My Two Weeks With the Atheists of Prague With Updates

Final Presentation by Gary Wedgewood
Atheism and Philosophy, PHIL 3310, Spring 2022

On the two Sunday’s we were in Prague, we attended the United Methodist Church where church members & ministers shared their experiences under communist rule when the church services would have visitors who were spying for the government & recording names of those attending the services…the only official and acceptable “religious” view under communist rule was Atheism.

William James…quotes James Henry Leuba as saying, “God is not known, he is not understood, he is used…if he proves himself useful, the religious consciousness can ask no more than that. Does God really exist? What is he? are irrelevant questions. Not God, but life, more life, a larger, richer, more satisfying life, is, in the last analysis, the end of religion.”

Richard Rorty in “Pragmatism as Anti-Authoritarianism”

From an interview with MARGARET ATWOOD …after I’d written “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it got made into a movie…We launched it in West Berlin…then we went across to East Berlin, and we launched it there. People watched it very intently and threw bouquets up on the stage afterwards and said, this was our life. And they didn’t mean the outfits. They meant you couldn’t talk to anybody because you didn’t know if they were spying on you…Prague was…similarly…shut down. So, we went in search of Kafka…no Kafka…very verboten…we then went back in ’89…there were Kafka handkerchiefs, Kafka playing cards…I went back a little bit later, and it was full-blown Kafka…There was a statue. There’s an award…I got the Kafka award. I was thrilled.

Thousands of Russians in Prague protest against war in Ukraine By Jason Hovet
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/thousands-russians-prague-protest-against-war-ukraine-2022-03-26/

PRAGUE, March 26 (Reuters) - Thousands of Russians marched through Prague on Saturday, waving the white-blue-white flag that has become a symbol of protests against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Carrying signs that read "Killer" over a picture of President Vladimir Putin and chanting "No to War", protesters walked from Prague's Peace Square through the centre of the Czech capital. Police put the number of marchers at about 3,000.

The Czech Republic is home to 45,000 Russians, the fourth largest foreign community in the former communist-ruled country. Nearly 200,000 Ukrainians lived in the Czech Republic - making them the biggest foreign community - before Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The Czech government estimates 300,000 Ukrainians have fled to the country.

Copson writes:  “The argument for secularism based on individual freedom is rooted in a particular understanding of human dignity. It starts from the assumption that, as far as is possible, we want to be free to make up our own minds about important questions.”

Copson, Andrew. Secularism (p. 47). Kindle Edition.

Discussion Questions:

1. How is the prevalence of atheism or theism in a society tied to the political climate at any given time?
2. What was it about Kafka that threatened the government and caused him to be banned at one time and revered at another time?
3. Do you think the current attitude about Putin and the war in Ukraine might have differed at another time in the political history of the Czech Republic?
4. Would you allow a government or political leader to influence what belief system you choose?