dreamer_easy | (no subject)

Letter in today's SMH: It's time for atheists to start defending humanism, with the core tenets of compassion, scepticism and scientific logic, with the same fervour that Billy Graham pushed evangelism in the 1950s. What does she mean, "start"? :-) Smart-arse atheists are no less smug and obnoxious than preachy religous leaders, and damage an important cause. (And atheists who show tolerance, understanding, and a little humility are as laudable as people of faith who do the same.)

ETA: This is in the context of people struggling with theodicy in the, er, wake of the tsunami catastrophe. Natural disasters must be one of the greatest challenges to faith - terrible human evil can at least be blamed on its perpetrators. My own comfort, such as it is, is that the same planet that causes such devastation is the same planet which creates the most beautiful and varied life; it's all part of the same system.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think there is a difference between atheism and humanism, and its time for the moral values of humanism to promoted with fervour. The religious right is doing its best to make 'moral values' synonymous with 'Christian fundamentalism', and we need to make the moral values of humanism something that is promoted and defended in the public sphere.

And tolerance should be a core value of humanism. But its not a 'core value' of atheism per se, and there lies an important difference.