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Working Towards a Christian Consciousness
About Me
- Casey Shutt
- I am a Christian seeking to cultivate a Christian consciousness. I have a lovely wife and a delightful daughter. I am a member of a Baptist church. I have studied at Oklahoma Baptist University, Gordon-Conwell Seminary, and, currently, I am a student at Durham University.
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2 comments:
Hitchens remains genius in his observations and dialogues. He wins every debate I've ever seen him in, and makes his opponents look like fools. Thankfully, you do not require genius to actualize these commons sense realities. Simple undertanding of things based on reason and plain common sense, call to question the fantasy delusions based on myth, analogue and metaphor which are accepted as literal, real and as a result, insulting to the thinking man.
The world needs Hitchens, Dawkins and others who can bring truth and a beacon of hope to a mad world of icon worshippers aznd religious zealots who govern their lives using an idealism founded 3500 years ago by a paranoid goatherder.
Whether strapping on explosives to kill innocents, raping young boys, or condemning homosexuals while smoking crystal meth and buying male prostitutes...it has been proven, time and time again, as utter nonsense.
In this century, we are afforded the luxury of all that has come to exist as 'common' knowledge, even to a child.
That people still 'believe' in all kinds of phantasms and imginical nonsense like Allah or Yaweh or any of the revisionist takes, is a sad commentary on contemporary man.
Hear here Hitchens, as a reformed thinker and one who renounced the immorality of institutionalized "christianity", I applaud your work...and admire your patience with the now long list of guilt and fear mongering 'world' haters who live life as 'children' in mentation, living with an Iron Age mentality in 2009.
Andres,
You're painting with some sloppy strokes. Here is an effort to tidy things up a bit:
1) "Thankfully, you do not require genius to actualize these common sense realities."
The position that Hitchens (and his cohorts) purport is not so common. Throughout time and spanning the globe people have had the sense that some sort of supernatural transcendence exists. "Simple understanding of things based on reason and plain common sense" don't call to question transcendence--as you say--but actually prod individuals to a search for things spiritual.
2) "The world needs Hitchens, Dawkins and others who can bring truth and a beacon of hope to mad world..."
I wonder what sort of hope these guys have to offer. We are nothing more than the cumulative effect of time and chance; your life has no ultimate meaning; these are the conclusions of Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. If God is dead, then man is dead as well.
3) "Whether strapping on explosives to kill innocents, raping young boys, or condemning homosexuals while smoking crystal meth and buying male prostitutes..."
You are right that religious people do bad things. But you need to distinguish between things prescribed by a religion and mistakes committed by a religious person. Does Islam prescribe killing innocents by strapping on bombs? As a Christian, I can assure you that Ted Haggard's mistake was in a different category than the suicide bomber. Following these examples you say, "it has been proven, time and time again, as utter nonsense". I am not sure that Ted Haggard's tragedy proves that Christianity is utter nonsense. It simply points out that Christians make mistakes, some grave ones at times. Best to judge Christianity by the message itself, not the mistakes of its followers.
We need to add to the list you've given the slaughters that occurred under atheist regimes (Stalin and Pol Pot to name a couple). Religious zealots and atheist zealots have shed too much blood.
4)"That people still 'believe' in all kinds of phantasms and imginical nonsense like Allah or Yaweh or any of the revisionist takes, is a sad commentary on contemporary man."
Underpinning this notion is the idea that we ("contemporary man") have finally shed these bogus religions in favor of something more respectable. It is as if the process of evolution has made us, well, more evolved and finally able to move past this archaic idea of a God who governs. If that is the case, then we must wonder what "more evolved" thinking will be like in 8094 (instead of 2009). You see, this viewing those that have gone before us as intellectually inferior makes relative the thoughts of "contemporary man".
My biggest problem with some of your points is that they are so sweeping and general. More parsing is needed. One final comment: You cannot prove that there is no God scientifically just like you cannot prove that there is a God. Both sides are operating on faith
I really do appreciate your thoughts. There you have some of my thoughts.
c
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