Anglican Samizdat

Christopher Hitchens donated his body to medical research as part, one presumes, of a striving after a materialist’s immortality:

In accordance with his wishes, Christopher Hitchens’ body was donated to medical research following his death less than two weeks ago; many of his followers have applauded his decision.

If Christians are right, of course, in addition to his pickled body, the real essence of Hitchens is not gone either because it is immortal and endures post mortem.

I can’t help noticing that the number of articles about Hitchens is on the wane and obviously we will hear nothing more from him. His star burned brightly when it was among us, but it is rapidly fading and I suspect he will be remembered, if at all, as a cantankerous gossip columnist for the effete anti-theist as much as anything else.

As the preacher said, “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

From here:

Ricky Gervais has become a target for Christian outraged by his views on religion.

The unapologetic atheist is being targeted on Twitter by a host of believers who have taken offence at his view.

The Office creator, 50, has often spoken of his lack of faith, but his appearance on the cover of New Humanist magazine in a Jesus Christ-style pose has pushed a few over the edge.

For the shot, he uses a microphone stand for his cross, dons a crown of thorns and has the word ‘atheist’ daubed across his chest in blood red.

Like most atheists, Ricky Gervais is arrogant, egocentric, not as rational as he would like us to think and not particularly original or outrageous. If he were, he would have dressed up as Mohammed eating a pork chop swilled down with Johnny Walker.

It would be better for Christians to ignore the little twerp than be offended by him.

From here:

A national atheist foundation plans to seek permission to hoist its own banner to join secular and religious Christmas displays on an East Texas courthouse square.

The display surrounding the Henderson County Courthouse in Athens includes a traditional Nativity scene, as well as multiple Santa Clauses, elves, wreathes, garland, trumpeters, dwarfs, snowmen, reindeer and Christmas trees, the Athens Daily Review reported.

[…]

However, county officials received a letter Monday from the Madison, Wis.-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which argued the seasonal display on courthouse grounds amounts to an unconstitutional endorsement of the Christian faith.

In Elmwood City, Pa., the foundation has proposed hoisting a banner that reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, LET REASON PREVAIL. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”

It is clear that atheists hate Christmas – the real Christmas – and are prepared to go to considerable lengths to try to make everyone hate it as much as they do. What is less clear is why, after strenuous efforts to make their case, they couldn’t come up with a statement of their position that at least makes sense.

If in your first sentence you trumpet that reason is to prevail, why, in your third, would you make a statement that is unprovable by reason – i.e. “There is only our natural world”?

Perhaps atheists are so smug in the certainty of their assumptions, that they have become incapable of examining them.

From here:

Atheists are almost universally perceived as untrustworthy, and only rapists rate as low, a new study has found.

“Where there are religious majorities — that is, in most of the world — atheists are among the least trusted people,” said lead author Will Gervais, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of British Columbia. “With more than half a billion atheists worldwide, this prejudice has the potential to affect a substantial number of people.”

The study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, combines information collected from six different surveys.

This should not come as a surprise.

After all, if atheists are correct and there is no God, then trustworthiness is merely a genetic accident which would generally be overridden by the callous self-interest that inevitably results from natural selection – and who better to indulge callous self-interest than those who wholeheartedly embrace this view.

If atheists are not correct and there is a God, why trust a group of people who base their entire lives and behaviour on a monumental error of judgement?

Because he is dying, Christopher Hitchens doesn’t make many public appearances these days, but he did manage to attend the 2011 Texas Freethought Convention to receive the Freethinker of the Year Award.

His tenacity to hang on a little longer is overshadowed only by his determination to continue to reject God: by the benighted insights of his overweening ego, to reject God is to embrace freedom.

The closer Hitchens comes to death the more determined he seems to be to revile God’s greatest revelation of himself in Jesus Christ – an act both profoundly foolish and, from my perspective, terrifying.

I’ll miss him; God have mercy on him in spite of his monumental arrogance.

