The Convention Committee secured Victorian government funding, a great program of speakers and the same venue that housed the successful 2010 and 2012 conventions. With those elements, the AFA proceeded with the Convention. However, ticket sales have been substantially below expectations and below the levels for previous conventions, so, unfortunately, the Convention cannot proceed.In the article Atheists are boring snoozefests. Incontrovertible proof!, I wrote about how boring atheists/atheism are/is.
The atheist wrote about atheist conferences:
"As for conferences, I could imagine a number of reasons why they are getting smaller. Isn’t it possible that atheism, as a movement, just isn’t really as exciting or novel as it was 7 or 10 years ago?"
But to me the speakers and talks have often seemed repetitive: the same crew of jet-set skeptics giving the same talks.
...a few things bothered me, most notably the air of self-congratulation( which I excused on the grounds of enthusiastic people finding like-minded folks for the first time), the “fanboyness” directed at some of the famous atheists (they hardly let poor Richard alone, and I’m not sure he liked that!), and the lameness of quite a few of the talks. Again, how much new can you say about atheism?[
You know lately when I look around on social media and in the media in general really. I see these proclamations. Proclamations that the atheist movement is on life support. It's dying. It's probably beyond saving.
Now I know some people out there are very weary of all the public infighting and the squabbling and the division and just the general nastiness out there between various camps. And I totally get that. I totally get it.
Some people draw a big circle around New Atheism... And they declare New Atheism is dead or it's dying or irrelevant or whatever...
As an atheist activist myself, I can understand myself why some activists have just left the party...
They just got tired of it. All the politics and the posturing and the trolls and the bad faith operators out there. They have seen first hand that atheists are not immune to scandal, to ugliness to irrationality. To this unhealthy rage.
If you look at the major atheist groups right now, like the national groups, the ones that are doing the real activist work... They are not bringing in the kind of donations they used to. Most of them are starved for cash. They're downsizing left and right. Because people aren't just giving like they used to. And I talked to a lot of the major donors out there and they said, "Well, we're kind of tired of seeing the atheist community just fight amongst itself and not really get anything done. We'd rather not give money if we don't think it's going to go somewhere.
English: Statue in the Cathedral of Trier, Germany
| |
| Date | April 2006 |
| Source | Own work |
| Author | Jbuzbee |
It shows that, although secularists have realised that they cannot simply be defined by opposition to religion, nevertheless they have little to offer in its place. Crucially the secular tradition has no successful institutions to preserve and spread its principles.
This is something that few secularists admit: atheism is quite lonely. Not just existentially, but socially as well. Secularism does not offer the sense of fellowship you find in religion. Watching old Christopher Hitchensdebates on YouTube with a like-minded sceptic is entertaining, but I doubt it's as nourishing as Sunday Mass.
...for a couple of centuries, African-American culture has been imbued with Christianity. The church figured prominently in both the abolitionist and civil rights movements. And today in many communities, the Christian church continues to be the nucleus of black life.
So, what about the black nonbelievers? It's one isolating experience, according to Jamila Bey.In December 2003, the University of Warwick reported:
Dr. Stephen Joseph, from the University of Warwick, said: "Religious people seem to have a greater purpose in life, which is why they are happier. Looking at the research evidence, it seems that those who celebrate the Christian meaning of Christmas are on the whole likely to be happier.The website Adherents.com reported about atheism and suicide:
Pitzer College sociologist Phil Zuckerman compiled country-by-country survey, polling and census numbers relating to atheism, agnosticism, disbelief in God and people who state they are non-religious or have no religious preference. These data were published in the chapter titled "Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns" in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. by Michael Martin, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK (2005). In examining various indicators of societal health, Zuckerman concludes about suicide:"Concerning suicide rates, this is the one indicator of societal health in which religious nations fare much better than secular nations. According to the 2003 World Health
Organization's report on international male suicides rates (which compared 100 countries), of the top ten nations with the highest male suicide rates, all but one (Sri Lanka) are strongly irreligious nations with high levels of atheism. It is interesting to note, however, that of the top remaining nine nations leading the world in male suicide rates, all are former Soviet/Communist nations, such as Belarus, Ukraine, and Latvia. Of the bottom ten nations with the lowest male suicide rates, all are highly religious nations with statistically insignificant levels of organic atheism.
In 2017, the atheist vlogger AronRa wrote to some of his fellow atheists: "...since ya'll have effectively killed what was left of the atheist movement" (For details, please see the YouTube video at: AronRa Claims Mythcon Killed The Atheist Movement || Facebook Comments).
