In Defense of the New Atheists: An Excerpt From My Book "Unapologetic"
It's time for atheist philosophers of religion to end their own sub-discipline under Philosophy proper. I explain in detail what I mean in my book Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End (2016). Below is an excerpt from it where I defend the new atheists Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and Stenger from the philosophical elites. A few months ago I defended Hitchens' Razor. You can see the same dismissive attitude in both of these essays. I have no personal axe to grind. It's a principled disagreement. You can comment but before I'll respond you should first read my book.
From Chapter 4: “Case Studies in Atheistic Philosophy of Religion” in Unapologetic: Why Philosophy of Religion Must End, by John W. Loftus.
For my part I am not interested in merely having a discussion. I’m interested in changing minds. Karl Marx spoke for me when he quipped, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” At issue are the differences between old atheism and so-called new atheism. Parsons prefers the old atheism as does Feser. My view is they want to live in the past. One must accept the changes and move on into the future. There is no going back. Christianity is dying. Why in the world would Parsons want to return to the good old days when Christianity had a huge monopoly in American academia, and where it was considered a respectable faith? There is at the present time a massive exodus from Christianity by young people. In April of 2016 it was reported that over half the people in Scotland are non-religious.[2] Not long afterward another study was released showing England and Wales were predominantly nonreligious.[3]
As this continues to happen in
westernized countries we no longer need to respect faith-based reasoning, but
rather tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth about it. Since Parsons
stands against the new atheism I have suggested it might be because he has not
moved on with the times, the newest poll data, the failed theistic arguments
and especially the accumulating assured results of science. I’ve suggested in a
tongue-in-cheek way it was because he was old, old thinking that is.
What are the unique differences between old
and new atheism? The old existed before September 11, 2001. Afterward the new
arose, where intellectuals got serious about the irrationality of faith. The old
took the arguments of believers seriously in order to convince them they are
wrong. In doing so they stayed strictly within their own disciplines. The new
represents intellectuals who are so convinced religious faith is wrong from
within their own disciplines that they will venture outside their disciplines,
disregarding the fact that people like Feser and Parsons will call them
ignorant for doing so. They are reaching out to others. They are not attempting
to persuade people like Feser, since delusional intellectuals like him cannot
be reached. No wonder he doesn’t like it. What gives with Parsons? The old was
respectful toward belief. The new can and will ridicule religious faith. Faith
deserves little or no respect because of the woeful lack of evidence and the harms
of faith.
We have passed the point of no return.
Now is the time to ridicule Christian faith and other faiths in our world, just
as we ridicule the dead religions and gods of the past. That doesn’t preclude
reasonably dissecting the beliefs of Christians, which I do daily, but it is
now acceptable. Science has progressed past the tepid passions of the old atheism.
Science is now destroying faith which provides new atheism with new found passion
and bite to it
Once again, for whatever reason except
that these thoughts are just too foreign for Parsons to consider, he
misunderstood my suggestions. So his response is one I merely wish to note:
I
do think that ridicule is sometimes justified when directed at the truly
ridiculous–e.g. the Ken Hams of the world…But how do you treat people who offer
you rational arguments and demonstrate that they are willing to listen to your
arguments? Do you shove a pie in their faces? I guess Loftus thinks that my
supposition is absurd since no theist is capable of rational argument. In his
book, they are all foaming fanatics, defending a fantasy so pernicious and
absurd as to preclude patience or even politeness. People like me, Graham Oppy,
the late, great Michael Martin, Herman Philipse, J.L. Schellenberg, Eric
Wielenberg, Adolf Grunbaum, Robin Le Poidevin, Colin Howson, and others are
just wasting our time trying to engage in rational critique of theism. You
might as well try citing The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals to a
misbehaving two-year-old.
