Tag Archives: atheism

Explàrrogance and the Modified Toddler Theory

The next thing on my to-do list is to read four books in this order: (1) Your God is Too Small by J.B. Phillips, (2) The God Delusion by R. Dawkins, (3) What’s So Great About Christianity by D. D’Souza, and (4) God is Not Great by C. Hitchens. I have already listened to the debate between D’Souza and C. Hitchens and would like to see more of the nitty gritty details of the sides in order to get a better picture of the current state of popular religious affairs.

However, I have read much on the Internet about the Atheist books, and, of course, I already have an opinion on the overall subject. I just wonder if my opinion will change after I read the books. I hope you will join me along the way. Let me know if I make sense or not.

The first opinions I have are about Militant Atheist Richard Dawkins et al (hereinafter Dawkins). I have made up two terms to help me in my understanding of his and his minion’s position. The terms are explàrrogance and the Modified Toddler Theory.

First, it seems that in explaining why something exists or came to exist at a superficial, or materialistic level, he puts on arrogance that is inexplicable. That is, in his explanations of scientific causalities, he is very haughty in the confidence upon which he puts his scientific conclusions as if they were sufficient in explaining the causes. He has much explàrrogance.

Second, for one to gain the most understanding of the world, one must continue to ask how. This is the Modified Toddler Theory. Since Dawkins does not continue to ask how, but instead stops his search at superficial materialistic explanations, he doesn’t have complete explanations of anything.

To say something exists because of its evolutionary journey does not ultimately explain how it exists. Just as a toddler asks, “why, why, why” to get the best answer, a scientist must ask, “how, how, how”. Eventually, we won’t know how something came to be; we just say it is. This leads us to God who just is. However, science may not venture to the end of the how’s since this inquiry is out of the empirical domain.

Dawkins tries to say that the only required and sufficient explanations come via science. However, not even science has all the answers. It would need to rely on data outside the empirical domain of inquiry, which is not in its nature (see above post). Only in Dawkins’ explàrrogance and inaction within the Modified Toddler Theory (he doesn’t continue to ask how) can he confidently say that science killed God with his shallow explanations.

Why are Atheists Militant?

My wife’s cousin visited us today. I was telling her about my new blog and that I was hoping to have people challenge my positions and beliefs.

We got on the topic of Militant Atheists led by Dawkins and Chris Hitchens. I told her that I listened to the Hitchens-D’Souza debate (and others) and thought Dinesh D’Souza did the best of any of the other Christian debaters against any of the Atheists (including against Dawkins).

I said that one of the reasons the other debaters did so poorly was that Hitchens asked a plethora of questions that required more than a bumper sticker reply and that there was not enough time in the debate to answer all of them sufficiently. D’Souza took Hitchens overall points and hammered them (I’m not getting into the details; that’s for another post on this blog).

My wife’s cousin said that she heard of the Hitchens-D’Souza debate and the Militant Atheists. She wondered why the Militant Atheists want to convince everyone that they’re right. She thought that most people don’t try to change any one else’s belief.

I said that I didn’t know why Atheists in general would want to convince others that they were right: what would be the point since nothing really matters (including the other people besides themselves)? However, I said that I respect other people’s beliefs, or faith because no one can prove their position with 100% certainty: we all need faith since our basis for belief is found outside our empirical domain. In other words, say for Christians, they can’t know with 100% certainty, without a doubt that Christ was raised from the dead. For some Atheists (they all have different beliefs), they can’t know with 100% certainty that anything was not created by God and that everything either evolved or just is (like rocks, planets, and the stars). We all need faith and we should all respect each other’s faith. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk to others about our faith, but we shouldn’t ram it down their throats (i.e., evangelization versus proselytization).

I also said that I went on Dawkins’ extensive official website and noticed that most of the commenters were of an Atheists persuasion. In general, most sites have people of the same beliefs on them. Further, the Atheists consistently put down Christians, Theists/Deists, et al. I would love to see people of other views get a point-counterpoint going. (I will get there soon. Any other Christian/Theist/Deist want to join me at Dawkins’ site?)

I would love if people visiting Wondering Zygote Emeritus (this blog) could get a point-counterpoint going about anything on this blog so that we can learn about each other.

Don’t Pray For Peter

Here’s an interesting exchange between Peter (aka Theomorph) and a commenter about the efficacy of intercessory prayer.

“I still think that so long as anyone believes in the same God who made an appearance in the book of Job, the idea of prayer getting a person what he or she wants is theologically unsound. If I may paraphrase in the vernacular, God basically told Job, ‘Don’t f*** with me; I do what I want and you can’t stop me.'”