With the majority of atheists I know seeking equality rather than an end to religion, I think the bulk of the authors concerns are unfounded. People calling for an end to belief is a distinct concept to people calling that religion not interfere in their life.
Don't get me wrong, the arguments to counter religious apologetics likely to be discussed at the convention are pretty good, but they are not being taken door to door in an attempt to make converts. Atheist missionaries are not being trained and sent to theistic hotspots around the world.
I have read and heard from people who would like to see religion banned, but I would stand against any campaign to institute legislation in that vein as readily as I seek to bring an end to other forms of discrimination in our community.

You are not being told to give up your beliefs. Your right to believe is respected, even if the beliefs themselves are not.

The beauty of philosophers – just like the beauty of God – is that in our society we can shop around until we find the one we like.

Nietzsche is rather niche to my way of thinking and I much prefer William James.

But I just don't believe you've made your case. A quick tinker with some of your sentences yields:

In the absence or presence of God *all we have* is each other. And we see daily how poorly God does at keeping the peace and bringing justice to all who seek it.

What ails us as human beings is being human.

I have no trouble with religious people keeping their imaginary friend to themselves.

When they use their book of fiction as an excuse to force their narrow bigoted minds onto other people is when the line should be drawn.

No one has the right to tell two consenting adults what they can or cannot do behind closed doors, or as long as it is not illegal out of doors.

Forcing their imaginary friend on children is also not a good idea. Wait until they are old enough to vote and can define their own imaginary friend.

Creationism is a laughing stock along with alchemy and Dragons and all three should not be taught in schools religious or not. Do not pray in schools and do not think in churches.

I hope we can live together in peace. Religion has been both a source of violence and peace. My reading of history is that religion has been more of a source for violence than for peace. Generally armies go to war with the blessings of the religious institutions of their country whatever their country is.

"Gott mit uns" was on the belt buckles of Hitler's and other German armies. "Allah Akbar" (God is great) is supposedly a common cry of Muslim suicide bombers.

The words of Pope Urban II calling for the Crusades in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_II

"All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins. ... O what a disgrace if such a despised and base race, which worships demons, should conquer a people which has the faith of omnipotent God and is made glorious with the name of Christ!"

Martin Luther’s sermons advocating violence against the Jews were printed in the Nazi newspapers as an inspiration.

The Book of Joshua in the Bible glorifies God mandated genocide against the Canaanites.

Servetus was one of many who died at the stake for denying the Trinity or denying other beliefs in the vast array of Christian mumbojumbo.

Missionaries followed the gunboats as the British built their empire.

Buddhist clergy supported the Sinhalese violence against the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

I am going to the atheist convention in Melbourne. I have never heard any atheist call for violence against believers in any religion. Atheism does not seem to have the propensity for violence that exists in almost all religions. I hope for a world where there is no such thing as religion or atheism. Atheism is merely a reaction to the oppression of religion. People don’t concern themselves denying the existence of Zeus, Thor or Apollo because we realise that they don’t exist. They were human inventions. Atheists realise that all supernatural entities are merely human inventions.

Atheism by itself will not bring peace, but it is a start to eliminating a source of war.

My first thought, from looking at the article's subtitle, was "we already did that"

"If God did not exist it might be necessary to invent him, or her."

God is, whichever way you look at it, a human invention. Invented, most probably, for some of the purposes stated. But also, I suspect, in order to fill that gap created by the question "why are we here?". It is still difficult for some people to answer that question with the obvious... "no reason. Does that bother you?"

The key give-away came late in the piece:

"What ails us as human beings is not "God" as such, but the absence of a common story which both calls us to live together in peace and takes seriously that, in the end, we cannot do just that"

The common story can only mean, "if we all had imagined the same God, there would not be a problem".

Which indeed, might well be true. We will never know for sure, of course. But there would certainly be a few more people in Belfast who still have their kneecaps, if the inhabitants had all shared a common belief, not only in the same deity, but one with all the same rules and regulations.

Reality cannot be subverted by wishful thinking.

"The absence of God will not bring with it the presence of human harmony"

A nice theory. But until and unless we actually get around to imagining the same god, in the same way, "human harmony" will be as far away as ever.

Which brings us full circle, to the point where it is possible to suggest that if and when we get to the stage where we don't have to imagine a god at all, "human harmony" will be a lot closer.

Sadly, each is as unlikely as the other, given that out-of-control variable, "human nature".

If you do a google on Craig you will find this statement: the work of the god of Israel in the world ....and the significance of that story for human existence today.

The ony thing that that story does is create a mystified flock of both infantile and childish believers who pretend that their mommy-daddy good luck god is looking after them. It also effectively prevents people who subscribe to it from growing up.