My
worry is that Loftus and the “new atheists” may get their way. There will be no
rational discourse, and only a shouting match. The trouble is that my bet is
that the religious people will be able to shout a lot louder.[4]
Do you need a Ph.D. in philosophy to
be a legitimate and respectable participant in the theism/atheism debate or the
science/religion debate? Of course not. But you do need to know what you are
talking about. Those, however accomplished in other fields, who leap into the
debate philosophically uninformed inevitably commit freshman mistakes that
expose them to the scorn of sophisticated opponents…. So, who has done it right? Have I set up too high a standard
by requiring those who debate philosophical or religious issues to inform
themselves? Can any one person be a scientist and also have the expertise and
skill needed to debate religious or philosophical issues? Sure. T.H. Huxley
did. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) was one of the leading scientists and educators
of his day. Known as “Darwin’s bulldog” for his aggressive defense of
Darwinism, he was also a public intellectual who carried on disputes on topics
in philosophy and religion with learned opponents—and beat them at their own
game. In all of his controversies, whether with theologians or prime ministers,
he displayed an exemplary depth of knowledge and sophistication of argument.
Despite
what Parsons is attempting to do, what’s really on display is his philosophical
elitism.
Parsons is claiming elitist privilege and uses Huxley to defend it. Huxley knew
the philosophy of his day as well as the science of his day. No one denies both
disciplines have become more complex than in Huxley’s day, and consequently
much harder to gain a good grasp of them both. Those kinds of intellectuals are
so rare Parsons had to stretch back into the 19th century to find
one. [Actually Massimo Pigliucci earned PhD’s in both philosophy and in Botany.]
This means only a rare person or two has the qualifications to do both
philosophy and science. Any scientist who criticizes theistic pseudo-philosophy
must still know enough to do so, according to Parsons. Non-philosophers need
not apply. This is the domain of Parsons and other highly trained philosophers
of religion. Non-experts need to wait on the philosophical experts to criticize
another expert in philosophy. There is a downside to his position. It also
means Parsons cannot criticize Mormonism or Islam or Hinduism or Orthodox
Judaism or Scientology or polytheism since he’s not an expert in any of them.
He cannot utter any criticism of their faith-based claims either.
However,
in the same post Parsons said of Huxley that:
Because of his success as a controversialist, Huxley was, of course, furiously abused by those whom he had bested, and was accused of being a hater of Christianity who went out of his way to attack the Bible. Huxley strenuously denied both charges, accusations which, I imagine, today’s “new” atheists would enthusiastically embrace.
The difference between Huxley and new atheists like Dawkins is that Dawkins doesn’t have to care what theists are saying. He can “embrace” their responses as delusional and laugh them off. Huxley not so much. After all, Huxley needed to be respected by faith-heads in those early days when doubt had it a lot tougher. By contrast, books written against Dawkins he calls fleas.
The Arrogance and Ignorance of Old Time Atheists
What does Parsons say to philosophically
unsophisticated atheists who cannot adequately respond to sophisticated
Christian philosophers? Should they wait until a sophisticated atheist
philosopher like Parsons himself finally gets around to writing a response to
the latest philosophically sophisticated Christian paper? Why is it that
Parsons places himself and his discipline at the top of the heap, such that no
one else but atheist philosophers can respond to Christian philosophers? I
think I know. It’s arrogance on the part of Parsons. Maybe he thinks as a
philosopher he should rule as a king too? There are reasons people don’t
believe that don’t require sophisticated philosophical argumentation. And scientists
like Richard Dawkins know more than enough to argue sophisticated Christian
philosophers are wrong, even though they don’t usually know as much to respond
on their own turf.
Second, I consider Parsons to be ignorant not to
realize that the real ignorance is the ignorance of faith. Even an educated
child of ten years old has a better grasp of biology, botany, chemistry,
cosmology, geography, geology, math, paleontology, physics, and morality than
the omniscient God of the Bible whom Christians say inspired the Bible. The
whole reason sophisticated Christian argumentation exists in the first place is
because it takes sophistication to make the Christian faith palatable. The more
the sophistication then the more the obfuscation, since their faith can only be
defended by confusing people who don’t share that sophistication. Defenses of
Christianity are nothing but special pleading hiding underneath several layers
of obfuscation with a sophistication to make it appear otherwise. It’s nothing
less than special pleading all the way down, and it doesn’t take sophistication
to see this or to call it out. Even a child can recognize what it is. Why can’t
Parsons?
