Atheism-lite

[jack_ryder]

Questions of belief and tolerance of other's belief systems have been obsessing me lately (ferkster and I are working on a play about it right now.) I was interested in this article by Dylan Evans which posited a kind of halfway position where atheists could appreciate some aspects of religious belief without accepting the literal truth of, say, the Bible.

Salman Rushdie has written a very good rebuttal of Evan's position.

My favourite line:

Intelligent design, an idea designed backward so as to force the antique idea of a Creator upon the beauty of creation, is so thoroughly rooted in pseudoscience, so full of false logic, so easy to attack that a little rudeness seems called for.

Comments

[jack-ryder.livejournal.com]

That's pretty much the crux of the issue, isn't it. Religion refuses to play fair because... well, it doesn't have to, it believes it's right. End of discussion. I think Rushdie nailed that well. And I think that's the current problem with the left's battle with the NeoRight - we refuse to stoop to using their tactics, so we're bulldozed as a result.