William,
I have already made it clear that I believe in many Christianities. I am familiar with both Craig and Plantinga though it has been years since reading either one. I don't find the God or the philosophy of either to be that interesting or hopeful. Craig I find much harder to take seriously but maybe only because I am more familiar with his arguments. Morally, I don't find their god any less problematic just because they bother to encrust their defenses in the specialized language of philosophy. But I confess I don't see what they bring to the discussion here. The type of Christianity has sided openly with a misogynist, racist, and hyper-Capitalist conman with what appears to be some form of NPD and little ability to tell the truth. If their philosophers do not make their dissent loud and clear they will have to live with that. I think a thinker who unlike the other two is actually read outside of highly intellectualized chat rooms would be a guy like Francis Schaeffer. He is a great example of a misreading of what he would call the writings of the existentialist menace. His encapsulations of thinker after thinker was not meant to stir a dialogue among Christians with perspectives outside their ideology but rather to replace any hope of a self critical hearing with preconceived paraphrases more akin to inoculation than thought. Anyone actually familiar with the complexities of Nietzsche or Kierkegaard finds the simulacrum of each to be almost unrecognizable. His own son, whose own "art" once fueled the political movement that he has now abandoned, has given some very interesting insights into that world which compare closely with what I saw around the same period. Neither Craig nor Plantinga seems to me to have the deep self criticism or the unmitigated love of others that is the chief defense against fascism. Bonhoeffer did. Plenty of other believers did and do. Hitchens is a fundamentalist in his own right and his rather ugly god that he easily de-bowels is simply the god he takes unquestionably from the evangelicals. So I personally would never suggest taking his advice on religious approach.
I gave you the link to Camus' essay. If you read it I will be happy to talk. But you still aren't responding to anything I am actually saying. Speech in the polis must have honesty if it to be truly free. Lies are of the order of necessity. They bind. They are also less about power (an aggregate of individuals) then they are about force ( the use of means to overcome the potentials of power). Power only exists where words are used to reveal the true intent of actions rather than to veil intentions and the realities behind them. I would argue that Trump unlike the previous administrations is less of the order of hypocrisy and half measure and more of the order of force and the lie in a way that is more than just a change of quantity. This is a species change. Which not to defend or exonerate the former, or to deny that speciation is without recognizable ancestry or common traits in the past.
|