To the extent that we talked about Richard Dawkins at all in the new-athiesm podcast this summer, we never got around to properly discussing science as wonder. Dawkins makes this argument in a really beautiful new book “The Magic of Reality”. Illustrated by Dave McKean, it’s ostensibly a children’s book, structured around a series of basic questions like “Who was Continue Reading …
Greg Ganssle (via Pale Blue Dot) on Dawkins’s “Fitness” Argument
Yale Professor Greg Ganssle provides in this Pale Blue Dot episode what is perhaps a more charitable response to the new atheists than we did. First, he points out something I hadn’t quite considered in this way before: We at PEL complain about how difficult and tedious it is (or would be) to write something fit for a peer reviewed Continue Reading …
Swinburne Contra Dawkins on Complexity and Creation
Watch on YouTube. A name that popped up in Episode 43 and Episode 44 was that of Oxford philosophy professor Richard Swinburne. Swinburne has made his reputation positing analytic arguments in favor of Christian theism. As Robert pointed out toward the end of Episode 43, most Christians, even if sympathetic, would probably not find Swinburne’s arguments dispositive toward their belief. Even Continue Reading …
Episode 44: New Atheist Critiques of Religion (Citizens Only)
Discussing selections from Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel C. Dennett.
Should we be religious, or is religion just a bunch of superstitious nonsense that it’s past time for us to outgrow? Does faith lead to ceding to authority and potential violence? Can a reasonable person be religious? We say lots of rude things about these authors, and at times about their targets in this listener-requested episode featuring Mark, Wes, Seth, and Dylan. Read more about the topic.
End song: “Goddammit” by by Mark Lint and the Simulacra.
PREVIEW-Episode 44: New Atheist Critiques of Religion
Discussing selections from Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel C. Dennett.
Should we be religious, or is religion just a bunch of superstitious nonsense that it’s past time for us to outgrow? Does faith lead to ceding to authority and potential violence? Can a reasonable person be religious? We say lots of rude things about these authors, and at times about their targets in this listener-requested episode.
Topic for #44: “New Atheism”
We have long promised to more systematically cover these guys who generate so much fun sniping on our blog here, and as of last Sunday, the full as-of-now-regular podcaster lineup (myself, Seth, Wes, and Dylan; we will still have some guests on, though) recorded a discussion of: -The first two chapters of Sam Harris’s The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, Continue Reading …
Who’s Qualified to Speak about Religion?
The most recent comment to yesterday’s post on atheism was a quote (thanks, Jonathan!) from Jose Ortega y Gasset used on this blog to argue that scientists shouldn’t be weighing in on matters of religion and ethics which are, after all, not their specialty. The point is well taken, reflecting Socrates’s general criticism that every expert in one area thinks Continue Reading …
The Tedium Debates: Dawkins vs. the Pope
How philosophically uninteresting are the atheist debates? Yes, it’s nice that something akin to philosophy is actively debated in the media, that ongoing disputes about religious matters will hopefully keep the spirit of the times moving forward by providing active intellectual and/or spiritual alternatives to people beyond whatever religion they may have been brought up with. But as a veteran Continue Reading …
Armstrong on Dawkins and Harris
This is a follow up to my last post, which you should look at the comments on for some good comments by Wes. I’ve now read the part in Armstrong where she addresses Dawkins directly (from p. 304 of “The Case for God”): For Dawkins, religious faith rests on the idea that “there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence, who deliberately Continue Reading …
Armstrong and Dawkins
Continuing my independent (i.e. not directly for the podcast) reading into the atheism debate: Nearly done with the Karen Armstrong book. This is a good bit of secondary literature, with short summaries of the views re. God of a really impressively wide range of historical figures. Her overall view is that of apophatic, or negative theology, which is to say Continue Reading …