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I like Christmas.
The profound intellectual failure of atheists lies in their fundamentalist-like aversion to the words, "We don't know."
I always thought the crutch of the religious is that they can't say "I don't know" and must attribute these unknowns to a god to give an answer. How did the universe begin? I don't know. It's that easy, but I'm not going to accept too-easy answers like "God did it."
Had this argument in a bar last night. The problem is that when many people become athiests, it becomes their new religion. They forget that there is a religious impulse that also drives them to seek conversions to their cause. For many (I cant say all) people I have met, their religion becomes "Christians are stupid".
Also tie in the ego-kick that many people get when they find somebody that they can claim to be stupider than themselves. Hence all the "Chimphitler" remarks and such. Its a quick way out for real losers.
That aside, I am reading Dawkin's "The God Delusion" right now and its fairly well written. Unfortunately, he himself is what we can call a "religious athiest".
This Christmas season, Best Buy has banned its employees from saying "Merry Christmas." I went to Circuit City last weekend and they were playing Christmas carols.
btt
"Atheists are arguing against a literalism that has never been accepted by anyone who is likely even to hear of Richard Dawkins."
LOL! Well put!
The funny (and not-so-funny) thing about it is: Dawkins and his ilk are more right than they know. The religious impulse is universal to the human condition and if you chase it out with a pitchfork it returns through the back door. The problem being is the forms it takes when it does that, re: Marxism, Nazism, "Gaia" worship, street gangs, and, of course, atheism.
Remember "Taliban Johnny"? His parents were/are exemplars of do-your-own-thing New Age freewheelers. That wasn't good enough for him and look at the star he wound up hitching his wagon to.
I buy my smokes from a Bangladeshi fellow that runs a dollar store near my house. I loaded up for the holiday yesterday, and as I was leaving, I paused and said, "Happy Holidays" to him. He replied with, "And a Merry Christmas to you, my friend!" I sure felt stupid after that.
Not "believing in Christmas" is like not believing in Cinqo de Mayo. Christmas is one of those holidays, like Cinqo de Mayo, that so many people celebrate that it spills out into the public forum. Like Cinqo de Mayo, you can choose to celebrate it or not celebrate it, but to not "believe" in it in nonsense.
I lamented, "What's the use? Mankind's fate is sealed,
No one knows, and no one cares, what will be revealed.
We plunge into the darkness, dark thoughts and darker souls,
We will be trod asunder and be buried in dark holes."
and a Voice spake to me ... "Lighten up."
Steven should have consulted me on this pont also, before maundering on. Such a chatterbox.
Anyway, I would have told him, "The Universe matters, or else we'd never mind."
Public whipping of the protesting atheist would work wonders. However- Sigh!-that would take more strength of character than our society presently exhibits.
"But, as evolutionists, they can't credibly explain why hundreds of different civilizations across the globe have felt the need to believe in a divine force."
The fact that different civilizations worshipped bulls, snakes, the sun, and invisible men in the sky provides no proof that any of them were correct. The only explanation needed is man's proclivity for superstition, which is probably already out there somewhere.
Robert Fulford
(former schoolmate of Glenn Gould)
is the best writer at the National Post.
Every article of his is a delight
and some of them are hilariously funny
Wrong...my circle of friends and students are well aware of Dawkins, and believe the Bible is inerrant, infallible, and God-breathed.
The author uses too many straw-man arguments, and misrepresents a lot of Christians.
"militant atheists were our most angry and intolerant listeners."
atheists just don't believe in a divine being. militant atheists are something different entirely; they are revolutionaries who just want the revolution to happen without the transition from theism to atheism being so slow. they're just impatient guerrilas dressed in sheeps clothing.