Christless Christianity

“All the dogma and the death and resurrection of Jesus stuff was not the attraction.”
- Bart Campolo

And that's the problem.

In an interview with Jonathan Merritt, Bart Campolo, son of Tony Campolo, explains his coming out as an atheist.

It is a sad story. But Campolo's admitted ambivalence about doctrine goes a long way in explaining his current state. In his own words it was not the doctrines or truth claims of the Bible that drew him to Christianity but the struggle for justice. While justice, being an attribute of God, ought to be prized by Christians, the gospel is the matter of first importance. And according to Bart it is not the gospel which drew him to Christianity but the appeal of changing the world. However, Christianity is not a showcase for our good works. It is not a platform from which to pursue justice. Christianity is something in which to believe. Supremely it is believing upon Jesus by whose death and resurrection we are saved.

Campolo proves the words of the Apostle Paul that if not for the resurrection then our faith is in vain.

As an aside, Mr. Merritt's final sentence in the article is practically incomprehensible.

Would Christopher Hitchens rid the world of theists?

Where does good come from?

Take time to check out the debate between Christian philosopher William Lane Craig and atheist Sam Harris. The debate is centered on whether or not an atheist has a reasonable foundation for morality.

One is almost embarrassed for Sam Harris. Dr. Craig dismantles him. Harris provides no support for his contention that morality makes sense in a universe without God. All he can do is attack Christianity. It is the same error that Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins make. It's just that Dawkins and Hitchens sound more eloquent.

On not allowing "a divine foot in the door"

Harvard’s Richard Lowentin quoted in the Jan. 9, 1997, New York Review of Books:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to ful"ll many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a prior adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

Questions science cannot answer...

What is moral? What is good? What gives value to life? What makes any life valuable?

I could go on but those are questions that science is hopeless to answer. Don't misunderstand. I am profoundly grateful for competent scientists. Every time I turn on a light or feel the cool air of an air conditioner or have a dentist give me Novocaine before he pulls a tooth I am thankful for scientists. I am giddy about antibiotics, the internal combustion engine, and red dye for red velvet cake.

But anyone who believes that life's most important questions can be answered via the scientific method is delusional.

That brings us to Sam Harris one of the young turks of the new atheism. Harris is famous for his book Letter to a Christian Nation. In that book Harris posits the incredibly brave idea that the real problem in America are those crazy Christians. In his latest book, Harris is attempting something that is not so much ambitious as it is asinine. The title of the book says it: The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values.

Now, if Harris was attempting to establish that science can be helpful in understanding human values then he would find little or no argument. But notice the grandiosity of his program - "How Science Can Determine Human Values."

Over at Evangel, Tom Gilson reflects on Harris' latest effort:

I’m waiting for a chance to read Sam Harris’s new book, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values. I like Harris’s thoughtfulness, his recognition of moral realities, and his stand against religiously motivated violence. That doesn’t mean his attempts to create a scientifically-based moral system make sense, however. He told Jon Stewart last week,

I think the biggest challenge we’re facing is finding some way to create a global civilization based on shared values. We have to converge on the same kind of economic and political and social goals and so forth. We have to begin giving similar answers to the most important questions in human life; and the only way forward to do that I see is to begin to talk about morality and human values very much in the context of our growing scientific understanding of ourselves in the world….

To take a scientific perspective on moral questions can often be crucial. Consider global warming and carbon usage: if there is a link between carbon release and potential serious climate change, then carbon usage has moral implications. Our knowledge of that linkage and its potential moral repercussions depends on what we can learn through good, objective, hard science. Science really does inform moral decision-making.

But Harris wants it to do much more than that: not just to inform moral valuations, but to ground them, to function as their sole basis. In he stands nearly alone, for most thoughtful observers doubt science has the capacity to deliver right, true, and trustworthy answers to questions of morality and value. At least he recognizes how lonely his position is:

We have a problem. The only people on the planet at this moment who think that there are truly right answers to moral questions are religious demagogues who think the universe is 6,000 years old. Everyone else seems to think that there’s something suspect about the concept of moral truth.

