Tony Benn slams BBC on air for "capitulating to Israeli pressure"

GeorgeHowell

Linton wrote: »

The people most intolerant of theists are theists of a slightly different persuasion.

Atheists tend not to be intolerant of theists, merely intolerant of their loudly proclaimed lack of intellectual rigour and their desire to infect other people with the same disease.

Don't agree with any of that as a generalisation. Certainly it applies to many atheists and to some theists. But the fact we have only heard of 'militant atheism' in recent years is indicative of the fact that some atheists have taken it upon themselves to become strident in attacking religion, with Dawkins and his ilk as their spritual leaders. That is hypocrisy in my book, because as soon as atheism becomes a creed to be peddled and promoted then it effectively becomes another religion, or at least a pseudo-religious creed in itself.

To talk of lack of intellectual rigour and infecting with diseases in the context of faith-based religions I'm afraid misses the point entirely and just savours of arrogance. people going around saying that someone else's perfectly respectable point of view lacks intellectual rigour and that promoting it comprises infection with a disease, whereas of course the counter-argument must be so described, does not represent the sort of open, fair-minded, and tolerant society that I would prefer to live in, and which mosts atheists, being so-called humanists, would purport to want also.

The generalisation of theists being intolerant of other theists only holds true for high profile extremists in a number of arenas, whether it be in Northern Ireland, the Middle East or wherever. But the vast majority of religious believers clearly either do not harbour such intolerances, or keep them to themselves and do not manifest them in any appreciable way.

The whole anti-religion campaign also overlooks a fundamental and largely unfortunate element of the human psyche -- tribalism. Without religion something else would have to be invented to service the tribalistic obsession of a significant proportion of the race. Indeed it already has from time to time in the shape of creeds like Nazi-ism and Soviet Communism. If atheism becomes another tribalistic creed then it rather defeats its own object in my view.