The New Atheists are Not Intellectually Bright

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Whoever labelled that video is misleading. WLC did not say that the "New Atheists" aren't intellectually bright at any stage.

No, but he did say that associating the 'new atheists' with being bright was misleading because they aren't philosophers (and they are weak on their non specialist areas) and there are now some bright new philosophers who are also Christian.

It kind of misses the point though. You don't have to be a genius or a philosopher to realise there is almost certainly no god.

It's his area, so of course it's the benchmark for being "bright".

[Santa_Claus]

Long words is over-rated.

Wank
on
Bus

[stripes4]

Long words is over-rated.

Wank
on
Bus

eat
crisp

[FBM]

Titties and beer.

[Tero]

I admit I do not understand the point of philosophy, or most of the details. Even religion is more interesting. At least you have your leper jokes from Bible era. Plus Life of Brian.

[charlou]

Titties and beer.

Vote FBM

[FBM]

I admit I do not understand the point of philosophy, or most of the details. Even religion is more interesting. At least you have your leper jokes from Bible era. Plus Life of Brian.

People so often make the mistake of expecting philosophy to discover something new about the world, but that's not what it's about, really. It's about learning how to reason well. Once you do that, you can apply that reasoning skill to a vast array of disciplines, as well as to solving many mundane life problems.

Professional philosophy, however, seems to have degenerated into an ego-driven vocabulary challenge in which the winner is the one who is most confusing and obscure without having committed him/herself to anything definite. Part of this is the publish-or-perish requirement of academia.

Titties and beer.

Vote FBM

[Tero]

Well it may come in handy. I only use strawmen in debate in a humorous fashion." If you let gays marry gays, next thing necrophiliacs will be marrying cadavers."

[FBM]

Well it may come in handy. I only use strawmen in debate in a humorous fashion." If you let gays marry gays, next thing necrophiliacs will be marrying cadavers."

Slippery slope argument, really, but I'm cool with it.

[Tero]

I can't really get anything out of the guy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lane_Craig

Jesus is cool, religion is cool, materialism is uncool. No appreciation for the hard work of dumb molecules.

[Hermit]

Red herring, William Lame Craig. Not one of the authors you mention by name even pretend to be a philosopher, nor do they claim to be "the intelligentsia among us". They are advocates of atheism. If you, Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens were members of this forum, you'd get a friendly reminder to kindly play the ball and not the man. The above Youtube snippet lacks the former approach entirely, and is chockers with the latter. Not the most intelligent approach to defend theism.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Long words is over-rated.

Wank
on
Bus

[Ronja]

... Dan Dennett on the other hand is both an outstanding intellect and a fine philosopher, I just wish someone had thrown his name into the hat.

Agreed. Also, as M just put it: Plantinga & Co. get funded - that's a big part of why they are so prominent and visible.

With enough funding you can even make shit smell (tolerably) good.

[hiyymer]

People so often make the mistake of expecting philosophy to discover something new about the world, but that's not what it's about, really. It's about learning how to reason well. Once you do that, you can apply that reasoning skill to a vast array of disciplines, as well as to solving many mundane life problems.

What people? Anyone with half of brain realizes that philosophy is a waste of time. Having to have reasons is death.

[FBM]

People so often make the mistake of expecting philosophy to discover something new about the world, but that's not what it's about, really. It's about learning how to reason well. Once you do that, you can apply that reasoning skill to a vast array of disciplines, as well as to solving many mundane life problems.

What people?

The ones who complain that philosophy is useless.

Anyone with half of brain realizes that philosophy is a waste of time.

You said it, I didn't.

Having to have reasons is death.

Really? Why?