown on jihadists, or if theres a genuine clampdown against free-thought, remains to be seen. But the state seems more than willing to sacrifice its nonbelievers at the altar of its security failures.

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Pakistan's War on Atheism - The Diplomat

The more-direct sun of spring has already arrived, the azaleas in my front yard have opened, and green sprigs of Bermuda grass are starting to emerge.

After fall, this is my favorite time of year, when in the words of Tennyson, a young mans fancy turns to thoughts of love, and everywhere I look I see God.

I understand belief in Him/Her take your pick is becoming less popular and the number of atheist is on the rise.

Why?

Apparently theres ample evidence pointing overwhelmingly toward the non-existence of God, particularly the non-existence of a loving and all powerful deity, the God that I believe in.

You wont get any argument from me for or against. I can only say what I believe and why.

I believe that there is one God who created all that there is in all the universe. I believe he sent the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, to be born literally of a virgin to come to earth to save me because He loved me. I believe that unlike me, he lived an absolutely perfect life.

Why do I believe that? Because I need to and Ive discovered over the years that thats what works for me. Its the thing that gives me joy and, on most days, no matter what Im going through, the peace that surpasses understanding.

Ive held fast to this belief since I was a 10-year-old growing up in Mississippi, and never once have I doubted God is real. That doesnt mean my faith has never wavered. It has. It doesnt mean Ive blindly followed without question. I havent.

But my faith doesnt demand I have all the answers or that I understand all the workings of God. That, by the way, includes the arrival of, yes, an early spring.

Ive thought of little else since reading the news story about the rise in atheism in which Drew Bekius, president of the Clergy Project, said that about a third of its members no longer believe in a higher power.

They see tragedy in the world, yet you see people claiming God just got them a parking space. So God will answer the prayer for a parking space while millions of people are in poverty?

It reminded me of these words from Job: Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?

If you believe as I do that God is sovereign the answer is a resounding no. God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants, however He wants.

Bekius and others quoted in the story seem to have a problem with that. Sometimes I do, too. The difference is I dont disown God just because He and I disagree.

But in my search to understand, I reached out to the only former atheist I know, the Rev. Fredrick Robinson.

Robinson, now a resident of Charlotte, N.C., grew up in the church but in 1984 began to question the existence of God for the first time.

Little by little, he said, he struggled to believe the literal story of creation in Genesis and the idea that the world was only six thousand years old. More than that, there seemed to be a disconnect between what Christians believed and how they behaved.

Because of its ostensible rejection of reason and science, I started to believe that religion was an enemy to human progress, he said.

At the same time he continued to attend church, taking every opportunity to challenge believers faith in God.

Eventually, though, he said the Holy Spirit moved in my heart to show me how religion and how faith in God was a powerful thing, how it helped African-Americans through slavery and subsequent generations of discrimination. I was reminded that faith doesnt necessarily lead to passivity. After all, it was faith that was responsible for so many of the freedom movements in our history, from the rebellion of Nat Turner to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

From the point of view of science, he decided science couldnt explain everything.

He was also starting to see firsthand the transformative power of the gospel in his brother, whose faith led him out of a life of addiction.

That was a turning point for me. I had overlooked how impactful some churches were in the lives of hurting people, Robinson said. It helped to rekindle my faith in God.

And so in 1993, Robinson walked away from atheism and became a believer because while still in Atlanta he sensed a divine call on his life. He accepted his call into the ministry and eventually became a pastor. His goal, he said, is to be Gods hands, feet and heart in the world. To save bodies as well as souls.

Today Robinson is coordinator of MeckMin (formerly called Mecklenburg Ministries), a nonprofit interfaith organization representing 14 faith traditions and 100 churches that works to foster understanding and compassion; vice president of the Charlotte/Mecklenburg branch of the NAACP and executive board member of the Charlotte Clergy Coalition for Justice.

He believes the recent uptick in atheism has more to do with rejecting the way Christianity is practiced than with rejecting God.

In its desire to be all things to all people, Christianity in America glosses over injustice, turns a blind eye to evil and rubber stamps greed, racism, sexism, homophobia and the status quo, he said. People are rejecting a religion that has become more about what you believe than what you do. More about church attendance than living out the principles of Christ.

As we witness the rise in police brutality, income inequality, poverty, the shrinking middle class, hatred of the foreigner, mass incarceration, and a host of other injustices, people are wondering where the church stands. And to the extent that it stands with the status quo, it is being rejected. They are rejecting a religion that makes justice secondary.

Weve created a religious culture where we worship Jesus rather than following him, Robinson said. We have turned faith into a system of beliefs rather than a journey toward union with God. We are more interested in belonging and being instead of being transformed.

But that doesnt mean he agrees with atheists who reject God by focusing on the ills of religion. He doesnt and neither do I.

