The world is witnessing a huge explosion of religious conversion and growth, and Christianity is growing faster than any other religion. Nietzsche's proclamation "God is dead" is now proven false. Nietzsche is dead. The ranks of the unbelievers are shrinking as a proportion of the world's population. Secularism has lost its identification with progress and modernity, and consequently it has lost the main source of its appeal. God is very much alive, and His future prospects look to be excellent. This is the biggest comeback story of the twenty-first century.
If you've been reading one of the atheist bestsellers like The God Delusion or God Is Not Great, you may have missed this news. If God is back, you may wonder, why don't I see it? The reason is that many of us live in the wrong neighborhood. "Visit a church at random next Sunday," Brent Staples writes in the New York Times, "and you will probably encounter a few dozen people sprinkled thinly over a sanctuary that was built to accommodate hundreds or even thousands." Yes, I've seen the "empty pews and white-haired congregants" that Staples describes. But then, Staples lives in
Of course my neighbors do not think of themselves as atheist. Very few of them belong to atheist organizations or subscribe to atheist literature. Some of them who are highly educated like to think of themselves as agnostic: they haven't made up their minds because the evidence simply isn't in yet. Others even consider themselves Christian, either because they were born that way, or because they attend church occasionally. The distinguishing characteristic of these people is that they live as if God did not exist. God makes no difference in their lives. This is "practical atheism." We all know people like this. Some of us hardly know anyone not like this. And sometimes we live this way ourselves.
If we live in the wrong neighborhood, we risk missing the most important development of our time-the global revival of religion. It's happening on every continent. In my native country of , Hinduism is undergoing a resurgence. So is Islam. As I have written about Islamic radicalism and terrorism I am often asked,"When will the Muslims understand the importance of secularism? When will we see an Islamic Reformation?" My answer is that Muslims will never understand the importance of secularism. Nor do they need to, because as we shall see, secularism is increasingly unimportant as a global phenomenon.
Moreover, Islam is in the middle of a reformation. We see a resurgence of Muslim piety not just in the Middle East but also elsewhere. At one time Turkey provided a model of Islamic secularism, but not any longer. No Muslim country is going the way of Turkey, and in recent years even has stopped going the way of Turkey.
Some Western analysts describe the religious revivals around the world in terms of the growth of "fundamentalism." This is the fallacy of ethnocentrism, of seeing the world through the lens of our own homegrown prejudices. Remember that "fundamentalism" is a term drawn from Protestant Christianity. It is an American coinage that refers to a group of early twentieth century Protestant activists who organized against Darwinian evolution and who championed the literal reading of the Bible. Fundamentalism is a meaningless term outside this context.
There are, of course, Hindu militants and Islamic radicals, and they are indeed a menace to the world. But the growth of religious militancy and the growth of religion are very different. One may seek to benefit from the other, but the two should not be confused. The resurgence I am talking about is the global revitalization of traditional religion. This means traditional Hinduism, traditional Islam, and traditional Christianity. By "traditional" I mean religion as it has been understood and practiced over the centuries. This is the type of religion that is booming.
Traditional religion is the mainstream, but it is not the only form in which religion appears today. There is also liberal religion. Here in the West, especially among the intelligentsia, we meet liberal Christians. Some of them have assumed a kind of reverse mission: instead of being the church's missionaries to the world, they have become the world's missionaries to the church. They devote their moral energies to trying to make the church more democratic, to assure equal rights for women, and so on. A small but influential segment of liberal Christianity rejects all the central doctrines of Christianity. H.Richard Niebuhr famously summed up their credo: "A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross."
I have met liberal Christians who are good and sincere people. But their version of Christianity is full intellectual withdrawal, and it is also becoming less relevant. The liberal churches are losing members in droves. Once these churches welcomed one in six Americans; now they see one in 30. In 1960 the Presbyterian church had 4.2 million members; now it has 2.4 million. The Episcopal church had 3.4 million; now it has 2.3 million. The United Church of Christ had 2.2 million; now it has 1.3 million. Traditional Christians who remain within liberal churches become increasingly alienated.
Unfortunately the central themes of some of the liberal churches have become indistinguishable from those of the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, the gay rights cause, and the environmental conservation movement. The traditional churches, not the liberal churches, are growing in America. In 1960, for example, the churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention had 8.7 million members. Now they have 16.4 million.
