Quote:
Originally Posted by Someday
This is a nice piece of honest writing that I think every "New Atheist" might be interested in reading.
Personally, I think this writer is quite thoughtful, and has the ability to see both sides of a thing quite keenly.
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Dalrymple (a pseudonym for Anthony Daniels) is about as conservative a writer as you could possibly find. The article in question is, in my humble opinion, crass, simplistic, cringe worthy, embarrasing and error ridden. The man is in constant search for any left wing target that dares pop his head above the parapet and I sincerely doubt his assertion that he is an atheist.
"Of course, men—that is to say, some men—have denied this truth ever since the Enlightenment, and have sought to find a way of life based entirely on reason. Far as I am from decrying reason, the attempt leads at best to Gradgrind and at worst to Stalin"
The truth he mentions is what he describes as a 'continuing longing for a transcendant purpose'. And that denying that longing and assuming a life of reason leads at best to Gradgrindian sterility and at worst to communism? (although I would assume that he is intimating totalarianism and perhaps genocide). That's one hell of a long bow he draws.
The article is just lying there waiting to be riduculed and I may come back to it a little later and give it both barrels, although the term 'shooting fish in a barrel' comes to mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Someday
When I tried to become an atheist...
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You 'tried' to become an atheist? That's as nonsensical to me as it would be to you if I said 'I tried to become a christian'. You can't 'try' to have beliefs, just as you can't 'try' to loose them. An agnostic with atheistic leanings, eh?
I think you're having a bet each way, Someday.