Xulonjam's Blog

The status of atheists today is on a par with that of homosexuals fifty years ago. – Richard Dawkins The God Delusion (p. 4)

I’m glad to see atheistic scientists are not given to shrill hyperbole like religious folk. – xulonjam

A couple of years back, I read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I wrote out some of my thoughts on another board which contained many skeptics and atheists. I found my files on this and thought I’d update it a bit and interact somewhat with the objections of the skeptics. I had been thinking of it for a while and I hope this is helpful and/or provocative of discussion. Besides, nothing says “engaging the culture” like interacting with a four year old book which it seems most people have forgotten. This first post is more of a slap-dash of several posts while the rest (maybe three more posts) will hopefully be more cohesive. The word “skeptic” is my shorthand for those who argue against faith. I use it very broadly and non-technically. It makes no distinction between the atheist and the agnostic or even the “I don’t give a flip” people who nonetheless wished to discuss what I said. I use the word with no connection with any “official” group who calls itself “Skeptics”. Continue reading →

I recently picked up Crazy for God, the memoir by Frank Schaeffer. One of the reasons I had (hinted at by my title) is that more than once, I have read Christians talk in such sympathetic terms about Frank. “His book”, they say, “is so bitter and he just sounds so disillusioned. I hope and pray he finds peace.” I suspected that the concern expressed was not quite as sincere as it was presented, particularly because it is most often evoked to not interact with Schaeffer’s current role as pundit criticizing the movement in which he formerly was involved. “Schaeffer has this criticism of the religious right. What do you think?” “Well, I read poor Frank’s book and it was so sad to see his bitterness.” “Yeah, that is sad. Next question.” Continue reading →

A recent article in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society caught my eye, titled Literacy and Biblical Knowledge: The Victorian Age and Our Own by Timothy T Larson. Dr Larson argues, as shown by the main title, that the poverty of modern society’s biblical knowledge places them at a disadvantage in understanding literature and not just literature which contain overtly biblical themes or references. Unfortunately, as indicated by the subtitle, he gets into comparing modern day with an ideal, for him at least, epoch of biblical literacy and the article descends into a lamentation that we are not living in 19th century Victorian times, where even the atheists were raised on the Bible.

The idea that one era is different than another is trivially true. Continue reading →