The growth of traditional religion and the decline of liberal religion pose a serious problem for a conventional way of understanding religious trends. This is the way of secularization-the idea that as an inevitable result of science, reason, progress, and modernization, the West will continue to grow more secular, followed by the rest of the world. The more confident exponents of secularization believe, as Peter Berger puts it, that"eventually Iranian mullahs, Pentecostal preachers, and Tibetan lamas will all think and act like professors of literature at American universities."
For a good part of the last century, this secularization narrative seemed plausible. Secular people believed it and reveled in it, while religious people believed it and bemoaned it. But now we see a problem with the thesis. If secularization were proceeding inexorably, then religious people should be getting less religious, and so conservative churches should be shrinking and liberal churches growing. In fact, the opposite is the case.
Some scholars put this down to "backlash" against secularization, but this only begs the question: what is causing this backlash? The secularization thesis was based on the presumption that science and modernity would satisfy the impulses and needs once met by religion. But a rebellion against secularization suggests that perhaps important needs are still unmet, and so people are seeking a revival of religion-perhaps in a new form-to address their specific concerns within a secular society.
Of course the secularization thesis is not entirely invalid. In Europe, Australia, and Canada, religion has been expunged from the cultural mainstream. It has been largely relegated to a tourist phenomenon; when you go to Chartes and Canterbury , the guides tell you about architecture and art history and little about what the people who created those masterpieces actually believed. According to the European Values Survey, regular churchgoers number, depending on the country, between 10 and 25 percent of the population. Only one in five Europeans says that religion is important in life. Czech president Vaclav Havel has rightly described Europe as "the first atheistic civilization in the history of mankind."
But if Europe generally supports the secularization thesis, the United States presents a much more problematic case. America has not gone the way of Europe. True, church attendance in the United States has declined in the past three decades. Still, some 40 percent of Americans say they attend church on Sundays. More than 90 percent of Americans believe in God, and 60 percent say their faith is important to them. All of this is a serious difficulty for the secularization thesis, because America is at the forefront of modernity. The thesis would predict that America would be the most secular society in the world. In fact, America is the most religious country in the Western world.
Perhaps the greatest problem for the secularization theory is that in an era of increasing globalization and modernization, the world as a whole is becoming more religious, not less. In a recent survey, sociologists Pippa Norris and Ron Inglehart sum up the evidence. Despite the advance of secularization in the West, they write, "The world now has more people with traditional religious views than ever before, and they constitute a growing proportion of the world's population." Consequently, the West is more secular but "the world as a whole is becoming more religious."
Even more remarkable is that the religious revival is occurring in places that are rapidly modernizing. China and India today have the fastest growth rates in the world, and religion is thriving in both places. Turkey is the one of the most modern of the Muslim countries, and Islam has steadily gained strength there. In Central and South America , the upwardly-mobile classes are embracing Pentecostal Christianity.
The global spread of American culture, with the secular values it carries,seems not to have arrested or even slowed the religious upsurge. The reason is that many non-Western cultures are actively resisting secularism. A common slogan in Asia today is "modernization without Westernization." Many people want American prosperity and American technology but they want to use these to preserve and strengthen their traditional way of life. They want to live in a world of multiple modernities.
We often read that Islam is the fastest-growing religion. Not true. Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world today. Islam is second. While Islam grows mainly through reproduction-which is to say by Muslim shaving large families-Christianity spreads through rapid conversion as well as natural increase. Islam has become the fastest-growing religion in Europe, which for more than a thousand years has been the home of Christianity. The Catholic writer Hilaire Belloc wrote in 1920 that "the faith is Europe and Europe is the faith." Belloc was convinced that the future of Christianity lay in Europe.
Ironically while Europe has moved away from Christianity, the Christian religion has been expanding its influence in Central and South America, in Africa, and in Asia . The new face of Christianity is no longer white and blond but yellow, black and brown. "If we want to visualize a typical contemporary Christian," Philip Jenkins writes in The Next Christendom, "we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela." The vital centers of Christianity today are no longer Geneva, Rome, Paris, or London. They are Buenos Aires, Manila, Kinshasa, and Addis Ababa . "The era of Western Christianity has passed within our lifetimes," Jenkins observes, "and the day of Southern Christianity is dawning."