From the Android Market:

Finally, the wit, passion and intellect of the author of “The God Delusion,” “The Greatest Show on Earth,” is available right at your fingertips.

With the Richard Dawkins App you’ll have access to the latest news, audio, tweets and even HD video all within one app.

Never before has there been a Richard Dawkins app, and this is will be one you’ll surely love.

This is the application I have been waiting for: since I have an Android tablet, I will be able to take Dawkins with me wherever I go. I’m so excited. I think I’ll have to break out in song:

What a friend we have in Dawkins,
All our doubts with him to share.
What a privilege to carry
Disbelief to Dawk in prayer.

There, that feels better.

The debate that Richard Dawkins was afraid to have.

William Lane Craig refutes the arguments Richard Dawkins made in the God Delusion.

Richard Dawkins has stated as one of his reasons for refusing to debate William Lane Craig that Craig is a “Christian ‘philosopher’ [who] is an apologist for genocide”.

He then goes on to quote Craig’s understanding of the Biblical passage on the destruction of the Canaanites – and labels Craig as “ an apologist for genocide”. In doing this, Dawkins is debating Craig, without giving Craig the opportunity to respond.

Two can play at that game, of course. So here is Richard Dawkins smiling cheerily at the idea of cannibalism:

And here he is advocating infanticide:

But would he eat the murdered babies? Can we look forward to another article in the Guardian where he might enlighten us further on his culinary experiments?

Perhaps Craig would be doing Dawkins a favour by being willing to share a platform with an apologist for infanticide and cannibalism.

And he does it with insults and petulance:

This Christian ‘philosopher’ is an apologist for genocide. I would rather leave an empty chair than share a platform with him.

Don’t feel embarrassed if you’ve never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either. Perhaps he is a “theologian”. For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: “That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine”.

Craig’s latest stalking foray has taken the form of a string of increasingly hectoring challenges to confront him in Oxford this October. I took pleasure in refusing again, which threw him and his followers into a frenzy of blogging, tweeting and YouTubed accusations of cowardice.

A few points:

Craig isn’t the person trying to cajole Dawkins into a debate, it’s the debate organisers and many of Dawkins’ atheist friends who want it.

Dr Daniel Came, a philosophy lecturer and fellow atheist, from Worcester College, Oxford, has not only heard of Craig, but has written to Dawkins suggesting that, since he has debated the intellectual heavyweight,  Pastor Ted Haggard, perhaps he should take on the “foremost apologist for Christian theism”, William Lane Craig.

Dawkins’ own link to the Wikipedia article on Craig describes him as an “American analytic philosopher, philosophical theologian, and Christian apologist. He is known for his work on the philosophy of time and the philosophy of religion”. Funnily enough, it omits to mention that Craig is someone who parades himself as a philosopher.

Calling Craig “an apologist for genocide” is damning evidence that while Dawkins is happy to use insults against Craig, he is less confident in using reason.

Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris both debated Craig and were routed. That points to the real reason why Dawkins won’t debate Craig: cowardice.

Not unlike AA, there is now an organisation whose purpose is to support clergy addicted to unbelief. It is called The Clergy Project. It boasts a hundred members who:

use it to network and discuss what it’s like being an unbelieving leader in a religious community. The Clergy Project’s goal is to support members as they move beyond faith. Members freely discuss issues related to their transition from believer to unbeliever including:

• Wrestling with intellectual, ethical, philosophical and theological issues
• Coping with cognitive dissonance
• Addressing feelings of being stuck and fearing the future
• Looking for new careers
• Telling their families
• Sharing useful resources
• Living as a nonbeliever with religious spouses and family
• Using humor to soften the pain
• Finding a way out of the ministry
• Adjusting to life after the ministry

The organisation is sponsored by Richard Dawkins who devoutly encourages apostates who have, as he says, seen the light to join in a koinonia of disbelief with other faithless victims trapped in pulpits of pretend piety.

I’d love to get a list of the names of members to see if they include an Ingham, Hiltz or Bird.