Alister McGarth, Easily Dismissed
“Believing in God is like believing in Santa Clause. It’s the sort of thing that children do, but we can leave the cry baby phase behind and move on to maturity.”
Alister McGrath claims that Richard Dawkins’ analogy isn’t valid, for “how many people do you know who not believing in Father Christmas at the age of six do start believing in him at the age 18, or 35, or 50.”
I normally don’t make it a point of openly defeating such easy fallacies, but Alister McGrath supposedly knows something about this subject. Sadly, like all of his arguments in “An Analysis of The God Delusion”, this one shatters with but one short paragraph.
Christianity is not the only religion adults convert to (or away from for that matter). Type into YouTube “Islam Conversion” and see the same 18, 35, and 50 year olds converting to something completely different. If conversions into Christianity by adults inject any sort of validity into Christianity, then Islam is just as valid for it too receives its share of adult newcomers.
August 8th, 2007 at 17:35
L.O . The same conclusion can be drawn from the ever increasing conversion to Buddhism, worldwide and especially in the western hemisphere . Except that buddhism isn’t a religion really but a philosophy, isn’t it? Yet, how many people bear this in mind at all times?
August 8th, 2007 at 20:05
Nice to see you again Moonbeam!
I think Buddhism is a life style, and a philosophy as you point out, but if I had a penny for every instance when _atheism_ was categorised as a religion, I’d dwarf Bill Gates in a ‘net worth race’. To use the words of another, atheism is as much a religion as bald is a hair colour, and something similar can probably be said about claims that Buddhism is a religion too. These confused individuals often believe that evolution is about chance, and that earth is only several years old. I suppose when you see the world as black and white only, you’re bound to make many, many ’rounding off’ errors.