New Atheism is dedicatedly anti-religious in a way that older atheisms weren’t, and it makes me sad to see what was a viewpoint based on a deliberate, thoughtful weighing of evidence reduced to something approaching a shouting match.

If, and inasmuch as, that opinion has any factual basis at all, you might consider (inasmuch as christians ever actually consider anything instead of pretending to consider while preparing their next conversion pitch) that there might be some response to the increasingly irrational, crazy, get-the-state-controlled-by-church, hate-filled religious right.

Crazily Stupid Arizona Lady, Hypocritical South Carolina governor, and one a few “rare” individual increasingly many exposed sexual abusers, are only the most recent, the most obvious, the most famous, and make it easy for you/christians/someone to pretend that it’s only a crazy few who “aren’t reeeallll christians”, thereby diverting attention from many more really hateful and frightening christians all around them.

All that mostly for something to say. sounds like an at least moderately interesting read; but I’m not sure if I buy the assertion that “The only logical position is apophatic relativism.” Is it just me or is that a classic example of a logical fallacy?

(and after I promised not make any more posts here…sorry)

Book: The Case for God
Author: Karen Armstrong
Releases on September 22, 2009

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart make Dawkins and Hitchens burn in Hell, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

Much of what we say about God these days is facile. The concept of God is meant to be hard. Too often we get lost in what Greeks called logos (reason) rather than interpreting him through mythoi – those things we know to be eternally true but can’t prove. Like Santa Claus. Religion is not about belief or faith; it is a skill. Self-deceit does not always come easily, so we have to work at it.

Our ancestors, who were obviously right, would have been surprised by the crude empiricism that reduces faith to fundamentalism or atheism. I have no intention of rubbishing anyone’s beliefs, so help me God, but Dawkins’s critique of God is unbelievably shallow. God is transcendent, clever clogs. So we obviously can’t understand him. Duh!

I’m going to spend the next 250 pages on a quick trawl of comparative religion from the pre-modern to the present day. It won’t help make the case for God, but it will make me look clever and keep the publishers happy, so let’s hope no one notices!

The desire to explain the unknowable has always been with us and the most cursory glance at the cave paintings at Lascaux makes it clear these early Frenchies didn’t intend us to take their drawings literally. Their representations of God are symbolic; their religion a therapy, a sublimation of the self. Something that fat bastard Hitchens should think about.

Much the same is true of the Bible. Astonishingly, the Eden story is not a historical account, nor is everything else in the Bible true. The Deuteronomists were quick to shift the goalposts of the meaning of the Divine when problems of interpretation and meaning were revealed. So should we be. Rationalism is not antagonistic to religion. Baby Jesus didn’t want us to believe in his divinity. That is a misrepresentation of the Greek pistis. He wanted everyone to give God their best shot and have a singalong Kumbaya.

We’ll pass over Augustine and Original Sin, because that was a bit of a Christian own goal, and move on to Thomas Aquinas, in whom we can see that God’s best hope is apophatic silence. We can’t say God either exists or doesn’t exist, because he transcends existence. This not knowing is proof of his existence. QED. A leap of faith is in fact a leap of rationality. Obviously.

Skipping through the Kabbalah, introduced by the Madonna of Lourdes and Mercy (1459 – ), through Erasmus and Copernicus, we come to the Age of Reason. It was unfortunate that the church rejected Galileo, but that was more of a post-Tridentine Catholic spat than a serious error and it didn’t help that a dim French theologian, Mersenne, conflated the complexities of science with intelligent design, but we’ll skip over that.

Things came right with Darwin. Many assume he was an atheist; in reality he was an agnostic who, despite being a lot cleverer than Dawkins, could not refute the possibility of a God. Therefore God must exist, or we drift into the terrible nihilism of Sartre where we realise everything is pointless. Especially this book.

The modern drift to atheism has been balanced by an equally lamentable rise in fundamentalism. Both beliefs are compromised and misconceived. The only logical position is apophatic relativism, as stated in the Jeff Beck (1887- ) lyric, “You’re everywhere and nowhere, Baby. That’s where you’re at.”

I haven’t had time to deal with the tricky issues of the after-life that some who believe in God seem to think are fairly important.

But silence is often the best policy – geddit, Hitchens? And the lesson of my historical overview is that the only tenable religious belief is one where you have the humility to constantly change your mind in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

God is the desire beyond this desire, who exists because I say so, and the negation of whose existence confirms his transcendence. Or something like that.

And if you believe this, you’ll believe anything.

The digested read, digested:

The case dismissed.

:D

Thanks for not taking offense. You are a man with genuine character. I tend to get carried away with my snarky sense of humor. I apologize.

Anyway, this is surely my final post.
I have no desire to attack other people’s beliefs.
My beliefs are mine, yours are yours, and it’s not my place to criticize.

I will say this, I think better of Christians because of you. Your testimony is respected, at least by me.

My best wishes to you,
Steve

I made a crucial error in this post. I said:

“I know that you all like to harp on the genocidal god of the old testament, but the fact is that the OT is not inconsistent with a Christian worldview. Christian theology places the blame for unjust actions on the shoulders of a sinning humanity. Whether or not you buy that is certainly up to you, but it is not the logical inconsistency it is often made out to be”

what I should have said is this:

“God has never killed the innocent. It is man’s sinful nature that brought death to this world, along with the other ills of mankind.

