This past spring (Apr 11) the Chicago Tribune published an interesting (albeit troubling?) article in the called "Young and Atheist". The article was a multi-page story about the Atheists, Agnostics and Free Thinkers (AAFT) group at Northern Illinios University. NIU is the primary target of our college ministry at Christ Community Church the university where I am college pastor. It is a university embedded in mid-western farmland with over 18, 000 undergrads plus another few thousand grads and post-grad students. The AAFT group only boasts of meetings of around 10-25 people according to the article, but it is significant that they are getting the attention of a major newspaper like the Tribune. One may be justified in thinking that the Tribune had something of an agenda in devoting so much print to a rather insignificant story. There could very well be an interest in doing more than reporting culture here. This skepticism notwithstanding, the story does raise the issue of Atheism on campuses in the US and I imagine this would true also in universities around the Western world.
The story's primary point is that atheism is on the rise among the young and educated and these are a different breed of atheist than those of a former generation. Far from being belligerent, these atheists are "kinder, gentler religious skeptics". According to the story these young atheists are more interested in joining forces with their theistic neighbors to do humanitarian work than to engage in a debate.
Truth be told, I am no apologist and I avoid debates like the plague. So I’m glad that the new atheists are not generally interested in arguments. Still, the Tribune story points to the fact that books like the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins have emboldened young skeptics to “come out” of the closet so to speak. Now I have not read Dawkins’ book, but I have read Alister and Joanna McGrath’s response to the God Delusion published this year by InterVarsity, The Dawkins Delusion?
The main take away for me from this very brief book was that to many, even those who are atheists, Dawkins has written a polemical book that is both thin on evidence and shaky in its scholarly integrity. While I don’t suppose a person fond of Dawkins’ book will wish to read the McGraths, I think it is a useful read for those of us who are uninitiated in these topics. The most disturbing point raised by the article in the Tribune was the story of a young woman whose faith in the Christian God was shaken by the “non-fiction aspects of the novels ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angles [sic] & Demons’" and by “her Internet research into world religions”. The fact that emerging adults are allowing these things to be the primary influence for their views of the Christian God is horrifying. We as the church need to do a much greater job of communicating and providing a relevant alternative to this strong cultural propaganda.
3 comments:
Joel W:"The fact that emerging adults are allowing these things to be the primary influence for their views of the Christian God is horrifying. We as the church need to do a much greater job of communicating and providing a relevant alternative to this strong cultural propaganda."
Why does this "horrify" you? (It just makes me laugh).
Kyle:"Due to being such a minority, they had to know the data in order to sustain their lack of belief. Today, since the number of people who are open about their atheism has increased, there are more and more less informed atheists who are just as bold (if not more) in their attack. This has been inspired by the poor argumentation, but strong rhetoric of Dawkins, Harris and Stenger in my opinion."
They had to know the data? What data? Isn't that the point— i.e. that there IS no data?
Also, since you bring it up: What in your opinion is the best (worst) example of poor argumentation in Dawkin's book(s)? Be specific. Cite him.
Thanks
peace
Ó
If it's true (i.e. that atheists used to be more informed back in the day) in your experience (ten years' worth), then that would indeed be an unfortunate trend to note.
It sounds as though you see atheism as a kind of systematic discipline requiring study. It's not. That's what prompted my question regarding data. With regards to matters supernatural, there is no evidence. That is precisely what the problem is in the first place, what inspires many to reject efforts at evangelization from any one of the many world religions out there (some are more missionary than others). To put it very simply (and personally) I need a reason to believe something. Some evidence would go a long way in providing such a reason. Lacking that, I simply don't accept a hypothesis. It's easy.
(Aquinas is irrelevant— *more on next comment).
Your bringing up mythicism is rather confusing. What does it have to do with the topic at hand?
Ó
That's it? That's what you see as the best example of his poor argumentation?
—that he misunderstands Aquinas?
I have my own criticism of Dawkins' book. To wit:
Dawkins is right to reject classical supernaturalistic theism—i.e. belief in a person-like super-powerful authority figure who's "out there" and separate from the universe. This punitive model of god is easily shown to be indeed a delusion, but Dawkins is actually picking low lying-fruit here. It's easy to dismantle such a simpleton's god. His arguments, however, never address the more challenging Tillichian (or Heschelian, take your pick, I love them both) model of a transcendent, impersonal, amorphous, ground of being.
This is just as well, though, because even if one addresses that more insightful and nuanced model, as soon as you engage this kind of panentheism, you run into a semantic no man's land where words such as "isness" and "otherness" can be molded to fit any mystic notion, causing a modern empiricist sensibility to exclaim, "What the hell are they talking about??"
But that is my only critique of Dawkins . . . . that he recognizes and addresses only one type of god concept, and a simplistic superstitious one at that. I don't know why Dawkins felt compelled to even mention Aquinas. My guess is simply that he rather fancies prolixity. :)
peace be with you
Ó
Post a Comment