Though publicly outspoken atheists have much more to offer than, \u201cThere are no gods\u201d or “The claims of religion are false”<\/a> \u2013 I still maintain that we live in a time when exactly those views must be put strongly, clearly, and publicly. That\u2019s the point of an atheist movement.<\/p>\nBack in the 1980s and 1990s, many thoughtful people believed that religion was spent as a social and political force, at least in the West, in the wake of the tumultuous social revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s. If anything, it became somewhat taboo to criticise religion in academia or the public sphere.<\/p>\n
But even then religion was regrouping, and it was often an illiberal, even theocratic, variety of religion. Religious leaders and organisations now demand \u2014 and often receive \u2014 deference to their pretended moral authority, and this deference from others is often expended on irrationalist, reactionary, or anti-liberal causes.<\/p>\n
If so many religious leaders and organisations had not become aggressive in recent decades in trying to impose their views beyond their own congregations, there might be little urgency in speaking up against religion. But they continue in their attempts to influence governments, essentially on religious grounds, with respect to all sorts of hot-button topics of the day, whether it is stem cell research, science teaching, women\u2019s reproductive rights, gay rights, or all manner of others where religious belief and morality cut across the claims of compassion, freedom, and good sense.<\/p>\n
As long as that keeps happening, the popes, priests, and pulpiteers can\u2019t have it both ways. If they’re going to bring their claims of authority, truth, and traditional wisdom to public debate on how we ought to employ government power, then they must expect their credentials to be challenged. That\u2019s why we need an atheist movement.<\/p>\n
I am most strongly a secularist and a liberal \u2013 a liberal in the sense in which John Stuart Mill was: i.e., someone who wants to keep the government out of our private decisions and lives, and more generally someone who advocates individual liberty, freedom of speech, and diversity of ideas. Some religious people share these views and values, and more can be persuaded. But all too many still don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
While that is the case, it\u2019s only fair that their claims to a divinely grounded authority be scrutinised. Does their God really say what they claim \u2013 and does this being even exist? If that\u2019s doubtful, why do we extend special deference to religious leaders, as if they were experts on something real<\/em>? Someone still needs to press those hard questions.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s<\/em> the point of an atheist movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About:\u00a0 Russell Blackford is an Australian writer, philosopher, and literary critic, based in Newcastle, NSW. He is a Conjoint Lecturer in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Newcastle, and editor-in-chief of\u00a0 The Journal of Evolution and Technology. As of 2012, he has began writing a column for Free Inquiry, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,274],"tags":[275,276],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atheism","category-guest-posts-2","tag-guest-post","tag-russell-blackford"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/skepticallyleft\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}