Dr Dvir Abramovich has a great article up blowing holes in the arguments of atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens. Well worth a read to see all of their complaints about religion answered and answered in such a away to show that these “straw Men” that keep being presented aren’t worth the paper they are written on.
Read the whole article to read the rest of the arguments against atheism.
Hitchens and Dawkins, who are the leaders of the New Atheism movement, have received the most media spotlight and are driving the growth of this industry. Hitchens presented recently at Sydney’s Festival of Dangerous Ideas and appeared on ABC TV’s Q & A program. And Dawkins will headline next year’s Atheist Convention in Melbourne.
These atheists are angry that religion has not gone away and is thriving in various parts of the world. After all, calling other peoples’ belief a delusion is not exactly respectful. Indeed, distinguished doctor and broadcaster Lord Winston found Dawkins’ attitude to religious faith patronising, insulting and counterproductive, noting that it “portrays science in a bad light”.
Hitchens and Dawkins build a straw man — they select the worst offences that have been done in the name of religion to prove that religion is a dangerous force and a kind of virus that infects the mind. At one point Hitchens writes, “Religious belief is not merely false but also actually harmful. But I think it is a mistake to condescend to those who claim ‘faith’.”
For Hitchens and co, religion does little good and secularism hardly any evil. Never mind that tyrants devoid of religion such as Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot perpetrated the worst atrocities in history. As H. Allen Orr, professor of biology at the University of Rochester, observed, the 20th century was an experiment in secularism that produced secular evil, responsible for the unprecedented murder of more than 100 million.
Dawkins is mute on the terrors unleashed by science and technology, used by genocidal regimes such as Hitler’s Germany, in a century that proved to be the worst tyranny mankind has ever seen. And what about weapons of mass destruction such as nuclear and biological bombs developed by scientists?
Does that mean that all atheists and scientists are evil? Of course not. The point is that fanatics can be found in both religion and atheism.
How can anyone argue that not a single human benefit has resulted from religious faith? There are millions who every day selflessly dedicate their lives to helping others all in the name of religious belief. The cruelty and viciousness of the past and the abuse of religion in the present cannot extinguish the solidarity and good-heartedness of people of faith.
True religious values are grounded in notions of community, charity, mercy and peace. All too often today we focus on individualism, greed and instant gratification.
Anyone wishing to discredit theology should at least know some. The God Delusion contains very little examination of Jewish theology and dismisses the finest minds of Western thinkers and theologians who have written on sublime theological questions as “infantile”.
Hitchens cites the Binding of Isaac and “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” injunction as brutish and stupid. Yet, scholars have interpreted the binding as ending child sacrifice and the injunction as a caution against excessive vengeance. Hitchens says that the God of Moses never refers to compassion and human friendship, overlooking “love your neighbour as yourself”.
For his part, Dawkins is clearly out of his depth when it comes to Jewish teachings and ethics. He claims, for instance, that “love thy neighbour” meant only “love another Jew”. He apparently is not aware that in the same chapter, Jews are commanded to love the stranger that lives in their land as they would themselves. When Jesus, himself a Jew, was asked “Who is my neighbour” he did not refer to other Jews, but to a Samaritan, considered at that time as heretical and unclean.