Jumpin said:
The "Neo-Atheist" movement is in fact a bunch of people who hate religion of all sorts. It is the sole point of the movement, to try and eliminate religion. Agnosticism is different than Atheism in that while Atheists feel they have enough evidence to assert a belief that God doesn't exist, the agnostic doesn't believe this; instead the agnostic feels the question of existence is open to them - they admit they don't know the answer and don't have the evidence to begin to understand it - the agnostic feels that there is not enough evidence to answer the question of why the universe exists. An atheist will come up with criticisms like "the spaghetti monster" that are theologically absurd. The agnostic can generally recognize as well as a theist of what is theologically absurd. I think many agnosticsts are open to deism much more than general religion - many agnostics feel an anthropomorphic God is unlikely, but are much more open to other interpretations. As a Liberal Christian, I generally feel I have more to talk about with agnostics than the atheist or the conservative Christian. I am very much a subscriber to religious pluralism: Liberal Hinduism, Budhism, Islam, etc... Are different ways to interpret something essential the same as what I believe. They received the same message in different words, and with a different cultural matrix. |
Try to eliminate religion? Naah, never gonna happen. Sure they'd want that, but its just another wet dream. Most of ''neo-atheists'' today are 12-17 year old males who roam the internet (youtube in particular) and other forums searching for a flame war debate and let everyone know how much they love their non-christianity (tho most of them haven't even told their parents yet) while complaining how its being shoved down their throat. Maybe also an occasional 22-33 year old ''im 27 and i haven't told my parents im an atheists yet because i don't wanna move out fot being a genius'' type that usually guides the former group into doing those ''activities''. But that's about as much as ''activity'' they do, really. They posses no real threat in eliminating religion, faar from it.
BTW. i really like the underlined part in your post. If only more people realized that...