Yet for all the polemic and literary fireworks, all this remains a show to watch rather than a serious engagement with the truth. This is because of four fundamental failures.
First, these writers focus exclusively on the worst examples and excesses of religion. Daniel Dennett, for example, seems to have a bible-belt fundamentalist built into his mind with whom he is continually arguing. A good rule of intellectual debate is that you should try to face your opponent's strongest argument. Anybody can expose their weakest ones.
Nunca li Dennet, mas se ele o faz, é compreensível, afinal, são os
fundies que causam problemas. São eles que querem nos mandar de volta pra idade média.
Critics sometimes give the impression of being unwilling to face the best case for a religious view of the universe for fear of falling for its spell. I had a walk-on part in Richard Dawkins's recent film. We sat down together in a churchyard to agree on a number of issues, such as our joint opposition to creationism. After our conversation had been shown, Richard commented that the Bishop of Oxford had just betrayed both reason and faith. I had betrayed reason, he argued, just because I was religious and betrayed faith because I did not seek to apply Old Testament injunctions without qualification to modern society.
I don't try to apply Old Testament injunctions without qualification to modern society, nor has the Christian church ever done that. It is an absurd basis on which to dismiss faith.
Falou, falou e não desculpou sua hipocrisia, só a extendeu para a maior parte do cristianismo!
His comment highlights the second failure of the current brand of atheism: the accusation that I had betrayed reason just because I was religious. The idea that faith and reason are inherently opposed to one another is a mantra that is mind-boggling in its lack of historical perspective.
Desde quando os dogmas cristãos são racionais? A própria bíblia diz que são "loucura para os sábios"!
The fact is that all philosophers, ancient and modern, have believed that reasons can be adduced for and against a religious view of life. Most of them have, in fact, believed in God but all have thought religious belief a matter of rational argument.
Teísmo não é a mesma coisa que religião organizada. Não lembro de muitos filósofos das idades moderna e contemporânea tentando justificar todas as porcarias do cristianismo.
Certainly, the existence of God cannot be proved along the lines of two plus two equals four. Nor, in principle, could that kind of proof adduce what a believer actually believes, for, by definition, God is that reality whose existence makes a total difference to the believer's life, changing their whole perspective on everything in a way that pure logic by itself cannot do.
E daí? Devemos acreditar em qualquer coisa que nos faça sentir melhor? Talvez, mas eu não consigo.
However, religious belief is a matter of considered judgment.
All this points to the third misconception by current apologists for atheism - their simplistic notion that a scientific approach to life somehow rules out a religious approach. This is plainly false, as the percentage of trained scientists who believe in God is about the same as for the population as a whole. During my time as Bishop of Oxford, there have always been a number of people with science PhDs offering themselves for ordination. Historians of science note how rapidly the general Christian public in Britain accepted the theory of evolution in the 1870s. They quickly came to see that God works through secondary causes over a long period of time. Or, as one modern thinker put it: 'God doesn't just make the world; he does something much more wonderful. He makes the world make itself.'
Metafísica não compete a ciência, são esferas diferentes. Entretanto, a possível influência desse plano no nosso, é desnecessária, caindo pela navalha de Ockham(ou pelo menos pelo o que esse nome passou a designar). É claro que nada disso impede uma pessoa de acreditar em qualquer bizarrice metafísica.
The reason is simple. Dawkins argues that evolution inevitably implies atheism. That's what we believe, say the creationists in effect, therefore evolution shouldn't be taught in schools or, if it is, only with creationism taught as well. Creationism and atheistic fundamentalism prop one another up. Each would collapse without the other. Evolution as promulgated by Dawkins carries with it heavy overtones of atheism. It deliberately smuggles in a range of anti-religious jibes into scientific text books. I have seen an A-level science revision book which contains a scarcely concealed sense of glee that evolution disproves religion.
Não sei se Dawkins disse isso mesmo. Mesmo que ele tenha, eesse argumento contra o ensino da evolução é um lixo, já que ateísmo não é religião.
The fourth weakness of present-day atheistic writing is that it simply fails to reckon with the appeal of a religious view of life to millions of people round the world today. In order to critique religion properly, you need to understand it and, in order to understand it, you need to be able to feel something of its strength, even if you believe it is based upon totally false assumptions.
O apelo da religão vem do fato de que a maior parte das
pessoas que ter certezas as quais se agarrar, quer se sentir protegida, entre outras coisas. O que exatamente esse cara quer? Que os ateus levem em conta que podem estar ferindo os sentimentos dos crédulos toda vez que escreverem um artigo? Faça-me um favor...
This Easter, as usual, the Christian church will proclaim its central theme that, in Jesus, God shares our human anguish to the full and, through the resurrection, gives us hope that in the end all evil, including death, will be left behind. This God calls us to let the divine purpose of compassion work in and through us, to do what Jewish tradition calls repairing the world. It is the most sublime story of God ever told, the most deeply moving account of what it is for God to be God. No one doubts that there are real difficulties in believing it, but for atheism to ring true, it must at least betray the occasional sigh of pity that it's not true.
Proselitismo barato. Ah, e inversão do ônus da prova.