Philosopher Daniel C. Dennett requests that H. Allen Orr publicly defend his negative criticism of Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion.
I love Dennett's work; I think he's a terrific philosopher. His books, especially Consciousness Explained, are models of clarity and solid reasoning.
I'm surprised, however, that he's wasting his time even thinking about arguments for the existence of God. These arguments are so incredibly, mind-numbingly, eyeball-bleedingly poor, even at the level of the "academic microdiscipline of philosophical theology," that even a "high school dropout" such as myself can thoroughly rebut them.
My challenge to any theist, anywhere, at (almost) any level, still stands. I will apply my editorial discretion only to low quality presentations; it's no fun to refute the illiterate.
Come on, Dan: Leave the easy work to the amateurs like me.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
4 comments:
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Then you're going to "love" this.
ReplyDeleteOy gevalt! Where to begin?
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the seemingly few atheists who believe that it is indeed possible to speak with logical consistency about God. But logical consistency is not truth.
Furthermore, I think the omniscience/free-will argument for atheism is fatally flawed, because free will itself is incoherent and meaningless. If you're going to go after omniscience, it's better to invoke Godel.
Happily, there are easier valid arguments for atheism, notably the Problem of Evil.
MacDonald is an imperfect advocate for atheism, but she is unique among the ballyhooed conservative columnist set for being unabashedly so.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with guys like Jay Homnick - a successful columnist for whatever reason I can't imagine - is that they can't ever begin to understand that they begin their "proofs" through flawed presumptions in the first place. There's no actual substance to the "logic" at The Reform Club, just semanticism.
You're welcome to mention my challenge to Homnick. (evil grin)
ReplyDelete