Never mind his egregious distortion of religious belief there, which is too obvious to waste time or attention on. It would be fascinating to read the book and see how he justifies his idiosyncratic stance on science’s ability to ground morality. I seriously doubt he succeeds in that justification. There is, after all, a reason most people don’t think science can deliver us moral truth: it can’t. Not unless Harris has come up with something utterly earthshaking in the history of philosophical reflection. It won’t be this:

Morality and value clearly relates to human and animal well-being, and our well-being emerges out of the laws of nature; it depends on the way the universe is…. all of these domains fall within the purview of science.

Well-being? Define “well-being” on the basis of science, Mr. Harris? What constitutes the good life? Is that in your book? Are there scientific journal articles or conference proceedings to back it up? Science can, in some limited cases, describe how best to achieve life x as opposed to life y. If you assume life x maximizes well-being and life y accomplishes something less, then you might fool yourself into thinking science can show how to maximize well-being.

My guess is that when I read the book, I’ll find that life x‘s superiority will be taken as an implicit assumption throughout. I’m quite certain there will be no peer-reviewed, field- or laboratory-based agreement as to the value of life x; nor will there be consensus in other relevant fields of inquiry such as philosophy. (Harris claims that science is his only authority, but he’s practicing philosophy when he says that.)

Read the entire post HERE.

Not friends after all?

Jerry Coyne of the University of Chicago, a scientist and former believer has finally settled the debate between science and Christianity. It seems that the two cannot be friends after all. Of course Dr. Coyne's presupposition is that religious faith is hopelessly nonsensical. His religious fervor is devoted to his preferred worldview which has no space for a God to whom he must give account. This is nothing new of course. Richard Dawkins sees the same incompatibility. But in light of the folks at Biologos wanting to give away the store in order to please the high priests of scientism I found Coyne's words instructive.

As a scientist and a former believer, I see this as bunk. Science and faith are fundamentally incompatible, and for precisely the same reason that irrationality and rationality are incompatible. They are different forms of inquiry, with only one, science, equipped to find real truth. And while they may have a dialogue, it’s not a constructive one. Science helps religion only by disproving its claims, while religion has nothing to add to science.

You see, it is not so much that Coyne and his ilk reject the biblical creation account but that they reject the first four words of the Bible. Under the tutelage of Biologos we can give away Genesis 1-11, most of the Old Testament, and even key parts of the New Testament and scientific opinion-makers still will not be satisfied. They will not allow us into their club until we reject "in the beginning God".

Al Mohler weighs in HERE.

Does the Universe Need God?

In his newest book, The Grand Design, Stephen Hawking finally clears up all the confusion over the existence of God. Well, actually his program is not quite so grand. Hawking concludes that the universe simply does not need God. But what Hawking proves in The Grand Design is that some scientists make poor philosophers. Richard Dawkins proved this embarrassingly so in The God Delusion.

Frank Tipler of Tulane University suggests that Hawking has actually proven the existence of God.

In 1966, Stephen Hawking published his first — completely valid — proof for the existence of God. Over the next seven years, he followed this with even more powerful valid theorems proving God’s existence.

So how did Hawking, who successfully proved God’s existence, remain an atheist? Simple. He simply denied that the assumptions he used in his proofs were true. As a matter of logic, if the assumptions in a proof are not true, then the conclusions need not be true. What assumptions did the young Hawking make? He assumed that the laws of physics, mainly Einstein’s theory of gravity, were true. In the summary of his early research, namely his book The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Hawking wrote:

It seems to be a good principle that the prediction of [God] by a physical theory indicates that the theory has broken down, i.e. it no longer provides a correct description of observations.

Hawking then began working on quantum gravity, in hopes that God would be at last eliminated from the equations. Alas, it was not to be: God was even more prominent — and unavoidable — in quantum gravity than in Einstein’s theory of gravity. In his latest book, The Grand Design, Hawking has pinned his hope of eliminating God on M-theory, a theory with no experimental support whatsoever, hence not a theory of physics at all. Nor has it been proven that M-theory is mathematically consistent. Nor has it been proven that God has been eliminated from M-theory. There are disquieting signs (for Hawking and company) that He is also unavoidable in M-theory, as He is in Einstein’s gravity, and in quantum gravity.

