The four horsemen

[julicanada]

Hi Scott,

I've watched a few of your Youtube segments on Atheism. Your discussion points are rather interesting.

I was wondering if you've watch much of the "Four Horsemen" (Harris, Dawkins, Hitchens and Dennett) clips?
After listening to your God Checklist 2.0 post I was inspired to pick up "God is not great" by Hitchen's. I'd recommend reading it if you have not already.

Posting about a very controversial topic such as atheism tends to bring out a lot of hostility in people. I was wondering how you handled the heated responses from people? And whether or not they bothered you?

Cheers,
Juli in Canada.

[Scott Clifton]

Hey Juli,

Yeah I've seen it, and enjoyed it. Although, I can see how to someone religious it would come off as elitist and presumptuous. I'm a much bigger fan of Sam Harris' thought process than I am of the other three, though. Hitchens' God Is Not Great was a brilliant read, but I wouldn't delude myself into thinking it would be persuasive to anyone religious.

As for dealing with hostility from religious people, it doesn't bother me. I can handle anger, it's steadfast irrationality that drives me up the wall. And unfortunately there's a whole lot more of that going on than simple hostility.

Thanks for checking out my YouTube channel.

-SC

[julicanada]

Hey Scott,

I would say it is often fairly difficult to persuade anyone who is religious of anything regarding science and the rationale behind atheism or nosticism. Rationale does not often work in any argument on those lines. It becomes difficult to have an actual debate with someone who believes dinosaurs lived 5000 years ago, and that all animals lived 2 x 2 on Noah's arc.

In my experience there is a significant amount of hostility involved in not subscripting to a faith. The irrationational behaviour that you talk about is what originally forced me to look into my beliefs over a decade ago. I am a former alter server for a Roman Catholic church. At 15 while studying philosophy I started to question most of what I'd been raised to believe as truth. In some communities to reject God it is the equivalent to committing social sucidie. Outside of the fact that Harris looks like a pompus jackass in the photo this link has some interesting sidebars that are less about atheism and more about the morality of believing or not believing in God.

Thanks for answering.
J.