Atheist Delusions: Working title David Bentley Hart’s Atheist Delusions is a labyrinthine, convoluted historical essay. Hart has carefully crafted his argument for God while simultaneously discrediting those who oppose his well-founded argument. He proves his point by offering history, facts, and reason onto why and how Christianity has been such an influence on the society of past, present and future. His method of delivery is complex yet genuine. He destroys the delusional atheists’ arguments with a grandiose compilation of philosophy, theory, and logic; he stands up for God. This essay is Hart’s way of decoding and explaining the ideas of the Christian revolution. Those ideas ranging from the thoughtfulness of Christianity to the mistaken …show more content…
allegations. Hart begins his essay with a strong and succinct attack on the “New Atheist”. He proves the insignificance of each modern theory and moves to the next in a shrew fashion. Followed by this deliberative fashion of obliterating said theories is the dismantling of the negative accusations associated with the Christian revolution by these “New Atheist”. Hart dives into an uncompromisingly forthright case for the history behind Christianity and Constantine’s impactful conversion. He then touches on the cold hard facts of the Christian revolution also implementing the early years of the church, finishing with the modern decline of Christianity. These pieces all coincide with one another to form the steady flow of Hart’s essay. His delicate style of writing steadily builds up from chapter to chapter in a rhythmic and organized fashion. Hart carefully crafts his reasoning into four parts. These four parts add onto each other part to part, chapter to chapter informing and educating us on the importance of Christianity. Throughout the entirety of the essay he is questioning the negativity and structure of the modern-day Atheist’s arguments against God and their wish to abolish Christianity. Something these Atheist’s do not understand is that a world without Christian values is a bad, broken, and dysfunctional world. “I cannot help but wonder, then, what remains behind when Christianity’s power over culture recedes?” (215) Hart makes a solid point with this short yet complex statement. What will happen? Our culture revolves around the core principles of Christianity so vigorously that a world without it would be unfathomable. Hart mentions charity and caring for the poor; without Christian values the poor would have no help. They would not have entire foundations dedicated to assisting them in every way possible. Without Christian values equality would not be reachable. Without Christian values service would be overlooked. Understanding a world without Christianity is that similar to understanding the difference between bad and good. “God is good, therefor everything God creates good.” -Marshall. Carl Rogers, an impactful humanistic psychologist living in the 20th century, believed that humans are inherently good- the only reason humans stray from good is because their goodness is clouded by evil factors, these evil factors being the temptation of the devil. As stated above a world without Christianity is a broken world. Christianity is good, humans are good, humans need Christianity. This is Hart’s argument. When it comes to terminology delusions is the word that comes to mind. Delusional arguments of Atheist are shut down statement after statement by Hart and his vast knowledge of the shallowness of their arguments. He points out flaws in their reasoning causing their proclamations to be seen as they should- worthless and shortsighted. Furthermore, Hart religiously supports his argument by first calling out the person who is making the delusional accusations against God. Followed by an in-depth reasoning onto why their accusations are delusional. Finished with an explanation of why he is in the right. A perfect example of this would be pages 56-58 where Hart dismantles an argument put on by Charles Freeman. “Once upon a time, Freeman’s tale unfolds, there was a late Roman Hellenistic culture that cherished the power of reason and pursued science and high philosophy… such studies lay dormant, until Co-pernicus (1473-1543) published his De revolutionibus orbium coelestium and they began again to move forward.” (56-57) Freeman tells a tale of Romanian culture that flourished under reason and science until Constantine’s conversion to Christianity. Supposedly after his conversion Western culture took a turn for the worst and steadily declined as the Islamic world developed under Greek science and medicine. Hart responds in three sections onto why this is just ridiculous. “First, the suggestion that astronomy studently ceased in the Western world in the fifth century, or that it was not pursued by Christians, is simply absurd. Second, there could scarcely be an odder candidate for the role of hero of Hellenistic science than Proclus, a doctrine Platonist who mocked the Pythagoreans of old for imagining the earth could move…but for this tradition, his thought would have had no theoretical basis.” (57-58) Hart absolutely destroys Freeman’s argument with nothing other than cold, hard facts. Freeman’s statements did have some truth to them but an unclear vague truth. He simply grazed over the back story of his claims causing them to become irrelevant. This is somewhat comparable to today’s social media outlets. Sources are quick to report the story that they’ve discovered without doing any background information, leaving a bold over dramatic announcement that is misleading to its receivers. Freeman also skips over the positive importance of Constantine’s conversion and masks it as a setback for the Roman Empire when, in reality, it was a step forward. The conversion was in sync with the annunciation of The Edict of Milan which stopped religious persecution. Religious persecution is an awful repressive idea and it was stopped not because of science and high philosophy, but because of Christianity. The goodness of Christianity is abundant in Hart’s historical essay.
