Christians: Who do you think is/are an intellectually robust and/or admirable atheist(s)?
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51 comments
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Definitely respect Sam Harris.
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I have to admit, Christopher Hitchens was my favorite atheist. Not because of his arguments but for his personality.
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On the lay level, definitely Jeff Lowder. Pretty pleasant guy and brings actual arguments. On the academic level, I like Dr. Michael Ruse. Graham Oppy was praised by WLC as being scary smart so I’d definitely want to check his stuf out..
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I think Dawkins and Harris try real hard
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This to me is a perfectly reasonable question to ask.
We as defender’s of the faith need to know how atheists think how they reason and how they come to the conclusion they do, so we can defend effectively. We dont as Christian’s go looking for arguments but we must be ready for them.
They must be done with Gentleness and respect.
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In the 20th I would venture JL Mackie and Antony Flew. They made strong challenges surrounding the problem of evil and the coherence of God respectively. Although I believe Christian answers can, and have, been provided, they were intellectually honest and robust in their methodology. Importantly, in contrast to many atheist writers today, they argued from within the discipline of philosophy. The problem with the likes of Dawkins, Atkins and Krauss is they believe science to be relevant to the question of God. They show that one can be “intellectually robust” in their field (Dawkins in biology, Atkins in chemistry, Krauss in physics) but be mere laymen when coming to theology or philosophy of religion.
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I have trouble intellectually respecting someone who looks at a tree and claims he sees no tree, or someone who contemplates the complexity of biological processes and sees no intentionality, purpose or design. Whether from their intellectual blindness or arrogant stubbornness, I cannot understand their position of God’s non-existence.
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My favourite atheist was Christopher Hitchens.
He presented good arguments with a good dose of humour. Very eloquent man. His younger brother Peter is a Christian. That’s an interesting debate -
Voltaire, Mark Twain, Graham Oppy (as mentioned above, for the same reason), definitely Sam Harris because he knows how to argue and engage meaningfully and respectfully, and Bret Ehrman (because he is smart and has shifted his opinions over the years based upon evidence he’s faced). I respect anyone who argues with a mind toward getting at the truth and is generally gracious toward their opponents.
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Jordan Peterson. His brilliance won’t save him. The real tragedy.
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I don’t know! How many brilliant fools are there? Tough one.
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God values and imparts wisdom. Intellectuals are prized at understanding man’s concepts and knowledge…which is nothing.
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“Did God Create the Universe from Nothing? Countering William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological Argument”
By
Jonathan M.S. Pearce -
Well, considering most resort to pride, then immaturity and insults towards the theist, are there any? Especially Aron Nelson, Matt Dilhunty, Christopher Hitchens. They may seem very intelligent, but when they resort straight to the smug pride, and insults, they’ve lost my respect. There’s one kid on YouTube who at least seems to be respectful towards the theist, I forget his name tho
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Bertrand Russel was def poster child, and he was honest too.
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No one is admirabil.
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There are a few agnostics I find intellectually relevant. But no atheists.
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I don’t believe in atheists, therefore they don’t exist!
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There are none.
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Intellectually robust? Admirable?
No way
Propagandists yes
Nobody can honestly defend atheism intellectuals. A lack of belief is never an argument. -
Admirable + Atheist =
:Function Error -
I admire the fact that they can agree on more things than we can sometimes. I admire any pursuit of truth even if it arrives at the wrong goal. Last time I checked God meets us where we are. I don’t have to agree with you to admire and love you. Not condoning the belief but I admire the boldness that they have that most of us don’t.
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Sam Harris.
He makes some very compelling arguments.
“A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.”
– Sam Harris“You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.”
– Sam Harris“Free will is an illusion. Our wills are simply not of our own making. Thoughts and intentions emerge from background causes of which we are unaware and over which we exert no conscious control.”
– Sam Harris, Free Will“Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime – by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from?”
– Sam Harris“The men and women on death row have some combination of bad genes, bad parents, bad environments, and bad ideas (and the innocent, of course, have supremely bad luck). Which of these quantities, exactly, were they responsible for? No human being is responsible for his genes or his upbringing, yet we have every reason to believe that these factors determine his character. Our system of justice should reflect an understanding that any of us could have been dealt a very different hand in life. In fact, it seems immoral not to recognize just how much luck is involved in morality itself.”
– Sam Harris“Liberals tend to understand that a person can be lucky or unlucky in all matters relevant to his success. Conservatives, however, often make a religious fetish of individualism.
Many seem to have absolutely no awareness of how fortunate one must be to succeed at anything in life, no matter how hard one works. One must be lucky to be able to work. One must be lucky to be intelligent, physically healthy, and not bankrupted in middle age by the illness of a spouse.”
– Sam Harris -
Sam Harris
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Penn Gillette at least understands why we evangelize.
