Why the "new Atheists" are Right-Wing on Foreign Policy

Now uncle charlie, firstly i dont worship any mountain, i merely believe that nature is more important than any religion as without it the world would stop existing. I am passionate about all aspects of nature and how everything interwinds with everything animals/humans/plants and how one action affects everything. Secondly, these saints you speak of were wonderful humans who were kind and generous, but your god didnt make them saints, other humans did. And I think you are being the closed minded one when stating that pagans and athiests dont run charities because they are self centered, i know a lot of people who arent religious in anyway who undertake these "holy" tasks daily.And I'm pretty sure that the human race could have evolved to have banks/social services/adoption services quite easily without religion as there were ancient civilisations(Pict/Iceni/etc) doing similar things long before the hint of religion. I like your statement on the stewards of the land, however the only difference is you believe your god gave you the land. I like your faith and your passion in your beliefs, but dont be presumtious in your accusations... I've never studied "women studies" :D i just happen to be a woman.

Hmmm...capolia, who indoctrinated you? A feminist Gaia worshiping "Women's Studies" professor? Worshiping a mountain doesn't do anything for me. Without religion, we would have no soup kitchens, no social service agencies, no adoption agencies, no food banks, no religious orders helping the poor and abandoned. I find without religion, people become self centered- probably why pagans and atheists do not run social service agencies- although they do care to an extent about humanity. Without religion, John Brown would have ben a nobody, and Martin Luther King Jr. would have been a nobody. We would have not had St. Augustine, GK Chesterton, Mother Theresa, or Gandhi. These "religionists" did more for humanity than a pantheist has ever done. Without religion, we would have had no one to speak out against Adolf Hitler. When you paint religion with one brush, it is closed mindedness. Religious faith has accomplished much in the area of social justice (The Catholic Worker, founded by Dorothy Day, is just one among thousands of examples) The School of the Americas would still be sending dictators to torture school courtesy of the US Army, if people of religious faith didn't exist (including the actor Martin Sheen, a lifelong Catholic, who protested there regularly.) Yes, I worship He who created "Mother Nature" - I am thankful to God he created it, and we are called to be responsible stewards of the land that was given to us to live on.

Isn't anti-religious atheism a religion like phenomenon?

I think to understand religion of any sort you must go back to a time before organised religion and look at what was there. Paganism, oh oh! Worshipping the sun, earth, water etc, usually in the hope of good crops. Then the egyptians embellished on that and created psuedogods, then christianity rose its head along with the many other religions that i'm not to knowledgable of. Although consistently all religions mention other prophets from other religions, like Sesu in India is the very same Jesus from christian folklore. Wise men who tried to spread the word of God, turn the other cheek was a buddhist saying long before Rome capitilised on it.

Basically, i think, that religion was created by men in power to explain to the masses the workings of the world and natural phenomenoms, this allowed those in power to stay in power....because of fear!!! What "god" wants you to be fearful! Ban all religion, set Mother Nature free!!! The one true god!

Because Hitchens is right wing does not men all New Atheists are hawks. The article has a definite slant, and an agenda to discredit New Atheism.

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peace

Greed for power is the evil that needs to be vanquished . Religion is too often a willing pawn . I have no answer , but to focus on compassion .

very interesting article!

dawkins style atheism has created an angry army of pseudo-intellectuals who think they are gifted with the amazing insight that religion is the root of most if not all of the world's woes.

They only offer just another uncompromising extremist viewpoint while failing to see the irony.

Hatred can only stop by aiming at the source.....

Religion isn't the real problem.
People are.
People with a lust for the kill.
People who have an ego to feed and the only way to feed it is through violence.
People who refuse to take control of their lives and need to blame others.

Religion just gives them a base from which to launch.

If I was King of the World, I would do away with organized religion. But that would only cause people to find some other base from which to launch hatred and violence.

It's belief what separates people, not religion. If religion didn't exist, we would be using some other form of belief system or "Truth" to band together into our respective collectives to fight against others.

It's part of human nature to look for common ground with others in times of conflict and uncertainty in order to overcome the day's struggle. We fight together, as a group.

yes, but they're extremists who I find incredibly intelligent and rather distasteful.

they're goal is specifically to be the hawks of atheism because most atheists are rather laissez-faire about the such things (except for the young/angry ones, and they're mostly unintelligible).

as we've learned from asia, if you're not killing people in the name of some fictitious god you'll kill them in the same of some self created god (mao, kimmy etc).

they are right that religion is particularly easy to use to twist people to evil purposes though.