Great article, I am starting the process of trying to start a similar group here at DePaul University in Chicago, with the assistance of SSA.

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Im planning on starting one here soon too.

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“The goal,” said Andrew Severin, a PhD student in biophysics, “should be to obtain inner peace for yourself and do random acts of kindness for strangers”

This quote sounds a lot like a rabbi that taught such things about 2000 years ago.

Lets see we have atheists that believe in Darwinism and Darwin taught survival of the fittest and this rabbi and others like him teach love and peace and random acts of kindness.

Oh well maybe that desire to do random acts of kindness and a desire for an inner peace is due to natural selection, random mutations and chance.

Most atheists I know felt duped by religious dogma taught as fact never to be questioned so they move in the direction of atheism. Who can blame them? Not I.

Do a long-term study and see how many of those self-proclaimed atheists remain atheists during their lives.

One must stand between atheism and religion to see that both have failed to do their research into the mysteries of life. Or if they did do that research the paradigm effect for either religion or atheism was too powerful to see beyond their existing paradigm. Our paradigms are hidden from our view we see them not.

Our minds are capable of filtering data far beyond our imagination even the minds of a whole society or those that share similar beliefs. We are truly an interesting species.

“Great article, I am starting the process of trying to start a similar group here at DePaul University in Chicago, with the assistance of SSA.”

“Im planning on starting one here soon too”

Sounds like evangelism to me. And the atheists don’t think they are a religion. Evangelism is based in doubts not certainty. The more we covert to our beliefs the more we can quell our own doubts about our beliefs.

Look up some synonyms for evangelism and you may understand why evangelism is trespassing and is giving unsolicited advice. There may be a fine line between providing a meeting place for like minds to meet and soliciting others to meet with you. Oh and as long as you always meet with like minds all will remain like minds. How convenient and comforting to the ego.

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Researcher, I wonder what the fuck you think you have researched. Your constant claims of Atheists as having a religion, mysteries of life and paradigms are tedious. If like minds who have no belief in gods for the obvious reason that there is no evidence for gods and hence they have no religion meet with other like minded people of course they will remain like minded because they do not hold insane beliefs.

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Researcher, your posts belong on a Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle.  You truly do not live up to your chosen moniker.

I was a member of the Atheist Agenda at the University of Texas at San Antonio before I graduated, and we briefly made national headlines in 2006 with a “smut for smut” book trade where any adult could bring a copy of the koran or bible and receive a copy of Penthouse, Hustler, Cheri, or other such form of pornography.

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Researcher, you continue to surprise me with your meaningless balderdash. Have you read, say, Lobsand Rampa?

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infidelious, i am a grad student at UTSA. is the organization still going on?

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The Reason Project’s goal is indeed worthwhile, “to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.”

Allow me to raise some questions…

Where is critical thinking in terms of critiquing philosophic materialism and methodological materialism? With Harris and co. i only see slavish adherence to these isms. They’re not really the critical thinkers that they pride themselves to be.

With Harris, Dawkins etc pontificating on materialism and an atheistic universe who needs a religious dogmatist? They’re as dogmatic as any religious person can get!

When Christians can’t even pray in schools, or when people who come out and present a philosophic and scientific case for an open universe with the very plausible God hypothesis are being attacked as nut jobs without hearing their case, what bigotry are you talking about??? Will you please also erode this kind of bigotry?

Do i hear a dismissive hubristic response, ‘What case are you talking about?’ Well, for a good start, deal with Dean Overman’s A Case for the Existence of God. Add also Dinesh DSouza’a Life After Death…The Evidence, Os Guinness’ Long Journey Home and Phillip Wiebe’s God and Other Spirits. There is enough sound REASON in these books than your materialism enslaved mind can chew on. Reason Project? Go for it, read these books and don’t let Harris and co. do the reasoning for you.

And please don’t give me that typical cavalier dismissal type of response e.g. ‘These guys and their tired arguments have been debunked long ago. You can’t take them seriously.’ Give me a break.

Please look at the plank in your own eye first before you go on “eroding” the “errors” you see in the other camp.

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Mr. Nartatez,

What would be your critique of philosophical and methodological materialism?