What has the tribalistic cultic "god" of a small tribe in Israel/Palestine got to do with anything in 2012? Especially when two thirds of the worlds human population are not Christians. And when there are now over 30,000 differet and differing Christian denominations, sects and sub-sects all competing for market share in the Barnum and Bailey marketplace of religious consumerism.
PT Barnum was of course wrong - there are thousands of suckers born every minute.

"But the madman sees what the jovial sceptics do not: what it would actually mean for there to be no God, for there to be only human beings who, having killed God, must now become like gods themselves."

Well, we killed off the mammoths, and we didn't actually become mammoths.

We killed off the Nazis, and we didn't actually become Nazis.

We 'killed off' the Comintern, metaphorically speaking, and we didn't actually become the Comintern.

So why does it follow that having 'killed' God, we must, or should, or would even want to, become gods ourselves? Only someone who was silly enough to think that gods were necessary would believe that.

Jon J,

Perhaps the idea of gods/God 'is' necessary.

Humans have a singular brain - a tool that in many respects we barely know how to use. We don't understand it well at all. Perhaps recourse to a deity is a necessary tactical response, a device that allows us to fill in the blanks and find "meaning" in the existence of everything, including ourselves.

The requirement to "become gods ourselves" is a grandiose way of saying that we need to realize that we are the masters of our own destinies, Our morals and ethics are for us to determine. That no one else can make things magically happen for us, and that we are fully responsible for our actions.

"The absence of God will not bring with it the presence of human harmony because we will still have to deal with our fear of each other, or our frailty in the face of nature, or our deluded sense of self-importance. It is in relation to these things, after all, that the gods are of most use to us."

Well, this statement might have been true in the past, but not these days, some of the world's least religious nations (in Scandinavia) have the world's most harmonious societies.

'New Scientist' 17/3/12 p44

The reason atheists prefer "self-congratulatory mocking" activities like atheist conventions is because their identity is so wrapped up in reason and science that, ironically, it creates an incomplete and misleading view of human nature. Human behaviour (in the absence of a god) can only be motivated by our emotions, desires or feelings. Alas, try talking to an atheist about feelings and they'll scurry off to the nearest nerd convention. Therein lies the reason why atheists, in general, fail to graduate to humanism - because they are so invested in "reason and science" that they cannot see, as philosopher David Hume famously said: "reason is ... the slave of the passions".

In truth, reason and emotion are generally complementary. Reason has informative power, but only emotion has motive power. They serve different functions. So there is no need for atheists to worry that emotion will replace reason. The future of atheism/humanism is the philosophy of desire. Bertrand Russell: "All human activity is prompted by desire... If you wish to know what men will do, you must know ... the whole system of their desires with their relative strengths."

So this is the future of humanism: to balance our desires and maximise our happiness/fulfilment without killing each other and the planet. This will take an entirely different breed of atheist leader than the Richard Dawkins types. Dawkins has done a brilliant job of ridiculing religion. But we need to build on that with a new breed of atheist/humanist leader. Philosopher Alain de Botton is one such leader - see his recent TED Talk - Atheism 2.0:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Oe6HUgrRlQ

Strike me pink! Whatever happened to agnosticism?

@ Johnno

Agnosticism is alive and...erm

Agnosticism is a knowledge position. This discussion is about belief or the lack thereof, which is a different matter. A person can believe with absolute certainty (gnostic theism) or believe with less than absolute certainty (agnostic theism).
I consider myself an agnostic atheist because I don't accept claims based on faith, but I can't be certain they aren't correct.
Atheist is easier to say and accurately describes my position regarding deities, so I tend to leave the agnostic bit out of the discussion because it can excite believers into thinking I am on the fence and that any slight breeze of evidence might hold sway in the 50/50 balancing act. This is not the case. It will take some pretty compelling evidence to get me to accept the faith claims of any religion, but I offer a level playing field to all comers. Show me compelling evidence for a claim and I will believe that claim.

Perhaps some day the religious meddling in my community will be insignificant, in which case the label atheist will no longer have utility for me and I will stop using it. Until that day, or until someone shows up with compelling evidence that their religion is on the money, atheist is apt.

If the god deniers were to be half true you will find the vast majority of them Christophobic.They are intolerant of truth and righteouesness and want their own godless lives validated. Any fool knows that 'gay' marriage has nothing to do with equality. It is about destroying the natural family. Passing references will be made to Buddhism, new age, Islam and hinduism but their true hate is the One they deny. You can be sure the name of Christ will be mocked and His followers. No mention will be made of their forefathers such as Mao and Stalin. They will however insist that their perverted view of church history be shoved down the throats of others along with pseudo science. Many atheiest are far more bigotted than those they hate (usually truth tellers). They are happy to tolerate religion on their terms and remain totally Christophobic. They all hide behind pseudo science as their absolute even though it changes regularly and they claim not to believe in absolutes. How their Creator must laugh and cry at such foolishness.

runner,

A veritable gallimaufry of vices in your post - intolerance, denial, hatred, mockery, perversion, destruction....

