Atheists for Liberty News - Issue #4
Atheists for Liberty News - Issue #4
Our Mission and Values:
Atheists for Liberty is an educational, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending the fundamental freedoms that support the human quest for knowledge and the separation of religion & government.
How will we do that?
Atheists for Liberty will safeguard the future of America’s largest growing demographic, through educational programs, advocacy resources, and mobilizing communities of grassroots activists and thinkers.
What are our values?
Normalize Atheism – As one of the largest growing demographics in the nation, we seek to raise awareness about atheism by providing educational resources. We defend atheists through our advocacy and provide communities for liberty-minded individuals.
Preserve Free Thinking – The Enlightenment values that modern nations are founded upon foster free speech and free thought as fundamental building blocks for civilized society. The ability to exchange and critique ideas without retribution or unreasonable social repercussion needs to be defended and preserved.
Safeguard Secularism – The separation of church and state has been ingrained in our Constitution. Religious freedom in a secular country prohibits the government from endorsing, progressing, or promoting religion.
Advance Individual Liberty – Americans should not have to live with oppressive restrictions on their free choice and way of life. When tyranny is advanced in the name of divinity or social justice, we need to uphold the values instilled by our Founding Fathers that empower us to question the validity of theocracy or the dominant culture.
Featured Article:
Was Darwin an Atheist? Part 1
By Ryan Tuttle
Has there ever been a celebrated historical figure whose ideas were more closely associated with atheism than Charles Darwin? But what does it mean to be an atheist and was Darwin himself one?
Darwin passed away in 1882 at the age of 73. His funeral was held in the famous Westminster Abbey in England where he was buried alongside other famous intellectuals like John Herschel and Isaac Newton. A common misconception is that Darwin is famous for coming up with the idea of Evolution, however this is in accurate as evolution was a concept that existed prior to Darwin. Instead, he was made famous for his theory of natural selection, a process that drives evolution, which he described in his 1859 book, “On the Origin of Species”.
As a baby Darwin was baptized in St Chad’s Anglican Church in Shrewsbury, England but would go on attend Unitarian meetings with his mother and siblings. Later he would enroll in the Anglican Shrewsbury School, and then in 1825 he would enroll in University of Edinburgh Medical School where he would join the Plinian Society where students were hold debates challenging traditional religious concepts of science.
After Darwin neglected his schooling his father sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge, to become a minister in the Anglican church. At the school he was exposed to works by William Paley, a clergyman, such as “Evidence of Christianity”, “Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity”. This text explored the idea that God was causing evolutionary adaption by using natural laws.
Famously, Darwin would go on to write his own book mentioned earlier, “On the Origin of Species” which he would start with the statement, “When on board the H.M.S. Beagle, as a naturalist, I was struck with certain facts…”(Darwin, 2008). Now, the phrase naturalism is strongly associated with atheism and secular humanism, with the essential beliefs being that physical nature is the only reality and that knowledge comes from a scientific study of nature (Peters, 2007).
In this context however naturalist should be understood as, ‘one who studies nature’ as Darwin goes on to conclude with the statement, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved” (Darwin, 2008).
This indicates that, at least at the time of writing his book, Darwin had at a deist conceptualization of God. Deism arose in the 1700s and 1800s and believes that God created the world along with natural laws that govern energy and matter. The particular perspective of Deism is that once God created these natural laws he was no longer involved in his creation and that everything is guided by natural laws and that nature can be understood by studying them and not by divine revelations (Peters, 2007). Interestingly this seems to reflect the perspectives on the “natural theology” of William Paley that Darwin was exposed to. Additionally, Deistic perspectives were embraced by Unitarians (Peters, 2007), the same faith that Darwin was associated with as a child.
Darwin was still a young man during his journey aboard the beagle, and in his autobiography describes his beliefs at the time as “quite orthodox” (Darwin, 1958). However, like many of us today his beliefs would change over time with interesting details revealed in his autobiography, and letters with family.
References
Darwin, C. (1958). The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his granddaughter Nora Barlow (N. Barlow (ed.)).
Darwin, C. (2008). On the origin of species Illustrated Edition (D. Quammen (ed.); illustrate).
Peters, T. (2007). Models of God. Philosophia, 35(3–4), 273–288. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9066-8
Music Review - The Sound of Atheism
By Max Carlisle
With lyrics like, “God is an illusion and there ain't no paradise, And there is no underworld below”, it will be difficult to find a more hard-line atheistic song than “Real World” by German Power Metal band Gamma Ray. Known for sci-fi based lyrics, and apocalyptic anthems, “Real World”, off their 2007 album Land of the Free II, is somewhat of a stylistic departure from Gamma Ray's typical lyric material. That being said, the band successfully transformed a straight forward rejection of supernatural beliefs into a truly catchy, head-banging celebration of evidenced based thinking. Considering that traditional religious beliefs are much less common in Europe than the US, some American audiences might bristle at the song's unapologetic and unequivocal statements like “Out there is no Heaven and there ain't no Antichrist”, but to a loud heavy metal band that is used to being brash and bombastic, this is just another day at the office.
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