Evangelicals Offer Self-Congratulatory Bluster
On a pretty impressive site that aims at having a balanced view of religions called Patheos, there is a page for Evangelicalism that offers little more than self-congratulatory bluster for its philosophical and apologetical achievements in the last few decades.
If you'll actually read through Patheos it'll become clear what is seen as trajectories in philosophy and apologetics is little more than self-congratulatory bluster given the religious diversity in the world. Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith tells it like it is, that God "is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments." That's LAST stronghold. The notion of God has already been ousted from most every other department in the university. So why on earth would evangelicals be quoting Quentin Smith or feeling good about what he said?
The bottom line is that you cannot have a religious trajectory that will last very long without a good solid foundation. What evangelicals will have to come to grips with is the lack of a Biblical foundation for what they believe. It simply is not there. They have completely and utterly ignored this.
I'm here to remind them that Natural Theology is dead, and so their philosophical renaissance is nothing more than fundamentalism on stilts.
If you'll actually read through Patheos it'll become clear what is seen as trajectories in philosophy and apologetics is little more than self-congratulatory bluster given the religious diversity in the world. Atheist philosopher Quentin Smith tells it like it is, that God "is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments." That's LAST stronghold. The notion of God has already been ousted from most every other department in the university. So why on earth would evangelicals be quoting Quentin Smith or feeling good about what he said?
The bottom line is that you cannot have a religious trajectory that will last very long without a good solid foundation. What evangelicals will have to come to grips with is the lack of a Biblical foundation for what they believe. It simply is not there. They have completely and utterly ignored this.
I'm here to remind them that Natural Theology is dead, and so their philosophical renaissance is nothing more than fundamentalism on stilts.
11 comments:
hahaha They think that philosophy is the reason there are still Christians? You could make an equal case for home schooling, peer pressure amongst teens in the Midwest, and Christian rock.
Theists gravely mistake theology as philosophy and doing so compromises the discipline of philosophy. 'Religious philosophy' is an oxymoron. Theology has a closer kinship with Mythology, and that is where it ought be placed in libraries.
Cheers
I like this line '....which applied the tools of analytic philosophy to questions in the philosophy of religion with an unprecedented rigor and creativity.'
'Creativity' means making up more and more reasons why their god never turns up in their university department , or anywhere else.
Wherever Craig holds a debate to say that his god exists, you can bet a million dollars that his god will not show up to settle the matter.
And there was once a time when this god used to write on the walls.
Perhaps Craig's god has got RSI and can't write any more?
This is exactly why I find evangelical apologetics frequently so distasteful. There's a thread of a schmarmy self-satisfied Babbitism in the worst (and most) of it. The numinous is only referred to if the apologist can use it to bolster his or her so-called understanding of reality. Mystery in service of a small-minded certainty. That's some irony for you.
God "is now alive and well in his last academic stronghold, philosophy departments." That's LAST stronghold. The notion of God has already been ousted from most every other department in the university.
this may be true in some respects but, it's not necessarily a good thing
"Theists gravely mistake theology as philosophy and doing so compromises the discipline of philosophy. 'Religious philosophy' is an oxymoron. Theology has a closer kinship with Mythology, and that is where it ought be placed in libraries."
You don't even have to live on the right side up part of the globe like me to see your antipodean "thinking" is not tethered to reality. Good theology and good philosophy complement each other.
Hi O'Brien
theology |θēˈäləjē|
noun ( pl. -gies)
the study of the nature of God and religious belief.
How does one study the nature of god when the best theists can do is speculate, and the sum of that speculation is encapsulated in the epithets, 'the unknowable mind of god', and 'he works in mysterious ways'?
This form of study, I put, is mythology at its purest.
Incidentally, where is the boundary between that of a spectral entity residing in the supernatural world and its manipulatory faculty of the physical laws in natural world?
Sheesh!
Cheers
Religion, no doubt, encourages self-deception, alters ego and
perception of reality.
"Religion, no doubt, encourages self-deception, alters ego and
perception of reality."
Your fatuous assertion is noted.
I just posted my comment, just a few minutes ago, but a religious zealot standing by couldn't wait to pay me a "complement."
How does one study the nature of god when the best theists can do is speculate, and the sum of that speculation is encapsulated in the epithets, 'the unknowable mind of god', and 'he works in mysterious ways'?
there are plenty of things we do and things we don't. what's wrong with that? nontheists leave more to mystery than theists. nontheists can't answer why there is something rather than nothing. nontheist morality leaves a person adrift in an ocean of relativity. nontheism doesn't attempt to answer questions of origin, purpose and destinty.
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