Letters to the Editor
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I call bullshit...
...on this:
"You can have hope. But the question is, can you justify the hope? I don't have any objection to the idea that atheists can be good and morally upright people. But we need a worldview that is capable of justifying the confidence that we place in our minds, in truth, in goodness, in beauty. I argue that an atheistic worldview is not capable of justifying that confidence. Some sort of theological framework can justify our trust in meaning, in goodness, in reason. "
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and just how the fuck would he know that? He's not an atheist. From stardust we came, to stardust we return. That's enough to justify my trust.
This guy is pathetic. As a stone atheist who thinks religion is a load of self-evidently dangerous hogwash (although some of the rituals are comforting to some, no doubt) I call bullshit on this guy telling me what epistemology I'm able to live with.
Phooey!! Another arrogant, deluded believer come to tell me what can and cannot justify the pleasure of existence. John Haught can take his "theology" and put it where the sun never shines. Guys like Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius would have laughed themselves sick at this guy.
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Sigh... here we go again
Oh what a painful read that was - sooo much wooly thinking.
Science is not any kind of "religion", it's just an absence of supernatural thinking. It's pretty obvious why "believers" have trouble coming to grips with that.
It seems these people are almost admitting that God is "dead", but don't think us plebs could handle the drab meaninglessness of our lives without belief in a big pay-off at the end. I mean, seriously... The parallel with Santa Claus is a pretty good one - I "believed" in Santa, I got over it, and I still enjoy giving presents to my friends and family in December. How about that?
...and to accuse atheists of being "ignorant about religion"? So much I'd like to say, but all that comes out is... AAARGH!!!
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The Mitt Romney Equation
"Some sort of theological framework can justify our trust in meaning, in goodness, in reason." I suppose if you're going to posit societal needs out of wholecloth and the existence of evidence that doesn't look like evidence (and can increasingly be explained by neuroscience), then I guess you can offer religion (although it appears he's merely talking about Judeo-Christianity) as the panacea.
Just because some prominent atheists are assholes doesn't cause me to clutch at other people's subjective myths out of desperation.
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I second that bullshit
Imagine that— a theologian dishes atheism! Did you really expect anything else? It reminds me of that old saying about how you can’t expect someone to understand something when their livelihood is contingent on them not understanding it.
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I disagree rather strongly
"I argue that an atheistic worldview is not capable of justifying that confidence. Some sort of theological framework can justify our trust in meaning, in goodness, in reason."
Bullshit. If I do not believe in a God, then the hope I have is for the human race and life in general. I don't need a deity to justify anything. I can look at the reality of our surroundings and find wonder and peace in the development of life. The assumption that you must have a deity is an arrogant one that is not open to other points of view. This is the prime reason why I reject organize religions, and it is why I think that religions and evolution are incompatible. Religion forces a closed mindedness that is not compatible with scientific discovery in its purest sense.
At the same time, I see atheism as a faith. It is a religion of negation rather than affirmation. The best philosophy, IMO, is to be an agnostic. You cannot prove there is a God despite the belief of many people, and oyu cannot disprove the existence of God. You don't know, and you are seeking evidence one way or another. This is analogous to seeking answers in the observation of the world which forms the basis of science.
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I call bullshit on another part of the article
"He says evolutionary biology has forced modern theologians to clarify their thinking by rejecting outdated arguments about God as an intrusive designer."
So, uh, when are they going to get around to doing that? Everything I see that's anti-science can be boiled down to "God Did It, Now Stop Asking".
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The atheist "delusion"
I won't waste time and effort on a futile rejoinder. Suffice it to say (if any editorial staff are still listening): it is precisely this ceaseless, irrational, religious drivel that led me to stop supporting Salon with a Premium account.
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Wow
Just, wow. You lost me in the first paragraph.
"How can a person of faith reconcile the apparently random, meaningless process of evolution with belief in God?"
There is probably no statement which better shows that the person speaking does not understand evolution in the least. Evolution is far from random process. Random events (mutations) clearly play a large role, but calling the process of evolution random is ignoring the fundamental role of natural selection. It is a process that selects for favorable outcomes, and against negative ones. This is the exact opposite of random.
By making this statement you have lost all credibility as an interviewer on this subject. You have exposed yourself as a biased and uninformed questioner, and I therefore am unable to collect anything useful from this article. This is unfortunately one of the rare, but occasional failures on salon.com
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Theology or Smoke and Mirrors?
"But if you ask me whether a scientific experiment could verify the Resurrection, I would say such an event is entirely too important to be subjected to a method which is devoid of all religious meaning."
This is the height of hypocrisy. After blathering on about how scientific thought is a gift to religion, Haught shows his true colors in this arrogant and, dare I say, Haughty pronouncement.
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Well... um... er... hm.
There are so many things wrong with what this gentleman is saying that I am not sure where to begin.
Frankly, why bother? He has made up his mind in the same way that he assumes the modern atheist has made up his mind. He's made up his mind and called it "thinking about the problem".
I can't resist this one, though: "The new atheists have made science the only road to truth." I invite the gentleman to visit me in San Francisco, have a beer, and he and I alone discuss why this might very well be non-sense. The atheists that are being published might believe this is true, but there's a whole movement of atheistic optimistic existentialists that don't think atheism is purely the venue of "science". Any good skeptic is going to be just as suspicious of "faith" in any endeavor, be it politics or science or religion.
"Faith" and believing are really the matters at hand, not the question of gods and demons. The question of why humans choose to participate in faith and believing are the questions. The question is not "Does god exist?" because it does not matter at all. The question is "Why do you believe in god/science/religion/politics/money/self/etc.?" Belief and faith are the real issues at hand, and those are the things that many, many atheists look at. We're not all looking at science as the thing that finally defeats god and faith and beliefs, we are looking at science and wondering how many scientists in their being human are acting no differently than any person of any faith.
If you need to ask "Why don't you believe in god?" then you are a person that needs an answer to start with. Some of us don't need to answer the question. Because, frankly, it's irrelevant to individual existence and the individual's place in the universe. Why don't I believe in god? Well, a better question is "Why do you believe or have faith in anything at all?" Faith or evidence? Both are damn fallible.
I think Terry Prachett summed it up best...
"I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em." -- Lords and Ladies