We've all seen it before if one has been visiting various chat rooms and discussion forums over the last decade or so since the internet began to gain in usage. I've encountered such nonsense personally and now Randal Rauser is wondering why this is....
"It's true. Spend some time as a theist talking to an atheist and pretty soon they'll introduce Zeus to the conversation...
..If it's not the Flying Spaghetti Monster then it's Zeus. The trend is so common that I even named my forthcoming book on apologetics From Angels to Zeus: Apologetics in One Long Conversation. But what is going on here?
I'm sorry to break it to Zeus, but I don't think this revival of interest has much to do with him in particular. Rather, I think this is a mere rhetorical move designed to marginalize current concepts of God by associating them with now defunct concepts, and Zeus is ideal in this regard because he is widely known in popular culture and yet obviously not widely believed in."
..If it's not the Flying Spaghetti Monster then it's Zeus. The trend is so common that I even named my forthcoming book on apologetics From Angels to Zeus: Apologetics in One Long Conversation. But what is going on here?
I'm sorry to break it to Zeus, but I don't think this revival of interest has much to do with him in particular. Rather, I think this is a mere rhetorical move designed to marginalize current concepts of God by associating them with now defunct concepts, and Zeus is ideal in this regard because he is widely known in popular culture and yet obviously not widely believed in."
Although old Zeus is not believed in, this does not deter the intellectually flacid atheist from lumping all belief systems together as if they are of equal weight and castings such aspersions. They never get around to explaining why it's such a valid comparison and yet they don't actually know anyone who goes around spouting off about their belief in Zeus.
4 comments:
What is worse, they try to justify their absurd comparisons between Zeus and God. I've lost count of the logic fails of such lovers of "logic".
I agree Stormbringer. I think that this link from Godandscience.org does a good job at dispelling such nonsense.
In all fairness to Zeus, he was very much believed in at one time period, so the point is valid. And I believe that the comparison itself is valid, though obviously not exhaustive. It raises a point of how one can be sure of which God exists, if God or gods do exist. This is a much more tricky question than you're letting on...
How about on the metric of 'lives completely transformed'?
Using a timeframe of the last 1000 years. Which one scores more favorably? Zeus or the God of the Bible?
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