Conquer Club

Back when I was atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christopher Hitchens and Co. Really persuaded me. It was when I started seeing all the holes in their arguments that I could take Christianity seriously as a body of thought.

Somebody else made the jump:
https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/

DoomYoshi wrote:Back when I was atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christopher Hitchens and Co. Really persuaded me. It was when I started seeing all the holes in their arguments that I could take Christianity seriously as a body of thought.

Somebody else made the jump:
https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/

The article is quite good. Here is for me a key excerpt from it:

To me, this freedom of conscience and speech is perhaps the greatest benefit of Western civilisation. It does not come naturally to man. It is the product of centuries of debate within Jewish and Christian communities. It was these debates that advanced science and reason, diminished cruelty, suppressed superstitions, and built institutions to order and protect life, while guaranteeing freedom to as many people as possible. Unlike Islam, Christianity outgrew its dogmatic stage. It became increasingly clear that Christ’s teaching implied not only a circumscribed role for religion as something separate from politics. It also implied compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.

DoomYoshi wrote:Back when I was atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christopher Hitchens and Co. Really persuaded me. It was when I started seeing all the holes in their arguments that I could take Christianity seriously as a body of thought.

Somebody else made the jump:
https://unherd.com/2023/11/why-i-am-now-a-christian/

Her argument is nonsensical.

Basically, she's saying that the retreat of Christianity left a power vacuum that more evil religions like Islam have exploited. But the difference in evil between Islam and Christianity is only a difference of degree, not of kind. Either way, they want humans to abandon reason and surrender their fate to imaginary ghosts. What difference does it make if you grovel before Jehovah or Allah? Either way, you're still giving up your moral power to make decisions in your life based on reason.

She claims we can't defend western civilization without invoking Christianity, but as you can see, I'm quite capable of defending western civilization without falling back on a deity to summon.

jusplay4fun wrote:The article is quite good. Here is for me a key excerpt from it:

To me, this freedom of conscience and speech is perhaps the greatest benefit of Western civilisation. It does not come naturally to man. It is the product of centuries of debate within Jewish and Christian communities. It was these debates that advanced science and reason, diminished cruelty, suppressed superstitions, and built institutions to order and protect life, while guaranteeing freedom to as many people as possible. Unlike Islam, Christianity outgrew its dogmatic stage. It became increasingly clear that Christ’s teaching implied not only a circumscribed role for religion as something separate from politics. It also implied compassion for the sinner and humility for the believer.

Except that isn't true. The debates among Christian and Jewish scholars may have included some seeds of reason. I won't deny that. There were thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and later Descartes who laid out some basic rational thoughts despite being devout Christians.

True defense of the freedom of conscience didn't come about until the Enlightenment, with thinkers like David Hume who were atheists in all but name, and of course Voltaire and John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, who abandoned even the pretense of religion.

What brand do you smoke now?

Why don't switch to the cig with more flavor and less tar?

Btw, do you enhale deeply (actually believe the stuff) or just let the smoke sit in your mouth (play along for the temporal power and social control)?