If it is, atheists had better start believing in life after death, But seriously,
Eric Metaxas was on Patrick Coffin’s show recently (November 9, 2021):
In this Episode You Will Learn
– Why Metaxas decided to take the fight, so to speak, to the scientists
– The miraculous properties of water
– The staggering unlikelihood that the moon’s (small) size and distance to the sun (huge size) would line up as appearing to be the same dimensions as seen from earth
– The conversion to theism (at a bare minimum) of high profile atheists Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and Antony Flew
– Why atheists are often bitterly opposed to even the idea of God
– An array of incredibly fascinating facts hidden in nature that point to God as First Cause
– The difference between the God of the philosophers and the Father of Jesus Christ
– Reasons why faith is reasonable and not contrary to reason
Fine-tuning keeps coming up in this context. Guess they’ll have to make a law against talking about it.
Come to think of it, we don’t hear much these days from the once ultra-fashionable New Atheist movement.
Not to be snarky (okay, just a bit snarky) the profanity meter had to be recalibrated recently to detect much lower amounts after New Atheism began to wane. The Unhinged Ranting on Blogs phenomenon fared likewise…
Maybe it’s just hard to fight Something with Nothing.
You may also wish to read: How did new atheism become the “godlessness that failed”?
Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd
#256: Is Atheism Dead?—Eric Metaxas
https://patrickcoffin.libsyn.com/256-is-atheism-deaderic-metaxas
#256: Is Atheism Dead?—Eric Metaxas
https://podcastaddict.com/episode/131024591
Is atheism dead? I certainly hope so. As a worldview, atheism has done more harm to the human race than all of the religions of the world combined. Time to kick it to the curb for good!
To lift a quote of Mark Twain’s, “the report of my death is an exaggeration.” Spare us Metaxas’ post mortem….
ChuckyD,
For someone who claims not to care about ID, you sure do whine a lot.
Atheism isn’t dead. It just smells like that because it is rotten to the core.
#4 Seekers
Where did you get the impression that I don’t care about ID? If I didn’t care, I’d drop this website like a lead balloon. However, I care deeply about ID’s insidious attempts to stamp out scientific reason and knowledge, to infiltrate our public schools and agencies, and to spread disinformation, such as dumb claims that atheism is dead. All you have to do is look at the data on religious belief over the last decade to dispel that myth.
LoL! @ chuckdarwin!!! You don’t even know what science is nor what it entails. So please shut up about it already.
CD @ 6… Eric isn’t saying that there aren’t atheists, just that it is intellectually bankrupt. Which, mathematically, it is. It’s absolutely absurd.
“I care deeply bout ID’s insidious attempts to stamp out scientific reason and knowledge…..”
What exactly about ID’s proposition that the universe is intelligently designed stamps out reason and knowledge? Because you don’t like it? You sound like a religious dogmatist.
Scientifically refute the idea that there is an intelligent designer of the universe… then you’d have a case. The reality is many ID proponents see how terrible/terrifying the effects of materialistic worldview are. Then it just becomes might=right… just read history.
Challenge for Chuck, Sev & whoever else skeptical of ID… Write out a cohesive rebuttal of your own view, and post it here. Try to do as much damage to your stance as you can, and do it with integrity. maybe start with “If I were to argue against materialism or Neo-darwinism, here is what I would present…and try to absolutely obliterate it. Then we will know you are intellectually honest and have at least dealt with the information.
All I keep hearing from you guys are religious objections…I don’t see you guys ever dealing with the evidence or science… and that is why the current paradigm is actually discouraging science.
You were created, on purpose, for a purpose. Things are objectively right and wrong. All truth isn’t relative. And you know it. Whether you will acknowledge it or not.
@CD
No really, why do you care about ID? According to your worldview, you’re destined to oblivion, never to know you actually ever existed in the first place, let alone had anything meaningful to say about the validity of ID. Not to sound like a Debbie Downer, but you’re squandering what little precious time you have left debating the existence of something you don’t believe in—it’s both bizarre and very incoherent.
@KRock… this is true. Even Dawkins has said it would be intolerable to live that way… because no one actually lives congruently with the conclusion of materialism.
Materialism…
No ultimate meaning.
No ultimate hope.
No good news. (no good at all, actually..or bad)
No objective basis for morality.
No free will.
No basis for rationality or logic that is worth submitting to, therefore rendering science meaningless and untrustworthy.
ChuckyD,
As to: “ I’d drop this website like a lead balloon”
Perhaps something to seriously consider.
you never have anything constructive to say and mostly come off as a butt-hurt school girl.
For the record, I don’t want Chucky or Sev to go. I just want them to grapple with the info presented in an honest way.
They’re here to generate comments. What would there be to talk about without them?
@Jerry:
– first duties
– objective vs. subjective
– hell vs. no-hell
– truth of islam vs. falsehood of trinity
There are lot’s of topics (where no atheist is needed) worthy of the obscurity of this site.
