Thanks for all the entries to the "Atheism is a faith position too" competition. I have thought long and hard, and come up with the following decision. The winner is: Austin Cline , for this example from Rowan Williams and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development. However, they fail to recognise that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position. This is from the foreword of a report called "Doing God" available here . I went to the original source to check and I could not find a single argument in the entire document to support the contention that "public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position." As part of a public joint statement by the heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches in the UK, offered without any justification whatsoever, it scores very highly for being irritating, and gains some extra points for being slightly sinister! Austin
Stephen Law is a philosopher and author. Currently Director of Philosophy and Cert HE at Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. Stephen has also published many popular books including The Philosophy Gym, The Complete Philosophy Files, and Believing Bullshit. For school talks/ media: stephenlaw4schools.blogspot.co.uk Email: think-AT-royalinstitutephilosophy.org