All aboard the atheist bus

rockbeer

Send your letters to independent.letters@independent.ie

I just did. Nothing like a Monday morning rant to start the week off in style.

robindch

rockbeer wrote: »

I just did.

Likewise.

Let's see who gets published first

AtomicHorror

Quite an outrageous article. The implication that the death of "baby P" was somehow the fault of atheism is rather sickening. I'm sure the author would contend that she made no such claim, but in that case why mention the matter at all? It smacks of the usual fear of those who vehemently oppose atheism; that the atheist world is a moral nightmare in which everything will fall apart.

When we look at the sort of incidences that echo the baby P case, do we see atheism as the common trend? Do we even see it in this case? Or do we instead see ingrained neglect, deprivation, poor upbringing? Pure poverty, generations old.

On the one hand the writer sneers at the concept that converting Ulster to atheism might make sectarianism redundant (true: it is an over-simplification) and yet she expects us to swallow the implication that atheism lies behind the loss of the western world's moral compass- or that it would make this "crisis" (if it exists) worse. How tidy. Isn't it a lot more likely that religion just has very little to offer us any more? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to seek to help those who become directionlessly faithless to find constructive and ordered atheism, to come to terms with that reality rather than be in conflict with it?

The caricature of atheists she paints (with a poem as an example!), is laughably prejudiced. If this is indicative of the writer's usual output, then it is little wonder that she receives so many complaints. Poorly researched, bigoted, opinionated and prejudiced drivel.

rockbeer

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Quite an outrageous article. The implication that the death of "baby P" was somehow the fault of atheism is rather sickening. I'm sure the author would contend that she made no such claim, but in that case why mention the matter at all? It smacks of the usual fear of those who vehemently oppose atheism; that the atheist world is a moral nightmare in which everything will fall apart.

When we look at the sort of incidences that echo the baby P case, do we see atheism as the common trend? Do we even see it in this case? Or do we instead see ingrained neglect, deprivation, poor upbringing? Pure poverty, generations old.

On the one hand the writer sneers at the concept that converting Ulster to atheism might make sectarianism redundant (true: it is an over-simplification) and yet she expects us to swallow the implication that atheism lies behind the loss of the western world's moral compass- or that it would make this "crisis" (if it exists) worse. How tidy. Isn't it a lot more likely that religion just has very little to offer us any more? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to seek to help those who become directionlessly faithless to find constructive and ordered atheism, to come to terms with that reality rather than be in conflict with it?

The caricature of atheists she paints (with a poem as an example!), is laughably prejudiced. If this is indicative of the writer's usual output, then it is little wonder that she receives so many complaints. Poorly researched, bigoted, opinionated and prejudiced drivel.

+1

But what really pi**ed me off was her calling us miserable.

robindch

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Poorly researched, bigoted, opinionated and prejudiced drivel.

Well, they're writing to their market.

Email a letter in -- beers to everybody who's published, from everybody who wasn't?

AtomicHorror

robindch wrote: »

Well, they're writing to their market.

Email a letter in -- beers to everybody who's published, from everybody who wasn't?

If I get a few minutes I'll convert my post above into a letter so!

AtomicHorror

rockbeer wrote: »

+1

But what really pi**ed me off was her calling us miserable.

Yeah, that's the "caricature" I was talking about. We could easily point to some Catholics in Ireland as some sort of "evidence" that Christians are miserable. We could, but it would be crap. It would be prejudiced. I know plenty of happy Christians, and just as many joyful atheists. If we want to make claims about happiness (assuming it's even relevant to the veracity of the atheist position) then we'd need actual evidence. A large, blinded study on "happiness". Can we measure it?

Daemonic

pH wrote: »

On second thoughts, is it a joke or is the Indo trolling atheists?

Read GK Chesterton's great poem 'The Ballad of the Sad Athiest'. It perfectly describes this kind of dreary and austere puritan.

Can't even spell atheist? Google returns zero results for "Ballad of the Sad Atheist", can anyone find any mention of Chesterton's "great poem" online?

A few cheery titles here but the quoted title is not listed.

Dave!