Former
Anglican priest Eric MacDonald turned atheist is another case.[6]
He defended the views of Parsons, saying:
The problem is precisely that the
New Atheists think it appropriate to dismiss theology and philosophy of
religion without understanding the first thing about it. Some New Atheists say,
“I know enough about it. I was brought up as a Catholic or an Anglican or ....”
But that’s not qualification enough. Arguing from this point of view, where you
really do not know what your opponent is arguing, because you have made no
attempt to find out, is a simple informal fallacy known as special pleading.
And the New Atheism is full of it. That’s where Keith Parsons is way ahead of
the New Atheists. Be an unbeliever by all means. But don’t say that you know
that there is no God or that theology is all make believe until you have really
tried to understand what theologians are saying. And when you have done so, you
will, I think, qualify your dismissal.[7]
I
think MacDonald’s criticism of the new atheism fails to understand the very
phenomena being criticized. Let’s just re-purpose MacDonald’s quote: “The
problem is precisely that the New Atheists think it appropriate to dismiss
Scientology, or Mormonism, or militant Islam, or Hindu theology, or Haitian
Catholic voodoo without understanding the first thing about it...” Need I go
on? If anyone is special pleading it is MacDonald, for it didn’t enter his mind
to consider the many other religious faiths out there he easily dismisses
without knowing that much about them.
Reasonable
people don’t have to know a lot about religious faiths to reject them. We can
dismiss these and other faiths precisely because they are faiths. The evidence
is not there and even runs contrary to them. The moralities of these faiths
also count against them. Do we need to know something about them to dismiss
them? Sure, we should know something about them. In fact, to reject one of them
we should at least hear about it. But even a rudimentary level of knowledge is
enough for that, since faith is the problem. As outsiders we don’t need to look
into the many varieties of faith to know that the results of faith are not
likely to be true. We can do this simply by generalizing from the many mutually
inconsistent false faiths to the probability that any given particular faith is
false, even before getting an in-depth knowledge about it.
The
reason there is sophisticated theology in the first place is because Christians
are responding to their critics by reinventing their faith every decade. Atheists
are trying to hit a moving target and when we hit it then it morphs into
something
different as I previously argued.[8]
I’ve
read some unsophisticated responses to sophisticated theology. These responses
lacked a particular distinction, or a precise definition of a term, or they
failed to take into consideration a recent study that says X,Y,Z. But I have
found that by using the principle of charity their arguments are still good
ones despite this lack.
Take
for example the main argument Richard Dawkins used in his bestselling book, The God Delusion, called the Ultimate Boeing 747 Gambit. If “properly
deployed” he claims, it “comes close to proving that God does not exist.” He
argues, “However statistically improbable the entity you seek to explain by
invoking a designer, the designer himself has got to be at least as improbable.
God is the Ultimate Boeing 747.”[9]
Alvin Plantinga explained what Dawkins means in these words: “Dawkins says a
designer must contain at least as much information as what it creates or
designs, and information is inversely related to probability. Therefore, he
thinks, God would have to be monumentally complex, hence astronomically
improbable; thus it is almost certain that God does not exist.”[10]
Atheist philosopher of religion Dr. Erik Wielenberg, writing in an Evangelical
Philosophical Society creationist journal called Philosophia Christi, produced a fuller account of this argument:
(1) If God exists, then God has these two
properties: (i) He provides an intelligent-design explanation for all natural,
complex phenomena in the universe and (ii) He has no explanation external to
Himself.
(2) Anything
that provides an intelligent-design explanation for the natural, complex
phenomena in the universe is at least as complex as such phenomena.
