Organized Atheism? Yes, some atheists are financing the ACLU attacks and some are proselitising via posters in the Washington DC metro system. Any religion has two functions; - to define the nature of God
- to define our relationship with God
A church is an organization to promote a particular version of theology. I think we must recognize organized atheism as a religion and the organizations promoting it as a church. For this purpose, we can distinguish the passive non-believer from the evangelical atheist by a simple lack of proselitising activity.
You only need to look back to the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, just preceding the writing of the Constitution, to understand the founding fathers concerns about established religions, even though they were largly Protestant Christians. They were far more concerned about the corporal and political power of the organizations, not any particular theology. As a result, they established Freedom Of Religion so that no one religion would be given precidence over all others and so that no one person be forced into a particular church. Memories of Cromwell and Bloody Mary were still fresh. We are now at a point where Organized Atheists in collusion with the ACLU are trying to replace Freedom OF Religion with Freedom FROM Religion Thus, religion, particularly Judeo-Christian religion is now in a process of progressive condemnation, and anti-religion is rewarded. In reality, this is an attempt of make Organized Atheism the dominant established religion.
Anyone, even non-believers, with any pretentions to culture or education must have some knowledge of the Bible. It, particularly the Old Testament, is filled with stories that are a significant part of our cultural literacy. We need this knowledge to fully understand Raphael's Holy Family, Verdi's Requiem, Michaelangelo's David or just Friar Tuck. When Glen Ford (as Dave the Dude) says "like Sampson getting a haircut" we expect the audience to grasp the meaning as clearly as a reference to Achille's Heel. No-one currently takes Greco-Roman polithesism seriously today, so teaching epics like the Iliad is OK but any reference to the Bible is bad.
Second only to crosses in the animosity of Organized Atheism is display of the Ten Commandments. This is curious since as a display of the Hammurabian or Justinian Codes gets no complaint. The explanation takes a bit of circular reasoning, but quite simple. First the Ten Commandments are a pretty good representation of the Western civilization's basic moral code, more basic than any theology. Even our atheists admit "Thou shalt not kill" is a pretty good moral decision. Even the religious commandments have meaning to all. If you don't believe it, try to take away the Sabbath from a union member or pro-football fan. As soon as anyone believes that the Ten Commandments are divinely inspired, "Thou shalt not have false Gods before me" rears its head and the crusading atheist sees a golden calf that must be thrown down.
I listened to a crusading atheist recently, and the rhetoric was quite interesting. His argument ran as follows.
- Genisus says that the world was created in seven (24 hour days and was created circa 6000 years ago..
- Science proves that the age of the earth is about 4½ billion years.
- B proves A to be wrong, ergo "There is no God.
However, simply admitting that the day is a figuartive period of time instead of a period of 86,400 seconds (SI units) negates the entire argument. This is another example of the core cultural influence of the Bible. The exact nature of God varies a LOT among different sects. It is a great (il)logical leap to say that letter A has errors ergo the entire dictionary is wrong. As an aside, I do not personally believe in the literal 24 hour day, but that puts me in good company with the Pope who said, in conversation with Stephen Hawking, that the Big Bang is compatible with Christiian belief. They both are using different approaches to determine what came one second earlier.
Another factor in the political arena is Marx's "Opiate of the People" dogma. Good believers in Marx know that religion (and many other social institutions) must be destroyed in order to achieve a socialist paradise. Since socialist philosophy is prevalent in the far left, they are only too glad to sign on to the program.
Amicus briefs in the various anti-religious lawsuits should stress that Organized Atheism is an organized religion and that it is trying to establish itself as the official religion of western culture.