AMERICAN ATHEISM AS A RELIGION

Visible World

Invisible Reality


Symbols

  •        Monkey-to-man chart
  •        Evolutionary descent schemes

Priests

  •        Scientist-philosophers
  •        Doctrinaire teachers

Ceremonies

  •        Courses & seminars
  •        Awards & prizes

Propaganda

  •        School textbooks & regulations
  •        Museums & documentary films

Founder & Heroes

  •        Darwin, Marx, Huxley
  •        Astronomer-philosophers

Scriptures & holy books

  •        Origin of the Species
  •        Naturalist journals

Financial support

  •        Government grants
  •        Institutional budgets

Hermeneutics

  •        Presume long ages of time
  •        Interpret all data by evolutionism


Cosmic myth

  •        Origin = big bang
  •        Destiny = big cold

Ultimate reality (deity)

  •        Material-chemical processes
  •        Matter + energy + (long) time

Invisible powers (spirit)

  •        Cause-to-effect determinism
  •        Evolutionary directionalism

Personal experience

  •        Freedom from guilt
  •        Freedom to explore

Explanation of pain & evil

  •        Blame the "ignorant"
  •        Blame other religions

Afterlife

  •        None
  •        Extinction

Logical consequences

  •        No ultimate moral authority
  •        No spirit, soul or non-material life

Practical consequences

  •        Social Darwinism, eugenics, amorality
  •        Intellectual bigotry & totalitarianism

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