Is God a Delusion? A Philosopher’s Response to the New Atheists Homebrewed Christianity 53
By Tripp Fuller • Jun 10th, 2009 • Category: podcast
This week we are joined by OSU philosopher, progressive Christian blogger, and author of “Is God a Delusion? A Reply to Religion’s Cultured Despisers” – Eric Reitan. In the book you get two things for the price of one. 1- An intro to the philosophy of religion and 2- a fun, readable, and vigorous critical response to the New Atheists. We had a good time recording the interview and I am sure you will enjoy it and want to check out the book. Thanks to Eric for joining us and you for listening.
If you were involved in a previous discussion where Eric mentions Richard Dawkins’ shoddy philosophy and in particular Dawkins’ inability to understand Aquinas, he explains just how bad it is in this interview.
Apart from his own blog he has posted a series of hotly contested posts at Religious Dispatches.
This book has also been making its rounds in the blogophere, so check these posts out for more.
Tripp Fuller is married to an awesome lady Alecia and has a handsome little baby boy named Elgin Thomas (aka E.T.) and Pebbles, the Schnoodle. He and Alecia are both graduates of Campbell University (where they met), the Divinity School of Wake Forest University and ordained ministers. He is working on his PhD in Philosophy of Religion and Theology at Claremont Graduate University. A few other things he digs are books, cigars, pipes, Shaq, guitar, pirates, fishing, the Counting Crows, and good conversations about Religion and Politics. The podcast is the most time consuming hobby he has ever had besides reading and blogging through Wolfhart Pannenberg's 3 volume systematic theology. Follow Tripp on Twitter | Tripp on Facebook
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This is a very good and informative podcast. I must say that I was lost in the very first part where he is discussing the atheists are blogging him with questions about Aquinas and his beliefs. However, it really perked up for me when he began talking about the good morals of some atheists, etc. Then when he began talking about God and Love, he really got my attention. I so believe in what he was saying. Faith is that we live in the hope of a God of love. Some comments he made (paraphrased): we encounter God in relationships, as we love others we begin to understand God’s love and way of loving, we are the channels that God uses to express God’s love, participation in a loving community is a way to connect with God and the community that Jesus formed is a good example of a loving community, we can have a mystical encounter/experience of God but that places love only on a receiving end and love is both the giving and receiving parts of God’s love, he says it is important to be on the receiving end of this mystical experience and we must place ourselves in a position, or be placed in that position by a life experience where we can be one with God’s mystery, being a believer in God places us in a position for God to be with us and give us the energy, strength, etc. that only God can give. This is truly worth the time it takes to listen to the podcast. I had to start and stop too many times and so it was much longer than it could have been but I was so wanting to hear what he had to say that I stuck with it and was greatly rewarded.
Not a very original title. David Bentley Hart has already published a book entitled “Atheist Delusions: the Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies.”
Studious. I have that book and have emailed him about being on the podcast too. We will see. The two books are totally different, but both good books.
JoAnn–A very nice summary/roadmap of some of the ideas I developed in the later part of the interview. Thanks for that. Other listeners might find it useful. You can find similar ideas developed in a somewhat different way in the latter half of my book, especially in Chapter 8, and in scattered entries throughout my blog.
Studious–Hart’s book actually came out a number of months after mine, but like you I was struck by the similarity of the titles: the main title a not-so-veiled reference to Dawkins (my editor pushed for this, for good reasons, I think); the subtitle a reference to Schleiermacher’s 1799 “On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers.” In my case, the subtitle is intended to be not merely an homage, but a reference to one of my main philosophical inspirations. Schleiermacher’s theology features prominently in the book. Hart’s book, unlike mine, does not focus on the theological/philosophical questions pertaining to the reasonableness of theistic belief. It focuses instead on the historical and sociological questions pertaining to the cultural effects of religion–essentially an historical essay focused on the early history of Christianity, aimed at challenging the new atheist claim that religion (and Christianity in particular) has been more a source of conflict and violence in history than of positive values. A very good book, but the greatest similarity with mine is found in the title.