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Sam Harris and I think Ricky Gervais is funny sometimes. ?
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There are no admirable atheists…they are emissaries of Satan in Time and are to be treated with caution and discernment lest the rarity of one asking with sincerity concerning the path to knowledge of the Lord. In truth, there are no actual “atheists,” they don’t exist…every man and woman possessing at least a minimum of cognitive acuity and awareness knows that our Creator exists (Romans 1:18-32). Atheism is a ruse for the narcissist, the bloody abortionist advocate, the sexually perverse, the socialist, the Marxist.
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I think that the more hard core atheist you are the more dangerous you are. History is proof and you will deny it but atheism is nothing but denial of logic and reality.
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the very definition of atheist tells U they arent very smart or intellectually dishonest
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Christopher Hitchens was before he died and became a theist and Penn Jillette.
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You can’t admire a fool. Psalms 14:1
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Peter Singer, Toby Ord, and Will MacAskill provide good examples of atheist philosophers who are intellectually robust and admirable. Ord and MacAskill aren’t on the record much about religion, though Singer is. He’s admired by some Christian philosophers, as this article demonstrates: https://religionnews.com/2019/11/21/my-friendship-with-peter-singer-10-years-on/
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David Berlinsky
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Do dead atheists count? Technically they are no longer atheists.
I admire much of the writings/work of Jean Paul Sartre, the French existential philosopher. He taught that we are thrusted into this world and because there is no God, we must make our short existence count by our choices. He valued personal responsibility and personal choice above all else because he believed that we are ultimately defined by our choices, our will.
I think this is the most logical conclusion if God did not exist. Although we know that God does in fact exist (He would whether we believed in Him or not) and that changes everything.
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Personally, I don’t think any of them are in the public eye. If you hate God enough to make a living convincing your flock that he doesn’t exist, you’re probably not robust in any sense. I’d make an exception for Stephen J. Gould, simply because he publicly acknowledged criticisms against Evolution that most Evolutionists prefer to bury. But honestly, all the others are becoming so anti-intellectual, they’re starting to admit it. AronRa goes on shouty rants when Christians ask him tough questions, Matt Dillahunty said he will go to Hell believing he’s morally superior to God, Richard Dawkins admitted he’d rather believe in aliens who can re-arrange the stars, Bart Ehrman said that miracles can’t be shown to have happened historically even if they did, I could go on. Even the most intelligent atheists in the public eye are dishonest, almost brazenly. So my answer would be if you want to find a respectable and intelligent atheist, look for them in colleges, or in libraries, or on Facebook, or in pubs, or walking along the canal. These guys aren’t typically in it for the money. They are drowned out by trolls, of course. Sadly, while all religions have trolls, atheism breeds them. But the most intelligent atheists I’ve ever spoken to have been just normal people who were unfortunate enough to have been mislead somehow.
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Thomas Nagel and Michael Martin
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I like Richard Carrier although I find his history a bit lopsided and neglectful of Israelite history and ancient near eastern civilizations and religion.
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Admirable? Exactly what’s Admirable about doctrines of demons
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Psalm 14:1. That would be “none.”
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I know of some intellectual agnostics who pursue true knowledge and actually listen, but to be an atheist and dismiss God altogether takes a great deal of willful ignorance and pride.
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I’m sorry, was that a joke? I can’t help chuckling.
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Eddie Jessup My guess is that the prejudice against atheists exhibited by some people in this thread doesn’t surprise you, but hopefully you are reassured by the many people who aren’t blinded to the better qualities of some atheist thinkers despite disagreeing with their stance on the existence of God. That’s why I shared the piece by the Christian philosopher Charles Camosy earlier in the thread. Christians and atheists can be on good terms with one another. I expect that many Christians and atheists know this already from their own friendships with people who don’t share their views on religion.
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Take the 4 horsemen, richard dawkins, the late christohpher hutchins, daniel dennett and sam harris for starters. all extremely educated and eloquent men who are atheist.
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I do think that christopher hutchins was too emotional in some of his formal recorded debates and he spoke as if he was more angry with God than he disagreed that God existed, but I completely admire is compassion and conviction for his argument even though I disagree with his conclusion. just being honest.
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There are some excellent Q&A sessions on youtube where scholarly theists are confronted with some great questions about faith and I watch those alot. there’s some extremely challenging questions that are sincere and genuine and completely deserve the respect of being answered.
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Also,the guy in the wheel chair that died not to long ago. I forget his name, but he was very well educated too and I’d put him on the list too.
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yes, except that he had his own view of God, I also don’t believe in the god he did not believe in.
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Well, since Scripture calls each and every one of ’em a fool…
Psalms 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalms 53:1 To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.
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Carl Sagan was admirable and I don’t recall him being rude or condescending about his beliefs, which I appreciate.
Stephen Hawking was really smart and seemed like a decent person also.
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