My argument for atheism +

[Abaddon_ire]

That would be most christians. Most of them have not even read their magic book cover to cover, let alone studied Plato or Aristotle or any of it. It is impossibly naive of you to even suggest that this might be the case.

Ask yourself a simple question. If an atheist wishes to counter christianity, is his/her time best spent addressing the vast bulk of christianity, or the few christian cranks who fell out of the philosophy tree hitting every branch on the way down?

While I’d hardly call Plato, Aristotle etc ‘cranks’, you make a very fair point. Christianity is, in a very practical sense, what the majority of Christians believe it to be. No one is going to make much headway against a literal hell, substitutive sacrifice or infant damnation by poking holes in what Aquinas had to say about it.

Boru

"cranks" was not referring to Plato or Aristotle. Rather it referred to the tiny sub-set of christians who have actually read any of it. I contend that putting any effort into arguing with that particular sub-set is a fools errand. There is no convincing those of anything. And there really are not that many of them anyway. No, the overwhelming bulk of christians have barely even heard of any actual philosopher, much less read their works.

If one concentrates on that overwhelming majority, there is at least a chance that they (or some at least) may start to eye that "tree of philosophy" with a view to perhaps attempting to climb it. I have no ambition to deconvert anyone of religion. But I would like them to actually think about what they believe and why do they believe it. And that is philosophy straight away.

I don't dismiss philosophy as a whole, but boy, is there an awful lot of crap philosophy bandied about. Take Chopra, for example. There is a reason why various Chopra quote generators exist. It is easy to write one and just as banal and meaningless as anything Chopra says for real. Dan Dennett coined the word "deepities" to describe such meaningless philosobabble. And he is a frakkin' philosopher. He ought to recognise it when he sees it. And he does. And points it out all the time.  And there are plenty of other great philosophers. Russell, Hume, plato, and so on. The list is long. But then you have people like Fetzer, whose cheese has apparently slid off his cracker a long time ago and is a professor (Emeritus) of philosophy.

And this is the problem of philosophy. "I think, therefore I am" can very quickly become "I think it is, therefore it must be". This is why Fetzer promotes the Sandy Hook Hoax claim, or the various 911 hoax claims, or a whole shopping list of bizarre hoax claims.