In defense of Atheism--A Critique of Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig

Many know Richard Dawkins as an outspoken advocate of atheism and author of "The God Delusion." He is a well known speaker and has debated the subject of Christianity with many learned theists, including the Archbishop of Canterbury--but he refuses to debate the Christian philosopher, William Lane Craig. Because of this, Dawkins has been labelled by Craig and others, as a coward for not stepping up to take that challenge.

Now, in my view the debates are moot anyway, since the arguments have already been refuted long ago, and I too have offered refutations to WL Craig's arguments on this blog. In his defense, Dawkins claims he does not want to debate anyone who is willing to defend the slaughter of the Canaanites as being necessary --yet he has already debated others who have these same beliefs, including two archbishops of Canturbury--so this excuse makes no sense.  It makes no sense because as Christians, they cannot "disown" as Dawkins puts it, the parts of the bible that reveal the god ordained slaughtering of the innocents. (Deuteronomy 20: 13-15,) To do so would be to negate the authority of the bible--and it would become meaningless. Many scholars however, acknowledge that much of what is written about in war, and in other circumstances, is exaggerated hyperbole--and especially in the case of the slaughter of the Canaanites, the language used is full of bravado, is exaggerated, and is said to be hypberbolic.  Why, as the authors of "The Bible Unearthed" have shown, using  archeological evidence, the battles probably never even happened in the first place.   Jesus however, never "disowned" any part of the Old Testament, and did not claim the OT to be anything but the word of God.  He did not "disown" the so called word of God--and neither can Christians, or they would not be Christains.   Christians seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place concerning this issue, because if we consider some of the bible to be hyperbole, then all of it comes into question and can be considered as such. We have no way of knowing what is hyperbole and what is not. But if they take it literally, then their bible reveals a god who is not at all "all-loving" as he orders the slaughter of innocent women and children. Hmmm.... If Christians disown the slaughter of the innocent Canaanites, they might as well disown the torture and murder of the innocent Jesus as well--perhaps that is hyperbole too. That is, if Christians claim the story of the slaughter of the Canaanites is merely "hyperbole"--then we can say the same thing about the supposed torture and death of Jesus on the cross, and his so-called "resurrection." Perhaps it is just hyperbole too--it never really happened.

Furthermore, according to Christians, Jesus used hyperbole many times, such as when he said "prayer moves mountains." We know that doesn't happen either. Perhaps it is also his use of hyperbole when he claims to be the son of god.  When Jesus said that "me and the father are one"--that too could just be hyperbole--as when I say that "me and my grandmother are one. "  I say this because my grandmother and I share the same philosophy--just as Jesus claimed that he shares the same philosophy with his father. But, it would not mean that I am my grandmother, nor that Jesus is God.

Nevertheless, WL Craig, whom I now label as the "king of strawmen, " (as that is his favorite fallacy) offers weak arguments that can easily be taken apart; but what sets him apart from other apologists is his rhetorical skills. He does not win debates on whether what he is arguing for is the truth or not--it is purely by rhetoric. Now, if Dawkins can be criticized for not being willing to defend his position--so can the apologists. To illustrate how hypocritical many so-called apologists for Jesus are, note what the Christian blogger "Wintery Knight" --the blogger that does not take critical comments on his blog--mentioned in a recent post:

"I don't mind that atheists think atheism is true, and that theism is irrational. That's their view, and they are entitled to hold it and speak it and teach it. But I think that Came is right to say that they should also be willing to defend it in public. Dawkins is clearly not willing to defend his views, and that tells me that he has no reasons to believe them."

Wintery Knight is a blogger who will NOT take comments against his own views, and edits comments to suit his fancy. In other words, he too does not defend his views against criticism. Talk about hypocrisy--but he is not the only one. There are quite a few Christian bloggers out there that are unwilling to post comments from people such as myself because I know how to take apart their arguments and make them look ridiculous. Some of them are Tom Gilson at "Thinking Christian", "Wintery Knight"--and my favorite, JW Wartick, at "Always Have a Reason." Now, there are a few, such as Bill Pratt at "Tough Questions Answered" and Ray Comfort at "Atheist Central" that still do take my comments, and I commend them for that, but for those that do not--they are no different than Dawkins and WL Craig. You see, Craig has also refused to debate certain scholars, as he will not take up the challenge of debating his former student, John Loftus over at "Debunking Christianity", because Craig knows that Loftus knows what he knows!!  Craig has no problem debating people he feels have less knowledge than he does, or weaker rhetorical skills, but Craig refuses to debate Loftus--why? Because he knows Loftus would make a fool out of him.  Craig claims he does not want to debate a former student--which, like his arguments, is just a weak excuse. Craig et al. are hypocrites and cowards, and have no business "defending" their faith against criticism--when they cannot take criticism.

