Abolitionists may have “fanned the flames”, but I maintain my position that it took armies to actually end slavery. As to the 1960s, I remeber seeing the news from that time. Too often, the local “law” and the local politicians refused to give in and used force to maintain the status quo, until they in turn were forced to change by someone bigger.
Dawkins?
If you define great thinkers as those who have novel ideas and thereby change the way things are generally viewed, then in the forum of religion your great thinkers of late will have been the ones who break from the traditions of organized religion. So Martin Luther (the original) would qualify… Who’s come after him? Joseph Smith? L Ron Hubbard maybe?
While this probably accounts for the majority of non-believing scientists, it also appears to be the case that scientists (especially the more “prestigious” ones) are less religious as a group than the general population. You’d have to account for that in some way.
Science has a lot of things to say about “non-material” things. I think you meant to say “undetectable” or “metaphysical” or something like that; you know, the stuff we can only speculate about.
I kinda thought I had already done that, only to discover it doesn’t really count.
I also mentioned John Shelby Spong
If you look at the books he’s written in the last 10 years alone you see a movement to radically change Christianity
1999 - Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile,
2001 - Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love and Equality,
2002 - A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born,
2005 - The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love,
2007 - Jesus for the Non-Religious,
2009 - Eternal Life: A New Vision: Beyond Religion, Beyond Theism, Beyond Heaven and Hell,
Who was the first Westerner to survive being an “open” atheist?
If you mean “wasn’t killed”: Diagoras of Melos (~ 400 BC) might qualify.
Somewhat more recently, Spinoza, maybe? I’m sure there were less well-known atheists around in the time between them.
I agree but I don’t understand what your point is exactly. So what if it took military force to end slavery? What does that prove?
To be more specific – who was the first well-known Western person, since the time of the Inquisition, who was publicly known to be an atheist and who wasn’t punished because of it?
I would argue that that person has done more to change the public’s views on religion than anyone else.
You’re not likely to find a ‘founder’ of atheism, if that’s what you’re looking for. It has been noted the changes that made atheism more culturally acceptible generally stemmed inadvertantly from science and other things, rather than from atheist leaders ‘taking up the standard’ and ‘pushing the cause’.
Not ‘founder’ so much as ‘survivor’ or ‘thriver’. When people became aware that they could cast off the burdens of religion without retribution from church or king, that was a HUGE change. I would guess it was a larger change than any single reinterpretation of dogma or scripture within the religious community.
Well I mentioned Spong for the west but I’m also fond of the writings of the significant leaders of the Bahai
Although in a real sense it may be just one more religion among many I also see many of it’s teachings as being very progressive and it addresses the very heart of the relevant issues that impede mankinds growth.
They stress unity instead of dogma and a real life application of principles that promote religious and cultural tolerance , human rights, peace, caring for the less fortunate. They stress the harmony of science and religion stating that ultimately truth is truth and something cannot be religiously correct and scientifically wrong. They stress education , social and economic development as part of mankinds overall growth.
more importantly , who was the first openly gay black atheist?
I think the Book End of Faith and Dawkins have sparked a great dialogue allowing atheism to become a much more socially acceptable and understood alternative to religion as well as giving fundamentalism a smack they needed and deserved.
By the time Spinoza came along, “the West” wasn’t a big block with identical influence of “the church”. In the larger cities in the Netherlands, he could pretty much publish what he did without real retribution, but I don’t think he’d have that kind of freedom in say, Spain (or even more rural communities in the Netherlands at that time).
Science has no interest, because there’s no rational reason to think that the “non-material world” is anything but a fantasy, or even possible. And to the extent religion focuses on that, it’s because science and religion already fought and religion lost. Historically it was the norm for religion to make all sorts of pronouncements about the physical world; being religion it was naturally always wrong. Claims such as yours that religion speaks only of the “non-material world” are just a defensive position, to preserve the remnant of religious claims that science has not yet successfully destroyed. It is also an inaccurate claim since religions still make claims about the real world; that evolution isn’t true or that the world is 6000 years old or that UFOs are piloted by demons or that homosexuality is a choce.
And as always the claims of religion are wrong. And typically evil.
No science and philosophy can work together just fine. Because philosophy tends to concern itself with matters of opinion, or ways of classifying things, or logic puzzles or hypotheticals; not with making claims about reality that are baseless or flat out wrong and then insisting that everyone pretend they are true. Science in turn can produce new facts and ideas that inspire philosophers, because unlike the religious believers philosophers are not dedicated to denying reality. Science is not the enemy of philosophy because philosophy can adapt to it, acknowledge the facts, and has no particular problem with the concept of ideas being hypotheticals or errors; instead of demanding that everyone pretend that fantasy is real as religion does.
The end of the 19th Century.
Neitzsche famously made the argument that “God is dead,” meaning precisely what the OP is describing. Great minds, the educated, the intelligentsia, they no longer believed or relied upon God as a reliable source or authority.
What did this death mean? he argued. Let me tell you the history of the coming century, so you will know. He then described a fairly uncanny description of the World Wars and turmoil that were to in the 20th century.
Neitzsche called it, and is pretty famous for having called it.
Der Trihs, once again you are attacking a characture of religion that has little or no basis in reality. I don’t know what injuries in your past someone has done to you in the name of religion, but you need to let go of your anger and hatred.
My point earlier was that there is inherently no conflict between science and religion; it’s ridiculous to say science has “won.” Science cannot prove nor disprove the existence of God; religous doctrine is not subject to laboratory analysis.
As far as “great thinkers” in religion over the last century or so, you could list Karl Barth, Marcus Borg, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Paul II, NT Wright, or Shelby Spong – and those are just the Christians and just the ones I came up with in 30 seconds of thought.
Your peculiar ideas to the contrary, most religious people have no problem with science. Most believe in evolution, global warming, quantum mechanics, relativity, the big bang, or whatever, and don’t see any conflict with their religous beliefs. But feel free to pretend otherwise if that makes you feel superior.
interesting. I noticed how much it changed based on education and also on age. The gneration coming up seems to accept evolution.