Isn't Fundamentalist atheist an oxymoron?

Hello and another week has passed us by. A few things have transpired this week which are worth talking about.

Firstly, I have already noted that James Randi’s Educational Foundation Youtube account is now back up. Here is James Randi on the matter.....

As we can see, there has been an issue with copyright protection. Whilst I am gratified that Randi is back on the net, it does make you wonder whether there was anyway of dealing with the issue in another way. For those interested, here is a link to PZ Myers on the subject.

My next point is that I watched an enlightening account of a Christian perspective of Evolution and God. In the programme, “Did Darwin Kill God?” Connor Cunningham made a provocative statement on the issues surrounding the Creationism vs Evolution debate as well as offering a theological explanation on how religion and science can co-exist.

The programme, unfortunately seemed to be attempting to provoke controversy. Whilst intelligent and well-informed, it also seemed to be attempting to paint over the complexities of some of the issues that Cunningham raised. For example, how exactly is someone a fundamental atheist when atheism is defined as a “lack of belief in a deity”. Does that make a Buddhist monk a fundamental atheist? Atheism is too big and wide an idea to turn into a dogmatic belief system. Dawkins does not insist that there is no God, but that there probably is no God and criticises religion. And why not? It is perfectly acceptable to do so and is no new thing, look at Marx, for example.

What Cunningham fails to outline is that Dawkins and Dennett are practising a philosophy of reductionism, questioning whether or not God exists and building an argument for the lack of evidence and the possibility of life existing without a deity. That’s just simply using their minds and asking questions. In this they are showing intelligence. They might be wrong, I might be wrong and Cunningham might be wrong, but without exploring avenues of thought at this moment, we can’t discover new things. This is opposed to the forms of Creationism which don’t allow this thought and attempt to restrict Dawkins and Cunningham together. Furthermore, if Cunningham is attempting to suggest that these ideas aggravate creationists, then it must be remembered that the continued attempts of creationists to brainwash people like Dawkins and insult him, amongst others has caused this. Visiting the Richard Dawkins site, I have noticed that since my registration in 2006, a forum has been made called “Debunking Creationism”. This was due to the fact that creationists visited the forums in order to try and convert the forum members. This has meant the moderators have separated these areas to allow serious discussion of Evolution to occur without fundamentalists rudely interrupting. Furthermore, it may be noted that the forum allows more tolerance towards these people, with attempts to show creationists that they are using incorrect arguments, compared to creationist boards which ban and censor such attempts.

Its not atheists that have caused this or even fuel this debate. It is those creationists who insist on preaching to those who actually know something on Evolution. All the same, it is an interesting programme to watch and draws splendid attention towards those Christians who actually stand for Evolution.

Links and References

Did Darwin Kill God?