That's a rather disgusting opinion piece... Absolute filth...

Pompey Magnus

I never before felt the need to send an email to the Indo complaining about one of their many poorly written articles but that one took the biscuit.

The Mad Hatter

No force on earth could persuade me to buy that rag, but someone let me know if any of our letters get published.

pH

Daemonic wrote: »

A few cheery titles here but the quoted title is not listed.

I'd really like to know which poem she's* referring to, can't say I think much of GK as a poet, however this one starts very well!

The New Freethinker

John Grubby who was short and stout
And troubled with religious doubt,
Refused about the age of three
To sit upon the curate's knee;

...
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-new-freethinker/

* a post on atheist.ie says that Mary Kenny wrote it.

robindch

pH wrote: »

a post on atheist.ie says that Mary Kenny wrote it.

Weird wiki page, that one -- who put in the line about her cycling to the city center when she was five?

More seriously, I know a few women like her who were part of the early feminist movement in this country, who subsequently became extreme right-wingers in old age. "Causes" people, who like nothing more than to be out there, burning bras, or trying to burn atheists when their bras are less of a fashion statement, and more of a necessity.

AtomicHorror

pH wrote: »

* a post on atheist.ie says that Mary Kenny wrote it.

She did. It's in the print edition but omitted from the online version.

sink

Anyone else having connection timouts when trying to access independent.ie?

seamus

Mary Kenny's articles are typically based in a 1970's Ireland where unmarried mothers are unworthy of state assistance and anyone seeking contraception should be burned at the stake.

Every single one of her articles that I've read is an uninformed piece of drivel which laments modern living. Quite ironic for a woman who once called herself a feminist.

At least she's being consistent these days.

toiletduck

sink wrote: »

Anyone else having connection timouts when trying to access independent.ie?

Yup, I wonder would someone be as kind as to post it up maybe?

Galvasean

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Quite an outrageous article. The implication that the death of "baby P" was somehow the fault of atheism is rather sickening. I'm sure the author would contend that she made no such claim, but in that case why mention the matter at all? It smacks of the usual fear of those who vehemently oppose atheism; that the atheist world is a moral nightmare in which everything will fall apart.

When we look at the sort of incidences that echo the baby P case, do we see atheism as the common trend? Do we even see it in this case? Or do we instead see ingrained neglect, deprivation, poor upbringing? Pure poverty, generations old.

On the one hand the writer sneers at the concept that converting Ulster to atheism might make sectarianism redundant (true: it is an over-simplification) and yet she expects us to swallow the implication that atheism lies behind the loss of the western world's moral compass- or that it would make this "crisis" (if it exists) worse. How tidy. Isn't it a lot more likely that religion just has very little to offer us any more? Wouldn't it make more sense for us to seek to help those who become directionlessly faithless to find constructive and ordered atheism, to come to terms with that reality rather than be in conflict with it?

The caricature of atheists she paints (with a poem as an example!), is laughably prejudiced. If this is indicative of the writer's usual output, then it is little wonder that she receives so many complaints. Poorly researched, bigoted, opinionated and prejudiced drivel.

Good piece. You should send it in.

I'll be sending mine out tonight. If it doesn't get published I'll buy a pint for anyone's whose does.

Galvasean

sink wrote: »

Anyone else having connection timouts when trying to access independent.ie?

toiletduck wrote: »

Yup, I wonder would someone be as kind as to post it up maybe?

Page seems to be offline. Perhaps they pulled it?

Pompey Magnus

toiletduck wrote: »

Yup, I wonder would someone be as kind as to post it up maybe?

Here it is:

We shall have some sport, I daresay, in January when the "atheist bus" arrives in Belfast with full fanfare. The "atheist bus" is already established in London: it is a public transport bus, or series of buses, carrying the advertising message: "There is probably no God. So relax and enjoy life."

The advertising campaign has cost around stg #100,000. It was all started up by -- predictably -- Professor Richard Dawkins, the neo-Darwinist scientist and atheist campaigner. He put down a deposit of some #8,000, and the rest came from public contributions -- mostly from readers of The Guardian newspaper, in which the campaign was publicised.

