tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post1966511942468576928..comments2024-01-04T08:02:29.500-05:00Comments on Attempts: Polkinghorne, Perdue and Dawkins: Thoughts on the Confused Debate Over the New AtheismStephenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-87654887706864499952007-11-30T13:50:00.000-05:002007-11-30T13:50:00.000-05:00Put that way I see your point. Of course the lang...Put that way I see your point. Of course the language of the mass media (damning phrase!) is <I>not</I> my preferred language for discussing religion: see <A HREF="http://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/search/label/Religion" REL="nofollow">my religion posts</A> for that. Also my endorsement of Dennett, whose language is far more that of an analytic philosopher (albeit one writing to a popular, not scholarly audience) than the mass media.<BR/><BR/>But I think that the language of Dawkins et. al. is perfectly <I>understandable</I> (not preferable), to say nothing of inevitable, as long as religious moderates provide cover for the lunatic ideas of the reality-defiant theists... and as long as religion is so privileged in the public sphere -- which these days is, for better or for worse, the mass media. (And the internet: hence my writing about it.)<BR/><BR/>I guess what I'd say is that engagement in the current public sphere is important given our current discourse. No, it's not a good language for religion (or much of anything really); but that doesn't mean it's not necessary.<BR/><BR/>If the religious right wants to take religion out of that language -- and, as a necessary part of that, out of politics, the culture wars, etc, more generally -- and talk about it solely in other terms, I would be more than happy to agree to that détente (even if, I suspect, Dawkins et. al. might not).<BR/><BR/><I>In other news, we are extremely old.</I><BR/><BR/>Yeah, I've noticed that too. I noticed it at our tenth reunion; I suspect at our fifteenth reunion (which I may or may not go to -- no decision as yet, although probably leaning towards not) it'll be even worse.Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-83003952955866833022007-11-30T13:13:00.000-05:002007-11-30T13:13:00.000-05:00Flattering, Stephen. Let me rein in my previous c...Flattering, Stephen. Let me rein in my previous comment to this: What Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris seem to have in common, and in common additionally with the typical Republican, religious "values" voter, is the application of the language of the mass media to religion, and Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris demand, and you seemed to second the demand for, engagement of the Republican religious right in the same language as the only satisfactory way to engage them. For some, though, the language of the mass media is as unsuited to the subject as it is to communicating about the value of poetry, if any. Even Saint Paul disparages successful preachers.<BR/><BR/>In other news, we are extremely old. A woman from our class stopped me on the street the other day and I was astonished by the changes time had wrought to her appearance in 14 or 15 years.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-59133058829886956432007-11-29T15:42:00.000-05:002007-11-29T15:42:00.000-05:00Rasselas,That comment is unworthy of you. I trust...Rasselas,<BR/><BR/>That comment is unworthy of you. I trust that my opposition to Sam Harris-style endorsing of murder -- or any other endorsing of murder -- goes without staying. (I've written before on <A HREF="http://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2006/09/sam-harris-islamism-and-liberalism.html" REL="nofollow">Sam Harris</A> specifically). Nor am I calling for Whedonesque, or Oxfordian, wit. Straightforward engagement with the worst parts of naive theology -- such as praying for rain in a drought -- would do.<BR/><BR/>(The issues here are complex, and I don't have time to hash them out; but my views are well represented by <A HREF="http://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2006/07/reality-based-theists-and-efficacy-of.html" REL="nofollow">this post</A>, I think.)Stephenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16524368948187746248noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-9447031363119431892007-11-29T15:21:00.000-05:002007-11-29T15:21:00.000-05:00Indeed, I think it's fair to say that until sophis...<I>Indeed, I think it's fair to say that until sophisticated and [?] theologians begin attacking simplistic theistic ideas with, well, Dawkinsian levels of ridicule and scorn, then atheists will be fully justified in continuing to do so.</I><BR/><BR/>Karl Barth wrote the multivolume <I>Church Dogmatics</I> to correct what he thought were the deleterious misunderstandings of various theological issues on the part of his Protestant predecessors and contemporaries, as I understand it, a number of which might have characters similar if not identical to the better-suited-to-the-<I>Golden Bough</I> theological thinking of the peckerwoods praying for rain.<BR/><BR/>I think, though, that that is not quite what you have in mind, as devastating and shocking as Barth's views seem to have been at the time (based on the fairly extended introductions to his book on the letter to the Romans, Barth sounds like a very polite juggernaut). What you seem to have in mind (and please correct me if I am, as I assume, wrong) with "Dawkinsian levels of ridicule and scorn" is an enterprise to make us all as Oxbridge-common-room contemptuous and tiresome as the Brits. Or, I suppose, as inclined to endorse killing people for their beliefs as Sam Harris.<BR/><BR/>In any clash other than the one of theist and atheist, I doubt anybody but bloggers would say that the minimum qualifying mode of engagement had to be the wisecracking, buzz-wording idiom of the Joss Whedon fan.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-26517951500810145622007-11-19T22:46:00.000-05:002007-11-19T22:46:00.000-05:00I was going to write about how much I enjoyed this...I was going to write about how much I enjoyed this post of yours Stephen. But I only read your post and not the links, and I do not know much about the larger context. I am afraid that right after I comment here GOD WILL COMMENT and call me an IDIOT and a DILL. <BR/><BR/>:)Geoff Klockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09080580776997273785noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13734864.post-9921923221330358082007-11-19T22:00:00.000-05:002007-11-19T22:00:00.000-05:00I don't want to jump the gun too much, here...have...I don't want to jump the gun too much, here...have not yet read through all your links (and can't find the Sam Harris one)...<BR/><BR/>However:<BR/><BR/><I>But the new atheists tend to rather irkedly point out that if theists want their sophisticated views taken seriously, they need to themselves rebut the simplistic, widely-believed views</I><BR/><BR/>Do they, indeed? I don't know...this doesn't sound like "pointing out" anything to me, unless it's possible to "point out" an ultimatum. But why should "sophisticated theologians" fight any of the New Atheists' battles for them, at all? If their work deserves to be taken seriously, it should be so taken, with no strings...and if it doesn't deserve to be taken seriously then it <I>shouldn't</I> be, regardless of how much anybody has helped anybody else's religio-political cause.<BR/><BR/>I don't know who's tried to say that Dawkins et. al. should refrain from heaping scorn on simplistic belief; me, I guess I'd be a hypocrite to say he should refrain, because I heap scorn on the appalling scholarship and naively imbibed gee-whiz prejudices of the New Atheists (which -- I think tellingly -- are not confined to religion by any means) all the time. "New Atheists"? What on earth do we need <I>new</I>< ones for? Our old ones are far better than this new bunch. They can attack the simple all they want, but as long as they do it so poorly, I don't see why they should be defended.<BR/><BR/>I'm non-religious, by the way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com