No way. Atheism is more prevalent now than any other time in world history, and I believe that trend will continue.

Quote:he's easily flustered and frustrated when he argues with a believer who is being insistently stupid about something,

He's a scientist. He is entitled to get angry with some asswipe who wants to know where the crocoduck fossils are!

Yeah I get flustered at people being stupid all the time. It's called being human. We tend to get pissed off at people of lesser intelligence trying to pretend like they're your equals or superiors in intellect.

Yeah, and I'm not saying it's a character flaw, either. His anger at religions makes total sense to me. It's just that he is probably not the best candidate to represent the confrontational vanguard of atheism because loosing your cool never looks good, even when it's entirely understandable.

I take a very sceptical view of anything written in the news media.

(April 13, 2013 at 8:51 pm)Creed of Heresy Wrote: Yeah I get flustered at people being stupid all the time. It's called being human. We tend to get pissed off at people of lesser intelligence trying to pretend like they're your equals or superiors in intellect.

I don't care if you're stupid. But if you can't right click, or follow orders: you better fucking bet I'm pissed.

I'm not sure terribadness is related necessarily with stupidity... but if it is, then that's unfortunate: you can't cure stupid.

It's not going; it's changing face.

(April 13, 2013 at 1:54 pm)ChadWooters Wrote: You didn't miss much. They tended to hyperbole against a cardboard cut-out version of God. They also tried to paint all religious faiths with the same brush. The article calls for more substantive objections to religion and less overt hostility against believers.

More substantive objections to religion???

Apart from the fact that it is a scurrilous lie used to control the ignorant masses and milk them of their money?

Atheism is not dying out, if anything worldwide it is getting bigger. But long term every label fluxes and the numbers can go up or down over time.

(April 13, 2013 at 12:00 pm)taylor93112 Wrote: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/8885...w-atheism/

Not sure if this has been posted yet.

I do not believe atheism will "die out". This is going to be an ongoing thing with people until, as Dawkins says, people get over their fear of death.

What are your thoughts?

The idea it will die out is like suggesting the old 'hippie' or whatever movement would die off with the death of Andy Wharhol -- youngsters see Men in Black III. The few who did and still are making a public case in this matter were simply those who got media attention for other reasons. They may have gotten people interested in atheism but they were mostly pop culture examples of it.

Dawkins is horribly disappointing. Back when his website permitted open discussion the moderators limited it to all religions but Judaism. Even posting information about Israel from Israeli sources was prohibited and in fact was the cause of the end of open discussion. Last year Dawkins made an ass of himself declaring himself to be an ethnic Christian without giving the new definition of ethnic he was using.

Hitchens was an alcoholic and a public drunk, drinking even during TV appearances. If the issue is to discredit atheism he was paid by the Pope just like Dawkins is only supposed to discredit Islam and Christianity.

Regarding atheism consider England where identification with any religion is down to something like 20%. It is not promoting atheism but a growing disinterest in religion.

Polls asking "are you an atheist" in any form get a much lower response than the absence of identification with any religion. In this light there is a huge difference between a belief in a god and a religion. So out and out atheist is very different from thinking any religion can speak for whatever kind of god they think might exist.

I find it difficult to believe those "spokesrats" seriously contributed to an increase in atheism to any great extent. The existing religions are much more persuasive to both discrediting themselves as spokesrats for the gods and the leap from there to atheism.

The religions have not been able to keep up with modern times. Things like stem cell research and abortion do more to discredit religion for the dogmatism that is increasingly falling behind reality. Not just falling behind but the issues become increasingly more complicated as time goes on and people know these complications. Not that they can recite all the complications but just one or two in very simple forms are more than enough to question the dogmatic prohibitions.

Religions are being overtaken by events, OBE, a common term in bureaucracies and such. But there it means the answer is no longer needed or there is no longer a need for an answer.

Abortion? Let me look up what was said when sperm was believed to be a fluid carrying an homunculus, fully formed human being in miniature. That was the seed. The woman was the soil. Nature and nurture. Good seed, good soil, great children.

Abort a fully formed living human being in miniature? Hell no!

Religion cannot keep up with the times without admitting it was wrong in the past. Not just wrong but idiotic in the past. Not just idiotic but speaking for god in the past leading to the idiotic god or the lies of the priests of that god.

Were it not for juvenile indoctrination people today would not get interested in religion in the first place. At least I can say my son did not. His disinterest is so profound he does not even have an interest as a cultural phenomenon.