In spite of what the atheist press is telling you, it’s looking bad for atheism today. And it is extraordinary the lengths an atheist like Hawking will go to avoid the obvious: God exists.

The alert reader will have noticed that in the above quote, Hawking did not actually use the word “God.” But this is what he really meant. To see this, let us recall just what the word “God” means.

Consider the opening words of the (original) Nicene Creed: “We believe in one God, the omnipotent Father, Maker of all things visible and invisible.” These words give the basic definition of “God” used by Christians and Jews: God is the Cause of everything, but He Himself has no cause. God is the Uncaused First Cause. In his Second Way, Thomas Aquinas proves the existence of the Uncaused First (efficient)Cause, and Aquinas concludes, “to which all give the name ‘God’ (quam omnes Deum nominant).”

So now let us return to the theorems of the young Hawking. By following the history of the universe back into time — in other words, by following the causes of the current universe back into time — Hawking proved that all of these causes had a common cause; a common cause that did not itself have a cause. This common cause was an Uncaused Cause that was beyond the control of the laws of physics, beyond the control of any possible laws of physics. Rather, the entire universe began at this Uncaused First Cause.

In exactly the same way that Aquinas used the word “create,” we can say that the Uncaused First Cause, whose existence was proven decades ago by Hawking, “created” the universe.

Hawking called this Uncaused First Cause a “singularity.”

But given the properties of this “singularity,” it is God. So I have replaced the word “singularity,” which Hawking actually used in the above quote, with what it really means according to Aquinas.

Read the rest HERE.

The disastrous worldview of scientism...

In the past, Stephen Hawking has been rather ambiguous about his thoughts regarding the existence of God. However, in his newest book The Grand Design, Hawking states explicitly that there is simply no need for God in the universe. That is, there is nothing in the universe that requires the mind or hand of a Maker. Quite honestly, I have a difficult time distinguishing Hawking's view from that of Biologos. But that is another story.

Of Hawking's worldview and new book, Al Mohler writes:

The major thrusts of The Grand Design are the magnificence of the universe and the glory of theoretical physics. Hawking is committed to what he calls “M-Theory,” a “super-string theory” that encompasses a host of theories and predictions about the nature of matter and time. Most importantly, this theory allows Hawking and Mlodinow to advance Hawking’s theory that space and time have no boundary. If such a boundary did exist, Hawking allows that God might be a necessary or allowable theory of how all this began. But, if there is no boundary, there is no reason for God at all — the universe is self-explanatory...

Stephen Hawking’s worldview is based in positivistic scientism. He really believes that science holds all the answers. “Philosophy is dead,” he asserts in this newest book. Why? “Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics.”

In his 1980 inaugural address, given as he was installed as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, Hawking proposed that the great project of theoretical physics might be concluded by the end of the twentieth century. “By this I mean that we might have a complete, consistent, and unified theory of the physical interactions which would describe all possible observations.”

That statement speaks profoundly to Professor Hawking’s intellectual ambition — to explain the universe and all of its “possible observations.” That is nothing less than titanic in scale of ambition. Indeed, it is the quintessential audacity of a brilliant secular mind.

Professor Stephen Hawking is a remarkable human being. His courage and tenacity are an inspiration to all. His work on the theory of gravity has changed the way the field of physics is taught. But, when he crosses that border from science to theology, his worldview leads him into abject disaster. The Grand Design is yet another attempt to celebrate the universe’s breathtaking design, while denying the existence of a Designer. It will not be the last.

Read Mohler's entire article HERE.

Update:

James Anderson has a helpful post on Hawking's new book HERE.

What your doctor believes about God may matter more than you think...

As it turns out believers and atheists have different ideas about the dignity of human life. Of course, this should not be any surprise. Apart from a biblical worldview, what reason is there, other than sentiment, to invest human life with any dignity?

An article in the Daily Mail comments on a study published in the Journal of Medical Ethics which found that doctors who do not believe in God are twice as likely to kill their patients, er, help them die.

Atheist doctors are almost twice as likely to take decisions that speed up death for very ill patients as those who are deeply religious, research has found.

Those with a strong faith are also less willing to discuss treatments that hasten the end, according to a poll of nearly 4,000 British doctors. Medics from a wide range of specialities were asked about their religious views, their care for their last patient who died and any decisions they had taken that were expected, or partly intended to, end life.

