January 3, 2011

Comments (10)

  • "How Immorality leads to Atheism?" WOW. And comfort's title is chuckle-worthy, and does not merit any further attention.

    If you've read all those books, I tip my hat to you. I haven't read half of the "new atheist's" books, let alone the piles of crap written by the apologists. I can't STAND that shit. The mental gymnastics, the logical fallacies piled on top of the idiocy, it just makes my head spin.

  • @Unstoppable_Inner_Strength - Oh, yeah, I don't think I'll be able to read all of them, but I will be able to search their contents for specific topics covered.  That won't be full proof, but not too bad either.

  • I don't play in the atheist vs. Christians section very much.  I've met Chris Hitchens twice now, and I find him very humble and kind.  I think he's basically G. K. Chesterton with a different dogma.  His work on Mother Theresa is probably his most significant contribution.  

    I haven't read most of the anti-atheist books or authors up there, but one I have read and strongly recommend is David Bentley Hart's Atheist Delusions, which is poorly titled.  It's not actually an argument for theism at all, and Hart (an Orthodox theologian) draws heavily on Nietzsche and Derrida in most of his philosophical work.  Atheist Delusions is really just a response to the charge that Christianity has been a force for ignorance and immorality.  It's not a critique of atheism as a positivist position (which, as a Wittgensteinian, Hart couldn't write anyway), but a critique of the claims of the superiority of secularism. 

    Finally, the last two pages are actually somewhat shocking, as Hart calls for the church to respond with a sort of monastic withdrawal from society, rather than any attempt to overthrow secularism.  I sincerely think you could read this book and find yourself fundamentally agreeing with Hart's position, even if you find theism as such unconvincing. 

    edit: Oh, I did read about half of D'Souza's book, and like everything else I've read from him, I found it intellectually dishonest and absolutely uncompelling.   

  • I was under the impression Hedges was a Christian.  I think he said so on Colbert.

  • @SirNickDon - Interesting thoughts.

    @StrokeofThought - Oops.  Thanks!

  • @SirNickDon - 

    How exactly do you tell if someone is being intellectually dishonest?

  • @StrokeofThought - There seems to be a bit of confusion:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chris_Hedges

  • I guess he goes back and forth.  Here at about 2:30 he says he is, but I think this was before the conference talked about in the wikipedia article.  It's an entertaining interview in any case.

    http://videosift.com/video/Chris-Hedges-on-the-Colbert-Report-American-Fascists

  • @StrokeofThought - I guess I get the impression that he critiques the new atheists from a secular perspective even though he identifies as Christian?  I could be wrong, I haven't read either book on the list, but that's why I've left it for now.

  • @StrokeofThought - Sorry, I didn't see your response before.  I don't have any precise definition for intellectually dishonest, but I mainly have in mind things like plagiarism, misrepresentation of opponents' arguments, misrepresenting one's owns motives or openness to persuasion.  With those things in mind, I find many politicians intellectually dishonest (when Sarah Palin says she's opposed to judicial activism, because she knows she's supposed to be, but can't name any instances of judicial activism, for instance), most essays written by undergrads for English courses, who reach premeditated conclusions without actually doing the argumentative work to get there, and so on. 

    Josh McDowell is the first apologist a lot of Christian teenagers begin reading, which is tragic because he plagiarizes constantly, constantly misrepresents his opponents arguments, constantly makes correlations based on a single, non-representative historical anecdote without naming them as such, just on and on.  And he represents himself as a converted atheist, convinced by all the proof that he is offering, as though he came to all the information he's presenting with a skeptical eye, which should make it all the more persuasive to the reader, when really he had the same conversion experience most evangelical Christians have. 

    Lee Strobel is probably more popular than McDowell these days, and he's better overall, but I find his work intellectually dishonest as well.  The whole, "I'm a hard-hitting journalist trying to prove that the gospels weren't true, but I just can't do it because the experts are too right" shtick.  And then he keeps that up in book after book, writing from that position as though he hasn't been a pastor at one of the largest churches in America for the past twenty years.  As though he doesn't cherry pick his experts.  Now, I agree with the perspectives of some of those experts (by no means all of them), but I feel like he really misrepresents the game he's playing.

    D'Souza is probably better than both of them in terms of academic integrity, but he still makes a lot of moves that remind me of Sarah Palin.  He knows what position he is supposed to take, and so he makes the necessary rhetorical moves to get there.  I never feel like he's willing to take on the full force of opposing viewpoints; sometimes I'm not convinced that he fully understands the viewpoints he's opposing.

Post a Comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *