A critique of Dillahunty's atheism and of the science-centered assumption that religion should be evidentiary as opposed to fundamentally—like all other worldviews.
Wow, you really did a good job playing devil's (or, more correctly, God's) advocate in this one in explaining the theist's perspective.
I cannot speak for all atheists, but most seem to be opposed to revealed religion rather than theism itself. I think that it's possible to posit the existence of a God in good faith, it's only when the theist starts making specific assertions about her deity's character, plans, & actions, that her motives become suspect. A dry, agnostic deism or a silent mysticism would not be such tempting targets for the new atheist.
If the more literal theists wish to make empirical, hence falsifiable, claims about their God & his alleged interventions in history, then they have no grounds for criticizing the atheist who comes along & undermines their assertions. If God transcends human reason, then his apologists have not only been wasting everyone's time, but misleading those who listened to them.
I agree that revealed religion is much more suspicious than metaphysical deism or apolitical mysticism. However, positing a deity that has no real-world implications for us at all comes close to being meaningless or the positing of nothing. Why wouldn't God take an interest in his creation, for example? So I can see how the humbler theism slides into the evangelical variety.
I haven't heard from you in awhile. Hope you had a happy holiday.
Yeah, deism & mysticism are both so rare that my point was hypothetical. Though I personally find natural theology interesting & I have had mystical experiences, neither of those kinds of religion offer much in the way of consolation or moral guidance & so they remain on the fringes of theism.
Thanks, I'm actually doing fine. My best friend's sister was found dead last month under suspicious circumstances, so I've been preoccupied with visiting the family & doing the funeral (I had to travel out of town). We weren't friends, but I had known her for 18 years, so it was quite a shock. Though murder has been ruled out, investigators still have no idea what killed her. The only medical condition she had was asthma; but the coroner doesn't believe that asthma caused her death.
That's not a good kind of mystery. Kind of the opposite of a happy holiday. It made me think of a documentary I recently watched on the Night Stalker (a serial killer from the 1980s). But there, of course, there was no mystery as to the causes of death. Nature's the greatest birth-giver and killer, I suppose.
Wow, you really did a good job playing devil's (or, more correctly, God's) advocate in this one in explaining the theist's perspective.
ReplyDeleteI cannot speak for all atheists, but most seem to be opposed to revealed religion rather than theism itself. I think that it's possible to posit the existence of a God in good faith, it's only when the theist starts making specific assertions about her deity's character, plans, & actions, that her motives become suspect. A dry, agnostic deism or a silent mysticism would not be such tempting targets for the new atheist.
If the more literal theists wish to make empirical, hence falsifiable, claims about their God & his alleged interventions in history, then they have no grounds for criticizing the atheist who comes along & undermines their assertions. If God transcends human reason, then his apologists have not only been wasting everyone's time, but misleading those who listened to them.
I agree that revealed religion is much more suspicious than metaphysical deism or apolitical mysticism. However, positing a deity that has no real-world implications for us at all comes close to being meaningless or the positing of nothing. Why wouldn't God take an interest in his creation, for example? So I can see how the humbler theism slides into the evangelical variety.
DeleteI haven't heard from you in awhile. Hope you had a happy holiday.
Yeah, deism & mysticism are both so rare that my point was hypothetical. Though I personally find natural theology interesting & I have had mystical experiences, neither of those kinds of religion offer much in the way of consolation or moral guidance & so they remain on the fringes of theism.
DeleteThanks, I'm actually doing fine. My best friend's sister was found dead last month under suspicious circumstances, so I've been preoccupied with visiting the family & doing the funeral (I had to travel out of town). We weren't friends, but I had known her for 18 years, so it was quite a shock. Though murder has been ruled out, investigators still have no idea what killed her. The only medical condition she had was asthma; but the coroner doesn't believe that asthma caused her death.
That's not a good kind of mystery. Kind of the opposite of a happy holiday. It made me think of a documentary I recently watched on the Night Stalker (a serial killer from the 1980s). But there, of course, there was no mystery as to the causes of death. Nature's the greatest birth-giver and killer, I suppose.
Delete