The findings, published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, showed that doctors who described themselves as non-religious were more likely than any other group to have given continuous deep sedation until death, having made a decision that they knew could or would end life. Those who described themselves as ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ non-religious were almost twice as likely to have taken these kinds of decisions as those with a strong religious belief.

Where rejection of biblical orthodoxy ultimately leads

Michael Dowd is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and a graduate of Palmer Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is also enthusiastic about the rise of the new atheists. A self-proclaimed "evangelist" for evolution, Rev. Dowd's words seem eerily similar to some of the postings at Biologos about God, evolution, and inerrancy. I point this out because many of Dowd's views would, at this point anyway, be rejected (I suppose) by some of the scholars who post at Biologos. My question is "why?" Once the criteria for whether or not I will accept what the Bible says is my own moral sensibilities or what happens to be "intellectually satisfying" to me then everything in the Bible is up for grabs.

One of Dowd's recent comments was indistinguishable for some recent comments from an Old Testament scholar at Biologos. Dowd rejects God as He is revealed in the Bible as "brutal, cruel, vindictive, and genocidal." It seems inevitable. Let a man reject the full trustworthiness of the Bible as God's Word and he will then make a god in his own image; a god that will be satisfying to his intellectually autonomous self.

Al Mohler has written an article commenting on some of Dowd's recent pronouncements.

Michael Dowd argues that Christians should thank God for the New Atheists. A self-styled “evangelist” for evolution, Dowd recently preached a sermon in Oklahoma City in which he called for nothing less than a rejection of biblical Christianity and the embrace of a spirituality rooted in an embrace of evolution and a rejection of the supernatural.

A few weeks ago, a reporter called me for comment after Dowd had made a similar argument on his Web site, “ThankGodforEvolution.com.” In more recent days, Dowd has responded directly to my comments. Without doubt, his argument deserves a closer look.

In his 2007 book, Thank God for Evolution, Dowd recounts that he, along with his wife, Connie Barlow, decided in 2002 to go on the road as “evolutionary evangelists.” As he explains, “We offer a view of our collective evolutionary journey that frees the imagination, touches the heart, and leaves people wanting more.” An ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and a graduate of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary (now Palmer Theological Seminary), Dowd now finds his passion in spreading his message of “the epic of evolution” or “the Great Story.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Atheists Don't Have No Songs

Nothing CAN exist

From Gene Veith:

Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory are reporting that they have discovered a new clue that could help unravel one of the biggest mysteries of cosmology: why the universe is composed of matter and not its evil-twin opposite, antimatter. If confirmed, the finding portends fundamental discoveries at the new Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva, as well as a possible explanation for our own existence.

In a mathematically perfect universe, we would be less than dead; we would never have existed. According to the basic precepts of Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been created in the Big Bang and then immediately annihilated each other in a blaze of lethal energy, leaving a big fat goose egg with which to make to make stars, galaxies and us. And yet we exist, and physicists (among others) would dearly like to know why...
- via From Fermilab, a New Clue to Explain Human Existence? – NYTimes.com.

So it isn’t just that science can’t explain the fine-tuning that makes life on earth possible. Nor is it that science can’t explain why anything exists. According to its own theories, nothing CAN exist.

The particle accelerators are making progress, I suppose, finding that matter beats out anti-matter 1% of the time. But even that means that the standard theory of physics is incorrect. And a better theory and better evidence still leaves a long ways to go to account for ordinary existence, its structures and its forms, much less life, and much less human life.

Read the entire piece HERE.

Peter Hitchens - The Rage Against God

"Preachers Who Do Not Believe"

Al Mohler comments on a fascinating, if not disheartening new study released by Tufts University. The name of the study is entitled "Preachers Who Do Not Believe." The title is self-explanatory. One of the authors of the study is the well known atheist Daniel Dennett. I do not believe that Dr. Dennett is a disinterested or impartial observer of the data. He is among the new school of aggressive atheists who believe religious faith is not only specious but potentially dangerous. That said, the study ought to concern those of us who love God and His church.

