Well, I haven’t been giving too much love to the Christians
lately, so this week I’ll take a break from history and berating dead people
and send you around the web to some of the big players in atheism who have some
things to say that might surprise you. Agnosticism is a scientifically valid
stance. The Bible is a worthwhile and even important piece of literature. Name
calling is not a good strategy.
Let’s start with Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologists
and famous atheist. There is a project to get every verse of the Bible on
YouTube. Richard Dawkins was invited to participate. They were surprised at his
response.
Bart Erhmann was an early entry into people who write about
non-belief in God. In 2011 he received an award for his work. This one is
lengthy, you might want to fast forward to the 29 minute mark. He sees himself
as a historian who helps to uncover the oppressive uses of the Bible. He says
humanism needs to express itself in positive terms.
Back to Dawkins. This is a two part discussion on
agnosticism, but you can get the idea in part 1. There have been some recent
articles expressing surprise to hear him call himself an agnostic, although he
clearly laid out this same argument in The
God Delusion, years ago. He says we should apply a temporary form of
agnosticism to the god question, until more data is available to make a
conclusion. He does not leave the question wide open, most of the evidence is
that god does not exist, but to be intellectually honest, you can’t say that
with certainty.
Matt Dillahunty can be a lot to handle. He comes across as
arrogant to some, strongly convicted to others. He was raised Christian and
went to seminary, so he knows what he is talking about. He has done this call
in show in Austin, TX for many years. Usually, he gets into arguments that
don’t get resolved. In this case, a young caller who has called a few times
before is convinced that thinking for himself might be a good idea.
In this 5 minute piece by Matt, he is calling in to other
people in the Atheist Community of Austin and relating an email discussion. He
responds to a woman who said she didn’t want to live in a world without God. It
is a nice little speech on justice and being good, without God.
Michael Dowd is different. He sounds more like a preacher
and is speaking at a church in this video. He loves to evangelize about the
wonders of the universe. He uses some substitute language for explaining how he
sees what religion is. It is rather lengthy, about an hour, so I’ll tell the
part that he says he will get to later. For him, God is a conceptualization of
reality, that is God is everything. We can’t really grasp the vastness of the
universe, so we use God to help conceive it.
I haven’t read this whole article, but it contains one of
the most clever analogies to explain fundamentalism that I have ever heard. Nadia
Bolz-Weber is a pastor in what is sometimes labeled the “emerging church”. As
you can see from her picture, she’s not a typical pastor. In this article, she
talks about how some Christians look through the Bible for a checklist of items
that they should do or follow, and then try to conform to that list. No matter
what they choose, they are not so much following Jesus or accepting him as they
are leaving him idling in a van on the corner, waiting until he is needed at
the end times, and saying, “Thanks Jesus, we’ll take it from here.”
This one is not for everybody. I would recommend it for any
group leaders or anyone wanting to publicly debate difficult issues like
religion. Dawkins makes some excellent points about how people’s minds are
changed. He discusses using tools like sarcasm appropriately.
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