Tópico: Sobre criticar-se espantalhos das religiões, ou não

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Disagreeing with Wilkins

Category: Godlessness
Posted on: April 9, 2007 9:28 AM, by PZ Myers


Wilkins is not happy that I jumped down Pagels' throat for a stupid comment in an interview. He thinks I ought to take Pagels more seriously (as did some of the commenters here), and, unfortunately, also goes on to mischaracterize the uppity atheist arguments, like so:

This is what I reject about the Dawkins/Moran/PZ aggressive atheism - it takes the most stupid version of religion, argues against it, and then claims to have given reasons for not being religious. At best (and here I concur) they have given reasons not to be stupid theists. But a good argument takes on the best of the opposing view, not the worst.

Alas, as is common for criticisms of this kind, the "best" of the religious views are mentioned as a mythic monolith on a far-off mountaintop, rather than actually stated, making them rather difficult to take on. I think it's because whenever anyone tries to state them, there's usually a lot of hemming and hawing and admissions that they don't actually believe in these arguments, they're just trying to be fair and state that there are good arguments out there. It's basically a bait-and-switch: They say, "I may believe X, but here's Y; you can't refute Y!" Then we pound on Y for a while, and they say, "Why are you wasting my time with arguments against Y? I believe in X!" So you pummel X for a bit, and they announce, "I may believe X, but here's Z; you can't refute Z!" And so it goes, endlessly. This is the theme I argued in an essay on Edge.

[...]

[Luis Dantas]

Fine point.  What is the source, BB?  It looks like one can find some worthwhile postings in there.

[Adriano]

É uma reação normal dos teístas, mas eles são muito mais agressivos com os ateus, é um fato. O que dizem de quem não acredita em deus é vergonhoso para eles próprios.

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Fine point.  What is the source, BB?  It looks like one can find some worthwhile postings in there.

O último "[...]" tem um link para um post no blog Pharyngula. No post também ainda tem um link para um texto do mesmo autor no edge.org, mencionado no final.