"Intellectual Lameness"

Commentary on the Dawkins/Hitchens hysteria about the Pope:

This is what drives their war against religion: an instinct for ridiculing those who still, unlike contemporary secularists themselves, have an overarching outlook on life and a strong belief system. That is really what they find so alien about the Catholic Church in particular – its beliefs, its faith, its hierarchy. An atheism utterly alienated from the mass of humanity and from any future-oriented vision can only lash out in an extreme and intolerant way against those who still seem to have strong beliefs: the religious, or the ‘deluded ones’, as the New Atheists see it.

(viaProEcclesia)

Bill Maher - Uncommon Idiot

Uncommon, because the average person has a higher reading level and better comprehension (not to mention a more sophisticated sense of humour!)

Mark Shea:

The dude needs to learn how to read books written for grownups and not just content himself and other illiterate literalists with Beavis and Butthead levels of laughter at Christianity...

...For Bill Maher, it is all the National Enquirer. This leaves him ill-equipped to cope with a complex adult document like the Bible, because when he is confronted with the fact that -- mark this -- every biblical text has a literal meaning, he instantly assumes a "literal meaning" is identical with a literalistic meaning...

MYTH: Religion Opposed to Science

Father Thomas D. Williams handily rebuts Dawkins and Hitchens :


"Far from being an obstacle to science, Christian soil was the necessary humus where science took root...

...A closer look at the facts reveals a much different reality than that painted by the atheists."

The 'New' Atheists

Mark P. Shea at Inside Catholic writes an excellent summary of 'new atheist' reasoning (?): http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2546&pop=1&page=2&Itemid=121