And while it is true that God is Love, God is also Justice.

It is not God who slays the innocent. It is man’s sinful nature. Yes, it is true – all of mankind suffers in this world. And it’s not just death that man suffers, but a host of other afflictions. The iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the sons. This is Divine law. God must mete out Justice because He is Justice. And it is not man’s place to judge God.

If a student is given a failing grade, is it the fault of the teacher who issued the grade? No – it is the student who earned the grade.

But just as much as God is Justice, He is Love. He sacrificed His only Son so that humankind could escape the afflictions caused by man’s sinful nature. There is no greater Love than this.”

It is not my desire to witness on this site, so I didn’t. But that is what I should have said.

Instead, I assumed that everyone interested had already heard that sort of thing before and wasn’t interested. I did everything on your checklist in anticipation of the scorn I thought your type of answer would receive. I, for example, know that the “OT” and “NT” gods are one and the same, but I see few critics attack the “NT” god for his “genocidal” behavior, and many attack the “OT” god for just that reason.

I admit it. you described it as clumsy, and that’s just about right.

What I should have said is that Christianity does not place the blame for the deaths of children on God, not even a God of perfect justice. And then I should have asked why I should do such a thing, throwing the ball back into your court.

I hope you haven’t left for good!

:D

You are calling for others to respect you while remaining far more than merely disrespectful to others and their beliefs.

So,christianbigot, you’re not merely a bigot, but a hypocrite.

Trying to change (convert) someone is demonstrating to them with your actions that they are unacceptable to you as they are.
How’s that again? “Everyone has an opinion, respect it…”?

You’re probably a troll who spews your hatred and then leaves the site without reading replies, but at least others see through you and know it even if you don’t:

Your hatred is ugly.

First let me dismantle your arguments. I’ll be as brief as I can.

1) About the “harping” deal:

That’s ridiculous, really. It’s unwise to begin an argument by whining that your opponent is “harping” on the issue. That’s an overt attempt to dismiss an argument because you don’t like it. It’s not a defense.

“Your honor, I’d like to address the defendant once more. Sir, you killed this entire family, yet you want the jury to believe that you are innocent.”

“Yes – why do you keep harping on that? Man, that was, like, a long time ago.”

It sounds like you’re acknowledging the fact that you have no reasonable answer, and that what’s about to follow is fuzzy nonsense (ding!).

2) Don’t refer to the God of the Old Testament as if He’s different from the “new” one. God is immutable – He doesn’t change. The God of the Old Testament is the same as the God of the new one. You speak of two Gods – that’s idolatry, dude.

3) For Pete’s sake do NOT refer to God as genocidal. That’s clumsy language at best – either that, or you actually believe that He IS genocidal.

4) Your second sentence implies that God acts unjustly because humans are sinful. That’s blasphemous, so let’s assume that’s not what you intended to say.

Let’s say that you were trying to say that HUMANS act unjustly. Okay – but there’s no context for that statement, even if that’s what you meant.

Point one – God kills people.
Point two – humans are sinful.

You never connect those two independent thoughts. (Kind of like “Dugg,” the talking dog from the movie “Up”: “The OT is not inconsistent with…SQUIRREL!”)

And even if you DID add a sentence or two to put this into context, it still wouldn’t address the original issue: why does God kill innocent children?

Either way, you’re skating clumsily around the real issue.

5) “Whether or not you buy that is certainly up to you.” Errr, Buy WHAT? You never made a point. And even if you did – so what if I bought it or not? Just nonsense words to fill space.

6) “it is not the logical inconsistency it is often made out to be “ – Come on now, you need TWO arguments in order to say that one may or may not be inconsistent with the other. You didn’t even give me ONE.

7) Just who are these people making “this” out to be logically inconsistent (unreferenced pronoun)?

8) Even if you did identify the people disputing the points (that you never even made), it would be irrelevant. The Bible is the timeless Word of God. Man’s opinion is of no significance. This is simply another way of saying nothing – just some more empty words to fill empty space.

Ahem, now that the unpleasantries are out of the way, please allow me to help you. I once believed that I was filled with the Holy Spirit.

Here is how the past me would have addressed the present me:

God has never killed the innocent. It is man’s sinful nature that brought death to this world, along with the other ills of mankind.

And while it is true that God is Love, God is also Justice.

It is not God who slays the innocent. It is man’s sinful nature. Yes, it is true – all of mankind suffers in this world. And it’s not just death that man suffers, but a host of other afflictions. The iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the sons. This is Divine law. God must mete out Justice because He is Justice. And it is not man’s place to judge God.

If a student is given a failing grade, is it the fault of the teacher who issued the grade? No – it is the student who earned the grade.

But just as much as God is Justice, He is Love. He sacrificed His only Son so that humankind could escape the afflictions caused by man’s sinful nature. There is no greater Love than this.

Anywho – that’s how I would have answered it. Now I’ll just slither back into the muck of atheism and sin. Mwahh hah hah… cough cough… HAH!

Toodles JonJon!
Steve

I smell a christian double standard hiding its passive-aggressive stink behind deceptive language in that post.