As stated above Christianity is good and humans are inherently good due to the huge impact of Christianity. This impact being the devotion, principles of kindness, and advocacy of the Church. Christians are religiously standing up for those who can’t stand for themselves. We Christians clothe the naked and feed the poor without a second guess due to the kind nature that we have been taught through the values presented and practiced by our leaders. We do not demonize other’s choices but embrace their mistakes and learn to coincide with them. This is not solely the modern-day Christian, this has been going on for quite some time now. Pages 79-80 reference witchcraft and the burning of witches during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. “Nevertheless, it was the Catholic Church, of all the institutions of the time, that come to treat accusations of witchcraft with the most pronounced incredulity.” (80) The Catholic Church did believe “a rising tide of Satanism” but the were not quick to accuse. Institutions were eager to rid the world of Satanism and witches but to quick to judge. Christianity says that we should not judge people but their actions and that is exactly what the Christians did with these so-called witches- they didn’t immediately judge the person, they judged their actions. Another prime example of the goodness of Christianity is the willingness to help others in a time of need. A specific …show more content…
time of need that comes to mind is the time of the Bubonic Plague.
The Bubonic plague swept across Europe and Asia claiming over twenty-five million lives. This was a time of doubt for the Catholic Church. Many believed that they were being punished for their sins but could not figure out exactly what they have done. There was widespread hesitation to still trust the Church after the Church could no longer produce a reason onto why the people were suffering from this awful horrendous disease. Throughout all the doubt the Church still stood strong in their values. Priest volunteered to care for the ill and offer hope and support, risking their lives to do what Christian values tell them to do. Many priests did die after the exposure, but the Christian community still pursued on to help the sick. Where was everybody else during this horrid massacre put on by the Bubonic Plague? Well they were busy with themselves. They banished people that showed signs of the Plague in order to keep their community safe. After banishment, they offered no support to the people that they banished leaving them helpless and sick. This is where the true Christians came in the help. They came to help because it was in their nature to care for the needy. Almost in disregard for their own lives, Priest were devoting themselves to the sick in order to help, because Christianity is
good. Christianity is not all good as it seems above. Christianity has killed. Politics have also killed. When both ideas are practiced correctly, no one is killed. Hart isn’t simply stating that Christians are these pure satisfactory beings. But he is implying that the idea of Christianity is pure and satisfactory. The goodness of Christianity can be wrapped up in this one statement by Hart. “A world from which the gospel had been banished would surely be one in which millions more of our fellows would go unfed, unnursed, unsheltered, and uneducated.” (15) The Crusades are referenced as wars of religion. This is honestly an ignorant and simpleminded statement. The genesis of the first Crusade was a justifiable defense of the Byzantine empire when Alexius I Comnenus requested aid from the west to help push back the invading Seljuk Turks that have been applying relentless pressure during the late eleventh century. It wasn’t until after the push back of the enemy that the Crusaders began to become carried away by their greed and headed for the holy city of Jerusalem leaving behind a bloody trail of their enemies.
