Atheism is the new and aggressive orthodoxy

The fact that atheists push their views on others is self-evident from even a cursory reading of The Nation. Witness everything from the barrage of letters denouncing Islam, to French zealots banning burqinis, to entire countries being bombed to rubble so as to replace their traditional, religion-based power structures with modern secular democracies. 

Here in Thailand, progressives enthusiastically embrace the war on the “ammart”, a hierarchy with deep roots in Hinduism and Buddhism, and want to flatten it into an “everyone-is-equal” notion of democracy. These people might call themselves Buddhist, but they usually deride the existing practices and demand reform in line with their “enlightened views” that insist Buddhism is not a religion anymore but only a philosophy – and a cradle of democracy, too. 

I see all these developments as a sign of rising atheism. Sometimes it’s pretty, sometimes not. Maybe others see them in a different way.

StanG

Bangkok