(3) So, if God
exists, then God has these two properties: (i) He is at least as complex as the
natural, complex phenomena in the universe and (ii) He has no explanation
external to Himself. (from 1 and 2)
(4) It is very
improbable that there exists something that (i) is at least as complex as the
natural, complex phenomena in the universe and (ii) has no explanation external
to itself.
(5) Therefore,
it is very improbable that God exists. (from 3 and 4)[11]
A
central element of my critique is that Dawkins’s Gambit provides no reason at
all to doubt some of the most widely-held versions of the target of his attack,
the God Hypothesis. I do not know exactly how much theology one needs to know
to disprove the existence of God, but one needs to know at least enough
theology to understand the various widely-held conceptions of God. In general,
in order to argue effectively against a given hypothesis, one needs to know
enough to characterize that hypothesis accurately. Furthermore, if one intends
to disprove God’s existence, it is hardly reasonable to dismiss
criticisms of one’s putative disproof on the grounds that God doesn’t exist
anyway. Thus, the central atheistic argument of The God Delusion is
unconvincing…[13]
Some
of our best theologians, if indeed theology is a subject that can be good at
all, if theology is a subject at all, some of our best theologians
prophetically tried to argue that “far from being complex, god is simple.” There is no limit to the explanatory purposes
to which the simple god’s infinite power is put. “Is science having a little difficulty
explaining X, no problem. Don’t give X another glance.” God’s infinite power is
effortlessly wheeled in to explain X along with everything else. And it’s
always a simple explanation, because after all, there is only one god. What
could be simpler than that?
The
effrontery of it is beyond astounding. This supposedly simple god had to know
how to set the nuclear force 1039 times stronger than gravity. He had to
calculate with similar exactitude the requisite values of half-a-dozen critical
numbers – the fundamental constants of physics. Do you, with your prodigiously
complex brain, understand quantum mechanics? I don’t! Yet god, that paragon of
ultimate pure simplicity, not only understands it, but invented it. Plus
special and general relativity, plus the Higg’s boson, and dark matter.
Finally, the icing on the cake, on top of being the ultimate mathematics and
physics genius; this “simple” god has enough bandwidth to listen to the prayers
of billions of people simultaneously in all the world’s languages. He hears
their confessed sins and decides which should be forgiven. He weighs out which
cancer patients shall recover, which earthquake victims shall be spared; even
who shall win a tennis match or a parking space. God may be almighty,
all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving. But the one thing he cannot
be, if he is even to minimally meet his job description, is all-simple. The
statistical argument against the divine designer remains intact, and
inescapably devastating.[14]
It’s also clear there are some atheist
philosophers of religion who refuse to extend the principle of charity to “unsophisticated”
atheist critics like Dawkins. All Weilenberg would have had to do is criticize
the notion of God’s simplicity, and/or ask and drive home the sorts of
questions Dawkins did. Atheist philosopher of religion Graham Oppy, for
instance, argued he cannot make any sense of a God who doesn’t have any
properties, which is what divine simplicity entails.[15]
Why didn’t Weilenberg do that? Dawkins surely was on to something even if it
wasn’t sophisticated enough for Weilenberg writing in a creationist journal.
One might even ask why he was writing for that journal in the first place? I
suspect atheists who do that are jockeying for position. They want to get
noticed by the opposition as honest philosophers and worthy of being listened
to. Loyal opposition has its benefits. Atheists offer the fundamentalist
opposition credibility. Fundamentalists provide these atheists a pat on the
back, so both sides win. What is lost is truth, in my opinion.
