Wednesday, February 23, 2005

As promised before Christmas, I have written a review of Roger Steer's Letter to an Influential Atheist which you can read here. I'm afraid it isn't a very flattering review. A good illustration of the books faults is that even or resident troll, Stephen Carr, has been able to put together a convincing rebuttal.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting how when pushed far enough, some atheists become rather lazy intellectually. They might be content to ramble on endlessly about superstring theories and the like, yet when asked why the universe is the way it is, they try to brush you off with phrases like "it just is" or "it's just a brute fact of reality". Of course neither response tells you much of anything. Some even seem satis fied with the attitude that if the universe was fundamentally diffferent, we wouldn't be here and that's that. That anyone would find these kinds of reponses adequate is perplexing to say the least. Perhaps they are afraid of finding out about the "why" of the universe.

Anonymous said...

Dawkin's strongest arguments are in his God's Utility Function in River out of Eden.

Indeed, it is so strong that McGrath, in Dawkin's God, never dares to go near it....

Anonymous said...

The "arguments" of Dawkin's you posit are mere speculation with precious little evidence. Just like his concepts of things like "memes", interesting perhaps but hardly proven.

Anonymous said...

The "arguments" of Dawkin's you posit are mere speculation with precious little evidence. Just like his concepts of things like "memes", interesting perhaps but hardly proven.

Anonymous said...

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/dawkins.html

Anonymous said...

http://homepages.which.net/~radical.faith/misc/birch.htm

Anonymous said...

WHY does God exist?

Anonymous said...

The Leader U Article rather amusingly claims that God did not design the world to be the way it is, and that we can tell by looking at the world that God designed it.

Anonymous said...

Barr writes in his refutation of Dawkins ' The doctrine of the Trinity is “obvious nonsense,” and “it takes a real, red-blooded Catholic to believe something as daft as transubstantiation.” It is, however, the Catholic dogma of the Assumption of Mary that for him is the ne plus ultra of religious silliness, with Mary’s body “zooming off to Heaven.”'

I imagine the views of Dawkins on the wrongness of Catholic dogma are shared by several hundred million Protestants.

Did Mary's body really zoom off to Heaven, as the Pope teaches?

Anonymous said...

Actually Mary and Elvis are running a souvenir shop in Appalachia:-)

Anonymous said...

Stephen Barr complains that Dawkins insults people by using phrases like 'boorish tenured confidence' and 'yahooish complacency'.

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0408/articles/barr.htm

Dawkins uses that phrase about someone who wrote 'I am glad to be rid of English departments. I hate literature and English departments are full of people who love literature.'