Dennett and LaScola undertook their project with the goal of looking for unbelieving pastors and ministers who continue to serve their churches in "secret disbelief." Their "small and self-selected" sample of ministers represents a microcosm of the theological collapse at the heart of many churches and denominations.

In their report, Dennett and LaScola present case studies of five unbelieving ministers, three from liberal denominations ("the liberals") and two from conservative denominations ("the literals").

Ironically, Dennett the atheist has a better grasp of the nature of theological liberalism than do many professing evangelicals.

Interestingly, Dennett also proposes a new interpretation of theological liberalism. Noting that many modern people claim to be Christians while holding to virtually no specific theological content, Dennett suggests that their mode of faith should not be described as "belief," but rather as "believing in belief."

Another portion of Mohler's post struck me as especially important for the church. It is a reminder that clear definitions and boundaries in all things doctrinal are vital.

Early in their report, Dennett and LaScola point to a problem of definition. Many churches and denominations have adopted such fluid and doctrineless identities that determining who is a believer and who is an unbeliever has become difficult. Their statement deserves a close reading:

The ambiguity about who is a believer and who is an unbeliever follows inexorably from the pluralism that has been assiduously fostered by many religious leaders for a century and more: God is many different things to different people, and since we can't know if one of these conceptions is the right one, we should honor them all. This counsel of tolerance creates a gentle fog that shrouds the question of belief in God in so much indeterminacy that if asked whether they believed in God, many people could sincerely say that they don't know what they are being asked.

In other words, some theologians and denominations have embraced a theology so fluid and indeterminate that even an atheist cannot tell the believers and unbelievers apart.

"Preachers Who Are Not Believers" is a stunning and revealing report that lays bare a level of heresy, apostasy, and hypocrisy that staggers the mind. In 1739, Gilbert Tennett preached his famous sermon, "On the Danger of an Unconverted Ministry." In that sermon, Tennett described unbelieving pastors as a curse upon the church. They prey upon the faith and the faithful. "These caterpillars labor to devour every green thing."

I would add that these "caterpillars" are not found only in the church. They can be found in many seminaries and so-called Christian colleges and universities. I know what it is to sit with students and graduates of Christian universities who no longer believe because a Bible professor convinced them that they could not rely on the accuracy of the Scriptures. I was told once by a now unbelieving young graduate, "Todd, if I cannot believe what the Bible says in the Old Testament then how can I believe what it says about Jesus?" Indeed.

Read Mohler's entire article HERE.

Has Science Buried God?

Dr. John Lennox (Professor of Mathmatics at the University of Oxford) delivered the following lectures at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Lennox has publically debated both Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. He is also the author of the excellent God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?

The New Atheism and Morality, Part 1 from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

The New Atheism and Morality, Part 2 from Southeastern Seminary on Vimeo.

Who Made God?

Tim Challies has given an enthusiastic recommendation to Who Made God? by scholar Edgar Andrews.

Why should the Devil get all the good scientists? It sometimes seems that way, doesn’t it? We hear of scientists like Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins and others who are acclaimed as being at the top of their field and almost inevitably it seems that they are atheists or otherwise committed to explaining the world in terms of Darwinian evolution. Occasionally we find a great dissenting mind, but then we discover that that person is committed to beliefs that seem opposed to the plain account of Scripture. So we have Francis Collins who writes The Language of God but who in the book says that, though God exists, life and creation can be explained in terms of natural laws and processes that do not depend on the Divine hand of God. It is both tiresome and frustrating.

But here at last comes Edgar Andrews whose list of academic credentials include more letters than all the names in my family: BSc, PhD, DSc, FInstP, FIMMM, CEng, CPhys (which, according to a site I consulted, is together an anagram for disbenching tscpf fpsps chym- cmd ‘m). No, I don’t know what any of those degrees mean, but they sure sound impressive. He is Emeritus Professor of Materials at the University of London and an international expert on the science of large molecules (not small ones, mind you, only the large ones). His credentials include things that sound like they must set him apart; things such as this: In September 1972 he was one of four specially invited speakers at the dedication symposium of the Michigan Molecular Institute, two of the others being Nobel Laureates Paul Flory and Melvin Calvin.

