As I mentioned yesterday and today, the Christian apologist Vox Day and Luke the “Common Sense Atheist” are having a spirited debate about the merits of faith and Christianity.
As part of that debate, I criticized Vox Day for his nasty and defensive attitude towards Luke when the conversation innocently turned to evolution. I wrote...
If Vox Day won’t challenge the atheists on evolution, what’s the point of his book? Honestly, his book is called, The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. If Vox Day won’t challenge the Unholy Trinity on the topic of evolution - when those guys make their living advancing evolution - what fills the 320 pages of his book? Does he accuse of Richard Dawkins of peeing sitting down? Snore.
Why am I repeating all this? Two reasons...
First, after I cross-posted most of my argument on Vox's blog, one of his commentators, "WFR3," asked me to expand on my case, which I did. I replied...
If I were in Vox's position, I wouldn't be so eager to take evolution off the table, and I certainly wouldn't act so defensive when Luke brings up the subject later on. From Vox's tone, it seems like he has something to hide. And he doesn't. Or at least Christians don't. The truth is, 95%+ of atheists don't have the slightest inkling of how illogical Darwinian theory is, and educating them on that matter can weaken their self-confidence, and open their minds to a theistic alternative.
In another post, when I repeated Richard Dawkin's line that"Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist," "WFR3" thought I was being "tongue-in-cheek," but I wasn't. I replied, "On that subject alone, Dawkins is right. And that's why Darwinism is a powerful propaganda tool for atheism."
When "WFR3" responded that "a process [which] uses randomness doesn't mean the process isn't designed," I knew he was trying to fit the square of Darwinian theory into the circle of Christianity, which simply cannot work.
I wrote back...
This is a complicated subject, and I'm not eager to discuss it in detail until I have a better idea of where you're coming from. To put it simply: Yes, in a literal sense, you are correct ("Just because a process uses randomness doesn't mean the process isn't designed"). But if we - as human beings - are the product of random genetic mutation and environmental pressures, that is quite different from the intimate relationship between God and Man as presented in the Bible, no?
I talk a bit about the contentious relationship between Darwinism and Christianity in my essay, Life is About Choices.
The discussion might have continued from there, but - as I expected - Vox Day deleted my entire dialogue without warning. If you're looking for me to bash Vox again though, I won't do it. The man is beyond parody at this point.
OK, enough foreplay! What does any of this have to do with my headline, Why the Debate over Darwinism Matters? Well, it's an appropriate segway for an article I want to deconstruct: Josh Sullivan's 18-page letter to his grandmother about why he abandoned Christianity and embraced atheism (H/T: Common Sense Atheist).
I've just read through Sullivan's letter, and it's....umm...shall we say..."revealing." And what it reveals is "why the debate over Darwinism matters."
Tomorrow, I'll begin my response to Mr. Sullivan and the arguments he raised in his letter. So stay tuned...
1 comment:
Truth speaks, "your g-d is that which, what or whom you desire to serve" and today the g-d of this world uses m-o-n-e-y as a primary tool for enslavement ;-(
However, it is that which creates the thing(m-o-n-e-y) that is the g-d, not the thing itself.......
As for "atheists" who deny they are enslaved by the g-d of this world and who declare they have no religion?
They are religion personified indeed and Truth!
For atheists see their version of a g-d each and every time they see their own reflection in a mirror ;-(
Post a Comment