Atheism vs Religion: The Final Countdown?
What’s missing here, and in so many similar arguments, is that religion works. Continue Reading →
Tag: atheism
Science or Academic Atheism?
Amy Levin: What happens when we give scientists the authority to speak about God? This was my first question when I discovered Jonathan Pararajasingham’s recent video compilation called “50 Famous Academics and Scientists Talk About God.” It’s posted on Open Culture and the list of those featured includes 16 Nobel prize winners, including a bundle of recognizable names like Richard Feynman, Steven Pinker, Oliver Sacks, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, and Leonard Susskind.
The montage is a hefty undertaking and a convenient exploration of some of the most fascinating personal belief talk around. It’s also dialogical candy for political atheists like Bill Maher and worshippers of Richard Dawkins. After all, who can argue with an orgy of scientific elitism on the question of objective truth? Continue Reading →
Atheism vs Religion: Take 253: Matthew Chapman's The Ledge
by S. Brent Plate
Before you’ve even heard of this film, Bill Donohue has, once again, given it a ratings boost by rebuffing it on the Catholic League website. In between press releases on “Bishop Blasted over Gay Marriage” and “New York Times is Gay Crazy,” is a little piece blasting Matthew Chapman’s film The Ledge:
People of faith, especially Catholics, are used to being trashed by Hollywood, but they are not accustomed to films that promote atheism. Yes, there was “The Golden Compass,” an atheism-for-kids effort which the Catholic League successfully boycotted (in fairness, it was the book upon which the movie was based that triggered our response, not the screen adaptation). “The Ledge” is different in that its backers are selling themselves as the real pioneers: they expect it to be a ground-breaker.
The allegorical Golden Compass (2007) was derided by the Catholic League and many evangelicals who claimed it to be a pro-atheist stealth campaign. This was just two years after the allegorical Chronicles of Narnia, which upset some secular-minded people for being too heavy-handed in the Christian sub themes. Before that was Gibson’s Passion, then Scorsese’s Last Temptation, and the see-sawing controversy continues. I doubt The Ledge will make as big a splash, not because it doesn’t raise important issues, but because it lacks the big budget funding that really stirs controversy. Continue Reading →
Atheism vs Religion: Take 253: Matthew Chapman’s The Ledge
by S. Brent Plate
Before you’ve even heard of this film, Bill Donohue has, once again, given it a ratings boost by rebuffing it on the Catholic League website. In between press releases on “Bishop Blasted over Gay Marriage” and “New York Times is Gay Crazy,” is a little piece blasting Matthew Chapman’s film The Ledge:
People of faith, especially Catholics, are used to being trashed by Hollywood, but they are not accustomed to films that promote atheism. Yes, there was “The Golden Compass,” an atheism-for-kids effort which the Catholic League successfully boycotted (in fairness, it was the book upon which the movie was based that triggered our response, not the screen adaptation). “The Ledge” is different in that its backers are selling themselves as the real pioneers: they expect it to be a ground-breaker.
The allegorical Golden Compass (2007) was derided by the Catholic League and many evangelicals who claimed it to be a pro-atheist stealth campaign. This was just two years after the allegorical Chronicles of Narnia, which upset some secular-minded people for being too heavy-handed in the Christian sub themes. Before that was Gibson’s Passion, then Scorsese’s Last Temptation, and the see-sawing controversy continues. I doubt The Ledge will make as big a splash, not because it doesn’t raise important issues, but because it lacks the big budget funding that really stirs controversy. Continue Reading →
The Burden of Disbelief
From a review by The Washington Post‘s Hank Stuever of “The Sunset Limited,” a new HBO show written by Cormac McCarthy:
The bigger revelation here is Jones, in total sync with McCarthy’s words, bringing an understated, heavy-sigh sadness to the role of White. His burden of disbelief feels more real than Black’s insistence on a higher power. Early on, “The Sunset Limited” faintly suggests that Black is some sort of celestial presence, as if sent by God to investigate White’s worthiness for the afterlife. White keeps asking to leave Black’s apartment, but Black won’t let him go, on the pretense that White might head back to the station to leap in front of another train.
Reconciling Faith and Science
Andrew Dermont at Big Think writes us to point out their new series, “Believe it or not,” of video interviews with atheists on the possibility of reconciling religion and science. Those interviewed include Karen Armstrong, Lionel Tiger, Richard Dawkins, James Randi, and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein. You can view the series here. Continue Reading →
Universism In a Nutshell
Stephanie Simon of The Los Angeles Times profiles the non-prophet founder of a new, doubt-filled religion — Universism — Ford Vox (who also runs the online forum for the 8,000-member Continue Reading →
The Atheist-Pagan-Nazi-Wahhabi Alliance v. Motherland
After a group of Russian atheists called for the Constitutional Court to remove a reference to God from the national anthem, the Union of Orthodox Citizens charged that such a Continue Reading →
Atheist Lobbyist
Atheists get a lobbyist too, in the form of Lori Lipman Brown, former Nevada state senator and the new congressional lobbyist and spokeswoman for The Secular Coalition for America who Continue Reading →
Other People’s Holidays
The San Antonio Express-News experiments with a new strategy for overthrowing the country’s secular overlords: make atheists look like a pack of sad lonely hearts who weren’t invited to the believers’ Continue Reading →