Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ruse explains why the "New Atheists are a bloody disaster"

For many of you, the name of Michael Ruse means nothing. For for some of you, in particular those who keep up with the controversies pertaining to the Creation/Intelligent design/Evolution issue, the name is quite familiar. But for those of you who don't know too much of Ruse, it would be an understatement to say that he is no friend to Creation or Intelligent Design. However, it was very interesting to see Ruse disagreeing with the so-called "New Atheists." One such line really struck me:

"Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing. As I have said elsewhere, for the first time in my life, I felt sorry for the ontological argument. If we criticized gene theory with as little knowledge as Dawkins has of religion and philosophy, he would be rightly indignant. (He was just this when, thirty years ago, Mary Midgeley went after the selfish gene concept without the slightest knowledge of genetics.) Conversely, I am indignant at the poor quality of the argumentation in Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, and all of the others in that group."


I couldn't agree more. After reading The God Delusion (Review coming soon!), I found the manner in which Dawkins dealt with the various theistic proofs to be extremely poor and at best, elementary. And anyone who has actually read works by respected philosophers, theologians and scientists who advocate the theistic position should have the same sentiments towards Dawkins.

At any rate, if you are interested in any of these issues, I think you'll enjoy Ruse's piece.

(ht: Hip and Thigh)
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