Letters to the Editor
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Put 1 in the plus column
I for one am kind of happy Salon printed this article. Mainly because in the letters section I find myself agreeing with people with whom I fundamentally (heh) disagree with politically (Rosenkavelier) and vice versa (Xrandadu). It's kind of the point of this whole online community (or "salon") to find out that we can hold a myriad of opinions that don't necessarily match up perfectly with our equals. I think it's great.
(incidentally, "josiah"'s theology appears to be the closest to mine that I've read on this thread...nice to see someone reference Tillich! :)
on to Hedges piece: I was quite happy to see him bring up the whole concept of "progress"...in my many, many discussions with my Atheist buddies (one of the dangers with being the only Catholic in your friend group is that you become the sounding board for any theological discussion :) is that it always seems to have a fairly strong whiff of Whig History...and I've never heard anyone else mention it.
p.s. For those interested, John Haught's book is an excellent dissection of the New Atheist Philosophy...he takes it as a philosophical whole (which, if you're gonna tear down a cohesive philosophical whole, you better have a compelling replacement) and shows its logical flaws...he relies pretty heavily on William Jamesian thinking, but it's a fascinating read.
cheers!