The chapter analyzes the practice of cherry-picking in fields like religion, focusing on Christianity. It examines the distinction between the psychological comfort of faith and the factual claims of religion, questioning the expectations placed on atheism to provide meaning in life. The conversation delves into the debate on whether atheism, like faith, should offer something valuable and explores the coexistence of reason and faith in understanding the universe.
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The scientist poster-boy for atheism and an ex-Muslim, ex-atheist Christian have a conversation (not a debate) about worldviews (not God).
One of our long-time listeners asked for our opinion on a ”debate” between Richard Dawkins and Ayaan Hirsi Ali: the conversation between the two of them raised many questions and points that resonated deeply with our listener. We brought in another long-time listener, Doug Traversa, one who has been on the podcast many times in the past (you can find his life story in Episode #124), and dissected this conversation.
Everyone knows Richard; however, not all listeners will know Ayaan. Briefly, she is a Somali refugee who fled to the Netherlands to escape a toxic radical Islamist world wedded to jihadist terrorism. She eventually renounced Islam and became a vocal and scathing critic of Islam and a vocal and persuasive proponent of atheism: some even labelled her the latest addition to “the four horsemen of the Atheist Apocalypse” (Richard Dawkins; Sam Harris; Christopher Hitchens; Daniel Dennett). But then she rocked the world with her announcement less than a year ago that she had since converted to Christianity.
This, then, was the rationale behind bringing Ayaan and Richard together to have a “God Debate.” Despite this headline billing, it was not a debate, nor was it specifically about God. Instead, it was a conversation, and it focused on worldviews (not God). We found it best to frame our dissection as a moral landscape with four different corners, each representing a different worldview:
(1) Christianity Richard and Ayaan dueled over two or three different expressions of Christianity. Ayaan was accused of being a “political Christian,” while Richard admitted to being a “cultural Christian” and both of them referenced “moral Christianity.” We talked about Christians cherry-picking or rejecting various specific tenets (e.g, Virgin Birth; miracles; eternal conscious torment in hell). Christianity is NOT monolithic, and “cherry-picking” is in part behind Christianity dividing for two thousand years into so many denominations. The constant friction between “liberal” Christians and Fundamentalists. Christianity is used as a tool against Islam, or to influence American politics (to be Republican is to be Evangelical). We frequently make Jesus or God in our own image.
(2) Atheism For a while, Ayaan was an avowed atheist, but eventually found Christianity to be more meaningful. Richard: “faith offers you comfort and purpose, but that doesn’t make it true.” Ayaan: “the hypothesis that God can’t be proved or disproved.” Richard: “atheists can also have peace, comfort, morality, purpose.”
(3) Islam The two argued over whether Christianity and Islam have the same holy books and the same God. Richard said Christianity is now finally growing out of that phase and it’s about time that Islamists did too. Ayaan replied that Christianity offers too much good and we reject it at our peril. [bodyguards story?] Islam is also not a monolithic entity: we need to distinguish main-stream Islamism from radical Islamism. Shariah law is as endemic to Islam as the Mosaic laws about slavery and treatment of women are to Christianity.
(4) the moral vacuum being filled by radical Islam and Woke-ism Ayaan is alarmed at this toxic mixture taking over university/college campuses across North America. There is deep irony in these two different worldviews with diametrically opposite goals and values finding value in becoming comrades-in-arms: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”?
We’d like to hear what you, the listener, thought about this conversation between Richard and Ayaan, and/or on our own dissection of it. Leave a comment on our Facebook page (if you’re a member) or the WordPress web-site.
If you want to follow up on some of the theological points we talked about near the beginning of this episode, you may enjoy our previous episodes about Atonement Theory (the traditional view, versus a more contemporary view), or about Jesus as Jewish Messiah or as the Cosmic Christ.
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