The militant anti-theists are coming OUT, or at least they want to. Here's part of the rationale for their OUT campaign:
Atheists along with millions of others are tired of being bullied by those who would force their own religious agenda down the throats of our children and our respective governments. We need to KEEP OUT the supernatural from our moral principles and public policies.
Well. I think the atheists' concern that theists will interject "the supernatural" into their moral principles is a little misplaced. The better point to make is that the concept of non-subjective, non-arbitrary moral principles is incomprehensible if atheism is true. There is nothing more metaphysically odd than an atheist talking about morality.
And then there's this from Richard Dawkins' introduction:
Moreover, even if the religious have the numbers, we have the arguments, we have history on our side, and we are walking with a new spring in our step - you can hear the gentle patter of our feet on every side.
Actually, notwithstanding his springing step and pattering feet Dr. Dawkins is quite mistaken. Atheism certainly does not have the best arguments nor does it have history on its side (the communists used to say this very thing and look where they are today). In fact, there are no good arguments for Dawkins' brand of atheism at all. Dawkins holds to what we might call "hard atheism," the view which asserts that there is no God (as opposed to soft atheism or what is fashionably called agnosticism). There are, as far as I know, no good arguments in defense of hard atheism, nor does Dawkins himself offer any. He simply rants against religion and tries to show that because the classical arguments for God's existence are not proofs therefore they're not good arguments, as if he thinks an argument has to be a proof to be compelling.
Dawkins adds the reassurance that "Atheists are just people with a different interpretation of cosmic origins, nothing to be alarmed about."
Nothing to be alarmed about? Such a statement can only arise from the pen of a man who has not thought through the logical implications of his atheism. As we've argued elsewhere (See here for example), if there is no God there is plenty to worry about, not least of which are people who assure us that God's non-existence doesn't change much about our view of morality, human worth, human dignity, and human rights.
RLC
