From the CADRE Blog, BK has an quotation about the intellectual decline of atheism. Of course, you do not need to tell me that many atheists on the internet are not exactly intellectual giants but the point about Anthony Flew and Dan Barker is also instructive. Flew is an esteemed, though very old, philosopher who has recently been having something of a crisis of faith over his atheism. Dan Barker is a musician who writes low brow books about how he hates Christianity.
Of course, you could retort that many Christians are not exactly brilliant intellects either. True indeed, but I'd suggest that this doesn't matter much. At root, Christianity does not claim to be an intellectual movement but a religion for everyone whether they are packing high calibre brains or not. And sure enough there are enough high calibre brains to make a mockery of any claim that Christians cannot be that clever.
Atheism however claims to be based on reason, rationality and logic. It is almost entirely an intellectual movement and consequently if it is losing the philosophical conflict it loses everything. The rude health of Christian philosophy and the decline of atheist thought is a much bigger threat to the later than it would be to the former. Atheism risks becoming something that people of a certain age and mind set grab onto instinctively (largely because it makes them feel intellectually superior) but will drop when it turns out that actually the clever guys are all in the other camp. I don't want to declare victory too early but the signs look good.
Of course, after the defeat of atheism, the much more difficult job will be the defeat of apathy.
Can we really get rid of atheism without getting rid of apathy first?
ReplyDeleteBelievers can thus have more than a little to do with the rise of atheism. To the extent that they are careless about their instruction in the faith, or present its teaching falsely, or even fail in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than to reveal the true nature of God and of religion. — Gaudium et Spes, 19
BK writes about the decline of atheism.
ReplyDeleteThis from a guy who writes that micro-evolution has been contaminated by sin???
http://christiancadre.blogspot.com/2004/10/evolution-and-darwinism-three-meanings.html for a good laugh.
Phonoman, thank you for your interesting and very honest comment. Even granted all the facts about Jesus you list, the resurrection is still far from proven. Indeed, using the methods of history it never can be. This is much of the reason I have little time for 'evidential' apologetics which claim to prove things which are beyond proof.
ReplyDeleteWhat other supernatural events from the first century are proved by anonymous sources, whose authors use each other as sources, deliberately changing what has been written to suit their own private agendas?
ReplyDeleteYou wouldn't hang a dog on the evidence of the New Testament, let alone conclude that a corpse turned into a new form of matter, previously unknown and never seen since.
'.....my claim the NT author misused the OT also wasn’t true, they used it no differently then other Jews of the Period.'
ReplyDeleteAnd Jews of the period misused the OT, just as Christians did. The Gospels are products of the superstitious times they were written in.
Look at Paul's taking a law about oxen and claiming it is about something the author never meant, and would never have dreamed of meaning.
Paging Mr Steven Carr, presently posting here as Anonymous: Please stop trolling around. If you have a comment to make then do so, but it seems you are presently just up to your usual tricks. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteBede continues to demonstrate the intellectual inferiority of atheism by his ignoring points and name-calling of people he doesn't like.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, what other supernatural events happened in the first century?
Did a cow really give birth to a lamb, as Josephus claimed in the Wars of the Jews - a work written within 10 years of the facts, by a direct participant, and one who claims to be reporting the eyewitness testimony of many to this claim? Surely this is far better attestation than the Christian claim that Peter found a coin in the mouth of a fish.
what consequences resulted in believing that a cow gave birth to a lamb? none. unlike believing that a man was the Son of God which meant a drastic change in beliefs and lifestyle by both jews and gentiles. as i'm sure you know, the jews were a strictly monotheistic people so equating a man with God was blasphemous and was to face rejection (which was bad enough in this group oriented culture), persecution and salvation. not to mention equating man who was CRUCIFIED -- the the most offensive, humiliating, shameful and disgusting way to be executed in the ancient world -- with God.
ReplyDeletethis wouldn't have been any easier for gentiles who considered the jews to be inferior and superstitious. for them to accept a jew as the world's savior was to turn their back on everything they were raised to believe about custom, tradition, religion and behavior in this honor and shame society.
in other words, believing that a cow gave birth to a lamb was not big deal and had no consequences. believing a blasphemous claim that a (jewish) man was God which resulted in rejection, persecution, a change in beliefs and lifestyle, etc is not something that would be easily accepted.
and, of course, is the fact that a cow supposedly giving birth to a lamb would have been a one time event as opposed to Jesus' three year public ministry.
oh, also, there were obviously no hardcore opponents to the cow-giving-birth-to-a-lamb claim who were motivated to discredit it as there were people who wanted to discredit christianity. and no skeptics or opposition who drastically changed their beliefs overnight over something they had nothing to gain from and everything to lose by doing so, etc.
so yeah...it's a silly comparison.
jason_r
I want to thank "Anonymous" for showing quite clearly the state of the intellectual movement for Internet atheism: scraping the bottom of the barrel. I anxiously await your evidence that my post on the fall of man having a negative effect on the process of micro-evolution was as ridiculous as you claim. Until then, you are merely proving Dr. Reynold's point by continuing to belittle without engaging.
ReplyDelete