Please note that this post has been moved to True Freethinker where it was posted at this link
Monday, December 8, 2008
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Quote to Note:
>“Individuals are free to choose, within the limits of humanistic morality.”
—Dan Barker
Purpose of this blog
This blog, “Dan Barker - One of America's Leading Atheists,” has as its express purpose to consider and respond to various statements made by Dan Barker. This blog was established in Jan. 2008.
We consider various aspects of Dan Barker’s assertions from his views on human dignity to ethics and from his activism for Freethought to his besmirching of the Bible.
Dan Barker appears to base many of his arguments on his supposed authority as an ex-preacher turned atheist. These arguments from authority may go quite a ways towards convincing the uninformed that the Bible is not to be trusted. However, as we chronicle in this blog Dan Barker’s attempts to discredit the Bible only end up discrediting him as every attempt he makes exposes is own lack of knowledge of the Bible. Ex-preacher or not, Dan Barker may be popular but falls into various fallacies in his zeal as an activist for his worldview.
We consider various aspects of Dan Barker’s assertions from his views on human dignity to ethics and from his activism for Freethought to his besmirching of the Bible.
Dan Barker appears to base many of his arguments on his supposed authority as an ex-preacher turned atheist. These arguments from authority may go quite a ways towards convincing the uninformed that the Bible is not to be trusted. However, as we chronicle in this blog Dan Barker’s attempts to discredit the Bible only end up discrediting him as every attempt he makes exposes is own lack of knowledge of the Bible. Ex-preacher or not, Dan Barker may be popular but falls into various fallacies in his zeal as an activist for his worldview.
“No one can tell you what to think. Not your teachers. Not your parents. Not your minister, priest, or rabbi. Not your friends or relatives. Not this book. You are the boss of your own mind. If you have used your own mind to find out what is true, then you should be proud! Your thoughts are free!”
ReplyDeleteIsn't he telling us what to think in that statement? You should think this way: Don't let anyone tell you what to think, not even me. If you don't think that way you aren't thinking properly. What if I came to the conclusion that I needed to think a different way or that there is a standard for thinking higher than myself? Would I still be a freethinker?
Also, How is it that a thought can be genuinely free in an atheistic worldview? It would seem that if a thought is simply the result of a long complex non-rational chain of chemical and material causes and effects then a thought isn't really free at all, it is just an effect determined by the conditions. Given those same conditions a human being will always have that thought. How can they blame Theists for having different biological conditions that produced different effects?