Difference between revisions of "Atheist cults"

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'''11.''' [[Cryonics]] - [[Pseudoscience]] that tries to achieve immortality in a non-theistic way.<ref>[http://thehumanist.com/july-august-2011/heaven-for-atheists/ Heaven for atheists - TheHumanist.com]</ref>  
 
'''11.''' [[Cryonics]] - [[Pseudoscience]] that tries to achieve immortality in a non-theistic way.<ref>[http://thehumanist.com/july-august-2011/heaven-for-atheists/ Heaven for atheists - TheHumanist.com]</ref>  
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Robert Ettinger was an atheist and American academic who some consider to be "the father of cryonics" because of the impact of his 1962 book ''The Prospect of Immortality''.<ref>"[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/science-obituaries/8658435/Robert-Ettinger.html Robert Ettinger]". The Telegraph. July 24, 2011. Retrieved May 1, 2013. "Despite his Jewish roots, he grew up a determined atheist."</ref><ref>Klein, Bruce (August 13, 2004). "[http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/4112-the-father-of-cryonics-robert-c-w-ettinger/ The Father of Cryonics], Robert C. W. Ettinger, Interview with Bruce Klein". Immortality Institute. Retrieved May 24, 2009.<ref>
  
 
The atheist and American cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky was one of 63 scientists who signed an open letter endorsing the concept of [[cryonics]].<ref>Source that says he is an atheist:  Leon M. Lederman, Judith A. Scheppler (2001). "Marvin Minsky: Mind Maker". Portraits of Great American Scientists. Prometheus Books. p. 74. ISBN 9781573929325. "Another area where he "goes against the flow" is in his spiritual beliefs. As far as religion is concerned, he's a confirmed atheist. "I think it [religion] is a contagious mental disease. . . . The brain has a need to believe it knows a reason for things."</ref><ref>"[http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/ Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics]"</ref>
 
The atheist and American cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky was one of 63 scientists who signed an open letter endorsing the concept of [[cryonics]].<ref>Source that says he is an atheist:  Leon M. Lederman, Judith A. Scheppler (2001). "Marvin Minsky: Mind Maker". Portraits of Great American Scientists. Prometheus Books. p. 74. ISBN 9781573929325. "Another area where he "goes against the flow" is in his spiritual beliefs. As far as religion is concerned, he's a confirmed atheist. "I think it [religion] is a contagious mental disease. . . . The brain has a need to believe it knows a reason for things."</ref><ref>"[http://www.evidencebasedcryonics.org/scientists-open-letter-on-cryonics/ Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics]"</ref>

Revision as of 00:21, September 27, 2014

The Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg was turned into a Temple of Reason by the Cult of Reason.

Within the atheist religion, there are and have been a number of atheist cults and atheist factions.

Below are some examples of atheist cults:

1. Cult of Reason during the French Revolution. The French atheist Pierre Gaspard Chaumette encouraged the "worship of Reason".[1][2]

2. The Creativity Movement, formerly known as the World Church Of The Creator, is an atheistic, white supremacist organization.[3][4][5] The movement has denounced Christianity,[4] and purports to promote love for all of mankind.[6] It denounces religion for bringing horror into the world by dividing the white race.[4] Adherents of the Creativity Movement are evolutionists.[7]

Ben Klassen, the founder of the Creativity Movement, described the organizational structure of the movement as "monolithic and... authoritarian".[8][9]

3. Jim Jones - Marxist, atheist cult leader. Jim Jones' The Peoples Temple became a place where atheism was blended with seeing Jones as a Christ-like figure.[10] Under his direction, his followers committed mass suicide (see: Atheism and suicide).