In 1900, more than 80 percent of Christians lived in Europe and America. Today 60 percent live in the developing world. More than two out of three evangelical Christians now live in Asia,Africa, and South America . Here are some numbers Jenkins provides. Europe today has 560 million Christians and America has 260 million, yet many of those are Christians in name only. In comparison, there are 480 million Christians in South America, 313 million in Asia, and 360 million in Africa. The vast majority of these are practicing Christians. There are more churchgoing Presbyterians in than in Scotland.
Oddly enough, this Christian growth occurred after the period of European conquest and colonialism has come to an end. The old boys in pith helmets are long gone, but the faith that first came with them has endured, and now thrives without them. It's just like the early times of Christianity. After Constantine converted and Theodosius proclaimed Christianity the state religion toward the end of the fourth century, Christianity was carried by the Roman empire. Yet the faith spread fastest after the collapse of that empire, and soon all of Europe was Christian. We're witnessing a comparable pace of growth for Christianity in the rest of the world.
A century ago, less than 10 percent of Africa was Christian. Today it's nearly 50 percent. That's an increase from 10 million people in 1900 to more than 350 million today. Uganda alone has nearly 20 million Christians and is projected to have 50 million by the middle of the century. Some African churches have grown so big that their churches are running out of space. While Western preachers routinely implore people to come every Sunday to fill the pews, some African preachers ask their members to limit their attendance to every second or third Sunday to give others a chance to hear the message.
Central and South America are witnessing the explosive growth of Pentecostalism. As David Martin shows in his study Tongues of Fire,partly this is a shift within Christianity: millions of South American Catholics have become evangelical Protestants. In Brazil, for example,there are now 50 million evangelical Protestants whereas a few decade sago there weren't enough to count. The movement of Catholics into Protestant evangelicalism should not be considered purely lateral, however, as the conversion of lackadaisical, nominal Catholics to an active, energized evangelicalism can perhaps be considered a net gain for Christianity.
Even within Catholicism there is an expanding charismatic movement that has grown in response to the success of the Protestant evangelicals. This charismatic Catholicism emphasizes many of the same themes as "born again" Christianity including a personal relationship with Christ. And the Catholic numbers remain huge: Brazil had 50 million Catholics in 1950, but now it has 120 million.
Despite the limitations imposed by the Chinese government, there are now tens of millions of Christians in who worship in underground evangelical and Catholic churches. At current growth rates, David Aikman observes in his book Jesus in Beijing,China will in a few decades become the largest Christian country in the world. In South Korea, where Christians already outnumber Buddhists,there are numerous megachurches with more than 10,000 members each. The Yoido Full Gospel Church reports 750,000 members. The Catholic Church in the Philippines reports 60 million members, and is projected to have 120 million by mid-century.
What distinguishes these Christians, Jenkins writes, is that they immerse themselves in the world of the Bible to a degree that even devout Western Christians do not. For poor people around the world, the social landscape of in the Bible is quite familiar. They, too, live in a world of hardship, poverty, money-lenders and lepers. The themes of exile and persecution resonate with them. Supernatural evil seems quite real to them, and they have little problem in understanding the concept of hell.
This "original" Christianity is coming our way. South Korea has become the world's second-largest source of Christian missionaries, with 12,000 preaching the faith abroad. Only the United States sends more missionaries to other countries. We may be seeing the beginning of a startling reversal. At one time Christian missionaries went to the far continents of Africa and Asia, where white priests in robes proclaimed the Bible to wide-eyed and uncomprehending brown and black people. In the future, we may well see black and brown missionaries proclaim the Bible to wide-eyed and uncomprehending white people in the West.
We might think that this preaching will fall on unreceptive ears. But I'm not so sure. The Washington Post reports that there are 150 churches in Denmark and more than 250 in Britain run by foreigners as "part of a growing trend of preachers from developing nations coming to Western Europe ." Stendor Johansen, a Danish sea captain, seems to reflect the sentiments of many Europeans who are joining the new congregations. "The Danish church is boring," he says. "I feel energized when I leave one of these services." If more people come to share these sentiments then secularization may ultimately be reversed even in Europe.
Peter Berger writes about what he calls "the myth of secularization." He means that the thesis of inevitable secularization has now lost its credibility. In fact, it is going the way of Zeus and Baal. Berger's work points to the reason for this. Berger argues that modernization helps people triumph over necessity but it also produces a profound crisis of purpose in modern life. The greater the effects of modernization, the stronger the social anxiety and the striving for "something more." As Wolfhart Pannenberg puts it, "Secular culture itself produces a deep need for meaning in life and therefore also for religion."
