One item that I would like to bring to the attention of the OP is that the book Is Atheism Dead? is very highly rated, much higher than, say, The God Delusion. On a handful of negative reviews are being made about the book. Here's the reason:
Unlike Professor Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, or Dr. Sam Harris' End of Faith, this book has generated almost no reaction from the atheist community or skeptics at large. (I subscribe to the American Atheist news letter, and they have not, so far as I know, even commented on the book; I have not heard about it mentioned by anyone, except for here.) Instead, the people who are reading it are believers, who, like the book's author, Eric Metaxas, subscribe to the principle of "faith seeking understanding". It's a very old principle:
Fides quaerens intellectum
Eric Metaxas, like many conservative Christian and Islamic apologists, have a modus operandi of an "answer" that is in search of questions, which makes Mr. Metaxas, as with Dr. William Lane Craig, a scholastic:
Scholasticism
Mr. Metaxas has long ago signed his "decision card", and it does not matter at all to him what future scientific discoveries will be made or what progress will be made in understanding any subject whatsoever. Fortunately, beginning with the Northern Italian Renaissance, and then, with the Enlightenment, scholarship has moved beyond "the scholastic method".
Mr. Metaxas' earnings, in my opinion, fall into the same arena as gambling; he's an entertainer as far as I am concerned.
Quote:Atheists are not reading it.
Unlike Professor Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, or Dr. Sam Harris' End of Faith, this book has generated almost no reaction from the atheist community or skeptics at large. (I subscribe to the American Atheist news letter, and they have not, so far as I know, even commented on the book; I have not heard about it mentioned by anyone, except for here.) Instead, the people who are reading it are believers, who, like the book's author, Eric Metaxas, subscribe to the principle of "faith seeking understanding". It's a very old principle:
Fides quaerens intellectum
Eric Metaxas, like many conservative Christian and Islamic apologists, have a modus operandi of an "answer" that is in search of questions, which makes Mr. Metaxas, as with Dr. William Lane Craig, a scholastic:
Scholasticism
Mr. Metaxas has long ago signed his "decision card", and it does not matter at all to him what future scientific discoveries will be made or what progress will be made in understanding any subject whatsoever. Fortunately, beginning with the Northern Italian Renaissance, and then, with the Enlightenment, scholarship has moved beyond "the scholastic method".
Mr. Metaxas' earnings, in my opinion, fall into the same arena as gambling; he's an entertainer as far as I am concerned.
