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{"id":3238,"date":"2007-03-25T21:54:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-25T21:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/03\/aggressive-british-atheism\/"},"modified":"2007-03-25T21:54:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-25T21:54:00","slug":"aggressive-british-atheism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2007\/03\/aggressive-british-atheism.html","title":{"rendered":"Aggressive British Atheism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The Telegraph of London gives space <\/a>to secularist A.C.Grayling, who argues that religious believers are dangerous kooks.<\/p>\n

Grayling dishes out the weary old argument that all religion is dangerous because of the atrocities committed in it\u2019s name. What I can never quite grasp is that these arguments come from guys who, on paper, seem to be quite intelligent.<\/p>\n

OK, atrocities have been committed in the name of religion, but you have to set against the atrocities all the good things done in the name of religion. What do these guys do with all the schools, hospitals, clinics, hospices and orphanages set up by religious people? What do they do with all the advances in medicine, health, welfare, human rights and the liberal arts motivated by religion? What do they do with all the great art, music, architecture and culture inspired by religion?<\/p>\n

On the other side of the equation, why are they so ominously silent about the atrocities committed by atheist regimes? The Gulag wasn\u2019t run by the Russian Orthodox Church. Auschwitz wasn\u2019t a Lutheran detention center, Mussolini wasn\u2019t a Catholic cardinal. The French revolution wasn\u2019t set up by a Catholic social agency. The Chinese cultural revolution wasn\u2019t a Buddhist<\/a> outfit, the killing fields of Cambodia were not run by Buddhist monks, the Japanese dictatorship wasn\u2019t run by Shinto priests.<\/p>\n

These guys are getting tough against religious believers because they say we\u2019re aggressive. It feels to me like it is Dawkins and Grayling and Philip Pullman and the rest of the British atheistic intelligentsia who are getting stroppy.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"