The march of the militant atheists!

Are atheists the unsung heroes of the modern age? You may have read in the papers that 'Darwin's rottweiler' Richard Dawkins is spearheading a campaign in America to trumpet the voice of the nation's atheists who are seemingly downtrodden by the religious majority. Check out what John Brooke has to say about Dawkins in his podcast. What contribution would an 'atheist bloc' make to society anyway? Does religion still have an important public role bearing in mind the Buddhist protests in Burma as an example?

Religion and Public Opinion

An article on the Times website reports on a YouGov poll that finds that:

NEARLY half the British think that religion is harmful, according to a poll
carried out by YouGov. Yet more than half also believe in God “or
something”.

Is this a contradiction? These two halves are unlikely to be precisely exclusive - so a number of people clearly take the view that there is a God (or 'something') - but that the human response to this (if that is what we cal religion) is harmful... I guess it brings us to the question: can we have 'God without religion'? (and would we want it...)

'Properly Basic' Beliefs and the Existence of God

Over at Go Grue they have been having a fascinating discussion regarding Alvin Plantinga'a treatment of whether belief in God is 'properly basic'.. The nature of the way the authors deal with the argument will also be of interest, I think, to Philosophy students..

The link is: http://gogrue.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/plantinga-on-whether-belief-that-god-exists-is-properly-basic/

Dave