(Tim Challies) As you know, I’ve been participating in a short exchange of letters with Luke Muehlhauser who blogs at Common Sense Atheism. Here is where we’ve been so far:
Luke’s First Letter to Me
My Reply to Luke
Luke’s Second Letter to Me
My Second Reply
Luke’s Third Letter to Me
And here is my third and final letter.....
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Showing posts with label Atheist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atheist. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Challenging the New Atheists
(Probe - Written by Patrick Zukeran) Nearly thirty years ago John Lennon sang the song, “Imagine.” The words went like this:
“Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace
Imagine there’s no heaven. . .You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one
In other words, the source of much evil in the world is religion: belief in God, life after death, and a universal moral code. Would the world be a better place if faith in God was eliminated? Many atheists now think so. Richard Dawkins states, “Imagine with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine, no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing one inch of it.”{1} The goal of the new atheists is to rid the world of belief in God or religion and replace it with reason and science. The new atheists believe that religions that embrace a belief in God, particularly Christianity, are not just irrational but dangerous and therefore must be extinguished.
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“Imagine there’s no heaven It’s easy if you try No hell below us Above us only sky Imagine all the people Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries It isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace
Imagine there’s no heaven. . .You may say that I’m a dreamer But I’m not the only one I hope someday you’ll join us And the world will be as one
In other words, the source of much evil in the world is religion: belief in God, life after death, and a universal moral code. Would the world be a better place if faith in God was eliminated? Many atheists now think so. Richard Dawkins states, “Imagine with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine, no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’). Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no flogging of female skin for the crime of showing one inch of it.”{1} The goal of the new atheists is to rid the world of belief in God or religion and replace it with reason and science. The new atheists believe that religions that embrace a belief in God, particularly Christianity, are not just irrational but dangerous and therefore must be extinguished.
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Answering the New Atheists
(CMI) Bestseller lists have recently included a sequence of books written by a small cadre of articulate atheist writers. The youngest of these ‘new atheists’ is Sam Harris, a 40-year-old graduate student who exploded onto the scene with two bestsellers in quick succession.
One articulate Christian apologist who has been keeping tabs on the ‘new atheists’—and providing answers—is Doug Wilson (pictured left), a pastor and Fellow in Theology at New St Andrews College. He first saw Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation sitting on a colleague’s desk when it was fresh off the presses.1 ‘The title caught my attention, and I ordered a copy.’ Harris’s slim, unobtrusive Letter distilled the essence of the atheists’ case into an easy-to-read format which caught the attention of the general public in the US particularly. In a matter of months, Doug Wilson’s rebuttal—just a little longer than Harris’s—was rolling off the presses. MORE
One articulate Christian apologist who has been keeping tabs on the ‘new atheists’—and providing answers—is Doug Wilson (pictured left), a pastor and Fellow in Theology at New St Andrews College. He first saw Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation sitting on a colleague’s desk when it was fresh off the presses.1 ‘The title caught my attention, and I ordered a copy.’ Harris’s slim, unobtrusive Letter distilled the essence of the atheists’ case into an easy-to-read format which caught the attention of the general public in the US particularly. In a matter of months, Doug Wilson’s rebuttal—just a little longer than Harris’s—was rolling off the presses. MORE
Atheistic Atonement
Christopher Hitchens weighs in on the atonement and John Calvin.
(Tim Challies) I just finished reading Christopher Hitchens’ atheistic screed God is not Great. Demanding the end of all religion and proclaiming that belief in God is harmful to individuals and to society, Hitchens attempts, at least in portions of the book, to mock and even to deconstruct Christian theology. I found his remarks on the atonement to be of particular interest, primarily because the atonement is a hot topic even within the church these days. I wondered, would an atheist make some of the same criticisms as supposed Christians do? If a person who proclaims Christ looks at the atonement and declares it cosmic child abuse, how much more repulsive must it appear from beyond even the semblance of faith? So here is what Hitchens says about the atonement: MORE
(Tim Challies) I just finished reading Christopher Hitchens’ atheistic screed God is not Great. Demanding the end of all religion and proclaiming that belief in God is harmful to individuals and to society, Hitchens attempts, at least in portions of the book, to mock and even to deconstruct Christian theology. I found his remarks on the atonement to be of particular interest, primarily because the atonement is a hot topic even within the church these days. I wondered, would an atheist make some of the same criticisms as supposed Christians do? If a person who proclaims Christ looks at the atonement and declares it cosmic child abuse, how much more repulsive must it appear from beyond even the semblance of faith? So here is what Hitchens says about the atonement: MORE
Thursday, March 4, 2010
“Unquestioning Christians” and Atheistic Bluster (Phil Johnson) "I don't encourage anyone to hang around the infidel sectors of the Internet or interact on a large scale with the many missionaries of skepticism who love to vent their hatred of God along with copious amounts of profanity, smutty language, lewd innuendo, blind rage, and pathologically pugnacious attitudes wherever they can find an unmoderated forum..."
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