Respectable books on apologetics?
April 15, 2014 at 4:29 am
(This post was last modified: April 15, 2014 at 4:37 am by Rampant.A.I..)
I have to say, kudos to you for seeking out dissenting views as a test of faith.
The true measure of faith isn't in seeking confirmation, but in exploring and questioning everything, and deciding for yourself what you believe. I'm fond of Hegel's lectures on religion, dense as they are, and Huston Smith's The World's Religions.
I have yet to read anything by Dawkins, so I can't give an opinion there.
Your Inner Fish by Neil Schuben is a less biased, more interesting read so far.
Aquinas' summa theologe and Pascal are worth reading, but contemporaries like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga are not worth your time, and in my opinion an insult to not only apologetics but critical thinking.
I also recommend Marvin Meyer's Nag Hammadi Scriptures for some dissenting views of Christianity outside canonical scripture.
Personally, though, if you want works that cut right through all the BS and get straight down to fundamentals, I'd recommend Nietzsche. The man pulled no punches, and has an accessible, easy writing style in which he sums up some many of the base concepts of existentialism without the floral prose of some other 19th century philosophy. He's out to offend with the fervor of a '90's radio shock jock, but once you get past all the negative misnomers that surround his writing, he has a lot to say about morality, religion, and says it well.
The true measure of faith isn't in seeking confirmation, but in exploring and questioning everything, and deciding for yourself what you believe. I'm fond of Hegel's lectures on religion, dense as they are, and Huston Smith's The World's Religions.
I have yet to read anything by Dawkins, so I can't give an opinion there.
Your Inner Fish by Neil Schuben is a less biased, more interesting read so far.
Aquinas' summa theologe and Pascal are worth reading, but contemporaries like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga are not worth your time, and in my opinion an insult to not only apologetics but critical thinking.
I also recommend Marvin Meyer's Nag Hammadi Scriptures for some dissenting views of Christianity outside canonical scripture.
Personally, though, if you want works that cut right through all the BS and get straight down to fundamentals, I'd recommend Nietzsche. The man pulled no punches, and has an accessible, easy writing style in which he sums up some many of the base concepts of existentialism without the floral prose of some other 19th century philosophy. He's out to offend with the fervor of a '90's radio shock jock, but once you get past all the negative misnomers that surround his writing, he has a lot to say about morality, religion, and says it well.
