The Governments chairwoman Baroness Warsi, has launched an attack on those of us who are not of a religious bent, calling it 'militant secularisation' and complaining that the notion of religion in the UK is being 'sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere'.
Fellow Atheists, i think we have been rumbled in our attempt to drive our non-God beliefs on others so i propose we stop burning religious books, stopping people in town centres and knocking on strangers doors and talking about the absence of a God.
We will also have to call a halt to not wanting to kill each other because one group of Atheists don't believe in a different god to another group of Atheists and not oppressing a section of society because of who they choose to fall in love with.
All this will have to stop now because apparently our denying there is a God is causing the religious to not feel good about their chosen faith. Not the lack of evidence, the wars in all of Gods names, the swathe of paedophile priests or the Pope peddling lies about condoms, it is us.
Now stop it because religion is doing a bang up job of downgrading and marginalising itself without our help.
8 comments:
i thought 99% of people in the UK were atheists?
why do you care what 1% of the people think?
especially since you think beleivers are idiots...
q
Not sure about all of that, Q. A lot of atheists (like me) don't think that believers are idiots... (or rather, not for that reason)... We just think that they're wrong. Or, at the very least, unjustified.
There are doubtless some rude atheists around who do adopt this position, but hey, there are rude people everywhere of all kinds of faith (or lack thereof).
As far as caring what they think goes, as long as ‘faith schools’ (that ones that teach kids about the supernatural during science class) are sucking up some of my tax money (thanks Tony Blair, that was your idea wasn’t it?), then I’ll feel OK about both (a) caring, and (b) having a laugh at their expense from time to time...
And I think you’re over-estimating how enlightened the UK is, Q... 99% are atheists? I think not...
In the last meaningful poll I’ve managed to dig out (YouGov in March 2011), when the sampled group was asked about their religious affliliation, 61% of people ticked a religious box while 39% ticked ‘No religion’. However it’s notable that when asked the question ‘Are you religious?’ 56% of the same sample said they were not, and only 35% said that they were.
As the British Humanists say, this indicates the ‘soft’ nature of a lot of religious belief in the UK... a bit like our PM, whose best one-liner to date is: “My religious belief is a bit like the reception for Magic FM in the Chilterns – it sort of comes and goes".
It struck me that Baroness Warsi was blaming atheists for religion becoming sidelined etc etc when the real reason was the damage religion has been doing to itself. A bus with an atheist poster on the side of it cannot compete with widespread paedophilia by catholic priests,9/11 or the Sunni-Shia Muslim bloodbath in Iraq.
It's funny isn't it? This 'coming together' of different religions to combat the real enemy of 'godlessness'!
Baroness Warsi being (nominally) a Muslim and saying nice things about religion in general and the C of E in particular... it all reminds me of the current Archbishop of Canterbury and his ludicrous speech a while ago 'bigging up' Sharia law.
Someone should tell the Baroness that atheists don't tend to advocate any punishment (either in this life or in a rumoured afterlife) for those who don't believe in their theories. Hence, they're/we're not really the problem.
A cyncial side of me also thought that it was a tad suspicious that this came out, along with Camerons willingness to have a debate about cheap booze and drink tanks, the same day the unemployment figures came out. Youth unemployment highest for 17 years but successfully diluted by sharing the news agenda with angry boozers and agreeing vicars. Nice one Dave.
i blame lucy...
q
PS - kidding!
PSS - this new prove your not a robot thingy is too hard... are you trying to keep David G from posting here?
I will take the blame for religion being sidelined if you are willing to take the blame for this cold that is refusing to go away.
Some of those robot thingies are unreadable which i know is the point but can be annoying if it takes 5 attempts to post a comment.
damned global warming. i'll light a fire for you...
q
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