This is the fourth part in a series discussing John Blanchard’s book, Does God Believe in Atheists? In this post, I discuss his presentation of religious beliefs which differ from his own. The previous posts are here, here, and here.
This entry in the series is very short. There are two reasons for this. One is that Blanchard himself doesn’t spend much time on the topic. The other is that not much needs to be said in response (from the humanist perspective at least – I imagine the Mormons or the Muslims might have more to say).
Blanchard spends very little time outlining the beliefs and practices of a number of non-Christian religions, as well as some Christian sects that he considers “atheistic” (remember his “everyone else” definition of atheism).
On the one hand, I tend to agree with him that there is very little reason to accept any of these religious beliefs as true. On the other hand, from what little I know of Mormonism and Islam (two of the groups on his list that I’ve had some contact with), he’s not terribly careful about presenting the beliefs as the believers understand them. (Sound familiar?)
It is illuminating to see other religions through Blanchard’s eyes. To him, their faults can be summed up as “not like what I believe”.
Which may illuminate why he defined atheists as “everyone else” to begin with. He’s not interested in how I, or my Mormon neighbours, or my Muslim neighbours, see the world. He’s interested in reinforcing his us-versus-them idea of Christianity.
Tags: John Blanchard
Friendly Humanist 
2010/11/30 at 14:07 |
[…] Here’s the problem: Blanchard hasn’t been trying to find humanists’ credible responses. Or at least, he’s not reporting them. Throughout this section (and the one on evolution), what we see is Blanchard reading a text with an eye always on finding the flaw in the humanist’s or the biologist’s perspective, but always failing to see what people – the evolutionary biologists or the humanists – actually believe (or even say). Next up: Does Blanchard understand other religions? […]
2010/11/30 at 14:16 |
[…] This is the fifth and final part in a series discussing John Blanchard’s book, Does God Believe in Atheists? In this post, I wrap up the discussion and try to derive a positive lesson from it all. The previous posts can be found here, here, here, and here. […]
2013/02/02 at 00:02 |
[…] book, Does God Believe in Atheists, which I reviewed in a series of five posts on this blog (1 2 3 4 5). Summary: apologetics in print have seemed as self-congratulatory and vacuous as the more […]