Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Humility before the Facts or Religious Shell-Games

Eric Macdonald at Choice in Dying has an excellent post that illustrates why I get angry with religious people in their doctrinal certainty and why religious leaders like Al Mohler seem immoral to me. 2 things I disagree with Dr. Mohler in regards to his latest post on the dogma of atheism.

  1. He distorts Sam Harris's thesis towards religion by painting him as a person who seeks to eradicate religious liberty. It is a lie about Mr. Harris's thesis against the moral sustainability of competing religions and Dr. Mohler offers no attribution to support it. His slander defeats his premise that the new atheists engage in scientism by necessitating an unattributed assertion to support his conclusion.
  2. Darwinian evolution offers a theory on the diversity of organisms and not abiogenesis or cosmology. He conflates scientific terms to make his claim and relies on what seems a non-sequiteur to damn Dawkins with scientism when the theory Dr. Dawkins adjudicates Christianity as false is mute on the subjects Dr. Mohler claims.

When I was a Calvinist Christian I would have been cheering Dr. Mohler's authority without any knowledge of my ignorance or possible immorality. As I have moved to disbelief I find Dr. Mohler's position immoral and am sad that he has influence over people who will be confused to the difference between biology (Darwinian evolution), chemistry (abiogenesis) and physics (cosmology) while claiming perfect knowledge in the bible.

I also can infer from my experience that the hardened certainty Dr. Mohler asserts and the epistemic pride his ideas will engender will not lead to the shame it should. The "faith" that will be felt by the believers in the depravity of atheists will be justified in the moral good evidenced by their obedience to their thought-leader with no comprehension how he needs to misrepresent facts as a means to proclaim absolute truth.

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