ATHEISM DEFENDED BY A CHRISTIAN

[josephpalazzo]

Scroll down about 2/3 and read:

Atheism tends to be a term of disrepute in the Western world, but we ought to do  all we can to change this situation. The honest atheist is simply a person who  has looked out upon the world and has come to believe that there is no adequate  evidence that God is, or that there is good evidence that God is not. Very  seldom does this make a man happy or popular...A man who has no practical  belief in God may nevertheless be a good man. Sometimes it is the very goodness  of a man which makes him an unbeliever; he is so superlatively honest, so eager  not to accept anything without adequate evidence, so sensitive to the danger of  believing what is comforting, merely because it is comforting... Such a man we  can only honor.”
- Elton Trueblood (Quaker theologian), Philosophy of  Religion

http://etb-agnosticism.blogspot.ca/2012/04/christianity-and-atheism.html

[josephpalazzo]

Sorry, I've posted this in the wrong section. Can a MOD moves this to RELIGION GENERAL DISCUSSION?


Thanks.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

he is so superlatively honest, so eager  not to accept anything without adequate evidence,

Sounds a bit condescending.. Superlatively honest? I like to think myself to be honest, but superlatively? Meh..

[stromboli]

Good article. It is at least discussing this in a rational way, not with an attached agenda.

[Hydra009]

Elton Trueblood.  Now there's a thinker.

From the same text: "The chief strength of atheistic naturalism has lain in the notion that the material world needs no explanation, external to itself, that it is, indeed, a perpetual motion machine, which had no beginning and will have no end. But when we take the Second Law of Thermodynamics seriously we can no longer hold to this doctrine."

From the same author:  "It is the vocation of the Christian in every generation to out-think all opposition.”

[Johan]

The honest atheist is simply a person who  has looked out upon the world and has come to believe that there is no adequate  evidence that God is, or that there is good evidence that God is not. Very  seldom does this make a man happy or popular...

...and we're done. Absolutely no point in reading beyond there. He was doing so well up to that point too. Shame really.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

To be fair the How many time do you crap and fart thread is
...Superlatively honest.
And just for the record I'm very regular lately.... Approximately 2 hours after waking up in the morning...

[Solitary]

There are Quaker sects that are composed of atheists. My sister was an atheist and married a Quaker. They were married in a Universalist church.

[Minimalist]

"It is the vocation of the Christian in every generation to out-think all opposition.”

That being the case, they suck at it.