'Why God Won't Go Away' by Alister McGrath

In this talk recorded at LICC on 23 November 2011, Alister McGrath discusses New Atheism and the Christian response to its challenges.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• God
• christianity
• jesus
• christian
• alister
• mcgrath
• dawkins

[liccmedia]

Glad you enjoyed it empreme! We hope to start putting up a lot more videos like this!

[leconfidant]

@Psychonaut1992 Jesus fuck, you're right. 40% literalism! And yes, that would explain their policy on the middle east and everything, because if anything is given to anger and jealousy like the Old Testament God, it would be American foreign policy. I mean if it helps the odds, in Britain it must be lower. That and only 5% of catholics go to church besides christmas, weddings and funerals. So reported and actual position may not be the same. But, wow, that is head-spinning.

[leconfidant]

@Psychonaut1992 I think we really have to get some numbers in of how many people actually believe texts literally. I'd say (1st world,) about 5% max. Scientific critiques of the bible are like scientific critiques of Snow White or jazz or romance. It just misses the whole point.

Moral crits are more relevant, and atheism is great for that, but there's too much 'extreme example = all religion' hype. It's deeply unconvincing to those of us who live normal lives and harm nobody.

[leconfidant]

@Psychonaut1992 Hitchens has been criticised by other academics (atheists included) for his rather selective reading of the history of religion. I keep running up against those whose ONLY reading of religious history comes from the four horsemen taking potshots at it and it's just embarrassingly bad. Dawkins makes no mention of the abuses of evolutionary science to political ends by the Nazis or the American right. Harris I haven't read only watched. He IS a logical positivist.

[leconfidant]

@Psychonaut1992 Oh the hard-liners, yes, totally. And they are pretty mad. But not the majority. The broad attack I see from new atheism, (I'm surprised to see anyone disputing it,) is that what they read isn't factually true. It really is logical positivism. They would rather science was the measure of all and they assess religion scientifically. We see secular spirituality in art and so on, given.

[leconfidant]

Love it. High time we started seeing some intelligent responses from religion.Until now, the only voices I've heard were Mary Midgely, Karen Armstrong and Courtney Raian, (mostly women) and John Lennox. It's high time the philosophy and the history of science were brought into the debate. It's not an ignorance of the nature of religion which is vexing me. It's an ignorance of science.

[leconfidant]

@Psychonaut1992 previous to the 1700s, no religion thought of faith as belief in facts. The meaning of it was more like 'I believe in rock'n'roll' or 'I believe in truth and justice'. That largely remains so. The only people who think of a religious text as a list of facts or scientific hypotheses are creationist christians and new atheists. the rest of us are looking for values and teleology. Choosing values is essential, whatever your lifestyle and science doesn't help there.

[leconfidant]

@Psychonaut1992 I think there is a very general ignorance among many of the new atheists and evolution enthusiasts about the philosophy of science and the history of science in addition to their open disinterest in the history and philosophy of religion, excepting what they read from other atheists. The economic and political drivers behind what is called science are unknown to them. Too many think an understanding of hypothesis testing finishes the whole field of religion.

[gergister]

Float and contraversive. Strong tongue and total certainty - real fate man (pls it's sarcasm), but it was only his pov.

I guess he is no different than those believing the world ends this year.. Those are just too shortsighted and their joke ends son, where he think he's smart panties.. Maybe science revealed how small and insignifficant we all are and his ego turned him into jerk with public.

[empreme]

Great Lecture! It was so nice to be able to see the speaker's power point slides for once! :)