"I was an atheist even then, and at that funeral parlor they held me up to look at her, and when I got down, I was bitter." - Jim Jones [11]

"So on down the road, I became even more alienated by that event. I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church." - Jim Jones

4. Raelism

5. Objectivism (Ayn Rand) - Has a cult like following of atheist narcissists who generally subscribe to the political ideology of libertarianism. [12][13][14]

6. Cult of personality surrounding communist, atheist leaders or thought leaders such as Mao Zedong, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-un

7. Atheistic/naturalistic Darwinism - In his book Rivals: Conflict as the fuel of science, Michael White wrote: "Of course today, for biologists, Darwin is second only to God, and for many he may rank still higher." The atheist Michael Ruse, an evolutionist science philosopher, admitted, “Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution still today.”

Ardent followers of Charles Darwin have Darwin Day celebrations and repeatedly endeavor to get government imposed Charles Darwin holidays.

Evolutionists primarily spread their religion via public school indoctrination and via censorship of opposing views. They rarely engage in public debates and when they did more widely debate in the 1970s, they generally lost their debates (see: Creation scientists tend to win debates with evolutionists).

Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins

8. Small cultish following of the New Atheist Richard Dawkins (See: Richard Dawkins' cult of personality).

On August 16, 2014, Andrew Brown wrote an article for The Spectator entitled The bizarre – and costly – cult of Richard Dawkins which declared:

“ ...the Richard Dawkins website offers followers the chance to join the ‘Reason Circle’, which, like Dante’s Hell, is arranged in concentric circles. For $85 a month, you get discounts on his merchandise, and the chance to meet ‘Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science personalities’. Obviously that’s not enough to meet the man himself. For that you pay $210 a month — or $5,000 a year — for the chance to attend an event where he will speak...

But the $85 a month just touches the hem of rationality. After the neophyte passes through the successively more expensive ‘Darwin Circle’ and then the ‘Evolution Circle’, he attains the innermost circle, where for $100,000 a year or more he gets to have a private breakfast or lunch with Richard Dawkins, and a reserved table at an invitation-only circle event with ‘Richard’ as well as ‘all the benefits listed above’, so he still gets a discount on his Richard Dawkins T-shirt saying ‘Religion — together we can find a cure.’

The website suggests that donations of up to $500,000 a year will be accepted for the privilege of eating with him once a year: at this level of contribution you become a member of something called ‘The Magic of Reality Circle’. I don’t think any irony is intended.

At this point it is obvious to everyone except the participants that what we have here is a religion without the good bits.[15]

”

Vox Day noted that the Richard Dawkins cult has some similarity to the cult of Scientology.[16] Dawkins is a leading figure in the New Atheism movement. The New Atheism movement, which has waned in recent years, was called a cult by the agnostic, journalist Bryan Appleyard in a 2012 article in the New Statesman in which he describes the abusive behavior of New Atheists.[17] Although the New Atheism movement does not perfectly fit the various characteristics of a cult, it does fit some of the characteristics.[18]

The number of Dawkian atheists has significantly diminished post Elevatorgate and due to his generally abrasive manner. Dawkins does retain a small cult following though (See: Richard Dawkins' loss of influence). The Dawkian atheists have been able to to retain Richard Dawkins being labeled as an atheist in his Wikipedia article despite Dawkins repeatedly and adamantly declaring that he is an agnostic and/or flip-flopping his public persona between atheism and agnosticism (See: Richard Dawkins and agnosticism).

Richard Dawkins wrote a book entitled The Selfish Gene and Dawkins' fans tend to be arrogant, socially challenged, naive men (see: Richard Dawkins and pseudoscience and Richard Dawkins and historical revisionism and Richard Dawkins and women).[19][20][21] In February of 2010, the news organization The Telegraph reported Richard Dawkins was "embroiled in a bitter online battle over plans to rid his popular internet forum for atheists of foul language, insults and 'frivolous gossip'."[22] In 2013, Rebecca Watson said she still receives harassment from male fans of Richard Dawkins.[23]

Sigmund Freud in his study

9. Sigmund Freud and the atheistic and pseudoscientific Freudian psychoanalysis has had a cultish following.[24][25] Freud maintained that belief in God fostered an unhealthy and dysfunctional frame of mind, but the social sciences now have an extensive collection of studies showing that theistic religion is a positive factor in relation to mental and physical well-being [26] (See: Atheism and depression and Atheism and health and Sports performance: Religious faith vs. atheism).

