Posted on 01/03/2007 6:19:54 PM PST by shrinkermd
In bestselling books, on websites, and with a national lobbying effort, atheists and other nontheists are challenging the growing religious influence in government and public life. Some are attacking the foundations of religion itself.
Two particularly provocative books, in fact, hit the top of Publishers Weekly's religion bestseller list in December. No. 1, "The God Delusion," by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, and No. 2, "Letter to a Christian Nation," by writer Sam Harris, are no-holds-barred, antireligion polemics that call for the eradication of all manifestations of faith.
"I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented," declares Dr. Dawkins, the famed Oxford professor who wrote "The Selfish Gene."
These offerings are so intolerant of religion of any kind - liberal, moderate, or fundamentalist - that some scientists and secularists have critiqued their peers for oversimplification and for a secular fundamentalism.
"They undermine their own case by writing in a language that suffers from many things they say are true of believers - intolerance, disrespect, extremism," says Alan Wolfe, a professor of religion at Boston College, who is a secularist and author of several books on American religious perspectives.
Yet the authors are anything but modest about their efforts to supplant faith with pure scientific rationality. While critics point out that religion is a genuine reflection of people's experience and will always exist, Mr. Harris suggests it could be equated with slavery, which once was widely acceptable, but eventually was looked upon with horror. He sees it as responsible for many of life's tragedies.
Harris first hit the bestseller bull's-eye in 2004 with "The End of Faith," and he
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
They're just shades of the same turd.
I will be praying for these authors. Just because they want to deny the power and existence of God doesn't mean he doesn't exist or he isn't sovereign. I deny the number on the weight scale, doesn't mean it isn't telling me the truth.
Lee Strobel is an author who has written many books. He started off as an atheist, but as he tried to disprove the claims of Jesus in the bible, he became a believer. The truth shall set you free. Peace
I don't know. It all sounds rather, uh, evangelistic.
I think that's funny. Surreal, in a way.
So, now I've this image of a professorial type in a WHITE suit, strutting across a platform in a staduim, somewhere; big hair out to 'here' and TV cameras and lights; booming voice -- with a slightly southern accent -- "If ya don't believe, ya won't receive, but I will. Somebody say a-MEN!"
How weird.
If they atheists, why should they care?
The kindest thing you can do for an atheist is to pray for him. The fact that it causes them to foam at the mouth is a nice side benefit... ;-)
Atheism is easy to dissect: The axioms on which it rests - themselves not subject to the scientific method which is the litmus test of truth for atheism - cannot be accounted for in a Godless universe. Neither can self-awareness, right and wrong, etc.
"The End of Faith" is a misnomer, since atheism itself is a faith - just one that begins from a different presupposition. Isaac Asimov, Gordon Stein, and other celebrated atheists freely admit their inability to prove God's nonexistance.
These guys essentially are trying to create money-making "non-belief" religions, much as the operators behind the global warming industry are doing.
So, yeah you could talk about religion in anthropological or sociological catgegories. But it would be like a tone-deaf person talking about music, I fear.
Actually, if the person approaches the subject from a purely academic perspective, it may actually be a benefit to teaching the subject, because biases may be set aside to truly understand the foundations of what is to be taught. This thought is better expressed by Pierre Abelard:
"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth."
Two of the individuals quoted in the CSM article, Dawkins and Harris, fail the above. In fact, I find them an embarrassment, similar to others the article mentions. Then again, when one is 'enamored with their own press', vision can be fairly blinded.
Our nation was founded on religious tolerance. The Left believes in pure intolerance.
Maybe it does have a basis. Evolution is religion.
Oh, dear!
Can't I rest up first from all the hogwash on the Marion thread?
Wheeee.
It's WORSE than that, though. This is like the deaf, blind, guy and his quadraplegic sidekick getting up mid-flight and trying to convince the passengers of a fully-loaded 747 that they should yank the seasoned flight crew out of the cockpit so they can get in there and show everyone how the plane never REALLY left the ground in the first place.
And craig_eddy suggests that Mr. Harris will one day, from the pit of Hell, look upon his life with horror.
Dawkins is an aging zoologist who has long sought attention, not as a scientist, but as a "public intellectual", which is part of the title of the chair he holds. As far as I know, Harris reached 40 without ever holding a real job for any length of time, although he apparently traveled a lot on one or both of his parents' money. He is now one of the oldest graduate students in America. Both desperately want to be "relevant". Their schtick plays well to their devote believers, but is hardly noticed by anyone else. Neither one manages to get beyond the kind of facile arguments and sneers that I was a master of long before they happened on the scene ;-) Let them have their moment. They don't matter.
Their debate structure and framing of the central issues are merely a squad of self-affirmed straw men -- whom they are pleased to bash with warmed over Neitzsche...
They are trying to "prove a negative"... a fairly ludicrous undertaking on its face.
And they cannot / will not tolerate -- much less consider-- any "evidence" that isn't "scientific"... their own brand of "science"... BTW
(In other words -- any ideas offered in the legal/historical realm of reason -- NOT ALLOWED)
If this is a political play... bring your freedom of speech, your ideas -- however far-fetched and weakly reasoned... I will bring the testimony of Jesus Christ --
We will disagree... I am certain.
So bring it...
Contrary to your self-imposed rulebook for cultural debate -- I do not owe your ideas, reasoning, or high intellecutal station in life ANY deference or obeisance...
If this is about right, reason, and the ultimate eternal reality....
Dawkins & Harris and their buddies...
Need to learn to spell intellectual honesty...
(Dawkins particularly needs to sit down with his former colleague -- Sir Anthony Flew)
AND....
(Dare I Say It...)
THEY ALL NEED TO PRACTICE WHAT THEY PREACH...
And learn to spell intellectual honesty...
(Dawkins particularly needs to sit down with his former colleague -- See Anthony Flew)
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