As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit

[EV_Ares]

THE NEW CRUSADERS
Islam's Rise Gives Boost
To Militant Unbelievers;
The Celebrity Hedonist
By ANDREW HIGGINS

CAEN, France -- With 40 minutes to go before show time, the 500-seat Alexis de Tocqueville auditorium was already packed. A fan set up a video camera in the front row. A sound engineer checked the microphones.

The star: Michel Onfray, celebrity philosopher and France's high priest of militant atheism. Dressed entirely in black, he strode onto the stage and looked out at the reverential audience for his weekly two-hour lecture series, "Hedonist Philosophy," which is broadcast on a state radio station. "I could found a religion," he said.

1
Mr. Onfray, 48 years old and author of 32 books, stands in the vanguard of a curious and increasingly potent phenomenon in Europe: zealous disbelief in God.

Passive indifference to faith has left Europe's churches mostly empty. But debate over religion is more intense and strident than it has been in many decades. Religion is re-emerging as a big issue in part because of anxiety over Europe's growing and restive Muslim populations and a fear that faith is reasserting itself in politics and public policy. That is all adding up to a growing momentum for a combative brand of atheism, one that confronts rather than merely ignores religion.

Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic nun and prominent British author on religion, calls the trend "missionary secularism." She says it mimics the ardor of Christianity, Islam and Marxism, all of which have at their core an urge to convert nonbelievers to their worldview.

Mr. Onfray argues that atheism faces a "final battle" against "theological hocus-pocus" and must rally its troops. "We can no longer tolerate neutrality and benevolence," he writes in "Traité d'athéologie," or Atheist Manifesto, a best seller in France, Italy and Spain. "The turbulent time we live in suggests that change is at hand and the time has come for a new order."


As with many fights involving faith, Europe's struggle between belief and nonbelief is also a proxy for other, concrete issues that go far beyond the supernatural. In this case, they involve a battle to define the identity of a continent.



From The WSJ (subscription only)

--------------------------------------
EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY
4 OR 5 PARAGRAPHS FROM THE
COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE PER DU
RULES.

[TygrBright]

1. Do we have copyright permission to reprint an entire article? n/t

[EST]

2. This is amazing!

And it assures me, in my waning days on this planet, that there may be some hope for the human race, yet. How gratifying.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. No, but there is extensive discussion in the Religion and Theology forum

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=214x123451

which includes a link to a non-subscription newspaper that carried it.

[EV_Ares]

6. Copyright:

I am not sure what your concern was about this but I subscribe to the journal and this is their policy:

You may occasionally distribute a copy of an article, or a portion of an article, from a Service to a few individuals without charge, provided you include all copyright and other proprietary rights notices in the same form in which the notices appear in the Service, original source attribution, and the phrase "Used with permission from The Wall Street Journal Online" or "Used with permission from Barron's Online." Please consult the Dow Jones Reprints web site if you need to distribute an article from a Service to a larger number of individuals, on a regular basis or in any other manner not expressly permitted by this Agreement.

(ii) You may occasionally use our "E-mail This" service to e-mail an article from a Service to a few individuals, without charge. You are not permitted to use this service for the purpose of regularly providing other users with access to content from a Service.

c. You agree not to rearrange or modify the Content. You agree not to create abstracts from, scrape or display headlines from our content for use on another web site or service. You agree not to post any content from the Services to weblogs, newsgroups, mail lists or electronic bulletin boards, without our written consent.

As you can see the concern is on a regular basis. I occasionally email articles to friends that I find interesting as I did this one.

Appreciate your concern. Thanks.

[TygrBright]

7. Thanks! My concern was based on some discussions...

...that have surfaced in the past about Democratic Underground's potential vulnerability with regards to copyright infringements. Based on the recognition of that vulnerability, the Admins have established a rule regarding posting quotes from copyrighted material, and I think it's a good one.

Our site owners/admins, Skinner, EarlG and Elad, are personally on the hook for any legal or other problems that this website incurs. Given their commitment to providing us with a forum for exchanging information and discussion, I tend to respect the risks they also run with regards to legal vulnerabilities.

Your thoughtfulness is much appreciated.

cordially,
Bright

[EV_Ares]

8. No prob; glad you made me think about it, we tend to forget those

kind of things over a period of time & so you made me go back and read the agreement again which I had not for a long time.

Thanks again L& have a good Sunday.

[Tinksrival]

3. Verrrry innnteresting

Thanks!

[MN ChimpH8R]

4. Michel Onfray is a great man

Where is our Michel Onfray? We badly need one here.