Posted on 12/27/2008 9:42:39 AM PST by CE2949BB
God has had a lot of bad press recently. The four horsemen of atheism, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, have all published books sharply critical of belief in God: respectively, The God Delusion, Breaking the Spell, The End of Faith, and God Is Not Great. Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens pile on the greatest amount of scorn, while Dennett takes the role of good cop. But despite differences of tone and detail, they all agree that belief in God is a kind of superstition. As Harris puts it, religion “is the denial—at once full of hope and full of fear—of the vastitude of human ignorance.”
The question of God’s existence is one of those few matters of general interest on which philosophers might pretend to expertise—Dennett is a professional philosopher, and Harris has a B.A. in the subject. Still, of the four, it is Dawkins who wades the furthest into philosophy. So what can philosophy contribute? In particular, have philosophers come to a verdict on the traditional arguments for God’s existence?
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonreview.net ...
Sounds like Dawkins et al like to talk to themselves.
Then I guess I'll have a lot more time to discuss God's existence from Heaven than he will.
religion “is the denial—at once full of hope and full of fear—of the vastitude of human ignorance.”
No, the belief that God exists is not religion.
People who deny the existence of God are full of fear because of it.
You fear death because you do not believe, and you hope in lieu of faith.
Harris is a moron.
Philosophers — God laughs.
Anthony Flew, perhaps the 20th century’s most articulate philosopher in the area of epistemology (knowledge) and, until recently, an outspoken atheist himself, said this of Dawkins:
“...Dawkins is not interested in the truth as such. He is primarily concerned to discredit an ideological opponent by any available means.” (First Things, December ‘08)
I think it is fair to say that Dennet, Harris and Hitchens fall into the same category. In the end, those who believe in some form of deity have a rational (warranted) basis upon which to build value systems. Atheists, on the other hand, must wind up in the realm of pure subjectivity. What they believe to be right and wrong, they believe to be right and wrong only upon the basis of their own opinion. Ideology, IMHO, is merely opinion about truth, not truth itself.
It’s pretty long. I’ll try to read it later.
Kant—total strangers used to come to his habitual restaurant to watch him eat he was so famous—said that we are logically free to believe in God if we wish. Free will, too. And eternal life.
I should think the burden of proof would be on these men. Isn't it interesting that there are so few of them, and so many believers? Thinking of this always makes me want to ask them what their proof is for their beliefs, if they are just taking that belief on faith, and to ask how they can prove the existence of their minds, since they can't see their minds nor can they touch, hear, or taste them (wavy lines on a 'scope screen don't prove anything except electrical activity, boys). I'm just sayin': I'd rather be in my position than theirs when I die. If I'm wrong, nothing will happen. If THEY are wrong, on the other hand...
Yet more proof that anyone who seeks to be a philosopher needs to go get a real job.
Yep, it is.
It's about 5,000 words and 30,000 bytes. My two paragraph excerpt doesn't do it justice.
I would have posted the entire thing, but I'd rather not annoy the mods. ;)
-Proverbs (can't rembember chapter/verse).
-A8
Apparently, Dawkins handles the subject so badly that his fellow atheists have told him to shut up...he is hurting the cause.
INTREP
Some are chosen as part of the elect, and heed the gospel call and some are not and don't.
If you believe, what does it matter who is annoyed?
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