Atheism

by avatar 837 Replies latest jw friends

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    I post this and people just seem to skip right over it. Very valid points.

    Tyler Roberts, M. T. S., Th.D. (2009), employing critical thinking in evaluating the work of pop atheist Sam Harris, said, “For all his claims of religion’s irrationality, some of which do hit their target, Harris’ own failures to think carefully about religion leave him as a kind of mirror image of the fundamentalists he attacks. More specifically, Harris fails to think historically enough about ...religion, and, as a result, he takes modern fundamentalism and its literal interpretation of scripture as the essence of religion without realizing … that fundamentalism itself is a distinctly modern phenomenon, a product of the 19th century. And this 19th-century fundamentalism is itself deeply ahistorical; that is it takes its own view of scriptural inerrancy as somehow the original view of the Bible when, in fact, Christians from a very early point in the tradition were reading the Bible in much more complicated ways. So Harris’ ahistorical effort to reduce all religion to a single essence, shaped by one form of religion, reflects what I would call a kind of secular fundamentalism. To make his argument he, like the fundamentalists he criticizes, ignores a vast amount of historical and conceptual complexity and paints the world in black and white.” (from "Skeptics and Believers: Religious Debate in the Western Intellectual Tradition," Lecture 33, Track 3.)
  • cofty
    cofty

    Cofty, I haven't read enough of your posts to know if you use the same approach as New Chapter - FHN

    Oh well I've only written three and a half thousand of them, give it time.

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    New Chapter, maybe you won't change your beliefs, but I think you could be embarrassed by your approach to people who do not share them, one day in the future. I'm thinking a lot of us on this forum feel that way about posts we made early on.

    OH GOODIE! FHN has finally found a thread where she can focus on New Chapter and hold herself and approach superior. Mazel Tov. You've been playing around the edges for quite some time.

    Yes, go read Cofty's comments. LOL We just haven't matured to your level.

    NC

  • FlyingHighNow
    FlyingHighNow

    New Chapter, I am not talking about maturity. I am talking about time helping you to mellow and to get the WT approach out of your system.

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    Yes FHN. In time, I should mellow out properly---as we all know that mellow is the better way to be. It really hasn't happened with many other issues in my life, as I tend to be somewhat passionate about what I care about, but I'll work on that ladylike thingy----

  • N.drew
    N.drew
    that fundamentalism itself is a distinctly modern phenomenon, a product of the 19th century.

    It is my opinion that Christain fundamentalism might not have happened if first evolutionism had not gone mainstream. Are not fundies just people awkwardly protecting their cherished belief?

  • cofty
    cofty

    get the WT approach out of your system.

    That's pricelss! I can't believe you said that - oh wait yes I can.

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    get the WT approach out of your system.

    My favorite part of your statement. COFTY'S LAW.

  • mrsjones5
    mrsjones5

    " There is never anything wrong with taking the high ground and refusing a nasty & useless internet word fight."

    True but I for the most part haven't been in this fight. I jumped in on the part because I too thought someone was being treated unfairly. I started how I felt about it and said that I would not ever kiss the backside of the offender and got called a bitch for it. I've never called anyone on this board a bitch. May have thought it but never said it. Did I return like for like? Nope. I was an adult and laughed it off.

    My point is I can be the adult all I want but there are a few here who repeated dissolve into acting like children because someone refuses to agree with them. I (and I believe NC) are not the problem.

  • NewChapter
    NewChapter

    That's pricelss! I can't believe you said that - oh wait yes I can.

    LOL---Cofty. Our posts overlapped, but it is indeed priceless. I love being reduced to WT approach.

    NC

Share this

Google+
Pinterest
Reddit