Well the classical rebuttals to the traditional arguments for the existence of God, were presented long ago by David Hume and Immanuel Kant.
(For Hume see his "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion" http://www.anselm.edu/homepage/dbanach/dnr.htm For Kant, go read his "Critique of Pure Reason" http://books.google.com/books?id=7bRychF0y0EC&printsec=frontcover&dq=kant+critique+of+pure+reason&source=bl&ots=w2bhFssHu7&sig=jDPG2xCrkC9pQFWgr94Y0KO9tmM&hl=en&ei=UAayS_ncFMGBlAfIvqWYBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAkQ6AEwAA)
IMO it would be hard for anyone, whether New Atheist or not, to improve upon Hume and Kant. The only reason to even bother, is that two centuries later, people still insist upon repackaging the same old arguments as if they were adding something new to them.
Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
---------- Original Message ---------- From: Joseph Catron <jncatron at gmail.com> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] M. Parenti joins the New Atheists? Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 23:31:59 -0400
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 7:35 PM, shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com>wrote:
Still, I have no clear idea what Joe Catron's problem with New Atheism is,
> so as far as I can tell, on Catron's criteria, Parenti may still be a NA.
>
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."
Here are a couple of articles I've run across in the last 24 hours addressing just how misinformed this bunch is:
http://thegovmonitor.com/world_news/united_states/america-religion-and-the-new-atheist-writers-26911.html http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2010/03/24/the-moral-equivalent-of-the-parallel-postulate
My Facebook has reams of stuff along the same lines.
Based upon what you've written so far, Parenti doesn't seem to fit the NA moniker, although Elich certainly didn't do him any favors when selecting themes and quotes from his book to emphasize in the review.
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað." ___________________________________
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