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has created a single master of divinity degree in apologetics in its Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Ministry, consolidating two current apologetics programs.
Douglas K. Blount, professor of Christian apologetics at SBTS since 2015, will chair the Billy Graham School's new Department of Apologetics and World Religions. The seminary has had two separate apologetics concentrations -- one each in the school of theology and the Billy Graham School...
The seminary also will offer a M.Div. concentration in Islamic studies led by Ayman Ibrahim, Bill and Connie Jenkins Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at Southern Seminary, along with a master of arts in apologetics and the current M.A. in Islamic studies.
Greenway projected that the new apologetics department will become one of Southern's premier programs, drawing on the "strength of our institution from top to bottom."
The ultimate goal of the apologetics department is to train students not just to win intellectual arguments, but to have a concern for building the church, he said. The department will seek to equip pastors and teachers to be on the front line of engagement -- not just with non-believers or atheists, but also people of other faiths in an increasingly pluralistic culture.According to the 2011 UK Census, 2.7 million Muslims live in England/Wales which is up by almost 1 million from the prior census, where Muslims form 5.0% of the general population and about 9% of children under the age of five (see: 2011 Census: Religion -local authorities in England and Walesand
Secularism is under threat
From Turkey to the US, India to Russia, parts of Europe and the Middle East, secularism is being attacked from all sides: from the left, from the right, by liberal multiculturalists and illiberal totalitarians, abused by racists and xenophobes as a stick with which to beat minorities in diverse societies, subverted by religious fundamentalists planning its destruction.
If you look at the major atheist groups right now, like the national groups, the ones that are doing the real activist work... They are not bringing in the kind of donations they used to. Most of them are starved for cash. They're downsizing left and right. Because people aren't just giving like they used to. And I talked to a lot of the major donors out there and they said, "Well, we're kind of tired of seeing the atheist community just fight amongst itself and not really get anything done. We'd rather not give money if we don't think it's going to go somewhere.Atheist Dr. Gordon Stein wrote:
Atheism has long ceased to be a rare and oft-ignored philosophical outlook...It has transformed itself into an active political programme with clear objectives which, though they vary from state to state, unequivocally include the elimination of state religion, religious education, and the enshrinement of scientism (Gordon Stein, Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, page 74.).There is a reactionary element to atheism, For example, the atheist ideology in Muslim countries is a reaction in part to Islam. On the other hand, the atheists in a culture absorb various aspects of that culture.
First of all, religious belief is still very powerful and widespread, and there is nothing inevitable about its decline. In fact, the proportion of people who say they believe in God actually ticked modestly upward, from 86 percent to 89 percent, since Gallup last asked the question in 2014.We do live in a multivariable world so atheist infighting might be one of several variables that is causing the promulgation of atheism to be more challenging in the United States.
In 2100, however, the world will likely be only 9% unaffiliated — more religious than in 2012. The peak of the unaffiliated was in 1970 at around 20%, largely due to the influence of European communism. Since communism’s collapse, religion has been experiencing resurgence that will likely continue beyond 2100. All the world’s religions are poised to have enormous numeric growth (with the exceptions of tribal religions and Chinese folk religion), as well as geographic spread with the continuation of migration trends. Adherents of the world’s religions—perhaps particularly Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists—will continue to settle in the formerly Christian and ever-expanding cities of Europe and North America, causing increases of religious pluralism in these areas. Christians and Muslims together will encompass two-thirds of the global population—more than 7 billion individuals. In 2100, the majority of the world’s 11.6 billion residents will be adherents of religious traditions.
Atheism has squandered its momentum on a defensive old guard and apologists for neglect of events happening in our world. I’m going to have to suggest that we all abandon it. Let’s find an organization that openly states that they want to dismantle the structures of white supremacy and sexist oppression...
Take a listen to James Croft. Humanism is a better futureJames Croft is the outreach director for the humanist organization Ethical Society of St. Louis (ESS). The ESS says about their organization, "As a nontheistic organization, we foster free religious thought, and our mission is to help answer the ultimate questions, 'How can we create meaningfulness in this life?' and 'How should we treat each other?” without reference to god or the supernatural.' According to the ESS website, their membership is made of atheists, agnostics and some religious people as well.
According to a new study published last week in Nature, people all over the world connect immorality with atheism. In fact, the moral prejudice against atheists is so strong that it holds even in countries like the Netherlands, where most people aren’t religious. Even atheists themselves, according to the study, are inclined to see nonbelievers as more wicked than the faithful.,..
