”The gospel should be mocked – from the first (page) to the last.”
Thank you, Arkenaten, for that great statement. Did you know that when Richard Dawkins used it – and others like it – he sparked a new generation of critically thinking, inquisitive and wise young people who were intrigued to know more? They wondered why he used it and so looked into the the Christian Gospel themselves, and as a result some became Christians. Did you also know that Richard Dawkins has played a big part in the renewal of Christianity and has done it a great service? His book, The God Delusion, spawned a host of new books from knowledgeable Christians around the world (even including David Robertson), causing Christendom to rethink its theology and ground it on the Bible rather than whimsy.
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up!
Ark.
A Tale Unfolds 
Yeah. Oh, yeah. That makes PERFECT sense.
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You can see all these apologists pissing in their pants after reading or hearing about The God Delusion and rushing off to put pen to paper and arrange lecture tours of the Deep South just in case anyone there actually read the bible and afterwards decided to study it.
”Oh, fark. We’ve been rumbled!”
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Of course, which is why 260,000 young people flee evangelical christinaity every year.
Have you read this?
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2018/01/24/white-evangelicals-people/?utm_campaign=coschedule&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=johnpavlovitz
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LOL….yet all data shows that secularity is increasing. I mean I don’t doubt that some people may have been converted to Christianity, but I doubt it’s so much because of the ideas of Christianity being better, but rather they think Dawkins seems like a mean person and Christians are such friendly nice people so they must be right. lol I would also say that in the balance Dawkins has drawn far more people away from Christianity. Or at least to ask some good questions about what’s going on. Anyway, I know you know this, but actually this is the second complainy post about Dawkins I’ve read this morning, so I felt like a little rant. lol
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When I was growing up the term Head Banging had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything associated with religion.
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Christianity in this modern age is simply another business pushing yet another line that’s merely a confidence trick.
As much as I’m all for a Free Market, I’m also for “claims made for benefits of products must be substantiated”. In NZ we have laws to some of that effect (our “Truth in Advertising” laws).
Myself? I don’t see any religion as much of a threat to my health, my life, my culture, my very way of living as Islam. Brrrrrrr …
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“causing Christendom to rethink its theology and ground it on the Bible rather than whimsy”
So is that a tacit admission that Christendom was grounded on whimsy rather than the Bible prior to the publication of Richard Dawkins book?
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Yes, this struck me as a bit odd as well.
I was going to raise the point but as I am moderated over there I decided against it.
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What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?
Actually there has been a huge number of Christian books published of late. I would very much like to see their sales numbers and to see if anyone can tell how many that were bought were actually read. I suspect that books that are preaching to the choir must be pretty dull if you are in the choir … unless of course you come up with something new (I wouldn’t hold your breath).
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Eminent Bible Scholar, former crack journalist and all round Jesus Sunbeam, Lee Strobel has lots of fans if the internet is anything to go by. I imagine those who have purchased his book, Case for Christ, have read all of it as there are not many big words, so I am led to believe.
😉
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Read both The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith while still a Christian. They were two books that were stepping stones on the path to leaving both Christ and the faith.
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Morning, Zoe.
I have never read either, but I have read extensive reviews of both.
Not impressed at all.
Strobel comes across as a charlatan – and I am being very polite.
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Those books were marked up religiously by me. Notes and underlining all over the place. Why? Well when I read through them the first time I literally said to myself, “That’s it? That’s your case?” This was the new guy on the block and so I thought, perhaps his way would win over some of the “youth” in my life. A note of reminder, we were in youth ministry. So over and over again I tried to make my own case for The Case for Lee Strobe’s Case for Apologetics.
During a stay in our home, the “unsaved skeptical” grandchild of a former world-wide evangelist, and a child of a former “fallen” pastor would get into conversations with me, his born-again evangelical host. One day I asked him to consider one of the chapters in one of those two books. The next morning he returned the book to me and asked me to consider another chapter in that same book. Touche I thought as I read the chapter he recommended and considered his own case against the apologetics. Pardon the expression (in this day in age), he trumped me.
As to the young one who sojourned with us for a short while. I never saw the fruits of my labour to see him “saved.” I did get word that he did find Jesus at one time. Something to do with a girl. Not uncommon I hear.
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No … people LOVE to have their ideas confirmed in print/literature. Every little bit of reinforcement gives them more warm fuzzies and the feeling of having made the right choice.
Think—
“Baby, it’s coooooold outside” …
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No one converts to christianity on the evidence or apologetics ‘answers’.
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Of course not.
As I say to people like Robertson and his ilk, the best people to ask are people such as you, Mike.
But they never will, because they are actually afraid of the truth.
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Apologetics keeps the doors locked from the inside.
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Same as Hell!
Who knew?
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Actually, hell locks from the outside with the loving God holding the keys to eternal unforgiveness
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Your minister writes a book on his brand of religion, and since he’s your minister you and all his faithful buy a copy. Put it on the shelf and probably never get past the first chapter. Or your favorite TV guy writes a book, and anyone who can afford the price tag (and the implied suggestion that Jesus will love you even more) buys the book, riffles the pages a few times, and puts it on the shelf alongside all the other unread books on religion, some of which are so weighed down with Holy you can barely lift them…
Publishing is not necessarily selling, selling is not necessarily reading. 20K published books on apologetics and probably 20K unread books, unread except by the few who have to read them because their professor (who wrote one) strongly suggests you should.
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And let’s remember the bestist one of the lot … the bible, which the majority of Christians have probably not read.
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Or as in my case, you find some old Christian books you didn’t know you still had in a dusty box, and then you review some for entertainment value.
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I have made truly noble efforts to read The Bible.
And the Koran,
And quite a few others … I admit I am a very poor hypnotic subject—perhaps that’s my problem?
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Ha. More like The God Delusion spawned a bunch of Christian apologetics into action to keep Christians from feeling uncomfortable and leaving.
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Evangelicals love to have a sense of mission, and foster the notion of being besieged and persecuted. There’s no doubt that Dawkins, and New Atheism in general, galvanized a generation of apologists. Darwin still has that effect on them, too: just witness the number of creationist/ID books that capitalize on his name in their titles — “Darwin’s-this” and “Darwin’s-that” — if only to try and refute him.
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@ Chris
To demonstrate true Evangelical Love you must watch (if you haven’t already) one of Dawkins’ videos where he reads some of the emails he regularly receives from these Sunbeams for Jesus.
These nutters are off the chart.
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