A Typical Profession of Faith of Our Age

An Apple Not Fallen Far From The Tree

In one of our local blogs, a contributor has taken it upon himself to profess his faith: he is an atheist and he wants all people to share his faith.  

Normally, we would pass this sort of thing by, but his contribution is worth thinking about if for no other reason than he represents the mindset, or we may say "blindset" that characterises so much Unbelief.  Here is a chap who confidently asserts what he believes, but without a skerrick self-awareness.

Here is his profession:

I’m a little worried about God.

Not only does God not exist, the reasons for needing him to exist are fast fading. The human race is approaching the end of its adolescent years and is heading for maturity. We have the ability to control our world. Only a couple of centuries ago, control was local, regional and for some European nations, pan continental. But now we all think in global terms.

Climate change is evidence of our race’s planet wide ability to get things wrong. But most of us believe we have the capacity to end global warming, though the willpower is still lacking. We aren’t waiting for God to step in, as once would have been the case.  [Your NZ]

The lack of self-awareness shows up in not realising that he has just made some statements that are thoroughly and profoundly religious.  This is not at all untypical. It is also getting close to the first signs of sociopathy.
 The word "religion" derives from Latin and Middle English, and refers to "being bound" by a set of ideas or beliefs.  These are beliefs which one considers authoritative.  In this sense, our contributor is making thoroughly religious statements. He asserts emphatically that "God does not exist".  This, we may remind him, is a fundamentalist dogma of the atheist religion.

Another fundamental dogma typically found within the high church of Atheism is a belief in Man as the measure of all things, the canon by which truth is to be tested.  In this case, the reference is about the human race coming to "maturity", of having "the ability to control our world".

Another characteristic of a religion is univeralism--of truths which hold true everywhere and in every place.  Our contributor has just such a belief: he writes "now we all think in global terms".

Not only is our contributor a devotee of a particular religion, but he rapidly asserts some of the abiding characteristics of the religion of atheism wherever it has become dominant in the world.  Atheism has shown itself to be oppressive, often horrifically so.

Official atheistic regimes (Communist China, Communist Russia, Eastern Europe, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Cuba, and North Korea) have shown themselves to be bloodthirsty and cruel in the extreme.  There is a reason: atheism is a religion where there is no higher authority than collective Man, the State.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that our local atheist goes on as follows:

Given that there is no God and no reason for there to be a God, what do we do about religion? Should we remain tolerant of the unfounded beliefs of the billions of adherents? Should we continue to parse individual religions, identifying some strains of faith as being acceptable, while decrying other, more militant, sects?  I think it’s time to end religion.

Of course his lack of self-awareness means that he is not conscious that his call to "end religion" is in fact a call to arms whereby he would have his own religion of atheism firstly, dominating, then extirpating all other religions apart from his own.

His next step, he tells us, would be to remove the freedoms of religion currently enjoyed by all religions, including his own--albeit his own religion of atheism would be excluded from such oppression.  It alone would be left to be free.

We could start here in NZ by removing the weird and unjustifiable tax break churches and cults pretending to be churches enjoy. No more taxpayer subsidies for the Catholic church, the global buggerer of small boys. No more assistance to Pope Brian Tamaki or the Scientologists. An end to it. Now.

What our contributor blithely ignores is the fundamental reason for formal religions being exempt from taxation.  It is due to the noble tradition in the Anglo-Saxon West that the state must protect liberty of conscience and religious freedom, and that if it does not, the state will end up as the relentless persecutor of those who do not comply.  That is why religions are put in a special category when it comes to taxation--because the power to tax is the power to control and finally destroy.

What follows in the manifesto of our brave new atheist  is the enforced inculcation of atheism through the public schools.

The next step is to teach religion in schools. By that, I mean to teach that religion is a sham. Atheist studies, if you like. If the next generation of kiwis can learn that we are the masters of our own destiny, then there may be hope for the future. We may bring up a generation focussed (sic) on ethics, not compulsion through fear.

Our correspondent remains blissfully ignorant of  the religiosity of his own faith, atheism.  Under this umbrella of faith, he would have the public schools declare that all (other) religions are a sham.  There is only one true faith: the credo of the atheist, or the formally irreligious.  Given the historical and current propensity of establishment atheism to shed blood, rivers of it, his final sentence is somewhat ironic.  Our correspondent calls for the right and power be given to atheism to raise a generation without fear.  Try telling that to those presently suffering egregiously under atheist and atheistic regimes.

And then, finally, the truth comes out:

The next idea might be a step too far for some readers. I think we should look to ban religion altogether. Give it a grace period of a decade or so, then close it down. No more brutalising and poisoning our citizens with notions of heaven and hell. Let the next generation be free to think for themselves.

Ban competing religions, so that all could be taught atheism through the public schools.  The heirs of such a generation, he believes, would be "free to think for themselves".  Try running that line of argument with folks like Alexander Solzhenitsyn.  In fact, let our correspondent raise as an exemplar one, just one, atheist regime where people were, or have been, left "free to think for themselves".  Our deeply religious atheist appears unconscious of just how much compulsion he has called for, to get to his atheist nirvana.

Our correspondent is a true son of the religious prophets and apostles of  atheism: one Religion to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.