The Coffee Loving Skeptics

A report endorsed by Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, warns that the Church faces a battle to prevent faith being seen as “a social problem” and says the next five years are set to be a period of “exceptional challenge“.

The report, Commissioned by Dr Williams and Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York, says that religion in Britain is under threat from atheists.

Drawing particular attention to the threat posed by a new movement of militant atheists, led by Dawkins and Hitchens, it says the Church must respond if it is not to be pushed from the public square. The report states:

“One of the paradoxes of recent times has been the increasing secularisation of society and attempts to marginalise religion alongside an increasing interest in spiritual issues and in the social and cultural implications of religious faith,”.

The Church must be “explicit about the need to counter attempts to marginalise Christianity and to treat religious faith more generally as a social problem,”

“This is partly about taking on the ‘new atheism’.

“Bishops have a key role here both as public apologists and as teachers of the faith.”

The Church is keen to address the rise of new atheism, which has grown over recent years with the publication of bestselling books arguing against religion.

The full article from the Telegraph, is here

I personally find it more than a little ironic that the church is attacking its critics for being too intolerant of religion. Religion, especially Christianity (as with all the Abrahamic faiths) has been nothing but intolerant towards any section of society that does not fit within the parameters of archaic biblical scripture. The Bible, the Quran, The Torah and so on are all inherently intolerant being vehemently misogynistic, homophobic, violent and racist.

Atheism is not religions main problem, as atheism is just the result of critical thinking. The main problems faced by religions are the words contained in their holy books and the way millions of people interpret them. Anti-science, anti-progress, anti-equality, anti-reason, and even anti-morality.