Bottom-line faith comes down to a personal experience with God. It doesnt demand that I be right, it simply says why I believe in the existence of God, the source of my joy, hope and peace.

Even as a child I needed that, because no matter when spring shows up, Hes still God the reason I attend church each Sunday and why, despite all the reasons to leave, Ive stayed.

RELATED: Liberal or conservative? Religious outlook can blur the answer.

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Why I'm not an atheist - MyAJC

For the first time, an ad inviting viewers to join the Freedom from Religion Foundation is airing on multiple cable news networks.

The 30 second spot features Ron Reagan proudly proclaiming his atheist views.

It originally aired in 2014, but had been refused by CBS, NBC, ABC and Discovery. The ad had aired on some regional network markets, as well as CNN and Comedy Central.

Now the spot will run on "Morning Joe" and the "Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC through March 12. It will also return to CNN.

Michael Reagan, the adopted son of the late President Ronald Reagan, is boycotting MSNBC and CNN for airing the commercial featuring his atheist brother.

Now a conservative commentator, Michael Reagan took to Twitter to denounce the ad and called for a boycott of media outlets running it.

He said his father was "crying in heaven" about Ron's endorsement of the atheistic organization.

"Our father is crying in heaven! MSBNC, CNN airing FFRF's Ron Reagan endorsement ad - Freedom From Religion Foundation," he tweeted.

He also wrote, "I AM BOYCOTTING BOTH. MSNBC, CNN, airing FFRF's Ron Reagan endorsement ad - Freedom From Religion Foundation."

Michael Reagan tweeted this response when asked about the ad.

"Not upset with Ron as much as CNN and MSNBC for reairing it...3 years later as we begin the Holy Days leading up to Easter," he wrote.

"I'm Ron Reagan, an unabashed atheist, and I'm alarmed by the intrusions of religion into our secular government," Ron Reagan says in the ad.

"That's why I'm asking you to support the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the nation's largest and most effective association of atheists and agnostics, working to keep state and church separate, just like our Founding Fathers intended."

He ends the ad with a wry smile, saying, "Ron Reagan, lifelong atheist, not afraid of burning in hell."

According to the New American, Michael had seen the ad back in 2014.

"I remember having dinner with my father - with our family," he recalled. "And he (Ron) was talking about his atheism at dinner one night and my dad leaned over to me and grabbed my hand and said, 'My only prayer is that my son becomes a Christian'...and that was his prayer."

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These Networks Are Now Airing Once Banned Atheist Commercial - CBN News

New Delhi: JNUs Umar Khalid is all set to unleash his atheist ideas onto the nation. In that line, he has hosted a seminar on Atheism with global atheist stalwarts, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris.

Umar Khalid shot to fame last yearwhen as a student of JNU, he and Kanhaiyya shouted Bharat tere tukde hoge, which resulted in a surge of outrage from his co-ideologists from journalist and political spheres. While Umar Khalid was targeted for his religion, he shot back saying that he is an Atheist. It has been a year since and Umar was blamed for not sharing anything related to Atheism in his Facebook timeline.

To put an end to all controversy around my atheism, I am hosting this session, said Umar from the seminar stage. Richard Dawkins was seated on his left and Sam Harris was seated on his right. Today, I am going to discuss atheism. I call upon my brothers and sisters of India to walk out of their Hinduismand embrace atheism. Before our other members could open their mouth, let me explain what my Atheism is.

Taking a look at the audience from left to right, Umar uttered these words, Atheism is a combination of two words A and Theism. It means there can be only one God. And He is watching us every day. And there can be only one Prophet(saw).

Turning back to Dawkins and Harris, Umar bent his head and asked, Do you agree to what I say?. Both of them looked shocked and shook their heads from left to right. Umar continued, Let me explain. Take 5th chapter, 23rd page, 432nd verse, 2nd line. What does it say? It says Immediately, the crowd went into cheer as goatee grew out of Umars chin. His glasses rim turned more translucent and a skull cap came out of nowhere. It was not Umar Khalid but Zakir Naik they saw there on the stage. While Umar was turning into Zakir, the seminar was turning into a seminary.

A conch blew from somewhere and Umar Khalid who is now Zakir Naik kept on growing in size uttering verses after verses. With his head touching ceiling, he then turned to the atheist duo, Do you not see who I am, O Infidels?, after which Harris and Dawkins ran from the stage to Delhi airport.

A visibly cheerful fan of Umar shouted from the audience, If a Zakir Naik is banned from India, thousands of Zakir Naiks will come out.

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JNU's Umar Khalid hosts a seminar on Atheism with Dawkins & Harris, says 'A'theism means One God - Firstpost (satire)

In a recent interview, Pope Francis talked about being truthful to the teachings and practices of Christianity.

