Dwindling In Unbelief: The time has come to set aside childish things (and become a nation of nonbelievers)

terryblakey:

retropolitics:

By Steve Wells

…in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.
…
We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and nonbelievers.
— from Barack Obama’s inaugural speech

Obama’s speech yesterday was the first inaugural address to acknowledge the existence of nonbelievers.

Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and light.

There was Rick Warren’s “Oh God, you are so big” - “It all belongs to you” - “History is your story” - bullshit prayer to Jebus. There was the “So help me God” phrase in the of the oath of office, contrary to the constitution. And there was the usual “God bless America” crap at the end.

Still, it was a great speech. I even liked Obama’s use of scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:11

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

The time has indeed come to set aside childish things (like believing stupid things that are contrary to all existing evidence) and become a nation of nonbelievers.

Personally I class myself as agnostic as I’d like to believe in something and a Roman Catholic upbringing is a difficult thing to shake off, but logic tells me something different, that we’re born, we live, we die. I intensely dislike and distrust organised religion and hold it responsible for many of the worlds ills. On the other hand society as a whole needs some sort of belief system. Without a belief system we have no moral anchor and I believe that the tendency would be to degenerate into a society bent on self harm as we’re not mature enough to survive without that anchor. Given another century or two some of us may get there but for the moment we need that crutch.

Finally ask yourself the old question, how many atheists do you find in a fox-hole?