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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31872 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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I'm not able to help with the new atheism internet history but if you've read Dawkins that's probably enough to get the gist of the general sense of the righteousness of the atheist tribe and of course the rational points raised against faith beliefs.

But as you mention agnosticism and seeing the limitations of physicalism I really want to point you to the idea of non-theism. This is the idea that contemporary framings of religion and atheism share the same modal mistake in the focus on propositional beliefs, with say a literalist creed asserting that everything in the bible being literally true, and an atheist refuting those beliefs.

But in many ways, while the rationalist critique of atheism is valid, it is also a straw man. Religion has also always been about participating in relationship with a phenomenological reality that is beyond oneself. Atheism, mired in a reductive physicalism is not able to engage with this and so ignores it, also reducing religion to this limited frame.

I disagree with this, at least in the case of Christianity. I think the vast majority of Christians throughout history would agree that Christianity stands or falls on the proposition that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead. If this is false, Christianity is false, and if it is true, Christianity is true. As Paul said, "if Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain." You can try to construct some kind of Christianity where the historical reality of whether or not the resurrection took place is besides the point (see, Shelby Spong) but such endeavors have always struck me as pointless.

There's truth in that of course, but your rebuttal somewhat proves the point as it's very reductive and misses a lot of what religion also is. Religion in addition to the creedal beliefs is also pointing beyond as it is about engaging with that which is greater. The Christianity of different times, say Meister Eckhart or Thomas Aquinas, is not sufficiently countered by Jesus never did miracles or was the son of God because it would be scientifically impossible.

The point is that atheism is lacking also, it is floundering on the rocks of reductive materialism. Religion points to some of what it's missing. What we do next is not theism as we've done, and it's not atheism, hence the idea of non-theism.

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