Saturday, December 5, 2009

He's Glad To See The New Atheist Books?

Christian philosopher and mathematician, William Dembski writes something that surprised me, at first, he says that he was “gratified to see the recent rash of books by the ‘neo-atheists’.”

Hey, wait a minute, a “Christian” was “gratified” to see a whole new batch of books denouncing God by atheist writers like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris?  Why would he be glad about that? It seems like a lot of Christians are upset about these books.

Here’s Dembski’s explanation: “These books would be unnecessary if Christianity, and theism generally, were not again a live issue.”  In other words, Christianity is not dead—God is not irrelevant, even within the intellectual community—belief in God is a valid, potent, and important issue in our world. The fact that these atheist writers are spending their time and energy churning out books AGAINST God, in a sense, helps to further verify the vitality of God!

Ah, that’s an interesting way of looking at it, huh?

2 comments:

Mary said...

That makes sense though. If something isn't taken seriously, there's no reason to react to it. If it threatens your way of thinking - time to fight! And if the way Atheists are thinking is being threatened, I'd say that's a very good thing!

Dan Marler said...

I agree, Mary. I appreciated how Dembski viewed the matter from a different perspective than I expected and helped me consider that, as a Christian, their books are, in a way, a good indicator of God's relevance.