I wrote a foreword for Ray, although I don't think he'd use it even if we strapped his feet to a rabid crocoduck and fed it a couple Naga Jolokia's.
Foreword
"Dear reader,
It is recommended that you read the following book with a critical mind. Do not take anything said in it at face value, especially when it deals with scientific theories. Mr Comfort, whatever his other favorable attributes, is an extremely biased and ill-informed author. The title of this book attests to this.
Atheists are a diverse group of people, bound only by one thread: our inability to accept on faith the existance of a god. Please, dear reader: do not paint us with a single brush, as Mr Comfort would have you do. Judge us as the individuals we are."
James Schumacher
Atheist
-- EDIT --
Oh... My... Flying... Spaghetti... Monster...
He chose it, and I didn't even have to break out the chilli. The end is nigh.
This... this is too much of a shock to the system. I think I need a lie down.
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ReplyDeleteI think Ray should pick James' forward.
ReplyDeleteHoly shit, Ray did pick James' forward:
ReplyDeletecheck it.
Works for me.
ReplyDeleteAtheismo smiles upon you.
ReplyDeleteJust submitted the following to AC.
ReplyDelete"Whoops, I just noticed something: I made the following statement just above my foreword:
"I give you permission to freely use all of this in its entirety."
Just to be absolutely clear, as I realise the wording leaves some ambiguity, what I meant when I stated this was:
"I give you permission to freely use all of this provided it is kept in its entirety."
You've already stated that you wouldn't change a thing, but I just wanted to be sure. Thanks!"
Anything we say on Stoopid Central now is just providing Thicky McThick with stuff to be thrown back in our faces and used to keep others in a state of ignorance.
ReplyDeleteShould we really be posting on his ridiculous blog any more..? Aren't we better off mounting a defence against his lies from a distance, and make sure good meta tags and keywords bring anyone interested to us?
O.o Wow.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, though: "existence"
Shoulda spell-checked. I hope your publishers catch it. (Man, that sounds odd.)
I agree BaldySlapHead: we'd be safer sniping from afar, and indeed that is what I was doing until today. But if a very short contribution to his book makes even one of the readers think for themselves, and not take it at face value, then it's completely worth it for me.
ReplyDelete"Atheists are a diverse group of people, bound only by one thread: our inability to accept on faith the existance of a god. Please, dear reader: do not paint us with a single brush, as Mr Comfort would have you do. Judge us as the individuals we are."
ReplyDeleteQuoted for perfection.
Quasar,
ReplyDeleteGreat foreword, but I can't figure out why Ray wanted to use it. Is he going to comment on it and try to use it against you? Is he really going to print this as a foreword?
Does anyone have a guess as to what Ray's up to?
Here's a part of what Darrin, the 'kind and gentle atheist' wrote:
ReplyDelete"With the advent of "New Atheism," hostility and ridicule have all but replaced open, honest discussion. Scholarly and philosophical analysis have taken a back seat to pop polemics, and the biggest names in the movement have subsequently banished the art of philosophical study to make sure their diatribes sell. Christians are simply called idiots, fools, and fanatics, yet the actual arguments that the most well-known New Atheist books present demonstrate the same lack of both logic and knowledge that they carelessly paste on Christianity. The best (and subsequently the most respectful) critical books are relegated to distant shelves deep in the shadow of these "challenging" rants, which are propped at the front door of any bookstore for all to see and buy.
After all, it's name calling, and not thinking, that brings home the bucks.
It is now time for Christianity to bite back at the so-called Brights. Although I may not agree with everything Ray says in this book, I do agree that the recent popularization of atheism is unkind, uncritical, and uninformed. Although most in this movement will only scoff at the cover of this book and leave it unread on the shelves, some may decide to pick it up just to laugh at its contents. My advice to such people is to leave this attitude behind - instead, I challenge you to turn these pages with a clear and critical mind. Even if Ray himself uses polemics in this book, look past it, look at his logic, and answer it by leaving your emotion behind."
I have no idea where Darrin got his impression of 'new atheism' from. I don't know if he's read any of these books, but his little rant above makes me think that he's read only reviews written by Christians and woolly people like Chris Hedges. He paints 'new atheism' with the same broad brush he accuses them of using, and some of his assertions above are simply false.
I have read the books by Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins and Dennett. Not one of them "simply called [Christians] idiots, fools, and fanatics, yet the actual arguments that the most well-known New Atheist books present demonstrate the same lack of both logic and knowledge".
There are weaker and stronger arguments in these writings, but Darrin's assessment is apparently even more misinformed than anything they contain.
I'm really unsure what Darrin is about.
What do you guys think?
Quick impression:
ReplyDeleteSounds like a fairly articulate college freshman smartass fundie masquerading as an atheist to try to refute atheism through the back door.
