Monday, July 16, 2007
An atheist responds
Gerry Bruen sent me this response (written by someone else--Gerry just let me know about it) to a previous article in the Washington Post. He repsonds to the quote from Chesterton about Thor. Interesting reading.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Well, Nancy, I sure didn't write the response at the link!
ReplyDeleteIn that response, Christopher (what a misnomer!) Hitchens, perhaps today's most vociferous and professionally successful athiest, poses a challenge: "Here is my challenge. Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever."
This strikes me as sleight of hand or ignorance. In posing the challenge, Hitchens rejects "the appalling insinuation that I would not know right from wrong if I was not supernaturally guided by a celestial dictatorship."
Hitchens' challenge assumes all religions assert that reason cannot know right from wrong. Catholicism, in particular, makes no such assertion. Now, as to whether a particular person's (such as Hitchens') use of reason leads him to correct conclusions, that's another matter.
"It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all."
ReplyDelete[GKC, Orthodoxy CW1:236]
The article states:
ReplyDelete"Here is my challenge. Let Gerson name one ethical statement made, or one ethical action performed, by a believer that could not have been uttered or done by a nonbeliever."
My response is:
A nonbeliever cannot die for the forgiveness of another person's sins.
Too bad Hitchens would not read with an open mind the Pope's lecture on faith and reason delivered at Regensburg ealier this year. It is the most powerful statement of the necessity for the two to work together, and for the wonderful benefits for mankind when they do work together. When we are all buried and fertilizing the daiseys, this lecture will still be read and studied and read and studied. It was a stunning performance.
ReplyDelete~ Gramps