They are heavy handed, the characters are flat, and the “real world details” are often wrong. (For instance, a character splices a phone wire decades after that became effectively impossible with the tools he had, and there’s a description of an airplane’s emergency slide that is wrong. I forget how, but it bothered me when i read it.) But i can see how the plot and the theme would be engaging.
I guess I tend to hang with liberal Christians who repudiate the footstool idea and emphasize our intimate connection with and reliance upon the rest of the creation, and the sacredness of all life. I’ve read far more science-for-the-ignorant essays than I ever should have on how, surprise! the world we’ve been heedlessly using up is of more importance to us than we thought. If you don’t think the world is sacred, the big argument you can make for taking care of it better is that we need it in order for humans to survive. Wholly about humans and their needs, still.
I haven’t read any of them; but I have read some of Slacktivist taking them apart, on those grounds as well as on theological grounds. Some of this is very funny.
ETA: that “estimated reading time” must be for the index. Reading all the chapter takedowns/takeaparts would take considerably longer than that; though probably not longer than that for each one of them separately.
Wha? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an atheist say it’s wholly about humans and their needs. At all. Because that’s stupid. We need all of nature working in harmony or none of it is going to work. Everytime I’ve seen you describe what you say atheists believe it’s something I’ve never seen/hear IRL.
My pastor friend likes to distinguish between Christian art, which is often bad, and art with a Christian worldview, which can be very good. The former is written for other believers, the latter is just written. For my part I am most attracted to art that wrestles with existential questions and is comfortable with ambiguity. If I ask someone of faith, “Why is this hard thing?” And they reply, “I don’t know,” I trust them more than people with a rehearsed answer for everything.
I just don’t think atheists are that much different from non-atheists. Some of them feel very very strongly about how important it is to be an atheist, but most are really apathists. Just like most Christians are not belligerent evangelists, but something far more lukewarm and automatic.
I read that as “aromatic.” LOL.
It’s the common form of a Mencken quote (which was not that exactly) and it is definitely underestimating. You think a movie, TV show or political candidate is too bad for any intelligent person to accept, and you’ll find they become big hits. We were talking about the Left Behind series, an excellent case in point.
So did I.
I had the same experience with a Frank Peretti book.
We had Jehovah’s Witnesses come to our door yesterday.
Boy I really really hate this misattribution!
- Darwin was writing about biological evolution
- “Survival of the Fittest” is often mis-attributed to Darwin but was a phrase coined by Herbert Spencer, a blatantly racist sociologist (sorry, there are bad apples in every bunch) who was trying to leverage Darwin’s theories to essentially say, ‘Well, if we are all one (human) race and not dozens, then there’s an overarching historical progression and white people are the latest greatest top-of-the-heap iteration.’ It didn’t take long for other sociologists to denounce him as full of $#!+
[I’ll take my ignorance-fighting gauntlets off now…]
And a non-creationist perspective doesn’t necessarily lead to an evolutionist perspective, either. There are those who believe humans (or their evolutionary originators) were dropped on this planet from somewhere else. Some even think that was intentional…
–G!
So recently at my local Stop & Shop there have been these groups of well dressed young people. Typically six or so in groups of two.
They walk up to everyone entering and exiting and ask “Would you like to come to church with us on Sunday?”
It’s very odd. I just say “Atheist” and keep walking
At least here (Boston suburbs) this is a new experience for me.
Just two days ago, we had an older man ring our doorbell and ask if he could talk to me about the Bible, which he was wielding. I just replied politely that I wasn’t interested, and he politely left.
That’s the first one to show up on our doorstep (we are quite rural) in over 2 decades.
Not sure which brand of Xtianity his was peddling; I suspect JW but who knows. I doubt it was someone from our local community here, as the area is deeply calvinistic where everyone considers themselves one of the Elect already, and they don’t do the door to door thing.