Response to a Swedish atheist
Tyrfingr, is there anybody in your part of the world who actually goes against the prevailing conformity? Do they lobotomize you Euros when you're school children? I realize public opinion is very powerful in homogeneous countries, but Scandinavia is taking it to extremes that suggests thought-control.
By the way, Tyrfingr, it was ancient Greek literature that partly led me to Christianity. As it often does for many. The Homeric epics are more 'biblical' than you can currently know. Same with Plato, same with the classical historians.
If, as you claim, you have some valuation for ancient literature then you would be less likely to mock the Old and New Testaments.
I like to point out to atheists that they are shallow. Not only can't they see anything in the higher influences that are the Old and New Testaments, but they similarly can't see anything of worth in Homer or Plutarch or Plato. Shallow. You have to be shallow to be an atheist.
Tyrfingr, when you atheists make, for instance, metaphysical incuriosity a mark of intelligence you are shallow. Deathly so.
2 Comments:
You do realize that generalization (especially made without evidence) is considered a fallacy (someone who was not shallow in their intellectual training would realize this.)? After pointing out the obvious that atheists do not see a higher power [God] in the OT and NT, you assert that [atheists] similarly can't see anything of worth in Homer or Plutarch or Plato. But I do find worth in Homer, Plutarch, and Plato. I have read and/or studied all three. I am also not sure what the worth we find (or fail to find) in reading these three have at all to do with the failure to find evidence of God in the Bible. Heck, as literature, the Bible has some worth.
But you really need to study some philosophy. It will broaden your intellectual horizons. Don't want to be too narrow.
Chris, obviously there are different kinds of atheists (atheists who claim different stances, etc.), so what I wrote won't apply to *all* atheists. I was responding to a particular individual. Yet having said that any atheist environment I've been in corresponds to what I wrote. Of course you don't want to admit to not valuing great literature or what have you because it makes you seem *shallow.* That doesn't change the fact that atheists tend to not value great literature. When atheists are pinned down they can't even admit to valuing anything metaphysical, which includes the kind of influence that resides in great works of literature or other higher influences, to greater or lesser degree. To the atheist everything is brought down to the level of the material. The Iliad is no different than a comic book, or an Asimov novel in terms of level of influence.
To a Christian great works of art or music or architecture or literature contain varying degrees of general revelation within them. The Old and New Testaments are different in that they are special revelation, living language, and contain what general revelation can't deliver. Yet general revelation informs special revelation, just as special revelation informs general.
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