It says something about the affluence of Guardian readers that, in a time of recession, they can contribute #90,000 to a bus campaign dissing the notion of God.

Not that the project has been without controversy, within its own ranks. Hardline atheists wished the message to be: "There is definitely no God." But it seems that those atheists who shade somewhat towards agnosticism prevailed, with their slightly more moderate "There is probably no God ... "

As it happens, I was invited by The Guardian blog to comment on this atheist bus project, and air my views on what line Christians should take.

I said truthfully that I believed in free speech, and I also believed in the exercise of advertising as a form of communication. They could put whatever they liked on a bus. Except that I found the atheists' coda "so relax and enjoy life" ludicrously implausible.

I've never yet met an atheist with a sense of joie-de-vivre (unless, in the case of one well-known public atheist, a certain drunken cordiality) most of them seem to be miserable blighters. Read GK Chesterton's great poem 'The Ballad of the Sad Athiest'. It perfectly describes this kind of dreary and austere puritan.

Well-meaning folk might suppose that atheists are simply searchingly honest persons who, doubting the tenets of faith and committed to reason and logic, conclude that they just cannot commit to faith.

There may be some of this ilk, but militant atheists, in particular, are deeply unpleasant and caustically intolerant. Any time I have written about this subject, I have received offensive e-mails from militant atheists. While professing themselves to be campaigners for "freedom of thought", "reason", and "logic", their main tool of argument is often personal abuse; they quickly start shrieking that believers are simply "stupid", or, in the case of a female believer, "a stupid cow".

Despite such abuse, I still believe in freedom of speech and freedom of debate: although it is clear that if the militant atheists had their way, there would be no space whatsoever for Christians or other believers in the public realm. That doesn't mean, however, that I am not concerned about the effect of militant atheism. I am convinced that this injection of atheism into the culture is directly responsible for the increase in drug-abuse, in crime and, most specifically, in the five-fold increase in suicide that we have seen in these islands over the last 25 years.

A life without a spiritual sense of purpose, or the moral parameters set by the Ten Commandments -- is a living hell.

Troubled and immature young persons, given a nihilistic message that there is no meaning to life -- that we are just reasonably clever animals who evolved from a set of molluscs, quite by chance -- are easily driven down the road to despair.

Britain has been hugely shaken, over the last month, by the public tragedy of 'Baby P', and the tormented infant's young life has been taken as an all-too-accurate indictment of an aspect of British life today.

That is a life without moral parameters; in which fathers walk away from their children because the state provides all welfare; in which relationships are casual, and a variety boyfriends and serial stepfathers move in; in which mothers spend the day smoking dope, drinking vodka and cruising for sex on the internet, while their children die with broken backs -- among filth and excrement, dead mice and pet snakes.

A Hogarthian picture of an underclass without any sense of a higher moral and spiritual aspiration has emerged, to whom the atheist bus campaign is scant help, or indeed comfort.

Some involved in the atheist bus campaign believe that by "converting" Ulster to atheism, they will do away with religious divisions. A naive and shallow view, indeed, of the North's conflicts, in which religious affiliation is by no means the only factor.

When the atheist bus appears in Belfast, it is far more likely to unite Catholics and Protestants in their common Christian rejection of its message.

So God works in mysterious ways after all.

Galvasean

Charco wrote: »

Here it is

You forgot to mention it was accompanied by a picture of 'Baby P' with a caption about the increase of moral depravity.

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

You forgot to mention it was accompanied by a picture of 'Baby P' with a caption about the increase of moral depravity.

Some say Britain has lost its moral compass. Who specifically? Who cares! Some!

Galvasean

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Some say Britain has lost its moral compass.

It never really had one. The British empire was founded on kicking the crap out of neighboring nations.

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

It never really had one. The British empire was founded on kicking the crap out of neighboring nations.

What country isn't? The history of Ireland is a story of successive waves of settlers who all started their settlement of the island by baiting the hell out of the last wave. We've got a chip on our shoulders about the British because they were the last lot to show up and then they failed to integrate like the Normans, Vikings, Celts and whoever came before them.

