Atheism and families

Well,

Lets start out with an apology. I have almost seemingly neglected my duty to continue writing in this blog. No, its not by choice, but rather by commitment that I loose steam in doing posts. I'm hoping that this is a relevant apology though, as I'm quite unsure of how may visitors I actually get.None the less, I've found an interesting topic to blog about for today! I've begun to make a habit of visiting the major creationist websites (CMI, AiG being the main two) to seek out their literature. Today I found an article relating to another interest within the spectrum of the creationist termed "Evolution Controversy."Atheism and its apparently harsh implications on society.

The article om CMI, titled "Atheism, evolutionism (This is not even a recognized word) and families" found HERE , is an apparent commentary on another article published in Psychology Today titled "The Atheist at the Breakfast Table" by Bruce Grierson (Title leads to Griersons blog, where the article is published in full, and also contains a link to the shortened version published in Psychology Today). The CMI author(s), Douglas Oliver and Stuart Burgess, give a fairly brief overview of what Grierson's article talks about, and instead hyper-focus in on certain quotes and word usage to give a sense that the idea of Atheism (which somehow directly relates to evolution) is a spreading "disease" on modern society, and undoubtedly has "negative effects on churches, parents, and children."

Reading Grierson's actual article provides a much different, and less hostile, view of the topic within the article: Tolerance. Religious tolerance more precisely. In short, the religious-less (Atheists) are touted as a harsh group, and therefore, are looked down upon (especially within fundamental religious circles) due to a few within the group that promote it so outwardly (the late Christopher Hitchens, or Richard Dawkins as examples). But, there is another side to the matter that is not generally seen, the side that doesnt vehemently attack those in the religious sphere, which Grierson states, is "much larger than the section who does." A question was brought up in my mind: Why take an article, so obviously on the side of peaceful tolerance towards other, and twist it to put Atheism (as well as evolution) in such a bad light?

The CMI authors (I'm unsure of who did what) go on to present some examples of common misconceptions of Atheist, that Grierson's article apparently shows.

1) Atheists typically assume that they are open-minded, but they usually exclude even the possibility of a Creator, i.e. they are not. E.g., Julian Huxley famously said that “Modern science must rule out special creation or divine guidance”. Todd more recently admitted that he also believed that science excludes a Creator: “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic”.

There are many issues within this statement, and right off the bat as well. Creationist also assume they are open minded, they study the sciences too to look at the evidence brought up that opposes their position, but immediately, and illogically (attempt to) refute what is presented to them. As well, open minded "Christians" would not downplay other views (religions included) if there was such an open-minded ideology among them. Grierson's article does not present the idea that "Atheists" are contradictory in being open minded thinkers, quite the opposite actually, in that tolerance can only come about when more than one view is explored rather than being only exposed to dogmatic views (and not specifically that of Creationism, and Christianity). Next is a quote from Julian Huxley, however, science does not study what is not observable or empirical, or repeatable, and bringing in the supernatural would hinder an explanation attempted by scientists on a certain phenomena. Then a quote from Todd is brought up, which is confusing due to the fact that no mention of this "Todd" has been brought up until his name is mentioned. Further investigation reveals a bit more than the simple quote; Todd goes on to say that "of course the scientist, as an individual, is free to embrace a reality that transcends naturalism", making the presupposition that S.C. Todd (who obviously wrote the article, only made know in the references) encourages the notion that science doesn't want God. Without going into too much detail on the article, titled "A view from Kansas on that evolution debate" gives an overview on some of the rulings on the debate to teach creationsim within science classrooms in Kansas, where at the time of the article, had banned the teaching of evolution. Todd essentially makes the plea that science needs to be taught properly, not dogmatically. Quote bombing is a terrible thing, it simply makes creationists look highly dishonest.

