Goodbye to the Decade of the New Atheists?

You might be interested in this radio debate between Michael Shermer and Greg Koukl today on the Hugh Hewitt Show, and the website includes a link for on-line listening. I am not sure if Shermer really is an atheist. He's been sounding more and more like an agnostic. I recall the lines of Doug Wilson from the DVD (Collision) with Christopher Hitchens, that go something like this: Atheists have two basic principles: First ,there is no god. Second, I hate him. I believe many who claim to be atheists do so for theological reasons: They have a very clear idea of what sort of God there should be if there were one, one to their liking of whom they would approve, and/or how he would have designed the world, and so on. They disagree with what they have been told about him--in some cases, the face of God they've been shown has been a very poor imitation, or even an idol. Many embrace a "pure" materialism, which is a protection against any sort of supernatural realm, for which the evidence is, however, simply overwhelming, yet dismissed as mass superstition or hallucinations of the gullible. For myself, pure materialism, or the belief that all THIS came into existence by chance and of itself is simply beyond the pale of reason. The entire cosmos and life as we know it has all the markings of design and engineering and software programming, and the evidence for this is piling up. The Word turns the cosmos from mute chaos to an intelligible entity and the Word is able to span the cosmos physically and temporarily so that we have the beginnings of a grasp of it. Indeed, even our feeble utterance of a Word changes everything, even for atheists, who are quite attached to the Word, even if they do not know its Name.

Comments

[brad evans]

Atheism and Agnosticism have the great advantage over religion in that they're both cheaper and less time-consuming.

[TimC]

> Atheism and Agnosticism have the great advantage over religion in that they're both
> cheaper and less time-consuming.
Ah, indeed! Statistics on giving and volunteering undoubtedly confirm this. Though why atheists and agnostics would take the time and trouble to flaunt their lazy miserliness is a mystery. Perhaps they are slightly less lazy then we think?

[brad evans]

Also, we save time by not committing nearly as many murders, rapes, assaults, out of wedlock pregnancies, getting addicted to nearly as many drugs or going to jail in the same percentages as people from places like the US Bible Belt, Latin America, or other parts of the Third World.
Yes, the savings add up pretty fast!

[Leo]

Geography does not equal or measure religiosity. Rabbi David Wolpe in chapter seven of his book “Why Faith Matters” cites multiple studies showing that religious people are on average happier, more charitable, have more stable families, and contribute more to their communities than the non-religious, and that religious conversion correlates with a cessation of drug usage, improved relationships, and other positive traits, hardly the picture of crime and drugs that Brad asserts.

[Todd]

I wonder, Brad, if by "less time-consuming", you're referring to spending less time thinking your arguments through?

[ryan]

I'm confused. Cheaper? Less time consuming? Is the debate about economy of time or is it about truth? What a person perceives as the truth does affect the direction that person seeks for their life. So Brad, what is true? What direction do you ultimately seek for your life? Have you prayerfully studied Scripture? If so, did you come up empty? If not, I suggest you try it. See what Jesus has to offer.