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I found this on a thread at DeenPort:
“Civil society is the deodorant of kufr.”
It is a ‘contention’ (see #70) by Timothy Winter. Sadly, there wasn’t much of a follow up discussion at DeenPort to the initial posting.
What do readers of Talk Islam make of this? The implications seem quite severe on the face of it, if you follow through on the argument being proposed.
A dramatic loss of faith in public:
“I think I was probably quite narrow-minded and fundamental in my views and a bit of a scary person,” the former Olympic champion told Sky News.
“I believed that what I believed was the truth. Some of those extremes I feel slightly embarrassed about now, but overall no regrets.
“It was where I was at the time – it’s not where I am now.”
Edwards added he now thinks it is “nonsense” that praying to God could help a sportsman before a competition.
“My prayers were always that God would give me the strength to do the best that I could do. Somehow athletes feel it’s a lucky charm,” he said.
“They believe that if they believe in God, He will give them the strength to win.
“When you look at the world and there are people starving and dying and suffering, is God going to be so concerned about the outcome of an athletics contest?
“My guess is not. Why would He intervene in something that is just a game?”
This is a man who refused to participate in sporting events held on Sundays, and who comes from a religious family (his father is a vicar).
Is so-called New Atheism in the US an elitist movement?
(I am a little wary of someone asserting “it’s obvious” without some data.)
Theos, a Christian think-tank, did a survey to look at religion, class and atheism in the UK too:
One of the questions, adapted from an earlier BBC/ICM survey, asked people not simply what they believed (about God) but whether they had changed their mind, and by cross-tabulating these results with standard demographic questions, we can get a reasonably detailed picture of the class composition of atheism and theism in the UK.
[I]n summary the study found that lifelong theists (“I have always believed in God”) are disproportionately from lower socio-economic grades (DE: semi-skilled and unskilled manual workers or those unemployed or on state benefits), whereas lifelong atheists (“I have never believed in God”) are disproportionately from upper social grades (AB: higher or intermediate managerial or administrative professionals).
No surprise there. The default position in the UK (and seemingly in humans themselves) has long been belief in God, so you would expect theism to be a mass movement and atheism a more select one.
What is interesting – and surprising – is that “converts” to theism (“I believe in God now but have not always done so”) are disproportionately from upper and upper-middle social grades (ABC1: as above plus supervisory, clerical, junior managerial or administrative professionals), whereas “converts” to atheism (“I used to believe in God but I no longer do so”) are disproportionately from lower social grades (DE).
Your thoughts?
Via Chris Dillow is this very interesting, but unsurprising, paper:
In a complete tangent the use of the word ‘luck’ always reminds me how people perceive events differently, or use different language to identify the same process and outcome. What is ‘luck’ is to someone struggling for a job during a recession in the study above, will probably be identified as God’s Will by a Muslim, or a Christian.
Lexington takes a look at an American atheist summer camp.
Karen Armstrong asserts that ‘…the extraordinary and eccentric emphasis on “belief” in Christianity today is an accident of history that has distorted our understanding of religious truth…’ I think Karen misunderstands the nature of belief as expressed in a late modern context, which is not exclusive to Christianity (however Muslim thinkers may untranslate and conceptualise ‘belief’), in my view.
Such statements of religious belief are, at least in part, statements of identity.
“Admitting to myself that I cannot know everything, I’ve found a way to reconcile faith with scepticism.” So Says Nesrine Malik on Guardian CiF, in a post entitled, Agnosticism was what saved my faith. I sometimes think Britain’s favourite word is “perhaps,” mumbled in a manner aimed to cause least offence. Any intellectual position can start from uncertainty, but it is possible to arrive at a compelling stand which puts you at odds with alternative views. There may be room for uncertainty and other perspectives may be valid, but that’s no reason not to fight your corner. I think the important points are (1) you can believe in God – or not – and neither perspective is evidence of moral/intellectual weakness, and (2) let’s not shoot one another over the issue.
Clifford Longley has written to the Advertising Standards Authority to complain about the use of the word ‘probably’ in the advertising campaign appearing on London’s buses.
Andrew Brown has the complete text of Longley’s complaint.
Not sure the advertising industry’s self-regulator is going to be able to resolve a theological and philosophical debate that has been running for centuries…
AC Grayling doesn’t half talk tripe sometimes. Atheists can be just as abusive of power and become advocates for war (1, 2, 3) for entirely ’secular’ reasons, just as believers can for ‘religious’ reasons.
In fact, the atheists I noted above were just as assured of their beliefs about the Iraq invasion as Tony Blair was when he appealed to his unwavering conviction that he was ‘doing the right thing’ and his apparently firm belief in God.
(That being said I did agree with some of his other points, e.g. disestablishment of the Church, positioning of religious groups into civil society, etc).