*Yet, you don't seem to grasp that buildings enclosing [what is deemed] "sacred space" were/are sanctuaries from the world.*

Poirot, each to their own. I can sit down and look at some of the
beauty in the natural world, far more amazing then any church
which pushes your spiritual buttons.

Buildings are built for quite different reasons. Those with
limited resources, who build functional buildings to serve a
purpose at a price, do so for quite different reasons than
those with near unlimited resources.

Versailles, the pyramids, Burj Dubai, huge mosques and cathedrals,
all represent huge power and wealth. They have little to do with
Jesus or Mohammed, both who led relatively simple lives

Yabby,

"They have little to do with Jesus or Mohammed, both who led relatively simple lives"

I agree with you on that one.

Yet the connecting strand is that sacred architecture took the geometry of nature and fashioned it to represent appropriate vessels to contain and nurture the message and hope that the great religious sages espoused. It is all about meaning and message. The grandeur of the monuments is man's rendering of the sublimity of the meaning and message.

As you know, I'm not a "believer", but, like you, I try to understand from whence these things spring.

Poirot on Squeers and Pericles : "New Atheism is forming itself into a movement, and if that is the case, does it stand for any objective other than the obliteration of religion as a potent force in society?"

New Atheism, if it is a movement (to early to tell, IMO), is a defensive one with its purpose being to blunt religious influence. Nothing will "obliterate" religious force or try to stop religion from wielding its influence. As I said previously, the objective is to counter, criticize and expose religion, by the highest possible exposure to rational argument. How can that ever result in obliteration? Pericles and Squeers are making certain demands upon New Atheism based on something which it is not.

The best thing organized religion can do to counter is avoid rational scientific debate, as it has done successfully for centuries, so removing the oxygen from the fire.

Pericles: "The New Atheist (the caps are significant) movement is well on the way to establishing itself as an alternate religion. Which in my view is the single biggest mistake that it could possibly dream up."

So what would be its rituals, sacraments and places of non-worship? All it's got is a convention, bringing this thread back to its beginning, which happens with all sorts of interest groups. Aren't we over-imagining somewhat?

A "Jamboree" of atheists?!

http://www.atheistconvention.org.au/2012/04/16/the-atheist-jamboree-national-times/#more-1451

Yabby,
I certainly agree the world can be explained, or at least rationalised, in naturalistic terms, but for me the court's still out.

Poirot's right, Pericles, I agree entirely with your comment (and I usually agree with you). Please note I always use the capitals to indicate the target of my criticism, an "entity" rather than atheists. It's not that I think atheists should organise, it's that if they're going to organise then they have to stand for something besides atheism--a mere negation--and in fact they do. They're ostensibly micro reformers, but they, or I should say "it", patently stand for liberal rationalism cum libertarianism. And there's no doubt the high priests are drawing up lines between Islam and the West. I had a look at Ayaan Hirsi Ali online and she began by lauding "Western Liberalism" compared to Islamic States. Whatever the faults of such states I don't think the New Atheists should be fomenting Islamiphobia, but more importantly I resent the implicit claim that Western (neo)liberalism is the best of all possible worlds!
Marxists are the archetypal atheists, the whole doctrine is based on materialsim, thus I said early I wouldn't mind if it was a communist plot, but imo this is a right-wing movement that could become more than a fad if it taps into the nationalist ferver that's building up all over the West in the wake of the GFC.
If all this isn't so, it can be put to rest with a little transparency, or better still a manifesto.

Luciferase fails to understand my point above that rationalism remains irrational as a mode of pontification. Calling yourself a rationalist doesn't make you one. I'm sure we all think we're rational!

Sorry George, will get back to you but I'm glad the conversation has taken this turn.

Now I'm completely confused as to who is agreeing with whom.

>>Poirot's right, Pericles, I agree entirely with your comment<<

So maybe I should start again.

There should, in my humble opinion as an ordinary, everyday atheist, be no such movement as "New Atheism". It should not have a leader, it should not hold conferences, and it should not use the term "atheist" in its headlines

Because these people do not represent me. They do not speak for me, and I resent the fact that I am now lumped in with a bunch of self-promoting blatherers who want to eliminate religion from society.

I suspect that in the UK, back in the days when Tony Blair was waffling on about "New Labour", there were a bunch of Labour voters who said words to the effect of "whatever that wally thinks he is doing, it has nothing whatsoever to do with what I have voted for in the past".

History now tells us that New Labour was nothing more than a noisy, aggrandising exercise in anti-Tory propaganda. Successful in achieving the downfall of their opponents, but also in destroying whatever-it-was that identified the previous Labour Party.

"New Atheism" will undoubtedly morph into something else, less drama-queen and more sober, just as New Labour has done. Sadly, by that time, it will have created a whole new raft of unnecessary divisions in society, as if we didn't have enough of those already.

Meanwhile, the ill-will caused by their antics will have rubbed off on the rest of us atheists, and we'll be lumped in with them and their knee-jerk intolerance to religion whether we like it or not.