“Entrenched moral suspicion of atheists suggests that religion’s powerful influence on moral judgements persists, even among non-believers in secular societies,” the authors wrote.
The study, led by University of Kentucky psychology professor Will Gervais, surveyed more than 3,000 people in 13 countries, including nations with Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and non-religious majorities: Australia, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Hong Kong, India, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
As they had hypothesised, the researchers found a universal suspicion of atheist morality across all 13 countries. “People overall are roughly twice as likely to view extreme immorality as representative of atheists, relative to believers,” they wrote. “Consistent with predictions, extreme intuitive moral distrust of atheists is both globally evident and variable in its magnitude across countries.”
The association was somewhat stronger in more religious countries, but even in very secular countries in the study — Australia, China, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom — people were more likely to associate serial killing with atheism, although the gap was narrower. The survey also asked participants to describe their religious beliefs, which allowed the research team to determine that even atheists connected immoral acts to atheism more often than to religious belief.In 2016, The Independent indicated:
People's distrust of atheists is “deeply and culturally ingrained”, with even many atheists having an instinctual distrust of each other, according to a new study.In 2012, Scientific American declared:
A report published in the UK’s International Journal for The Psychology of Religion found there to be widespread “prejudice” against atheists, despite the fact 13 per cent of Britain’s population place themselves in that category.
Atheists are one of the most disliked groups in America. Only 45 percent of Americans say they would vote for a qualified atheist presidential candidate, and atheists are rated as the least desirable group for a potential son-in-law or daughter-in-law to belong to. Will Gervais at the University of British Columbia recently published a set of studies looking at why atheists are so disliked. His conclusion: It comes down to trust.
Gervais and his colleagues presented participants with a story about a person who accidentally hits a parked car and then fails to leave behind valid insurance information for the other driver. Participants were asked to choose the probability that the person in question was a Christian, a Muslim, a rapist, or an atheist. They thought it equally probable the culprit was an atheist or a rapist, and unlikely the person was a Muslim or Christian. In a different study, Gervais looked at how atheism influences people’s hiring decisions. People were asked to choose between an atheist or a religious candidate for a job requiring either a high or low degree of trust. For the high-trust job of daycare worker, people were more likely to prefer the religious candidate. For the job of waitress, which requires less trust, the atheists fared much better.
It wasn’t just the highly religious participants who expressed a distrust of atheists. People identifying themselves as having no religious affiliation held similar opinions. Gervais and his colleagues discovered that people distrust atheists because of the belief that people behave better when they think that God is watching over them. This belief may have some truth to it. Gervais and his colleague Ara Norenzayan have found that reminding people about God’s presence has the same effect as telling people they are being watched by others: it increases their feelings of self-consciousness and leads them to behave in more socially acceptable ways.Public Perception of Militant Atheists
| Description |
English: "The Four Horsemen of the Non-Apocalypse": Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris.
|
| Date | 29 August 2014, 17:56:44 |
| Source |
|
| Author | DIREKTOR, based on works by listed authors. |
It has been said many times that trying to get Humanists to agree on something is like trying to herd cats. I learned early on that as a leader I could not rule from above, or make unilateral decisions. The membership is highly educated and smart they do not respond well to decrees or being told what to do or what position they should take on a matter so one learns to be inclusive, trying to reach consensus. Without going into too much detail, the reason I resigned was because I felt in a particular circumstance unilateral action was the best course to take and still believe I made the right decision, but it lead to me being forced to resign. In the end, my decision was upheld.On December 10, 2011, USA Today reported in a story entitled Study: Atheists distrusted as much as rapists:
The study, conducted among 350 Americans adults and 420 Canadian college students, asked participants to decide if a fictional driver damaged a parked car and left the scene, then found a wallet and took the money, was the driver more likely to be a teacher, an atheist teacher, or a rapist teacher?
The participants, who were from religious and nonreligious backgrounds, most often chose the atheist teacher.
The study is part of an attempt to understand what needs religion fulfills in people. Among the conclusions is a sense of trust in others.
"People find atheists very suspect," Shariff said. "They don't fear God so we should distrust them; they do not have the same moral obligations of others. This is a common refrain against atheists. People fear them as a group.
The spiritual commitments of Kim and Shaik illustrate a trend captured by Statistics Canada and pollsters at the Angus Reid Institute: Young immigrants to Canada have an unusually high rate of religious commitment.
Angus Reid discovered that younger immigrants, including millennials, are almost three times as likely as Canadian-born residents to take part in religious activities, whether Christian, Sikh or Muslim.