In my experience, Jesus Christ is rarely mocked - unlike some of his followers who seek to puff themselves up with false pride, hypocrisy and recourse to the constant and derogatory judgment of their fellow man.

@ Runner
I am not scared of your alleged deity, so the phobic label is not warranted.
Also, I can tolerate you like anything. You can believe what you like and it won't faze me in the slightest. You can repress yourself and anyone who volunteers to join in to any extent you see fit and I will not bat an eyelid, so little do I care what you believe or how it affects your life.
What I won't tolerate is you inflicting your allegedly divinely inspired ideas on people who do not ask to be part of your club. In short, I will not tolerate you being intolerant.
Get your own ideas sorted before telling other people they aren't tolerant or that they are filled with fear. You wouldn't want to be a thundering hypocrite, now, would you?

Firstly, I'd just like to thank Poirot for 'gallimaufry'.

Secondly, Johnno, I think you will never really notice the agnostics as they really don't care.

Thirdly, runner, oh, just keep being you. You give me so much pleasure.

I would say I was atheist, but I'm not sure I care enough about the subject to be so strident. I reacted the same as Pericles to the byline.

As I have said before, I am much more interested in whether I really exist. In fact it bemuses me that so many have moved on to some higher power, when I am stuck with this more fundamental question.

I'm nothing if not a narcissist.

Matt,

'Show me compelling evidence'

Isn't that to miss the point of faith completely:-) Arf!

BTW: I do like diving, and with Diver's Dan and Matt, I feel I am missing some sort of masonic handshake type thing. Scuba that is. Muff too of course.

Everyone knows it's where Doctor Who was born.

Poirot used it out of context.

The concept of god is really just us replacing mum or dad with an all powerful protector.If you are a mature and deep thinking person,you don't need the concept of an imaginary being.Just the increase in awareness with daily struggles is enough.

To be pre-occupied with the concept of god,is like making sex more important than the relationship is a marriage.Just live and do the best you can.

There may be a use for religion, but I would suggest that anybody so adhering as to not respect the choice of others to not is automatically unable to vote through being unable to recognise the interests of others.

I encourage runner because I think more people shun fundamentalist "christianity" than if he were silent. The more runner reminds us of what fundies are really like, the more we realise these jokes should not influence our lives.

Any "god" who prefers the company of "runner" as presented here is not anybody I care to know. I have *better* friends right here in real life.

Rusty

Yes well sure enough after looking at the website for this denial fest you will find plenty of blasphemy and mocking of Christ and yeah silence when it comes to Mohammed. The usual gutless tripe you get from these events.

Dear Runner,

I can understand that as a Christian you are particularly sensitive to the persecution of Christianity, but in fact ALL religions are under threat just as well. We have no time for the luxury of splitting on sectarian issues: the humanist crusaders are marching fast for world-domination and if we don't unite, they may as well have theirs. As their pseudo-religion prohibits them from physically throwing their opponents (us) to the lions, they (like Pharaoh in Exodus) aim instead for our children, to exterminate us spiritually by brainwashing them in schools with humanistic garbage from their Church of Reason.

The Christian-Church's mistaken use of social-engineering for about 1500 years was in reaction to the traumatic Roman/Jewish oppression, but that's not what Jesus taught: Jesus was not a humanist; he did not promote human society, but the private relation between each individual and God (both directly and through himself).

What the Children of Israel did in response to Pharaoh was not to coup him and control Egypt, but to leave for the desert. Of course it doesn't have to be physically the Australian desert, but the desert is a metaphor for isolation, for the place where we can best practice our relation with God and teach our children accordingly away from the evil lot, where we can be ruled by God alone!

How to get there?

Stop trying to rule Egypt! If they for-example want to marry men-with-men or women-with-chicken, then that's their business. You block your eyes-and-ears and keep fast to the natural-family: so far they have not stopped you by force (and if they do, you have every right to fight back in self-defense).

Build your fort: Pray and trust in God; Become self-sufficient (or gather your own small religious-community); Learn to be frugal; Try to avoid using their money: use your own or barter.

Share with all lovers of God, not just the Christians among them. We have much more to gain than the humanists, because all they can hope for is material and temporary while we can attain God eternally.

May God be with you!

Yuyutsu, what you say can be confusing.

Are you referring to:

* Secular humanism

* Religious humanism

* Christian humanism

* Humanistic Judaism

* Renaissance humanism

* New Humanism

* Marxist Humanism

? and ? and ?