When
picking the opposition to be loyal to, atheists must choose wisely, for it
means picking the most credible opposition. But how does one do that when
dealing with faith-based reasoning? Keith Parsons kindly wrote a chapter for my
anthology The End of Christianity. In
that chapter Parsons chose to write against an easy target, the traditional
view of eternal suffering in an eternal fire. He did so with an understanding
of the sophistication of its defenders, I gladly admit. But more sophisticated
theologians could say Parsons doesn’t understand the nuances of the Bible, or
the creeds or their sophisticated theology. In fact, more sophisticated
theologians would scoff at his chapter in the same way as he does to Dawkins,
Harris, Hitchens and Stenger. They could say he makes glaring mistakes if he
thought he was actually dealing with the Bible, the creeds and theology. That’s
the point. They do. That’s what I’ve heard anyway. I knew they would say this
too. But Parsons wasn’t willing to listen to me on this, since he had already
formulated a draft of the chapter before I saw it for comment--which is okay as
far as that goes. Other sophisticated theologians would deny his chapter has
anything to do with their sophisticated views of hell. The scorn of
sophisticated opponents about his chapter on hell is real, something about
which Parsons has warned the rest of us against. Their more sophisticated views
deny the requirement for belief unto salvation, or hell as eternal, or hell as
a punishment or even hell having any occupants. The point is that even though
Parsons writes as if he’s dealing with sophisticated theology he is not doing
so. He’s not taking on the so-called “heavyweights” like Edward Fudge, Clark
Pinnock, Thomas Talbott, Karen Armstrong, John F. Haught, and others.
There
is no end to sophisticated theology, none. That’s why I call it obfuscationist
theology, almost all of it. No matter what theology we criticize there are
always others claiming to be more sophisticated who reject that view, who will
heap scorn on any of us who dares to criticize it. There are even defenders of
other theologies who don’t claim to be sophisticated, who claim God’s word is
easy to understand and that sophistication is a vice to be shunned at all
costs. In their view they have the higher ground since the simpler the theology
is the more likely that theology is true, even invoking Ockham’s razor if they
know of it. In essence, they claim the higher ground and take umbrage against
the sophisticates.
So
when it comes to sophisticated theology what exactly is Parsons talking about? One’s theological heavyweights are another’s
theological lightweights, and vice versa. So why should we really care if we
bring scorn down upon ourselves as atheist critics? Just think of restaurant or
movie critics. Do we care if the critics upset the businesses they write about?
Why should we care as patrons? We want to know the truth about that which they
write about. Only the critic would care, if s/he stands to gain something by
skewing the results unfairly in favor of that which s/he’s supposed to honestly
criticize.
What
we have left is philosophical elitism. Parsons is telling us which theologies
to respond to if we don’t want the scorn of other theologians heaped upon us.
He’s chosen them for the rest of us. He’s their sophisticated counter-part and
he’s telling everyone which theologies we should respect more. Apparently in
his chapter on hell he thinks we should respect the traditional view of hell
over others, you see. Seriously? And if we follow his advice by keeping silent
when he says we should, then he gains respect from the theologians who will
continue asking him to write chapters for their books, since he’s their good
old boy, propping up their theology over others because, well, their theology
has more going for it than others, right? Right?! Furthermore, by keeping
silent in deference to Parsons and MacDonald, many of us would subsequently
fail to tell others what we think, which in itself is important. Just consider
for a moment if there were never any new atheists, or atheist movement? Then
where would atheism in America be right now? The good old days were not so good
except perhaps for people like Parsons.
But
this particular book of Oppy’s helps to clarify much of what I’m arguing about
here, more so than others. There are definitely some lessons to learn from
reading it, no doubt. It will be nice to quote what he says on occasion,
whenever needed. One can also learn how to reason better by reading what Oppy
writes, so it’s a good book for someone who wishes to become a better critical
thinker. In these ways Oppy’s book is helpful, especially for those of us who are
arguing believers out of their faith. So I’m not saying works like this should
not be produced. That would be anti-intellectual. An artist needs no justification
for doing art but the art itself. Neither does an author. Even if no one ever
reads a book writing one can be worth the effort.