More than half recent immigrants between ages 18 and 49 told Angus Reid pollsters they attend a religious institution at least once a month in Canada, which is also a higher rate than among older immigrants.
As a result of in-migration, Canadian sociologist of religion Reginald Bibbysays, institutional religion is far from dying in Canada, despite the emphasis journalists and academics place on the expansion of secularism.The abstract for 2016 journal article Christian Churches and Immigrant Support in Canada: An Organizational Ecology Perspective which was published in the Review of Religious Research states:
Canada receives roughly 250,000 immigrants each year, and the government spends considerable resources on assisting them to settle and integrate into Canadian society through the agencies they support. Most of these new immigrants settle in Canada’s largest cities, where churches meet specific needs that extend beyond the capacities of government agencies. In smaller centers, churches cover a wide range of services because few government supports are available. Little is known about the work of churches in Canada in spite of their importance to immigrant settlement and integration. In this study, we examine the services offered to immigrants by Canadian Christian churches. We show how the service provision of Christian churches is constrained by other organizations and groups in their environment, in ways consonant with the organizational ecology framework. Specifically, churches service the needs of immigrants by adapting to specific niche needs and by filling in gaps left by other service providers.The Canadian born scholar Eric Kaufmann wrote:
I argue that 97% of the world's population growth is taking place in the developing world, where 95% of people are religious.
On the other hand, the secular West and East Asia has very low fertility and a rapidly aging population... In the coming decades, the developed world's demand for workers to pay its pensions and work in its service sector will soar alongside the booming supply of young people in the third world. Ergo, we can expect significant immigration to the secular West which will import religious revival on the back of ethnic change. In addition, those with religious beliefs tend to have higher birth rates than the secular population, with fundamentalists having far larger families. The epicentre of these trends will be in immigration gateway cities like New York (a third white), Amsterdam (half Dutch), Los Angeles (28% white), and London, 45% white British.
A report this week from Statistics Canada forecasting the country’s demographic makeup in 2036 suggests it’s too late. The transformation of Canada is already far advanced, and continuing.Furthermore, much of Canada's immigration is from Asia (Filipinos, Indians, Chinese, etc.) and much of the atheistic areas of Asia are seeing a rapid decline of atheists and a strong growth of evangelical Christianity (see: East Asia and global desecularization ).
By 2036, the agency predicts, as many as 30 per cent of all residents will not have been born in Canada. Another 20 per cent of the population will be native-born, but with at least one immigrant parent.
Eric Kaufmann, a noted London-based demographer, projects that religious people, especially conservatives, will win the race against the non-religious in the 21st century.
Why? Basically because religious women are having far more babies than secular women....
The main reason Islam, Catholicism and conservative Protestantism is expanding is not necessarily because they’re converting newcomers, Kaufman argues, but because their religions tend to be “pro-natal” and they have more children.
“What no one has noticed is that far from declining, the religious are expanding their share of the population: in fact, the more religious people are, the more children they have,” Kaufmann says in Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? (Profile Books)....
“The cumulative effect of immigration from religious countries, and religious fertility will be to reverse the secularization process in the West. Not only will the religious eventually triumph over the non-religious, but it is those who are the most extreme in their beliefs who have the largest families.”,,,,
Because of increasingly high immigration rates to the West, Kaufmann projects regions such as Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia will grow more religious. “Religion is coming to the West on the backs of immigrants.”...
What about Canada?
The most recent figures available confirm Kaufmann’s thesis.Google Canada: Search volume for atheism/agnosticism terms - 2005 to present
Muslim women in Canada have the highest birthrate — at 2.4 babies per woman, followed by Hindus (2 babies per woman), Sikhs (1.9), Jews (1.8), various Protestants (1.6) and Catholics (1.6). Non-religious Canadian women have only 1.4 babies per woman.
Kaufmann has also discovered that children of immigrants do not easily walk away from the family religion — not like many of the offspring of parents born in the West.
Children of immigrants often engage in “cultural defence,” says sociologists. They tend to stay with their parents’ traditional, ethno-religious customs to affirm their identities.
When secularism does gain newcomers, Kaufmann says, they come mainly from the offspring of domestic-born moderate or liberal religious parents. “The middle ground,” as Kaufmann puts it, “is being hollowed out.”
There is a “higher cost” for members of conservative religions to reject their parents’ faith, he says. “To leave a conservative religion is a big, big step. You’re leaving more behind.”
With such lines of reasoning, Kaufmann makes a case that is worth taking seriously regarding who shall inherit the Earth.