This may not be religion in the same form in which it is imbibed in Nigeria or Korea, but it is traditional religion all the same, no less vital for having adapted to new circumstances. It is quite possible that a renewed Christianity can improve modern life by correcting some of the deficiencies and curbing some of the excesses of modernity.
I have found this to be true in my own life. I am a native of , and my ancestors were converted to Christianity by Portuguese missionaries. As this was the era of the Portuguese Inquisition, some force and bludgeoning may also have been involved. When I came to as a student in 1978, my Christianity was largely a matter of birth and habit. But even as I plunged myself into modern life in the , my faith slowly deepened. G.K. Chesterton calls this the "revolt into orthodoxy."
Like Chesterton, I find myself rebelling against extreme secularism and finding in Christianity some remarkable answers to both intellectual and practical concerns. So I am grateful to those stern inquisitors for bringing me into the orbit of Christianity, even though I am sure my ancestors would not have shared my enthusiasm. Mine is a Christianity that is counter cultural in the sense that it opposes powerful trends in modern Western culture. Yet it is thoroughly modern in that it addresses questions and needs raised by life in that culture. I don't know how I could live well without it.
In the end, though, my story doesn't matter very much and neither does it matter whether the West returns to Christianity. Perhaps the non-Western Christians will convert the Western unbelievers, and perhaps they won't. Either way, they are the future, they know it, and now we know it too. Christianity may come in a different garb than it has for the past several centuries, but Christianity is winning, and secularism is losing. The atheists may continue their fulminations, but they represent not the cry of victory but the cry of desperation. Deep down, the atheists realize that God is winning and atheism has no future.
Excerpted from What's So Great About Christianity, Regnery Publishing, October 2007.
Reader Comments ( Page 6 of 7)
76. I had a hard time sleeping. Now I read this poorly written and boring blog. Yawn, good night!
Leesa at 6:40AM on Oct 23rd 2007
77. The pro "Christian" beliefs touted on this thread just drive home the differences between Christinaity and atheism.
Atheists live their lives.
Christians wait for death.
J Boyd at 7:59AM on Oct 23rd 2007
78. book whore
RMWiersema at 8:20AM on Oct 23rd 2007
79. Thanks for the blog. You are right, the revolution of the atheist is falling to it own weight of emptyness. The God who created this world and all it's glory testifiy to His power and intelligence. He gave us the very intellect that the atheist use in an attempt to disprove Him. But it was given to us so we could understand His plan for us and the greatest love ever know to mankind.And that is displayed to us throught the sinless, willing sarcifice for the payment our sin by his own Son Jesus Christ. And demonstrated throught Christ's crucifixion and resurection, by destroying the power of fear of death itself. The atheist will , unfortunately, struggle with thier value and worth until they come to recieve the love of Christ for them personally. At that point the atheist can finally see the the emptiness in him or her filled and a new purpose for thier life. That purpose is to have a personal relationship and fellowship with the God of the universe. And introduce other's to the greatest experience in the universe, final and for all time having the guity of thier sin and shame removed forever!. Absolute newness of a life!Yes God can love you no matter what you have thought about Him in the past.The message is very simple but it is the answer to all that sickens mankind today. The atheist wants to be the god of his/her own life but as they have found out it only leaves them empty, bitter and angery.
Dan Wedlake at 9:30AM on Oct 23rd 2007
80. Responding to pboy (535)
You wrote: “I really don't know/want to know what you were driving at... unless it's to say that it is complicated... “
It is more than complicated. There are SO MANY FACTORS that come into play when we discuss and develop morals and morality. There are many points I could discuss, but, for the sake of brevity, I’ll focus on two points: trust and balance. (Not fairness) Read on.
You also wrote: “I think that it is a bit odd that your 'answer' was more of a quiz than an explanation though.”
I know. That is why it took so long to prepare and post. It was getting too complicated because there were many tangential thoughts, many conditional statements. I was tempted to post a questionnaire, let you answer, and then, put together my thoughts based on your answers. This is a topic that is best discussed face-to-face where we can bounce comments, ideas, and questions off each other. It is like building a tall building. You start with the foundation and build one floor at a time. I was having to offer a “complete building”, so I built it to be flexible. That is why I asked the questions. Let’s face it: my answer is somewhat similar to what we as a society have to do each day. Discover, discuss, debate, and decide.
