Monday, December 27, 2010
Why Dawkins Almost Deserved his Name
Interestingly, Angus Menuge's essay "Why Eustace Almost Deserved His Name: Lewis's Critique of Modern Secularism" in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Open Court, 2005), develops this theme, though without the wonderful graphics on this post by Patrick Chan of Triablogue.
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That anyone even thinks "The God Delusion" constitutes a good argument shows how far the debate standard has been lowered, and if the new atheists are any indication, atheism today is falling for the weakest arguments
The New Atheism was never about offering intelligent or even good arguments. It's been about appealing specifically to the generally slow-witted and ignorant.
That is why I have been trying to do some reading about Nietzsche. Some of his writings and a major new biography.
The New Atheist writings are not as interesting as the writers like to think they are.
Nietzsche at least was an interesting writer. And his quest all the more poignant because of what had appealed to him in Christianity.
I must admit the God Delusion was pretty bad as scholarship. But as entertainment, it ain't so bad. Perhaps it should come with a 'For entertainment purposes only' sticker attached.
I look at that book as a statement of what an extremely clever and precocious, but relatively ignorant sophomore would write up about the God issue.
Its influence massively outstrips its legitimacy. And, unfortunately, "loudness" on the atheist side has replaced intellectual adequacy.
Loftus, I think, started off as an interesting and challenging opponent of Christianity, but he has been taken in by the fact that with his base constituency, loudness is valued more than sustaining discussion.
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