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{"id":651,"date":"2007-10-08T10:52:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-08T10:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2007\/10\/an-atheists-reformation.html"},"modified":"2007-10-08T10:52:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-08T10:52:00","slug":"an-atheists-reformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/epiphenom\/2007\/10\/an-atheists-reformation.html","title":{"rendered":"An Atheists’ Reformation?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Evolution seems like a touchstone for a person\u2019s willingness to put reason first both because it contradicts the creation stories in most religions and because it requires us to accept that the universe just doesn\u2019t care about us \u2013 or about any other species actually.<\/p>\n

In arguing for evolution \u2013 as we must do \u2013 there\u2019s a risk that we position evolution as the final frontier in the expansion of rational thought into territory formerly occupied by religion. Of course it isn\u2019t. Rationalism accepts no limits to the application of reason.<\/p>\n

My thoughts were drawn to this by reading Nigel Willmot\u2019s article \u2013 The atheists\u2019 revolt \u2013 on the Guardian website (http:\/\/commentisfree.guardian.co.uk\/nigel_willmott\/2007\/10\/the_atheists_revolt.html <\/a>). In this he suggests that Richard Dawkins is the Martin Luther of our age. That he, like Luther, has raised a banner that is causing others to line up behind him (or as close to a party line as we humanists ever manage!) Dawkins, I think, has given many of us the courage to say that religion is not merely wrong but damaging. We also say that its growth, whether in the UK\u2019s faith schools or Pakistan\u2019s fundamentalist madrassas or the Vatican\u2019s lies about contraception, must be opposed.<\/p>\n

Martin Luther provoked a fierce backlash from the Catholic Church. Today\u2019s backlash is more likely to come from the Islamic world and may, in time, be every bit as fierce. We must stand by our principles. We must also find ways of talking to our opponents in ways that lead us, and them, away from violence.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"