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„What do you say about science?” he asks the participants. „Science is great!“thundered from under the stage. „And what about reason?“ „Reason is great!“ he will hear excitedly. „Some say we are extremists. But that’s only because we’re incredibly right,“ explains another speaker.
„The Earth is over four billion years old!“ emphasizes another. Here is a burst of enthusiasm. „An evolution is literally a fact of life!“ he completes, and the crowd goes crazy.
If you’ve ever wondered what a service of secular atheists would look like if they decided to start a church, what slogans would become sacred to them, who their apostles would be, and what deities they would invoke, here is a possible answer.
The Reason Rally, Assembly for Reason, was held in the US capital 13 years ago. Proponents of secularism, humanism, free thought, and science participated in this „Woodstock atheism.” The main promoters of radical secularism spoke on stage.
One of them was evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, author of the bestseller The God Delusion (God’s error). When he took the stage, the crowd hailed him as a rock star.
„Mock them, mock them in public. Don’t succumb to the convention that we are too polite to talk about religion,“ challenged an enthusiastic audience.
Four horsemen on their campaign against religion
This gathering was one of the crowning events of the movement known as New Atheism, a militant attempt to exterminate religion from Western society. Dawkins, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett, columnist Christopher Hitchens, and philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris are his main apostles, known as the „four horsemen” (inspiration from the biblical book of Revelation of St. John, Apocalypse).
Each wrote popular books seemingly refuting religion, primarily Christianity, and promoting a scientific-humanistic materialistic worldview. These educated men participated in public debates with priests, bishops, or evangelical preachers, where they destroyed their opponents.
Vulgarly speaking, the basic thesis of their faith was that when society freed itself from religion, a golden age freed from superstition, religious hatred, and obscurantism would set in. Their popularity, as well as the dizzying secularization of the coming generation, made it suspect that the triumph of atheism and with it reason, science, and humanistic ethics was inevitably close.
Four Horsemen of Atheism. From left: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. Source: Youtube
Moreover, they managed to convince a large part of society so much that the claim of the end, obsolescence, or outright regression of religion once again became an implicit narrative of the Western intelligentsia.
The wind in their sails was Islamist terrorism, which scared the West, especially with the image of collapsing twins in September 2001. More convincing evidence of the perniciousness of religion could not even be concocted.
New atheism in this outraged atmosphere with arrogant self-confidence presented the diagnosis – root of evil is religion –, prescribed the treatment – vaccine against the virus of Christianity is materialistic science and humanism – and promised a miraculous recovery.
According to this simple equation, less religion means more reason, compassion, and justice, in short, a better society. New atheists did not have to wait long for the results of their experiment. Less than two decades were enough, a few shocks, and their ambitious project fell on their heads.
Atmospheric change
Justin Brier ley is a legendary presenter of British Christian radio Premier. Where on his show Unbelievable? For 17 years, he moderated countless discussions between atheists and believers.
A practicing Anglican, Brierley earned a good reputation among both parties of opinion largely due to his unbiased, non-confrontational, and fair approach. Throughout the atheist boom, he watched from the front row as debates between leading critics and defenders of religion developed.
Brierley, you started to notice that „bombastic debates between militant atheists and Christian apologists are becoming less frequent“ and have been replaced by secular intellectuals who are open to the cultural and social values of Christianity, some even directly announce them on their million-dollar platforms.
Presenter and columnist Justin Brierley. Source:
