Blogtown, PDX

Thursday, October 26, 2006

Books Atheism Moves on Down the Road

Posted by Chas Bowie on Thu, Oct 26 at 3:21 PM

Powell’s has just announced that tomorrow’s Richard Dawkins reading (The God Delusion) has been moved to the Governor Hotel, SW 11th & Alder. It’s still at 7:30. I don’t remember the last time Powell’s had a reading here. I guess they couldn’t get the church they usually do big readings in.

Dawkins, our country’s most militant atheist, has been keeping a travel blog that you can read here, or you can brush up on the New Atheism movement with this very good article from Wired.

The irony of the New Atheism — this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism — is too much for me.
The New Atheists have castigated fundamentalism and branded even the mildest religious liberals as enablers of a vengeful mob. Everybody who does not join them is an ally of the Taliban. But, so far, their provocation has failed to take hold. Given all the religious trauma in the world, I take this as good news. Even those of us who sympathize intellectually have good reasons to wish that the New Atheists continue to seem absurd. If we reject their polemics, if we continue to have respectful conversations even about things we find ridiculous, this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve lost our convictions or our sanity. It simply reflects our deepest, democratic values. Or, you might say, our bedrock faith: the faith that no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there’s always a chance we could turn out to be wrong.

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Comments

Um... where'd you get that picture?

Who is she?

'Cause... um... damn.

Posted by Brian | October 26, 2006 4:23 PM

Richard Dawkins is not "our countryâ€™s most militant atheist"--he is English and resides there. The most militant atheist American is probably Sam Harris.

Posted by Pam | October 27, 2006 9:23 AM

Where do get one of those t-shirts?

Posted by threebs | October 27, 2006 9:40 AM

That photo is rock-solid evidence of intelligent design-and when I say rock-solid, I mean rock-solid.

Posted by butterfinger bob | October 27, 2006 9:41 AM

Sam Harris may be our most militant atheist, but that girl is the world's hottest atheist t-shirt model.

Does she wear t-shirts with slogans about other topics you could post about?

Posted by converted | October 28, 2006 9:10 AM

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