WOF 004: Answering the Atheists

The Word on Fire Show - Catholic Faith and Culture

Brandon Vogt

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.9 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2016

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Atheism is on the rise, especially among young people and notably on the Internet. Bishop Robert Barron and Brandon Vogt discuss the most popular atheist arguments and how to respond. They also talk about Bishop Barron's new study program, "The Mystery of God", and take a question from a new father wondering how to properly describe God to his young child.

Find bonus links and resources for this episode at http://WordOnFireShow.com and be sure to submit your questions at http://AskBishopBarron.com.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to episode four of the Word on Fire show. I'm Brandon Vat, the content director at Word on Fire.
0:09.2	And once again, we are joined by Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop Barron. So great to have you.
0:14.4	Always good to be on with you, Brandon.
0:16.4	Today we're talking about atheism. The show is titled Answering the Atheists. And in particular,
0:22.7	we wanted to focus on this trend of the new atheism. Bishop Barron, you've written several articles
0:28.5	and videos over the years. In response to many of its main proponents, including people like
0:35.2	Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, etc. This is kind of a not a new content of atheism,
0:42.8	but a new style, a new mode of communicating it. What do you see as something that marks it different
0:48.7	from older forms of atheism? Yeah, and I think the point you made there was very important one that
0:52.9	I don't think is I read these gentlemen. There's anything particularly new in terms of the arguments.
0:57.8	Most of it is a rehashing of people like Ludwig Feuerbach,
1:01.5	Sigmund Freud, Jean Paul Sock, the sort of classical atheists. So it's a rehearsing of those
1:07.4	arguments. I'd say a couple things about the novelty. I think it was a post-September 11th
1:11.6	phenomenon. A lot of these books came out just as the last decade was getting underway. And I think
1:17.2	it was a revival there of the Old Enlightenment argument. So in the way, because September 11th,
1:22.7	what do people see? They saw a fanatical religion. And the Old Enlightenment argument was that
1:28.0	because religion is irrational, the only way it can defend itself is through violence. So I think
1:33.1	that's what prompted these new atheists. Secondly, I'd say it's new in its vitriol and in the kind of
1:40.3	meanness of the approach. Go back to someone like Sart, or even Freud, or Feuerbach. There certainly
1:47.3	enemies are religion, but they took religion seriously and they engaged it in a much more kind of
1:54.1	highbrow fashion. What I see in the new atheists is a sort of disdain for religion. You know, like the old
2:01.4	atheists, they think it's wrong, but they also have this kind of condescending disdain for it.
	...

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