Put it all together and you find that Andrews is one smart dude. He’s smarter than you and me and the rest of us put together. And in his new book Who Made God? he launches a full front assault on the new atheists. He does this not through a point-by-point refutation of their books, but by an insightful look at science and the existence of God. An excellent writer who mixes a subtle British sense of humor with a powerful intellect and a deep understanding of science, he very quickly picks apart the arguments we have for so long been hearing from the likes of Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking and even Francis Collins. Yet he still crafts a book that is readable and, best of all, understandable. Even the chapter dealing with string theory is comprehensible—no small feat for a smart guy writing about what lies at the very frontier of science.

Read the entire review HERE.

Lessons from an Atheist

Christopher Hitchens has some very interesting things to say about conservative Christians based upon his experiences debating Douglas Wilson.

I haven't yet run into an argument that has made me want to change my mind. After all, a believing religious person, however brilliant or however good in debate, is compelled to stick fairly closely to a "script" that is known in advance, and known to me, too. However, I have discovered that the so-called Christian right is much less monolithic, and very much more polite and hospitable, than I would once have thought, or than most liberals believe.

AND

Wilson isn't one of those evasive Christians who mumble apologetically about how some of the Bible stories are really just "metaphors." He is willing to maintain very staunchly that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and that his sacrifice redeems our state of sin, which in turn is the outcome of our rebellion against God. He doesn't waffle when asked why God allows so much evil and suffering—of course he "allows" it since it is the inescapable state of rebellious sinners. I much prefer this sincerity to the vague and Python-esque witterings of the interfaith and ecumenical groups who barely respect their own traditions and who look upon faith as just another word for community organizing.

HT: Church Matters

Delicious Candy and the Existence of God

From a recent Colbert Report featuring an interview with famed atheist Richard Dawkins:

Dawkins: “You asked me for the evidence for evolution, where’s the evidence for God?”

Colbert: “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.”

HT: USA Today online

Evolution is God's Pink Slip

So says the world's most lovable atheist Richard Dawkins.

From Al Mohler:

The Wall Street Journal may be an unusual venue for theological debate, but this past weekend's edition featured just that -- a theological debate of sorts. The "of sorts" is a necessary qualifier in this instance, because The Wall Street Journal's debate was not, as advertised, a debate between an atheist and a believer. Instead, it was a debate between two different species of atheists.

The paper's "Weekend Journal" section front page for the September 12-13, 2009 edition featured articles by Richard Dawkins and Karen Armstrong set in opposing columns. The paper headlined the feature as "Man vs. God: Two Prominent Thinkers Debate Evolution, Science, and the Role of Religion." Well, the feature at least looked interesting.

Dawkins, after all, is probably the world's most famous atheist. At the same time (and not coincidentally, he would insist) he is also the world's foremost defender of Darwin and evolutionary theory. Karen Armstrong is a popularizer of works on world religion. She takes a basically benign view of religion, arguing that the different religions of the world are avenues toward the same quest for meaning. A former nun, she has written several books on themes and figures related to Islam, and she is a critic of what she terms "fundamentalist" religion. She is a critic of "fundamentalism" on whom the media can depend for comment.

The paper presented the articles by Dawkins and Armstrong in an interesting format. The article by Dawkins is headlined, "Evolution Leaves God with Nothing to Do." Armstrong's essay is headlined, "We Need to Grasp the Wonder of Our Existence."

Predictably, Dawkins begins his article with Charles Darwin and the theory of evolution. Evolution, Dawkins claims, has simply displaced God. "Evolution is the universe's greatest work. Evolution is the creator of life, and life is arguably the most surprising and most beautiful production that the laws of physics have ever generated," he asserts. Quoting a T-shirt, Dawkins insists that evolution "is the greatest show on earth, the only game in town." As for God, evolution just renders deity a useless and vacuous concept. "Where does that leave God?," Dawkins asks. "The kindest thing to say is that it leaves him with nothing to do, and no achievements that might attract our praise, our worship or our fear."

Evolution, he continues (presumably less kindly), "is God's redundancy notice, his pink slip." God, who never existed in the first place, has now been fired.

Read the entire post HERE.

Terry Eagleton on the New Atheists

“Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.”

- Terry Eagleton on "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins

Check out this article on Eagleton from "The New Humanist."