As my mother said long ago--if the theists can't take the heat, they should get out of the kitchen. I would debate Craig anytime, and I know I would make him look ridiculous. And to show I am not interested in the publicity, I would do it over the internet as a podcast--anonymously. Would Craig take up the challenge? If he has read my blog--he knows that it would be in his best interest not to take up the challenge because his weak arguments would be defeated.

Theists need to step up their game if they wish to keep up with scholars such as myself--because the cracks in their armor are showing, and I see feathers peeking through.

Of Hurricanes, God and Power

Today I ventured to the "Thinking Christian" website and came across a blog post in which the author who was in the midst of a hurricane, seemed almost tempted to venerate the gods of nature and humble himself to their powerful forces.  Interesting.  He obviously is unaware of the fact that his god Yahweh is in fact, a storm/war god.  Yahweh IS a nature god--just as most, if not  all the ancient gods and goddesses were.

 But that was not the best part of the post. That came later.  When I read the following, I literally laughed out loud:

"I said I could almost appreciate the urge to deify nature. Skeptics will often tell you that monotheism evolved out of nature religion or other primitive forms of polytheism. I seriously doubt it. When it first sprang up in the Hebrew tradition, it sprang up whole, in remarkably advanced form.  Plato and Aristotle reasoned from first principles to something vaguely resembling one God, but the Hebrews beat them to it by centuries. They ascribed personality to their God, including holiness and love. This is not what springs immediately to mind when I look out the window this morning." 

In my previous post, I mentioned some of my favorite texts, one of which is "Materialist Approaches to the Bible."  This book explains the ideologies of the people in question, and how their social/religious/political lives developed.   In the case of the monotheism of the Jews, when Moses said that Yahweh said to "put no other gods before me," this did not mean that they believed there was only one god in existence and no others.  As the statement implies, and the bible notes, their claim was that there were many gods and goddesses, and that this one particular god Yahweh, would become their supreme being.  It is not the case that they were monotheistic, and their journey to monotheism was not "remarkably advanced" at all.  In fact, the first religion to say that there is one god and no other god was Zoroastrianism.  Furthermore, in most tribal religions, there was one supreme god who ruled over lesser gods and goddesses--which made them monotheistic and polytheistic at the same time.

The Jews were polytheistic, and each tribe of Israel had their own pantheons of gods and goddesses, and when David merged the tribes of Israel, the tribes were forced to give up their supreme god in favor of David/Solomon's supreme god in order to assimilate the traditions of the northern tribes with the southern tribes.  The scriptures actually begin with Solomon, and the narration and succession of David (2Sam 9;20; 1Kings 1:2) are said by many scholars to be some of the very first written texts of the bible.*  The "J documents" of the scribes of Solomon portray their god as "Yahweh" as opposed to the "E documents" of Moses where "elohim" or "gods" is used.  In making a single god out of the local divinities and giving him the name Yahweh, the J document assimilated the traditions of the northern tribes with the southern tribes  and reinforced the political power of Solomon by basing it on a unified religious ideology that, thus idealized, would give him a better grip on power. **

It was all about power, and how to gain and maintain it, but that is not what made me laugh.  What made me laugh was the faux pas the author made when he said, "THEY (the Jews) ascribed personality to their god, including holiness and love."  Yes, folks, he admitted that the Jews gave their god certain attributes--god had nothing to do with it!!  I'm still laughing......  This is no different than what other groups did with their gods.  Zeus is a storm god,  just like Yahweh, and he too was "ascribed his personality" by his followers.  This can be said for any god or goddess, as people create them in their own minds.  And some Christians it seems, can finally admit that.

Finally, I wanted to point this out to him, but he blocked me quite a while ago.  It is obvious that apologists that claim to "defend the faith" can't/don't do a very good job of it.

*Materialist Approaches to the Bible p. 13
**Ibid. p. 25