---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> wrote :
Both the Fox News atheist and the Salon writer are now on my shit list. The atheist guy is quoted as saying: "Ninety percent of atheists don’t call themselves atheists; the real number [of atheists] isn’t 3 percent but 35 percent." The article writer elaborates: "(The Pew Research Center has documented the apparently unstoppable increase in the number of people without any religious affiliation, who now account for 23 percent of Americans, with millennials – go, millennials! – already at 35 percent....)." So it's 35 percent not of Americans as a whole but just of millennials who are unaffiliated with a religion. E. Sloppy and very. I found that statistic, which I interpreted the way you state (35% of millennials as unaffiliated) interesting and consistent with the attitude of the millennials I am acquainted with. But the article writer also failed to point out that the "nones" (people without religious affiliation) are by no means all atheists. A significant majority believe in God; they just don't consider themselves members of a particular religion. E. Yep, sloppy. I'd put myself in that category...although I have no intention of discussing how I try to understand or interpreting those three letters. According to the Pew study, only 7 percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans are either atheists or agnostics. E. "Self-declared atheists or agnostics still make up a minority of all religious “nones.” But both atheists and agnostics are growing as a share of all religiously unaffiliated people, and together they now make up 7% of all U.S. adults (up from 4% in 2007). Nearly two-thirds of atheists and agnostics are men, and the group also tends to be whiter and more highly educated than the general population." Two-thirds are men; interesting statistic. If either of them had read anything substantial about the Pew study, they'd know that. It's been mentioned over and over. They're either just sloppy and lazy, or being deliberately deceptive. E. I used the word "sloppy" before I read your last statement here, and yes, sloppy and lazy and perhaps deceptive too in that the author of the article sounds like he has a position he was trying to bolster. His article should have been given a technical review by someone. Thanks for looking at the source material. I found this interesting: "The most critical flaw of faith, he told me, was the notion it offers of an “objective morality” – that is, unquestionable, immutable, heaven-decreed moral absolutes that cannot evolve as our consciousness does. “The lie of objective morality that make people do bad things and think they’re doing good,” with ISIS atrocities and attacks on abortion clinics serving as obvious examples thereof. Such murderers “think they’re doing God’s work, they think they’re doing good.” I disagree that the flaw is in "faith" in an of itself; however the influence of religious "objective morality" is interesting to me; could it be argued that his definition/interpretation of "objective morality" is potentially inaccurate in that it likely relies on a "literal" translation of religious text (something I have always been in disagreement with)? Karen Armstrong, in her book The Case for God, also argues against using a historical context for when and how the scriptures evolved and for what purpose. On the other side, to the extent that the reality is that so many branches of "religions" have evolved to reflect a rigid "fundamentalist" approach, it is an easy (though I believe simplistic and lazy) jump to make from blaming "religion" and "objective morality" as a source of "terrorist" behavior Thoughts? I asked why he chose the present moment to publish “Fighting God.” “We’re seeing this rise in religious hatred all over the world,” he said, “and a pushback against criticizing religion. Yet religion is the problem. We see its influence all over, in abortion, gay rights, climate change. In Europe, the rise of Islam” – especially with the influx of Muslim refugees – “is leading to the rise of firebrand atheism, as atheists are being pushed into realizing that they have something to fight, and something to defend. In Heidelberg and Basil and Zurich I spoke to packed crowds who wanted to know more about firebrand atheism because of the fear of the rise of Islam. Religion is hurting our species, it’s hurting the entire world, and yet we protect it. We need to put religion in its place, which is back in the church.” E. What do you think he means by this sentence (above)? http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/13/a-closer-look-at-americas-rapidly-growing-religious-nones/ ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <emily.mae50@...> wrote : Meet the Fox News atheist — the man Bill O’Reilly calls a fascist and Sean Hannity thinks is evil http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/meet_the_fox_news_atheist_the_man_bill_oreilly_calls_a_fascist_and_sean_hannity_thinks_is_evil/ http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/meet_the_fox_news_atheist_the_man_bill_oreilly_calls_a_fascist_and_sean_hannity_thinks_is_evil/ Meet the Fox News atheist — the man Bill O’Reilly calls ... http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/meet_the_fox_news_atheist_the_man_bill_oreilly_calls_a_fascist_and_sean_hannity_thinks_is_evil/ Sean Hannity despises him. Actual Fox atheists want his autograph. David Silverman takes the fight to the enemy View on www.salon.com http://www.salon.com/2015/12/20/meet_the_fox_news_atheist_the_man_bill_oreilly_calls_a_fascist_and_sean_hannity_thinks_is_evil/ Preview by Yahoo
