[Dialogue] Interesting Article

[Wilson Priscilla]

A friend connected me with this article. Bears thinking about.
Priscilla Wilson

Current Events
Militant Atheism and God
Paul Johnson 10.08.07, 12:00 AM ET




Intellectual fashions come and go. The current one is militant  
atheism. Waves of atheism have swept the West before. One was in the  
mid-18th century, when the devastating Lisbon earthquake, killing  
some 60,000 people, shook the belief of many in the benevolence of  
God. Another was in the mid-19th century, when advances in geology  
destroyed the traditional chronology of the Old Testament, proving  
that Earth was much older than the 6,000-odd years the Bible allowed.  
A third spasm followed the First World War, when the combination of  
Freud's writings and Einstein's theories of relativity upset  
established views of the human psyche and the universe. We now seem  
to be in the midst of a fourth. It is prompted partly by the academic  
deification of Darwin and his particular theory of evolution, and  
partly by the revulsion against Islamic fundamentalism and its  
violent expression, which for some has discredited all forms of  
belief in God.

Whatever the explanation, books advocating an atheistic view of the  
universe and arguing that religion is based on delusion are being  
written, published and widely bought. Their arguments are echoed and  
amplified on television. And, for the time being at least, atheism  
seems to have a strong grip on the centers of higher education.

My old university, Oxford, which was founded by monks, friars and  
theologians nine centuries ago, was until recently regarded as a  
bastion of old-fashioned Christianity and, as such, was called "the  
house of lost causes." Today a publicly expressed belief in  
Christianity is likely to lower your chance of landing a job at Oxford.

Religion has become a handicap in university life, especially in  
certain subjects. In philosophy, for example, academics who hope for  
senior chairs keep mum about any faith they hold. God and promotion  
do not mix. And in all the sciences, young men and women with  
religious backgrounds are advised to jettison their Christian, Jewish  
or other religious baggage if they want to pursue careers in physics,  
chemistry or biology. The universal assumption seems to be that a  
belief in God fatally debars a scholar from acquiring scientific  
knowledge. In Britain the number of students concentrating in the  
sciences is on the decline, and the systematic discouragement of  
Christians and Jews in the science faculties will clearly increase  
that trend.

How Important Is This Phenomenon?

Is it a phase? Or is it the harbinger of a fundamental change in the  
way people see themselves and the world? Ought we to be alarmed--and  
ought we take action? And if so, what kind of action?

One's answers to these difficult questions are bound to be  
subjective. My parents were profoundly religious Catholics, who  
brought me up to share their beliefs. I was educated first by nuns,  
then by the Jesuits. I have always attended church regularly and said  
my prayers daily. I'm not sure the human race would survive a  
prolonged bout of atheism. I recall the words of the German  
theologian Karl Rahner: "If ever God is banished from the world so  
that even His image is eradicated from the human mind, we will cease  
to be human and become merely very clever animals--and our ultimate  
fate will be too horrible to contemplate."

Bear Witness

We are amazing creatures, capable of astonishingly imaginative  
concepts and intellectual work of ever increasing complexity. And  
what we have achieved in the last century--stunning though it is--is  
nothing compared with what we can and will surely do, as the rate of  
material progress accelerates. Yet it is hard to see that the human  
race has made, or is making, any moral progress at all. As a  
historian who has studied and written about all periods, from the  
first millennium B.C. to the present, I am perhaps more aware of this  
than most people.

I see no diminution in the cruelty and violence we inflict on one  
another, at both a personal and a state level. More people were  
killed by totalitarian states (all atheistic) in the 20th century  
than in all previous periods of history. The first few years of the  
21st century have witnessed no improvement. States that practice mass  
murder continue to exist but are now accompanied by terrorist  
movements doing all within their power to acquire nuclear weapons so  
they can exterminate entire populations--millions, even tens and  
hundreds of millions.

It's hard for most of us to face such a fearful world without some  
kind of faith to sustain us, without a traditional formula through  
which to express our longings for peace and safety. I believe that  
religion is a central part of our civilization. But even more than  
that, I believe religious faith to be an indispensable element to our  
peace of mind and such happiness as we are capable of enjoying on  
this Earth.

I could not find content in a landscape whose horizon held no  
churches or in a civilization whose literature was purged of any  
reference to a divine being; whose art had blotted out the  
nativities, crucifixions, saints and angels; and whose music  
contained no intimations of immortality. And I believe the vast  
majority of people share such a view.

As for doing something about the militant atheism that threatens our  
happiness and well-being, it is in the interests of all people that  
those of us who enjoy religious faith should examine carefully what  
it has done, is doing and will do to sustain and comfort us in this  
harsh and difficult world. We should add up all its benefits--and  
then proclaim the results to the world. There will be plenty who will  
listen.

Paul Johnson, eminent British historian and author; Lee Kuan Yew,  
minister mentor of Singapore; Ernesto Zedillo, director, Yale Center  
for the Study of Globalization, former president of Mexico; and David  
Malpass, chief economist for Bear Stearns Co., Inc., rotate in  
writing this column. To see past Current Events columns, visit our  
Web site at www.forbes.com/currentevents.


Priscilla Wilson
TeamTech Press
Mission Hills, KS 66208
pwilson at teamtechinc.com



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