How
should we judge the worth or value of this work by Oppy? James Lindsay judged
it as follows:
This book, scholarly as it is, is
very difficult to see as anything but a perfect example of how seriously human
beings can entertain ideas that we shouldn’t. Given the existence of such
explorations, we are left wondering why philosophers don’t also produce
painstakingly detailed academic tomes upon the unique and special qualities of
dragonfire, be damned if there exist dragons to produce it. Put another way, we
need exactly zero books written on any level of academic expertise to tell us
that Superman’s superpowers aren’t real.
Divine attributes are properties
applied to a mythological fiction called “God” so that “God” can be believed to
satisfy psychosocial needs, largely including needs for attribution and
control. Exploring the attributes to a deity completely misses the point—people
need their needs met and will pretend if doing so seems to get the job done. “What
are divine attributes?” and “Are they coherent philosophical objects?” are the
wrong kinds of questions to be asking. The right questions are “What needs cause
people to give the myth they call ‘God’ these attributes?” and “How can we help
them meet those needs without relying upon the mythology of theism to do it?”[16]
Is
Lindsay being too harsh? Not if we think in terms of what is more helpful as
opposed to less helpful. In chapter 6 I’ll share what is more helpful, and by
those standards Oppy’s work is not helpful much at all. The most helpful thing
in Oppy’s book is that he shows certain kinds of gods with certain kinds of
attributes don’t exist because those gods with those attributes don’t make any
sense. Does this advance the discussion? Yes, definitely. That being said, Oppy
is retrogressing. The proper order to discuss the existence of Gods, or
superhuman beings, is to discuss the evidence first, as Jerry Coyne correctly
noted:
Before you can discuss the nature of
God, however deep and nuanced your discussion, you have to provide rational
arguments for the existence of a God. No theologian, however sophisticated, has
done that to my satisfaction, and I’ve read a lot of them. Absent such
convincing evidence, theology simply becomes academic speculation about the
nature of an unevidenced being.[17]
Why
take for granted anything such as the existence of a divine being? I’ll come
back to this question in chapter 6. Taking things for granted for the purpose
of discussion is an exercise in persuasion, yes. It helps have a discussion
with people who fail to see the fundament point, such that one’s faith lacks
sufficient objective evidence for it. But if believers fail to see the
fundamental point, why would anyone think they can be persuaded by other
considerations? I don’t think they can, or at least, this is not the best way
to approach believers if the goal is to help them reason to reality.
Lindsay
brings up a great analogy, Superman. What if there are millions upon millions
of people who believe Superman exists, just as there are believers who believe
some sort of god exists? Shouldn’t we pull out every tool in our toolbox,
including the sledgehammer of Oppy’s book, written by a sharply focused mind that
dissects the attributes Superman is believed to have? Well, here again, I would
say this is not the most helpful way to approach believers if the goal is to
help them reason to reality. The main reason is that Oppy is doing theology.
This is what theologians do. But just as any characteristic attributed to
Superman must pass the evidence test before it needs to pass the conceptual
test, so also must any deity. I doubt anything but scientific evidence can show
Superman can hover in the air, or propel himself faster than a speeding bullet,
or burn things up with his vision, or see through walls, or pull the planet
earth away from danger, or that a bullet or bomb cannot hurt him. Those are the
attributes of myths, fairy tales, fables and of course cartoons, where anything
can happen. If the objective scientific evidence doesn’t help change the
beliefs of Superman’s followers I don’t know of anything else that will do it. Doing
anything but asking for the evidence and showing any purported evidence is
faked, or not evidence at all, is what needs to be done. Anything else, any
gamesmanship, or puzzle-solving for the sake of puzzle-solving, is helping to
give Superman’s followers the credibility they so desperately seek.
Look
at just a very brief listing of historic famous America atheist authors who may
not qualify under Parsons’ strictures to speak or write anything in criticism
of religious faith. Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Madalyn Murray O’Hair
and Ayn Rand. Men like Thomas Paine, Robert Ingersoll and Mark Twain. Scientists
like the prolific Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan. If these authors were not philosophically
qualified may there be many more of them! If they are qualified what makes it
so? Surely believers at that time and now would say they didn’t correctly
understand theology enough to do so.
