HOPE
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Yes, there is hope.
Soon, all the smoke and thunder of the atheist “surge” will have guttered out. [Surge? What Surge? Check the non-fiction anti-religious literature on the New York times best seller lists during the last 18 months, reference Hitchens, Harris, Dennett.]
Then decent people everywhere will return (as most already have) to the common sense insights that have served us well: Not all religious institutions are great; not all anti-religious forces are wise; and not all faith – broadly defined – is of the simple minded “tooth fairy” variety.
Will there be a convergence of humanists, atheists and the faithful? I am persuaded that a promising convergence is underway and that the answer to my question, over time, will be yes. Or, if not .. the species is screwed (to put it in the non- technical jargon of the common sense- cognoscenti).
My article – a short excerpt below -- is posted in full at this link: http://jaygaskill.com/HumanistAtheistBeliever.htm .
Jay
Excerpt --
Here’s our problem in a nutshell: A Dark Age has never been far from the human condition, but we now face a new threat that will, if ignored, drag us, kicking and screaming, back into the pit.
This threat requires that all humanists (broadly defined as those who find common refuge in liberal civilization and the underlying moral foundation essential to its survival) must locate our common moral ground and stand on it together. This is a heads up call to the friends of the human species of all stripes - religious, anti-religious, atheists, theists, theologically indifferent - all of who care about the a liberty-friendly civilization and the ongoing protection of peaceful human creative activities:
The name of our common threat is contagious nihilism.
It has many faces and guises. Whether nihilism erupts under the thin veneer of an ideology (almost always a form of secular or religious fanaticism) or in its idiopathic forms, it is difficult for many civilized people to detect the common thread at its core.
The recent upsurge of family murders followed by the suicide of the perpetrator (how we might wish the suicide had gone first!) was prefigured by the disgruntled homicidal employees who – for a time – contributed to the common epithet, “going postal”.
Well, the Post Office has been exonerated.
