RE: What is needed to combat the overwhelming level of belief in God?
December 12, 2015 at 2:26 pm
(December 12, 2015 at 1:56 pm)athrock Wrote: [quote='SteveII' pid='1139222' dateline='1449868247']
In the past, Atheists were content to live and let live, and they did not go out of their way to evangelize folks to their way of thinking.
This all changed after September 11, and was spearheaded by the "four horsemen" - Dennett, Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. Add in the popularity of books by people like Bart Ehrman and Richard Carrier, and you have the makings of a groundswell.
I can only comment on what I've observed in the US, but my take is that the churches in America were unprepared for this sudden assault on the nation's core religious values. But that is changing rapidly, and the interest you're seeing in apologetics does not bode well for the skeptics.
They landed a few good sucker punches, but the result may only be that a sleeping giant has been awakened. It will be interesting to see how the skeptics react as more and more believers begin to shift resources from a focus on generalized "evangelism" to the more specific arguments of atheism more directly.
Oh lord! What hath we wrought? Imagine the unassailable arguments such a behemoth may wield against us? Can our un-belief stand against such a one? Lordy, lordy, lordy.