If youre a Christian who exploits people, leads a double life or manages a dirty business, perhaps its better not to call yourself a believer, Francis said.This comes as a sharp contrast between much of Christian theology, as his statement implies that works do not determine salvation, but rather belief alone.

Religion should be followed and acted upon if it is to be a force for good in the world. However, it is often used as justification for reprehensible actions that harm others. This is not to say that only Christians must have the mindset of putting into practice the teachings of religion, but that to be a practitioner of a religion, one must be pious not only in words, but in deeds.

Pope Francis also said many Christians scandalize others with their double-life practices, including fraudulent business leaders, teachers who perturb students and manipulators who discourage others from following righteous principles.

To call yourself a believer, you must live the life of a believer. This is not to say that you must be perfect, but it is to say that you must try earnestly to better others and yourself. We must not allow injustice to be perpetuated in the name of higher powers.

It is dangerous for individuals to twist the meaning of religion to correspond to their worldviews. Religion should not be used to stifle science, education or opportunity. This perversion of religion only serves to give ammunition to people who blame religion for the atrocities in the world, when the true culprit is greed. We must use religion as a tool to advance ourselves spiritually.

Religion is a well, and it spiritually brings us the water that feeds our moral and loving nature.

To be a Christian means to do: to do the will of God and on the last day because all of us we will have one that day what shall the Lord ask us? Will He say: What you have said about me? No. He shall ask us about the things we did, Francis said.

This concept can be applied not just to Christians, but to every practitioner of any belief system. We must actively fight against injustice, prejudice and inequity.

Let deeds not words be our adorning, Francis said.

Opinion columnistAdib Shafipour is a biochemistry sophomoreand can be reached [emailprotected]

Tags: atheism, Catholicism, Pope Francis

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Fresh from his Brexit victory over Brussels, Conservative MEP and thinker Daniel Hannan now has Communism in his sights organising an ACRE conference next month in Tirana, Albaniaon the legacy of state socialism for Europe.

EURACTIV.coms Matt Tempest met him for a discussion ranging across the 1968s Prague Spring, first loves, enforced secularism, Che Guevara and the Dunblane handgun ban.

Mr Hannan, youre organising a conference on the legacy of communism and its to coincide with the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution. But it seems to me that anybody who can remember a communist government in Europe must be at least 40 years old and no communist party is in government or even poised to take power anywhere across Europe. So it has to be asked: why now?

Its exactly the centenary year. So 100 years since the beginning of what has to be reckoned, mathematically, the most murderous ideology ever devised by human intelligence. But I think this is an argument that we have to have in every generation. Youre right, there is not a communist regime still standing in Europe and most communist parties have transformed themselves into something else. But the argument has to be held again in every generation.

I read a poll last month that a third of American millennials think that more people were murdered by George W. Bush than by Stalin. When you see those idiotic Che Guevara t-shirts when people unconsciously adopt Marxist language about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, very few people realise that theyre indirectly quoting him. You realise that this is something that goes very deep and you need to show that this is not some respectable alternative among many. The ethic of coercion which was intrinsic to communist rule, leading, sooner or later, to the secret police and the gulags. You can have it in a mild version or you can have it in a brutal version, but in the end, it always ends in autocracy.

I lived in Berlin for six years and had several East German friends. None of them was nostalgic at all for the Stasi, or the Berlin wall, or for the fact that they couldnt leave the country. But there was a certain sense, youve heard of the term Ostalgie they were nostalgic for that sense of free education, full employment, effectively rent-free accommodation. Obviously, none of it was very nice but it removed that worry you have in a capitalist rat race society of How do I pay the bills every month? Is there anything in you, even from the right end of the spectrum, that can see those lures or attractions of communism?

I think something else is going on there. I think people are nostalgic for having been 17-years-old. Which is a very natural and human thing. Were all the centre of our own universes. When we think back to the bright primary colours of our teenage years; the intensity of your first adolescent crush on someone, then the Stasi and the shortages and the drabness fade into the background. Thats not really what youre thinking about. But youre right, it has created this bizarre nostalgia in every communist country from people who forget what it was really like. Theyll say things like we had time to talk.

Well, living one week like that again, without even the most basic necessities being available would be a pretty strong cure if you actually had to go back and do it. But again, this exactly illustrates why we need to keep explaining to people where it leads. This wasnt a system that just meant a bit more state control and a bit less individual liberty. It was a complete hollowing out of civil society; the destruction of everything between the individual and the state. And then, ultimately, the NKVD, the knock in the night, and the torture chambers.

Obviously, all communist governments and regimes were officially atheist and secular. Isnt there something now, when were living in a period of, supposedly, a clash of civilisations Islam versus the West or Islam versus Christianity wasnt there something progressive in this idea of secular states?

