>Allow me the indulgence of quoting myself: "I frown upon the production of
>ill-considered, poorly-reasoned crap, which is what nearly all New Atheist
>(pseudo-)philosophy seems to be on those occasions when it deviates from
>announcement of the obvious, as a general rule."
most of us here, do. the question was, what specifically is the problem.
why would you think Parentia, a leftist with a ream of books and articles to his name, would write ill-considered, poorly reasoned crap? And I still don't understand what in that book review gave you the impression that Parenti wrote poorly reasoned crap. The part you quoted seemed reasonable to me:
"Assessing the Bible in the light of literal interpretation as advocated by fundamentalist Christians, rather than inspiration Parenti finds a deeply troubling narrative ..."
and then you wrote: This sounds even stupider than Dawkins, and considerably more so than Hitchens, which is real "giant douche vs. turd sandwich" territory.
But the sentence came out of a larger paragraph:
Parenti launches his account with that bedrock of old-time religion, the Bible, examining it for what moral lessons it has to impart. Assessing the Bible in the light of literal interpretation as advocated by fundamentalist Christians, rather than inspiration Parenti finds a deeply troubling narrative. There have been many excellent analyses of the absurdities and twisted morality of the Old Testament, but this is among the best. Parenti's romp through the Old Testament is highly entertaining, sharply observed, and simultaneously hilarious and disturbing (in that so many point to it as a source of moral authority). Parenti writes:
"The god of the Holy Bible - so much adored in the United States and elsewhere - is ferociously vindictive, neurotically jealous, intolerant, vainglorious, punitive, wrathful, sexist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic, sadistic and homicidal. As they say, it's all in the Bible. Beware of those who act in the name of such a god. Were we to encounter these vicious traits in an ordinary man, we would judge him to be in need of lifelong incarceration at a maximum-security facility. At the very least, we would not prattle on about how he works his wonders in mysterious ways."
In light of that larger context, what makes what Parenti's doing a turd sandwich or giant douche?
shag
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