Talk:Evangelical atheism

This article claims Huxley as the first atheistic evangelist, then goes on to say Huxley coined the term and identified himself as, agnostic. What is the source then, of saying Huxley was the first AE? -killing sparrows 05:37, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This Article Needs a LOT of work, if it is even worthy of staying.

"Atheists claim that Christian apologists unfairly portray their zeal for intellectual integrity as ridicule." --This claim is just wrong. I'm an atheist and do not make that claim. Also the Dan Barker quote referencing ridicule seems like a quote mine: he continues the article saying that using ridicule is not a good approach. The term "atheangelism" turns up only 1 google hit, and that is someone's blog. I will try to address more this weekend.Archer3 16:26, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I have my doubts about 'atheangelism' as well. However "Atheistic evangelism" and

"evangelical atheism" give about 700 hits each. Some other combinations of the term drive the hit count further up. How about changing the name of the article to "Atheistic Evangelism"? Sander123 16:39, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from the originator of the article

All three of you raise very good points.

I would ask killing sparrows to review the additional comments made on why Huxley is considered the father of "atheangelism" or "atheistic evangelism" despite the fact that he called himself an agnostic. The key difference here is that Huxley aggressively used Darwinism at every opportunity to tear down the Anglican Church hierarchy as well as Christian faith. As with anything, if you don't agree with the way the article is written, please make a change or edit. The idea here is to truly capture both the Christian apologist and atheist view on the matter.

Contrast Darwin's agnosticism to Huxley's. You must acknowledge a significant difference in their approach. Darwin's agnosticism was private. Huxley's was public, blasted over two continents, using the mallet of Darwinism to make the concept of God -- and religion -- unnecessary.

Christian apologists compare the world of 1850 -- where Science and Faith appeared to be in harmony -- to the world of 1900, where many considered them in conflict, and only 40% of all scientists believed in God, and ask themselves what happened ?

And the answer is simple, I think. Darwin's theory provided men like Huxley and Buchner a very good mechanism to mount a very effective communication campaign in favor of disbelief. If all life sprang from a lone single cell being a billion years ago, and natural selection was the mechanism for creating all the species of life we see, what role is their for God ? And if that lone single cell arose through spontaneous generation, or some kind of abiogenesis from a primeval chemical soup, why was there a need for even a Deist Clockmaker kind of divine being ?

There were no similar surveys done in 1850, but my guess is the number was more like 80%. (Note -- the source for the 40% number is a survey by the psychologist Leuba, done in 1914. I can give exact details on the study if anyone is interested).

As to Archer3, you may well be correct that the statement "Atheists claim that Christian apologists unfairly portray their zeal for intellectual integrity as ridicule." is wrong. What I was trying to do was to give a balanced view -- the atheist response to the Christian apologist view of "atheistic evangelism". I think it would be most helpful if you could craft that view here yourself.

The article does need a lot of work, and probably from the atheist perspective. We are not creating anything original in the article, we are simply trying to articulate and describe a movement, as seen by the two parties most directly affected by it --Christian apologists and atheists.

As to Sander123 and Archer3's comments on the relative rarity of the term "atheangelism" on the internet, you are both correct in that, though it is used in dialogue among Christian apologists.

There are hundreds of google hits, as Sander123 points out, for the term "atheistic evangelism" on the internet, and most of those hits show blogs or articles that discuss the general phenomonon of the active promotion of atheism.

The trouble is these discussions are all over the map, and can refer to anything from just one atheist trying to convert his friends, to Christians bemoaning all sorts of cultural issues (the term secular progressivism comes to mind). Many, but not all of these googled articles do really focus in on "atheistic evangelism" in the way that it is described in this article -- a very powerful, highly communications oriented, movement to promote atheism. Both Christian apologists and atheists have a point of view on this movement. But points of view should be included in this article.

The term "atheangelism" has the advantage of clarity in this regard. It focuses exclusively on this movement. Though I acknowledge it is a relatively new term, I think it makes sense to keep it in the article.

The "atheangelism" article is now simply redirected to "atheistic evangelism", which makes sense to me.

Please keep the dialogue going on this. I think we are making great progress. mpleahy 20:45, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]