But the issue isn’t use of an argument (as you say Christians can make good use of logical arguments and can point out logical fallacies with just as much justification as atheists). The issue for me is whether the argument itself is anything more than pure anti-intellectualism. I suspect it isn’t.

One side effect of this is that religionists can hide behind theology: claim it as their own. And since many atheists act at best petulantly towards it, and overwhelmingly are ignorant of it, many religionists can feel that it provides some justification for their belief without actually having to read it or understand it. Whereas, in my experience the vast majority of modern scholarship on religion, scripture, religious experience and theology is deeply at odds with the naive religious belief Gnu atheism is addressing. As long as atheists are citing the Courtiers’ Reply as an excuse for not actually engaging with real scholarship, they aren’t able to show (as I hope this blog does to some extent) that mainstream religious belief isn’t supported by it, and often refuted by it.

Now to be fair, Dawkins took a different tack, and noted that the God of Tillich is not the God of most people in the pews. But had he been willing not to dismiss the scholarship outright (I think it was he who said it was something of a scandal universities such as his could have a theology department) – he could been more effective in showing that theologians by and large totally agree with his view on the non existence of the God he’s arguing against.

Every good argument atheists make against Christianity is eventually parroted back at them by Christians – I have seen co-opted by Christians: burden of proof, you can’t have it both ways, circular argument, ad hominem, and more. Courtier’s reply simply adds to the list.

When you have investigated enough to know their is no cloth, you have investigated enough. You cannot be required to go all the way down the rabbit hold for all the different religions – life is not long enough, and tedium sets in when the same category of thought error is replicated repeatedly among the differing forms of supernaturalism. There always remains some infinitesimal possibility that there truly is an invisible cloth, but you do see the naked emperor, and that is enough (for me anyway).

Some atheists argue poorly – no question there. Sometimes Courtier’s reply is appropriate and sometimes not. Depends on the state and quality of the particular argument. The fact that a Christian used it poorly does not make it always inappropriate.

In regards to all of my comment – OR NOT. My thoughts are, as always, amenable to improving criticism.

Looking again through your back pages. Wanted to say thanks for this post. This is an excellent example of the ‘new emotional-aesthetic commitment’ I’ve been thinking about lately.

Your intro with Mill is excellent. This example isn’t religious, per se, but it does show the new ‘should’, in a sense, grounding the reasons in a combination of new information, science, and still maximizing personal gain.

I’ve always like medium-rare to rare myself, but it started with taste for me. Education came later.

The big difference is, of course, there are believers who do believe in the naive God models (though only a few, in my experience, when pressed — far fewer than you’d think by listening to Christian rhetoric), whereas scientists don’t believe the cat and dogs thing. So it is important to say God is not an old man in the sky: it is important for folks like Dawkins to write books like the God Delusion, I think. I thought it was good and mostly on target, I thought Sam Harris better still.

But if someone takes the Courtiers’ Reply type stance when challenged with scholarship on theology or religious studies, or ancient history, or biblical studies, that is a problem. It is a problem because it just makes us (on the atheist side) no better than creationists. (Except that we’re right and they aren’t, of course.)

I wince hard when New (or Gnu) Atheists make theological statements the equivalent of “cat’s don’t turn into dogs” and then, when they are corrected hide behind this kind of response: ‘first show me why your field is valid, then I’ll listen to anything you have to say’.

I didn’t follow. Can you give me a specific example?

I am very glad you left a link to your blog over at Sabio’s. I found both you and Sabio from the post at Doug’s which started the intrablog dialogue.

I started pretty much in lock step with Sabio in responding to Doug. I agree that if there was a HJ then he is obscured by the very gospels that proclaim him, and that as Schweitzer and others have noted, researchers have had a tendency to find a Jesus that was very much like themselves. He might even be pure myth. There are good and not so good expositions supporting pure myth.

However, I came to realize that Doug’s post was contrasting the MOST CONVENTIONAL PROTESTANT CONCEPTION of Jesus with the policies of the conservative Republican party, said policies hurting the weak and disadvantaged. Whereas Jesus said something about if you have done it to the least of these you have done it to me.

Secondly, while it is agreed that the true Jesus may be a myth or an unfindable real person, and that many views of him are possible in view of the unreliability of the gospels and their divergent views of him, I think also that from an uncritical acceptance of the gospels, the particular Jesus that loved the poor and downtrodden is more readily arrived at than other views. This makes my original demur at Doug’s blog a bit of diversion from the good point he was making.

However, I am most assuredly less of a scholar than you, and am ready to be schooled if I am at present amiss. I am glad to have found you and will be checking in on your blog in the future.

This comment isn’t directly about your post above. I’m trying to reach you but I don’t have your email and didn’t want to interrupt other conversations. After reading this you can delete the comment or whatever.

On your last site, irrco.org, you had something about how you were looking at a new emerging religion. Or, you were examining atheism as an ‘formalized’ religion. I forget how you put it, but the project did intrigue me.

Due to some ideas I’ve been playing with recently, I’ve started thinking about this too. Would you mind looking over one of my posts?

http://godwillbegod.com/blog/beyond-belief/the-worlds-first-post-magic-religion

I’m curious to know if my rough beginning matches any of your past musings, or what might be the next thing I should at.

Thanks for any attention with this.