Onward Atheist Church-Goers

Fascinating article in the New Yorker, titled "If God is Dead, Who Gets the House?":
http://nymag.com/news/features/46214/

Buried near the end is the fact that the "four horsemen" of atheism can't agree on a name for their movement (free advice: don't make your own "bright" name, take the disparaging term others hang on you and wear it with pride. Worked for the Big Bang and Christians both). Buried near the beginning is the fact that one of these societies was started about a hundred years ago and seems, well, about as big now as it was then.

I want the atheists to form churches. Then they'll see the same things they criticize with Christianity happening to them. It's like the difference between criticizing parents before you have kids of your own and actually having to be a parent yourself!

And, if the churches take, and they do some good ... then I'll rejoice with the strange unnamed grace that keeps even them afloat. Seriously, they should go for it.

The other nice surprise from this article was that Richard Dawkins likes to sing Christmas Carols. How this jives with his suggestion to replace Christmas with the celebration of Isaac Newton's birthday I'm not sure, but I am sure there's some bad poetry to be contrived in turning carols into secular celebrations of science (first idea: "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree" because "Issac Newton's Apple Tree" and concerns falling apples and falling moons!).