Minnesota Atheists' "Atheists Talk" radio show.
Sunday, November 16, 2008, 9-10 a.m. Central Time
"Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer" and "Fundamentalisms"
What if the Christian god really existed? That's the premise that author Todd Allen Gates takes in his book "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer." What conclusions can we reach about this Christian god? One of the book's main themes is: "If you understand why you reject all the other religions, you'll understand why I reject yours."
Then Grant Steves discusses "Fundamentalisms." What do religious, political, and other fundamentalisms have in common? Is there such a thing as atheist fundamentalism?
"Atheists Talk" airs live on AM 950 KTNF in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
To stream live, go here.
Podcasts of past shows are available at Minnesota Atheists or
through iTunes. For all other podcast systems, such as one you might be running on Linux, use this feed.
Comments
"What if the Christian god really existed? That's the premise that author Todd Allen Gates takes in his book 'Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer.' What conclusions can we reach about this Christian god?"
Just a minor correction on the above description: rather than accepting the premise that the "Christian God" really exists, I accept---for argument's sake only---the three Christian premises that:
(1) there's *some* sort of Creator
(2) this Creator may well have been a communicative one, and
(3) when it comes to trying to make sense out of the tens of thousands of religions that have existed throughout history, I (tentatively) accept the fundamentalist's premise that "one religion is from god and the rest were just made up by people."
The two advantages of this approach:
Advantage #1: it allows me to talk to certain theists who would otherwise probably never listen. Many theists have the First Cause and Intelligent Design arguments so deeply embedded that they have a kneejerk reaction of dismissal when anyone tries to present the case of a universe without this Uncaused Master Designer. So when I don't try to take away God from them, but only present myself as someone searching for which version of God's word is the correct one, I find this removes much of the hostility that often works its way into conversations between skeptics and theists. And hostility is often the beginning of the end of a real conversation--because once insults enter the picture, then injured pride also enters the picture, and then the chance to actually influence someone is pretty much gone.
Advantage #2: it allows me to use the Socratic Method. By taking the approach of "let's say a Communicative Creator exists" and "let's say one religion really is from God; the rest were just made up by people," I can then examine foreign faiths and get believers to lay out their *own* arguments for religious skepticism--their own list of telltale signs that foreign faiths belong in the "made by man" category (guided by my prompts to focus on three areas: stories that reflect an inaccurate & earthbound perspective of universe's layout, laws reflecting senseless prejudices, and origins that can be traced back to pre-existing religions). With these telltale signs of human origin agreed upon, the conversation can then turn to examining Christianity by the same light held up to non- Christian religions.
- Todd Allen Gates, author of "Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer."
Posted by: Todd Allen Gates | November 17, 2008 10:15 AM