Is religion under fire today, or just Christianity? Or am I just cooking it up?

Question

I have my own thoughts about this, but I'm interested in hearing what you have to say.

Please give nice full explanations for your answer; a simple "Yes" ain't gonna do.

I'm not a holy roller (which is the only image die-hard atheists have of religious people), but consider reading this blog (Jan. 12) and others on science:

http://www.oregonlive.com/weblogs/religionblog/index.ssf?/mtlogs/olive_religion/archives/2007_01.html

Knee-jerk reactions of any stripe tend to be questionable.

Answer 1

Yes, I'd say religion in general is under fire. And that the more intellectual crowds out there are taking way more credit for their successes than what's merited.

Just ask yourself: Did anyone even know who Dawkins *was* before 9-11?

I know, it isn't politically correct to say, some will likely take offense on this, but....what we are seeing here is people on a mass, popular scale being open to a message they maybe weren't open to before, mainly because of bad circumstances and good timing.

Yes, people are buying the books and questioning their faith.

But would they do this if they *did not* hear about Islamic acts of violence and Evangelical Christian acts of lunacy in the media *every day*? If people didn't get shot at, firebombed, lynched and worse over issues of "faith", would ordinary, non-academic people even be open to the idea of walking away from religion entirely?

Really, I think it's a legitimate question to ask in corollary along with this one: To what degree is religion under fire because ordinary people are now seeing it as a threat to civilization? Or at the very least as a threat to social order, to their livelihoods, or in many cases to the lives and limbs of their families?

It's legitimate to ask because quite frankly, an argument isn't valid if it is based upon an appeal to *force*, whether that appeal to force (or coercion) is deliberate and intentional, or accidental and courtesy of good timing on the part of the authors. And I really could see this one backfiring massively in people's faces....if this is all the phenomenon is, is an appeal to fear, force and coercion. Why? Because most ordinary people are aware that they do have the capacity for "religious experience" whether they believe it's a genuine thing or altered brain chemistry. And most ordinary people *don't* make the distinction between "religious or spiritual experience" and "organized faith/religion".

In short, yes, we have an opportunity to grow up and become on average a much smarter species on this one, but....it has to be handled with a good deal more sensitivity and finesse than say, Dawkins would handle it. It's one thing to say in print, in abstract, that someone's "delusional".

It's another thing to get in someone's face and yell at them face to face, "You're f*cking crazy! Get Help NOW!" and expect that sort of attitude to generate *anything* resembling a positive result. The in-print behavior sells books....the face-to-face behavior is harrassment and verbal abuse, at the very least, and leads to jail time, not for the religious, but for the attacker.

So yeah, we have an opportunity, but in my humble opinion it is as much due to bad luck (timing things the way they are) as it is to good reasoning. This needs to be handled with skill and care. You can't just beat people down (verbally or otherwise) into a horrified silence forever and not expect consequences. And that holds true on both/all "sides" of this.

I hope this helps....thanks for your time! ^_^

Answer 2

Yes, religion is still a major part of people's lives, but the popularity of authors such as Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great. How Religion Poisons Everything", Richard Dawkins', "The God Delusion", and Sam Harris' "The End of Faith" speaks to the idea that people are beginning to question their faith. All three authors are best sellers, and have opened people's eyes to the opportunity cost - if you will - of belief in the make believe.

And believers are feeling this pinch. "I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but it's almost like they all had a meeting and said, "Let's counterattack.'" (Richard Mouw - President Fuller Theological Seminary) [full article link is below]

"If we must play the theological game, let us never forget that it is a game. Religion, it seems to me, can survive only as a consciously accepted system of make believe."
— Aldous Huxley, Time Must Have a Stop

As many of the great minds below can attest, religious thought can be considered part of the infancy of human development.

The loss of religious faith among the most civilized portion of the race is a step from childishness toward maturity.
— Charles Eliot Norton

Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.
— Hippocrates; (ca. 460-377 B.C.E.)

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
— Bertrand Russell

Illusions die hard and it is painful to yield to the insight that a grown-up can be no man's disciple.
— Sheldon B. Kopp

Answer 3

Yes, it is under fire - finally and it's a merited war.

Wise up, you guys. Under the current Pope it seems that all of the other religions are under fire too. Maybe it's a way to try to get even. Read a recent article that linked the growth of atheism to low birth rates, and it rings kind of true. While intelligent people can believe in organized religion, I personallly do not know many who drink the kool-aid.

Answer 4

Christianity hasn't seen enough fire to know the meaning of the word.

Today, Sun God's been under fire a lot since around midnight, and I haven't even prayed Him up yet.

Answer 5

Today, tomorrow, and onward, 'till it's destroyed.

And not just christianity; religion in general.

Rational people of the world are starting to see that there are more of us than we thought. We wish to bring about a second enlightenment, one without the darkness of superstition.