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Well, that's that fundamental theological problem that people of faith have been wrestling with ever since the garden. Reviewers have noted that these authors tend to be motivated by a sense of moral concern and even outrage about the effects of religious beliefs on the global scene. Dennett hints at a different objection to the Bible by remarking that anybody can quote the Bible to prove anything. Craig, William Lane, ed. And that religion, in all of its forms – he's every bit as vitriolic in his criticism of Islam, and every other religion, as he is Christianity. As we talked earlier, that throughout human history wars have often been religious wars. DTS Voice offers biblically-centered articles, stories, podcasts, and points of view from the DTS family designed to encourage and equip the church for gospel transformation. An intellectual and moral critique of faith-based religions that recommends their replacement by science-based spirituality. Let's talk a little bit about the name, or the moniker, New Atheism. He also says that, whereas the Bible contains no formal discussion of mathematics and some obvious mathematical errors (he takes I Kings 7:23-26 to state that the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter— π—is 3:1), a book written by an omniscient being could contain a chapter on mathematics that would still be the richest source of mathematical insight humanity has ever known. A defense of religion against the New Atheists’ arguments by a philosopher-theologian. And who exactly are we talking about? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989). It's interesting to watch the television interview where they were dubbed the four atheists, and hear them talking among themselves about whether religion ever produces anything good. Stenger, Victor. How can there be this horrific evil? A misogynist, homophobe –" Our immediate reaction – and I think it's a God-given reaction – is to be repulsed and be offended. The New Atheists make substantial use of the natural sciences in both their criticisms of theistic belief and in their proposed explanations of its origin and evolution. Hitchens adds his own similar criticisms of both testaments in two chapters: “The Nightmare of the ‘Old’ Testament” and “The ‘New’ Testament Exceeds the Evil of the ‘Old’ One.” He also devotes a chapter to the Qur’an (as does Harris) and a section to the Book of Mormon. How do we actually learn to do that? But the New Atheists either explicitly reject ethical relativism, or affirm the existence of the “transcendent value” of justice, or assert that there is a consensus about what we consider right and wrong, or simply engage in a moral critique of religion that implicitly presupposes a universal moral standard. Just as political “red states” (Republicans) and “blue states” (Democrats) in the United States are really all various shades of purple, every place and time in human history includes a lot of different beliefs — including atheism. So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna invite you back. What does it mean to be open to being martyred? So, God's grace even in the midst of His judgment is important. He thinks it more likely that they merely profess belief in God or “believe in belief” in God (they believe belief in God is or would be a good thing). Daniel Dennett is a philosopher trained also at Oxford, and he's dealing more with philosophy of science. And the way we respond to them has got to be compassionate and loving. The Reason for God: Belief in God in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Dutton, 2007). Not in any way to minimize the horror of some of these stories. Its founding figure, Zoroaster, was an innovative religious thinker and teacher who is believed to have lived between 700 BCE and 500 BCE in Persia (modern-day Iran). Keller, Timothy. And I think we need to have those conversations, instead of immediately jumping to a defensiveness, immediately jumping to a condemnation of the questioner. Graduates of the seminary, people who have professed faith in Christ and who have been in ministry, who reach a point, for whatever reason – I'm trying to think through the similarities of the stories that I keep hearing. We have a group of writers who have been dubbed – I don't know if it's affectionately or not – the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The New Atheists and Old Testament Ethics,” Philosophia Christi 10:1, 2008, pp. But I think there are ways to – as you mentioned, accountability to a Holy God, God's longsuffering, His patience. Regarding the metaphysical component, the New Atheist authors share the central belief that there is no supernatural or divine reality of any kind. After considering the standard arguments for God’s existence and rehearsing standard objections to them, Dennett argues that the concept of God is insufficiently determinate for it to be possible to know what proposition is at issue in the debate over God’s existence. A number of essays and books have been written in response to the New Atheists (see the “Works about the New Atheism” sub-section of the “References and Further Reading” section below for some titles). The framework has a metaphysical component, an epistemological component, and an ethical component. Atheism, in general, the critique and denial of metaphysical beliefs in God or spiritual beings. If God is good, how can there be this kind of evil? But there's another whole category of atheists that – as somebody commented after our last podcast – one of the criticisms he leveled at us, he said, "You guys _____ _____ _____ stop talking about those four guys. Dawkins provides “four good Darwinian reasons” that purport to explain why some animals (including, of course human beings) engage in moral behavior. Again, Harris’s view that our ethical intuitions have their roots in biology is representative. Dennett’s retrospective about the impact made by the four original New Atheists following the initial publication of their books. It is possible for a philosophy to be materialistic and still accord spirit a (secondary or dependent) place, but most forms of materialism tend to reject the existence of spirit or anything non-physical. He says that religious faith is unjustified belief in matters of ultimate concern. So, there is a real sense of tragedy and sadness in Nietzsche, that God is dead, that we've killed him, "Look what you've done to God," and now we're stuck in the aftermath of this great murder. Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). Where was He when I was raped? Because I think one of the mistakes that can be made is, we can treat it as something that can be easily dismissed. Hitchens says that religious faith is ultimately grounded in wishful thinking. And so, that here is this growing group of people that are moving away from the faith, some of whom would even identify as no longer being believers – of being atheists – because of either what they've been taught about God that wasn't true. Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods. These positions constitute the background theoretical framework that is known as the New Atheism. And so, for him, Christianity, and all religion, is a problem and is a danger. Let us consider the content of theism & atheism. Harris is explicit about placing the blame for these evils on faith, defined as unfounded belief. Stenger, Victor. Many non-theists have located the natural basis for morality in human convention, a move that leads naturally to ethical relativism. And we're gonna talk in a separate segment, and we're gonna concentrate on how to deal with the challenge of what New Atheism is. Each of the New Atheists recommends or at least alludes to a non-religious means of personal fulfillment and even collective well-being. So we have this long history of religious conflict. Why doesn't God do something? This moral component sets them apart from other prominent historical atheists such as Nietzsche and Sartre, and it plays a pivotal role in their arguments because it is used to conclude that religion is bad in various ways, although Dennett is more reserved than the other three. What seems to have happened in recent memory is that there is an increasing awareness of the conflict between a militant religion, and then the fear of conflict with another militant religion. Dawkins replies to the critic who asks, “If there’s no God, why be good?” by questioning the necessity, desirability, and efficacy of a desire for divine approval as a motivator for moral behavior. That caused people to say, "If this is where religion takes us, then the further we can move religion away from the political process, the better we would be." And critics contend that the New Atheists’ answer to the question, “Why be moral?” could only show that belief in God is not needed to motivate people to be moral; it doesn’t explain what does (or should) motivate atheists to be moral. Harris and Dawkins are quite explicit about this. Dennett goes on to engage in a relatively extensive speculation about how religion and religious belief evolved from these purely natural beginnings. Fundamental questions – where do we come from and moral critique of faith-based religions recommends... Immoral consequences of religious belief, they bring different kinds of what is new atheism and what is its primary goal to the sorts of questions ethos of four! Belief with their moral criticism of religion by means of the Bible and the ’. Alleged written divine revelation could have a divine origin also have – several of these stories rational belief... Prior to teaching at DTS, Dr. Darrell Bock and Dr. Glenn R. 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