10. LaVeyan Satanism is a form of atheism which extolls the values of Satan which are described in the Bible. It is a very prideful and hedonistic worldview. Some specific characteristics of Leveyan Satanism is that it incorporates egoism, self-deification, the occult/magic, Social Darwinism and naturalism.

11. Cryonics - Pseudoscience that tries to achieve immortality in a non-theistic way.[27]

Robert Ettinger was an atheist and American academic who some consider to be "the father of cryonics" because of the impact of his 1962 book The Prospect of Immortality.[28]Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag[29]

In 2011, The Telegraph in an article entitled On Larry King and an atheist's fear of death reported about the atheist Larry King, "Larry King, the former CNN broadcaster, made the news this morning after saying he wants to be frozen after his death, so that he can be revived when medical technology improves.[30]

12. The atheist Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek science fiction show has had a cult following - especially within the liberal, utopian, atheist nerd community.[31]

The actor William Shatner, who played the lead character of Captain Kirk in the early Star Trek series, mocked the cultish, nerd "Trekkies" and their Star Trek conventions during a guest appearance on the comedy show Saturday Night Live and told them to "Get a life" during a comedic skit.[32]

Cults, social outcasts and atheism

People who join cults are prepared to be social outcasts.[33] Within theistic societies such as the United States, social outcasts are more likely to be the types of individuals who become atheists (see: Atheism and social outcasts). In addition, in the United States and other religious countries, atheists have a bad reputation and are often social outcasts (see: Views on atheists).

Dr. Sam Harris is one of the founders of the New Atheism movement. Sam Harris is quite aware of the stigma surrounding atheism and has even advocated that atheists no longer call themselves atheists.[34] In fact, Dr. Harris has said concerning the label of atheist, "It's right next to child molester as a designation."[35]

Atheism and state indoctrination

See also: State atheism and Causes of atheism and Atheism and communism

Jewish columnist Dennis Prager has stated that a causal factor of atheism is the "secular indoctrination of a generation."[36] Prager stated that "From elementary school through graduate school, only one way of looking at the world – the secular – is presented. The typical individual in the Western world receives as secular an indoctrination as the typical European received a religious one in the Middle Ages." [37] Dinesh D'Souza has pointed out that atheists have focused considerable efforts on the public schools in order to indoctrinate young people into atheistic beliefs.[38]

In the United States, due to: poor public school performance; increasing popularity of charter schools, vouchers for private schooling including private religious schools and homeschooling; and local government budget problems, the percentage of students being educated through public schools has been decreasing.

In addition, in communist countries (such as the former Soviet Union) atheistic indoctrination occurred in the educational system through such venues as schools, atheist museums, and clubs (see also: Militant atheism).[39][40]

Atheists and secularists rarely point out that universities such as Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Cambridge, and many others were founded by Christians.[41][42]

Atheist cults and atheist denialism

Whenever bizarre, atheist cults are brought up within the secular religion of atheism, atheists commonly engage in denialism concerning atheism cultism using the logical fallacy of the No true Scotsman fallacy.[43] Yet, the historical record is clear that atheist cults have existed since at least the time of the French Revolution.

