Counterpoints

For all of you who are annoyed when you come here and I’m talking politics again, I have a great surprise for you.  And for those of you who have come here only for the political commentary, I have a surprise for you, too. Henceforth, nearly all of my political comments will be found at newkindofpolitics.com.

Issues that involve church and theology as well as politics will probably be found in both places, but I need a place to spill my thoughts on politics without the burden of knowing I’m outside of the intended focus of this site.

The name is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Barack Obama’s oft-turned phrase.  He’s said it several times, like this time, June 23rd of last year, in Hartford:

So let’s rededicate ourselves to a new kind of politics - a politics of conscience.

Since then, his politics have been politics as usual, and I’ve got a lot to say about it.

Dawkins uses the first section of chapter 1, “Deserved Respect” to set up some things; first, good religion and bad religion. For Dawkins, good religion is what he calls “Einsteinian” (aka pantheism, or natural theology), and “supernatural religion” (aka theism, or supernatural theism, a la Borg) is bad. Dawkins liberally, and glowingly, quotes Einstein embracing “naturalism” (belief that nothing exists beyond the material world, also called “materialism”) and thrashing “supernaturalism”.

He then goes on to quote letters from people implied to be Christian leaders to expose the “weakness of the religious mind.” He chooses a sample of writers that in no way reflects the intellectual elites of Christianity to compare to the genius of Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawking. This seems like a slightly unfair comparison. Why not sample writings from C.S. Lewis or Alister McGrath? Why not find some people with M.Div.’s from Princeton and Yale? It’s simple, Dawkins is trying to (not-so)subtly set up his second point: that smart people are atheists and Christians/religious people are dumb.

The letters Dawkins samples are perfect for his purpose. They are the product of undereducated, overzealous people trying to protect their mistaken beliefs. They use poor logic and non-Christian theology to attack Einstein. One is far more nationalist (not to mention hateful) than Christian. But is this really an accurate representation of Christians? I don’t have to answer that , do I? (continue reading…)

Here we are. Ryan has summarized the project pretty well, so I’ll send you there to see his post first (if you’re returning, or started there, read on).I’ll follow his lead in just a moment to give you a little background into me and my perspective, but I do have some comments about Dawkins’ preface to the God Delusion.

Judging from the preface, much of his argument centers around the premise that Christians believe what they do because they were inculcated as children, and that teaching is so ingrained that they refuse to see the “truth” of his arguments: The story of his wife and her school (”I didn’t know I could.”), his comments about there being “no such thing as a Muslim child,” only the “child of Muslim parents,” and statement that “dyed-in-the-wool faith-heads are immune to argument, their resistance built up over years of childhood indoctrination.”

Unfortunately, none of this applies to me. (continue reading…)

You may or may not be familiar with the series by Zondervan in which people from different viewpoints each write a chapter and the others write a response. Though it was difficult at times, I’ve enjoyed reading Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World, and Listening to the Beliefs of Emerging Churches. The format is interesting and fulfilling to see the arguments responded to immediately.

In light of that and the ridiculous discussions I have with my brother-in-law, we’ll be having a counterpoints-style discussion of our own. (continue reading…)