Straw man of the day

Remember last year when the anti-Dawkins brigade wailed about ‘militant atheists‘ on a witchhunt against poor, defenseless religious people? Remember how they pleaded with secularists to show the same tolerance and respect to men and women of faith they themselves are shown?

Well, keep that in mind when reading Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s hatchet job on ‘atheistic secularism‘:

It is not its attacks on religion that gives me pause for thought, but its vision of what is human. It says that this is all we are, this is it! We have no significant purpose; we’re merely chance products of material processes.

I believe we do have a purpose; that we are made for greater things. Atheistic secularism ultimately diminishes us; it kills the human spirit under the pretence of liberating it. Our democracy is too precious and costly a gift to be narrated by this version of the secular alone. I want to keep alive the church’s vision of humanity which is part of the truth it carries. It belongs not just to Catholics or to Christians but to us all. (emphasis mine)

So according to this grasping little bigot, Catholicism is the language of love, secularism is the language of death, democracy is God’s gift to the unwashed and we should show some bloody gratitude by banning scientific methods which might one day save lives.

Remind me again why we’re meant to be nice to these people?