See also

External links

References

  1. ↑ Pierre Gaspard Chaumette was an atheist, see: The English Heiress, Book 1 By Roberta Gellis, page 211
  2. ↑ Pierre Gaspard Chaumette encouraged the "worship of Reason", see: Benjamin Rush's Lectures on the Mind, Volume 144 By Benjamin Rush. page 170
  3. ↑ Contemporary voices of white nationalism in America. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2011–03–27. “World Church of the Creator, an organization that espouses an atheistic and white supremacist religious philosophy known as Creativity.”
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The new white nationalism in America: its challenge to integration. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved on 2011–03–27. “For instance, Ben Klassen, founder of the atheistic World Church of the Creator and the author of The White Man's Bible, discusses Christianity extensively in his writings and denounces religion that has brought untold horror into the world and divided the white race.” Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Atheistic" defined multiple times with different content Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; name "Atheistic" defined multiple times with different content
  5. ↑ The World's Religions: Continuities and Transformations. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved on 2011–03–27. “A competing atheistic or panthestic white racist movement also appeared, which included the Church of the Creator/ Creativity (Gardell 2003: 129–134).”
  6. ↑ Ludwig Feuerbach. The Essence of Christianity. John Chapman. Retrieved on 2011–03–27. “Christ loved men: he wished to bless and unite them all without distinction of sex, age, rank or nationality. Christ is the love of mankind to itself embodied in an image–in accordance with the nature of religion as we have developed it–or contemplated as a person, but a person who (we mean, of course, as a religious object) has only the significance of an image, who is only ideal. For this reason love is pronounced to be the characteristic mark of the disciples.”
  7. ↑ What you should know about the Creativity Movement - Creativity Movement website
  8. ↑ Ben Klassen PM on Race & Reason - Part 2 of 3 - YouTube video
  9. ↑ Tom Metzger's Race & Reason with Ben Klassen PM
  10. ↑ Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People by Tim Reiterman
  11. ↑ An untitled collection of reminiscences by Jim Jones
  12. ↑ THE UNLIKELIEST CULT IN HISTORY by Michael Shermer
  13. ↑ POSSESSED: Did Ayn Rand’s cult outstrip her canon? BY THOMAS MALLON, The New Yorker, NOVEMBER 9, 2009
  14. ↑ The Ayn Rand Cult by Jeff Walker
  15. ↑ The bizarre – and costly – cult of Richard Dawkins, The Spectator, Andrew Brown 16 August 2014
  16. ↑ The Cult of Dicky Dawkins
  17. ↑ The God wars by Bryan Appleyard, New Statesman
  18. ↑ How cultish is the New Atheism?
  19. ↑ Richard Dawkins is in a bitter censorship row with fellow atheist - The Telegraph
  20. ↑ MailVox: The distribution of atheist intelligence
  21. ↑ Calling All Female Atheists - Huffington Post - video
  22. ↑ Richard Dawkins is in a bitter censorship row with fellow atheist - The Telegraph
  23. ↑ Calling All Female Atheists - Huffington Post - video
  24. ↑ The Freudian psychoanalysis cult by Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
  25. ↑ The pretensions of the Freudian cult by Thomas Szasz, The Spectator, 4 OCTOBER 1985, Page 32
  26. ↑ The Twilight of Atheism by Alister McGrath, Christianity Today
  27. ↑ Heaven for atheists - TheHumanist.com
  28. ↑ "Robert Ettinger". The Telegraph. July 24, 2011. Retrieved May 1, 2013. "Despite his Jewish roots, he grew up a determined atheist."
  29. ↑ "Scientists Open Letter on Cryonics"
  30. ↑ On Larry King and an atheist's fear of death
  31. ↑ Atheist cults
  32. ↑ William Shatner William Shatner - Saturday Night live clip - "Get a life"
  33. ↑ The Manipulated Mind: Brainwashing, Conditioning, and Indoctrination by Denise Winn, page 34
  34. ↑ http://newsinitiative.org/story/2007/06/19/interview_with_an_atheist
  35. ↑ http://newsinitiative.org/story/2007/06/19/interview_with_an_atheist
  36. ↑ http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=43734
  37. ↑ http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=4373
  38. ↑ The atheist indoctrination project
  39. ↑ Marxist-Leninist 'Scientific Atheism' and the Study of Religion and Atheism By James Thrower, page 325
  40. ↑ Communism's Struggle with Religion in Lithuania
  41. ↑ http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v2/n3/harvard-yale-princeton-oxford-once-christian
  42. ↑ http://www.tysknews.com/Depts/Educate/history_part3.htm
  43. ↑ Atheist cults
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