Saturday, October 2, 2010

Challenges to Atheism

Last night I made pretty quick work of "The Dawkins Delusion" and "God and the New Atheism," both Christian challenges to Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. (Also, both very short books, and I skimmed much of them.) They're pretty good, pointing out the many errors in logic in Dawkins book, the vast generaliza-tions, and just plain misinterpretation of scripture. Most importantly, they emphasize Dawkins apparently extreme aversion to admitting that anyone could possibly disagree with him without being a complete idiot (an attitude that is abundantly clear in The God Delusion.)

Still, my reading so far has brought me to a place of believing that there are many "valid" "religious per-spectives, and atheism is one of them; but that it's not okay to belittle or invalidate others personally be-cause of their beliefs. Christians, atheists, and people of all persuasions do this.

One of the things I liked in The Dawkins Delusion was the emphasis on the fact that nature itself lends itself equally well to an atheist perspective or a religious/spiritual/God perspective. Nature (the world around us) doesn't demand to be seen in either God or non-God terms but can be understood equally well either way. I like that.

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