Sells continues to write these boring epistles because he hopes that, one day, he will read something that he has written that he can believe is true.

Until that happens, he will never stop writing fiction or accusing we who know it is fiction of being stupids!

Dear Bob,

<<We can't disprove the existence of God>>

Yes we can and I've learned this in primary school:

As God is claimed to be omnipotent, could He create a stone so heavy that He couldn't lift it?

If He couldn't, then He's not omnipotent and if He could, then He couldn't lift it: either way He wouldn't be omnipotent.

Thus God does not exist!

- Which is a great relief, thus glory and thanks be to God: Had God existed, then people would only worship Him in order to obtain worldly results (heaven included), thus turning religion into a marketplace. But since He doesn't exist, we can love and worship God for the sake of God alone, without expectations, thus religion is refined and is able to take us away from the world.

---

Dear George,

<<Thanks for an interesting article, although its point would be missed by many, also because of its apologetic tone,>>

I wonder whether I possibly missed this article's point myself. Besides the apologetic tone, most points I have already read in Peter's previous articles and the new ones which I noticed, I did not agree with (such as praising the concept of the linearity of time and the natural sciences).

So would you kindly share with me if you found any unique new point(s) in this article?

---

Dear David,

<<Sells continues to write these boring epistles>>

Because he aims here to defeat Christian fundamentalism.
It is only natural that, not being a Christian, his articles seem boring to you. They bore me too when they're too focused on Christian specifics, but usually he also writes about universal aspects that are common to all religions - which I then enjoy reading.

Dear Yuyutsu,

>>most points I have already read in Peter's previous articles<<

Which only means that you understood those of his articles that I either did not, or completely missed.

>>such as praising the concept of the linearity of time and the natural sciences<<

What he apparently understands by linearity (in distinction to circularity) of time is something modern science is based on, and hardly original, praise or no praise. The same about natural science without which, for instance, you and I could not communicate this way.

>>So would you kindly share with me if you found any unique new point(s) in this article? <<

You yourself found this point, sort of - I did not claim it was unique or new - namely that Christianity can be understood beyond fundamentalism, or biblical literalism (“un-hermeneutic” adherence to the exact letter or the literal sense). This does not necessarily mean that I share his understanding only his belief that one can go beyond fundamentalism and still remain a Christian.

.

Dear Rhrosty,

.

You wrote :

« Atheism seems also to go hand in hand with an absolute belief in (faith based absolutism) evolutionism. »
.
I think you will find that some people do that whether they are atheists or not. But there are others who take a more reasonable - should I say “scientific” - approach to the question, i.e., evolution is the best explanation until we find a better one.

Even Pope John Paul II was a fervent proponent of Darwin’s theory of evolution:

“In his encyclical Humani Generis (1950), my predecessor Pius XII has already affirmed that there is no conflict between evolution and the doctrine of the faith regarding man and his vocation, provided that we do not lose sight of certain fixed points.... Today, more than a half-century after the appearance of that encyclical, some new findings lead us toward the recognition of evolution as more than a hypothesis. In fact it is remarkable that this theory has had progressively greater influence on the spirit of researchers, following a series of discoveries in different scholarly disciplines. The convergence in the results of these independent studies—which was neither planned nor sought—constitutes in itself a significant argument in favour of the theory.” (speech to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 22 October, 1996).

More recently, Pope Francis issued a statement at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on 27 October 2014 indicating that "Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation", warning against thinking of God's act of creation as "God being a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything."

As you say, there may still be a few absolutists around but they are not all atheists and most likely diminishing in number – except, perhaps among the Catholics.

.

Where atheism/rationalism does border on religion is in the faith it places in human reason--and indeed in the human senses. Reason is the middleman in all empirical endeavour. And reason has proved itself time and again to be a cultural/historical rationale on the 'data' that is subsequently superseded.
I am an agnostic, which is not 'cowardly' but sensible. I place my faith in human foibles.
But the most disturbing element of liberal rationalism/New Atheism--an ism which is tantamount to a faith--is its political naivity.
Finally, though it is now almost universally suppressed or self-censored, there remains a human faculty/appreciation for the numinous, as well as its direct experience--which isn't half so naive.

Squeers,

To say that rationalism places “faith” in human reason is misleading, because faith implies an unjustified belief. It would be more accurate to say that rationalism recognises that reason is the most reliable method (given what we currently know) to determine the truth-value of claims, and that rationalists are sceptical of other proposed ways of knowing.

Atheism and theism have nothing to say about reason, they simply address the question the belief in a god or gods; as opposed to gnosticism and agnosticism, which address what one thinks they can and can’t know. Atheism and agnosticism are not mutually exclusive.