In the book’s introduction, Walter Rauschenbusch has written “It follows that the relation between Christianity and social crisis is one of the most pressing questions for all intelligent men who realize the power of religion, and most of all the religious leaders of the people who give direction to the forces of religion” .
The thesis of this book is that George Whitefield (1714-1770) changed the nature of Christianity by promoting and conducting mass revivals that exploited the weaknesses of institutional Christianity.
Not all members of the church stayed truthful to their beliefs but those who did sure made an impact. The Catholic Church did many things to try to help people during the Black Death, but probably the most beneficial thing they gave to those suffering was their presence. No one wanted to be around the plague but those member of the church that reacted to the epidemic by helping their neighbors shows truly what that Catholic Church was really like in the 14th century.
...them to supply them with food and help. Because even at this time, the church started to stop letting people near them in fear of catching the plague. The plague also led to the decline of the church’s power in Medieval Europe, as people started seeing that even the church was powerless in this epidemic.
H.J McCloskey’s article, “On Being an Atheist,” is an attempt to show atheism as a more practical alternative to the Christian belief. McCloskey reasons against the theistic beliefs of the cosmological argument, the teleological argument and design. He references the presence of evil in a world created by God and the absurdity of living by faith. This article is an attempt to reason that God does not exist because He is perfect and the world is not perfect; evil exists therefore God cannot exist. McCloskey’s article labels these arguments as “proofs” and concludes none of these arguments would be evidence of God’s existence. I find McCloskey’s article to lack logic and coherence which only serves to invalidate his arguments. I find this little more than an attempt to justify his own atheistic worldview.
The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions by David Berlinski uses clever and unique critiques of militant atheism and its devotion to scientism. Ten in depth chapters shed light on the dogmatic stance of many of today’s popular “new atheists.” According to Berlinski new atheism poses itself as the sole holder of truth through science, “And like any militant church, this one places a familiar demand before all others: Thou shalt have no other gods before me” (10). Berlinski (a secular Jew) approaches ideas with his own mixture of intelligence and thought filled logic; exploring the world as well as important philosophical questions pertaining to “new atheism”. Thus providing the information needed to explore the sides for both and existence and nonexistence of God.
was abandoning them at this time, but the priests were dying too. When the plague
... of the Christian faith front and center by uniting two camps of believers in one reading; a starting point. As illustrated by the authors, “Though we have not, of course, reached agreement, we are satisfied that we have eliminated misunderstandings, that is, that neither of us has misrepresented the other. We offer the result to the reader as a celebration of shared friendship, faith, and scholarship” (xi).
Henry, Carl F. H. The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2003.
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. Print.
5. Smith, J. M. (2011). Becoming an atheist in America: Constructing Identity and Meaning from
The Sudden death of nearly one-third of the population in Europe had major immediate and lasting social implications. One of the most apparent effects of this was that on religion. After an initial outburst of renewed piety, the Black Plague ultimately weakened the role of religion and specifically the Catholic church. When people started dying in droves, the masses looked to religion for comfort and salvation. Many, believing the plague to be the wrath of God, took up such extreme practices such as self-flagellation hoping for forgiveness. Another extreme practice, although born out of perceived necessity, included burying oneself alive on holy grounds because no priests were left or willing to perform last rites . Due to the lack of priests, who had either died helping the sick or refused to see the sick, the Pope eventually had to declare a worldwide
Unnever, J. D., Bartkowski, J. P., & Cullen, F. T. (2010). God Imagery and Opposition to
“Christianity, along with all other theistic belief systems, is the fraud of the age. It serves to detach the species from the natural world, likewise, each other. It supports blind submission to authority[control of the masses].”(Zeitgeist 2007) In this essay, we will explore the different roots of religion and the plagiarism that Christianity and a number of different religions have committed.
Habermas, G. R. (2008). The plight of the new atheism:a critique. Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 813-827.