Robert M. Price will be speaking at the Allen County Public Library theater (lower level two) on Wednesday, August 6th at 7PM. The event which is free and open to the public is sponsored by Freethought Fort Wayne. For more details see the announcement on Freethought Fort Wayne’s blog, download the flyer [PDF], or e-mail contact at  freethoughtfortwayne dot org.

So if you’re in the greater Fort Wayne area, stop on in and visit us tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there, especially because I had to miss last month. As always, if you’ve got any questions feel free to ask me or e-mail contact AT freethoughtfortwayne DOT org. Oh, and don’t forget to read the Freethought Fort Wayne blog.

So it was when I read of George Carlin’s death on Sunday. What can I say? I didn’t know him, I just listened to him and watched his performances. And although he made a small contribution to freedom of speech case law by daring to say those seven words the FCC didn’t want to hear, he didn’t make any great contribution to science or the humanities. He didn’t end hunger. He didn’t cure cancer. He didn’t even give a shit most of the time. He was just a funny man. A historical footnote as he’d say.

Yet George Carlin was important to me, or at least to the development of the way I think about and interact with the world, most notably when it comes to religion. While his routine, and I fear his personal worldview, evolved into nothing more than knee-jerk cynicism in his later years, Carlin was at his core a skeptic. A freethinker. He wasn’t the kind of person who just accepted things at face value and took a sort of perverse pleasure in prying apart our language to get at what people were really saying, and he entertained people while doing so. There’s value to that I think.

The first hour will be our usual round of cantankerous group business discussion. The items on the agenda for this month include our logo, mission statement, charter and sponsoring another speaker. If you can stick out that drudgery, the second hour will be a meet-and-greet social affair. Members are encouraged to bring a clean snack item (that rules out pornographic cookies I guess) to share.

Hope to see all of you infidels in the Fort Wayne area there. Any questions feel free to ask me, or consult the official oracle via e-mail to contact AT freethoughtfortwayne DOT org.

Among other topics, Loftus talked about his previous faith in Christianity, and how he came to lose that faith. However, the meat of Loftus’s presentation was his insightful, and inciteful, criticism of Christian theology. Although Loftus was highly educated in theological studies, including earning two Masters degress, he never completed his Doctorate, acknowledging that he just wasn’t smart enough. Loftus said, “You have to be really smart to come up with this stuff,” meaning the sometimes strained logic employed in Christian apologetics.

To illustrate his point, Loftus quoted noted theologian James D. Strauss, under whom he studied, as being famous for saying, “You can’t get to God unless you start with God”. Loftus said that was the primary problem with the logic employed in apologetics — they start with the supposition that God exists and then try to work out how a world with God would work, rather than examining the world as it is.

These and other statements didn’t sit well with some of the Christian believers in the audience who openly criticized Loftus. Accusations that Loftus’ own scholarship was poor, or that he hadn’t actually read the Bible were made but Loftus took it all in stride, cracking jokes and generally setting his critics at ease, if not convincing them of his views. Watching Loftus deftly handle the crowd it was easy to imagine him in his days as a preacher.

And while Loftus might have angered some Christians in attendance, he says that’s not his intention. He doesn’t apologize for his views and wants to be effective in communicating what he believes to be the inherent errancy of the Christian faith, but coming out of that faith he also tries to be respectful.

Before Loftus’ talk, I had a chance to chat with him about what he’s trying to do, as well as his perceptions of the so-called “new atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Daniel Dennett. Loftus admitted that some of what the “new atheists” say gives him pause, especially when they make blanket statements like declaring that a religious upbringing is a form of child abuse. He said, “You’ve got to understand that both sides are scared. The atheists and other secularists are afraid that we’re going to return to the Crusades or the Inquisition. But many evangelical Christians are truly afraid that secularists are going to bring about a regime like Stalin’s where religious belief and practice are outlawed.” Loftus says that he understands that what he says is controversial to many people, but he never wants to give the impression that atheists like himself look down on or want to control believers.

Listening and talking with Loftus, one gets the impression of a man who has carefully thought through his arguments, yet who is always open to listening to the views of others, whether they happen to be believers or not. Indeed, Loftus is in a particularly unique position to criticize Christianity from the inside and perhaps persuade people in a way that no scientist or academic ever could of not only the dangers of unexamined belief, but also the rewards of freethought. In a community as deeply religious as Fort Wayne it’s perhaps all the more important that voices such as Loftus’ be heard. And while he might never convince any believer to give up their faith, Loftus’ singular perspective may well indeed serve as a bridge to furthering understanding between atheists and the faithful.

Actor Cillian Murphy says that after working on the yet to be released scifi film Sunshine caused his view on the existence of god to change from agnosticism to atheism:

He says, “I was agnostic before this film. Now I’m very much an atheist.

“Not just because I spent time with these guys–they just confirmed what I’d always suspected.

“For me, the film ultimately is a battle between science and religion, or science instead of fundamentalism.”

Sunshine is set 50 years into a future where our sun is dying. A spaceship is launched with a device that is hoped will reignite the sun’s nuclear furnace but out of radio contact with Earth the mission starts to come apart. Aside from the obvious question of why humans needed to be sent on a mission that could probably have been handled much better by a robotic spacecraft, Murphy seems to not realize that he was already an atheist to begin with before starting work on the film.

Agnosticism is of course one form of atheism, and is in fact what most atheists mean when they say they don’t believe in a god. Atheism literally means without god and deals with one’s belief while agnosticism means without knowledge (gnosis is derived from the Greek word for knowledge and refers to spiritual knowledge). Thus one can be either an agnostic or a gnostic atheist depending on whether you believe it is possible to know if a god exists (or not). Most honest atheists will tell you that they are agnostic atheists because true knowledge of the existence of a god is impossible. On the other hand, a gnostic theist would be someone who knows that there is a god (or at least thinks they do) and likely many believers would find such a person as insufferable as a gnostic atheist.

While I have a feeling that this film won’t be hard science fiction, it’s an interesting premise and the movie is directed by Danny Boyle who directed Trainspotting so it just might not suck. You can catch the trailer here.

This was posted on the original Neural Gourmet site on March 28, 2007. I still haven’t seen Sunshine but after rereading this post I’m wondering if I should. Did anyone else see this film? How was it?