People like Parsons, MacDonald, Oppy and Weilenberg need to tell us what there is about sophisticated arguments that make something truer than beliefs lacking such sophistication. Let’s say someone claims she was abducted by aliens. That’s a simple claim isn’t it? Why would its truth be contingent upon making all kinds of complex definitions complete with Bayesian math to support it? I don’t get it. Faith-based reasoning without sufficient evidence is the only indicator we need for rejecting a claim. Without sufficient evidence a high level of sophistication doesn’t change a thing. What it becomes is obfuscationist. Faith is faith is faith is faith. It has no method, solves nothing, and even gets in the way of knowledge. It should be rejected by all intellectuals. Not to reject it is to be an anti-intellectual in my opinion, for only by rejecting faith-based answers in favor of evidence-based answers are we on the road to knowledge in every discipline in the university. Let’s be consistent across the board by rejecting the philosophy of religion discipline too.
[1] “Parsons and Feser on Coyne” at http://dangerousidea.blogspot.com/2016/04/parsons-and-feser-on-coyne.html
[2] “Church of
Scotland numbers suffer as over half of Scots are now non-religious, at
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/04/03/church-of-scotland-numbers-suffer-as-over-half-of-scots-are-now-non-religious/?utm_source=ET&utm_medium=ETFB&utm_campaign=portal&utm_content=inf_11_60_2&tse_id=INF_f79f434ad3d942af890d472aaa4fae4c
[3] “England and
Wales Are Now Predominantly Nonreligious” with commentary by Jerry Coyne at
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/england-and-wales-are-now-predominantly-nonreligious/
[4] “In Defense of
Old Atheism” at
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/04/08/in-defense-of-old-atheism/
[5]
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/secularoutpost/2016/04/13/doing-it-right-the-old-way/
[6] Eric MacDonald left
“new atheism” publicly, as discussed by Jerry Coyne,
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/eric-macdonald-leaves-new-atheism/
[7]
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2016/04/keith-parsons-is-just-old-that-explains.html#comment-2629784152
[8] “The New
Evangelical Orthodoxy, Relativism, and the Amnesia of It All” at
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-new-evangelical-orthodoxy.html
[9] Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), pp. 113–14, 147.
[10] Alvin
Plantinga, “The Dawkins Confusion: Naturalism ad Absurdum,” Books and
Culture (March/April 2007),
http://www.christianitytoday.com:80/bc/2007/002/1.21.html.
[11] Erik
Weilenberg, “Dawkins’s Gambit, Hume’s Aroma, and God’s Simplicity,” Philosophia Christi, Vol. 11, No. 11,
200, p. 115.
[12] What it means
for god to be simple is that God is not divisible into separate parts. The
attributes of God are not parts that together make up who God is, for God has
no parts. God does not have properties like goodness or truth. Rather, God is
goodness and truth. In essence, God has no properties. He’s pure being. For my
discussion of divine simplicity see Why I
became an Atheist, pp. 97-100.
[13] Erik
Weilenberg, “Dawkins’s Gambit, Hume’s Aroma, and God’s Simplicity,” p. 127.
[14] Dawkins was not
able to attend Reason Rally but he did send a video where he answers his
critics (from 3:45 to 5:10): “Richard Dawkins 2016 Reason Rally Speech” at
YouTube, https://youtu.be/G8NGf3L7foM
[15] Graham Oppy, Describing Gods (Cambridge University
Press, 2104), chapter 4 “Simplicity,” pp. 87-104.
[16] James A.
Lindsay, Everybody is Wrong About God
(Pitchstone Publishing, 2015), p. 54.
[17] “Eric MacDonald
leaves New Atheism”, https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/eric-macdonald-leaves-new-atheism/
[18] Graham Oppy, Arguing About Gods (Cambridge University
Press, 2006).
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