America becoming less Christian, survey finds

From CNN.COM:

(CNN) -- America is a less Christian nation than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether, a survey published Monday found.

Three out of four Americans call themselves Christian, according to the American Religious Identification Survey from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1990, the figure was closer to nine out of 10 -- 86 percent.

At the same time there has been an increase in the number of people expressing no religious affiliation.

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The rise in evangelical Christianity is contributing to the rejection of religion altogether by some Americans, said Mark Silk of Trinity College.

(full article)

Well, it's not much ... yet ... but it's progress. Someday perhaps a majority of Americans can remove the blinders and look at the world as it actually is instead of through the filter of fairy tales.

Einstein letter dismissing 'childish' religion sells for 200,000 pounds

From AP via HaAretz.com:

A letter in which Albert Einstein dismissed the idea of God as the product of human weakness and the Bible as "pretty childish" has sold at auction for more than 200,000 pounds ($400,000).

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This extraordinary letter seemed to strike a chord, and it gave a deep personal insight one of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Powell said.

The letter was written to philosopher Eric Gutkind in January 1954, a year before Einstein's death. In it, the Einstein said that "the word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."

Einstein also said he saw nothing "chosen" about the Jews, and that they were no better than other peoples "although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power."

(full article)

Ummm. yup.

Different Premises

When considering religion, atheists begin with a blank slate – in effect, the ‘default’ position – and consider the question of whether religious ideas make any sense. There are some ancient writings and a couple of thousand years of theological accretion, a lot of present day “authorities” doing a lot of (often smug) insisting, but there is no actual evidence to even suggest these fanciful explanations; much less any concrete support for them. Irrespective of the thousands of years of tradition, the proposition to be tested is the notion of the existence of a god or gods and the presumption that these mythical and mystical characters are somehow responsible for absolutely everything in the universe, and, moreover, at least in some versions of the story, are able and willing to take a personal interest in every living creature at least on our little world and presumably anywhere else life exists.

The burden of proof is clearly on the religious.

When considering atheists, religious people start with a whole bunch of preconceptions – the ideas promulgated by whatever religion they’re aligned with. They don’t even grasp that the burden of proof is on them.

Religious people expect atheists to justify the position that there are no gods.

It’s not hard to understand, given these two very different premises, why intelligent debate between these parties is difficult if not impossible.