Media

In recent days, UD contributor Dr V J Torley has rightly taken atheism advocate, professor Richard Dawkins to task for cynical manipulation of our moral sensibilities in his public accusations against Christian philosopher-theologian, Dr William Lane Craig. And that, patently to avoid having to account through a public debate for his many acid fulminations against theism and the Christian faith in particular over the years.

(ADDED, Nov 2/3, NB: it may help to cf. a thought-provoking video here. [NB: This video documents that professor Dawkins is on record that he evidently cannot find a basis for moral objection to infanticide, and that he evidently cannot find a moral basis for objecting to Hitler’s genocide. His projection of moral outrage against Craig etc is therefore credibly manipulative rather than genuine. This is consistent with the long since documented inherent amorality of materialism that is further discussed below.] In case it is needed, this clip documents Dr Craig’s actual view on moral issues, obviously including on genocide. Craig directly responds here, from about 8:15 on, explicitly that the genocide accusation “is a misrepresentation of my position” [8:50], c.9:20 on he clarifies: “dispossess [a debauched culture]” as opposed to “genocide,”  though I still think he has not adequately appreciated the evident non-literal war rhetoric context nor does he address the eternal blood feud issue that nearly 1,000 years later Israel faced while in captivity under Persia. Cf comment here below for more. )

Professor Dawkins now seems to have beaten a hasty retreat behind the poisonously polarised cloud stirred up by his knowingly false accusation of support for genocide.

(And if you think that “knowingly false” is inaccurate, you can rest assured that no sane,  sensible, informed person in our civilisation can seriously entertain the notion that Bible-believing Christians and Christian leaders in particular, support genocide. The accusation plainly was rhetorical  “red meat” tossed out to stir up a distractive, atmosphere-poisoning controversy.)

But that leads to some serious issues. Read More ›

Oft said before but bears repeating: Jonah Goldberg on the media role in the bunkum cult of the expert: There are no more devout members of the cult of expertise than mainstream journalists. They rely on experts for guidance about what is “mainstream” and accurate and what is not. Sometimes that’s fine. Surgeons are extremely reliable sources to explain how a heart attack happens. They’re not as reliable at telling you who will have one, save in a statistical sense, and even less reliable at telling you when a specific person will have one. That’s because prediction is hard. Experts — in politics, economics, climate — are very, very bad at telling people what will happen tomorrow, let alone next Read More ›