Re: [asa] An Evolutionary Theory of Right and Wrong

On 11/1/06, Janice Matchett <janmatch@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> At 01:19 PM 10/31/2006, Pim van Meurs wrote:
>
> It's remarkable how much inroad atheists are making. ~ Pim
>
>
> *@* Like me, Dr. Larsen would disagree with you that atheists are making
> any more inroads than they have ever made. On Thu, 19 Oct 2006 -
> http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200610/0327.html - here is what I
> wrote to you (did you miss it?):
>
> *Dr. Timothy Larsen, professor of theology at Wheaton College in Illinois,
> says any growth in interest in atheism is a reflection of the strength of
> religion -- the former being a parasite that feeds off the latter.
>
> *That happened late in the 19th century America when an era of intense
> religious conviction gave rise to voices like famed agnostic Robert
> Ingersoll, he said.
>
> For Christianity, he said, "It's very important for people of faith to
> realize how unsettling and threatening their posture and rhetoric and
> practice can feel to others. ...." [snip]
> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1722230/posts
>

And you don't have to take Dr. Larsen's or Janice's word for this. Go to
npr.org and listen to the recent Science Friday interviews of Richard
Dawkins and EO Wilson. Dawkins related letters where atheists do not admit
they are such because it is so unpopular and they feared persecution. Now
this may be the almost universal perception of the embattled minority that
some evangelicals also feel but then there was Wilson's comments. Wilson
told Ira Flatow the reason why he made entreaties to evangelicals was
because that was where the power was as there was only a relative handful of
secular humanists. If he is going to promote biodiversity he needs to
convince evangelicals that they had common ground with the
humanists here. It doesn't sound to me like the atheists are arguing from a
position of strength.

I agree with Pim to the extent that we shouldn't make Dawkins into a
bogeyman. When Dawkins is discussing the standard exposition of evolution he
is quite good. But, once he leaves that subject and gets into sociology,
religion, and his meme hypothesis he is really out of his depth. IIRC,
Dawkins claims to be one the "brights". A car analogy comes to mind. One
headlight on high beams and the other broken.

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Received on Wed Nov 1 13:19:45 2006