You wrote: “You say, "The fairness that religion brings..." ...oh ray, ray, ray... that is arguably the most devious five word phrase that I have heard written in earnest. It 'fairly' REEKS 'agenda'.”
EXCUSE ME! I just used YOUR WORD. I should have put quotation marks around the word “fairn”, but, I expected you to have a decent memory. Even if you didn’t, I included your statement in my response. I just built my answer around your question!
Let me re-quote you: “Perhaps 'GOD' is just a sense of fairness, because the 'message' from theists seems to be that without GOD things would get chaotic... therefore with GOD things have at least a sense of structure and organization etc.”
You wrote: “You think that religion brings fairness…”
Actually, I do not believe that is the focus of any religion. Most religions advocate righteousness and justice. They may do a lousy job of delivering, but that is part of their message.
You wrote:... “fair is when we split the apple pie exactly in half, not when you tell me that your morals are better than mine.”
You definition of “fair” seems OK, but, then it is oversimplified. What if it was YOUR apple to begin with? Some would argue that you would deserve a bigger portion. What if I had already eaten my apple and now expected you to share yours with me? What if you had dropped my apple effectively ruining it? Seems o ly "fair" for you to share your with me.
And what if my morals are better than yours? Surely you are not suggesting that all ideas and belief systems are equal? I will admit that deciding which set of ideals is better is very difficult and that our decision will be heavily biased by our own history and preferences.
You wrote: “'Yea, if we try to impose a Christian agenda on this secular society... that'll be fair for US Christians!!!'... 'How could anyone else even think that that wasn't fair?'
No argument. That is why I posed the “stranded on an island” scenario. The US Constitution and our laws are not “sacred”. We have the power and authority to revise them. We effectively operate like “castaways” each time we vote and whenever our governmental agencies convene. We are having to develop and revise rules and policies that are “fair” and just. And no matter what the rule-makers decide, there will always be some segment of our society that will cry “unfair”.
I go back to the “7 deadly sins”: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride. These are ultimately the source of all of the strife in our country.
Example: Who is really the greedy person? The doctor, or lawyer, or CEO who spent years getting the most out of their education and then worked long hours to build their career? Or, the un-educated laborer who simply chose to goof off in school, showed no self-discipline, etc and now wants more than they are capable of earning. I will be the first to admit that there is a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots, but, the root cause of that gap is much more than “unfairness”.
Yes, there are people who are hurting due to no fault of their own. Often, it was simply “bad luck”. Often, it was stupid or immoral behavior on the part of someone else, even someone close to them. Children do suffer for the “sins” of their parents. But, in a “free” country, can we really expect to protect people, and their children, from their own greed and impatience? It is no secret that the person most likely to prey on a homeless person is another homeless person.
Let’s use a real-life contemporary situation: The sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Based on incomes, my wife and I and our children are considered “haves”. However, we have exercised significant self-restraint when it comes to spending. I drive a 14 year old car with 200K miles. We live in a house much smaller than our incomes would suggest. My two sons, with a 7 year age gap, share a room. We give much to our church and its ministries as well to other local charities. Now, with this sub-prime crisis, there are tens of thousands of people, with less income than my wife and I, who got greedy and bought way too much house. They have much more house than we do. Many of them have two big car loan payments that rival their house payment. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO ARE GREEDY.
(Yes - there was some dishonest behavior on the part of some sub-prime lenders. But, that is separate issue.)
Now that they are asking me, the taxpayer, to bail them out. Why? Because I make more than they do? Like I asked earlier, if I have already eaten my apple, how can I expect you to share your apple with me?
Back to the original topic of developing a system that at least attempts to be fair. Atheist, agostic, or theist, just how do we decide what is fair? What set of values do we use?
Let’s look at another contemporary issue: health care.
I tend to agree with the liberals that “heath care” is a “right”. Even if it is not a “right”, I do believe it is the right thing to do.
But, there has to be BALANCE. If the “have-nots” expect the “haves” to pay for their health care, then they must be willing to yield some of the decision-making.
I have argued, “With every ounce of responsibility, there must be a corresponding ounce of authority.”
If I have to pay for your health care, I have the authority to impose some reasonable restraints on your behavior. I will insist that:
1) You shall not smoke cigarettes and cigars.
2) You shall not drink alcohol beverages.
