Are Atheists Missing the Point? (Repost)

Radio 4 today (20/07/2007) played host to a mouth who's head has been reading some of the new 'Evangelical Atheism' (think Dawkins, Samuel et al) and the same tired old arguments that if it wasn't for religion, we'd all be living in harmonious space stations, talking about the old days where people died of 'diseases' like cancer and HIV AIDS.

How dull are these people? If they are right and religion was invented to justify killing people, then they are already shooting themselves in their collective foot because the desire to kill people was there before religion, and religion is just another tool to help nations do that which is natural; kill.

You see, you don't need religion to kill people and if you think that removing religion would remove war, you can't have heard of; Oil, land, water, money, sex, political power, influence or even air.

What these trendy neo-atheists are trying to avoid is that religion can't be blamed for mankind's hard-wired need to be selfish. If one nation has oil and another nation wants it, sure they can *say* that they're on a mission from God, but the problem is not the spoken reason, but the real reason and driving motive; selfishness and greed.

It's not religion that causes wars, it's humanity and humanity's appetite to spill blood. Neo-atheists may like the implied purity that comes with a 'religion-free' life, but as long as they have human blood running through their veins, they are as prone as anybody else to the vices of selfishness and greed. As long as they refuse to accept the truth that humanity is the problem and not religion, they will remain 'moral cowards' (as one treaclesome mouth once put it).

When people argue that the moderates are the ones who help the extremists and are therefore just as 'evil', they are trying to wipe out the width and breadth of experience and testimony of people who believe for a reason, who's faith is based on something that has happened to them.

I've heard countless stories from people who had a disease and then don't have it and their specialists can't explain where it has gone. One or two could be a mistake, but so many? I know people who had massive growths vanish before their eyes and gotten up out of years in wheelchairs. I've met people who were in the gutter, ravaged by addiction to life-controlling substances but who are now fully in control of their lives and have a level of self-discipline that I can only dream of. All of these were 'dealt with' in a religious environment where prayer was the key instrument.

The trendy neo-atheists are free to say that these are scams, elaborate hoaxes or one-off examples of mutation in evolution, but what they can't expect is for the witnesses of these events to believe them on blind faith. They believe what they believe because they have 'seen the truth', and for them to demand that people abandon what they have seen because the neo-atheists demand it shows as much disrespect and inability to comprehend their own humanity as those who advocate forced conversions.

And what is this faith all about anyway? Religious people get it in the neck for not being able to understand how God can exist and so they 'just believe', but how many of the trendy neo-atheists really understand the chemistry of evolution, the Big Bang and the atomic physics that are important there? String theory? Multiple universes? The speed of light? They are asking the masses to have as much faith in them as the priests, imams and rabbis are asking. If not being able to understand the trinity is reason enough for me to not believe in it, then I shouldn't believe in the Big bang or evolution.