Ray chose it too.
ReplyDelete"Darrin...this is great. I will submit this also. Thank you."
Suddenly I don't feel so privelaged.
I think that most atheists, even gentle ones like myself, would have put forward at least a mention of the fundimentalist's antagonism which caused the New Atheism movement in the first place.
Darrin instead launched a direct attack on Anti-theism, and fitted his foreword with quotes such as "Christians are simply called idiots, fools, and fanatics, yet the actual arguments that the most well-known New Atheist books present demonstrate the same lack of both logic and knowledge that they carelessly paste on Christianity", "It is now time for Christianity to bite back at the so-called Brights" and "You likely think you can prove Ray wrong - here's your chance. Are you up for the challenge?".
I'm not saying he's a fake, but my suspicion is aroused.
If Darrin is not a fake he is a complete asshole. So bad that this appeared. Maybe he is part of Ray's group actually. Who in his.her right mind would not recognize that Ray is an example of ridiculous misinformation aimed at selling rather than at argumenting anything? I truly bet Darrin is a "backdoor escape." Such a shame on Ray's group (or on other Christians trying to make ray appear as such a good philosopher, someone giving Ray more authority than he really holds).
ReplyDeleteG.E.
Mr. Smith wrote Quoted for perfection
ReplyDeleteI thought it particularly on-point as well. With one small exception, atheists by definition have nothing else in common. It's disingenuous to treat them otherwise.
But doing so apparently is better for book sales...
Thumbing through this blog I'm surprised to see any commentary on my letter at all, but I guess I should come out of the woodwork and reply:
ReplyDeleteI am indeed an atheist, and I wrote all that stuff up honestly. I've read the God Delusion, God is Not Great, and the End of Faith, although I have not read any Dennett. End of Faith is the best of the list by far, as it has actual valid philosophical arguments (until it gets to the consciousness chapter). God Delusion is rotten from its "central argument" on down (... evolution of universes?) and Hitchens' book is either polemics or recycled arguments he read somewhere else (hint, for example: saying a religion came from a backwater tribe and concluding it is therefore false commits a logical fallacy called the "genetic fallacy").
Such books are popular, not good. The good books are by Loftus ("Why I Became an Atheist"), Michael Martin ("The Case Against Christianity"), Ehrman, Avalos, George Smith, Dan Barker (for the most part) etc. These are the works of scholarship that atheism needs - not a revival of O'Hair-ish yelling that Robert Ingersoll did the best job of over a century ago.
Without proper logic and scholarship, we're going to run into a poor public reception by people who already think we're just a bunch of loudmouths. I agree with Harris - the "bright" thing has to stop. It's like thumbing our noses at Christianity as a collective, as if all Christian defenders have the level of scholarship as Ray does. The result is apparent: Dawkins refusing to debate the better scholars like Bill Craig, and Hitchens showing up drunk and losing badly to poor whiners like Dinesh motherfucking D'Souza.
I think the best way to make waves is to present our arguments as best as they come in as calm and neutral of an approach as possible. Polemics is not the way to do this, especially against Calvinists, who are used to it already from their own Christian "brethren." You might be surprised at the critical thinking some of the best apologists give for Christianity (as well as the best Muslim apologists, like Shabir Ally, who is better than anyone on the Christian side except maybe Dr. Craig) and if they don't already have a predisposition against atheists - and it might be shocking to note that most, unlike Ray, do not - you might end up making a friend or two along the way.
What of Ray, then? Well, Ray's arguments and scholarship are pretty bad. Ray is a preacher, not an apologist, and he and Cameron, while not exactly Calvinist, have been groomed by the likes of Calvinist bigshots like Paul Washer, whom Ray worships, and James White. The result is a "worldview-based" approach common among so-called Presuppositionalist Calvinists, and the tendency that follows is to argue against **all** atheists as if they all had the exact same philosophy.
The best way to defeat that is to show that we don't, and to show that we have better logical arguments than they do. As far as Ray specifically, William Lane Craig and Al Plantinga might be the top names in academic Christianity, but Ray is of the type that delivers the common notions of atheists that most uncritical Americans harbor today. His arguments are weak, and they've been refuted time and time again for dozens (if not hundreds) of years, but it's Ray's type, not Dr. Craig's type, that are out preaching this to the streets. Demolishing the arguments in Ray's book should be as easy for a well-informed atheist as the University of Texas football squad against a mediocre Division III team. It can be done without any sort of name calling whatsoever, and if atheism (i.e., the truth) is to have any kind of gain in the mainstream, this needs to be done with kindness and respect to show we're cool and collected, and not the people who are "secretly angry at God" as most of the U.S. thinks we are.
:)