3) You shall not be gluttonous. If you are obese, you shall go on a diet. (If you need medical assistance to achieve that goal, we will accommodate you.)
4) You shall exercise properly.
5) You shall not engage in high-risk behaviors. (sky-diving, motorcycle riding at night, etc)
6) You shall not misuse drugs. (prescription or illegal)
7) You shall engage only in monogamous sexual activity.
Sound familiar? Do you see now where this is going? Even with a secular perspective, we end up with a list of “commandments”. Why? Because as a specie, we are guilty of the 7 deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride.
Per the OT testament, God gave Moses and the Hebrews 10 rules. The Hebrews then developed thousands more to guide their behavior.
Jesus left his disciples with two simple rules: (paraphrasing)
#1 Love God with everything you are and have
#2 Love your neighbor as yourself
And Christians have spent the past 2000 years debating just what that means and turning out all sorts of edicts from the pope and denominational leaders.
The Muslims, with the Koran, are no better.
The USA started off with the Constitution (including 10 built in revisions) and now we have a legal system that is a bureaucratic joke.
Why? Because no matter how well we write laws, no matter the justification for those laws, there will always be people who rebel against those laws. They will find loopholes and ways to get around the rules to serve their own interests. Sometimes they do it just for the sake of doing it. It is in our nature to rebel! Even if they obey the letter of the law, they do not respect the spirit of the law.
You may say that OK, there needs to be rules, but, why should you TRUST me to make the right rules.
My answer: If I pay for the system, I get to make the rules. Don't like my rules, then pay for your own health care. Let's face it - if you were so smart and trustworthy, you probably would not be suffering from your medical condition or wol dhave the means to take care of it.
Again, there are the "innocents", but, so much of our health care issues are life-style related.
In summary, no system (legal or political) is going to be effective for any length of time unless you address the “spiritual corruption” of the human being.
I see nothing that atheism can offer that addresses that problem. Most religions at least attempt to address that problem.
So yes, I have no problem stating that my belief system is better than yours.
You quoted me: "There are obstacles, but, I do think fairness is one of the big ones."
That statement SHOULD have read “There are obstacles, but, I do NOT think fairness is one of the big ones." At 3 AM, I am not operating at my best.
ray at 1:48PM on Oct 23rd 2007
81. Please ignore post #80. Wrong article.
I can't believe I did it a second time...
ray at 1:51PM on Oct 23rd 2007
82. This is bullshit. One of the reasons why religion is growing so quickly over the past years is because people are feeling lost with the rapid changes to the world. People become afraid when charging headfirst into the waters unknown and that's why so many people turn to faith. However, faith is now responsible for many of the wars and atrocities being commited globally. So what's that you say about atheism dying out?
We offer another voice, another pair of eyes, another way of looking at the world. We are not ignorant fools or stupid or a dying breed. This world is made up of diversity and we're part of it.
America demands that we all have one faith or another, but I refuse to lie about what I believe. I have never believed in a god and have never had a problem with it. Looking at the world with my eyes, I see religion tearing itself apart and bringing the rest of us down with it. I respect religion but the fast pace of growth only means many of them are fanatical people who need something to believe in strongly, and they may commit radical acts in the name of their newfound faith to show the world their misplaced passion.
I disagree emphatically with the last paragraph of this passage. Deep down inside, I have faith - yes, faith - in what I believe and what I believe is that we're all in charge of our lives, that chance and fate go hand in hand, and that we can be moral without being religious.
"Christianity may come in a different garb than it has for the past several centuries, but Christianity is winning, and secularism is losing. The atheists may continue their fulminations, but they represent not the cry of victory but the cry of desperation. Deep down, the atheists realize that God is winning and atheism has no future."
You, D'Souza, are narrow-minded. You generalize everything. You are one-sided. I will not read a book like yours because it insults me. God is not winning. People who believe in a God are.
And for your information, D'Souza, we're not dead. We are still here. We will never die.
Justine at 4:15PM on Oct 23rd 2007
83. Responding to Ray (#57)
This is from “the other Ray”
I agree that Hitler was not an atheist. But, there is no credible evidence that he was a Christian. Just because Hitler called himself Christian does not make it true. North Korea’s own title is the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Is NK a democracy or a republic?
