Friday, October 02, 2009
Engaging with "new atheism"
I'm interested in how we as Christians can engage with the kind of anti-Christian, pro-rationalism outlook that gets referred to as "new atheism". I think that the study of apologetics should be a top priority for Christians, so that we can explain our beliefs as we should. Today I found a superb example of this. In Australia there is a campaign called Jesus - All About Life. The campaign didn't buy the .com version of their website, only the .com.au one, and now there is an atheist rebuttal site on jesusallaboutlife.com. However, it's there, on this post, that there's a wonderful discussion in the comments. The Christian commenter, John Bartik, whose strangely-named website is here, is patient, tenacious and knowledgable. I think he does a great job of ignoring all the bits of the other commenter's argument that are repetitive or recycled Dawkinisms, which would make me throw up my hands in dismay or chew my own arm off in frustration, and focuses on areas for taking the conversation forward. This is what being a Christian should look like!
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3 comments:
Thanks for the link, Steve!
Feel free to join the fray. I'm really warming to Gee Suss. We've emailed a couple of times to ensure it ain't personal and he's really nice... and quite funny too: he signed off his email with "God B.Less". I like that kind of thing.
A good job ignoring all the bits? Mate I was an atheist before I ever heard of Dawkins, he just raises the same questions atheists have been asking for hundreds of years, and more recently, those regarding the attacks of religion on science.
This seems to be a standard kind of framework that christians use. Indeed they are advertising 'jesus has answers' in Australia, yet when people start asking questions, you all do the 'quick switch the subject and keep them engaged but label everything they say as a darwin or dawkins thing and move on .."
You think this is 'winning'? You call this 'engaging'?
Do you think jesus would just change the subject from the questions posed to him, and call it a 'win' as you do?
lame
Um, yes and no. Thanks for commenting, by the way. It forced me to critically re-read my original post. On reflection, I was pretty ungracious, so apologies for that. Anyway, yes and no: I didn't actually mention winning, so no, that's not what I think this should even be about. And yes, Jesus frequently changed the subject, or answered with another question, or told a story instead. But he didn't talk about winning. In fact, he pretty much encouraged his followers to come last. That's why I think that Christians who talk in those terms (including me far too often) aren't being very, well, christian. I'd hope that Christians could engage with atheist arguments with humility as well as intellect. After all, if there is a God, I certainly wouldn't have any hope of understanding him. This means that I'm almost certainly wrong about some stuff, so I could well be wrong about others. I have faith in some stuff that I think is important, but I'm in no position to tell anybody I'm right and they're wrong. This is the bit of Dawkinsism that annoys me: the "We're right and you're pathetically wrong. In fact, you're evil for even talking about your wrong beliefs."
Anyway, this comment is going to be longer than the original post, so I'd better stop.
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