New new atheism

George Dvorsky refers to getting past the frustration, anger and name-calling as "post-Atheism":

I’m hoping to see atheists move past the religion bashing and start thinking about more substantive issues. This is what I mean when I say post-atheism. It’s time to set aside the angst and work more productively to help those who need it, while working to develop a world view and set of guidelines for living without God. It’s unfortunate and tragic that so many humanists have equated the movement with atheism, while completely forgetting their progressive roots.

Humanism is about the betterment of all humanity and the contemplation of what it is we wish to become. It’s about taking control of our own lives in the absence of divine intervention. And it’s about taking responsibility for ourselves and doing the right thing.

This is where our energies and attention needs to be focused. Not in ridiculous Facebook timeline posts that serve no one.

I wouldn't call it "post atheism," because the term atheism means that one doesn't believe in God, and that is still true of the people who aren't religious. But I do agree entirely that it's time for atheists to move on. I get it, that we have been subjected to bigotry, but it's time to move from our Malcolm X phase to our Martin Luther King phase. I discuss all of this in detail in my five-part series titled "Mending Fences." As for a good model to use for getting past the frustration and, instead, making the world a better place, I often refer to this declaration by Paul Kurtz as my starting point.

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Does the bible really prohibit gay marriage?

Does the bible prohibit gay marriage, or are conservative Christians again up to their favorite trick, cherry-picking? The following excerpt from The Miami Herald suggests that cherries are being picked in earnest.

[Matthew] Vines is a Christian, a 22-year-old Harvard undergrad raised in a conservative evangelical church in Kansas. He is also gay and says he grew up being taught that the Bible condemns his sexual orientation. He took two years off from school to research and study whether or not that assertion is true. The result is The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality. It’s a video. . . Vines’ speech is a masterwork of scriptural exegesis and a marvel of patient logic, slicing and dicing with surgical precision the claim that homophobia is God ordained. So effective is the video that after viewing it, Sandra Delemares a Christian blogger from the United Kingdom who had, for years, spoken in staunch opposition to same sex marriage, wrote that it “revolutionised” her thinking. Vines points out, for instance, that the frequently quoted condemnation (homosexuality is an “abomination”) from the Old Testament lawbook of Leviticus has no application to Christians, who are bound by the teachings of the New Testament. He explains that St. Paul’s admonitions about the “effeminate” and “abusers of themselves with mankind” stem from modern mis-translations of ancient Greek terminology.
With that as an introduction, here is the video featuring Matthew Vines: This is an impressive presentation. At the 16 minute mark, Matthew begins to examine the six bible passages that supposedly condemn homosexuality. None of them survive his scrutiny.

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Dan Savage attacks bible verse cherry-picking by homophobes

Dan Savage is no stranger so controversy. At a recent conference, he attacked the cherry-picking of those who relying on the Bible to attack gays. After all, he argues, they don't cite the Bible to justify slavery any more, and they aren't trying to pass laws to stone women who are not virgins on their wedding nights. A group of students walked out while Savage criticized this bible cherry-picking.

In the speech, Savage, citing Sam Harris' "Letter to a Christian Nation," said the Bible gave instructions about how to treat slaves. If the Bible erred "on the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced ... What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100 percent," said Savage. Students are heard cheering and clapping. After the walkout, which came after Savage made comments about the Bible, he suggested the protesting students return. "It's funny, as someone who is the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react when you push back," Savage said.

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The Clergy Project: Seeking religious leaders who no longer believe in God

On several occasions, a priest or minister has admitted to me that he (they were all men) sometimes wondered whether God existed. The first occasion was about 25 years ago, and I was surprised to hear this. I now suspect that all honest religious leaders wonder whether God really exists. I had read about The Clergy Project before, and I note that it is still going strong.

The Clergy Project is a confidential online community for active and former clergy who do not hold supernatural beliefs. The Clergy Project launched on March 21st, 2011. Currently, the community's 200 plus members use it to network and discuss what it's like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith. Members freely discuss issues related to their transition from believer to unbeliever including: Wrestling with intellectual, ethical, philosophical and theological issues Coping with cognitive dissonance Addressing feelings of being stuck and fearing the future Looking for new careers Telling their families Sharing useful resources Living as a nonbeliever with religious spouses and family Using humor to soften the pain Finding a way out of the ministry Adjusting to life after the ministry
Richard Dawkins' site published an article on the Clergy Project. Here's an excerpt:
The Clergy Project — a private, invitation-only “safe house” community of current and former pastors, priests and rabbis who no longer hold the supernatural beliefs of their religious traditions — was started in March 2011 with 52 members. It has now grown to almost 100 “apostates.” Since the unveiling of the public informational website clergyproject.org on Oct. 7, 2011, the group expects to attract hundreds more. “We know there must be thousands of clergy out there who have secretly abandoned their faith but have nowhere to turn,” says Dan Barker, a former evangelical preacher who “lost faith in faith” after 19 years of preaching the gospel. “Now they do have a place to meet, a true sanctuary, a congregation of those of us who have replaced faith and dogma with reason and human well-being.”

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On loving one’s enemies

I believe that Jesus was a human being, not a God. Therefore, I don't give him homage, but I do occasionally read his alleged teachings, which I evaluate one-by-one. Jesus allegedly said some things that make sense to me, but other things attributed to Jesus don't make much sense to me. When I run into a teaching of Jesus that doesn't make sense, I set it aside as something that doesn't make sense. I'm free to do this, because I'm not a Christian. If I were a Christian, however, I would think that I should follow ALL of the teachings attributed to Jesus, because if I were a Christian, I would probably believe that Jesus is God, and who would I be to disagree with God? One of the things Jesus seemed to teach quite clearly was that we should love our enemies. Robert Wright summarizes these teachings:

The “Love your enemy” injunction, as we’ve seen, appears in both Matthew and Luke. In the Matthew version, Jesus says, “I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” In the letter to the Romans, written more than a decade before Matthew or Luke was written, Paul says, “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.” And if Paul doesn’t quite say to love your enemies, he does add “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.” Paul also says, in that same passage, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil … never avenge yourselves.” Similarly, Jesus, just before advising people to love their enemies, says, “Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

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