There is much debate about Hitler’s view of God, religion, Jews, and Christians, etc. He clearly had contempt for Jews, but that was not based on theology but on history, ethnics, and politics. Many historians have argued that the seeds for WW2 were planted when WW1 ended. Remember that Germany’s economy suffered greatly after WW1. The Western allies demanded compensation from Germany for the costs of the war. True or false, the perception was that the “Jewish bankers” in the West were bleeding Germany dry. Also, the Bolsheviks (communists in Russia) were dominated by Jews. Note that Karl Marx was Jewish.
Some have argued that Hitler simply tapped into a centuries-old, lingering contempt between Jews and Christians. He needed a scapegoat and the Jews were convenient. And, when Christian pastors complained to Hitler about the treatment of the undesirables (Jews, gypsies, etc) Hitler warned them: (paraphrasing) “You worry only about getting them into heaven. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Himmler, Hitler’s sidekick, was definitely anti-Semitic and anti-Christian. He went to great lengths to research and discover ancient artifacts regarding an ancient master race. Where do you think the swastika came from.? If you go to the Summer Palace in Beijing, you can find the swastika on at least one statue. I’ve seen it. (Although, it may be a mirror image.) This symbol is from an ancient culture.
You wrote: “And Lenin and Stalin were no atheists either - communism is clearly a RELIGION - a secular religion! They wanted OTHER religions obliterated and replaced with theirs!”
Religion is not limited to theists. Atheism can also be a religion. Secular humanism is often described as a religion. Religion does not require theism. Lenin and Stalin were both raised within a faith. Lenin was raised Russian Orthodox, with allegedly some Buddhist teachings, and Stalin was raised Catholic. However, they both denounced their relgous upbringing. An example:
Stalin said, "You know, they are fooling us, there is no God... all this talk about God is sheer nonsense." - E. Yaroslavsky, Landmarks in the Life of Stalin
Please read post #70 from Dave. He offers some good insight.
ray at 3:33PM on Oct 24th 2007
84. Although my mother was a Catholic and father a Lutheran I am not religous and actually are more inclined to think there is no God.
I disagree that religion is making a comeback, certainly NOT chtistianity, in this case meaning Cathlics. In fact as you hear often and if you go to a large church you can see for your self, they are losing ,members.
I can't answer for other religions but the Catholic religin is way out of touch with the people and with reality. Telling por people to obstain from sex and forbid them to use ant type of birth control whatsoever is idiotic. Who tells these [people how to support their large families causing so many young children to die at a very young age for a lack of food and medical treatment.
I think the church is more interested to get more members and to hold on to outdated dogma rather than helping those in need or vecome a bit nmore in tune with TODAY's issues.
I don't think any church can safe mankind when (NOT IF) we destroy the earth some day.
Jurgen at 11:18PM on Oct 24th 2007
85. I like to comment on politics and current social issues.
Jurgen Ankenbrand
Jurgen at 12:26AM on Oct 25th 2007
86. Religious numbers are growing because religious people are poor and poor people squeeze out lots of babies, then brainwash them to be religious.
kevin at 6:19PM on Oct 25th 2007
87. This blog is totally wrong. As a matter of fact, lately, is OK to say that you don't believe in god, when some years back (prior to 9/11) this would have been unthinkable. What has happened is that we are all realizing what religion and its fanatics can do to civilization, all based in a made up belief of a superior being that noone ever saw.
alejandro at 8:21PM on Oct 25th 2007
88. Another vote for atheism. Dinesh is remarkably stupid.
Straw man arguments, stating the opposite of reality as "fact". Remarkably stupid.
jpfreightdg at 9:29PM on Oct 25th 2007
89. a ressurgance of religous extemism he forgot to mention
billy sands at 10:23PM on Oct 25th 2007
90. It is interesting the way he takes the alleged growing demographics for all the major religions, lumps them together to say that religiousness is on the rise, as if each religion was more important than atheism because they involve belief in god, even though they're not even the same god, the same allegories, or the same afterlives. This approach doesn't support the merit of any of them, he's just calling in backup in his crusade to bully the "arrogant" atheists. Desperation is a stinky cologne.
Oh, by the way (and this goes for many of the bloggers too):
STOP CONFUSING GOD WITH CHRISTIANITY! STOP CONFUSING GOD WITH CHRISTIANITY! STOP CONFUSING GOD WITH CHRISTIANITY! BRAIN, APPLY DIRECTLY BEHIND THE FOREHEAD!
Mokele Mbembe at 3:11PM on Oct 26th 2007