'Opposition to religion occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally,' wrote Martin Amis recently.
(...)
An atmosphere of moral panic surrounds religion. Viewed not so long ago as a relic of superstition whose role in society was steadily declining, it is now demonised as the cause of many of the world's worst evils. As a result, there has been a sudden explosion in the literature of proselytising atheism.
(...)These writers come from a generation schooled to think of religion as a throwback to an earlier stage of human development, which is bound to dwindle away as knowledge continues to increase. In the 19th century, when the scientific and industrial revolutions were changing society very quickly, this may not have been an unreasonable assumption. Dawkins, Hitchens and the rest may still believe that, over the long run, the advance of science will drive religion to the margins of human life, but this is now an article of faith rather than a theory based on evidence.
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Secularisation is in retreat, and the result is the appearance of an evangelical type of atheism not seen since Victorian times.
As in the past, this is a type of atheism that mirrors the faith it rejects.
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A curious feature of this kind of atheism is that some of its most fervent missionaries are philosophers.
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Dawkins's "memetic theory of religion" is a classic example of the nonsense that is spawned when Darwinian thinking is applied outside its proper sphere
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Nowadays most atheists are avowed liberals. What they want - so they will tell you - is not an atheist regime, but a secular state in which religion has no role. They clearly believe that, in a state of this kind, religion will tend to decline. But America's secular constitution has not ensured a secular politics. Christian fundamentalism is more powerful in the US than in any other country, while it has very little influence in Britain, which has an established church.
El articulo completo en The guardian, y más información sobre los fundamentalistas ateos en Edge.org . Yo habia escrito algo al respecto en un post anterior.
