Beyond belief

By RICHARD NORMAN
Added: Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 UTC

Since the publication of The God Delusion a common response has been that Richard Dawkinsâs depiction of religious believers is crude and one-dimensional, and that he misunderstands the subtleties of theology. Terry Eagleton, for example, argues that Dawkinsâs picture of belief is a âvulgar caricatureâ, while Karen Armstrong suggests that Dawkins misapplies logic in the realm of myth, where it has no business, and that he is ill-equipped and unwilling to consider the essential poetry of belief. They, and others, argue that believers are not the literalist bunch of irrationalists lampooned by card-carrying rationalists, but a diverse group of questers after truth. For them Godâs house has many rooms; it is a well-stocked library with spaces for deep thought and rational argument, for myths and stories and poetic metaphors, which Dawkins, and those who agree with him, have failed to read.

TAGGED: ATHEISM, COMMENTARY, RELIGION

Jeff Schweitzer - Huffington Post 35 Comments

So, in honor of Hitchens I propose here guidelines to how we can make those daily decisions, a secular distillation of moral behavior derived from those characteristics that define us as human.

The atheist who tried to steal Christmas

Larry Taunton - USA Today 70 Comments

Christmas is, after all, the season of magic, and lest children confuse sugar plum fairies and flying reindeer with the observable and repeatable, the professor has loaded neither toys nor goodies on his sleigh but a heavy dose of "rational skepticism."

Searching under the lamp-post

Richard Dawkins - RichardDawkins.net 89 Comments

I suspect that there is life elsewhere in the universe, but it is probably extremely rare and isolated on far-flung islands of life, like a celestial Polynesia.

Evolution, Christmas and the Atonement

Denis Alexander - The Guardian... 59 Comments

We are not descended from Adam and Eve – but still, Jesus was born to save us.

Turin Shroud resurrected

Richard Dawkins - RichardDawkins.net 351 Comments

The new 'evidence' amounts to yet another 'Argument from Personal Incredulity': the Italian scientists cannot understand how it could have been faked.

Americans: Undecided About God?

Eric Weiner - New York Times 59 Comments

Nones don’t get hung up on whether a religion is “true” or not, and instead subscribe to William James’s maxim that “truth is what works.”