Hi Jade,
I would agree with what Chesteron said and I also saw no evidence of character attacks on the part of Lord Winston. I thought that Lord Winston brought up quite a few good points in his outline.
But I'll and address a few of the points brought up by Professor Daniel Dennett:
Professor Daniel Dennett said:
It is high time we inverted the public attitude about religion as well, finding all socially destructive acts of religious passion shameful, not honourable, and holding those who abet them - the preachers and other apologists for religious zeal - as culpable as the bartenders and negligent hosts who usher dangerous drivers on to the highways. Our motto should be: Friends don't let friends steer their lives by religion.
And just what "socially destructive acts" is he referring to? Preachers sharing the Gospel message and apologists who defend the faith? If someone wants to listen and feels convinced and wants to believe then it is their right. I won't want to infringe on someone's freewill and religious liberties. I mean, it isn't as though they are evil guys and gals who are willingly lying or intentionally spreading mistruth.
I guess it goes without saying that his "argument" though flawed works both ways. Firstly, it already presupposes that God doesn't exist - reverse the assumption and it would be the atheists who are doing "socially destructive acts" (i.e. spreading falsehood, if I understood the implication properly). Secondly, if God does exist and Jesus is the risen Lord (which the evidence seems to strongly suggest - see Lee Strobel's book
The Case For Christ or Josh McDowell's
Evidence That Demands A Verdict for example), then wouldn't it be a Christians responsibility out of love to want to share that message with people they meet? To know what the consequences of someone's sinful lifestyle are and not warn people would be the equivalent of "negligent hosts who usher dangerous drivers on to the highways."
Professor Daniel Dennett said:
We're living in the 21st century, and in "liberated" Afghanistan (not Taliban Afghanistan) blasphemy is still a capital crime.
We're talking about a completely different culture in almost everyway. Though liberated, what gives us the right to tell them what is and what is not right? Also, do you consider being executed for smuggling drugs into some Asian country "just"? What about the corruption in those same countries and the lack of the legal process and presumptions that one enjoys in the West? I don't have such arrogant presumptions that my views are correct and that other people's views are stupid, illogical, and wrong and so have them conform to mine as the atheist in the article seems to have: that anything contrary to his beliefs are crazy and irrational.
That is one of the reasons why US involvement in the Vietnam war was halted: the public questioned the morality of the fight. In previous wars it was obvious why they were fought - good versus evil. But here we saw that right and wrong were largely dependant on the person's political views. Similarly, from their point of view, we are the ones who are too stupid to realise the truth and wrong. If God did indeed write the Koran and He has a personhood (that is, the elements we generally ascribe to people like personality), then it stands to reason that He, like us, has things that pleases Him and things that make Him angry. So if you believe the Koran is true then you'll want to do those things that God says pleases Him, and avoid doing things that angers Him. Ditto for other religions like Judaism and Christianity. That is the rational thing to do. Would it not be irrational that if God exists to shun His existence and rebel with your fist in the air?
Professor Daniel Dennett said:
And - this is the worst of it - religious faith can give people a sort of hyperbolic confidence, an utter unconcern about whether they might be making a mistake, that enables acts of inhumanity that would otherwise be unthinkable.
As was previously alluded to by Stinker, history to be blunt simply doesn't back this up. Consider the major nut-jobs (e.g. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot), wars, and genocides in the last century alone, including the Holocaust, Rwanda, among many others. Not one, not one of these was caused by religion.
Even in Northern Ireland back in the day, it wasn't a religious fight, but one about politics and land (about England's control, for example). It is much easier to convince people to fight or support the fight when you manipulate people into believing that what they believe, that who they are, is being threatened. We see this occurring even today with bin Laden and company, but people who are not religious have also employed this tactic throughout history (e.g. Hitler). Of course, "religious" people can do bad things in what they believe to be right and that is indeed sad. But rather than religion being the problem, the real cause of evil in this world is sin. We are fallen people and as a result will do bad things. Case in point, we always find it easier to do the wrong thing than the right - why do you think this is?
The author may also consider the many ways in which religion has made the world a better place - in any natural disaster, aid, and other related things it is the religious organisations and people who are at the forefront of the response. A few noteable examples are The Salvation Army and Mercy Ships, and Compassion. The majority of providers of social services are, in the West anyway, Christian run who serve people regardless of their religion.
Also, just so someone says it, are not atheists equally assured about their view that God does not exist even where the evidence seems contradictory to their assertions, or to use his phrase "a hyperbolic confidence, an utter unconcern about whether they may be making a mistake."
Professor Daniel Dennett said:
This imperviousness to reason is, I think, the property that we should most fear in religion.
Once again, irrationality being defined as anything contrary to this author's point-of-view...
Right... and his statement clearly explains why there are so many Christian scientists, great apologists, and so on. In fact, many of the fathers and pioneers of the various science branches were themselves committed Christians (such as Boyle, Newton, Faraday, Babbage, Joule, Lord Kelvin, Wright brothers, among others) who believing that God made everything in six days believed that by discovering more about the world they could learn more about Him.
One example that really amplifies a major flaw in the atheist's reasoning is that the universe is an orderly and logical. Should we expect order and logic to come from chaos? No. It is much more reasonable to argue, like Johannes Kepler did, that since the universe was designed by an intelligent Creator, it should function according to some logical pattern. Where others gave up because they believed the former, Kepler's faith led him to a way of thinking which eventually enabled him to solve the riddle of planetary motion.
Far from preventing the advancement of science, Christians have and are often at the forefront of research. Christianity through great thinkers and apologists (like Lewis, J. P. Moreland, W. L. Craig, and others) have upheld the Bible against anything that sceptics have thrown at it by answering and dismantling their arguments.
Kind regards.
