The Making of an Atheist: How Immorality Leads to Unbelief

[CleanShavenJesus]

A few quotes from the author:

- "There is really nothing new about the new atheism, except the degree of bombast in their claims" (p. 10).
- "The biblical message is that there are moral dynamics involved in the abandonment of faith" (p. 13).
- "The truth is that atheism is profoundly false. It is a misconstrual of reality at the most basic level" (p. 17).
- "Atheism is not the result of objective assessment of evidence, but of stubborn disobedience; it does not arise from careful application of reason but from willful rebellion" (p. 18).
- "From a naturalist standpoint the objection from evil is incoherent. This is because naturalists have no grounds to call anything evil" (p. 27).
- Since atheism is self-refuting: "What could be more futile than a worldview that undermines itself? Atheism is a sort of suicide of the mind" for as Chesterton noted "Darwinism ... is an attack upon thought itself" (p. 60).
- The author quotes William James: "If your heart does not want a world of moral reality, your head will assuredly never make you believe in one" (p. 84).
- "Perfect objectivity is impossible, at least for mere mortals. Yet some persist in claiming that science gives us an objective, unfiltered view of the world." For scientists are not "immune to the influence of their own beliefs and values as they do their research and theory formulation" (p. 92).
- "All scientific observation is to some extent interpreted though a paradigm. However neutral he or she might pretend to be, the scientist always filters data through a set of unspoken (or unconscious) presuppositions" (p. 100).
- Atheists suffer from "paradigm-induced blindness. Their theoretical framework prevents them from seeing the truth, even when it is right in front of them" (p. 102).
- "If a worldview, such as naturalism, gives us no reason to think that our belief-forming mechanisms are generally trustworthy, then we have no reason to believe that worldview is true" (p. 108).
- The good professor quotes Dawkins: "It is pretty hard to defend absolutist morals on ground other than religious ones" (TGD, 2006, p. 266).
- He adds a citation form Aquinas: "To know that God exists in a general and confused way is implanted in us by nature" (Summa Theologica, vol. 1, p. 12).


I'll be ordering this book soon.