I think theres a very respectable argument for secularism on the American model, where the state is effectively holding the ring and allowing each religion to proselytise. Or even secularism on the French model, where you say all of this is a private business. But enforcing atheism, which is effectively what ends up happening because everything is enforced, is every bit as tyrannical as enforcing Taliban-style sharia law, or enforcing fundamentalist Christianity, or any other belief system. The reason that this still matters is its very difficult, even a generation on, to rebuild where civil society has been systematically hollowed out and destroyed.

In 1948, when the Communists took power in Hungary, Jnos Kdr, who went on to become the Hungarian leader, was given the job of destroying independent associations. He systematically went through and closed down every church, every charity, every chess club, every village band, every boy scouts troupe; everything that fills the space normally between the individual and the government. 5,000 organisations, he boasted, that hed liquidated. Thats what we mean by a totalitarian society. And it bizarrely leaves people both atomised and controlled because people are denied the wherewithal to relate one to the other in a voluntary way as individuals. Everything is channelled through the party and the state.

I think of you as the libertarian, free market, property rights end of the right-wing spectrum, but not really the evangelical Christian, who are more obsessed with issues around handguns, banning abortion. Am I right in thinking that those arent your pet issues?

Handguns are not a big issue in the UK. Actually, I do regret the handgun ban. I think it was disproportionate and I dont think it was anything to do with what had just happened the abomination that wed seen. Nobody serious tried to argue that it would have made a difference. But, you know, we are where we are. Its not a campaign of mine to try and reverse the ban. But I do believe in freedom. I believe, very much, in people perusing their own happiness by making their own decisions and finding virtue by not having it coerced. And the defining ethic of communism was not equality, it was coercion.

Sort of a Brexit question, the only Brexit question, and its not a totally facetious analogy; but having defeated the EU with Brexit, and looking at communist regimes, can you see something of that in the EU? Not with the violence or the oppression or the authoritarianism, but as a supranational institution; pan-states and sucking sovereignty inwards.

Not in my worst nightmares have I ever thought that the European Union is going to take away our passports, throw us into gulags or torture us. I suppose that the parallel, and its a very minor and limited one, but its an interesting one in so far as it goes, would be this. By the end of the communist era, you really struggled to find anyone who believed in it. I remember travelling in what we still called Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and I remember thinking this cant carry on because nobody believes in it. None of the people running these countries still believed, if ever they did believe, in the principles of Marxism or Leninism.

But on the other hand, how was it going to end? Because so many people had a vested interest in the status quo. So many people had learned to rise through that power structure. And in that limited sense, I think you can draw a parallel, in that there are very few true believers left in Brussels. But there are an awful lot of people who have learned how to make a good living out of it. And I dont just mean Eurocrats. I mean the armies of consultants and contractors, the big landowners getting money from the CAP, the lobbyists, the professional associations; all sorts of parastatal actors who have learned how to make a handy living out of the EU, one way or another. And just like the nomenklatura in the 1980s, they will fight very hard to maintain their position, not on dogmatical grounds, but out of sheer self-interest.

Certainly, we saw that in the UK referendum a lot of the opposition came from organisations that were directly or indirectly funded by the EU. This wasnt, in other words, about sovereignty or federalism or democracy; it was about mortgages and school fees. And that is a very difficult thing to end. But Ill end on a cheerful note. I think the communist system had been basically delegitimised after the Prague Spring. Up until 1968, you could find idealistic Marxists in central and eastern Europe, who believed that they would eventually get to the stage where they could reintroduce democracy. That once the system had been shown to work, shown to be more economically productive than capitalism, then they could have free elections again. After 1968, nobody really believed that and there were just people clinging on to their position.

I think the French and Dutch referendums in 2004 were a similar moment in Brussels. I think after that, people stopped believing that European federalism would win mass support. But they were determined to cling on to their positions. What was it in the end that brought the communist system down? Again, I can remember in the 80s, very few people saw the end coming. People would say maybe over twenty or thirty years there will be a gradual move to a more reformed kind of Marxism. And a few isolated dreamers would say, no, maybe there will be an exogenous shock; a kind of Chernobyl type massive event that will bring it all down. What was the event that brought down the Marxist system in the end? It was the smallest thing. It was the decision of the Hungarian interior ministry to stop requiring exit visas from East Germans who wanted to travel to Austria. Within two weeks, the whole rotten system had unravelled. And that, I think, does give me hope. Permanence is the illusion of every age.

So why Tirana, Albania?

Tirana is, if you like, the most vivid physical place where you can see the legacy of a communist regime. It was the ultimate autocratic system and the ultimate paranoid system. Enver Hoxha spent an immense amount of money fortifying the country. It was rather like North Korea is today. And a hungry and immiserated population, to use a Marxist word, was paying the cost of what had become a leadership cult, because thats where it ends.

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Dan Hannan on Communism, Ostalgie, first loves and enforced atheism - EurActiv