The British have as much of a moral compass as any of us, but the likes of Mary Kenny seems to like to make assertions to the contrary based on "some say".

Galvasean

Yes we people are a bad lot..

AtomicHorror

Galvasean wrote: »

Yes we people are a bad lot..

We'll be the judge of that.

rockbeer

Galvasean wrote: »

Yes we people are a bad lot..

Oh no, it's turning into "Are Atheists Evil?" part II :eek:

Galvasean

rockbeer wrote: »

Oh no, it's turning into "Are Atheists Evil?" part II :eek:

I was gonna say people have always been a nasty bunch. I was also going to say atheism predates any known religion. then I realised that might be misinterpreted.

lostexpectation

neo-darwinist wtf?

boringteetotal

-''All the ways of man are right in his own eyes but the Lord weigheth the spirits''
Proverbs 16:2

Zillah

boringteetotal wrote: »

-''All the ways of man are right in his own eyes but the Lord weigheth the spirits''
Proverbs 16:2

Ah, but:

"Then the Blessed One taught, incited, animated, and gladdened the Mâgadha king Seniya Bimbisâra by religious discourse; and the Mâgadha king Seniya Bimbisâra, having been taught and gladdened by the Blessed One by religious discourse, rose from his seat, respectfully saluted the Blessed One, passed round him with his right side towards him, and went away."
Vinaya Texts, Part I, Second Khandhaka

condra

The false generalisations she makes about atheists would be libel if about any individual.

Instead she manages to write hateful lies about a whole group of people, with a pompous conceited disdain, and no doubt she'll get away with it.

Utterly sickening that there is a place in a major Irish newspaper for such blatent hateful propaganda.

Shame on her.

lostexpectation

she's the female harris

Dades

Anyone of you lads write this one?

This is the only letter of response I can find online.

Pompey Magnus

Dades wrote: »

Anyone of you lads write this one?

This is the only letter of response I can find online.

Thats me .

Dades

Galvasean

Charco wrote: »

Thats me .

As promised I owe you one pint at the next A&A beers/meet-up.

rockbeer

Top effort, good one

Fanny Cradock

Dades wrote: »

Anyone of you lads write this one?

This is the only letter of response I can find online.

Good letter!

Goduznt Xzst

Charco wrote: »

Thats me .

Nice closing paragraph... really brought the whole piece together and is sure to sting when Mary reads it.

Aldebaran

Charco wrote: »

Thats me .

I tip my bonnet to you, well done.

Pompey Magnus

Galvasean wrote: »

As promised I owe you one pint at the next A&A beers/meet-up.

I'm gonna hold you to that.

The wierd thing is that I signed my email off as C. O' Ceallaigh but somehow they still managed to get my first name right. Was it just a lucky guess or is Gareth37 not the only one being bugged :eek:.

Galvasean

Charco wrote: »

I'm gonna hold you to that.

The wierd thing is that I signed my email off as C. O' Ceallaigh but somehow they still managed to get my first name right. Was it just a lucky guess or is Gareth37 not the only one being bugged :eek:.

When you receive an email the name you signed up to the email account as pops up in the 'from' section.

Ooof, you're in Cork. Gonna have to come to Dublin if you want that pint.

Dave!

Is your first name in your email address by any chance? ¬_¬

Pompey Magnus

Galvasean wrote: »

When you receive an email the name you signed up to the email account as pops up in the 'from' section.

That'd be the explanation, good thinking Batman.

Galvasean

Charco wrote: »

That'd be the explanation, good thinking Batman.

How did you know about Batmobile Galvasean!?!?!?

Pompey Magnus

Galvasean wrote: »

How did you know about Batmobile Galvasean!?!?!?

Gareth has turned us all paranoid .

studiorat

http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=64586

Dunno if this' been posted yet.

Goduznt Xzst

Funnily enough, this blog recently talked about the misconception that religious cultures are more moral.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/faith_hurts.php

Galvasean

It seems the After hours thread has taken off again.
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055408507&page=8

Apparently we're the bad guys now.