The strong atheist's dogma is a real pit bull

One of the common confusions I've seen among people on various forums is the idea that the notion of separation of church and state means the separation of faith and politics.  Some people go beyond this and are openly anti-religious to anyone who expresses any faith whatsoever, as though they were threats to civilization as they know it.  They are afraid that people who express a belief in something based on faith would in turn seek to impose the dogmas of their belief upon them.  A person of faith, they would insist, is delusional, potentially insane and cannot be trusted to act in a logical or rational manner.

It is then ironic to note that one of Webster's definitions of dogma is "a point of view or alleged authoritative tenet put forth as dogma without adequate grounds: an arrogant or vehement expression of opinion."

The fundamental problem is what I like to call psudo-Vulcanism.  It is a myopic view of the universe to only that which is fundamentally scientifically proven.  That which is not logical, rational and proven clearly doesn't exist and must reflect a delusional nature on the part of the person who proposes it.  The ironic part is that it only takes a modicum of faith in order to make a person dangerous to society.  In fact they would probably be scared of anyone who is not a strong atheist.  Even agnostics need to run for cover.

"When you have presidents who listen to their imaginary sky fairy over listening to reason you get people like Bush. They decide that some course of action or another is what their imaginary friend wants them to do, and then they do it. And then, since there is no actual logic involved, they can't be dissuaded if that course of action happens to be an incredibly bad idea."

This quote can be taken in two directions, either the writer is suggesting that the President is a religious freak, or that anyone with a modicum in faith of any kind will immediately listen to the voices in his head and get us into something terrible like a war, a sales tax or worse.

And thus we come back to Mr. Webster.  Isn't that a dogma?  There is no adequate ground for such statements and they are clearly "arrogant or vehement expressions of opinion."  Those people who, dare I say, "worship" facts and logic seem to in point of fact have neither.  In their obsession with the elimination of faith they have in turn also abandoned reason.

Faith and reason are not opposites at war with each other.  The late Pope John Paul II stated the following in his encyclical of the same name which I think has relevance towards those who are paranoid that a person might listen to a sky fairy - or in other words have a faith in something.

45. With the rise of the first universities, theology came more directly into contact with other forms of learning and scientific research. Although they insisted upon the organic link between theology and philosophy, Saint Albert the Great and Saint Thomas were the first to recognize the autonomy which philosophy and the sciences needed if they were to perform well in their respective fields of research. From the late Medieval period onwards, however, the legitimate distinction between the two forms of learning became more and more a fateful separation. As a result of the exaggerated rationalism of certain thinkers, positions grew more radical and there emerged eventually a philosophy which was separate from and absolutely independent of the contents of faith. Another of the many consequences of this separation was an ever deeper mistrust with regard to reason itself. In a spirit both sceptical and agnostic, some began to voice a general mistrust, which led some to focus more on faith and others to deny its rationality altogether.

In short, what for Patristic and Medieval thought was in both theory and practice a profound unity, producing knowledge capable of reaching the highest forms of speculation, was destroyed by systems which espoused the cause of rational knowledge sundered from faith and meant to take the place of faith.

46. The more influential of these radical positions are well known and high in profile, especially in the history of the West. It is not too much to claim that the development of a good part of modern philosophy has seen it move further and further away from Christian Revelation, to the point of setting itself quite explicitly in opposition. This process reached its apogee in the last century. Some representatives of idealism sought in various ways to transform faith and its contents, even the mystery of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, into dialectical structures which could be grasped by reason. Opposed to this kind of thinking were various forms of atheistic humanism, expressed in philosophical terms, which regarded faith as alienating and damaging to the development of a full rationality. They did not hesitate to present themselves as new religions serving as a basis for projects which, on the political and social plane, gave rise to totalitarian systems which have been disastrous for humanity.

In the field of scientific research, a positivistic mentality took hold which not only abandoned the Christian vision of the world, but more especially rejected every appeal to a metaphysical or moral vision. It follows that certain scientists, lacking any ethical point of reference, are in danger of putting at the centre of their concerns something other than the human person and the entirety of the person's life. Further still, some of these, sensing the opportunities of technological progress, seem to succumb not only to a market-based logic, but also to the temptation of a quasi-divine power over nature and even over the human being.

As a result of the crisis of rationalism, what has appeared finally is nihilism. As a philosophy of nothingness, it has a certain attraction for people of our time. Its adherents claim that the search is an end in itself, without any hope or possibility of ever attaining the goal of truth. In the nihilist interpretation, life is no more than an occasion for sensations and experiences in which the ephemeral has pride of place. Nihilism is at the root of the widespread mentality which claims that a definitive commitment should no longer be made, because everything is fleeting and provisional.

Faith and reason are two parts to the same coin and science is a process for understanding the world around us; it is not an atheistic dogma of what is and what is not.  One can argue that science is the process of answering questions, but in fact for every question we answer two more are created in its place.  Everyone has the capacity for both faith and reason.  No one wants either the faith or the reason of another imposed on them.  Yet this is what the strong atheists are doing when they demand that anyone who has a vaguely religious faith be denied consideration for any proper or even political position.  That is their dogma, and their dogma is a real pit bull.