"Why we should no longer be cowed by the chattering classes ruling Britain who sneer at Christianity"

[BetsyBoop]

Just thought I'd share I found this a really interesting "Easter essay" in today's Mail.

Callipygia - is the article online, can you link it?

Please don't get your coat

A N Wilson

What is an Atheist though? Is an Atheist always someone who has turned away from God or religion?
I don't think so, that implies that you must have had a faith to turn away from. Plent of us don't and never have.

Definitely explains his loss of faith a lot better.

Not sure what he's on with the linguistics stuff either

Does this mean there are two "types" of atheists then? "Born atheists" (never had faith) and "Born-again atheists" (had faith and lost it)
{removes tongue from cheek }

Hmm - the linguistics thing smacks rather of Intelligent design, doesn't it? And what's all this "materialist atheist" thing - has there been a schism? Materialist is generally seen as a pejorative word, and attaching it to atheist seems a deliberate attempt to equate the two.

I think Wilson says much the same thing as the DM article - a bit of a Cartesian - I think there must be a God, so there is. And I am a bit - miffed? - about the "bleak, muddled, creed" crap. It's more elegantly phrased, but no better argued than the DM article. And, as an atheist, I'd find arguments like that against religion just as lazy.

And could we please invoke Godwin's law on the Hitler reference? Atrocities have been committed by people of faith and of no faith.

Well it's a less-generally-stupid piece (without all the needless insults) but I still think his argument is bollocks. Just like religion. Many insects and animals have very complicated communication systems as well: the fact that human beings evolved language doesn't prove the involvement of a Higher Whatnot any more than anything else does.

'materialist atheist' - materialism in this instance is surely just 'If I can see it, it exists'.

But where did this come from? Is he saying that people like me who believe in quarks even though I can't see them are probably ok? Why not just atheist?

I presume it's meant to convey the idea of someone very close-minded and wedded to an ideology. I'm just guessing and I've had some alcohol now, so the synapses aren't connecting so well (if they ever do)

Well, that could be anyone - you may as well just say "twats". It is lazy, and it bugs me.

I can do that too. 'Twats'. See?

Do you mock me, madam?

Sometimes people who complain about 'materialist' unbelievers are actually trying to engage in more of a political argument ie 'You are obsessed with money because you don't have a belief in a deity. IF you believed in a deity then you would have a sense of higher things - and therefore you would stop moaning about wanting fair wages, you grubby materalist bastards - Great Pumpkin designed you to be poor and me not to be...'.

Aren't you s'posed to tell her to turn the other cheek, or somesuch?

Anyway, Kay is drunk.

Oh good grief no, I did some mocking on another thread earlier and used up the daily quota a Christian is allowed.

I am now only permitted to incline my head at a patronizing angle and nod sympathetically.

As it happens, I have only heard the materialist thing used in this context once before, and it was pretty much used to mean someone who denied the existence of a spiritual world - so 'materialist atheist' is a bit like saying 'a very dark black'.

I am not drunk, I am meryy.

How much of a quota of encouraging violence do Christians have? Asking on justa's behalf, obv - in case she wants to go out looking for trouble later.

merry

Two meanings, seriously, I promise. One is the one SGB mentioned - the one we hear all the time, about being concerned with buying things - consumerism etc.

One is a philosophical thingy to do with the material world as opposed to the spiritual world.

I'm not making this up you know, I've heard RC Sproul talk about it, and he's very respectable, unlike me.

Ah yes, the other 'Believe in Great Pumpkin, don't be so materialist' argument which goes 'Now give ME, Great Pumpkin's earthly representative, ALL YOUR MONEY!'