Some choice quotes picked out by Nick:
Everybody nowadays is an atheist about Thor and Apollo. Some of us just go one god further.
The status of atheists in America today is on a par with that of homosexuals fifty years ago.
The moderate, sensible religious people you've cited make the world safe for the extremists by bringing up children -- sometimes even indoctrinating children -- to believe that faith trumps everything and by influencing society to respect faith.
To teach children that it is a fact that there is one god or that God created the world in six days, that is child abuse.
Or check out a rational, reasoned, rhetoric-free perspective from Tim MacBride, the greatest of all Baptist preachers, here.
5 comments:
Nice quotes.
He's a good preacher, I'll give you that.
But when MacBride says, "To their great credit," Answers in Genesis' purpose is not purely to get to the truth of the matter, "their focus is to win people to Christ through their science," he confirms Dawkins' worry that "moderate, sensible religious people... make the world safe for the extremists".
Thanks for listening to the sermon, Nick! I did think that Tim was being a little to charitable to young-earth Creationists, particularly by describing them as part of the scientific community. But he was trying to be sensitive to people in the congregation who have differing views, although Narwee's ultra-Creationist stayed away that night...
he confirms Dawkins' worry that "moderate, sensible religious people... make the world safe for the extremists".
I'm not sure that he does. Though I'm also not sure exactly how you're applying the Dawkins quote here. Are the AiG people the moderates or the extremists? Are moderate religious people who try not to get too caught up in the controversy making the world safe for the extremists by not condemning them?
And Tim did point out the dangers of trying to win people to Christ through science. I'll actually be talking about that issue at a CASE 'consultation day' in about a month.
Tim's the moderate, Answers in Genesis are extremists. I didn't mean violent extremists, just extreme.
Sure, he pointed out the dangers of using science but I'm sure he would have been just as acommodating of those more honest (now rather old-fashioned) creationists who admit that faith is their only justification and that they don't care about scientific evidence.
What I find misguided is that he lauded their attitude of faith before reason. It's not just bad science, I would argue that it's a bad way to live.
Did he really laud a "faith before reason" attitude? Attributing a higher authority to the Bible than to science is not necessarily a faith before reason attitude. One might have very good reasons to do so. Perhaps better reasons than some people who simply accept what scientists (or science popularises) say, without thinking for themselves. A person could be an irrational science-supporter or a rational Bible-believer. Reason is not only on the side of science!
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