[lbo-talk] A time of doubt for atheists

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Tue Jul 19 06:27:19 PDT 2005



> A Time of Doubt for Atheists
>
> Los Angeles Times
> By Gina Piccalo Times Staff Writer
> Mon Jul 18, 7:55 AM ET
>
> Still, there are those outspoken nonbelievers doing
> their best to influence the masses.
>
> American Atheists' Johnson, whose national
> organization claims 2,200 members, is a regular on
> news talk shows. She is also executive director of the
> Godless Americans PAC, and meets with politicians to
> build awareness and support for church-state
> separation legislation. She helped organize the 2002
> march on Washington and is organizing November's
> Atheists in Foxholes parade and ceremony. Yet, she
> acknowledges, atheism is a hard sell.

That should be no surprise, because organized religion is a parasite living off the genuine human need for mystery, feeling connected to something bigger than oneself, and yearning for answers in times of uncertainty or despair. Religions (most of them at least) use these genuine human feelings as a Trojan horse to sneak in and infest human psyche an d brain with their dogmatic creed, deference to authority, false certitude, intolerance and groupthink.

A better way to combat the scourge of religiosity is not a frontal attack on all belief systems, but dissociating human need for "spirituality" and "connectedness" from religious creed and dogma backed by the authority of the state and churchly institutions - showing that the former can exist and thrive better without the latter. To my knowledge, Unitarian-universalists do a decent job in this regard.

Wojtek



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