Let me also remind you that David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. When you see an article by a Senior Fellow on the Discovery Institute website, you just know it's got to be good.
That's why I was so excited to see The Two Types of Atheists on Nov. 3, 2011.
I meant to say that broadly there are two types of people who call themselves atheists but only one really deserves the dignity of the term. The first category -- the peasant, clod, village atheist, am ha'aretz -- is the person like Jerry Coyne with a cartoon version in his head of some one religion or all religions. He rejects the cartoon, figuring that as far as faith goes in general, he's got it all figured out and it's all nonsense. This type of person typifies the New Atheist movement. He has very little of interest to say.Aren't you glad that you can get the best of the best by just reading David Klinghoffer on Evolution News & Views?
There's a second much rarer type, however, the person who has not only investigated at least one serious faith seriously but also experienced it, known believers, ideally was a believer himself at some adult stage of life. This person, in rejecting God, merits a real hearing.
It amuses me to think of David Klinghoffer as an atheist in training.
7 comments :
What nonsense! So lets see...John Loftus, Dan Barker or Eric MacDonald = Good Atheists. Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers and any other popular "New Atheist" = Bad Atheists. Gotcha. Put it another way, Scientific Atheists or anyone else who came to the same conclusion that there is no "there" there for religion or gods, who is not a former Pastor, cannot or should not be taken seriously? Bullshit. They all say substantially the same thing. Religion / god is bunk.
Religion does come off as cartoonish, but that's not because some atheists portray it that way.
'It amuses me to think of David Klinghoffer as an atheist in training'
Nah, he wouldn't pass the exams.
Next he's going to say that we can't reject psychics if we haven't spent time following at least one psychic medium, and even dabbled in the art of palmistry or tarot card reading.
It's comments like this that really drive home the lack of a good case for theism. If there were a good case, you'd expect them to spend time arguing for that case. Instead, all they can do is try to find some reason why the critics don't have the authority to truly understand. What good would experience do for the truth claims of religion? The difference personal experience makes is purely perceptual...
I'm so flattered that David Klinghoffer thinks I'm the right kind of atheist. As for Larry, Jerry, PZ, etc: well, sucks to be you, I guess.
I wonder when Mr. Klinghoffer, who purports to be of the Jewish persuasion, is going to justify his association with the Dishonesty Institute whose Executive Director, John West, used to be and possibly still is a Holocaust revisionists?
Klinghoffer can be easily dismissed as a scientifically illiterate lunatic; he is the very definition of Dunning-Kruger.
Post a Comment