It is difficult to disagree with the gist of the article below ; in fact just the opposite. And civility has always been a hallmark of this group --sometimes despite rather heated passions. Still, there are two things to take exception to : ( 1 ) Substance. Yes, A.N. Whitehead was not very nice in calling the Christian idea of heaven idiotic. But it misses the point to focus on the un-nice way Whitehead said what he did. The popular view of heaven among Christians ( not necessarily the Biblical view ) is, if not idiotic, terribly simplistic or even simple-minded. Is God a megalomaniac ? Does God actually want to be surrounded day and night by brainless sycophants ? The point is not so much the metaphysics of the issue but what a concept of heaven says about the real values of believers. Do believers want to have no-one but other believers as friends ? Etc. Related and unsaid is the question, if the popular Christian concept of the afterlife is a joke, what about the conceptions of "heaven" of other religions ? ( 2 ) Wimpishness. Despite the fact that the author does say that there is a time and purpose under heaven for showing some teeth in argument now and then, and actually talking a few bites out of our opponents' flesh, there is a tone in evidence which suggests that we should approach all arguments waving a white flag. This exaggerates what he said, but to communicate the idea. I mean, to use NT metaphor, why not enter any number of frays wearing the "armor" of Christ ? Paul did make a point out of this, after all. Everything said, it is no easy thing to both always be civil and still be able to hit hard when it is what is most called for. I don't have a solution to this dilemma but it may be worth pointing it out. Billy =================================================== Real Clear Politics / Religion August 10, 2011 Atheists Say the Nastiest Things By _Gary Hardaway_ (http://www.realclearreligion.org/authors/?author=Gary+Hardaway&id=21484)
I've just written an e-book taking some atheists to task for their really bad manners. Almost all of those cited are intellectuals, most dead -- Darwin, Marx, Freud, and John Dewey -- but a few still alive, including Christopher Hitchens, author of the nasty attack on believers god Is Not Great; How Religion Poisons Everything. Some of my friends have sent encouraging blessings, but not all. One good friend wondered why I would alienate atheists instead of showing love and kindness. It's a good question, one that I constantly wrestled with as I wrote. The Bible has a lot to say about the gentler approach. "A soft answer turns away wrath." "The Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful." "Let your conversation be always with grace . . ." If we are insulted or threatened, we are instructed not to insult or threaten back. We are to lay aside malice and bitterness and rancor. So, is it wrong to frankly and directly confront insults and ridicule? We know that Jesus certainly excoriated certain enemies, calling them "hypocrites," "blind fools," "sons of hell," "snakes," "vipers," and, in advance of his own death, murderers. As I wrote, I tried hard to avoid this style of condemnation, because, unlike Jesus, I'm not qualified to hurl these accusations at anyone. The apostle Paul, very disgusted with a certain group of unsavory people, wrote his friend Titus that these folks were "always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons." He told Titus to "rebuke them sharply." My motivation springs from another passage Paul wrote to the Corinthians: "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." A few points to notice. 1) We demolish arguments, but we don't assault people. We explain and discuss, treating people with respect. 2) We expose pretensions. This means unmasking phony-balony talk that distorts or ridicules or sneers at God's character. 3) We don't take ridicule or mocking personally. Our self-esteem is not the issue. We've got more important business: to explain and discuss the reasons for our faith. Some atheist intellectuals are awfully arrogant and produce a lot of nonsense. They scoff and mock. They rave and rage against God or his believers. Freud belittles religious believers as psychological infants. A professor I once encountered alleged that Christians are brainwashed robots. It's quite common to see the devout labeled irrational, stupid, or ignorant. Consider a couple of examples: British Mathematician and philospher Alfred North Whitehead writes, "As for the Christian theology, can you imagine anything more appallingly idiotic than the Christian idea of heaven? What kind of deity . . . would be capable of creating angels and men to sing his praises day and night to all eternity? [What] inane and barbaric vanity." Isaac Asimov expresses his disgust for "these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us , , , who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes." Unfortunately, ideas and attitudes like this powerfully impact the general culture, including educators and our educational institutions. To fail to respond is to surrender the field without a whimper. These pretensions against God deserve animated rejection. If we run into someone who repeats this blather, we have to decide on our next move. At times simply walking away is the better option. Or we may point out that it's impossible to converse with somebody heaping abuse on us. That being so, it's appropriate to ask, "Why are you so angry? Why so disrespectful? If we're going to continue this conversation you'll have to stop trash talking. Then we can some good dialogue." We can speak gently, yet firmly; respectfully, yet confrontationally when necessary. We don't have to accept the abuse without a murmur. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
