tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post4331670136951317850..comments2023-09-25T04:26:51.568-06:00Comments on The Barefoot Bum: The essential role of Christianity in Western cultureLarry Hamelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-53854855269859093432012-01-02T04:46:44.294-07:002012-01-02T04:46:44.294-07:00Great post and interesting discussion. I presume ...Great post and interesting discussion. I presume that in response to your last paragraph, Roberts would say that secular humanists came to those conclusions *due to* his conception of orthodox Christianity, whether that's true or not.<br /><br />Many of the ideas in the referenced essay are, if not word for word, extraordinarily similar to those expressed by R. Joseph Hoffmann here:<br /><br />http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/re-made-in-america-remembering-the-new-atheism-2006-2011/#comments<br /><br />Except that Hoffmann is in every way less considerate and thoughtful and way up there on the obnoxiousness axis.<br /><br />A few notes:<br /><br />True that ideas of liberty, individual rights, etc. are founded in a Christian tradition by early Enlightenment thinkers like Locke. I have a feeling that was more correlation than causation. There were going to be brilliant people alive at a time when these ideas converged, and there was going to be a dominant religion, and I'm not sure much else need be said. The argument is very similar Catholic self-crediting for much of scientific discovery. "I was there, thus I had something to do with it." It's all pretty dubious.<br /><br />Finally, to be fair, one thing atheists, even American atheists, should be up front about is, yes, right now Fundies are in the cross hairs, but I think we should predict the understandable hesitancy of liberals who are going to be thinking "first they came for the fundies, then they came for the moderates, and now they're coming for me..." To a certain extent I think there is a veil between present strategies for an immediately better today and what various atheists see for tomorrow. Some people believe that religion and faith, in any guise, will remain a perpetual threat, ready to recrudesce pathologically, and others only hope for a time when religion has been de-fanged and are comfortable with the idea that it can remain a largely benign social adjunct. Even most New Atheists have that view. I think Hitchens may have been an eradicationist.Huntnoreply@blogger.com