A few words on Christopher Hitchens

Jesus Christ! Christopher Hitchens is a tough read. Yes it’s true that “god is not great.” It’s also true that “religion does poison everything”. I think it’s safe to say that everyone in this room would wave that banner proudly. I do stick to my belief that Hitchens is a tough read. So what are my options to deal with this problem? I guess I could have contacted Christopher Hitchens and ask him to write a “Dummy’s Guide to Freethinking” … Read on…

Atheist to Baptist: We Need To Talk.

aronson1.jpg

Editor’s Introduction:  The Eloquent Atheist has decided to publish comments by Ronald Aronson, (who was interviewed by co-editor Marilyn Westfall about a month ago), which were made in response to a critique of “The New Atheists” by Baptist Center for Ethics Executive Director Robert Parham.  In his critique of the New Atheism, Parham labeled atheists in general as “God despisers” and the “faithless” who pluck sympathy from “the liberal media, a significant slice of the hedonistic entertainment culture and angry … Read on…

Humanism and Religion

…or How to Thread a Needle For centuries, the idea of God has been the very heart of religion; it has been said, no god, no religion’ — but humanism thinks of religion as something very different, and far deeper than any belief in god. To humanism, religion is not the attempt to establish right relations with a supernatural being, but rather the up-reaching and aspiring impulse in a human life. It is life striving for its completest fulfillment, and … Read on…

The “New Atheists”: Are They Saying Anything New?

From a presentation made by Marilyn Westfall at the Theatre of the Upper Arlington Library, Columbus, OH August 4, 2007. When I originally was asked to speak on this topic-“The New Atheists, Are They Saying Anything New?”-my memory went back to the time when I was a Catholic, which was at least nominally until about age 19. I recall how I wouldn’t dare to ask any priest or nun, “Are you saying anything new?” Such a question, if I were … Read on…

Flew’s God

Editor’s note: The subject of this essay, Anthony Flew, is an 84-year old retired philosopher, living in Reading, England. He famously argued against C.S. Lewis’ Christian apologetics and later declared in The Presumption of Atheism that without evidence for God, atheism is the appropriate stance. He has lately indicated, however, that he is more inclined toward deism, and has even endorsed a petition for the teaching of Intelligent Design in the British science curriculum. On November 4, 2007, Flew was … Read on…

From Atheism to Ethics

Perhaps the greatest obstacle faced by atheism to becoming popular, or to becoming even palatable, is that most people associate it with amorality, even immorality.  That is because ethics and religion are so closely linked in people’s minds, despite the fact that there really is no reason to believe that religious people are more ethical than atheists. (Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great gives some compelling reasons in support of this idea.)   Why is atheism linked to the alleged … Read on…

One Cheer for Faith

The change winds* are blowing, are blowing – do you feel them? They are bringing to us a new zeitgeist. Suddenly, atheism is almost mainstream.  Look: Militant atheist authors on best-seller lists and talk shows: Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins. Atheist comedians on major network media: Julia Sweeney, George Carlin. Popular atheist TV characters: Lisa Simpson, Dr. Perry Cox on Scrubs. Even atheist politicians: the late California Assemblyman B.T. Collins, Rep. Pete Stark. And now, amazingly, atheist comic book … Read on…

An Interview with Jim Haught

James A. Haught was born in 1932 in a small West Virginia farm town that had no electricity or paved streets.  He graduated from a rural high school that had 13 students in the senior class.  He came to Charleston, worked as a delivery boy, then became a teen-age apprentice printer at the Charleston Daily Mail in 1951.  Developing a yen to be a reporter, he volunteered to work without pay in the Daily Mail newsroom on his days off, … Read on…