Also, I disagree that Dawkins and Harris et al are dogmatic.  They have convictions and are not apologetic about them, but their convictions are derived from evidence and reason, not received wisdom, and are always in principle open to new evidence and ideas.  However, being open is not something that means any and all statements by everyone who makes claims to have a case can be evaluated.  Harris, Dawkins and others do regularly debate and discuss these issues with such people as D’Souza.

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E. R Nartatez:

I agree with DoctorMelkor, please critique philosophical and methodological materialism for us.

Using words like slavish and dogmatic to describe Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins shows your ignorance (or your indifference to accurately describing the views of people you disagree with).

Definitions ...
Dogma: “The established belief or doctrine held by a religion, ideology or any kind of organization: it is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted or diverged from.”

Slavish: “Showing no originality; blindly imitative.”

So embracing ideas supported by evidence is slavish? How would you define the devotion to a man (Jesus) people only know about by reading a few heavily edited books written nearly 2,000 years ago? We do not know the identity of the men who wrote these books, their sources and whether they or anyone they talked to witnessed Jesus’ ministry and/or death.

There’s quite a difference between arguing about the merits of school prayer and whether the universe had a creator. And Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens regularly debate people of faith (watch them on youtube), so I’m not sure how came to the conclusion that they don’t hear their case. How can you debate someone if you don’t listen to what they say?

And please, don’t play the bigotry card. Mormons here in Utah regularly label critics of their church as bigots. Criticizing ideas is not bigotry, especially bad ones. Many Mormons (who call themselves Christians) store food and water in their basements for when Jesus returns to earth for the Second Coming. That’s stupid. Does labeling them nut jobs make me a bigot? If I built a shelter 100 feet underground and lived there for two years because I had a dream that the Greek god Ares was going to visit my town and destroy everything on its surface, would you label me a nutjob? There’s as much evidence for me to believe Ares will destroy my town than there is for the following:

God answers prayers
God created the universe

Lastly, i know several devout believers who would never consider questioning their faith or engaging with “the other camp.” Then again, perhaps you’ve met an atheist who would never consider reading a book or listening to a debate with a person of faith. But let’s be realistic: There are probably many more people of faith who don’t have the courage to consider the evidence for naturalism (or against theism). Well, maybe percentages would be better. I’m a little embarrassed because I don’t have a study to source, but then, I don’t know if one has been done. If one has, please reply with a link.

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I find it SO important to donate to the Secular Student Alliance because college is a great time for people to be exposed to a group of free-thinkers.  (Secular Student Alliance has some high school groups too.)

Donate by becoming a member (Anyone, student or non-student, is welcome and encouraged to join.)...
https://www.secularstudents.org/join

Donate without becoming a member…
https://www.secularstudents.org/node/8

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When I took a class at a fundamentalist church on “truth in Genesis,” I experienced in a particularly striking way the difference between dogmatism and critical thinking. Though I was then a young age creationist, I got tired of everyone insisting that there was “no evidence for evolution,” or that there were “no transitional forms.” I couldn’t believe that all those biologists were such morons. So I read Isaak’s Counter-Creationism Handbook, and brought it to the last class. I asked the other members whether they had ever read any evidence for evolution, and every one refused to consider doing so. One man even said that if he found evolution to be true, he would commit suicide. I went on to explore evolution and Biblical origins, and what a surprise! The more I read the evidence for evolution and Biblical contradiction, the less rational Christianity seemed. It’s easy to believe if you never examine the other side. Admittedly, this evidence is anecdotal, but I’m willing to bet that the attitude of those other class members was by no means atypical of the 2500 member congregation. At any rate, no books promoting evolution were to be found in the church library. Old earth creationism was as close as they got.

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To ahtripp, the student wanting to start a similar group at DePaul University:  Why attend a Catholic university if this is your goal?  Why aren’t you attending a secular university where there already is no God?  Personally, I thing your goal is simply to start trouble.

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Researcher:

“sounds like evangelism to me”...What? Membership in a group that attempts to disseminate information to counter misconceptions and to set the record straight are “evangelicals?” I don’t think so. Also, most atheists I know, myself included, came from religious families and came to be atheists after   serious consideration, reading of philosophy, etc. As for how many of them remain atheists, it would be interesting to find out, but I would suspect that a higher % of atheists remain atheists than, say, Catholics remain Catholic. I say that as a “born again skeptic” who was raised in the Catholic Chuch. I could fill a stadium with all the ex-Catholics I’ve encountered in my 64 years.

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