Need your guidance (a lot of what you say makes sense) - but you don't have to have "faith" to agree.

Besides, Wikki can only help so far.

Runner,

Allow me to be the first to equate Jesus with Mohammed in any and every way you like.

As you are familiar with the concept of denial (albeit very selective) I don't expect you will be capable of appreciating the similarities.

wobbles

you may equate Jesus with Mohammed and the doctrine of the humanist High Priest may also. The weight of abuse towards Christ and His followers does not match their rhetoric. They would have far more credibility if it did. Just watch the usual scoffers on the ABC and you will get the drift. I suspect strongly the High Priests at the coming 'love 'fest will aqlso bear out my observations.

Yuyutsu

You make some good points in regards to ruling Egypt. It is however darkness that flees from light rather than the opposite.

Also as God is my source my supply I don't believe in being 'self' sufficient. He has and will always provide what His children need.

I do appreciate your sentiments.

Dear Bonmot,

Humanism is any doctrine that places the human-race at the center of the universe and aspires to forward its survival, progress and science AS A PRIMARY PURPOSE.

Humanism may be joined by most things you mentioned: secularism, Christianity, Judaism, Renaissance, Marxist, etc., except I do find odd the combination of "Religious humanism": Either God is at the center of aspiration - or humanity is. It is impossible to serve two masters simultaneously.

Dear Houellebecq,

I was moved by your question:

"I am much more interested in whether I really exist."

My answer can only satiate your intellectual bewilderment, but I sense that you are after more than this, and to truly resolve that thirst you will need to experience for yourself directly who you are - keep looking inside for nobody else can answer you from without.

Now for my worthless answer:
No! Existence is an illusion and you are not - You are TOO GOOD TO EXIST!

"In fact it bemuses me that so many have moved on to some higher power, when I am stuck with this more fundamental question."

God is thought of as a "higher power" only by those who do not know themselves. Your question is more worthwhile than theirs - find yourself and you will find God.

Dear Runner,

I do apologize. In my struggle to keep within 350 words I did not mention the obvious that our source and supply comes from God. Self-sufficiency is only in relation to other men.

Darkness flees from light when it is dawn-time. It seems like for now we need to wait patiently for the dawn.

Houellie,

I'm a little disappointed to learn that you don't exist....but nothing is what it seems.
I was reading, for instance, that if a person jumps out of a high-rise window and proceeds to plummet earthward, that that person is in fact "not" accelerating, floating instead in free space. Yet, a person sitting quietly at their desk watching the falling person "is" accelerating because they are attached to the earth.

Why did nobody inform me of this?

I've made it my life's mission to insert the word "gallimaufry" wherever it fits in conversation. I came across it last year and was amazed I'd never encountered it before. It's quite a stunner don't you think?

@ Houellebecq

You question if I understand the point of faith because I call for evidence.

Faith is belief in the absence of evidence. I won't believe something unless evidence for that thing is compelling because I think faith isn't a good way of determining whether or not something is true.
You can't use faith to work out whether Zoroaster, Yahweh, or Allah are real. So many faith claims are made, many of them mutually exclusive that if you choose to believe one when they are all equally valid, you've become a hypocrite for rejecting all the others.

How can someone who rejects the teachings if Islam because they don't find the evidence for its claims compelling blithely hold similarly unsupported beliefs arising from Bahai on faith? I know that it's possible, but I can't see it as ethical or philosophically satisfying. Faith seems to be an excuse to believe, rather than a reason.

As an atheist I'd just like to say that Mohammed was a dick. I've even drawn a crude cartoon depicting him as such but there's no way to upload it. I'd also like to say that Jesus of Nazareth seems like he was a nice enough bloke if the stories are anything to go. It's just unfortunate that so many bad eggs like to justify their gutless tripe by invoking his name.

Are you happy now, runner? Stupid question: runner's never happy. You want to get that sorted out, mate: stress kills.

Cheers,

Tony

.

"If God did not exist it might be necessary to invent him, or her" !

.

That is exactly what we did at the time we did it. We did it through fear and ignorance. It seemed like a good solution because it provided a temporary solution for our anxiety.

Since then we have complemented the cure with alcohol, drugs, sex, violence and various other expediencies.

A more satisfactory, perennial solution remains to be found for those of us who do not have the means to discover (or invent) it for ourselves.

.

At last, some real theological insight. Great article.
Peter Sellick

ahhh

Always amusing seeing another generation of posters attempt, with utter futility, to engage our runner in sensible discourse. A well-worn path that one, but believe me, there lies only frustration and hopelessness.

As for the article, I am with Pericles et. al., WE ALREADY DID THAT!