{"id":1462,"date":"2011-08-22T23:11:42","date_gmt":"2011-08-23T03:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2011-08-22T23:11:42","modified_gmt":"2011-08-23T03:11:42","slug":"are-atheists-basically-just-like-liberal-believers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/08\/are-atheists-basically-just-like-liberal-believers.html","title":{"rendered":"Are Atheists Basically Just Like Liberal Believers?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The title of this post is intentionally provocative. It reverses the similarity that some conservative religious believers (and some atheists<\/a>) will at times use polemically, claiming that liberal believers are, for all practical purposes, no different from atheists.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to deny that there is a distinction, or that there are similarities<\/a>. What I want to say is that, to the extent that there are similarities, the resemblance and direction of influence is in most cases the other way around<\/em>.<\/p>\n

When atheists<\/a> point out errors, historical issues and stories that defy belief or moral acceptance in the Bible<\/a>, for the most part that information (when it is accurate) derives from the scholarship pioneered and for the most part carried out by liberal religious believers<\/a>. Liberal Christians have been denouncing much of popular piety as superstition<\/a> long before atheists<\/a>, advocating pioneering, expanding and embracing scientific understanding even when this infringed on what was traditionally considered God\u2019s turf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A blog called \u201cAtheist Revolution\u201d describes itself as \u201cbreaking free from irrational belief and opposing religious extremism\u201d<\/a> \u2013 both emphases that characterize historic Liberal Protestantism in particular, and were associated with it for as long as, and independently of, atheism.<\/p>\n

Recognizing that \u201cthe criticism of the myth does not end with the rejection of the polytheistic mythology\u201d is an articulation by Paul Tillich, one of the great Liberal Protestant theologians of the 20th century (Dynamics of Faith<\/a>\"\"<\/em>, p.57). Theologians have long recognized that myth<\/a> is not something that others<\/a> have but the Judeo-Christian tradition does not. Tillich, through his writings, continues to speak against the kind of \u201cfaith\u201d that atheists are also concerned to combat<\/a> (albeit for reasons that only partly overlap).<\/p>\n

Below is a video with some atheists, agnostics and skeptics (including P. Z. Myers!) speaking in their own words (HT Hemant Mehta<\/a>). How many of their points and emphases are ones that liberal religious believers also affirm? And of those, how many were articulated from such a religious perspective before they were articulated by atheists<\/a>?<\/p>\n