(2) They assume that they are ‘quiet’ and ‘non-fundamentalist’ people, when in fact their position is just as ‘loud’ and ‘fundamentalist’ (in the modern derogatory sense of intolerant and exclusionary) as that of anyone! To essentially worship pleasure rather than God (2 Timothy 3) might seem to be a non-religious, non-fundamentalist position but it is actually an (atheistic) fundamentalist/dogmatic position. Furthermore, to ignore God (if He exists, which is the question at issue) is actually a very bold and provocative thing to do—not a quiet, reasonable thing

This next misconception shows more dishonesty on the part of the CMI authors, and is exactly the point the Grierson makes in his article. The overly outspoken proponents of Atheism tend to be "loud" and "fundamentalist", which Creationists attribute to all Atheists, but the quiet and non-fundamentalist side is what is explored in Grierson's article, to in fact show that there is more to it than the aggressive proponents who are outspoken on the view. The point is made that this loud and fundamentalist action of certain individuals within the Atheism sphere, represents a derogatory sense of intolerance and  exclusion, but why? Grierson's article has nothing to do atheists thinking they are just quiet and nice about their views, and like ive already mentioned, reflect that tolerance is what a widespread portion practice. A great deal of the article talks about how to handle this as a parent, and when religious views are thrown into the picture, how you can handle those situations as an atheist; essentially, TALK to your children, DON'T indoctrinate.

(3) They assume that the majority of academics do not believe in God. However modern science encourages people to keep silent about God; scientists are not allowed to mention God or give Him glory in their research papers. And if a scientist does mention God, his career can be negatively affected. However, our personal experiences as academics are that there is very significant (but not articulated) sympathy for, e.g., intelligent design among academics in secular universities.

Here, the last misconception talks about the view of academics in relation to some intelligent creator. Apparently the majority of academics really do believe in God, otherwise, why would Atheists assume this. While there is a definite presence of God believing academics, there is still a larger amount of those that don't believe in the God of the Bible. This is only the broad spectrum of academia; narrowed down to what creationists are actually concerned about, there is an even smaller amount that believe in a God, and a minuscule portion that are creationist. I dont think I need to link to any stats, but you can very easily find these sorts of numbers online. That was only the first sentence in the third misconception, the rest of it deals with the apparent censorship of God believing professionals. Modern science makes not law, nor endorses the idea that ideas of God must be kept silent. In what context would a scientist, religious or not, have the need to mention God or give glory to Him in any technical paper? Lets take a look at a fairly recent paper (also the topic of scrutiny in a CMI article): the paper is titled Feathered Non-Avian Dinosaurs from
North America Provide Insight into Wing Origins, and although this is just a title, I'm sure you could gather that the paper deals with wing and feather developments in non-flight dinosaurs, correct? The point of the article is to detail the study which the paper is about, and the establishment of it being about dinosaurs, feathers, and wings certainly does not give need to praise the Lord. In fact, the paper makes no mention of thanks or praise to anyone, deity or not, other than the mention of contributors names, and a reference list from which ideas have been used from (these can be taken as a form of thanks, but are far from being directly this). The statement that academics that do make mention of God have their careers negatively affected, is a horrific distortion of any sort of truth (providing that any of it is at all true, this article HERE gives an instance of the sort of dishonesty I'm talking about).

The rest of the article goes on to vilify Grierson's article even further by "putting words in his mouth" and making unnecessary and irrelevant claims about past and famous forefathers of the scientific community being creationists, as well as saying that Grierson (and essentially all Atheistic evolutionists) are locked in a conspiracy to swindle the mass populous into believing that Atheists are not bad, or horrible people (it also attributes proponents of historical atrocities, such as Stalin and Hitler, to the teaching of atheistic and evolutionary thinking... surprise, surprise).

The mass population of creationists are in such a dire state IMO, there never seems to be major headway with their movement, both within the areas of scientific advancement (creation "science" only aims to disprove their opposing ideas, which is not to advance scientific hypotheses) and the area of gaining any major support for their position. I really have to wonder where it all stops, relentless as they are, there will eventually be an end to this sort of dishonest thinking.