^^^ But would a video on the question of “Is Atheism Dead?” qualify as a place where an atheist might be inclined to comment?
ChuckyD is a troll, look at the name for starters, he literally is here to say dumb sh:t and leave I think there was one time that he contributed to the actual discussion and didn’t just puke his atheist “I’m science minded (not really) and you are all dumb” crap. He actually engaged. Other then that he has been a waste of carbon. He normally only deals in empty trolling and easily refuted Dawkins tropes
The first two have been discussed in detail. Most of it goes round and round producing nothing new. I actually listened to an extremely interesting lecture on these ideas while gathering the trash. Tomorrow is trash and recycling so it took me a half hour to gather it all.
The third and fourth are really three different discussions. None of which should be here.
Kf likes to introduce ideas that may flow from human nature and thus, may be ID relevant. He’s particularly concerned that society is deteriorating and this will have catastrophic effects. I agree with that assessment.
Barry runs the site and occasionally introduces politics. I contribute if I think I have something relevant.
Yes, that is true. The atheists rarely introduce anything worth discussing here. And yes, this is an extremely obscure site.
People are here to rant mainly. But, some learn, sometimes a lot. Only legitimate science will pass muster. So lots of good factual stuff gets presented.
I also use this site to preserve ideas. So I will say something or post links knowing few if any will read or comment so I will have a record of it.
There’s no one to convince here except with the possibility of Denyse who’s extremely responsible.
Metaxas is a good guy, and I like his books, but why in the interview does he insist on acting as if he is the discoverer of the arguments he adduces against atheism.
He states that nobody knows that scientists have no idea how life began when in fact this has been common knowledge for decades among people, laymen as well as professional scientists and philosophers, interested in Intelligent Design and other challenges to naturalism.
He also states that no one’s writing about the fact that the founders of the scientific revolution were almost all Christians.
That’s just silly. This is a point that’s been made by numerous writers, notably Rodney Stark, but many others as well.
Metaxas makes it sound as if his book is the seminal work in the intellectual battle against naturalistic materialism, and he undermines his credibility when he makes claims like these that suggest he hasn’t really done his homework.
The answer to the question is, “No”. Also, one relevant point is that atheism doesn’t necessarily imply materialism.
I suspect the answer to Metaxas’s question is that atheism will be around long after he and the rest of us are long gone.
Zweston/10
Dawkins has said that a society based on the principle of survival of the fittest would be intolerable and I would agree. On the other hand, Americans seem to be quite happy with an economic system based on that principle.
Classical materialism is effectively defunct It’s successor, physicalism, is still going strong. Whatever is happening at the quantum level, if you kick a rock it will still hurt your foot.
So fulfilling a purpose in the mind of some other being is your ultimate meaning?
Hope for what?
There is both good and bad news. Why shouldn’t there be? We don’t need someone else to tell us what’s good or bad.
That’s true but we don’t need one. We just need to agree amongst ourselves.
That’s what Christianity means as well.
Rationality and logic are valuable for how they can be used to model the world and increase our chances of survival in it. That’s all we need.
Dick@18
I think Metaxas is carelessly referring just to the large segment of the population that consists of pseudo-intellectual, non-thoughtful or inquiring, college-educated people who have unquestioningly accepted the materialist scientistic ideological brainwashing that went along with their education, in Darwinism in particular. This would include a large proportion of the writers of science-related popularizations in the media.
Sev,@21
There’s just so much wrong with what you wrote did you actually think first before typing.
VL @19: What is an example of an atheistic worldview that does not hold materialistic unguided, random, purposeless origins?
Seekers/23
Then, by all means, have at it.
Sev.
Sifting through many threads it’s clear your not here for any sort of discussion, you simply wish to proclaim your faith.
True.
Question is, was it designed that way?
Aside: I have never seen an atheist defend their beliefs without using something else to denigrate. In other words, they have no rationale for their beliefs other than a distaste for something else.
Re 24 to AD: Some branches of Hinduism and Buddhism, Taoism, numerous modern “new-age” perspectives that don’t have a specific name, neo-Platonism, and more broadly a general agnosticism that holds that whatever might be the ultimate nature of the universe, it is beyond human knowledge so that all human religions (and their gods) are fictional stories overlaid on the mysterious unknown.
seversky:
Wrong again. You are conflating artificial selection with survival of the fittest.
That is your uneducated opinion.
Not even wrong. It’s as if you can’t think.
seversky loves erecting strawmen and spewing ignorance. Thanks for the entertainment
@Seversky #21
Sorry, I must have missed something—exactly what standard are you using to differentiate between good and bad again?
A very long yearly survey on religion and belief in God that has been taken for the last 40 years.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/Religion.aspx?utm_source=twitterbutton&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=sharing